'Star Wars' Fan Theory Proves Jar Jar Binks Is a Sith Lord, or Maybe Not

We spoke to the Reddit user whose theory about everyone's least-favorite part of 'The Phantom Menace' is making fans rethink their prequel hate.


The internet blew up today after a Reddit user named Lumpawarroo posted what seems like a fairly outrageous fan theory in the official Star Wars subreddit about everybody’s least-favorite Gungan, Jar Jar Binks. According to Lumpawarroo, Binks may in fact be a Sith Lord in disguise. Who knew?

Any self respecting Star Wars fans will immediately cry foul about Jar Jar being anything but the most annoying character in the universe, that is until you read through the evidence laid out in Lumpawarroo’s theory. It’s replete with specific examples, GIFs, and images that all back up the outrageous claims.

Here’s the general gist of the argument:


So is Jar Jar really a highly skilled user of the Force who colluded with Palpatine in the prequels to bring down the Republic only to pop up again in The Force Awakens to create a seismic shift in the narrative to make us question everything we knew about Star Wars altogether? Or is it all hogwash?

“I can neither confirm nor deny tongue-in-cheekedness,” Lumpawaroo said when we asked him about the validity of their theory. “I will say, however, that the argument which would resonate most with me as an objective reader would probably be the idea that Jar Jar was intended to mirror Yoda per the Joseph Campbell monomyth archetype. That makes a lot of sense, as does the notion that he could have been rewritten between episodes due to intense fan criticism.”

Is this the face of pure evil?StarWars.com

It turns out, Lumpawarroo is a bit of a prequel apologist on top of being a huge Star Wars fan. “The prequels suffer mostly from having to exist in the shadow of the originals, and from 15 years of non-stop internet immolation,” he said. “I think that if they existed in a vacuum, i.e. they weren’t Star Wars movies, they would have been more lauded and appreciated as films that took a lot of epic chances and risks, and succeeded in the great majority of them.”

Don't be fooled by that smile.StarWars.com

He came up with the seemingly crazy idea only a few days before posting it to the subreddit last week, and ran it by a similarly voracious Star Wars fan and friend of his before unleashing it on to the unsuspecting internet. In a way he’s become a prequel avenger, and maybe even as misunderstood as Jar Jar himself. While he’s not necessarily trying to convince people to like Jar Jar, he’s still trying to open people up to rethinking their deep seated hate for much-maligned Gungan.

“I think the idea of somehow ‘justifying’ his character might be appealing to fans for reasons I actually touched upon in the theory submission,” he said. “Jar Jar has become the poster child that epitomizes the things people perceive as flaws in the prequels. Fix Jar Jar and you necessarily assuage much of the disappointment felt by so many.”

It’s sound reasoning. But while no one really thinks Darth Binks was waiting in the shadows beginning in Episode I and will show his true self when The Force Awakens is released on December 18, it’s still a fun read that could potentially make Star Wars fans see The Phantom Menace in a new light.

Decide for yourself by reading the original post here.

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