'Star Wars' fans believe Jar Jar Binks is actually a dark Sith lord

At best, Jar Jar Binks is known as one of the most annoying characters to grace "Star Wars." At worst, he's considered a racist stereotype.

But some Reddit users apparently think we could have been misreading Binks all along. They're theorizing Binks is a secretly intelligent dark Sith Lord.

The so-called Darth Jar Jar movement was started by Reddit user /u/Lumpawarroo on the Star Wars subreddit. Now, it's grown to have its own website and dedicated subreddit— both called Darth Jar Jar. 

The theory is also picking up steam outside the world of Reddit. Wired, The Telegraph, and USA Today College have all covered it.

Read on to learn why the concept of Darth Jar Jar is picking up so much speed.

The first piece of evidence that Jar Jar Binks isn't who he seems: his agility.

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Lumpawarroo points out that in the Star Wars universe, "very rarely do we see 'normal' characters exhibiting extraordinary stuntwork or physical feats unless they are Jedi, Sith, or at least force sensitives."

But as seen in the above gif, Jar Jar can be pretty athletic when he wants to. Even though Jar Jar seems clumsy, in battle, he's "always incredibly, amazingly successful," Lumpawarroo explains.

Jar Jar's moves appear to be modeled on Zui Quan, Chinese martial arts that imitate the movements of a drunk person.

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In the above demonstration of Zui Quan moves like kipping-up and sloshing, the practitioner's movements look a lot like Jar Jar's.

"This discipline seeks to imitate the 'sloshing,' seemingly random foibles of a drunkard, but in reality the staggering and stumbling is the use of bodily momentum, deception, and unpredictability intended to lure and confuse opponents," Lumpawarroo writes. 

That would make it the perfect type of movement for someone who's trying to seem like a bumbling fool in order to get the upper hand — like Jar Jar.

"It establishes that his over-the-top, childish antics are a veneer masking a more complex character than we're led to believe," Lumpawarroo writes.

Here's Jar Jar doing what looks like Zui Quan "sloshing":

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People attribute Jar Jar's successes to luck — but like Obi-Wan Kenobi once said, there is no luck.

As Lumpawarroo writes, "This is one of the main reasons we as an audience hate Jar Jar so thoroughly; he breaks the fourth wall, he he shatters our suspension of disbelief, because we know that no one is really that lucky. We dismiss it as a lame, cliched trope — the silly pathetic oaf who always seems to inadvertently save the day."