A new Snoke was killed in Rian Johnson's Star Wars: The Last Jedi, leaving many mysteries unresolved.
When Abrams returned for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, he attempted to tie up this loose end early on in the film by revealing Snoke was a creation of Emperor Palpatine's. When Kylo Ren finds the Emperor on Exegol, he walks by multiple deceased Snoke bodies, implying Palpatine made numerous clones over the years. While this did clear some things up, there were still some lingering questions that the movie didn't have time to get into. Now, a new book seems to have the answers.
Twitter Old Man Blinks shared pages from The Star Wars Book that detail Snoke's life. A age of note mentions he is a "strandcast - an artificial genetic construct concocted by the resurrected Darth Sidious to be his proxy in power. Snoke has free will, but his actions and goals are still orchestrated by Sidious." See Old Man Binks' tweet in the space below:
It's interesting Snoke is said to have "free will." This means he is a separate entity from Palpatine, but the Emperor still used this artificial being as a puppet as he looked to regain control of the galaxy. With Palpatine's own clone body deteriorating on Exegol, Snoke was much more viable to serve as a stand-in as Sidious schemed in the shadows. It wasn't until Kylo Ren killed Snoke that Palpatine finally revealed himself and announced his return. Snoke is another illustration of the Emperor's immense power, as he was able to control and manipulate Snoke from afar to do his bidding as the First Order came into fruition.
While this does essentially tie things up on Snoke, it's still arguably disappointing his origin boils down to being a Palpatine creation. One of the weaknesses of the Star Wars sequel trilogy is it leaned a bit too much into nostalgia instead of forging its own path. There was potential here for Snoke to be a whole new character without any connections to what came before, which might have been more interesting overall. However, since Palpatine is the direction Lucasfilm went in for the trilogy, this reveal does work on some level. A compelling element to the Emperor's inclusion in The Rise of Skywalker is that it made him the thread that tied all three Star Wars trilogies together.
Source: The Star Wars Book (hat tip Old Man Blinks)
