The latest episode of The Acolyte had finally revealed to fans the identity of Mae’s master, whom fans had nicknamed ‘Darth Teeth.’ To nobody’s surprise, he was actually just Qimir (Manny Jacinto) in disguise.
While Darth Teeth was pretty adept with the Force and a lightsaber, a lot of fans noticed that his armor has the ability to temporarily disable lightsabers when it’s struck. So what is it made of exactly?
WARNING: SPOILERS FOR THE EPISODE 5 OF THE ACOLYTE
The Acolyte’s Darth Teeth and His Mysterious Armor
The Acolyte has teased the identity of Mae’s master since the very first episode, but Episode 5, Night, also showed off his fighting chops as he took out Sol’s entire Jedi squad.
Besides being pretty skilled with a lightsaber, fans also noticed that he would openly allow the Jedi to strike him in the helmet and gauntlets. Though the metal seemed just as strong as the Mandalorian armor Beskar, it also had the effect of deactivating the Jedi’s lightsabers temporarily. Yord even used this against Qimir when he picked up the helmet and tried to face him one-on-one.
As it turns out, this metal is most likely a rare kind of ore introduced way back in the original Star Wars Legends, and this is the first time it’s been appeared in a live-action project.
What is Cortosis and What Does it Do?
Fans who saw the sabers shorting out as they hit Qimir aka Darth Teeth's armor thought it must have been made of is cortosis.
In the lore, cortosis was a metal with very high energy absorption; it was even strong enough to dissipate blaster bolts and short out lightsabers when they made contact with the metal.
While it sounds like cortosis would make the perfect armor, the rare metal was considered to be incredibly fragile, and it had to be combined with an alloy to make it sturdier. Even then, it could still get cut after repeated energy attacks—which is why Qimir’s armor eventually broke down in The Acolyte.
Fans were actually first introduced to cortosis in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, but it had previously also showed up in the canon expanded material. In Doctor Aphra, cortosis was used to forge The Null Blade, a weapon that could neutralize a lightsaber in combat and was meant to battle the Sith .
For now, some fans are still debating whether Qimir’s armor really is made of cortosis, but based on the metal’s properties and how lightsabers react to it, a lot of them are already pretty sure it’s the armor from Legends.
With the ‘Darth Teeth’ armor destroyed, it’s unclear if fans will see more of it in the next episodes, but it’s possible we could get a more refined version as the story reveals new plot details and Easter eggs. Maybe we'll even find out how Qimir originally got the armor.
Catch new episodes of The Acolyte every Wednesday on Disney+.