Let’s explore the Tales of the Empire! May 4th brought the fandom six new chapters of the Tales Of Star Wars series. Three focused on Morgan Elsbeth. Three picking up the story of Barris Offee. What did we like about them? What did we learn? And what might be coming next in Star Wars storytelling? Joseph Scrimshaw, Ken Napzok, and Jennifer Landa dive into the Tales of the Empire on the 656th episode of ForceCenter.
From the minds of Ken Napzok (comedian, host of Pop Rockin’ Radio), Joseph Scrimshaw (comedian, writer, director of The Nightmare Adorable, and Jennifer Landa (actress, YouTuber, crafter, contributor on StarWars.com) comes the ForceCenter Podcast Feed. Here you will find a series of shows exploring, discussing, and celebrating everything about Star Wars. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts. Listen on TuneIn, Stitcher, Spotify, and more!
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INTRO 00:00
Overall Reactions 04:31
Themes 25:36
Morgan Elsbeth episodes 39:47
Barriss Offee episodes 1:14:13
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The animation keeps getting better and better with each project. This might have been the best the animation has ever looked.
Thanks to Joseph, Ken and Jennifer! 📜
I thought these 6 episodes were better than the Tales of the Jedi.
Just watched Phantom Menace in theaters and wow the Acolyte scene looked great on the big screen, I wish we could get some limited theatrical releases on the Disney Plus shows.
I'd love it if Tales of the ____ could be the annual May 4th tradition going forward. It's the perfect amount of Star Wars for one day and can cover a variety of times, places, characters, and themes.
I have a few random Phantom Menace thoughts too. How did the Jedi know about the rule of two? An underappreciated Star Wars quote is Padme saying to Nute Gunray "Now, Viceroy, we will discuss a new treaty." And of course one of my most quoted Star Wars lines "Hello, Boyos!"
I really loved that like "Tales of the Jedi", these were stories of two people on opposite paths. I really appreciate these contrasting stories. I loved that the themes were impossible to ignore right from the start. I'm in love with this format and I'm all in for a yearly "Tales of…" on May 4th.
To get a little nerdy, I do think that "TROS" explains why Barriss aged as much as she did. Rey explains healing through the Force as giving part of your own life force to another. If Barriss is consistently doing that for years, it makes sense that she would age more drastically in a shorter time. I might be wrong, but that makes the most sense to me.
Thanks for the super sized episode guys! It was a heck of a week for Star Wars.
@jenniferlanda, you aren't wrong in your vision of the Singing Mountain Clan (it bothered me SO much that they just said "mountain clan," UGH! It's the Singing Mountain, so they are the Singing Mountain clan).
The novel describes the very first sighting of one of the Singing Mountain witches (riding on her rancor) like this:
In the clear morning light, Han could see the three women clearly now. Under their robes, they wore tunics made from colorful reptile skins. Each hide tunic flashed flashed in colors of green or smoke blue or yellow ocher. Over these, they wore thick robes woven of fiber, intricately trimmed with yellow plant fibers or large dark beads made from seedpods. Yet their most ornate decorations were the helms. What he had first thought were antlers in the darkness, he saw now were merely headdresses of blackened metal, curving up like some odd insect wing. Drilled into the helms were holes. A child's playground of ornaments dangled in each hole, swaying with each step the rancors took. For ornaments he saw what looked like pieces of agate and polished blue azurite, the painted skulls of small carnivorous reptiles, a small petrified fist from some creature, bits of colored fabric, glass beads, a piece of beaten silver, a bluish white orb that might have been a dried eye.
Isolder considers the fact they wear lizard hides "barbaric," yet his own daughter Tenel Ka ( child of Singing Mountain witch Teneniel Djo) does exactly that, dressing like a Dathomiran witch instead of dressing like a Hapan princess, and we see a lot of her in the comics and on novel covers. You can see her standard outfit on the cover of "Young Jedi Knights: The Lost Ones."
The Nightsisters, on the other hand, were described as have "strangely blotched, purplish skin" and the book said they "did not wear exotic helms, like the warriors, but instead wore only dark, shaggy, hooded robes crudely woven from some plant fiber," and "their leader, an older woman with graying hair at her temples, had glittering green eyes and the hollows of her cheeks were a sickly yellow hue." All of the descriptions have them in black robes. And the black robes make them extra creepy when they leap out of windows to fall "with fluttering robes" to the ground, or when they climb "like spiders" up the sheer side of the mountain fortress. They are described as being shriveled, having blackened teeth, basically looking a lot like Palpatine because their Dark Side Force use was eating away at them (the same way it always ate away at Palpatine).
FINALLY we get to see the actual witches of Dathomir, not just the damn Nightsisters, and they didn't follow the book description at all.
Clearly, when George transplanted the Nightsisters and Dathomir into the Clones Wars series, he gave THEM all the cool warrior looks, and now the Singing Mountain clan are the ones in the robes. They went from looking like badass warriors who could fend off the Nightsisters even though the clan only had 25 or 30 witches to looking, like you said, like nuns.
@josephscrimshaw @ForceCenter, it's the mountain that is "singing" not the witches. The mountain has a cavernous stronghold inside (it's an old volcano) so when the wind blows through the wind makes it "sing."
And in the book, both of the covens do use their spells for ATTACK as well as defense. It's the Singing Mountain clan who ride the rancors, not the Nightsisters. And it's the Singing Mountain clan who fight off the Imperial stormtroopers (rancors do a LOT of damage, after all) and fight off the Nightsisters. The Witches of the Singing Mountain clan are badass female warriors who wield blasters and Force pikes. They aren't pacifists sitting up in their mountain stronghold ignoring what is happening on their world. If anything, they actively work to keep the Nightsisters from getting off their world where they can spread chaos among the stars.
They know that there are differences in the way they approach their magic, and it's just as possible for a witch to fall to the Dark and become a Nightsister as it is for a Jedi to fall and become a Sith. Nightsister magic manifests as Dark Side Force powers like lightning, whereas the Witches are more connected to the natural world (which is how they tame and ride rancors).
There are other clans, btw, we just don't meet them. Offhand, I remember them mentioning "the Northern Lakes clan."
Medstar 1,and 2 are good legends novels, and Bariss is a healer.
Everything you said about Thrawn is true and correct, and it goes back to what Thrawn's own creator put in the 2017 novel. He says that only a government with a strong leader and one SINGLE motivation can keep order. He finds listening to all the voices of a democracy to be unwieldy and chaotic. While he agrees that Palpatine IS a bad leader. he says that Palpatine "cannot live forever" [*hmph!*] and that as a respected officer of the Navy Thrawn himself can have some influence in who succeeds him.
I freaking L❤VE Thrawn, BUT I have never not believed that he is a villain, and even Timothy Zahn calls him a villain. Thrawn finds his own government chaotic and unwieldy, because there are 9 Ruling families who make the decisions, and getting even half of them on board with a decision is a freaking nightmare, each family is out for themselves and deluding themselves that their decisions benefit everybody because "what's good for the Nine is good for everybody." The bureaucracy of the Chiss Ruling families gets in the way of doing the things that are for the protection of their own people's safety, the things that only Thrawn can see as threats.
And then he comes to the Empire where he sees one guy at the top, one man who is bringing more and more of the military under his direct control, one man making all the decisions politically, and Palpatine seduces him with this.
Is he an INTERESTING and compelling villain? Hell yes. Is he a sympathetic villain? Again, yes. But he still IS a villain, and if he's still saying "Long live the Empire" 10 years after it was toppled, and after everything that happened with Operation: Cinder (granted, he may not know about that one yet), then he's becoming a little bit of a zealot, even.
For everyone saying he stayed with the Empire to protect the galaxy from the Yuuzhan Vong/Grysks, you gotta let that one go, because 30 years after RotJ, the big threat to the galaxy never materialized. It's the First Order that is the real threat. The Vong/Grysk invasion doesn't seem to have happened.
Thrawn stayed with the Empire because, as he said in the 2017 Thrawn novel, if an enemy is coming at you and an ally and you are both out of ways to fight that enemy, you can stand your ground and both be devoured, or you can push your ally out in front of you to be devoured first and buy yourself a little time.
Good guys don't say that. I'm a Thrawn stan, I'd probably sign up to serve on his ship even if I'm the lowliest ensign on the bridge just to be able to watch him work and marvel at his brilliance. And I STILL will say, GOOD GUYS DON'T SAY THAT.
I watched all six episodes of Tales of the Empire at 11 am on May the 4th and saw Phantom of the Menace for the first time in theaters at 1 pm. Truly a great Star Wars day. LOVED Tales of the Empire. Give me a book about Barris Offee's later years please.
I love the fact that one of these stories is a descent into the dark side and the other story is an ascension back into the light
I loved that the titles of the first 3 episodes are The Path of Fear, The Path of Anger and The Path of Hate. Seeing those titles and then immediately seeing the Phantom Menace and hearing Yoda's quote "Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to Hate. Hate leads to suffering." was such a great moment for me. Especially remembering the mando episode where we first meet Ahsoka and we see how much the people under Morgan's control have suffered. Great stuff.
maybe morgan's facial markings faded because she's actually human, merrin and asajj arent
Great breakdown as always! I thoroughly enjoyed these episodes, and I especially enjoyed the Barriss arc that we have been waiting for for over a decade. I thought that using what appeared to be the same or a similar helmet from the Clone Wars' Season 5 arc (which was taken from Asajj Ventress), just painted in all black, was a nice call-back to the road she had chosen, but I also appreciate that channeling the dark side wasn't really in her destiny but rather just an unconstructive way to deal with her very valid criticisms of the Jedi Order at the time, so ultimately she chooses correctly when it really counts, and it's perfect that she considers herself to be a Jedi on the mountain, as essentially she passed her "trials" in a more visceral way than what the council and Luminara had perhaps planned for her training. Others pointed out that she is a healer, and that is perhaps why she appears to have aged even though I'd imagine that not too much actual time had passed between 2 and 3 (I'm sure it's post-Kenobi season 1, but not before the original 'Star Wars', probably in the 'Star Wars: Rebels' era), so healing others may have aged her prematurely since she's sacrificing some of her own life force in that effort. That would make more sense, but either way, I felt it was a perfect evolution for her character. And I think that someone also hinted that Lyn was also a healer, and if that's true, that might mean Barriss would survive because of her successful conversion of Lyn. But I definitely took the time to immediately rewatch 'The Jedi' after these, given the Morgan arc. It DEFINITELY feels like a more complete story for her character, now, and I believe that whatever Thrawn returned to on the Ahsoka series was constructed in all those years by Morgan's factories on her planet. She's been down there building an alternative fleet and equipment for decades, and now Thrawn is finally cashing in on his stash. I love how gritty and violent the animation continues to be (I felt these were far darker than anything we've received in live action, outside of 'Andor', especially within the Barriss arc); that slaughter in the village in Ep. 5 was absolutely chilling, and it just felt more visceral than those of the Kenobi series, as with the Grand Inquisitor. While I love the live action series they've given us, the animation seems to always hit harder for me. And they're making writing decisions that you normally see in live action rather than traditional American animation. Finally, i just love how much the animation quality continues to improve with each new series. 'Bad Batch' was the best of them all for that, and fresh off the series finale these episodes seemed to push those boundaries even more already. It was very noticeable. Makes you want to almost see them redo Clone Wars Season 1 and 2, or perhaps 'Rebels', over again with the same sound/voice tracks but this animation style/quality. Of course, it will never happen, but I wouldn't be mad if they did. Just amazing work, always.
Great discussion as always, I really loved the Barriss episodes, "you have one more Jedi left to deal with" is one of my new favorite lines! Y'all are the best 😊
Ken: What sicko came up with this closing circle that damages you when you touch it and the only way out is to be the last person standing?
Also Ken while he's playing FortNite:Ohhhhhhh 😂😂😂
Y'all are awesome
Her aging threw me off too since we know her species can easily live past 100, so I thought maybe her aging was from healing. Rey only heals people a bit, but we see Palpatine nearly kill the dyad by taking their life force and then Ben dies from saving Rey. Maybe little bits of healing over time just speeds up aging in her case.
Something else to consider regarding Barriss' age: If Barriss is using the Force to heal, it could be costing her some of her life force which is causing her to "age" faster than normal.
The worst part is that we finally find out what happens to Barriss after Order 66, only to now want to find out what happens to her next!
Barris looks amazing in the final episode. Agreed with everything you all said about how she wears her lived experience.
I'm with Ken – I love this format so much
Next up: Tales of the Clones? I would love a backstory for Emerie and some adventures of Rex and perhaps Cody.
Medstar shout outs! I quite enjoyed those Star Wars MASH books.
A Dathomiri witch clan that appears to draw power from the Light side of the Force? Yes, please! I’ve been hoping to see something like this, and it was even better than I had imagined. Now I don’t have to pin my hopes on Mother Aniseya’s purple-clad coven in The Acolyte… my guess is that those witches will be more cult than culture, anyway. As for Morgan’s facial markings not being permanent, I assumed that was because she had not been fully initiated before her clan was wiped out, but it could also be because she was adopted into the sisterhood.
Barriss’ turn back to the Light at the end of her second episode felt a bit rushed, to me. But I missed the signs of her reluctance; by the time she killed Dante, I thought she was all in… on the premise if not the practice. It makes sense to me that Barriss would set up her healing practice near a vergence, where her powers would be amplified, so I assumed that the cave was one such nexus. Maybe Force sensitives experience a trial of some sort, but for everyone else it reads intent, and only lets through those who mean no harm. And I agree with Alex on SWE that Barriss seems to have given some of her life force to heal others, and that’s why she has aged beyond her 30-some years. Oh, and yes, the Traveler is male, so I was assuming Quinlan.
3:58 looking forward to a story for a different time xD
Also, having just rewatched the Acolyte trailers, which show a Tarsunt child, I wonder if that’s the species of Barriss’ mole-lion helper. They’re represented a little differently in their various appearances…