Admiral Holdo is a character that came and left in the Star Wars galaxy. She emerged shortly before The Last Jedi in the novel Bloodline, and left shortly after. But who exactly was Holdo? Let’s take a look.
Admiral Holdo was one of the many new characters from The Last Jedi, and one whose actions no doubt changed the course of the Resistance.
Recently, it was revealed in an Entertainment Weekly interview with Laura Dern, that Admiral Holdo was likely Force-sensitive, much like Leia. In fact, this revelation comes from writer/director Rian Johnson. From the interview:
She wanted to come up in the ranks to support Leia’s mission, but also had this otherworldly side that does involve the Force.
Admiral Holdo was born on the planet Gatalenta, and when she was younger she served in the Imperial Senate as an apprentice, where she met Leia. This planet perhaps sheds some light on her personality. The planet Gatalenta is known for poetry, meditative retreats, and special “tea”. Sounds relaxing. This is perhaps part of why Dern describes Holdo as a “hippie”. She was a free spirit, and was probably LGBT, or at least her love life wasn’t limited to humanoid males, according to a quote from Bloodline. She grew up as a tea-drinking, peace-loving, space-hippie with a quirky style.
But it’s this mention of the Force that is particularly intriguing, and may tell us a few things about her role in The Last Jedi.
First, it implies that her final strategic move–the Holdo maneuver–may have been aided by the Force. She may have used the Force to see what would happen when she launched into hyperspace pointed at Snoke’s ship, and as part of the aiming. People have argued that such a maneuver complicates Star Wars for the future, because, for example, why wouldn’t they just use a droid to pilot a ship at light-speed into the enemy. However, if the precise aiming of the ship requires a Force-user to sacrifice themselves, then that would at least disincentivize this strategy.
Second she may have not told Poe about her plans because she foresaw (using the Force) that doing so would backfire. This one has been a source of a little controversy. There are a couple of reasons for Holdo not explaining her plan to Poe. Certainly her trust in Poe was shaken from his actions early in the film. Poe had just been demoted for losing the bomber fleet, and Holdo viewed him as a bit reckless. But perhaps more importantly, telling Poe led him to tell Finn, which led DJ to overhear her strategy, which led to DJ telling the First Order. Avoiding having the whole plan leaked to the enemy (which is what happened) is a pretty good reason not to tell Poe. I suppose you could argue that had she told Poe the plan, he wouldn’t have leaked it to the bad guys, but we don’t know that. We don’t know that something else might have gone wrong in that event as well, and that Holdo foresaw it.
All this makes you wonder. If she was powerful with the Force, and was thinking several moves ahead using the Force, did she foresee the inevitability of her demise? Did she see her attack as the only solution? That’s hard to say, and hard to know how clear Force-users can see into the future. After all–always in motion is the future, and the speculation is half the fun.
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