Star Wars Reveals Morgan Elsbeth’s Origin Story and Connection to Thrawn

Star Wars has finally revealed the origin story of Ahsoka and The Mandalorian villain Morgan Elsbeth (Diana Lee Inosanto), in the second installment of its character-focused “Tales” animated anthology series, Star Wars: Tales of the Empire. 

Star Wars: Morgan Elsbeth’s Origin Explained

Tales of the Empire’s three segments about Morgan Elsbeth (“The Path of Fear”, “The Path of Anger”, and “The Path of Hate”) reveal how and why this pivotal character is both a powerful Force witch and a feared Imperial commander, who is cultishly devoted to Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen). 

Morgan’s story began on Dathomir, the home planet of the Nightsisters ( whose ranks include Mother Talzin and Asajj Ventress), and the Dathomirain race of men that includes Darth Maul and his brother, Savage Opress. During the Clone Wars, Morgan’s fate was forever changed when Ventress betrayed her Sith master Count Dooku; when Ventress defected from the Sith and rejoined Mother Talzin’s coven, Dooku retaliated by sending General Grievous and his droid army to Dathomir, to slaughter the Nightsisters. Morgan fought alongside her mother in the “Nightsisters Massacre” on Dathomir, but Grievous slew her mom in a duel. 

Morgan survived by being knocked unconscious and left for dead; she was found and cared for by a local Mountain clan, but dark feelings of fear led to rage, and Morgan’s thirst for revenge ultimately caused the droids to attack the Mountain clan, causing further tragedy. Morgan was banished, and, without a coven as her family, or a home on Dathomir, she became a scientist/engineer, eventually working in service of The Empire as the magistrate of Planet Corvus, whose industrialist people were promised the boon of producing a new line of TIE Defender ships. 

Morgan’s brilliant designs are rejected by the Empire, but manage to get Thrawn’s attention; the admiral sends his lackey Captain Gilad Pellaeon to interview her and see where her loyalties lie. At first, Morgan plays it like a loyal servant of the empire, but Thrawn isn’t fooled; he sends his personal assassin Rukh to infiltrate Morgan’s compound and test her a different way: through combat. Morgan passes and gets to speak with Thrawn himself; her desire to be powerful (never powerless again) is enough for her loyalties to be swayed, and Morgan agrees to serve Thrawn in exchange for having her ideas funded and furthered. 

The final segment shows how, after the fall of the Empire, Morgan experienced visions of the future which motivated her to stay loyal to Thrawn for years after his disappearance. When the New Republic sends a former citizen of Corvus as an envoy to bring the planet into the New Republic, Morgan refuses. The envoy and her guards are all slaughtered, and Morgan burns all the forests around her compound – but not before a distress call goes out to Bo-Katan Kryze, starting the chain of events that would lead into Din Djarin and Ahsoka Tano both confronting Morgan Elsbeth in The Mandalorian Season 2. 

Star Wars: Tales of the Empire is now streaming on Disney+.