Reva Sevander
Reva Sevander, a human female strong with the Force, became a member of the Inquisitorius known as the Third Sister during the early years of the Galactic Empire's reign. She also briefly held the title of Grand Inquisitor. Before the rise of Emperor Palpatine, Sevander was a Jedi Initiate in the Jedi Order during that era. Despite being an outcast and viewed with suspicion by her fellow Inquisitors, her ambition and recklessness allowed her to quickly climb through the Inquisitorius' hierarchy. While she appeared to serve the Empire willingly, hunting down fugitive Jedi and other Force-sensitive individuals, she was motivated by a hidden agenda. Traumatized by her past, the Third Sister's true goal was to avenge herself against the Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Vader for his role in the slaughter of the Jedi during Order 66, an event that robbed her of her only family.
At the time of the Great Jedi Purge that marked the end of the Clone Wars, Sevander was merely a youngling. During the attack on the Jedi Temple on Coruscant by Sith Lord Darth Vader and his 501st Legion, she and other initiates were present. She witnessed the deaths of her friends and pretended to be dead among the corpses. Years later, she reappeared and joined the Galactic Empire's Inquisitorius, which included the Dark Lord among its leaders. Knowing that Vader was once the Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker before becoming a Sith, Sevander, now known as the Third Sister, became obsessed with locating his former Jedi Master, the fugitive Obi-Wan Kenobi. Her intent was to gain Vader's favor and then assassinate him while he was preoccupied with Kenobi, thus achieving her revenge. To draw Kenobi out of hiding, the Third Sister orchestrated the kidnapping of Princess Leia Organa, the daughter of Senator Bail Organa, believing that he would seek help from his former ally.
When Kenobi rescued Organa on Daiyu, the Third Sister nearly captured him, but the Grand Inquisitor intervened, disapproving of her impulsiveness. In a surprising turn, the Third Sister attacked the Grand Inquisitor, leaving him for dead, but lost both the Jedi Master and the Princess as they escaped the planet. After learning of his former mentor's return, Vader offered the Third Sister a chance to prove her worthiness to become Grand Inquisitor by finding the Jedi Master. Kenobi was tracked to Mapuzo, where the Third Sister discovered his connection to a Jedi-smuggling network called the Hidden Path. She once again took Organa hostage to force Kenobi and his new allies out of hiding. With the Princess held captive in the Fortress Inquisitorius on [Nur](/article/nur], the Third Sister set another trap for the Jedi Master when he and Path member Tala Durith infiltrated the base to save the young girl. The Third Sister planted a tracking device on Organa's droid, L0-LA59, and allowed Kenobi and Durith to escape with Organa, intending to uncover the Path's location.
Vader, impressed by her actions, promoted the Third Sister to Grand Inquisitor and assigned her to oversee the attack on the Path's headquarters on Jabiim. There, the Third Sister confronted Kenobi, who realized her true motives. The Jedi Master convinced her that they could defeat the Emperor's Fist together, giving her an opportunity to strike him down under the guise of a distraction for his and the Path's escape. The Third Sister attempted to assassinate the Dark Lord, but he overpowered her, leaving her for dead along with the still-alive Grand Inquisitor. As she lay wounded, Sevander discovered an imagecaster belonging to Kenobi, containing a message from Bail Organa about a boy under the protection of Owen Lars who, along with Leia, was in danger of being discovered. Using this information, Sevander, no longer an Inquisitor and driven by vengeance, traveled to Tatooine to kill Luke Skywalker, one of Vader's unknown offspring who was under Kenobi's protection. However, as she prepared to kill him, she realized she would become like the Dark Lord and chose to return the boy to his guardians. Kenobi met her again, advising her to let go of her past and move on with her life, leaving her ultimate fate unresolved.
Biography
Early life
Reva Sevander, a Force-sensitive human female born circa 31 BBY, was once a Jedi youngling residing at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. During her time at the temple, she received training from Grand Master Yoda.
Order 66
In 19 BBY, she and her clan of Jedi Initiates were training under the guidance of Jedi Master Minas Velti. When Sith Lord Darth Sidious initiated Order 66, his apprentice, the former Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker, led the 501st Legion in an attack on the Jedi Temple. Clone troopers stormed the room where Velti, Sevander, and the other younglings were present and opened fire on Velti, who swiftly eliminated them and led the younglings away. As the Jedi Master shielded them from the clones, the group navigated through the temple halls until she was killed by them, leaving her charges to fend for themselves. Fleeing from the conflict, they encountered Skywalker. Sevander and the other younglings initially believed he was there to assist them, but they were horrified when he began slaughtering them, unaware that he had embraced the dark side of the Force as the newly-christened Darth Vader. Sevander was stabbed but survived, concealing herself beneath the corpses of the other younglings in her group. After being impaled by the Sith Lord, she later underwent cybernetic enhancements to address the injury.
Turning to the dark
Sevander eventually managed to escape the Jedi Temple, grappling with intense survivor's guilt and turning to the dark side. Driven by a desire for revenge against Vader, who was then serving as the commander-in-chief of the Galactic Empire's forces, she willingly joined the regime's Inquisitorius as an Inquisitor, seeking to get close to him. Becoming known as the Third Sister, she was assigned the task of hunting down the remaining members of the Jedi Order. The Grand Inquisitor dismissed her as "least of them," recalling that she had come to them from "the gutter" and that her dark side ability was the only reason she was able to remain within the Inquisitorius' ranks. She hunted surviving Jedi and Force-sensitives on Pantora, Valo, Cerea, Boz Pity, and Alsakan, but much like the Third Brother, the specific actions the Third Sister carried out in the name of the Galactic Empire remained a mystery. Reva devised a plan to assassinate Vader by presenting his former mentor, Obi-Wan Kenobi, to the Dark Lord of the Sith, seemingly to gain his favor, but with the intention of killing him while he was distracted with Kenobi. This strategy led to her obsession with capturing the Jedi Master.
A hunt on Tatooine
In 9 BBY, the Third Sister, along with the Grand Inquisitor and the Fifth Brother, were dispatched to the desert planet of Tatooine with the task of locating the Jedi Nari. While her superior attempted to intimidate the locals in a saloon, the impatient Reva interrupted him by throwing a knife at the saloon owner. Before it could kill the saloon owner, Nari, who was in the saloon, caught it with the Force. The Third Sister tried to cut him down with her lightsaber, only to be stopped from doing so by the invisible grip of the Grand Inquisitor, who instead wanted him alive for interrogation, allowing Nari to escape. The Third Sister then attempted to give chase, but was halted by the Grand Inquisitor, who reprimanded her for her recklessness and fixation on Kenobi, while the Fifth Brother instead chased the fugitive Jedi.
The Third Sister and Fifth Brother later went to Anchorhead, and began to ask for information. Much to her companion's irritation, she began to threaten the townspeople, at one point severing the hand of a local who claimed the Empire had no power over them on Tatooine. Reva focused her attention on moisture farmer Owen Lars, announcing to the crowd that she would kill the man and his family if no one spoke up about their knowledge about the Jedi, at which point the Fifth Brother intervened and forced her to stand down. Afterwards, he pulled her aside and chastised her for overstepping and continuing her pursuit of Kenobi in spite of the Grand Inquisitor explicitly forbidding it.
Bait for Kenobi
Ignoring the reservations and orders of her colleagues, the Third Sister hired a group of bounty hunters to abduct Leia Organa, the adopted daughter of Alderaanian Viceroy Bail Prestor Organa, with the hope of attracting Kenobi's attention and luring him out into the open. She instructed the bounty hunters to deliver the Princess to Daiyu, where she intended to confront the Jedi Master.
On Daiyu, the Third Sister was once more confronted by the Grand Inquisitor, accompanied by the Fifth Brother and the Fourth Sister, who commanded her to stand down while he assumed control of her operation to hunt down Kenobi. Furthermore, he criticized her for kidnapping the daughter of an Imperial senator to achieve her objective, although she countered that they had committed worse acts. The Grand Inquisitor then informed the Third Sister that she would face punishment for overstepping her boundaries at a later time.
Once again defying her superior's directives, the Third Sister placed a bounty on the Jedi Master's head, hoping that the credit-motivated lowlifes and mercenaries would draw him out to her, while she waited on the city's rooftops. After witnessing a blaster exchange between Kenobi and several bounty hunters, she began to move towards him. Upon reaching ground level, she was intercepted by Haja Estree, a con artist who pretended to be a Jedi to stall her and assist in Kenobi and Organa's escape. Instead, the Third Sister probed the charlatan's mind and discovered that her target would be escaping Daiyu via a cargo shipyard.
The Third Sister soon confronted her target at the shipyard, revealing her intention to keep him alive to deliver him to Vader, informing Kenobi that he was still alive and admitting that she was aware of her master's true identity as Anakin Skywalker. The Grand Inquisitor then arrived and interrupted the Third Sister, ordering her to step aside and observe as he personally apprehended the Jedi Master. Briefly feigning obedience, the Third Sister stepped aside, only to stab the Grand Inquisitor in the abdomen, mockingly stating that she had no intention of allowing him to take all the glory for her accomplishment. Kenobi seized the opportunity to escape on a cargo ship with Organa as the Third Sister watched and yelled threats at him.
The Third Sister contacted her master to provide an update on the Jedi runaway. The Dark Lord told her that if she captured him, the position of Grand Inquisitor would be hers, but if she failed, she would not live to regret it. Afterwards, she met with the Fifth Brother and the Fourth Sister, where she instructed them to send out all the remaining Probe droids they had. The Fifth Brother questioned her authority and claimed that he was the next in line for the Grand Inquisitor's position, to which the Third Sister explained that she had just spoken with their master personally, and that he had asked her to lead the hunt. Despite his reluctance to following her orders, the Fifth Brother obliged.
Probes were sent to Mapuzo in order to locate the Jedi Master and, once discovered, the Third Sister, the Dark Lord and the other Inquisitors journeyed to the planet to confront the runaway Jedi. The Third Sister watched as Vader tried to lure out Kenobi by killing some of the townspeople in a mining village and at one point tried to interfere, in which the Fifth Brother stopped her and reminded her of their orders to stand back. As the townspeople were being rounded up, the Third Sister found a safe house belonging to a network known as the Hidden Path, where Force-sensitives escaped Imperials and given new identities. In the safehouse, she saw the emblem of the Jedi scratched onto a wall, bringing back painful memories she had; along with discovering a tunnel leading to the spaceport. Realizing that her quarry likely headed down it, the Third Sister made her way to the spaceport and killed the pilot waiting for them there. As her quarry, consisting only of Organa, arrived, The Third Sister kidnapped her once again.
Invasion of Fortress Inquisitorius
Organa was brought to Fortress Inquisitorius on the moon of Nur, where the Third Sister attempted to interrogate the young Princess for the location of the Path. However, despite claiming that Kenobi was killed on Mapuzo and that no one was coming to save her, the girl refused to cooperate and remained defiant to the Inquisitor. Before Organa could be tortured for answers, however, Kenobi and Tala Durith were able to distract the Third Sister and rescue the princess.
As the trio attempted to escape, the Third Sister chased after them despite the Fifth Brother demanding the fortress locked down, accusing her of bungling the situation. Flanked by stormtroopers and Purge Troopers, she was able to confront the three, cornered a hangar, but before they could be executed, a pair of T-47 airspeeders arrived and rescued the three, though the Third Sister was able to knock one out of the sky. The Third Sister's bungling of the situation caused an infuriated Vader to confront and Force choke her in anger upon his arrival, preparing to kill her for her failure. However, her master was placated when she revealed that she installed a homing beacon inside Organa's droid L0-LA59 and that it would lead them to Kenobi and whoever is with them.
Promotion to Grand Inquisitor and siege of Jabiim
Having impressed Vader by tracking the Princess and the Jedi Master to Jabiim, which housed the Path's main fortress, through Organa's droid, Lola, the Third Sister, aboard the Commander-in-Chief's personal Star Destroyer flagship, the Devastator, was elevated to the rank of Grand Inquisitor.
Lola, having been reprogrammed while Leia was held hostage, snuck into the base's defenses and locked everyone inside while The Third Sister and Vader's troops, arriving on the Imperial shuttle Scythe, started bombarding the blast doors, beginning the attack on Jabiim.
Soon, Kenobi tried to parley with Reva, deducing that she was present during the night of Order 66 and witnessing Vader leading the attack against her fellow younglings herself, having initially thought he was there to help fend off the clones. She revealed she survived Order 66 by playing dead and Kenobi soon realized that Reva did not truly serve Vader, but instead sought to bring justice to her fallen younglings by gaining his trust and then betraying him. However, the Third Sister, distrusting of the Jedi Master as he was not at the Temple to help her and her "family" escape, rejected his help, pointing out that the Dark Lord had been his own Padawan and asking why he did not stop him.
After a brief but fierce exchange of fire between the Imperial troops and the members of the Path, which saw their leader Durith sacrifice herself against the oncoming troops, Kenobi decided to surrender with the intention of bringing Reva to Vader himself, asking her if she will let him slaughter more civilians, including children, and offered her to stop him again. When asked if the Dark Lord would see it coming, the Jedi Master reassured her that he would be too fixated in settling the score with his old mentor.
Soon, Kenobi was able to escape with the Path and Organa, leaving Vader, who had just reached the fortress, behind, open to Sevander's attack. The Inquisitor snuck up behind him with the intention to assassinate her master, but the Dark Lord, sensing her, stopped her before she could do the deed. Sevander, imbued with rage, tried to charge at him, but she quickly underestimated Vader's true powers and was knocked down multiple times. They quickly engaged in a lightsaber duel, though the Third Sister, momentarily haunted by memories of the Dark Lord slaughtering her fellow younglings, kept her guard down and was momentarily stabbed through the torso, weakening her. Sevander, realizing that the Grand Inquisitor survived his injuries, was relieved of her title of Grand Inquisitor due to her treachery and left to die. However, she endured and was able to activate a holoprojector of a message from Bail Organa intended for Kenobi of his plans with Owen Lars and Luke Skywalker, a farm boy living on the desert planet of Tatooine who happened to be the son of the unaware Vader.
Mission to Tatooine
With Kenobi and the Path occupied with Devastator opening fire on them, Reva set off for Tatooine on a mission to hunt for Owen Lars and Luke Skywalker, tracking them to the Lars Homestead. After he was informed by Dardin Shull, Lars, returning to the homestead, told his wife, Beru Whitesun Lars, about the incoming attack, and prepared to fend off against Reva.
Sevander soon entered the homestead, where she was ambushed by Owen and Beru opening fire on her. The former Inquisitor was able to enter the interior of the homestead and disarm the farmer after a brief scuffle, but his wife got the jump on her, buying enough time for the boy to make a run for it. With Reva dead set on killing Luke as revenge, she initiated a pursuit against the young farm boy.
Sevander followed Skywalker into Beggar's Canyon, where she was finally able to halt the boy in his tracks by using the Force to dislodge the rock he was standing on. With Skywalker now unconscious, Sevander moved in for the kill, but was haunted by memories of Vader during the siege on the Jedi Temple and herself as a youngling in Skywalker's place. Sevander stopped herself before she was able to deal the killing blow, and instead returned, albeit wearily, to the Lars homestead, with an unconscious Skywalker in her arms.
Kenobi, who had returned to Tatooine after an intense duel against Vader, faced Sevander and reassured her that she did not fail, nor fall to the dark side like her cruel former master, but brought peace and honor to her fallen younglings by showing mercy to Skywalker and was now free to choose her own destiny. Tearfully laying down her lightsaber, Sevander chose her destiny to be free.
Legacy
While the Inquisitorius was extinct by the time of the Battle of Scarif in 0 BBY, the Third Sister's fate remained a mystery, much like that of the Third Brother.
Personality and traits
Reva Sevander possessed eyes of a brown hue, a complexion of dark tones, and black hair styled in a braided ponytail complemented by cornrows along the sides of her head. As the Inquisitor known as the Third Sister, she harbored significant ambition. Consequently, she became singularly focused on locating Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi. Her fellow Inquisitors believed her motivation was to gain Darth Vader's approval through Kenobi's capture, thereby elevating her position within the Empire. However, her true aim was to get close enough to the Sith Lord to exact revenge for his role in the deaths of her fellow younglings.
This ambition caused friction between her and the Grand Inquisitor and Fifth Brother, who viewed her as impetuous and unstable, and also held her in low regard as the "least" of their order. Sevander was aware of Vader's prior identity as Anakin Skywalker due to his assault on the Jedi Temple. Her thirst for vengeance obscured the irony of her actions: she sought retribution against the Dark Lord for the deaths of the Jedi she considered family, yet her quest led her to a point where she was willing to murder innocent children and families in order to achieve her goals. However, Reva believed her revenge against Vader was justified. To accomplish her goal, Reva feigned loyalty to Vader and the Galactic Empire while infiltrating the Inquisitorius.
When her attempt to capture Vader failed and she learned of Luke Skywalker's existence, Sevander, consumed by rage, hatched a plan to murder the innocent child as a twisted form of justice for her fallen comrades. Ultimately, despite her intentions, Sevander was unable to kill Luke Skywalker, realizing that doing so would transform her into the very monster who had destroyed her family, a fate she desperately wished to avoid. Choosing mercy, she tearfully returned Luke to his guardians, and Obi-Wan assured her that she had found a path out of the darkness and could finally be free.
Powers and abilities
Once a Jedi Initiate and later a member of the Inquisitorius, the Third Sister demonstrated considerable skill with a lightsaber. She received training from the Grand Inquisitor, becoming proficient in both Jar'Kai and Form II combat styles. Notably, she also showed the ability to effectively deflect blaster fire from a T-47 airspeeder using her blade. While seen as unpredictable with hidden depths, her dueling prowess was less than her superiors, as exemplified in her fight with Vader, who effortlessly dodged her attacks.
Sevander also showed aptitude in using the Force, capable of lifting and throwing an explosive at an airspeeder attempting to escape Fortress Inquisitorius. Furthermore, she could extract information from the minds of others and use the Force to topple an antenna tower while pursuing Kenobi. Despite these skills, the Third Sister was somewhat vulnerable to attacks from other Force users. The Grand Inquisitor easily repelled her lightsaber strike with the Force, the Fifth Brother prevented her from sitting, the Dark Lord Force choked her non-fatally, and Kenobi Force-pushed her back, overwhelming her in all instances.
The Third Sister was a dedicated and skilled hunter, and Vader recognized her abilities, which resulted in her promotion to Grand Inquisitor. She also had considerable athletic abilities, demonstrated by her leaps across the rooftops of Daiyu and her ability to evade some of her former master's attacks after betraying him. She was also skilled with various weapons, including throwing knives.
Equipment
Before her transformation into a Jedi hunter, she owned a droid, but it was taken from her, along with many other possessions and relationships from her past. During her time as an Inquisitor, the Third Sister wore black plastoid armor with a cape, and wielded a red-bladed Inquisitor lightsaber. The hilt of her lightsaber was designed to split into two pieces. After her defeat on Jabiim, Sevander began wearing a brown cloak over her Inquisitor uniform. She also carried throwing knives, which she created herself.
Behind the scenes
Screenwriter Stuart Beattie initially conceived the character of Reva Sevander for a movie centered on Obi-Wan Kenobi that was eventually canceled. Beattie characterized her as "a very confused, conflicted, blinded character filled with hate and rage and all the stuff that makes people want to be Sith and Sith Acolytes." The movie was eventually reworked into the Disney+ limited series Obi-Wan Kenobi, where Moses Ingram played her. Ayaamii Sledge, credited as a Jedi Youngling in the series, played her younger self. While she was initially identified only as the Third Sister in "Darth Maul and Other Followers of the Dark Side," a 2021 edition of De Agostini's Star Wars Encyclopedia reference books, Entertainment Weekly magazine published an article on March 9, 2022, revealing her as Inquisitor Reva, and providing the first look at the Obi-Wan Kenobi series. Later, StarWars.com verified that the new Inquisitor character was, in fact, the Third Sister. The character's codename was Riley.
Original version
Beattie created Reva because Kenobi needed an adversary to overcome or rescue, as he would not be doing so with Vader. He also wanted to develop a completely new character that was not restricted by existing canon. Beattie considered having Vader leave Reva for dead during the Great Purge of the Jedi Temple, which would set her on the course to becoming an Inquisitor. This allowed the writer to craft a character filled with hate and rage. The original movie version of Reva was unaware that Anakin Skywalker had become Darth Vader, although the part where Skywalker killed her fellow younglings and tried to kill her and left her for dead was the same. This version of Reva viewed the Jedi as villains, believing the Empire's lies about them plotting a coup to overtake the Republic, but they were stopped by the clone troopers, resulting in Reva hunting her fellow Jedi. Reva commanded a squad of ten Stormtrooper Marshals that were the equivalent of the U.S. Marshals. Reva only learned about Vader's true identity when Kenobi revealed it to her. Realizing her error, Reva sacrificed herself to save Kenobi, telling Vader that she had killed him. This led to Vader killing her, as she anticipated, and ending his obsession with finding Kenobi. The original plans for the series also did not include any other Inquisitors.
Although the character shares some similarities with Trilla Suduri from the 2019 video game Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, Beattie insists that this was purely coincidental, as Reva's character was developed before the game's release.
New version
Director Deborah Chow and writer Joby Harold developed the story for Obi-Wan Kenobi, describing Reva as a ruthless and ambitious Jedi hunter. They stated that the character would play a significant role in the series, contributing to the legacy of Star Wars villains "in a really interesting way." Harold believed it was important to define her singular purpose through both actions and monologues. To achieve this, Harold made Reva unpredictable, such as when she cut off a woman's hand. Harold also established Reva as impulsive and committed to her own goals, which he felt allowed her character to push further than the other Inquisitors.
Deborah Chow wanted to cast a young woman who the audience would believe could confront Darth Vader as Reva. Chow was drawn to Ingram's strength, intelligence, and charisma, and was excited when she and the crew cast her as Reva. After a week of auditions, Deborah Chow informed Ingram via a Zoom call that she had been cast as Reva. The role demanded more athleticism than Ingram had previously undertaken, and she spent approximately four months training before filming began. Costume designer Suttirat Anne Larlarb personally oversaw the creation of Ingram's costume, with each piece beginning as sketches from Larlarb, which were then passed to costume illustrator Darell Fuentes for more technical drawings. The workshop crafted the costume pieces to feel like a second skin to Ingram. Ingram's costume was primarily black, so it was broken up with some textural differences. Stacia Lang, an assistant costume designer and Larlarb's helper, oversaw the build of the costume. The costume made Ingram stand in a certain way, and she felt bold and strong. Ingram felt like no one was looking for her to be something specific, so she didn't look at other Star Wars lore and she had free reign to be who she thought Reva is. Ingram said that her character could accomplish her mission "at all costs when given the opportunity." Ingram also expressed that she hoped the look for Reva's hair, which was finalized after a lot of conversations with Chow, would allow Black children with kinky hair to wear their natural hair in Halloween costumes. Ingram said that "it's all heart" that makes her character stand out from The Grand Inquisitor and Vader.
Reva's lightsaber was a completely original design and Ingram received it as a gift from Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy. Doug Chiang, Lucasfilm vice president and executive creative director, created many of the original concepts for the lightsaber. The weapon was customized to fit Ingram's hands. She spent a lot of time icing her hands before she learned how to wield her lightsaber. Ingram said that lifting the lightsaber required a lot of forearm strength, but she eventually got the hang of it. The actor received fight training from Ewan McGregor, the actor who played Kenobi in the series. He showed her encouragement as she fumbled through rookie mistakes. During training, Ingram learned what needed to change with the lightsaber, so it went through several processes. Depending on the scene that was being shot, Ingram used three different lightsabers: a full length prop, a medium prop, and a very small prop. Ingram also had a practice lightsaber that she was sent home with. The first scene that was shot with Ingram was her and the other Inquisitors stepping off of their ship on Tatooine. In the beginning of filming, Ingram felt like she could do her job without going through "a period of demystifying" a deep love for the franchise, which made playing the character easier for her.