'Star Wars Rebels' Creator Has A Plan For New Character Introduced In Finale

Most shows don't introduce brand new characters in the final minutes of their series finale, but Star Wars Rebels did just that. Rebels creator Dave Filoni now reveals the somewhat vague plans for that new character. Also: is there a chance this character ties into the Knights of Ren? Let's speculate wildly. More on the new Star Wars Rebels character below.

Warning: spoilers ahead for the finale of Star Wars Rebels.

When Star Wars Rebels ended last week, it introduced viewers to a brand new character: Jacen Syndulla. The show's conclusion gave audiences very little time to spend with this new Star Wars character, but that's where speculation and fan theories come in. In an interview with io9, Star Wars Rebels creator Dave Filoni lays out some vague details about Jacen and the future. Filoni is refreshingly honest, saying he really hasn't devoted much thought to the character's future:

"I have not given a lot of thought to where that goes, to be honest. That doesn't mean that we wouldn't in the future. I'm already getting asked internally a lot about it from people here [at Lucasfilm]. Creatives here. So that's good. I like that. [The idea of Jacen Syndulla] developed, really, through the fourth season as an idea I thought would be good and meaningful. I talked to [development executive] Kiri Hart about it and she was pretty much the one person I confided this idea in, until we went to design him obviously."

The name "Jacen" will be familiar to anyone well-versed in the Star Wars Extended Universe. In the Extended Universe novels, Han and Leia have a son named Jacen Solo (not to be confused with Ben Solo, aka Kylo Ren). Filoni commented on the similarities in character names:

"It seemed, in a very small way, naming him 'Jacen' was a way to honor the expanded universe character of Jacen Solo who just really isn't there anymore as the timelines have changed. I thought that's a little bit of a wink to people that I know that was an important character. And maybe, in some way, that lives on through this character. I don't know yet."

ScreenRant has a theory about Jacen Syndulla that might hold water. Maybe, just maybe, Jacen Syndulla grows up to be one of the Knights of Ren? The ongoing Star Wars film saga has been maddeningly vague about the Knights of Ren. We know that after Ben Solo turned to the Dark Side he killed off almost all the Jedi Luke had been training and ran off with a few remaining trainees. These trainees then became the Knights of Ren.

Other than that, though, we don't have much info about them. In speaking about the characters, and where they were during the events of The Last Jedi, director Rian Johnson said:

"I guess I could've used them in place of the Praetorian guards but then it would feel like wasting them because all those guards had to die. And if Kylo had some kind of connection to them it would've added a complication that wouldn't have helped the scene...truth is I just didn't see a place for them in the movie."

Much like Kylo Ren, Jacen Solo in the Extended Universe starts out good and then goes bad. Having Rebels character Jacen grow up and go bad could be a way to tie the character into the Extended Universe's Jacen. It would also bridge the gap between Rebels and the events of the on-going Star Wars film series, and fill in some blanks about the Knights of Ren. We may never even get more on-screen detail about the Knights of Ren – there's no guarantee J.J. Abrams will include them in Episode IX. For now, this is just speculation to geek out over until more answers reveal themselves.