Supreme Leader Snoke was not an ancient Sith lord or a secret Skywalker; in current Star Wars canon, he was an artificial strandcast (a kind of engineered clone) created and controlled by Emperor Palpatine to act as his proxy leader of the First Order and manipulator of Kylo Ren.

In-universe answer

  • Snoke was a genetically engineered being (a “strandcast”) grown on the hidden Sith world Exegol by the Sith Eternal cult working for Darth Sidious (Emperor Palpatine).
  • He ruled the First Order as its Supreme Leader, presenting himself as an independent dark side master, but he ultimately served as Palpatine’s puppet rather than a true Sith successor.
  • Snoke trained and manipulated Ben Solo into becoming Kylo Ren, pushing him deeper into the dark side and ordering him to kill Han Solo and destroy Luke Skywalker’s Jedi legacy.
  • Kylo Ren eventually killed Snoke in The Last Jedi , but The Rise of Skywalker later revealed Snoke’s origin in Palpatine’s cloning experiments, even showing multiple Snoke bodies in tanks on Exegol.

Behind the scenes

  • When The Force Awakens came out, Snoke was intentionally mysterious and marketed as the big new villain of the sequel trilogy, played via motion capture by Andy Serkis.
  • Many fans speculated he might be Darth Plagueis, an ancient Sith, or some hidden survivor of the Clone Wars, and forum debates about “who was Snoke in Star Wars” were intense for years.
  • Later canon material and The Rise of Skywalker retroactively defined him as a constructed pawn of Palpatine, which some viewers felt undercut the buildup, while others felt it fit the saga’s long-running theme of Palpatine as the ultimate mastermind.

Quick forum-style snapshot

“So did anyone actually come out and explain Snoke?” – Common fan question after The Last Jedi , often answered now with: “He was a lab-grown dark side puppet built by Palpatine on Exegol to run the First Order and corrupt Ben Solo.”

TL;DR: If you’re wondering who was Snoke in Star Wars , canon now says he was a lab-created strandcast, essentially a custom-built dark side proxy through which Palpatine steered the First Order and manipulated Kylo Ren from the shadows.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.