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Asajj Ventress goes home
Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Season 3,
Episode 12, “Nightsisters”
Writer: Katie Lucas
Director: Giancarlo Volpe
Asajj Ventress was popular from the moment she first appeared on screen in the cult favorite 2003 animated Clone Wars series by Genndy Tartakovksy. Like a lot of elements, characters, and moments introduced in that series, Ventress outlasted the series being moved to the background, not counting in Star Wars canon, and replaced by the more well-known The Clone Wars animated series. Based on early designs for the apprentice to replace Darth Maul, Ventress struck a similar chord amongst fans. Snarling and angry, strikingly beautiful with her unique look, Ventress was a sleek dark assassin with two red lightsabers. A blunt object working for Count Dooku. Like Grey DeLisle before her, Nika Futterman’s raspy take on her voice was dripping with the vengeance fans want in an evil, dark side Force user. Yes, Ventress did bad, bad things and she did them really, really well.
But who was Asajj Ventress?
Katie Lucas knew. One of George Lucas’ three children, Katie had worked her way onto the writing staff of The Clone Wars series, and there was one character she identified with the most: Asajj Ventress. In the third season of the series, Katie Lucas tapped into Ventress’ female rage and search for her own identity to create a magnificently layered character on a sympathetic search for personal peace. That powerful and bittersweet journey began when the punk rock killer went home and into the arms of the Witch Mother Talzin.
Abandonment is a recurring theme in Ventress’ life. She’s been cut adrift, sent away, backstabbed, and left for dead. The Nightsister coven of Force-sensitive witches in which she was born into had to surrender Ventress to a pirate when she was a baby—a payment for the safety of them all, apparently. Raised as a slave to this pirate Hal’Sted, a young Ventress actually grew to have an affinity for him, but he was murdered by rival pirates. She was then discovered by a Jedi named Ky Narec. He trained her in the ways of the Force, an unofficial Jedi Padawan on the planet they were stranded on. He was promptly killed in front of her by more pirates. Strong in the Force, but now alone, her anger led her to the dark side and the service of Count Dooku, fallen Jedi turned Sith. Under orders from a Darth Sidious concerned of her power, Dooku turned on her and had her killed in battle (or so he thinks). See a theme here? Yeah. Time after time, Asajj Ventress is abandoned, fueling her unfulfilled desire for vengeance.
Broken down to her very core, she returns to Dathomir. Her coven sisters emerge, not yet knowing who she is, and surround her as a threat. They call Ventress what she has felt like her entire life: a stranger. Here, though, through Katie Lucas’ words, Ventress finds herself. “I’m not a stranger,” she says before falling into the arms of Mother Talzin. The healing has begun and so has her journey.
An episode of Jennifer Landa’s podcast Happy Beeps on the ForceCenter podcast feed points us to a 2011 Wired article by Jason B Jones promoting this episode’s arc. Katie Lucas talks about Ventress finding herself, saying “she nobody’s pawn anymore. She finally owns herself.” It is a powerful proclamation that turns this loved but somewhat one-dimensional character into a beacon for those on their own journey for agency, identity, and peace. She IS angry and violent, torn apart and in pain. She never had a chance at being anything else until she decided to do something for herself.
The image of Ventress in the arms of her figurative mother is a moving image, but it is just the beginning of her journey. There is much more to come, even more displacement and abandonment. The story of Asajj Ventress was almost never completed, but unproduced episodes of The Clone Wars series were turned into Christie Golden’s book Dark Disciple. There, we get to read the final chapter of Asajj Ventress’ journey. She, like many of us, just wanted to find her own purpose in the galaxy, not be part of someone else’s, and she deserved peace. She tragically achieved that in the end, but, thanks to Katie Lucas, she started that quest the moment she went home.