Headland says Manny Jacinto’s Stranger may have been intended as first Knight of Ren

Leslye Headland revealed in the book The Art of Star Wars: The Acolyte, per The HoloFiles, that Manny Jacinto’s character The Stranger (Qimir) was teased as potentially being the first Knight of Ren — a detail tied to Kylo Ren’s lore in the sequel trilogy.

Headland wrote that Qimir’s helmet and design “felt like it foreshadowed a possible connection to the Knights of Ren,” and that the idea fit with plans to introduce Darth Plagueis and the Rule of Two. She suggested one way to keep Sith-adjacent power surviving was if the Stranger became the original Ren.

The Acolyte unfolded more than a century before The Phantom Menace and was created by Headland. The series was not renewed past a single season despite strong critical reaction, but it planted seeds of Star Wars lore — including material Headland says could have linked directly to Kylo Ren.

According to Headland’s remarks, one plan showed the Stranger taking an apprentice (Amandla Stenberg’s Osha) and then abandoning Plagueis to help start a Sith-adjacent culture that later produced the Knights of Ren. The sequel films introduced and used the Knights in different ways, and ancillary comics and novels have offered additional backstory while many questions remain.

With no concrete plans to continue The Acolyte storyline in other media, Headland’s tease leaves fans to speculate about these connections and their implications for established canon.

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