With a movie as massively popular as Star Wars: The Force Awakens, not to mention one with as many unanswered questions left lingering after the credits roll, there are bound to be fan theories floating around. We’ve heard some supposing Supreme Leader Snoke is really Darth Vader, and one that has theories about the sexual orientation of characters like Finn and Poe Dameron, among many others. Some are well thought out, supported by evidence, and plausible while other are, well, let’s just say they’re not.
There are some spoilers for Star Wars: The Force Awakens beyond this point, but Oscar Isaac says it’s okay for us to talk about them now.
A Reddit user recently posted a theory that the Poe Dameron we see at the end of Star Wars: The Force Awakens is not quite the Poe Dameron we first meet on the desert planet Jakku, and that this version is in fact a double agent. One of the biggest questions after the film is how he goes from crashing a TIE Fighter into a sand dune to showing up in the cockpit of an X-Wing to save the day over Takodana, and this proposes to fill in that gap.
Okay, it’s the same Poe Dameron, but in this theory he’s recaptured after the crash on Jakku and has been brainwashed by Kylo Ren, programmed as a sleeper agent in a kind of Manchurian Candidate move. He would certainly be a useful plant to have in the Resistance, as he seems to be privy to all kinds of sensitive information. They go even farther to say that Poe’s participation in blowing up Starkiller Base could have been a ruse to gain the trust of the higher ups in the Resistance, so he could eventually learn the location of Luke Skywalker.
This is…possible, but seem entirely unlikely. Sure, Kylo Ren seems to care far more about finding Luke Skywalker than the plans of the First Order, but destroying the biggest weapon in your arsenal as a ruse is a big stretch. The loss of resources would be catastrophic as there were thousands of soldiers, TIE Fighters, and other pieces of military equipment on the surface, not to mention everything that goes into retrofitting a planet and turning it into a giant weapon. Even as fanatical as Kylo Ren is, that’s a bad idea.
The biggest problem is that we don’t really know what Poe Dameron got up to after crashing on Jakku. He could have struck a deal with someone like Unkar Plutt to arrange transport back to his base, he could have stolen a ship and flown himself, perhaps there were some other allies we don’t know of—someone could have survived the slaughter at Lor San Tekka’s village and helped out. We may never know the truth of the situation, or maybe it will be filled out in a book, comic, or story elsewhere.
We’ve heard that Poe Dameron was originally going to be killed off in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, so perhaps his janky story is simply the result of J.J. Abrams and company trying to find a way to keep him alive.
We’ll have to wait and see what Poe Dameron gets up to in Star War: Episode VIII in May of 2017, but while it’s possible, I just don’t see him being a spy or a plant. I didn’t see anything in Star Wars: The Force Awakens that makes me believe this will happen; no hints or anything like that. What do you think? Do you agree with me or will this be the biggest shocker since, "I am your father"?
