By David Miller
Updated
Star Wars' Inquisitors were Darth Vader's elite death squad of Jedi-killing dark side users. Who were these Imperial agents and what were their fates?
Star Wars canon has introduced several Imperial Inquisitors over the years, and here is every major one explained. Making their live-action debut in the Obi-Wan Kenobi Disney+ series, Inquisitors were first introduced in Star Wars Rebels. Not Jedi, but not quite Sith Lords either, the Inquisitors are a mysterious and deadly group of dark side users. There's never been an official Star Wars inquisitor list, but the members have been gradually revealed across different Star Wars media.
Related: Why Star Wars' Inquisitors Are Not Sith Lords
The Inquisitors are a special division of force sensitives who surrendered to the Empire during the Jedi Purge and fell to the dark side of the Force. Trained by Darth Vader himself, the Inquisitors are Sith in all but name. Inquisitors are predominantly used in the Imperial era of the Star Wars timeline, as the dark Force-wielders who assist Vader in hunting down surviving Jedi. While it is unclear exactly how many Inquisitors have been under the Empire’s banner, as dead Inquisitors aren't replaced in Star Wars, here is every major appearance from Vader’s dark assistants, who each one is, and how their story played out explained.
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12 Grand Inquisitor
Making his live-action debut in the Obi-Wan Kenobi series, the very first known Inquisitor in Star Wars canon is their leader; the Grand Inquisitor. His true name is unknown, and he's referred to only by his title. Introduced early on in the first season of Star Wars Rebels, he is a striking, menacing, Pau'an (voiced by Jason Isaacs), who pursues former Padawan Kanan Jarrus and prospective Jedi Ezra Bridger throughout the season. The Grand Inquisitor’s power in the dark side might be third only to Vader and Sidious within the Empire, but ultimately, he relies on inspiring fear more than anything.
This ties perfectly into Kanan’s character arc in season 1, as it was his ability to replace his fears with faith in the Force that allowed him to ultimately defeat the Grand Inquisitor. Though the Grand Inquisitor dies in the Star Wars Rebels season 1 finale, his origins are explored further in later material. Rebels season 2 reveals that, during his time as a Jedi, he was one of the Jedi Temple Guards, fitting the notion that most Inquisitor origins are Jedi-related in Star Wars.
According to the reference book “Ultimate Star Wars, New Edition”, it was the aftermath of the bombing of the Coruscant Jedi Temple that began the Grand Inquisitor’s disillusionment with the Jedi Order. The mishandling of both Ahsoka Tano and Barriss Offee by the Jedi - shown in the final arc of Star Wars: The Clone Wars season 5 - caused the character to abandon the ways of the Jedi. This resulted in the character becoming susceptible to the allure of the dark side - like Kylo Ren, Darth Vader, and countless other fallen Jedi across the Star Wars saga - to become the villainous Jedi hunter known only as the Grand Inquisitor.
11 Reva - The Third Sister
Played by Moses Ingram in Obi-Wan Kenobi, Reva - known by the Inquisitors as her title of the Third Sister - was introduced as an ambitious Star Wars Inquisitor baying for Jedi blood. Reva was a character created almost entirely for the Obi-Wan Kenobi series. Outside a brief mention in a DeAgostini “Star Wars Encyclopedia" in 2021 as a footnote in a section about Darth Maul and other dark side users, all that was known of Reva prior to Ingram's appearance in Obi-Wan Kenobi came from the trailers and interviews with both her and the show’s production team.
Unlike the Grand Inquisitor, there was no prior Reva canon for the series to build on. This was more of a boon than a burden for Ingram since there were no existing fan expectations for the character. In an interview with Vanity Fair, Ingram stated this gave her a lot of freedom to make the character "fiercely intelligent and very quick on her feet” in a way that made Reva truly her own. Reva's backstory was subsequently revealed in Obi-Wan Kenobi, and it was filled with both shocking twists and essential canon-defining elements.
Reva was revealed as a youngling who survived Order 66, though not without witnessing Anakin Skywalker massacring the Jedi. She became an Inquisitor and fell to the Dark Side just to get close to Vader, with her plan being to capture Obi-Wan in order to find a place at Vader's side. Then, when the Sith Lord's guard was down, Reva would enact her revenge for the dark lord massacring her fellow Jedi younglings during his attack on Coruscant’s Jedi Temple.
This plan from Reva backfired though, as it transpired Vader had known Reva's identity the entire time, and he'd been toying with her throughout her career as an Inquisitor. Ironically, much like Anakin, Reva became the very monster she'd sworn to destroy, committing many atrocities on her quest. Unlike the Chosen One himself Anakin, however, Obi-Wan was able to redeem Reva and put her back on the path toward the light side of the Force. Exactly how well this went for Reva, or what her eventual fate was after Obi-Wan Kenobi, is still yet to be revealed in potential future Star Wars stories.
10 The Fifth Brother
After the death of the Grand Inquisitor in Star Wars Rebels, a subsequent power vacuum was formed among the Empire’s other Inquisitors. Introduced early in Star Wars Rebels season 2 as a result, the Fifth Brother hoped to replace the Grand Inquisitor by hunting down the two prospective Jedi who defeated him. Unlike the Grand Inquisitor, who pursued Jedi with a balance of wit and power, the Fifth Brother was almost entirely uninterested in finesse, opting to use brute strength almost exclusively in his various conflicts with Kanan and Ezra.
Throughout Rebels season 2, he worked closely with the Seventh Sister, a fellow Inquisitor. Though the two were a deadly brains-and-brawn duo, the Fifth Brother ultimately met his end on Malachor, where former Sith Lord Maul killed him during his short-lived truce with the Rebels crew. The Fifth Brother also featured prominently in Obi-Wan Kenobi, where he was often a thorn in Reva's side, attempting to inhibit her ambitions wherever possible. Kenobi also showed that the Fifth Brother was more measured than Reva, as he was less willing to extract information from the Tatooine populace using violence, instead preferring to bribe them if possible.
9 The Seventh Sister
This Mirialan Inquisitor was one of the most persistent antagonists of Rebels season 2, along with her partner, the Fifth Brother. Like her cohort, the Seventh Sister was vying to become the next Grand Inquisitor, with her strategic methods and crafty use of ID9 Parrot Droids complimenting the Fifth Brother’s brute force. The two came dangerously close to defeating Kanan and Ezra numerous times throughout the season, yet the Seventh Sister was also killed by Darth Maul on Malachor. The Seventh Sister was subdued by Maul, who goaded Ezra to give in to the dark side and execute the helpless Inquisitor. Ezra refused, prompting Maul to finish the job himself.
8 The Eighth Brother
With only brief appearances in Star Wars Rebels and the “Star Wars: Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith” comic series - written by Charles Soule - to date, very little is still known about the Terrelian Jango Jumper known among the Inquisitors as the Eighth Brother. One of the deadliest Inquisitors in Star Wars, he is something of a halfway point between the Fifth Brother and Seventh Sister. The character was often shown to make use of his species’ natural agility as well as explosives, highlighting his versatility in combat.
The Eighth Brother played a small but important role in Rebels’ season 2 finale, having been dispatched to Malachor to track down Darth Maul. Upon discovering the Jedi duo of the Ghost crew, however, the Eighth Brother summoned the Fifth Brother and Seventh Sister for assistance. Like the others, the Eighth Brother died on Malachor, with his defeat mirroring that of the Grand Inquisitor. Kanan, no longer afraid of the Inquisitors, damages his opponent's lightsaber, resulting in the Eighth Brother falling to his death.
7 The Sixth Brother
This Inquisitor first appeared in the 2016 novel Ahsoka and was later expanded on in the aforementioned comic series, “Star Wars: Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith”. The Sixth Brother, once known as Bil Valen, is notable for being an overconfident bully who brutalizes the weak and defenseless yet stands no chance against powerful opponents such as Ahsoka Tano. An unarmed Ahsoka was able to kill the Sixth Brother by using the Force to sabotage his lightsaber, detonating it and resulting in the Inquisitor’s demise.
The Sixth Brother’s lightsaber crystals were then purified by Tano, turning them from red to white, before being used in her lightsabers seen in Star Wars Rebels,The Mandalorian, and the trailer for Ahsoka. The Sixth Brother was also shown to be a coward with no sense of camaraderie for his fellow Inquisitors. When surrounded by mind-controlled, traitorous purge troopers, he cuts off the Ninth Sister’s leg to allow himself to escape. Unsurprisingly, he was not well-liked by the rest of the Inquisitors or even Darth Vader himself.
6 The Tenth Brother
The Miraluka Prosset Dibs made his first appearance not as a Star Wars Inquisitor, but initially as a Clone Wars-era Jedi in the “Star Wars: Jedi of the Republic – Mace Windu” comics, written by Matt Owens. It was during the Clone Wars that Dibs lost his faith in the Republic and the Jedi Order for their role in turning the Jedi, who were meant to be peacekeepers, into soldiers. Prosset’s disenchantment was not unlike that of Barriss Offee and the Grand Inquisitor. His fall from grace was cemented, and the groundwork for his seduction by the dark side laid, when he tried (unsuccessfully) to kill Jedi Master Mace Windu.
The lesser-known Inquisitor Prosset Dibs appears once more in the “Star Wars: Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith” comics, now as an Inquisitor known as the Tenth Brother. Despite his objection to the Jedi acting as warriors, he has since completely abandoned his values and embraced the dark side. Accompanying Darth Vader and other Inquisitors to hunt his former comrades, the former Jedi now acts as a soldier of the Empire, proving how the dark side can allow Force users to covet power over personal moral codes.
In one final irony, the Tenth Brother is killed when his squad of purge troopers is mind-controlled by a former Padawan to execute Order 66 on their Inquisitor leaders. In this way, the Tenth Brother ironically died as so many Jedi did at the end of the Clone Wars. This squad of Purge Troopers was made up of the final batches of would-be Republic clone troopers, cementing the irony of an Inquisitor falling to an altered version of the Jedi Purge.
5 Second Sister
A tragic villain, the Second Sister is the main antagonist of the 2019 video game Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. Previously the Padawan Trilla Suduri, she and her master Cere Junda survived Order 66 and hid from the Empire for a time. Junda was eventually captured by the Imperials and subjected to torturous interrogations, finally succumbing and giving away Trilla’s location. Feeling betrayed by her master and subjected to the same torture, Trilla fell to the dark side, becoming one of the cruelest and most formidable Inquisitors.
Out of all the Inquisitors in Star Wars, the Second Sister would perhaps have been the one best suited to becoming the second Grand Inquisitor, had the narrative timeline aligned for this event. The Second Sister was as tactful as she was powerful, nearly killing the Jedi Cal Kestis multiple times. Kestis ultimately defeated her at the Inquisitor fortress on Nur, however, and the Second Sister came agonizingly close to forgiving her master before Darth Vader himself intervened and killed her for her sentiment and failure as an Inquisitor.
4 The Ninth Sister
A secondary enemy Inquisitor in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, the Ninth Sister has tragic origins, not unlike those of the Second Sister. In “Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith”, she reveals that, despite her natural Dowutin strength, her real power came from her aptitude for accurately reading people. This was a fitting specialty for her during her days as the Jedi Masana Tide, but like Trilla Suduri, she was tortured by the Empire to a breaking point, falling to the dark side and using her empathic powers for evil.
Moreover, the torture that turned Masana into the Ninth Sister left her with a frightening callousness to pain and even dismemberment. The Ninth Sister lost an eye to Darth Vader during a training session and a leg to the Sixth Brother in a cowardly moment of betrayal. Given her proven resistance to pain and injury, it was revealed in the sequel to Jedi: Fallen Order - Star Wars: Jedi Survivor - that the Ninth Sister survived her duel with Cal Kestis on Kashyyyk, only to be killed by her Jedi rival at the beginning of the sequel in a duel on Coruscant.
3 Unknown Male Twi’lek Inquisitor
This unnamed Twi’lek Inquisitor had only a brief appearance in the "Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith" comic series. Despite this, he displayed a soft side that was decidedly un-Imperial, but notable all the same. He dutifully participated in the mission resulting in former Jedi Master Eeth Koth being murdered by Darth Vader, as well as his infant daughter being kidnapped. Despite this, the Inquisitor openly showed affection, possibly romantic interest, in a fellow Inquisitor. This ultimately led to his execution by Darth Vader, who disapproved of the mutual affection between Star Wars' inquisitors, an act possibly motivated by jealousy, given Vader’s own origins.
2 Iskat Akaris
The previously unnamed Star Wars Inquisitor, who felt mutual affection for the unnamed Twi’lek, is revealed as Iskat Akaris, a former Jedi who will be the focus of the upcoming adult novel written by Delilah S. Dawson, “Star Wars: Inquisitor - Rise of the Red Blade”. During her short appearance in the Star Wars comic “Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith” Akaris made her motivation abundantly clear. Having been part of the same mission as her unnamed Twi’lek cohort, this Inquisitor cruelly toyed with Eeth Koth’s wife, Mira, during the kidnapping of her daughter.
Later, after fleeing from Darth Vader over her attachment to the Twi’lek, Akaris made the lofty proposition of killing Vader because she wanted, more than anything, for her and the Twi’lek Inquisitor to be free. Unsurprisingly, the plan failed, and both were killed by the powerful Sith Lord, which will undoubtedly be made more tragic by exploring her former Jedi ways in the “Rise of the Red Blade” novel, set to be released in July 2023.
1 Tualon - Tales Of The Jedi's Inquisitor
Tales Of The Jedi is an anthology series that was released on Disney+ in 2022, consisting of two three-episode arcs, with the second concerning Ahsoka Tano's struggle against a mysterious Inquisitor. This masked dark sider is confirmed as Tualon, a former Jedi that will also be explored in the “Rise of the Red Blade” novel. In Tales of the Jedi, Tualon - now an evil Imperial Inquisitor - destroyed an entire farming village simply because Ahsoka Tano was spotted near there. He then confronted Ahsoka, only for her to kill him with his own double-bladed spinning lightsaber.
Like Iskat Akaris, Tualon’s history with the Jedi Order will be explored in the upcoming Star Wars novel “Rise of the Red Blade”. This will undoubtedly go to inform why Tualon left the Jedi Order and became an Inquisitor. As a result, more context will be revealed concerning Ashoka’s fateful duel with Tualon in Tales of the Jedi.