Who Are The Inquisitors In 'Obi-Wan Kenobi'?

What Do You Know About These Characters?

By Culture SlatePublished 4 years ago • 3 min read

After much waiting and speculation, the official teaser trailer for Obi-Wan Kenobi was finally released to the world. As with most Star Wars trailers, this one did not disappoint, giving us a first look at Obi-Wan, a young Luke Skywalker, Owen Lars and the show's primary antagonists; the Inquisitors. For those unaware of these characters and their history in the Star Wars universe, this article is for you.

The Inquisitors are a group of dark side acolytes trained personally by Darth Vader to hunt Jedi survivors throughout the galaxy. Most of these Inquisitors are made up of former Jedi who either turned to the dark side willingly or were captured and tortured into serving the Sith by the Empire. Though the Inquisitors were officially introduced in Star Wars Rebels, our first canon hint at their existence actually came in the episode of Star Wars: The Clone Wars entitled Children of the Force. In said episode, Darth Sidious hires the bounty hunter Cad Bane to kidnap Force-sensitive children so Sidious can train them in the dark side and use them as his eyes and ears throughout the galaxy. While these children were ultimately rescued by Anakin Skywalker and Ahsoka Tano, Sidious did eventually get his Inquisitors, including their leader, the Grand Inquisitor.

Serving as the main villain of the first season of Rebels, the Grand Inquisitor started out as a Jedi Temple Guard, standing guard over Barriss Offee during her trial in another Clone Wars episode titled The Wrong Jedi. Swayed by Offee's words about the Jedi and Republic being corrupt and unsalvageable, the Grand Inquisitor sided himself with Sidious and agreed to lead his Inquisitors in their hunt for surviving Jedi following Order 66. After a brief duel with Vader in the Jedi Temple Archives, the Grand Inquisitor and his followers were officially introduced to Vader by Sidious. Taking control of the Inquisitors, Vader began to train them himself, as he led them on missions to various planets in search of Jedi. All the while, the Inquisitors also enacted Project Harvester, which involved the kidnapping of Force-sensitive infants across the galaxy so they could be trained to become future Inquisitors.

Since their introduction, the Inquisitors have gone on to play significant roles in a myriad of Star Wars projects. As mentioned previously, they were persistent antagonists in Rebels as they pursued the show's main cast of rebels and attempted to turn the young Ezra Bridger to the dark side. They also served as imposing villains in the video game Jedi: Fallen Order, in which one of the Inquisitors took a special interest in the game's central protagonist, Cal Kestis, due to his relationship with another Jedi. They were especially prominent in Charles Soule's Darth Vader comic run, which showed their origin and how they came into Vader's service before aiding him in his hunt for the remaining Jedi. Now, it seems that Vader has sent a few of his Inquisitors, including the Grand Inquisitor, to hunt down his former Jedi Master in Obi-Wan Kenobi. They also seem to still have their iconic spinning double-bladed lightsabers, which they use quite frequently and brutally in their various appearances.

So with all that explanation out of the way, the remaining question now is how close will the Inquisitors get to finding Obi-Wan? We do see at least one of them on Tatooine in front of a crowd of people and a few more throughout the trailer. Though we don't see Obi-Wan ignite his lightsaber at any point, which means he may attempt to hide his Jedi identity from them even as they pursue him across the galaxy. At the end of the day, we'll have to wait and see whether Obi-Wan uses either the Force or his blade against the Inquisitors. But either way, they are sure to give the old Jedi a bad feeling.

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