Star Wars‘ next TV show will finally show us how Darth Vader trained his Imperial Inquisitors. Introduced in Star Wars Rebels, the Inquisitors are a group of former Jedi who were turned to the dark side after the horrific events of Order 66. They’ve become a staple of stories set during the Dark Times of the Empire’s reign, ruthless antagonists who hunt down their former Jedi comrades.
The last few years have revealed many secrets of the Inquisitors. Jedi: Fallen Order and Obi-Wan Kenobi introduced their sinister headquarters, the Fortress Inquisitorius in Darth Vader’s Mustafar system, and Obi-Wan was horrified to discover Jedi bodies preserved in amber as trophies. More recently, Delilah S. Dawson’s fantastic novel Inquisitor: Rise of the Red Blade told the story of one Inquisitor, revealing how Palpatine turned her to the dark side during the Clone Wars. But the next Star Wars story will go even further.
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Star Wars dropped a surprise trailer for Tales of the Empire, which is presumably replacing the successful Tales of the Jedi show from 2022. This confirmed the surprise return of Barriss Offee, a Jedi who betrayed the order – and Ahsoka Tano in particular – during the Clone Wars. Disillusioned with the Jedi, Barriss launched a terrorist attack on the Jedi Temple itself. She initially framed Ahsoka for the crime, but was ultimately identified as the culprit and imprisoned.
Viewers had long suspected Barriss would wind up becoming one of the Imperial Inquisitors. The trailer confirms this longstanding theory, and also reveals that Barriss will be the point-of-view character in some of the Tales of the Empire shorts. It seems Barriss will be taken out of prison, before she’s put through training – initially under the watchful eye of the Grand Inquisitor, and ultimately under Darth Vader himself.
There’s a great deal of irony in the fact Darth Vader is now training the woman who betrayed Ahsoka Tano. The bond between Ahsoka and Anakin was a deep one, and Anakin was the only one who really believed Ahsoka’s innocence. Now, though, he is working with the former Jedi who essentially serves as a twisted mirror image of Ahsoka. It will be fascinating to see how Darth Vader trains his Inquisitors.
There is, of course, one big difference; Anakin believed his apprentice was valuable, but Barriss and the Inquisitors are just tools. He will give them just enough training to do their jobs as Jedi hunters, not necessarily enough to keep them alive. In fact, in Star Wars comics, there have been several occasions where Darth Vader took out Inquisitors himself – and he could easily do so with Barriss, lashing out in wrath. Star Wars: Tales of the Empire‘s Inquisitor training may well end in tragedy.