Star Wars: Tales of the Empire will showcase one key difference between Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader – how they approached being a Master. Star Wars: Tales of the Empire will replace Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi season 2 and focus on the development and characterization of two key Imperial characters: Lady Morgan Elsbeth, a Dathomirian Nightsister closely allied with Grand Admiral Thrawn, and Barriss Offee, a former Jedi Padawan who became disillusioned with the Jedi Order and framed Ahsoka Tano, Anakin Skywalker’s Padawan, for murder in Star Wars: The Clone Wars season 5.
After Barriss confessed to orchestrating a bombing at the Jedi Temple, her fate was never revealed – until now. The trailer for Star Wars: Tales of the Empire depicts Barriss being trained by the Grand Inquisitor, becoming part of the very thing she tried to warn the Jedi Order about (albeit in the wrong way). Barriss’ story is undeniably tragic, but within it, Star Wars audiences will also learn more about one of Star Wars’ most seminal figures, Darth Vader, soon after Anakin Skywalker fell to the dark side. One parallel depicted in the Tales of the Empire trailer is particularly interesting.
Tales of the Empire’s trailer includes flashes of Barriss’ Inquisitor training. As noted by X user @Jbandos, one scene, in particular, is very reminiscent of another scene in Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi.Tales of the Jedi episode 5, “Practice Makes Perfect,” showcases Ahsoka’s abilities as a Padawan. She demonstrates her defensive prowess in front of various members of the Jedi Order, including Anakin and Obi-Wan Kenobi, defending herself from an onslaught of training droids within a shrinking ray shield. The ray shield gives her less space to move around in, making avoiding blaster bolts much more difficult.
In the Tales of the Empire trailer, the Grand Inquisitor forces Barriss into an eerily similar situation. Within what also appears to be a shrinking ray shield, Barriss is forced to defend herself from one of her fellow Inquisitorius recruits. As pointed out by @Jbandos, not only is this a “bastardization of Jedi practices” – this is unsurprising, however, given the Grand Inquisitor used to be a Jedi Temple Guard – but it perfectly demonstrates why Ahsoka and Barriss are perfect narrative foils of one another. Despite having similar life experiences, their fates couldn’t be more different.
Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader are important parts of those divergent fates. After Ahsoka demonstrated her abilities to the other members of the Jedi Order, Anakin took it upon himself to take her training one step further. Instead of facing training droids, he had his most trusted clone troopers attack Ahsoka so that she could learn how to survive any kind of ambush. That special training allowed her to escape with her life during Order 66. Anakin’s lesson was all about protecting Ahsoka, while Barriss’ training, whilst darkly similar, is presumably all about making her and her fellow recruits as ruthless and bloodthirsty as possible.
Anakin Skywalker cared about the Padawan in his charge. Darth Vader has never cared about the Inquisitors under his command. Ahsoka and Barriss’ respective training regimes highlight this major difference. Though both were being tested in combat under similar restrictive circumstances, they were fighting for very different reasons. Of course, Darth Vader is completely different from Anakin Skywalker – the dark side warped his actions and personality beyond recognition. But it’s parallels like these that prove that they are still the same person, no matter the situation. That makes Barriss’ fate in Star Wars: Tales of the Empire all the more harrowing.