Full Series Mini Series The Inquisitors (Spoilers)

Maul is still a Sith, cause he's not dead nor has he relinquished the title of Darth or made any renouncements of any kind. Sidious can claim to take the title away by decree, but its just a claim that so far has been met with failure to enforce. Tyranus and Vader are illegitimate as long as Maul exists as would Luke or anybody else. But as said before Maul and Sidious would have to kill eachother off, as their rivals(a person or thing competing with another for the same objective or for superiority in the same field of activity).

Sidious and Maul "whimpering" could've been an act of deception as deception is the way of the Sith(as Maul tells Dooku in SOD). Or they're two bullies that are scared children, doesn't matter much. Maul by SOD becomes indifferent to pain meaning he was also clearly becoming more powerful not less after Lawless. There is still 3 Sith Lords in the current SW galaxy, more if the new movie debuts them or they're just Dark Siders of a different kind. Only a Sith Lord can ordain a true Sith or all the Sith would have to be long gone and someone can come along and revive the order by reconstructing it but it may not be legitimate and would be like that villager farmer in Dragonslayer that picks up the Priest's garb and staff and proclaims himself the new priest without any training and formalities, he's a fraud and charlatan. The new guys would need access to actual Sith works or Sith spirits and Sith holocrons are a guiding force to whoever is attempting the task. Not like a someone renounces being a Jedi and calls himself a Sith. With no happy ending of ROTJ, something like this would need to occur, some Imperial dark sider, or reborn Palpatine or Maul is in the new trilogy in some capacity, there is a few angles.


You had a few illegitimates and heretics, Darth's in the former EU now Legends, Darth Venamis & Darth Millennial.

 

You made some good points there.

 

Given that Palpatine is shown to basically adhere to the Ro2 on multiple occasions in the PT and TCW, why would you conclude that he continued to grant Maul the title of "Darth" and by extension "Sith", when Palpatine had clearly transferred that title to Dooku?

This is a simple logic exercise. If Palpatine adheres to Ro2, and we have canon evidence he does, and if Dooku now has Maul's title, why would Palpatine continue to recognize Maul as Sith?

He wouldn't. And, since Sidious is the final arbiter, at the time, of who is Sith and who isn't, Maul couldn't be Sith without Sidious' approval.

 

A grade is not a title. It is an assessment of performance based on selected criteria. "Valedictorian" is a title or position, bestowed usually by some school administrator. And yes, it can be granted and taken away just like that.

If you're given the honor of being Valedictorian, go streaking through the halls wearing nothing but a blaze orange ski mask on the last day of school and see how fast administrators pull that position from you.

Not that I've ever known someone who did that...or someone who got his junk caught on the chainlink fence while trying to scale it in an attempt to escape from the assistant principle.

 

Maul remains a Sith Lord, that is canon, arguing against it is folly and just making yourself repetitive and look more wrong as time/pages goes on. Sidious excommunicating Maul, does not make Maul any less a Sith as he has all the training and titles already bestowed upon him. All this is really is a schism.

Palpatine had already broke the Rule of Two by taking a new apprentice without his 1st chosen heir being dead, he broke rank and tradition, so is in violation. Darth Bane could excommunicate Sidious if so wished if it were possible, and maybe Maul being alive is a form of this. It was a mistake Sidious would not leave to chance again when he salvaged Darth Vader on Mustafar. Much of the reason Vader is still alive was because Maul survived and came back stronger and he would thus not make the same mistake again. The Force has away of striking from beyond or even beyond the grave, by breaking the rule Palpatine himself could've gotten on the Dark Side's bad side and angered Bane who theoretically should be part of the dark side, which is probably all the merged essences of all the evil Force users the galaxy had spawned for thousands of years. And we know the Sith shrine has great power. Maybe even Plagueis is striking back at Palpatine for his betrayal.

 

At worst, Palpatine unknowingly violated the Ro2, since he believed Maul was dead.

But, as I stated before, this comes down to whether "Sith" is a title or a philosophy.

If it's merely a philosophy, then no, it can't be taken away from Maul. But that also means that anyone can essentially declare themselves "Sith". It becomes a meaningless title.

 

Again with the comparisons. We don't even know if "Darth" is a title in the conventional sense and we certainly don't know whether it can be removed or not.

An academic title surely is a title, it is even in the name, and it can't usually be removed unless it is proven you "earned" it by cheating. When I fill a form and there is a field asking for my title, I have to write my academic title into it.

One thing is fact in current canon however: That Darth Maul is a Sith. And I am really done arguing this. If not even the cover to SOD is considered sufficient proof, then what will?

 

So, wait...
Your argument is that, because the comic uses the term "Darth" that it means Maul is still a Sith.

But you've also just admitted that you really don't know what "Darth" means, so how are you concluding that it still means he's Sith? Isn't that the same kind of speculation you've been railing against?

 

*sigh*

"You can't keep a bad Sith down."

That was right on the cover picture I posted.

 

Personally I reckon it would be quite interesting to have different 'schools' of Inquisitor... some are Force-sensitive, some are not. Some are especially trained to hunt down Jedi/force-users, some are trained to look for clones still in action, that kind of thing. Make them more individual and unique - rather than it being a job title, it's a title in its own right, kind of how Jedi become Knights, then Masters, becoming an actual Inquisitor is a step up from just being a plain old Adept or Hand or some other suitable name. I'd quite like to see the two Nu-Quisitors have genuinely different views and approaches, and hopefully a bit deeper/more subtle than the skinny but brainy chick Inquisitor and big old bloke Inquisitor who thinks with his fists. Even a skinny psycho and a muscle-bound brainbox would be a start.

 

Mod EDIT: Not what I'd call cutting it back.

 

I think having a non-force using Inquisitor would be interesting, but at this point I would guess that the ISB/Kallus largely fill that aspect only in intelligence/information on subjects while the force using Inquisitors come along later to take care of the subject or target. I've wondered if the individual we have been theorizing as the female inquisitor may have be more cyborg in nature as a sort of a precursor to the cyborgs that have been shown in the comics. I mean there is precedent in canon for this type of thing. Palpatine wanted to experiment with the Zillo Beast, and then there is the data implant devices (which the name escapes me right now) that Tseebo was wearing. So what we have been thinking of as miniature assassin droids are in fact droids controlled through an implant by the new Inquisitor in this theory.

 

The only thing better than "Bomber Barriss" would be "Cyborg Bomber Barriss".

Only thing that I'm really hoping for is some interesting motivations for why the Inquisitors are doing what they're doing. If they're inquisiting (wait, that's not a word?) just because Palpatine says so, then that's kind of boring. We had that with the last guy. Means we're probably due for an inquisitor or two that doesn't adhere to or expectations of what an Inquisitor should be.

Barriss kind of does this, but it depends on how looney she's gone since the TCW. I'm hoping for tea parties attended by Jedi corpses.

Also: Troublemaker Street Cred +1
Can't keep a bad forum poster down.

Wait... yes they can.

 

Yeah, I kind of see ISB as the agency men/women who have to go through the system and by the book; they have access to the Imperial network of men and ships (depending on rank) but they have targets and missions. Inquisitors on the other hand are basically 'free range' and go out looking on their own initiative, they are outside the usual rank system and have autonomy of their own. This way we'd get to see some 'Inquisitoring' (perfectly cromulent word that is) for all sorts of reasons and motives and by all sorts of means and Kallus still has a viable role as the 'mainstream' Imperial agent who quotes chapter and verse.

I've probably put too much thought into this.

 

Probably, but you're on-target I think.

The ISB is part of the bureaucracy and a terrifying face of the Imperial rule to be sure. But not so terrifying as the thought of a bunch of pseudo-Sith psychos running around the galaxy hunting anyone with noticeable force talent. The ISB manages to maintain a level of "scary" just slightly below the point where the average citizen would violently object to the terror. Whereas the Inquisition goes past that line. While there may be rumors of Inquisitors and sometimes witnesses to their work, they remain plausibly deniable overall. One of the Empire's dirty "sort of" secrets.

Until they carve a hole through your wall.

 

Yeah, the Inquisitors are the bogeymen. They're the rumours, the whispers. Unfortunately... they are also real. I don't really see them as particularly Sith-y though, more of a direct counterpart to the Jedi Order where the Sith were a contrast. The Inquisitors can work together quite happily and forgo all the backstabbing shenanigans and treacherous japery of the Sith themselves, but at the expense that no Inquisitor really gets as powerful as one individual Sith would. Numbers over power, controlled by Palpatine... probably through a puppet. I can also see Palps trying to play the ISB and the Inquisitors off against each other to stop either becoming too powerful...

 

Is it possible that thnle dissappearance of people such as Zare's sister is the reason that Owen wouldn't let Luke join the Imperial Academy? Maybe the Inquistors have manchurian candidate chips implanted in them, hence Owen wanting to keep Luke away from the Empire.

 

I'm a bit disappointed by how "weak" the Inquisitors are and/or how powerful they made Vader out to be by comparison.

Vader's off doing whatever. The Inquisitors are the front line offense against surviving Jedi. Jedi like Obi-Wan who aren't accounted for. These guys can't be push overs. They need to be able to kill a Jedi whenever one springs up. You can't risk them getting killed and hope that Vader can deal with it. Because if a Jedi has evaded the Empire for 15 years, gets sniffed out by an Inquisitor, kills the Inquisitor, there's no guarantee that the Jedi isn't going to fall immediately off the radar again for another 15 years.

You can't afford to have them mess up or fail.

But when you see The Inquisitor get defeated by Kanan, who was living the life of a non-Jedi for 15 years, and then show that Kanan really isn't particularly special since Vader can absolutely embarass him, there's just too much of a power gap, IMO. Kanan was a padawan that fled. If he were some kind of prodigy, that would be one thing, but it's pretty clear he's not. Ezra is more the prodigy and Kanan's importance is more that he's the prodigy's master, not that he's the prodigy himself (and yes, Ezra isn't particularly strong yet, but I feel like they have implied that he has great potential).

So when you have an Inquisitor that can't even beat Kanan, either that Inquisitor was a weakling, or if he's pretty standard, then it's just a wonder as to how these guys fair when they encounter a Knight or a Master. Because you would think that any Jedi that got out of Order 66 must have been fairly powerful.

So I'm a little disappointed with how they've escalated things so quickly by the second season. You have the Inquisitor dead, you have Vader step in and show just how weak the Rebels truly are by comparison, then you have the Emperor send two more Inquisitors...

I feel like the Inquisitors should have been to the show what Vader is to the show. They should have been the big bad guys, the guys that the Jedi fear. Palpatine's on Coruscant, Vader is off doing whatever, they of course are more powerful than the Inquisitors, but the Inquisitors are the ones hunting down and killing Jedi.

I feel like introducing that first Inquisitor and killing him off in the first season, then immediately following it up with Vader, and then going back to more Inquisitors has really cheapened the impact that any Inquisitor will have.

I think they should have slowed things way the hell down.

Kallus should have been the main bad guy. I don't think Kanan should ever have been shown with his lightsaber until the end of the first season (and I think that should have been the hook for Season 2). The Inquisitor should have been the guy to step in at the end of the first season and smack the Rebels around, and he should have been the one that everyone feared. Tarkin and Vader should have been kept out of it (until very late in the series). While The Inquisitor could never have been depicted as powerful as Vader, he could have been represented as very much a threat in his own right and someone that the Rebels fear just as much, if not more than Vader (since again, the Inquisitors are the Jedi-hunters).

What's done is done with Season 1, but I feel like they need to slow way the hell down this next season and allow these characters to get some development, don't throw them straight into the mix right away (though Filoni has pretty much just outright said that they will), and don't throw Vader back into the mix straight away, though Filoni keeps heavily implying that there will be an Ahsoka/Vader fight in Season 2, so I don't have high hopes.

I feel like looking at these characters as the expendable stand-ins for Vader is just a stupid, wasteful way to look at it. These characters are supposed to represent the death of the Jedi, they should have a lot of weight when they appear, and shouldn't appear all of the time. They should be the thing the Jedi (including Ahsoka) want to avoid at all cost. Not the expendable characters to be thrown away each season to be replaced by another (or two).

I mean, if they could go back and do it all over, I'd say make Kanan REFUSE to train Ezra. That IMO, he'd be more interesting as a character that didn't receive much Jedi training, that was young when Order 66 happened, that doesn't fully understand why Order 66 was issued, and that all he knows is that he has some magical power and possessing that power is what got his master killed and put him on the run. So I would have liked to have seen him almost hate the Force and see it as a curse that he doesn't want. And when he sees that Ezra has it and is more willing to use it, I would have liked to have seen Kanan more like Obi-Wan meets Han Solo. That Ezra starts to look up to Kanan as a Jedi, while Kanan wants nothing to do with him and advises him that if he were wise, he'd condition himself to NOT use the Force. Like it should have been (IMO) not some "hey, I'm really a Jedi and I'll train you" thing. It should have been an "OH HELL NO, get that kid off this ship, he's going to get us all killed" kind of thing.

And for a bunch of heroes that don't have the Force (with Ezra fumbling with it and Kanan voluntarily cutting himself off from it), I feel like Season 1 should have been Kallus' time to shine. He should have been more than enough for the Rebels. Then towards the end of Season 1, perhaps then Kanan could have his big moment where he assembles his lightsaber and reveals himself to be a Jedi to Kallus. THEN introduce the Inquisitor at the end of Season 1 in much the same way that Vader was. And really build it up that Kanan just put himself on The Inquisitor's map, and there's no undoing that, and that his decision to reveal himself to be a Jedi might cost him his life. Build the Inquisitors up to have a presence themselves. While they are ultimately expendable, since they don't appear in the movies, I think the attitude that they are just kind of expendable sub-Vaders is just the worst possible way to value them. I mean Maul was just an expendable villain. But look what happened there, he unintentionally became some hugely popular character that Lucas himself wanted resurrected over a decade later because he saw missed opportunities for the character.

Like, if the rumors are true about one of the Inquisitors, then I feel like that's going to steal all attention away from the other (nobody is going to care about him), and then there's the probability of Vader coming back into the picture to fight Ahsoka in season 2.

The Inquisitor was phenomenally mishandled, IMO. And I'm not setting my hopes high for me really caring about the next two, or them being particularly threatening.

 

Seconded. Or if they felt they absolutely HAD to have a Force-powered villain to match Kanan's own Jedi powers then at the very least they should have made him actually competent. Not powerful, competent. There is a difference and they fumbled it massively. Kallus was portrayed as far more competent and skilled than the Inquisitor ever was - he managed to fight the Ghost crew to a standstill and even drive them off completely more than once, and fought Zeb personally - all without any powers. The Inquisitor showed off some funky force powers and flashy moves with the spinsaber but once they've slipped away due to his arrogance for the tenth time in nine episodes (or so it felt) it became impossible to ever take him seriously. They tried to build him back up with the death of the comedy duo but it still didn't convince me he was any actual threat to our heroes. He had a lot of power... but no threat whatsoever.

Vader on the other hand, well he's gone the other way. Perhaps even too much so. He fought off Kanan and Ezra single-handed, and with ease. Sabine can't shoot him, Zeb can't bash him, Hera could just about out-fly him but she couldn't beat him... just escape. He's pretty much unstoppable with the current set up. That devalues the Inquisitors before they even appear. You CAN'T have them be that dangerous because if they were, the show will end next episode. Two Vader-level threats? Game over. And if they're NOT as powerful/smart/dangerous as Vader, then why should we care what they are up to? We all know they can't touch our guys, that's Vader's job now.

 

Especially since the comedic duo couldn't fight back at all. Slaying an enemy that is essentially helpless never comes off as very impressive.

I hope that the new Inquisitors are made from sterner stuff. There is also hope that the Inquisitors in TFA (if there indeed are any) will be badasses. Just because they're not full-fledged Sith doesn't mean they can't kick ass and take names. I would like to see a technophile Inquisitor, one who uses technology in a clever and sophisticated way and is a dangerous opponent despite having weaker force powers than a true Sith. Maybe Barriss will be this person. There could also be cyborgized Inquisitors. It worked with Vader, right, so why not repeat the experiment?

Is it Vader's job? It doesn't need be. Vader's mission was to crush the rebellion on Lothal, and that's what he did, slaying Kanan and Ezra wasn't even on his agenda. Vader can go on and ignore those two and instead focus on more interesting targets like Ahsoka.

 

I meant more from an out of universe perspective and probably phrased it poorly. Vader can and has crushed the rebels with ease. If the Inquisitors don't get some immediate credibility (and more importantly, keep it) then we're in a position whereby we know the Rebels are always safe unless Vader's around. It robs dramatic tension. They're trapped by the Inquisitors? Pfft. They'll be fine. Trapped by Vader? Now they're screwed. Vader's appearance has raised the stakes. Can the Inquisitors ever hope to match those stakes? I remain to be convinced.

 

i hope we find more about the inquisitors and i agree with the analysis above, i would have preferred pau'an inquisitor to have stayed around for a bit and only defeated when Kanan perhaps receives some input from Ashoka or something.

they situation can be redeemed however. my current theory that the "secret academy" from Jason Fry's series is like an inquisitor school for force sensitive children that are picked up during the cadet training, like Zare's sister.

we know there are 2 inquisitor's this season and it may be that there is dialog that the Pau'an inquisitor wasnt trained enough, but thought he was - something like that, which is why he was so weak. it could redeem the situation.

 

Off with the head limb is what I say. There's no easier way to raise the stakes by having your villain hurt the heroes and hurt them in a way that matters. Star Wars has a venerable tradition of cutting off hands, arms, legs, and this can be continued in Rebels. If an Inquisitor manages to do that, he/she will be plenty fearsome.

Alternatively, a heroic sacrifice also works. If the villain manages to drive a hero into one of those, he/she will also be perceived as a serious threat in the future.

 

My thought is just that if tomorrow Obama falsely accused me of being a terrorist and put a bounty out for me dead or alive, is Obama really going to be someone I'm sitting around being afraid of? I'm probably going to be afraid of whatever police, FBI, etc. are trying to track me down. That's my immediate concern and who I'm going to be afraid of every single day. Not the politician. Palpatine's the politician in this analogy, and the Inquisitiors are more the swat team going out to kill the Jedi. Vader doesn't fit the analogy perfectly but he seems more like a cross between the secret police and military leader. He's probably out there terrorizing Palpatine's political opponents, making examples of dissidents, and perhaps leading the occasional mission against a high profile rebel cell, etc. I mean, yes, he's out there. But it seems like he shouldn't have been an immediate concern for the Lothal rebels. These wasn't an armed insurgency like the Onderon rebels, or the Ryloth rebels, this was the crew of one ship.

So yeah, Vader would be out there, he'd be stronger than the Inquisitors, but he - like Palpatine - seems like someone you're not even going to be thinking about, because your immediate concern is these Inquisitors whose sole purpose is hunting down and killing Jedi.

So, I think it's awkward to have the first Inquisitor we see introduced so early. Have him fail to the extent that Tarkin has to intervene. Have the Inquisitor get killed by a padawan who turned his back on the Force for a long time, then bring Vader into the picture all by the end of Season 1. And then let's introduce Ahsoka, Rex, an Inquisitor that many guess to be Barriss, hint at Barriss and Ahsoka meeting, and Ahsoka and Vader fighting, and turn Season 2 more into a continuation of TCW's loose ends, rather than letting Rebels characters develop and stand on their own.

So I would think that if fans are correct and Barriss is the female Inquisitor (though their are also guesses like Ezra's mom or Dhara Leonis), that if any of those turn out to be true, that all the second Inquisitor is going to be is canon fodder and at the end of the day he's just the expendable guy that the heroes can kill, because the other Inquisitor will need to stick around for awhile to have that ESB-esque "I am your father" moment.

So I expect this new male Inquisitor to be an extremely shallow character. The female Inquisitor will probably get some degree of character development but also all three of those guesses for the Inquisitor's identity also make for a conflicted character. Then I anticipate that Vader will show up yet again to fight Ahsoka.

So I'm worried about this pattern where Male Inquisitor #1 is just an expendable character for Kanan to overcome before Vader puts him in his place; Male Inquisitor #2 will be just an expendable character (my guess); Female Inquisitor will have some kind of relationship with one of the characters that the heroes ultimately exploit (my guess); then Vader shows up again to fight Ahsoka (heavily implied by Filoni).

And with all of the TCW loose ends they're throwing into Rebels, I'm really counting on Maul to make an appearance. Probably as some kind of Grand Inquisitor in Season 3, after these other three die. I mean where do you go after establishing three Inquisitors failing and Vader as the only competent bad guy?

I mean, if we're lucky, I'm hoping that this male Inquisitor might actually kill the female Inquisitor (if any theories about her identity are true), if he suspects that she's a liability (let's say Ezra or Ahsoka begin to shake her faith in the Empire). Then he can continue on as a formidable villain and be remembered as the guy that killed Barriss/Dhara/Ezra's mom. But realistically, I'm guessing he's just there so he can be the expendable one so the female one in the mask can survive to have her "I am your father" kind of reveal with one of the heroes.

And then I mean you cheapen the Inquisitors so much and establish Vader as the one that has to come in and knock the Rebels down a peg each season, so where do you go from there for Season 3? MORE Inquisitors?

I feel like they should have just stuck with that one Inquisitor, given him more of a personality/history than merely spouting off random facts about Depa Billaba and Kanan's fighting style, then towards the end have Vader and Tarkin step in and set the stage for ANH. But this pattern of expendable Inquisitors followed by Vader just creates this huge power gap, where the Inquisitors aren't a threat, and then we come to expect that Vader needs to be tagged in for the Empire to have any kind of success. I mean Kallus has basically been reduced to nothing more than a tool that characters like Tarkin and Vader get to use, whereas he started out as the guy in charge. And now the Inquisitors are getting treated as expendable characters whose only purpose, I fear, is just to keep Vader from having to lose.

Part of me sees this just as an attempt to create more toys for Rebels. But honestly, I can attest to the fact that The Inquisitor doesn't sell well. So any equally shallow characters probably won't either, unless they are banking on another Boba Fett/Darth Maul phenomenon.

The heroes effectively have little reason to be afraid of the Inquisitors coming after them, because Vader and Ahsoka entered the picture too soon. And while I think that there's nothing wrong with showing an Inquisitor as being more than a match for Ahsoka, something tells me that she's going to be depicted as being closer to Vader' level while the Inquisitors are closer to Kanan's