Following this, he was assigned to be the temple guard who escorted Barriss Offee to
her trial after she framed Ahsoka Tano for a huge attack on the Jedi temple.
The future inquisitor witnessed the entire trial, and after seeing how things played
out he was left seething with rage once again, feeling disaffected by the order.
Of course, because of his role as a temple guard he couldn’t show or express this emotion
at all, but he was on the edge of quitting right then and there.
The young temple guard completely lost faith in the Jedi council and the order as a whole
because of how they pushed Ahsoka Tano out of the order and arrogance towards the end
of the war.
Despite not agreeing with her actions, the temple guard did actually sympathize with
Barriss Offee’s beliefs that the Jedi Order were now more soldier than peacekeeper and
that they were causing more harm than good in the Galaxy.
This again left him vulnerable to the pull of the dark side, which led directly into
the time of Order 66.
After the Jedi purge took place across the galaxy, with the clone Troopers of the Republic
slaughtering their Jedi generals, Palpatine immediately recruited the young Utapauan guard
to the order of the inquisitorius.
He was able to do this so easily because he had sensed his darkness previously and the
anguish within him, quickly appointing him to the rank of Grand Inquisitor…
He was now second only to Darth Vader in the ranks of the inquisitorius.
Now that we know what happened to the most prominent and infamous of the Temple guards,
we can move on to the rest of them.
You may be thinking that they were all slaughtered by Darth Vader and the 501st during Operation
Knightfall, but this is not actually the case.
Because the Grand Inquisitor had already been coaxed to the Dark side and recruited by Sidious
shortly before Anakin’s scathing assault on the Jedi temple, he was able to be utilized
by Palpatine during the attack.
On the orders of Darth Sidious, the Grand Inquisitor heartbreakingly turned on his own
brothers who had served alongside him and began to slaughter each one, all before Anakin
and the Clone Troopers of the 501st even arrived.
The way he was able to do this was to rely on stealth tactics and the surprise factor.
He could simply walk up to his fellow temple guard brothers and at the very last second,
ignite his yellow lightsaber pike and pierce them through the chest…
One of the coldest ways to kill.
This fuelled the Grand Inquisitors dark side range and even cleared the way for Anakin
when he eventually arrived, making his entrance very swift and deadly.
And this is actually the reason why we don’t see any of the Jedi temple guards waiting
outside of the temple in Revenge of the Sith when Anakin arrives…
Obviously out of universe George Lucas hadn’t yet come up with the idea for the temple guards,
but in Canon it’s definitely a nice little connection.
Now because Palpatine was pretty terrified of Jedi with Yellow Lightsabers, also called
the Sentinels because of their pragmatism and connection with the General Public, he
needed them to be executed immediately after Order 66 and before Anakin stormed the temple.
For those of you who don’t know, the JEdi guardians who wielded blue lightsabers focused
on their lightsaber fighting ability and strength, the Jedi Consulars wielded green lightsabers
and focused more on the cosmic force, while the Jedi sentinels who had yellow sabers focused
on both.
And for this reason, Palpatine believed that they would be the ones to pose the biggest
threat to him, if any Jedi were to.
After this, the Grand Inquisitor himself didsabled many of the security systems and safeguards
within the Jedi temple, allowing access into the deeper parts of the complex for Anakin
and his men.
This ultimately allowed Clone Troopers to breach even the most secure parts of the temple,
tragically putting an end to the lives of very high ranking masters.
The part that makes this so heartbreaking is that only a few weeks before he was perfectly
in line with his brothers, harbouring resentment within him of course, but certainly would
never think to kill them…
This all changed after the dark day of Order 66, when Palpatine manipulated the young guard
into joining him and leading his new group of Jedi hunters under Darth Vader.
During the time of the Empire, spectral versions of the dead Jedi temple guards showed up in
a force vision to Kanan Jarrus, a survivor of the Jedi purge and symbolically knighted
him within the Jedi Order.
Now after this, some lost relics of the Jedi Temple guards including one of their helmets
was collected by none other than Grand Admiral Thrawn himself, known for his fine taste in
art, and kept on display.
A similar relic was also collected by Grakkus the Hutt later on, and the Holocron of a temple
guard can also be found on the remote outer rim world of Baatu, which you might know as
Galaxy’s edge.
So if any of you guys get the opportunity to visit, make sure you look out for that!
Inside the holocron is the voice of the Jedi temple Guard Captain Kolloma Ree, who served
during Order 66 and was likely slaughtered by the Grand Inquisitor.
His words tell of the pure honor and respect given to those who join the guard, and says
that any Knight or master can be called to serve.
Those who refuse this service would likely be shunned by the rest of the order for some
time.
So that is the heartbreaking fate of the Grand Inquisitor and the Jedi temple guards after
the events of Order 66 and the Jedi Purge.
Thanks so much for watching, really hope you enjoyed the video.
Cheers guys, hope to see you in the next one!