Star Wars: Ahsoka has been surprising in its clear aim to bring a set of characters that have existed on the periphery of the franchise into mainstream focus: The Nightsisters of Dathomir. After originally appearing in the Star Wars Legends universe, George Lucas made them canon by introducing them into the Clone Wars animated series (S3E12). Since that canonized debut, the Nightsisters and their culture have slowly but surely had a growing presence in Star Wars. Now, with Star Wars: Ashoka it seems that showrunner Dave Filoni is setting the Nightsisters for a bigger arc that could potentially span from one end of the franchise to the other!
Nightsisters Origins
While it was originally believed that the Nightsisters originated on the Planet Dathomir, Ahsoka Episode 6 “Far, Far, Away” reveals that they actually come from a distant galaxy outside the known space of the Star Wars galaxy – and a planet called Peridea. Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen) is revealed to have survived his exile with the help of The Great Mothers, three powerful Nightsister witches, of the highest order. It is through their magic and visions that Thrawn has built a new battalion of (possibly zombie) Stormtroopers; how he was able to get word to his followers across galaxies, and how he plans to beat Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) and her allies.
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During the storyline of “Far, Far, Away, Dark Jedi Baylan Skoll (Ray Stevenson) reveals to his apprentice Shin Hati (Ivanna Sakhno) that the reason they are on Peridea is to unearth a power buried there – one that Baylan believes can break the cycle of the Jedi rising to power, only to be crushed by the rise of evil, only to triumph over that evil and rise again.
The Nightsisters’ magic has been shown to be every bit as powerful and dangerous as Force user powers employed by the Jedi and Sith – and even beyond what those two groups are capable of. The Nightsisters’ magic can re-animate the dead, or heal wounds that would be fatal to anyone without it. They were intended to give Star Wars a powerful female-led faction of Force users, who could oppose the Jedi and Sith – and Ahsoka could be setting things in motion for that to actually happen in the new canon!
There are two Star Wars films in development that will serve as bookends to the franchise timeline: one is James Mangold’s (Logan) Dawn of the Jedi movie, and the other is the New Jedi Order movie, which follows Daisy Ridley’s Rey as an older Jedi Master trying to restore the Order. Both of the projects have the potential to feature the Nightsisters as new sorts of antagonists and can draw from the developments of both Ahsoka and the New Republic battle against Thrawn that will follow.
Mangold’s film is the more interesting one to keep an eye on: in both the Legends and New Canon versions of the story, The Nightsisters originated from an ancient female Jedi named Allya, who was exiled to Dathomir by the Jedi Council – though even those details are called into question. Tying the Nightsisters’ origin to the Jedi would definitely give Mangold interesting grounds to work with in Dawn of the Jedi, as the Nightsisters represent a splinter faction of female Force Users, that developed alongside the Jedi and Sith and started an entire race of their own (the Dathomiri).
The same could be true for the New Jedi Order movie: The Nightsisters are an enduring faction and not all of their members are bad (see: Merrin in the Star Wars Jedi video games). By the time Rey is rebuilding The Jedi Order, those female Force wielders could be either powerful allies or foes.
Either way, Ahsoka is making it clear that the Nightsisters are going to be bigger mainstream parts of Star Wars from here on out, with big twists to the lore coming along with them.
Star Wars: Ahsoka is streaming on Dinsey+.
