Welcome back, Star Wars fans! I’m here to talk a very minor thing in The Last Jedi that connects to the prequels. I’d like to do a little speculation on how this could help Episode IX connect to the prequels and the spin-off films. Without further adieu, let’s get to it!

The “little thing” I’m talking about is literally a little thing, but it could have huge significance. I’m talking about Snoke’s ring. You see, this was to me one of the coolest little connections to the prequels, because it connects to the prequels as well as the spin-off films! JJ has said that he would connect to the prequels, or at least reference them. Snoke’s ring has been discussed many times before, such as here, here, and here. This article is no doubt inspired by and covers a lot of the same ground as those sources. Hopefully I can say a little more here.

The ring is highly visible onscreen in The Last Jedi, but it was not discussed on film. We get a nice description from The Art of The Last Jedi book.

The intriguing thing about this ring is that it connects to the prequels in two different ways, and it also connects to Rogue One.

Dwartii Symbols

Let’s first star with the glyphs/symbols of the Dwartii. Dwartii was the planet that the Four Sages of Dwartii came from. These four philosophers played important roles in the early days of the Republic. It wouldn’t be too surprising if some future Star Wars content, such as the future trilogy from Rian Johnson or from Benioff and Weiss, visits these early days of the Republic. Makes you wonder if the Dwartii will come up because they were so controversial even at that time. One of them, Braata, was said to have encouraged the practice of the dark side of the Force, but this point looks like it might be Legends material now. Legends or not, it could make for some interesting storytelling about the early days of the Galactic Republic. The Four Sages of the Dwartii are in fact depicted as a set of statues in Chancellor Palpatine’s office during Revenge of the Sith:

According to canon, these statues were originally owned by Darth Plagueis, and they ended up in the former Jedi Temple after Emperor Palpatine moved his offices there after taking over. It makes you wonder, are those statues still there in the former Jedi Temple during events of The Last Jedi? As far as we know, the planet was still around. Palpatine kept his lightsaber hidden inside the statue of one of the Four Sages, Sistros, and this was even included in the novelization of RotS.

What other secrets reside in these statues? Coruscant would be an excellent planet to revisit in Episode IX for lots of reasons, but imagine a scenario where Kylo finds this ring, deciphers the Dwartii inscription, which gives him clues that leads him somewhere, such as to the location of the statues in the Jedi Temple. While he’s there, or maybe as an ulterior motive, he may visit the Sith Shrine underground below the Jedi temple. It’s a long-shot, but I think it would be cool if the symbols somehow sent Kylo to Coruscant to find those statues, and something else that Palpatine hid in the statues.

After all, the ring would have been clearly visible to Kylo after Snoke’s death. The question is whether he had time to pick it up. We never saw Kylo leave the room, so who knows. What if Hux picked up the ring?

The Obsidian Gem from Mustafar

The other part of the ring is the obsidian gem, which was obtained from the catacombs of Darth Vader’s castle. It doesn’t get much cooler than that. So if Kylo doesn’t go to Coruscant, how cool would it be if the clues of the ring led him to Vader’s castle on Mustafar? Lots of people, here, here, here, and here have speculated that Mustafar would be one of the planets visited by Kylo. It would make sense. He is obsessed with Vader, always comparing himself to his grandfather, and would love to visit the castle. It would be an amazing location for a final epic lightsaber duel to end all duels, with potential for callbacks to both Revenge of the Sith and Rogue One. In fact, in an interview with Uproxx, Lucasfilm Executive Creative Director Doug Chiang said that he hopes we’ll see the castle again:

And he built it here for a very specific reason. It was to come back here to meditate, to rejuvenate, to reconnect with himself. And it became a very spiritual place, and it was all centered around his bacta tank. And that’s where the form language all built around there. And we’ve done quite a bit of exploration of what’s on the inside of it as well, and hopefully that’ll be seen in some other film.

This is a particularly interesting point from someone at his position of Lucasfilm.

Why Obsidian from Vader’s Castle?

But why exactly would Snoke care where this obsidian came from? Isn’t obsidian obsidian, and why is it specifically from under Vader’s castle? As it turns out, Doug Chiang may have answered this question when he stated in an article at the official site about the castle’s design:

One of the things we landed on early was this idea of a tuning fork — a twin tower kind of look. And it was really interesting, because then that started to give Gareth a lot of ideas like, “Well, maybe the structure is built this way because it is like a tuning fork. It’s tuning the dark side in terms of the energy.”

This point, above all really intrigues me. It could be that the obsidian of the ring has special dark side powers because it has absorbed tons of dark side energy via these towers above Vader’s castle. In other words, it almost sounds like the towers act as an antenna, that could even channel the energy as part of Vader’s healing and meditating. The way Chiang describes it is that the specific location is part of Vader’s healing and rejuvenation. Snoke may have been interested in crystals from this specific location because they are also imbued with the same dark side power that helped to rejuvenate Vader.

This idea of the tuning fork was then used for the Temple on Jedha. These ideas of a tuning fork of the the Force, or some sort of antenna is really cool. And considering this is Star Wars, the next question is whether this kind of Force-antenna can be used to make a type of weapon? Either way, Kylo Ren or other characters visiting Vader’s castle could give an opportunity to explore some of these ideas.

Snoke’s ring is a very intriguing item that connects to the prequels in multiple ways. There is a huge opportunity to use it as a plot device to send Kylo Ren on a quest to decipher it’s symbols, leading him to the source of the obsidian crystal gem. Even better still, imagine if it was Hux that picked up the ring after Supreme Leader Kylo Ren left the room, and Kylo later found out! Lots of potential there. The question is, will they do anything with it, or will they just leave it as a tantalizing yet disposable prop?

Brought to you by @davestrrr. Stay tuned to SpoiledBlueMilk for the best of Star Wars!