With Marrok, Star Wars fans once again have no one to blame for their disappointment besides themselves

Ever since we first got a glimpse of Marrok, the mysterious masked Inquisitor aligned with Morgan Elsbeth in Ahsoka, Star Wars fans have been coming up with all sorts of theories as to who he really is.

The theories ranged from the plausible-but-needing-explanation (the Eighth Brother) to the unlikely-but-interesting (Barriss Offee) to the even-less-likely (Starkiller) to the absurd (Ezra Bridger), but there was plenty of speculation online about who he actually was. But in the fourth episode of Ahsoka, as Marrok was defeated, he simply burst into smoke and collapsed. No big reveal, no big twist.

Well, to be fair, that’s not entirely accurate. It’s an interesting enough twist that he burst into smoke upon dying, which seems to me to suggest that there was some kind of Nightsister magick at play. Morgan Elsbeth is, after all, a Nightsister, and their magick had the ability to revive a corpse as an undead army of zombies, such as when in The Clone Wars the Nightsister Old Daka revived an army to face General Grievous and the Separatist droid army. The smoke from Marrok looks a lot like an indication of Nightsister magick, which would make sense and be an interesting development.

But those who spent a lot of time speculating about Marrok’s secret identity are no doubt a bit disappointed that the show didn’t give any sort of pay-off to those efforts. Yet here is the question: where did the show give the impression it was going to? The answer: nowhere. The only thing this series set up about Marrok was that he was a cool-looking bad guy who didn’t really say much of anything and was always a background foe fighting alongside the other dark side lightsaber wielders. Sometimes, movies and shows simply make cool-looking villains and don’t give full backstories or elaborate twists to them. If you watched this series just taking it on its own terms for what it is, you wouldn’t come away thinking that Marrok was going to be some big twist or reveal.

That’s basic media literacy, but it’s not quite that simple when it comes to Star Wars – both for better and worse. The Star Wars franchise wouldn’t exist today – at least not with any degree of passion like it does – without the incredibly devoted fans who spend hours upon hours talking about these things. This online speculation is fun, and it’s a big part of why the fandom is as engaged as it is. That’s all for good. And the franchise has leaned into this in at least two ways: (1) first, they treat everything they do as a big secret to be revealed (even when most stuff isn’t), and (2) second, the franchise has given a backstory to an overwhelming number of characters, even the most minor of them. Because of this, fans spend tons of time speculating about matters like this – because it’s both what makes the fanbase so engaged but also because they’ve come to expect it from Star Wars.

That’s all wonderful, and it means that a large part of this is brought about by the way the franchise operates. But there’s a downside to it, and it comes when the fanbase begins criticizing the material they get because it doesn’t match the material they speculated. And it also needs to be remembered that the vast majority of this kind of backstory about character histories plays out off-screen. Boba Fett? He was just a cool-looking bounty hunter in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. There was no big twist, no big secret. He just looked cool and didn’t do much. But then came more and more (off-screen) stories about him, and the rest is history.

Let me put it like this: if someone is disappointed that Ahsoka didn’t give any pay-off to Marrok’s identity, it’s not Lucasfilm’s fault. They did nothing to imply that Marrok was a big secret or twist; fans were the ones driving it. It’s one thing to be disappointed about it; it’s another to start criticizing the storytelling for setting it up and not paying it off. Those same criticisms have been levied repeatedly in the Disney era, and most of the time they simply trace back to unrealistic standards and misunderstood media literacy by the fanbase. Not everything is a big mystery. Not everything is a major twist. Not every character is supposed to have lengthy backstory explained. That’s by design, and by necessity.

My point, to summarize, is this. By all means, Star Wars fans should spend their time speculating online about the franchise. That’s a large part of what makes this fanbase so amazing, and I love it. But just don’t blame Lucasfilm every time it doesn’t play out the way you expect. That doesn’t mean they’re dumb or not doing their job.

Marrok wasn’t Barriss, Starkiller, Ezra, or anyone else. It was never likely he would be. The speculation was fun, but this answer is completely fine (and, to tip my hand, absolutely the right choice). With a great franchise comes great speculation, and with great speculation there must come great responsibility.