The new Acolyte Sith was inspired by Elden Ring’s Let Me Solo Her

In a wide-ranging Inverse interview with The Acolyte showrunner Leslye Headland, we got a lot of new information about Qimir, if that’s even his name, the new Sith who was introduced in mind-blowing fashion last week.

One thing that stood out was his savage fighting style which involved slaughtering multiple Jedi, and his unique look which involved bare arms (as many have noted, very bloated), flowing draped robes, and only two pieces of armor, a helmet and a lightsaber-killing Cortosis gauntlet, now canon, removed from the EU.

Headland talks about his theory for designing Qimir’s Sith form and references something very nerdy and very game-specific:

“We need to make him wear something that flows. As soon as I said he didn’t have armor, everyone lost their minds. ‘How can you not have armor?’ I was like, ‘Why wear armor if you’re not going to get hit?’ It’s like the Elden Ring costume. The Elden Bling. When you summon people, you always summon people who aren’t wearing anything, and it’s like, ‘These people are crazy.’”

“Why wear armor if you’re not going to get hit?” is a phrase that is undoubtedly echoed in the most famous example of this theme in Elden Ring, a player named Let Me Solo Her who spent months helping players defeat Malenia, the game’s hardest boss, wearing nothing but a loincloth and a pot on his head, which has become legendary in the game’s fandom. In fact, many high-level players go naked or “no-hit” games in the game wearing next to nothing.

Headland also has a lot more to say about Qimir and his explosive debut:

• She references the Qimir/Osha fanfic and says it was surprisingly “premonitory,” indicating a potential romance. Or simply the “seduction” of the dark side, a concept she’s very interested in exploring.
• She rewrote an episode because of Manny Jacinto’s incredible performance and he will appear more in Season 1 than originally planned.
• The “red shirt” Jedi were a distraction and she had always planned to kill off important characters like Jecki and Yord in this fight. The goal is to make it clear to viewers that they have no idea who will actually survive the series.

• If she couldn’t have had Manny Jacinto, she wouldn’t have done the character at all (I love Jacinto but I’m really curious why she focused on him in particular, which she doesn’t say).
• Kylo Ren’s theme playing in the episode was intentional, but she can’t yet explain what it means.

I am very impressed with his thinking about all of this, and his creation of Qimir, especially in collaboration with Manny Jacinto. I went from being somewhat neutral about this show to not being able to wait to see what happens next in tonight’s episode. See you soon.

Follow me on Twitter, Youtube, Facebook And Instagram.

Get my science fiction novels Herokiller Series And The Earthlings Trilogy.