Warning: this article contains full spoilers for the first two episodes of Star Wars: Ahsoka. If you haven’t already, be sure to check out IGN’s review of the two episodes.
Emperor Palpatine may be the primary, overarching villain of Star Wars’ Skywalker Saga, but he’s not the only one who knows how to tap into the power of the Dark Side. Anyone who watched Star Wars: The Clone Wars knows that Palpatine once had some major rivals in the form of the Nightsisters of Dathomir. And with the debut of Star Wars: Ahsoka, these so-called “witches” are finally appearing in live-action.
The first two episodes of Ahsoka reveal that Diana Lee’s character Morgan Elsbeth is a member of the witches of Dathomir. But who are these characters, exactly, and how are they connected to rogue Dark Jedi Baylan Skoll (Ray Stevenson) and Shin Hati (Ivana Sakhno)? Here’s what you need to know as the series gets underway.
Witches in Star Wars: Who Are the Nightsisters?
Star Wars is arguably more of a fantasy saga than a strictly science fiction-based franchise. It already has sword-wielding wizards who can bend the laws of reality to their whim, so why not throw a few witches into the mix? That’s where the Nightsisters come in.
The Nightsisters are a group of powerful sorceresses who dwell on the planet Dathomir. Like Exegol and Malachor, Dathomir is a world with an unusually strong connection to the Force. The planet is teeming with Dark Side energy, and the Nightsisters achieved incredible power by tapping into that energy.
The Nightsisters don’t interact with the Force in the same way Palpatine and his fellow Sith Lords do. The term “witch” really does apply here. The Nightsisters draw on the magical ichor that flows through Dathomir and use it to cast spells, allowing them to conjure objects into existence or even reanimate dead bodies. They rely on totems to augment their magic. And rather than use traditional lightsabers, Nightsister warriors wield bows that fire bolts of pure energy.
Several tribes of Nightsisters once existed on Dathomir, though during the time of the Clone Wars, these factions were unified under a powerful matriarch named Mother Talzin. Dathomir is also home to a clan of Nightbrothers – male Zabraks who serve the Nightsisters and are sometimes recruited to serve as assassins. Talzin’s sons Darth Maul and Savage Opress are the most well-known Nightbrothers.
The Nightsisters vs. Emperor Palpatine
As Senator Palpatine began plotting his rise to power and orchestrating the Clone Wars, it was basically inevitable that he would come into conflict with Mother Talzin and the Nightsisters. The Sith don’t believe in sharing power outside of their rigid Rule of Two, and the Nightsisters represent an entire civilization of Dark Side adepts and potential rivals to a Sith Emperor.
Palpatine first came into conflict with the Nightsisters when he visited Dathomir in search of an apprentice. Rather than recruit Talzin herself, he chose to kidnap young Maul, leaving Talzin to begin a long, quiet campaign of vengeance against the Sith Lord. Even as Palpatine moved toward a complete takeover of the galaxy, Talzin herself plotted to destroy him and rule the galaxy in his place.
Talzin began openly waging war on Palpatine and Count Dooku once the Clone Wars began. Count Dooku took the Nightsister Asajj Ventress as his apprentice, only to be forced by his master to betray Ventress once she was deemed too great a threat. Dooku then replaced her with Savage Opress, not realizing Opress had been trained to kill him at the right time. However, even the combined might of Opress and Ventress wasn’t enough to overcome Dooku. Defeated, Oppress was given a new mission – find his long-lost brother Maul and help him destroy the Sith.
Long story short, the brothers never succeeded in that goal. Maul was captured by his former master and Opress was killed in battle. Palpatine himself began taking a more active hand in the feud against the Nightsisters, and he dispatched General Grievous and a droid army to wipe out the Nightsisters on Dathomir. Only Talzin, Ventress and a handful of others like Merrin survived this genocide. The Nightsisters were basically removed as a threat in the waning days of the Clone Wars.
Talzin made one last attempt at destroying Dooku and Sidious near the end of the war, but even her incredible magic wasn’t strong enough to stand against the combined might of both Sith Lords. Talzin could do little but ensure her son survived to fight another day before finally being destroyed by Palpatine. His greatest rival in the Dark Side was no more.
Morgan Elsbeth in Star Wars: Ahsoka
Like the Jedi, few Nightsisters survived to see the dawn of the Empire. Jedi: Fallen Order and its sequel chronicle the exploits of one of these survivors, a Nightsister named Merrin. But now we know that Morgan Elsbeth is herself a Nightsister, another survivor of Palpatine’s other great purge. That explains why Elspeth was able to hold her own in a duel against Ahsoka in The Mandalorian: Season 2. She appears to have at least some level of Force ability, as seen when she manipulates the map to Thrawn.
This reveal does raise an interesting question, however. If Elsbeth is a Nightsister, why is she loyal to the Empire? Why did she serve Palpatine rather than seek vengeance for her slain sisters? And why is she trying to restore the Empire even now? Does she not realize Palpatine was the architect behind the destrction of the Nightsisters?
In The Mandalorian, Ahsoka tells Din Djarin, “During the Clone Wars, her people were massacred. She survived, and let her anger fuel an industry which helped build the Imperial Starfleet. She plundered worlds, destroying them in the process.”
The answer may lie in her relationship with Grand Admiral Thrawn. She may have been filled with rage over Palpatine’s role in slaughtering her people, but maybe Elsbeth shares in Thrawn’s vision for an orderly, controlled galaxy. Thrawn himself is loyal to his own people, the Chiss Ascendancy, more than the Empire itself, and perhaps that’s where the two bonded. Or it may be that Elsbeth hails from a different tribe of Nightsisters who weren’t quite so loyal to Talzin.
Whatever her motivations, Elsbeth is clearly hellbent on traveling to another galaxy to find Thrawn and bring him back. To do so, she’s enlisted the aid of Dark Jedi Baylan Skoll and Shin Hati and Sith Inquisitor-turned-mercenary Marrok. Skoll is an intriguing character in his own right. We’ve learned that he was once a Jedi Padawan who somehow survived the scourge of Order 66. He, like Elsbeth, seems to have a vested interest in finding Thrawn and restoring the Empire, even though that means aiding the same power that once massacred his people. To him, the promise of “power, such as you have never imagined” is all the motivation necessary.
As for the Inquisitor Marrok, we still know very little about the character even after two episodes. As far as Star Wars Rebels would have us believe, all of the Inquisitors died years before. Is this an example of Elsbeth’s Nightsister magic at work? Did she resurrect an Inquisitor to serve as her personal assassin? The fact that Marrok’s face stays hidden is also suspicious. Is this a character we’ll recognize once the helmet finally comes off? Could Marrok actually be a brainwashed Ezra, basically like Tron: Legacy’s Rinzler? We’ll find out as Star Wars: Ahsoka continues to unfold.
Are you happy to finally see the Nightsisters in live-action? What do you think Morgan Elsbeth’s true endgame is? Let us know your Ahsoka theories in the comments.
For more on Star Wars: Ahsoka, see the essential Ahsoka, Hera and Sabine episodes to watch and brush up on Ahsoka’s full Star Wars story so far.
Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.