On September 3, 2020 during a discussion on the upcoming The Mandalorian Season 2 (2020) Tumblr user Gomjabbar had this to say to fans discussing possible characters to appear:
“every time a new Star War movie or show is announced all the fans are like “OMG Glup Sh**** is back”
This parodic matter of the comment was made to make fun of a universe such as Star Wars and the fanbase that consumes the lore and how they know a lot about it. This is thanks to the strange name and reliability with people who may be annoyed by fandom culture along with those that embrace the fandom.
Wookieepedia, the Star Wars wiki on fandom has as of now 201,836 articles detailing the different characters, events and groups along with the films, shows, books and video games that showcase them with both the canon (Star Wars content after Disney got the rights to the franchise), and the old expanded universe (Old Star Wars lore content before Disney bought the franchise now called Legends). That mixed with the millions of fans of different groups and different varieties of how many fans there are it’s easy for people to make fun of them, whether lightly as a self joke about themselves or a general dislike towards them from outsiders.
Of course Star Wars is far from the only one to have such an effect. Superhero comic universes such as Marvel and DC or other franchises have theories on who may come next in an upcoming story. Recent events such as the Avengers Doomsday’s multi hour long cast reveal stream helped to showcase how people are interested in how characters will play a role in a story.
I can also name two more recent examples from the franchises I always seem to mention…
A more recent example I can think of such interest in returning characters came in a recent Halo book, Halo: Empty Throne (2025) that came out that showcases the status of many characters who we didn’t have a clear answer for in the current setting. (Random AI uprising happened that left the universe in a screwed up place narratively to where they tried to write out the AI uprising in Halo infinite). Apart from fan favorites the strangest character, in my opinion, was one who was most known for being blasted out into the vacuum of space in the middle of a battle since the first Halo book, Halo: The Fall of Reach (2001), and assumed by everyone in real life and in universe to have died.
The other main scifi universe I like that has multiple characters that could return next and be strange that people are hoping for is Warhammer 40k. To keep it short, the next two major characters to most likely return are either Primarchs (Demigods in simple terms) of the Space Wolves or Raven Guard Chapters. (You can tell they are similar and close friends because they do the trope of Wolves and Ravens).
Glup Sh**** can be seen as some kind of orientalism with how it’s degrading one group for another, but it’s also just there for some fun.
Source – https://gomjabbar.tumblr.com/post/628276384757841920/every-time-a-new-star-war-movie-or-show-is
