Asajj Ventress | What Happened

Time to abandon ship! Oh no! Here we go! Can I persuade you to join us for a drink? It's a tradition. Here, here. Jar Jar, homie, my main man, quickly! Before the separatists attack, get into the escape pod! Hey! This is escape! Then where's the pod? This is escape pod!

It's another episode of What Happened right here on Star Wars Escape Pod and today we are diving into the story of Asajj Ventress, a character that we have had show up in so many points in the Star Wars lore, so many Star Wars stories have now featured this character, and it's been... really exciting to just look into where this character has been.

Today, myself and Blake will go through in chronological order the story of Asajj Ventress and talk about her history, where she's come from, what that character has been up to in the Legends universe, maybe a little bit there, but mostly we're focusing on the canon story today. So, let's dive in to Asajj Ventress. Let's go. Another happy landing. Master Kenobi! Always chasing after Skywalker. How predictable. Anakin leaves quite a mess, which always leads me to you, Ventress.

Take him. Star Wars Escape Pod has just been intercepted by the Separatist Alliance. If you are tuning in right now, don't go anywhere. Leave a review and make it a good one. All right, welcome back. Hello, yes, good to be back. What an episode we have today. I mean, by the time this one drops, we will have seen the entire Acolyte series.

So, you know, by the editing of, or by the magic of pre-scheduled release dates, we will have seen everything, and we will be hopefully pleasantly surprised with the way that show turned out. But today we're talking about Asajj Ventress. That's right. So, this is a character that's, you know, and just a small bit of history to anyone who has tuned in to Star Wars Escape Pod before.

Normally we do talk about the what happenings, you know, the happenings, you know, like what's current, new Star Wars shows, new Star Wars shows on Disney+, all that kind of stuff. Occasionally we do a sub-series, and for this sub-series, which is called What Happened?, we usually just focus in on a character who definitely deserves the respect, you know, a character that's got the story, the history, and we've done a few of them so far.

We've done Mon Mothma, we've done Saw Gerrera, we've done Obi-Wan Kenobi, the Inquisitorious, Cad Bane, done the Darksaber, what happened to the Darksaber, Tar Vizsla, Boba Fett, Quinlan Vos, there's been a number that we've done, and they've all been really, really cool to do. Echo, we did one for Echo, right, before the Bad Batch even came out. Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah, so, like, it's been neat. We did one for Ahsoka Tano, that was a big one, Darth Maul, Bo-Katan.

We've done a lot of these.

We've done a surprising fair few, yeah, and they're all very spaced apart, of course, and to anyone who wants to go back and listen to those, you can find a playlist that I've made on Spotify, if you're not on Spotify, you can always use our podcast archives to just kind of look back and see where, when those episodes were published, and the links to that is in the link tree, which, the link tree's in our description down below, if you just scroll down on your podcast app,

I'm sure there's a hyperlink there to get to the link tree, and, you know, at the very least, you can always visit our brand new website. Did you know we have a website, Blake? I did not. We do, and it is SW Escape Podcast, dot wixsite dot com. Wixsite? Yeah. We are a subdomain for free, because this podcast makes no money. Woo! Oh, yeah. Here for your free enjoyment. I'm not finished with the URL. Slash star dash wars dash escape dash pod.

So, at least it's very simple and memorable, and no one will ever get any typos. Exactly. Exactly. That's the plan all along. I believe we have one visitor every week, and I think it's me editing it. I can't imagine why. So, I have a link. The important thing is I have a link in the description below. So, if any of you guys do want to visit the website, you know, give it a click. Sounds like a URL someone made when they were, like, ten, making a website in school.

Subdomains, man, is a real thing. There's a tab on the website called Podcast Archives. You can click that. It takes you to a page with the built-in spreadsheet where you can just view absolutely everything, all the episodes that we've ever done. We're hitting, like, 330 now or something like that. Oh, nice. It's pretty crazy, yeah. Like, right now we've got over 300 episodes to date and so much more.

So, over ten sub-series, and I'm sure by the time this one drops, maybe that'll be 11 with the acolytes. So, sweet. Yeah, super awesome stuff. So, today we're going into the Asajj Venturist. That's our highlight character for today. And again, we don't do these all the time, so it's pretty cool to take a look closer at a character like this.

And I think a big part of this series is also, as Disney has been expanding and expanding, and even George did to some degree as well beforehand around the prequel era, a lot of character storylines get pretty spread out across a lot of different media. Yeah. So, kind of the objective here is also to kind of consolidate their storylines into, like, one cohesive piece. Yeah, totally. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

So, those of you who have tuned into any of our What Happens Before You kind of know the drill. We go through all these events in chronological order through all the forms of media that these characters have shown up in. First, we're going to focus in on a lot of the canon stuff, and then we can touch up on some of the EU stories. I was going to start with the opposite. Okay, well, we can. Because that was the character's debut, right? I guess we can, yeah. Even if it's just Tarkovsky.

He's very short. A very simple way to put it is, yeah, this character was, like, created for the Clone Wars multimedia project. So, this was back when Attack of the Clones had, like, recently was coming out, slash came out. It just came out, and the Clone Wars, at least the micro series, was set to take place exactly between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. Yeah, yeah. So, they kind of aired one, because there's a, roughly, a three-year gap.

So, I think the one ran for the first year. It was mostly, they were very short clips. So, it didn't even have a full, you know, 30-minute show. It was just, I was on Cartoon Network and Teletoon, I think. It was, like, five minutes a piece kind of thing. Yeah, and they ran during ad times. So, in between other shows. It's kind of like a, because I think Spongebob's a bunch of, there's a few shows that started like this. And then the second season was full 22-minute runtime episodes.

Interesting, yeah. So, yeah, this character, I guess, I don't know if she originated for that show, if she originated in one of the games. I know Star Wars Bounty Hunter was another Clone Wars-esque game that came out around the same time. There was a few other things, which sort of came out around that time period. This character showed up in a few books back in the day. The Scholastic Boba Foot, Boba Fett. Boba Feet. Boba Feet book series. She showed up in a few stories.

I think, I guess, Labyrinth of Evil, maybe. Maybe a few others. I haven't read a whole lot of, like, Legends material with Asajj Ventress, so to speak. So, I can't really speak to a lot of that. But I think a lot of us have seen the Genndy Tartavosky 2D micro series. And in that story, she's basically a Sith assassin for Dooku. She goes to kill Anakin Skywalker because Palpatine wants him dead, because he's the prophesied chosen one. In short, she fails. She falls off a cliff.

She supposedly dies. End of story. And for some reason, I've always believed it to be true, and I feel like fans always believe it to be true, but then I couldn't actually track it down to be true. That was the theory that Anakin's scar was from Asajj Ventress. Yeah. So, in a lot of the encyclopedias and resource books, it'll point to his scar and make a comment that it was Ventress who did give him that scar.

Now, the ironic part about that, because it is a piece of lore that that is where he gets it, the ironic part about that is that there is nowhere on screen or in any book that we have yet to have witnessed that moment as a consumer of the story, right? That's right. So, that's the ironic part about that piece of lore, which I thought was always kind of weird that the Clone Wars series had the opportunity with all the time. Well, they started it. He already had it. And they never did it.

Yeah, they started the show and he already had it. And as we'll probably get into, they already knew each other. Right, yeah. And so, many years later after the Clone Wars, because the Clone Wars, now we're getting into canon territory here, the Clone Wars 3D series came out in 2008. This was a couple of years after Revenge of the Sith released in 2005, and even more years after Attack of the Clones released in 2002. So, this character had already been around for quite some time.

She was already established, I guess, in the Star Wars lore. And, you know, there was action figures with her and stuff like that. People were aware of her existence. Yeah, people knew about her. She wasn't like as well known to the sort of the non-Star Wars fans. And on top of that, to make it extra confusing, they released with the movie, which is in several episodes into the season. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, when you're introduced to these characters in 3D, it's later in the show, so you could argue that they met earlier in the season, but I don't think they actually show up. I don't think she shows up. Before that. That's right, yeah. So, well, she does once. So, there's one episode that takes place before the theatrical release. And anyone being like, what the heck is going on?

The Clone Wars series basically comes out in release order, and then later they establish an actual chronological order of how to watch the show. And it's super jumbled up, but it makes way more sense. And there's a list that you can find on StarWars.com for that. But there's one episode that she shows up in, which is a prequel to the theatrical release that came out and launched the show.

And then prior to that, now only last year or two years ago, there was a novel that came out by Mike Shen called Brotherhood. And that's her first canon appearance, I guess, in the continuity of things, if you put that aside from the Duke or Jedi Lost audiobook, which I think probably takes place around the same time, or maybe just before that. So, we're going to put that before because she doesn't really encounter anybody in that audiobook. But yeah, it's cool.

So, we'll start with the very beginning. At some point in the Clone Wars, there's a flashback to Ventress's childhood. And this is in the episode called Night Sisters. It's when she undergoes a bit of a ritualistic baptism, if you will, about her becoming one of the Night Sisters. So, from the very beginning. Asajj Ventress, she's introduced as the ruthless assassin working for Count Tooga, obviously, from what we know in the show. But as a child, she was a young kid who was taken by pirates.

Pirates who came to her home, I guess, and took her away from her family. And she was originally, as Mother Talzin puts it, one of them. So, she is of their kin, right? And a Jedi comes in out of nowhere and saves her from these pirates and takes her in as his own apprentice. And this guy is called Kai Narek. And Kai Narek teaches her the ways of the Force. She becomes a bit of a Jedi apprentice.

I don't really know the details, and I don't think anyone does, on why Kai Narek taught her for actually that amount of time. She really did become a Jedi Padawan after all these years. She went from being like a toddler to a teenager. So, he didn't take her to the temple. No. He just took her straight on as a Padawan. Yeah. And it's weird because I don't really know what he was up to. Yeah, was it under the table? I think so. Did she show up at the temple at any point?

Are other masters even aware? It's tough to say. I don't think that's... That's never showed up as a part of her story just yet. But I assume she must have gone there at least a few times. Do you think then there'd be some record of her at the temple? You would think. You would think. And that's the confusing bit in her entire history so far. But if we were to assume that she never went to the temple, it means that Kai Narek was very much a Qui-Gon Jinn-style Jedi, right?

Like, he was away from the Order. He was away from the Jedi Temple a lot of the time out on a quest. You know, maybe... Jedi Sentinel. Yeah, he was a... What do you call those? Like a Wayseeker kind of... Wayfinder? Yeah, whatever those devices are called. I think there was a word for a Jedi who kind of does that. I think you're right. I think it's Wayseeker. Yeah, Wayseeker. Yeah, I think that was a term that came up in the High Republic book.

So I think Kai Narek must be some sort of Wayseeker. So anyway, he trains her kind of on the outskirts, on the outer rim of the galaxy, and she becomes a Jedi apprentice. And then her master dies, gets killed, murdered, and she gets really angry, takes her two lightsabers, one her lightsaber and Kai's, and slaughters all the people who killed her master. So this is resembling to the moment that Anakin kills all the Tusken Raiders when they, you know, kill his mother.

And it's supposed to reflect her turning point to down a dark path, right? And we're just left to assume that things didn't go well for her. We're left to assume that she didn't continue on the Jedi path because the next piece of the flashback is she's bowing before Dooku, who takes her on as an apprentice of his own, which at this point, he's a Sith Lord. And we're meant to assume that this is probably between the events of episode one and two in the chronology of the timeline, right?

So that's how we start things. I would say I do like the Tarnikovsky version of this a little better. Yeah, the Tarnikovsky EU, so this is the non-canon stuff now, she's found by Dooku as a contestant in a battle arena where she's fighting all these monsters. Well, she already had an advantage above them, where I think technically it could pick up where the canon is, but instead of him just taking her on as an apprentice... That's true.

...he wants her to prove herself because before she enters the arena, she... sneaks stealthily up to Dooku who's overlooking the arena. Oh, she's the guide. She's the one that brings him to the booth, the overlooking booth, right? Yeah. And he's like... She's like the host. Yeah. Nah, I think he's already there. And then she sneaks up and then he says, your skills of stealth are impressive, but the necessity is more than just stealth, whatever. And then she jumps down and kills everybody.

Yeah. Yeah, that's right, yeah. That was a cool scene. I love that scene. That was very cool. Yeah. I just love that whole miniseries, man. Like, it still could've had happened, right? That's the thing. Like, that whole story. So, like, even though that's EU stuff, like, Legends stuff, like, technically, the flashbacks didn't confirm that that didn't happen, so it technically still could've, right? Fingers crossed. It exists in my head canon, that's for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

It could exist slightly differently, but, I mean, like, yeah, it works still to believe that that could've happened still. So that's the history, that's the flashbacks, and then in canon, that's kind of her childhood, growing up, tragedy struck, all that stuff. The next time we see her is in the audiobook called Dooku Jedi Lost. Now, I'm just gonna read the plot summary for Dooku Jedi Lost, because it's an audiobook, it's an audio adventure. Did you listen to this? You listened to this, right?

I believe I did, yes. Yeah, so, Dooku Jedi Lost is a Star Wars audiobook that delves into the backstory of Count Dooku, once a revered Jedi master who eventually falls to the dark side and became a Sith Lord. The story unfolds through a series of flashbacks as Dooku recounts his life to Asajj Ventress, his dark side, his dark side apprentice, through the events of her looking through these old holo files and diary entries and stuff like that. Ventress is on a mission somewhere.

She basically goes through all this content to discover Dooku's past. And so, through Ventress's eyes, you know, we get a picture into, you know, a window into Dooku's past as well. But it's just worth mentioning that she did show up in this story. She's a notable part of the story because it's through her eyes that we've witnessed this story happen.

And there's really not a whole lot of thought about her as a character, but it's worth bringing up because it's technically the next section of her story in the Star Wars canon so far. The next time after we see her is in the novel Brotherhood. So, the Brotherhood opening crawl is, I'll just read it out. The Clone Wars have erupted.

Caught off guard by the quickly expanding conflict, the overwhelmed Jedi Order has rushed to the advancement of Padawans to better integrate into the Grand Army of the Republic and assist the war effort. Newly promoted Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker is increasingly torn between his growing duties to the Republic and his secret marriage to Senator Padme Amidala of Naboo. With his knighting, his mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi has been elevated to the Jedi Council under the rank of Jedi Master.

As dark forces push the Jedi further toward their transformation from guardians to soldiers, Anakin and Obi-Wan find themselves on equal footing yet opposing paths, each pondering the meaning of peace and justice during a wartime. Now, Ventress's story in this book, which began and was released in 2022 on May 10th, is a Del Rey novel. It's part of the staple canon pillars that are being published out by the Del Rey books, like the adult, you know, flagship books.

You really enjoyed this book too, right? Like, we all really kind of enjoyed it. What did you like most about it? As we said at the beginning of the podcast, just before we started, I remember really liking this book. I remember liking a lot of these books, including Dark Disciple, because it just melted into my brain in like one blob. Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. Yeah. So, I remember the Hanging City and it collapsed and then on Ketidomodia and then Obi-Wan Anakin had to go and investigate.

And I think, I guess, as I'm refreshing it in my head, as I'm thinking through it, I really liked that it showed more depth to Ketidomodians as opposed to just the Trade Federation and giving them a lot more depth as the Trade Federation as we know them. They're not all have that same perspective. Right. Within the continuity of the story, this book does have a really nice place in the overall chronological order, right?

Because, if you kick things off with The Phantom Menace, that movie is very centered around Neimoidians and their Trade Federation franchise. And arguably understanding of any Ketidomodians for the 10 years of our understanding of them had to do with the Trade Federation. Yeah. And so, after watching that movie and then going into Attack of the Clones where it kind of, it's 10 years later so it's a bit of time but Newt Gunray and his people are still very Extremists as I think Extremists.

The Senator, the Ketidomodians Yeah. They're still very stubborn about the fact that they want to kill Padme Amidala, right? Right. So, it's kind of a well-placed book because in that sense it really does, like you say, it's that whole Senate hearing. The whole species, right? Well, it's the Senate hearing specifically because before that you were always just left thinking, oh, they're just lying to cover themselves. Yeah. And like, they're just manipulating politics. Right.

We only see it from one angle in most of the stories so far. This book really painted them as an actual civilization of people that there's just this offshoot of the Trade Federation which is their shady business. And so, it was a neat book to read because you really do dive into the Cato-Nomodian people, the Nomodians. And Obi-Wan and Anakin are sent there to investigate, like you say, this explosion on the planet which devastates a large portion of the city.

And they uncover a plot which has been orchestrated by what's revealed to be Asajj Ventress. But at this point in time because it's so early on in the events of the Clone Wars, Anakin and Obi-Wan have never formally been introduced to Asajj Ventress so far, right? So, it was really cool to read about these encounters that they have with this character. And there's an excerpt on StarWars.com. We've read the book but I found a small section here.

So, it says, Ventress settled back into her chair, legs crossed and arms folded. Light from outside reflected in the shuttle's cramped quarters and Obi-Wan caught a glint of a metallic reflection by her hip before she adjusted her cloak. Certainly, if you can win me over, she says. It's kind of one of the first times that Obi-Wan comes face to face with the Ventress. Like, they're having a political meeting and she's there as a representative, right, of, you know, fill in the blank.

And Obi-Wan is there on behalf of the Republic. And so, it was very interesting to see kind of how that worked out. And at this point in time, he has no idea that she is a Sith assassin. Right. Is she there just for the Separatists at this point? I think so. And I really enjoyed it. So, that was basically in a nutshell that book. I think by the end they do have a small duel if I remember correctly. I think so, yeah. In the finale.

Yeah. So, Ventress is revealed to Anakin and Obi-Wan as an assassin. She's got these red light sabers. They're like, what? And, yeah. And Mike Shen, the author, does have a bit of a love for the original book from the Legends continuity. So, he's made sure that his book does its best to try and accommodate fans that still really like the continuity of those stories. You. Yeah. And Bryce. All two of us. Yeah, yeah. So, it was good stuff.

But anyway, that is in a nutshell all the quick things that happen kind of before the main substance of the character, which is the Clone Wars. She makes her debut in the 2008 animated film Star Wars The Clone Wars. However, her first chronological appearance in the official Star Wars canon is actually season one, episode 16 in an episode titled The Hidden Enemy. This episode chronologically takes place before the events of the film.

As the series progresses, Ventress evolves into a formidable antagonist, growing in power and influence within the dark side of the force. She emerges as a key figure and a formidable adversary with Obi-Wan and Anakin and Ahsoka multiple times. And episodes early in the series include Cloak of Darkness, which is the prequel episode to the theatrical release. Sorry, that's The Hidden Enemy. Then, Cloak of Darkness. Ventress stages the army for battle on Christophsis.

We have her appearance in the Star Wars The Clone Wars film where she is on the hunt for Rata the Hutlet and loses the battle on Christophsis and later fights in the episode Ambush. Ventress is sent to make an alliance with the Tordarians and Yoda foils her plans. Then she shows up as a hologram in the episode called Rookies and she is speaking to the droids who are about to attack the Rishi Moon outpost.

And finally, to cap off this story arc, she shows up in the episode called Ark Troopers in Season 3. Ventress leads the battle on Kamino to Polka City, home of the clones, Kuja, later on hides in some third silver of the old capital of the Riin and she is something to lure in, as she comes during her run at King Before she was disowned by Dooku. Right, right. Which is funny because that's the point where, in my opinion, her character story becomes far more interesting. Exactly, yeah.

And it certainly does because she's no longer this failure of a Sith apprentice. In our eyes, I don't think, she's always been a cool character, but she was never a character that successfully delivered a promising storyline other than just that villain of the week. Yeah, and she was constantly foiled, right? Because she was fighting Obi-Wan Anakin, who would always steal the show. Right, exactly, yeah.

And she's always been a cool character, but like I said, she never really grabbed our attention as a character that was worthwhile to keep around. Yeah, she needed to fight other characters more her level, like young Boba Fett. Yeah, and at this point in time, I've got to be honest, I, like you, had the DVDs for the 2D Clone Wars series and very much attached to that story, which filled in the whole gap between those two movies so far.

And I was still waiting for this 3D animated series at the time to really get to that level of completion, right? I was hoping that that show, at least by season three, would get there, right? I thought, like, how long could this show go on for? At least to the end of the first season of the micro-series, you mean. Exactly, yeah. At least to the point where Anakin kills Ventress, because I always thought, in my head, I thought, okay, when is Anakin going to kill Ventress?

I just kept thinking this over and over again as the show went on. I think the questions were, when is Ventress? Yeah. When is Ventress going to be killed? And when is Ahsoka going to die? Right. That's what everyone was always wondering, because they both don't exist by the time we get to Revenge of the Sith. Exactly, exactly. And I think it's been surprising that we've now, obviously, way past the point of that being a thing, right? We're almost 20 years and Ahsoka's still not dead. Right.

Well, we're almost 20 years and Ahsoka's still alive in the canon. That's what I mean. I mean, I guess we found out now that Zodge is still alive, but we'll get there, we'll get there. That's later on. We'll get there later on in the story. It's unbelievable, but yeah. So, yeah, I mean, but this character has definitely got a lot more to her. And then these next episodes came around and I thought to myself, well, now I just don't want the character to die.

Now I really want to know more about her. Yeah, her arc got really good. Yeah. So, later in the war, we get the Nightsisters arc, which the episodes include Nightsisters, Monster, Witches of the Mist, and Massacre. This arc is remembered to be the turning point for Ventress taking a departure from where the Clone Wars took the character, off a cliff, and Dooku is instructed by Palpatine to kill her, seeing as she has become too powerful in his eyes.

Dooku obeys and betrays Ventress, sending her into the arms of her kin, where she is baptized as a Nightsister. She brings on Savage Opress as her own apprentice to train and use as a weapon to kill Dooku. In a scheme with Mother Talzin to help assassinate Dooku, he comes to believe that the Nightsisters have found him a new apprentice to replace Ventress. Not aware. Not aware of the plan in place.

And I'll add in here, he is taking on this apprentice knowing that Palpatine once had a Dathomirian by the name of Maul and had a lot of respect for the abilities that he possessed at the time of his apprenticeship as well. Time goes by, Dooku is trained Savage Opress, and Ventress shows up at his door out of the blue. So, like, this whole arc kind of, it's, they kind of make it seem as if it's been stretched over a period of a few months, maybe.

So, like, they kind of give you the idea, that Savage Opress has spent, like, a good amount of time with Dooku becoming an apprentice and, like, gaining his trust and learning the ways of the Force. Because when he starts off, he's... He even does a mission or two for Dooku. He does. Yeah, he kills a few Jedi on the way, yeah. Poor Jedi. Yeah. So, Ventress shows up at his door and using Savage's loyalties to her as a helping hand in a duel, which goes terribly wrong.

So, she shows up expecting to use Savage, be like, hey, this is actually my apprentice. Apprentice. Apprentice. Apprentice. Apprentice or guy or whatever. And, you know, Dooku, you're a dead man. And aren't there also several other Nightsisters? Or is that a separate attempt? That was a separate attempt. Oh, okay. Yeah. But, yeah, that is worth throwing in there. Yeah, she does attempt to kill Dooku on her own, and it doesn't go so well. So, it's more of these... Yeah. Oh, okay.

Yeah, so that's actually... Sorry, I left that out. But, yeah, it's an interesting plot line because, of course, like, her first assassination attempt doesn't go very well. And then her second assassination attempt with... with Savage the Oppressed also doesn't go very well because, you know, she... he realizes in the heat of the battle, oh, this is... this is about her wanting to kill him, and she doesn't care what happens to me.

So, he gets super angry and starts going at them both, and it becomes like a three-way duel. And it's one of... one of the more cool lightsaber duels of the whole Clone Wars series because it's like three villains all fighting each other. Oh, that means Savage is such a small character, but he's in two of the coolest... two of the coolest duels in the whole series. Definitely, yeah. So, uh, so Dooku is, like, trying to defend his... his honor and defend his life, right?

Ventress is trying to kill Dooku, and then Savage the Oppressed is trying to kill Dooku and Ventress because he's super angry at Ventress, and he's also super angry at Dooku because in this entire battle, Dooku just kind of uses Force Lightning to constantly push him back, and he hasn't taught him yet how to defend himself against that. So, so, yeah, so it becomes like a three-way thing, right? Anyways, um, it goes terribly wrong.

Dooku survives the attack, Savage goes rogue, and Ventress just slips away. In retaliation, Dooku sends Grievous to wipe out the Nightsisters, and she loses her entire family and most of her kin on Dathomir. And this is a story arc that recently we saw again from a different perspective in Tales of the Empire. So that was really cool to see as well. Very cool. Yeah. In the next story... Oh, actually, do you want to... do you want to talk a little bit about anything from this story arc?

Like, what did you like most about this story arc? On the... you mean on Dathomir? Yeah, just this whole Nightsisters story arc. Like, like, I remember it to be one of the best story arcs of the Clone Wars. It was very cool. And I know also just artistically it was really well done. This was also the first time that we had the Nightsisters show up so prominently, you know, in, in ever. We threw out this whole arc with, with Ventress. Yeah. Because she went back to her former kin, right?

She was, she was born there. Well, prior to this story arc, I don't even think we had the Nightsisters show up. Like, this was, like, the first time that they... I don't think so. ...kind of made an appearance in Dathomir. Yeah. Other than the EU. It really became a thing. Yeah, other than the EU stuff.

But, but this was really the first time that that depiction of Mother Talzin, which was originally a concept for Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace, was brought to life in the form of Mother Talzin. And I thought that was really cool that they just literally used a concept that... I don't know if it was Doug Chang's concept or somebody else, but, but that was really cool to see.

And, and there was, there was a lot about these episodes that, that really brought a lot of production value to the show. Oh, yeah. Because that's when we first started seeing a lot of the... Yeah, the, the Nightsister magic and everything, too. Totally. They enhance. Yeah. Sauvage. Yeah, they give them the magics and make them all beefy. Yeah, because originally it was just this scrawny, starving Dathomir, Dathomiran guy.

Yeah. And then they, yeah, they use the magic to make them all super ripped. Yeah. Could use some of that myself. Oh, totally. Yeah. So for those of you who are interested in learning a bit more about this story arc, we have a sub-series on the show called Clone Wars Talk, which... It's older episodes now, but still quite relevant if you're ever doing a Clone Wars watch-through.

They're some of the first episodes that we ever did on Star Wars Escape Pod, and you can tune into one that's all about this story arc. And I forget which episode it is, but just scroll all the way back to the beginning and you will find us in the podcast archives, like I mentioned. Link down below. All right. The next story arc includes the episodes called...

Oh, I guess I think we should really also, before we move on to the last part there, just to think from Asajj's perspective, she went back home to the Nightsister to, you know, find family and also find purpose and reinforcements to Kilduku. And all she really did was get her entire clan and possibly the whole race of the planet exterminated. Totally. Yeah. Like she... Yeah, it's definitely worth throwing that in there. Thank you.

Like at this point in time, she's lost Kynarik, her master, who she obviously cared about a lot and he was taken from her. Ends up in the arms of Dooku, who trains her. I mean, somewhat cares about her, I guess, because he really is, when Palpatine tells him to kill her, like he really is kind of hesitant to do so. And you can tell he has a small attachment to Ventress, right? That's his apprentice, right? Just like Qui-Gon. Exactly. So he...

But he obeys his master and sets the droids loose on her kind of thing. And loses that too. Loses that... Her master betrays her, right? So first she has a master who dies. Then she has a master who betrays her. And then she gets, you know... She finds her kin. She finds her kin, gets baptized, in their ways. And then her entire family and her kin are all murdered because of her. Because she went there, yeah. So like this character has now turned into a huge tragedy of a character, right?

Like there is... Like, I mean, man, like the weight that this character carries now at this point in the story is like beyond... It's immense. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So the next time we see her is actually later in the series in an episode of The Clone Wars called Bounty. Ventress teams up with Boba Fett and a crew on a mission to make some coin as her first time as a bounty hunter.

At the end of her mission, she sympathizes with a girl that has been taken from her family, which ends up being the mission of the mission that they go on. Like they have to bring her from point A to point B to this alien guy who's basically kidnapping her. And she decides to free her and she ends up... She ends up putting Boba in there instead. Yeah, it's the train episode. Yeah, it's the train episode. Yeah, the train heist. And anyway, she gets away with the money that she's earned.

And without backstabbing Boba too harshly, she still ensures that he gets his cut and the rest of the crew as well. And we see her kind of walk off with hopes of a more positive future. And it was sort of this really solid one-off episode. You know, like it didn't really tie into anything prior. It didn't really move into anything beyond that. Like it was just this one episode that kind of gave us a glimpse into what she did with her life after... Yeah, where she could be going.

Yeah, after the Nightsisters were gone. Did she start out at the beginning of this episode as already becoming a bounty hunter? Or they recruited her and that's how she kind of fell in? She kind of falls into it because it also happens to include Dengar as well, which is voiced by Simon Pegg. Is Boss good this one? Yeah. There is like an assassin droid character. And then there's like a feline female warrior who's got like pink skin. You know, she's got the horns on the sides of her face.

She has this big huge like green chain, whip thing, which looks like a snake. And it like, you know, she uses it like a whip. Anyway. I don't remember that much detail. I just remember there was a train. It's a solid episode. Maybe we should just watch it after this. It's a really good one. Yeah. Anyways. Okay. So we go from... She's now a bounty hunter. She's hoping for more, right? And then we go into the next story arc, which is very subtle appearances. The first episode is called Brothers.

We see Ventress in a cantina. She senses the returning darkness in the galaxy. Which happens to be the one that unites Maul and Savage Opress's brothers. This is an episode which literally is mostly about Savage Opress finding Maul as his brother. But at the very start of the episode, it like does a small montage of all these other characters kind of sensing something's wrong. And she's like, she shows up and she's just kind of, she's like, oh, like something's not right.

And she senses this from across the galaxy. So like it's sort of giving us as the viewers the idea that not only is she like a really powerful force user in the sense that she can actually sense that far, across the galaxy. It's kind of like Yoda, right? But she's able to recognize the fact that there is a threat that's growing out there that is quite dark indeed, right? And because she has a link to Savage Opress as a possible, like as an acolyte, essentially, right?

She feels somewhat responsible for this particular event, right? Which is I think why she senses, why she picks up on it. In the following episode called Revenge, Ventress confronts Savage Opress as a bounty hunter now because there was a bounty, out on Savage Opress. So she takes the job, goes out hunting, thinking she can take him on. She realizes and comes face to face with a very, very beat up and tortured Obi-Wan Kenobi, who has been taken prisoner by Maul and his brother Savage Opress.

So she jumps in there and frees him, gives her one of his lightsabers to help fight. And the two of them go back to back and fight Maul and Savage Opress together, who pose now a great threat to the galaxy. Kenobi is very grateful for her aid. And they leave on good terms. Do you remember this episode at all? It was the finale. It's coming back to me as you're going through it. Yeah, there was a village like Kenobi. Well, I'm kind of speaking from the Ventress point of view.

But of course, in the episode, we see it from Kenobi's point of view, who is, he's at the Jedi temple. There's a bunch of villagers that get captured and Maul like executes every single one of them. Man, Maul always, he just does one thing. He just wants Obi-Wan. He just can't ever quite close the deal. Right. So close. Just can't quite do it. Yeah. So the day he dies. So, yeah. So it's a pretty good story arc. But yeah, Ventress does have a small part to play.

She fights Ventress or she fights Maul. She fights Savage Opress. And well, while Kenobi's fighting Maul, she's fighting Savage Opress. And, you know, they kind of get away. They managed to get away. But that's how that worked out. The next time we see her is in season five. In two episodes, which is the finale to the show at the time. Because, of course, season five was the original. Well, it wasn't the original ending, but it was canceled once Disney bought Lucasfilm, right? Big event.

So the last two episodes that we saw her in for the time, at least, was To Catch a Jedi. And the next one was The Wrong Jedi. You recognize the titles or should I? It sounds like they captured the wrong Jedi. So this story arc featured Ventress helping Ahsoka when she goes into hiding after Ahsoka is framed for the bombing at the Jedi temple. Yeah, okay. They find a strange mutual understanding with one another.

And later, Ventress is attacked by Barriss Offee, who takes her lightsabers and assumes her mask as well to make it look like Ventress is the one behind everything. That's right. Yeah, I do remember this. Anakin later confronts the unarmed Ventress only to realize that she might not be behind the attack after all.

Ventress's lightsabers are no longer seen again after this episode because Barriss is the one who took them, fights Anakin at the Jedi temple, with them, and then later they're not seen again. So that was the last time that we see Ventress's lightsabers. It's also the last time that we see Ventress in this sort of bounty hunter costume, specifically with like the helmet and everything. With the helmet, yeah. Yeah, because later... She's in Bad Batch. She shows up in the same armor. She shows...

Yeah, so like in Bad Batch slash Dark Disciple, like she shows up and she's got like this new kind of haircut going on. Yeah. It's on the cover of Dark Disciple as well. But anyway, this is the last time that we see her in this kind of like mask thing with the two red lightsabers. It was pretty cool. It's a cool look. It was a good look. Yeah, I liked it a lot. Yeah, yeah. The evolution of the character. At this time, at this point in the story though, like it's kind of interesting.

Come full circle, right? Because she's gone as a... Started off as a Jedi, went through the Sith Apprentice stuff, went through the bounty hunter stuff. She's come right around. And now she's got like... She's fighting Anakin with like a steel pipe. And like... Right. I think one of the lines she has in the episode is, Leave me alone. And she's... It's like wife swinging around. At this point, she's just trying to live her life. Yeah. Because it's such a tragedy.

At this point, she's been knocked out by Barriss, right? Oh, man. And her stuff has all been taken. I'm impressed that Barriss was even able to pull that off. Yeah. Well, she says that to Anakin. She says... Because while Anakin is questioning her about this whole Ahsoka stuff, she says, like not just anyone, she says, somebody got my stuff and like got my lightsabers. Whoever you're looking for has my lightsabers, she says. And she says, Not just anyone, anyone can sneak up on me, right?

So she says, Only a Jedi could have done that. And, you know, as we know, it's Barriss, right? Yeah. But I thought it was kind of funny that, you know, when I saw her for that brief moment where she's like swinging around the steel pipe, like a cornered animal, you know, just like desperately like trying to get away from Anakin, the Chosen One. It really puts it all into perspective because, you know, you look back at season one or two or three where Anakin is fighting Ventress and like...

She's so aggressive. Like they're pretty evenly matched, right? And at this point in time, like Anakin has just become so powerful. And Ventress has kind of been taken down to this level of like just a rat in the sewer kind of thing, right? Like we find her literally in the lower levels of Coruscant. Just surviving. Just surviving. Like, you know, she's not doing well, right? Like this is a broken character who has not found her place in the galaxy, right? She's trying to.

And she's just like, she's barely getting there. And she's getting by on bounty hunting when she can. And making coin. Where she can. But like that's about it, right? Yeah. So the next time we see her is in the novel called Dark Disciple, which is one of my favorite Star Wars books of all time. All right.

Based on unproduced episodes of the animated series, The Clone Wars, it follows Asajj Ventress, the former Sith apprentice turned bounty hunter, who is recruited by the Jedi Order for a dangerous mission to assassinate Count Dooku, the leader of the Separatists and a powerful Sith Lord. To accomplish this, Ventress partners with Quinlan Vos, a maverick Jedi master known... ...for unconventional methods and flirtation with the dark side.

Together, they embark on a mission that tests their skills, loyalties, and emotions as they confront their inner demons and the seductive allure of the dark side. As they delve deeper into their mission, Ventress and Vos develop a complex relationship, balancing their growing feelings for each other with the demands of their dangerous task.

The novel explores themes of revenge, redemption, and the blurred lines between light and dark as the two warriors confront their pasts... ...and the difficult choices that will shape their destinies and the fate of the galaxy. The climax of the novel sees Ventress and Vos finally confronting Count Dooku, leading to a thrilling showdown where their skills and resolve are pushed to the limit.

In the end, the mission leaves a lasting impact on both Ventress and Vos, forcing them to confront the consequences of their actions and the true nature of their hearts. In this book, Ventress has acquired a yellow-bladed lightsaber on the black market sometime after Padawan Barriss Offee stole the lightsabers that Ventress had used before, that were given to her by Count Dooku.

She's viewed getting a new lightsaber as a way to distance herself from what had been her last physical link to her time as an apprentice, right? And Ventress used the weapon for the rest of her bounty hunting career, and the lightsaber was laid to rest with her on Dathomir after her apparent death on Christophsis. Because the finale of the Dark Disciple book ends where it all begins, on Christophsis. There's an asterisk on that now? There is an asterisk on that now.

Because, of course, as we know... We know she shows up in the Bad Batch, which takes place after the events of Episode 3. And we'll dive into that in just a moment. But I just want to ask you, like, what do you remember about Dark Disciple that made it such a great story? Again, heads up, this novel came out, like, what, four years ago? Oh, longer than that. It was longer than that. Yeah, yeah. We read it when it came out. So we've been doing the podcast for almost four years.

So this was years before that. Right. Okay. So I remember, well, Quinlan and Asajj, you know, they became a couple. Well, there's a lot of back and forth, kind of them bonding, kind of as you described. But I do recall something you did mention, which is that Quinlan actually, as a part of a mission to take down Dooku, actually became Dooku's apprentice for a while. Is that correct? Yeah. So this whole thing was, this whole story was really, and I love how it's like a...

Oh, right. Yeah, because he was supposed to be an assassin for the Jedi. And that's because a really big controversial thing was one of the things where the Jedi were losing their way. Yeah, that was a really controversial part of the book. The Jedi are just getting so desperate because the Separatists are actually, at this point in the time, in the war, they're kind of winning. Like, the Republic is losing at this point in the war. And they have to be more aggressive.

So they actually, and this is, I think, at Kenobi's request, because at this point in time, he's now fought back to back with Ventress in an alliance against Maul and Savage Opress, right? So he kind of gains, he's kind of gained her trust a little bit. So he's actually the one to reach out to her. And bring her in. And she stands before the council. And they basically, they talk to her about being part of this mission to assassinate Dooku. They know that she's got it out for him.

So they're looking for someone who can not only, is familiar with Dooku and the Separatist ways. And, you know, like slipping in and out of their security and whatever else, right? Like, she knows all that stuff. But she's got to be accompanied by a Jedi Master who can help her with the mission. Because it's their mission. Right? So Vos basically becomes a bit of a double agent.

And at this point in the story, it's worth noting Vos has only showed up like once before in one episode where we saw him and Kenobi fight like Cad Bane. And they were like going on some mission, like hunting down. Yeah. And he only used him because he had that special ability to read objects in their past. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So. What's the name of that again? Psychometry or something. Okay. Yeah. It's called that. It's like commentary. Yeah. It's something like that.

It's from the, also showed up in the Jedi, Jedi, Jedi Knight games. Right. Jedi Fallen Order. Yeah. Jedi Survivor. Right, right, right. Exactly. Yeah. So, you know, I really should read it for a third time. I've read this book twice and I should read it for a third time because I can't forget. I can't remember all the. I can't forget. I can't forget. It's too important. I can't forget the details of this book. I mean, it's part of part of the Clone Wars, but. It's a big deal. I remember.

I would. It's one of the arcs I really wished they had made into full animation. It would have been so cool. I do too. And, and this book, this book is, is mind you adapted from Clone Wars scripted art stories. Right. So that because Lucasfilm was bought by Disney and Disney canceled everything at the time, they, they literally had all these scripts written and some of the audio was recorded as well as a lot of the animation for these episodes was already, some of it was already done in proxy.

So some of it had already been. It had already been kind of blocked out. Right. And the episodes are listed as Lethal Alliance, The Mission, Conspirators, Dark Disciple, Saving Vos Part One, Saving Vos Part Two, Traitor, and the final episode was called The Path. So those eight episodes were originally part of season seven of the Clone Wars, possibly season seven, possibly season six. We only got half of season six. So it could have been part of that.

It could have been part of season seven, but I think it was part of season seven. And it was originally designed to be seven seasons? Originally it was supposed to be eight. Okay. Yeah. And that goes directly, no, it goes past Revenge of the Sith, right? Yeah. A little bit past. A little past. Yeah. Yeah. So, so it would have been eight seasons.

I mean, the, the, the final story arc on Mandalore, which we eventually did get in the, the now what is of season seven, that was always going to happen. That was always the finale. All eight seasons were written and fully, fully done. Like the scripts were done. They just needed to record all the audio and then produce the animation for the next following two years. Right. But that never ended up. That didn't. That didn't end up happening.

So sadly, you know, we don't have this in an animated format, but we do have this amazing book, which dives into the heads of Vos and Ventress. Right. And what I love so much about this book is it really mirrored these, these characters in such a fantastic way. Like Ventress comes from a very dark background and she is struggling to find the light. Right. Vos comes from a very light background and he is pushed into this mission, which forces him into this darker path.

Right. And I guess for both of these characters. It was like for most of the book, just trying to find this balance. But also Ventress is to Vos sort of an advisor in how to embrace the dark side, but not let it consume, consume him. Right. Because something about some of the advice that she gives Vos is you can't fight and kill Dooku without embracing the dark side. Like she says that to him. Right. And so, so part of her role in the story is to train Vos to do such a thing.

Do you think that Anakin had used the dark side? To kill Dooku? He did. Yeah, he did. It was. Asajj was right. Yeah. And you can see it. Asajj was right. And you can see it on his face. Like when he finally has that last string of hits that he does and takes out his arms and, you know, you know, like. I sense great fear in you Skywalker. You have hate. You have anger. But you don't use it. But you don't use it. But you don't use them. That's right. And that's the key.

And it's also what Palpatine says, I think. Right. Or Dooku. Or no, Vader. Who says it? Somebody says it. What's the line? What's the line? Shoot. What's the line? Only your hatred can destroy me. Or something or whatever he says. Yeah. I think that's Palpatine to Luke. Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. So anyways, it's it's a thing. Right. Like, like, it's like it's the the final test to someone who is a Jedi. Will you embrace the dark side to to kill the opponent that's at your neck?

Right. And anyway, Ventress Voss kind of succumbs to this and and sort of becomes a legit assassin of Dooku. And is consumed by the dark side. Ventress, a part of her big story in this book is she is one of the reasons that he is redeemed. And in therefore, he becomes the reason that she's redeemed because of this event. Right. Like the two of them have this sort of symbiotic redemption arc together. And I think that's what I like most about the book.

So, you know, anyone who's wanting to read a Star Wars book that doesn't know where to start, if you've seen any kind of amount of Clone Wars at all, like definitely look into this one. Because it's still to this day remains to be one of my favorite books from the from Star Wars continuity. It's also worth noting Katie Lucas wrote these episodes. George's daughter, George Lucas's daughter. The scripts that were then turned into the novel. That's right.

Yeah. Yeah. The novel is adapted by an author by the name of Christy Golden. And Christy Golden has also written a number of other Star Wars books. She did. She also did write a Star Trek book, a World of Warcraft book and an Assassin's Creed book and a Dungeons and Dragons book. So, yeah. So she's written a ton of stuff. But she was last. She's like the queen of the nerds. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. She wrote a number of the Fate of the Jedi books in the Star Wars Legends continuity.

She wrote the book Omen, Allies, Ascension and then finally now Dark Disciple. And she wrote the short story which precedes this book, which I don't want to leave this out. It's called Kindred Spirits. It's a short story about Ventress prior to just prior. To the events of the Dark Disciple novel. And it's it's a bit of like a prequel. There's really what's it about? Asajj Ventress and Lhasa Reim, a pirate captain, team up to recover a valuable item from Hondo Onaka's pirate base.

Ventress poses as Reim's Jedi captive while Reim infiltrates a supposed renegade of her own crew. They deceive Hondo's Lieutenant Gyro with Ventress using her force powers to maintain the ruse. While Gyro is distracted, Ventress escapes. And retrieves the valuable item. Reim further manipulates Gyro into sending his forces away, leaving the base vulnerable. Ventress and Reim then fight their way through the remaining pirates. Hondo Onaka returns unexpectedly, but Reim manages to hold them off.

Ventress succeeds in securing the valuable item and the two escape. Despite their success, Ventress declines Reim's offer to join her crew, opting to continue her path as a bounty hunter. The valuable item is revealed to just be a simple statuette. But Ventress remains. Reim is committed to delivering it to her employer. So it's a very, like, this short story was written for one of the Star Wars Insider magazines, which was released July 21st in 2015.

So this was around the same time the book was actually becoming a thing. And this was in Star Wars Insider 159 specifically. So if you're looking for Star Wars Insiders out there, pick up issue number 159. I don't even know where you get back issues like that anymore. But yeah, look for 159. Kindred Spirits will be in there. I think it's also published in something else. So, oh yeah, it's published in Star Wars Insider, the fiction collection, volume two.

So the Titan magazines or whatever, they did like a large collection of canon and short stories kind of published that they'd done short stories over the years and all the Star Wars Insiders. I don't know if you know that, but there's like, there's been many, many short stories. Yeah, I almost want to say. Every like third or fourth Insider magazine has a short story. How short is a short story? It's about four pages or five pages.

Should we start doing a special in the podcast where we cover the months in oil? I guess we could. Radio show style. I guess we could. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they're not that long, but, but yeah, sometimes when a new novel is coming out, they do like a prequel or a tie in kind of thing. I've read a few of them as the, as the years have gone by and, and yeah, they're, they're like, I'm curious to know, interesting.

They don't make them super crucial though, because they know that it's a really niche thing for someone to buy Star Wars Insider. Yeah. So they don't make them like, you have to read this short story to enjoy this, the rest of the, that's why I almost like. They want a teaser in the magazine for people who are following it. That's kind of the idea, right? And that's why I almost left it out of today's discussion. Cause like, but yeah, we're covering everything.

So, you know, got to, got to have it in there, but yeah, it's, it's, it's wrapped up in the dark disciple package. Okay. So, you know, dark disciple, kindred spirits, you know, there you go. Yeah. What I really liked about book other than what I've already talked about is the fact that it did continue the Clone Wars. For me, I was super broken up about the fact that Clone Wars had ended. Yeah. I remember that. That's when I met you actually. It was right around then.

Yeah. I mean, we, yeah, you met me like right when they actually, you met me a couple of weeks before they announced that Clone Wars wasn't continuing. Yeah. And then they released the information and I just remember. I was there for your, your grieving period. Yeah. We had a funeral and everything. A little boat. Yeah. Into the ocean. Exactly. A little bonfire in there. Yeah, exactly. Shot the arrow. That's right. But yeah, it was, it was a, it was a day to remember.

And, and I just remember thinking like, oh my goodness, this is one of my favorite shows I've ever, I've ever had. This is the last thing that George Lucas ever did. Like, like what the heck is happening? This was after Disney had purchased it. Totally. Totally. And that legacy was, was dying. And so a couple of months later they announced something called the Clone Wars Legacy Project. And the Clone Wars Legacy Project was a multimedia project, which was. Which was happening.

A very small multimedia project. Not quite the, not quite the scale that Clone Wars or Shadows of the Empire had, where it had so many different levels of multimedia. But it did encompass, it did encompass proxy animation episodes, novel, comic book, you know, those three different categories. So a part of the project was two story arcs released fully with all the dialogue, sound effects, everything in proxy animation form. That was the Clone Wars, original Clone Wars, Bad Batch story.

And the Crystal Crisis on Utapau story arc. So that was like eight episodes, I think. Then they released the Darth Maul, Son of Dathomir comic book, which also adapted four episodes there. So right off the bat, there you got 12 episodes adapted into other material that people can digest. And then you had eight episodes adapted into this book. So I think this was the last thing that came out for the Clone Wars Legacy. It's a lot of missing episodes still.

There was, I think in total, because you know, all of season eight plus most of season seven and the show. The show ran until midway through season six before it got canceled. So, well, technically it was season five and then they released half of what they'd finished for season six. So it's like a half season. And then season seven is technically also a half season. If you count the episodes, it's like 12.

So in total, there's like 24 episodes that we have no clue, like where, like technically Bad Batch story arc got adapted, not the Crystal Crisis arc though. And at some of the Star Wars conventions in the past, they have talked about what they would have done. And they've revealed some of the proxy animation.

And from some of these episodes, like the Boba Fett versus Kat Bane story, they've revealed some of the concept artwork for story arcs, like Yoda going to Kashyyyk before episode three, encountering the Wookiees and having an initial story there. There was a few other things here and there that they would have gotten into. They even teased the fact that they would have cameoed a Yuuzhan Vong starfighter in one of the episodes at some point. And everyone freaked out at that.

But yeah, who knows that that would have made it screen. But I mean, eight episodes would have been this story. The Dark Disciple. And I think it's some of the best episodes that Clone Wars could have ever produced if they finished the animation. I mean, just in general, by the end of Clone Wars, they were putting out some very good story arcs and really high quality animation. Totally. Yeah. That being said, I think the novel has its benefits.

You can really dive into the character a lot with the novel. And I've already done a super extensive review on the novel. And I think it's like two hours long. So anyone who's... Again, anyone who's willing to like dive into this novel... A bit more, like you don't even need to read it. Like I basically like dish it out for you. That's in the Clone Wars talk sub series that I did a couple of years ago now with Diego. Although I think I did the novel review all by myself.

But yeah, that was a big one. That was a big one. So after Dark Disciple... Yeah. So this was the original death of Asajj Ventress. This was the original death of Asajj Ventress. She died on Christophsis, laid to rest. And this was it. This was the most... This was the most beautiful death that this character could have had. Because the original death was she falls off a cliff because she fights Anakin. Done, right? This episode...

This story gave her such a heroic death because she sacrifices herself for somebody that she loves. And I thought, wow. Like a character who has undergone so much tragedy and so much pain and suffering and having people dying all around her. You know, like for her to find that inside of her that she's able to do that was a completely... It was a completely character transforming event. And I think that's why I'm so hooked on this event. Because it was so good, right?

So I hate that they bring her back. I hate that they bring her back. Because it just destroys that meaning of sacrifice, right? What's the details of it? Like, well, she throws herself between Vos and Dooku, taking the full brunt of porous lightning. Okay. And it effectively kills her. And so, like, what I hate about... And I love the fact that we get to see these... This character again. But I also hate the fact that it has completely, utterly made this moment so much less significant.

So it's similar to how Palpatine came back. It's like they did all this effort to make this big, meaningful ending. Right. Well, it's almost like... It's almost like... To continue the story. It's the sacrifice of Vader for his son, right? Like, Vader throws himself into Palpatine's lightning to give his life effectively by throwing Palpatine down the shaft. But he, you know, he's damaged. From the lightning. It affects his breathing. He dies because of the suit's damage, right? And...

Or the lightning. Who knows, right? But he dies in Luke's arms. And he sacrifices his self for his son, right? And that's the most meaningful part about that story, right? Not necessarily the fact that he brings balance to the force or that he has destroyed the villain of all villains. But it's the fact that he was able to be redeemed by the love that his son had for him. And therefore, does what he needs to do to save the only person in the galaxy at that point. Or that he cares about.

Which is his own son, right? So, imagine if they just brought Anakin back. As not a force ghost. But as a... Oh, hey. He's alive again. Like, that's what that did for me. For the Bad Batch. That's what Ventress is. She's like this sacrificial kind of martyr character. Which now, all of a sudden, is back. She's alive again. And I just couldn't really get on board with that. I just had such a hard time grasping her character coming back to life again.

Because her original ending just meant so much to the story. And at least to me. Who has admired this book for years. Yeah, I get that. And I'm generally on board with those things. When they put all this effort into having a character build up. And do this big sacrifice. And then undermine it. Yeah, and it's been nine years, dude. Like, it's been nine years since this book was published. And maybe that's why. Maybe they thought, okay, it's been long enough. We can bring it back.

Have more story. Like, different generation. Right? Different generation of kids. Which generally Star Wars is advertised to. It's a multi-generational franchise. But as George always said, children are the target audience. Totally, yeah. We're just going to keep it going, right? Maybe that's why. And they thought there's more stories they could have to a younger audience. To get her back fresh in people's minds. I'm not sure. Maybe. Yeah, that's a good theory.

So, she shows up many years later in The Bad Batch. Chronologically, because Dark Disciple does take place towards the end of the Clone War. We're left to assume that it's no more than three to four years later. That's the assumption. I would say closer to three. Maybe even two. But maybe three. So, Ventress appears in the animated series, The Bad Batch. Where she helps test Omega as a potential Force Sensitive.

She later leaves with a mysterious unknown story ahead of her in this new chapter of Resurrection. So, that is all we have for Ventress. What did you think of her return to The Bad Batch? Because I know I'm kind of... Miffed. Miffed, yeah. But what were your thoughts when you first saw it? Because I don't know how hooked you were on Dark Disciple. Well, I really liked the novel when it came out. But I think the difference between you and I before The Bad Batch episode...

Is I forgot that she died in it. Well, that's a big one to miss. I just forgot. It had been so long since I read that book, man. I read it when it came out. It was so long ago. Yeah. It had been long enough. Maybe they were banking on the idea that people just forgot. Right. Something like me just won't notice. But I will forgive them if they manage to give her a good death on television or Disney Plus or whatever. Because then it's for a bigger audience. Right.

So that's kind of what they tried to do with Cad Bane. Didn't quite hit home as well as the original plot that they had done with Clone Wars, in my personal opinion. But I could see them wanting to make it for a bigger audience. Because I feel like the number of people that watch Star Wars material on television or in cinema are significantly more than the people who read the novels. Yeah, for sure. So a lot of people probably watched Clone Wars and then just the characters disappeared.

Yeah. So they probably didn't even realize that they killed her. Probably not. Probably the majority of people. Yeah. And I think that's where this whole canon thing falls apart, right? The multimedia. A little bit. The multimedia canonicity of events when it comes to priority of comic books, novels, such and such, games, you know, taking place in the canon next to things like the animated shows and the live action shows.

I feel like it's still got this level of hierarchy in terms of priority where... Just like the George system. Kind of like the George concept. Continuity, yeah. G-level canon. Yeah, the G-level canon. Yeah. So when George Lucas was running Lucasfilm back before Disney, the expanded universe had its own hierarchy of stuff where it was basically just this pyramid of... Is it true or not? Yeah. Is it true or not? Yeah. Like G-level canon was episodes one through six. That was it. From the maker.

And then Clone Wars. And Clone Wars. And Clone Wars, of course. Yeah. So anything he was directly involved in... It became gray. It became gray. Even that became gray, though, because George was technically behind the miniseries. He would have... He told Tarkovsky, Kandikar Tarkovsky, what he wanted it to be. But he wasn't as hands-on as he wanted it to be. Well, he was very loosely involved with that. So that's technically not G-level canon. So that's one level down. That's one level...

That's like... I think that's even like two levels down. Really? Yeah, yeah. Well, it's still canon to me. The lowest was S-level canon. I'm trying to find a... It's basically fan fiction. Yeah, I'm trying to find like a... That'd be like Splinter of the Mind's Eye, right? Yes. Like it just contradicts everything. Yeah. Where it's literally just like licensed out stuff. Yeah. And nothing really makes sense.

Splinter of the Mind's Eye, just for people listening, is the very first novel that ever came out in the Star Wars universe. It came out after A New Hope, but before Empire Strikes Back. If you read it, it is bizarre. Luke and Leia fall in love. Vader is hunting them. It was kind of an alternate idea. As I understand it, maybe I'm misremembering, but it was an alternate story to be Empire Strikes Back. If... If A New Hope didn't do well in the box office. Yeah. I got it here.

So the original pre-Disney Star Wars hierarchy of canon started with G-canon at the top. That was the six movies. Then there was T-canon, and that was the Clone Wars. That was the Clone Wars 2008. The 2D. The 3D series. Oh. Yeah. Then there was C-canon. That's all expanded universe books, comics, video games, etc. So that would be the Gen D Clone Wars series. Then there was S-canon. Some of the pre-Zon works. So that was...

Like pre-Heir to the Empire, Star Wars books, comics, etc. Then there was just non-canon, and that includes Star Wars infinities, which is like alternate realities to Star Wars stuff, and things like the Lego Star Wars stories. Anything Lego is not canon. Oh. Surprisingly, I have heard... Like, I have had a number of people ask whether or not things like the Yoda Chronicles are canon, and I'm always just like... It's Lego, right? Yeah. And I'm always just like, no. Like, why would it be?

Like, do you want it to be canon? Because I don't know. I mean... I mean, if you like it. I mean, if you like it, sure, I guess. But no, I mean, like, technically, no. That stuff is nowhere near canon. And neither is the holiday special that they did, or the Halloween adventure, or the summer break one. Well, that's all far posts, George. Yeah. None of the Lego stuff is canon. But that was the original hierarchy. I found other ones which kind of do... do another variation on that.

There's, like, G for George Lucas, then there's T for television, C for continuity, S for secondary canon, whatever the heck that means, N for non-continuities. That would be alternate reality stuff. And then there's level D, which is for Star Wars detours. Which is the animated show that never happened. That would probably be the same tier as Robot Chicken. That would be. That would be robot. Level D canon would be, like, parody stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Simpsons. Family Guy. Family Guy, yeah.

Stuff like that. Why would that even be on the list? I don't know. I mean, that's the funniest part about that, right? But I think the beauty with, like, canon, at least under the Disney umbrella, is that everything has at least tried to flow into each other. But there still seems to be this sense of hierarchy where the movies take priority, then the live-action shows take priority, then the animated shows take priority.

So, like, the live-action shows have bumped the animated series down a notch in terms of, like, we're going to do this. Yeah, we're going to do this. So the animated series have to make sense. With what they got, right? Well, let's, in context, Disney has now been putting out Star Wars material for, like, 10 years? Yeah. When did the first official, so non, say, Clone Wars, like, media that had been, like, turned into something else, when did the first official Disney thing come out?

Because it probably would have been the novels that came out just prior to Force Awakens, right? Yeah, so the first, technically the first Star Wars novel in the canon was called A New Dawn. Yeah. And that was the Star Wars Rebels novel which released September 2nd, 2014. Yeah, we were 10 years. So that was... It'll be 10 years in September. 10 years in September. So nearly 10 years. Basically 10 years.

And I think just prior to that, there was, like, a short story or so that happened in a Star Wars Insider magazine. Technically, that's canon. And that was released a few weeks or a few months prior. Okay. But yeah, 2014 kind of marks the year of Star Wars canon stuff. But there's a few things, I think, that's still released in there which aren't canon and they were later branded as legends. I think there was a Star Wars novel called Scoundrels that got released that year and that was...

Oh, that's one of my favorite novels. Yeah, and that was... I know that one's not canon, but it's so... That was by Zahn. Yeah, it was by Zahn, yeah. It's really good. I definitely recommend that one. That's one of the few Star Wars books... I remember you talked about it in our chat with Francis about Star Wars books. It's so good, man. It's so good. It's one of the best heist books. That came out January 1st, 2013. So that was only, like, a year prior to all this stuff.

Yeah. When, like, the deal for Lucasfilm had already been in the works, right? Like, it was 2012. I think it was public, yeah. 2012 to 2013 was, like, the transition year where all that kind of went down. It was over the course of, like, November through January, February kind of thing. Like, it was, like, those couple months.

Gotcha. But my point I was trying to get at is it's been now about 10 years and I think what's happened is they've tried so hard to keep it, you know, one consistent story with so many different creative people for so long that now it's hard for new creatives to come in and try to make original content without stepping on other people's feet. Yeah, it's basically the original Star Wars Expanded Universe issue, right?

Like, it's like you're jumping in, telling a story somewhere, but there's already, like, 50 books before and after you. Yeah, which is why they got rid of the EU in the first place. Right, yeah. It's exactly why they got rid of the EU in the first place because they wanted to make sequel movies that didn't exist in that continuity. Yeah. So it was easy enough for them to hit the reset button. But now they're kind of getting to the point where and, you know, at Disney's pace, mind you.

Dude, that's part of it as well is Disney has pumped out a lot of content. Right. They've gone hard on Star Wars stuff, right? So, like, what Lucasfilm did under George's rule kind of in 30 years, you know, Disney has done in, like, 10, right? Yeah. So, I mean, it's kind of matched now at this point with canon and Expanded Universe material. It's almost matched. There's an asterisk to that, though, because that is within the, like, original saga timeline.

Yeah. Because I would argue there's still some room to tell stories, you know, depending where you want to go with it between episodes six and seven. But really, if you do anything past nine and anything, as we're now getting with Acklight, before one, there's significant room. You can just keep going forever in either direction. You got lots of space. Totally.

The problem is I feel like most people who are fans of the films, whether it be the original three, original six, or all nine now, or Expanded, you know, in between films, they want to be in that era. That's where we run into trouble. Yeah. It's also worth throwing out there. The only thing that persists as a Star Wars Legends material event is the Old Republic MMO game. That's the only thing that still exists. Believe it or not, people are still playing that to this day.

It came out long before the Disney deal, I think, or not that long before the Disney deal. Well, the original co-tour was around 2000. I think it's like 2001. Yeah. So this is like the tour game is like a sequel to that franchise. A couple hundred years later. But yeah, it was never released under the Disney banner. So technically, it's still the Legends continuity. And the game is 10 years old. That game is more than 10 years old. Yeah. It's kind of nuts. Yeah. So that's pretty crazy.

But anyway, that's still getting updates and stuff. That's crazy. I mean, so is World of Warcraft. Yeah. He's the first Star Wars game? That's very impressive. It is. Yeah. So it's still going. I couldn't get into the original version. I just couldn't do it. I don't know. They just released an update not that long ago. Too much. Too much World of Warcraft. They just revamped. They modernized now Hot Air or something like that. They revamped it. Anyways. Anyway, so back to Ventress here.

Her story wraps up for now at the point of Bad Batch Season 3 and the Bad Batch is now over. So I guess the question for the room just being you and I here and anyone listening at home, feel free to send in your opinions on what they're going to do with Ventress. But do you think that it's possible we could be getting some sort of new animated show or maybe a series of books or like what do you think they're going to do with this character? Ventress specifically. That's a good question.

I don't know if they're going to want to do another animated show in this era. I think they will maybe eventually maybe we'll get like a Rebels sort of show. Well, I guess I'm thinking Rebels as in not the crew of Rebels but maybe something more less Jedi oriented. Technically they've already done that so maybe they don't really want to do that either. I don't know. I feel like if we get another animated show it's not going to be around this era for a while.

Do you think it's possible that we could get her in a live action form in Ahsoka? Because that would be super sick. You say that. I think it's I wouldn't put it off the table. Like I would love to see that. I don't know if I want her to be around that long. No, me neither though. That's the thing. Like it's almost like then we're getting into this whole another debate of like how many Force users should exist by the time of Luke Skywalker. Right?

And how many prominent characters that just never die. Right, right. They just live forever. Yeah, all these Clone Wars characters that Dave created and Dave forged. That's what happens. They all make their way You either die the hero or you live long enough to become the villain. Become the Filoni.

Alright, well we should probably wrap things up here but I mean that's the story so far and I think something that's a good takeaway with Ventress I mean despite my personal feelings on the Bad Batch and bringing Ventress back to the land of the living I still think you know she is a fantastic character. She is one of the best characters in Star Wars. I'm on board with you though. I mean you know let's see what happens.

I could I reserve the right to change my mind later but where I stand now I think I prefer the original story with her her dying where she did. I would same thing as Cat Bane I wish it was done in a way for a broader audience as uh the Clone Wars animated series was originally going to do history unfold the way it did so I was content with the novel I have a hard time thinking they can outdo that but we'll see what happens. Exactly.

Yeah. All right sir thank you so much for joining us again on Star Wars Escape Pod and we will catch you in the next one. It's been a pleasure. We'll see you out there. Keep flying. A big thank you to our listeners at home. Thank you to our lovely co-host and our constant crew for joining the Escape Pod. Definitely keep tuning in to our future episodes because this one is dropping so far away from the time of recording.

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