Star Wars is about balance. Balance between good and evil, the dark and the light, the Jedi and the Sith. But despite so much of the philosophy being about balance, characters usually stick to the binary — they’re either Jedi or Sith, with the odd ex-Jedi like Ahsoka Tano. However, the next Star Wars show may change all of that with one mysterious character who hasn’t even appeared yet, but is already raising questions around his identity. And the answer to his identity may be something fans have been clamoring for for decades.
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Skeleton Crew, set to premiere on Disney+ on December 3, 2024, stars Jude Law as Jod Na Nawood, a character referred to in promotional material as a “Force user,” not as a Jedi or Sith. However, in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Skeleton Crew writer Christopher Ford refers to showrunner Jon Watts working with The Mandalorian’s showrunner Dave Filoni and mentions Watts wanting to create “a whole new kind of Jedi.” If that was the intent behind Jod, then why all of the mystery behind his identity?
A popular fan theory suggests he might be a Sith, not a Jedi at all, but that doesn’t mesh with what Ford said. So what could this “new kind of Jedi” actually be? Ask any fan of the non-canon Star Wars Legends continuity, and there’s one major possibility: a Gray Jedi.
“Gray Jedi” was first used in 2001 to refer to Qui-Gon Jinn because he disagreed with the Jedi Council, but its most common definition is a Force user who doesn’t align with either the Jedi or Sith codes but still uses the Force. By this definition, Ahsoka Tano would qualify as a Gray Jedi, but the term itself has never been uttered in canon.
The most common usage of Gray Jedi was within the video game Knights of the Old Republic, where the character Jolee Bindo self-identified as a Gray Jedi, a term the game defined as someone who operated on both sides of the Force without getting corrupted by the Dark Side. However, this definition is a major obstacle in getting the Gray Jedi into canon, because the Lucasfilm Story Group — who has the final say in what is and isn’t canon in the Star Wars universe — doesn’t believe this is possible.
Story Group member Matt Martin once tweeted that the very concept of the Gray Jedi goes against the founding tenets of Star Wars itself. “Pretty much just a fan thing,” he said of the label. “That sort of goes against what Star Wars is all about. The dark side corrupts.” However, the Dark Side’s nuances have been explored in recent Star Wars projects like The Acolyte, so there may be room for a character who exists in the in-between.
Star Wars has made no claims that Jod is a Jedi in the first place — in fact, recent clips from the series seem to show that he’s explicitly not a Jedi. But Gray Jedi aren’t Jedi at all, so this just makes this Legends term the only option that makes sense: a brand new kind of Jedi, one that isn’t a Jedi at all. Jod’s Force-using identity is always described as “complicated,” and there are few explanations less complicated than that.
