SPECULATION How real-life history of Ireland could have inspired Ahch-To and the future of the Jedi Order.

After finding out recently that Ahch-To has more sentient inhabitants than just Luke Skywalker I started to think about the real-life location where Ahch-To scenes were shot, meaning the monastery on Skellig Michael and whether's it's past may give us some clues on the story of The Last Jedi but first of all, some historical background.

During the Middle Ages, many works of the classical Greek philosophers and scholars, like Aristotle or Hippocrates were forgotten in Christian Europe, with some excpetions, like Plato and his concept of idealism. There are number of reasons why this happened, some of them were dogmatic, others not, but as the time passed by, more and more of these works resurfaced and were brought back to the limelight, what eventually resulted in a period known as the Renaissance, meaning "rebirth." The reason why these classic works weren't completely lost is twofold. The first and the more known one was the Arab scholars, who got access to these works and translated them to Arabic and used them in their own studies. Later, Europeans got access to these translations and translated them to Latin, so that they can be used more widely.

The other source of these works, that isn't mentioned that often, is Ireland and to be more precise, Irish monks. In Middle Ages, when monks weren't praying, they were working instead (this was also an origin of the famous Latin saying 'Pray and work' or Ora et labora in original.) Some were farming, others produced foods, like cheeses or wines and some were copying books. Early Irish monks-copyists, most likely including who inhabited Skellig Michael, were best known for copying classical works. Why did they do it, when everywhere else in Europe they seemed to fell into oblivion? To be honest, I don't remember. However, the point is, that dwellers of Skellig-Michael helped to preserve ancient works.

At this point connections to Ahch-To start to become clear. We know that this planet is inhabited by at least one creature, "the white nun" (I really hope she'll be played by Cate Blanchett) and its buildings are very old, as old as the Jedi Order or even more. From the first teaser we can also deduce that in The Last Jedi actual, paper books (sic!) will play some role in the plot and since they're made of paper, they must be ancient. Sounds familiar to the story of Irish monks? A story of brokers of ancient knowledge? A story of people who peserved valuable texts despite them being considered unimportant by the rest of the "civilised" world?

What it may suggest for the future of Star Wars and specifically the Jedi Order? I think pretty good stuff, actually. As mentioned earlier, when Europe rediscovered Greek scholars a period of Renaissance began, which gave us fantastic art, a rapid development in science and philosophy and radically changed the face of the Christianity thanks to Protestants, who arguably came back to its roots, the Bible. Personally, I believe the same fate awaits the Jedi. The Prequel-era Jedi who were more interested in politics and warfare should never come back and in their place a new Order should be formed, one that explores the Force itself and exists to keep the Balance of the Force, not shifts it to the Dark.

 

If anything, I'm sure it'll be subtle. Star Wars has always shared some similarities to real-life historical states, figures, events, etc. but they've never been explicit or otherwise they'd lose their international appeal.

I also don't think that Hippocrates' works made a huge impact on Martin Luther. They were just loose examples of famous Greek scholars, nothing more.