Star Wars: Tales From The Empire Finally Reveals The Fate Of Defected Jedi Barriss Offee
This article contains spoilers for "Star Wars: Tales of the Empire."
The fate of the fallen Jedi Barriss Offee (voiced by Meredith Salenger) has been an enduring mystery after "The Clone Wars" season 5 finale, and the green Mirialan's tumultuous history made her ripe for a continued story in the "Star Wars" universe. Disgruntled by the Jedi Order's involvement in the Clone Wars, the then-padawan bombed the Jedi Temple and framed her bestie Ahsoka Tano (voiced by Ashley Eckstein). Said treachery instigated Ahsoka's departure from the Jedi Order, highlighting the spread of disillusionment within the Order.
As the supervising director of "Clone Wars," Dave Filoni nearly killed off Barriss, but then he cut the scene where she commits a suicide bombing in her Republic jail cell. Considering the lengths Filoni went to keep a secret of "Star Wars Rebels" from the crew, a league of Barriss Truthers saw her as potentially being part of a big twist in subsequent animated and live-action productions. From "Rebels," to "The Mandalorian" and "Ahsoka," Barriss's perpetual absence provoked intermittent speculations, such as, "Did Barriss Offee rescue Grogu from the burning temple?" (no, it's Ahmed Best) or, "Is Barriss in that Inquisitor armor?" That is, if they're not confusing her with the other green Mirialan Inquisitor, the Seventh Sister in "Rebels."
Now, 10 years after "Clone Wars" viewers witnessed Barriss vanish into Republic custody in 2013, the "Star Wars: Tales of the Empire" animated anthology finally confirms her fate — just as it opens her a bittersweet future.
Rise, Inquisitor Sister Barriss
Confirming a popular fan theory that Barriss joined the Inquisitors, her vocal dissent against the Jedi spared her from Order 66 at the birth of the Empire. An Inquisitor, the Fourth Sister formerly known as Lyn (voiced by Rya Kihlstedt), offers Barriss a new lease on life: join the Jedi-hunting hot mess that is the Inquisitors. Being forced through the Grand Inquisitor's (voiced by a menacing, secretive Jason Isaacs) hellish training, Barriss displayed a knack for Dark Side Force combat. However, she seemingly integrated herself into the Inquisitorius less out of ideological agreement and more out of fear, which probably made her an ideal initiate.
When assigned to hunt for a young Jedi (voiced by Ry Chase), Barriss tried using her position to minimize civilian casualties. She played the sweet-talking good cop to Fourth Sister's murderous bad cop methods, but ultimately, the mission gave Barriss time to think over her moral allegiances and re-embrace the Jedi way. Barriss seized her moment, Force-shoved the Fourth Sister off a cliff, rescued the Jedi, and ditched the Inquisitor uniform and red lightsaber for good.
The redemption of Barriss
When we meet an older, secluded Barriss in the "Tales of the Empire" finale, titled "The Way Out," she has become a mysterious "healer" and has adopted two acolytes who address her as "Wise Mother." Her face bears wrinkles, but her deposition has matured into a zen-like contentment, underlining the peace she made with her calling. When aiding refugees and their targeted Force-sensitive infant, she alludes to an "old friend." It hints at an offscreen reconciliation with Ahsoka, who also ferried other Force-sensitive children to safety in "Rebels."
To save the refugees, Barriss stays behind to stall the Fourth Sister, still referring to her as Lyn. Barriss needs no lightsaber; she fights with calmness and kindness worthy of a Jedi master. She warns the Inquisitor not to follow the fugitives into a Force-imbued cave, or her inner turmoil will trap her within icy walls. The entrapment wears Lyn down to her lowest point, forcing her to confront the insecurities that ensnared her in Imperial servitude.
Although Barriss offers Lyn to show her out of the cave, it escalates into her stabbing Barriss. Even in this moment, Barriss assures her this: she can see Lyn's future beyond the Empire's grip. With reawakened sisterly compassion, Lyn promises the unconscious Barriss she'll get her out, thus proving that she was capable of turning back to the light side all along.
Did Barriss survive?
"Tales of the Empire" remains ambiguous on whether Lyn carried a dying Barriss to safety and healing. "Obi-Wan Kenobi" revealed that the Grand Inquisitor and Third Sister eventually walked off their respective lightsaber gut wound. In "Ahsoka," hospitalization saved Sabine Wren from a saber gut wound. So by "Star Wars" standards, lightsaber impalement is only a flesh wound, not a death sentence. But Barriss probably has little access to medical-bacta intervention.
Yet Barriss achieved a deed greater than surviving. Ice caves are a common site of Jedi training or revelation, as seen in "The Clone Wars" season 5 episode "The Gathering" on the snowy planet of Ilum (which may or may not be Healer Barriss's new home). In the proto-canon 2D-animated "Clone Wars" microseries directed by Genndy Tartakovsky in 2003, Barriss's earliest cartoon incarnation completed training, the construction of her lightsaber, in a freezing kyber cave (pictured above). So Barriss steering Lyn — the Inquisitor who first offered Barriss a "second chance" in the Dark Side — back into a Jedi rite of passage in an icy Force-laden cavern brings both of their stories full circle into renewal. Barriss's survival isn't as important as her guiding a defector to find their own healing and redemption.
Lingering Barriss questions in the Force
For fans hungry for more, the anthology still does not satisfy other curiosities. One glaring chasm is zero exploration of Barriss's complicated relationship with her late master, Luminara Unduli, considering that their falling out never played out onscreen. In "Clone Wars," Luminara was mysteriously absent at Barriss's arrest, not to mention that the Empire subsequently used her corpse as an Inquisitor death trap in "Rebels." And sure, the kind of die-hard "Star Wars" romantic shippers thirst for a reconciliation scene between Barriss and Ahsoka (as "Clone Wars" director Giancarlo Volpe said on his Tumblr, "You have no idea how hard I secretly pushed this [Barrissokka] agenda...").
I can hear a million Barriss lovers crying out over the final blackout, which denies them any clarification of her survival. Barriss's second survival could also generate enough story potential across the universe. Still, "Tales of the Empire" ends her chapter on the right note, an inverted echo of Ahsoka's disappearance into the dark Malachor temple in "Rebels." Just two redeemed Jedi at a threshold entering the light. That's hope enough.
All episodes of "Star Wars: Tales of the Empire" are now streaming on Disney+.