Who is the Grand Inquisitor?
Is he a Temple Guard, or was he someone else?
Hey YouTube, this is Urban Acolyte TV, and my name is Prince.
Last week, Mitch over at the Dash Star channel released this really awesome video on the
identity of the Grand Inquisitor from Season 1 of Star Wars Rebels.
The Grand Inquisitor has been receiving a lot of attention lately because there is a
group of people who believe that the Grand Inquisitor is actually Supreme Leader Snoke.
Anyway, the Dash Star video takes a statement that Dave Filoni made on an episode of Rebels
Recon about us seeing the Grand Inquisitor during the Clone Wars series, but not knowing
it.
Dash Star looked into that statement before he gave his speculation about the Grand Inquisitor’s
previous identity during the Clone Wars.
I highly encourage you to check out the video on the Dash Star channel, but I’m going
to give you quick rundown of what he had to say.
Dash Star’s argument begins with the question of who could the Grand Inquisitor be in the
Clone Wars when we don’t know his identity
This prompted the question of What if we saw the Inquisitor and couldn’t know it, because
we couldn’t see his face.
So Dash concludes that the Grand Inquisitor was wearing a mask, a mask worn by the Jedi
Temple Guards.
This makes sense because Temple Guards and Inquisitors have the shared use of a double
bladed lightsaber.
Also because we don’t see the Temple Guards fighting or defending the Jedi Temple during
Order 66, it is possible that Palpatine could have corrupted the Temple Guards.
Dash goes on to mention the similarities between the Temple Guards uniform seen during the
midseason trailer and the current uniform worn by the Inquisitors.
He speculates on how some of the Temple Guards could have fallen to the darkside, become
the Inquisitors, and may later become the original Knights of Ren.
Now I’m not going to get into a discussion of whether or not the Inquisitors become the
Knights of Ren, but I would like to further engage this speculation about the identity
of the Grand Inquisitor.
Let’s take another look at Dave Filoni’s statement—
He says “It’s not the first time we’ve ever seen him.
He was in the Clone Wars, but you just didn’t know it.”
The Grand Inquisitor’s race is Pau’an and he most likely comes from the planet,
Utapau.
Originally, Dash looked into old Clone Wars episodes to see if any events occurred on
Utapau or involved any Pau’ans.
When he did not find any episodes involving Pau’ans or their home world, he then began
to speculate that the Grand Inquisitor must have been someone who concealed their identity.
Here is something interesting— as it turns out, there WAS a Clone Wars storyline that
occurred on Utapau.
It was one of the storyboard episodes later released after Disney acquired Lucasfilms.
Although the episodes were never fully completed and released in their final versions, they
are viewable on the Star Wars website.
The 4-part series, “Crystal Crisis,” begins with Anakin and Obi Wan traveling to Utapau
to investigate the death of Jedi Master Tu-Anh.
Jedi Master Tu-Anh was assassinated while investigating a Separatist Conspiracy.
What Skywalker and Kenobi learned was that General Grievous and Count Dooku were working
with a group that even included the Governor, Torul Blom, and the Police Inspector, Jen
June, to acquire an extremely large kyber crystal.
Because this is nearing the conclusion of the Clone Wars— it is safe to assume that
Darth Sidious has his Separatist forces looking for kyber crystals because they’ve already
begun construction on the Death Star.
Something that stood out to me is that here are two major events towards the conclusion
of the Clone Wars that both occur on Utapau.
The first being this secret involvement with the Separatist forces to obtain a kyber crystal.
The second event is the meeting of the Separatist Forces at the end of the Clone War when Obi
Wan defeated General Greivous.
Now I will admit that when I first saw Governor Torul Blom’s discomfort with the Jedi conducting
their investigation, I immediately thought that he might be the Grand Inquisitor.
Perhaps he was already training with Count Dooku and was nervous about concealing his
alternate identity.
This idea was quickly dashed by General Grievous when he impaled the Governor with a lightsaber
after the Jedi managed to escape from his custody.
Because Grievous later returned to Utapau with the rest of the Separatist leaders, I
am led to believe that he and Count Dooku had a contact or several contacts already
on the planet in addition to the Governor and the Police Inspector.
I want to go farther with this, but first let’s look at some quick information about
the Grand Inquisitor.
According to Wookiepedia, the Grand Inquisitor was born 47 years Before the Battle of Yavin.
This would put him at around 42-43 when Kanan defeats him in the finale of Star Wars Rebels
season 1.
He would have been about 27 at the end of the Clone Wars.
Now Dave Filoni says that we will be learning more about the Inquisitorious towards the
end of Season 2 on Rebels.
Right now, we don’t have any idea as to how long the Grand Inquisitor had been in
his position as leader and the person responsible for training and teaching the other Inquisitors.
Furthermore, we don’t actually know who trained the Grand Inquisitor.
I want you to hold on to the thought of who may have trained the Grand Inquisitor and
how long he’d been training as an Inquisitor because this will be important for a point
that I am about to make.
Earlier I mentioned that I thought that the Grand Inquisitor might have been Governor
Torul Blom.
When the Jedi arrive on Utapau, we see several shots of other Pau’ans walking around the
landing pad along with people serving as some sort of security detail.
I agree with Dash’s theory that the Grand Inquisitor is possibly someone we see who
is covered.
The Pau’an police or security force dress in ceremonial robes and a head covering that
keeps their faces concealed.
I think it’s highly probably that one of these guys covered may be the Grand Inquisitor.
Now recall that I mentioned these two episodes that occur on Utapau— the investigation
towards the end of the Clone Wars over the kyber crystal, and later the occupation on
Utapau at the end of the Clone Wars where Obi Wan travels to Utapau in Revenge of the
Sith.
I think that there was a faction loyal to Darth Sidious who worked with Count Dooku
and General Greivous.
Now recall where I said that we don’t quite know who trained the Grand Inquisitor and
how long he’d been training because this is where my speculation could fall flat.
I think that the Grand Inquisitor was trained by Count Dooku.
In Dash’s theory, he believed that the Grand Inquisitor may have been one of the Temple
Guards because of the shared use of the dual bladed lightsaber, but when you pay attention
to the Grand Inquisitor’s fighting style—he does not fight like someone wielding a lightsaber
staff.
I would expect the Inquisitors to use Form VII, and their fighting style would look more
like how Darth Maul fights in the Phantom Menace.
After attending a lightsaber choreography workshop taught by my friend, Guru Jerome
Teague, last weekend, I am beginning to pay more attention to lightsaber fight scenes—especially
the fighting styles used.
What I have observed is that although the Inquisitors all carry the double-bladed spinning
saber, they all have different fighting styles.
If you pay close attention, The Grand Inquisitor actually uses more of a fencing style seen
in Form II.
The reason I mentioned that I think the Grand Inquisitor was trained by Count Dooku is because
Count Dooku is an expert with Form II.
As a matter of fact, he taught Form II to Asajj Ventress, and she adapted it to be used
with two lightsabers so that she could face more opponents.
Ventress had a locking mechanism on her lightsabers which allowed her to use them as a double
bladed lightsaber, but I think she was still using Form II even with the altered weapon.
The reason I’m mentioning Ventress is because if you look at the Seventh Sister’s fight
with Ahsoka, even though she is the only Inquisitor to primarily use both blades, she primarily
fights using one hand and continues to use more fencing or dueling motions that are seen
in Form II.
I am currently under the impression that the Inquisitors serve under Darth Vader.
It is possible that Vader is responsible for their training.
The thing is that Anakin Skywalker uses Form V. Because of the enhanced strength due to
his cybernetic limbs, Anakin, as Vader, is able to hold a lightsaber with one hand.
In the movies Vader is seen doing a lot of fencing motions to show how he has adapted
elements of Form II into Form V, but in the duel against Kanan and Ezra, I saw primarily
Form V where Vader simply overpowered Kanan.
I will admit that it is completely possible that the Grand Inquisitor mastered form II
from studying hours and hours of lightsaber combat from the Jedi Temple archives.
The Grand Inquisitor says it himself that he is such a student of lightsaber combat
that he can tell who studied under what master just from watching them.
I just find it too much of a coincidence that the Grand Inquisitor and the Seventh Sister
both appear to favor Form II—the same can be said for Asajj Ventress—and she was trained
by Count Dooku.
Notice that I’ve not mentioned the Fifth Brother— He appears to favor a style focused
more on strength and brute Force which is highlighted by Form V.
My point is that of the three Inquisitors that we have seen thus far—based on their
fighting styles, it appears unlikely that they were previously guards at the Jedi Temple.
Later on in Star Wars Rebels we will see the fighting style used by Force users who wield
a lightsaber pike, but I don’t think it will look like the fighting style we’ve
seen thus far from the Inquisitors.
So that’s what I have— based on the fighting styles, I think that the Grand Inquisitor
was being trained by Count Dooku near the conclusion of the Clone Wars.
Perhaps it was part of Palpatine’s plan to begin the Inquisitorious just like he began
construction of the Death Star towards the end of the Clone Wars.
Now I’m not saying this is what happened 100%, I’m only speculating based on the
evidence I’ve found.
I’m also not saying that Dash’s video is wrong—like I said, this is based completely
on analyzing the fighting styles and looking at the storyboard episodes on Utapau that
were never completed.
So with all that said, I’d like to hear from you.
Filoni says that we saw the Grand Inquisitor during the Clone Wars—who do you think he
is?
Do you think he may have been a Temple Guard, or do you agree with the case I’ve presented
here—that the Grand Inquisitor was someone already being trained by Count Dooku on Utapau?
Let me know your thoughts down in the comment section below.
If this is your first time seeing Urban Acolyte TV, go ahead and subscribe so you can be informed
when I post new videos.
If you haven’t seen them already,you can check out these other videos I did on Star
Wars Rebels.
In this one, I address the fan theory that Supreme Leader Snoke is one of the Temple
Guards that we’ll actually see this week on Star Wars Rebels.
In this other video, I speculate on the season finale—it’s called Twilight of the Apprentice.
Do you think it might be the end for Ahsoka—who is referred to as Anakin Skywalker’s Apprentice?
Also— I am about to begin a new series where I will review the Star Wars Rebels episodes—
I’ll be starting from the very first episode, so keep checking back for one I get those
posted.
That’s all I’ve got for now.
Remember that I love telling you all about Star Wars so that it might change your life
the same way it’s changed mine.
Y’all keep on breathing, and May the Force Be With You.