This Star Wars Theory Explains Holdo's Intentions

From Esquire

The following post contains spoilers for Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

For months leading up to the release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, fans were theorizing who would be Space Laura Dern's purple-haired Admiral Holdo. Her character turns out to be one of the most complex new characters in the Star Wars universe. She keeps her plans to herself, only to reveal them to Poe after he attempts a mutiny. Dern's Holdo goes on to save the Resistance fleet.

Some might wonder why she didn't tell Poe her plan, and why so many ships were lost in the process. But a new theory on Reddit might resolve some of those questions:

Throughout the course of the chase sequence when the resistance is fleeing from the First Order, several ships run out of fuel, forcing evacuation prior to their destruction.
The First Order officers never acknowledge the existence of those transports, and their overconfident attitude implies they believed they destroyed the ship and everyone on board (at least that's how I felt it was implied).

Holdo was already using her cloaking plan here. She knew the First Order wouldn't be searching for that type of ship - as evidenced when Leia explains the full plan at the end. Ultimately, she was right - the First Order never knew about those ships, which explains why someone had to stay back and pilot each ship that was shot down. This is the same thing Holdo was planning to do with the main cruiser.

But why would she pull off this plan without telling Poe, who later attempted his own mutiny on the Resistance ship?

Now, many people have said and will say that Holdo should have just told Poe her plan, but they're ignoring the context of the situation. The more I watch The Last Jedi the more it seems to disprove this "miscommunication" narrative. Poe had no right to demand answers from Holdo: he had just been demoted after destroying their entire bombing fleet. Additionally, there could have easily been a spy on board if that information leaked out... which is exactly what happened when Poe did get a hold of their information.

Despite believing the opposite on first viewing, I feel Holdo is actually portrayed as very confident in her job. However, when we focus on things from Poe's perspective and ignore the broader context of the movie, we fail to see that Poe's failure here is 100% his own.

It's a pretty solid theory, but more importantly, it explains the genius of Dern's character, and some of Rian Johnson's more subversive storytelling.

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