Asajj Ventress is perhaps the Star Wars franchise’s most famous prequel-era villain who has never appeared in a live-action property. Ventress first debuted in the Star Wars Legends continuity, and she went on to become one of the first Legends-era characters to be brought into the new canon. 2008’s Star Wars: The Clone Wars may have been released before Legends became an alternate timeline in April 2014, but it never fit into the old Expanded Universe, necessitating that it be considered exclusive to the new canon. Asajj Ventress has now been part of the Star Wars franchise for over 20 years, and she has changed significantly across both continuities.
Asajj Ventress was initially envisioned as the Sith apprentice of Palpatine between Darth Maul and Darth Vader, but was ultimately replaced by Count Dooku. Asajj Ventress’ origins were reworked, making her the unofficial Sith apprentice of Count Dooku during the Clone Wars. Asajj Ventress debuted in John Ostrander and Jan Duursema’s Jedi: Mace Windu, released in early 2003, but she would make her onscreen debut later that year via Genndy Tartakovsky’s Star Wars: Clone Wars microseries. Asajj Ventress was re-imagined in the new canon by 2008’s The Clone Wars, but both timelines gave her a fascinating story. Here is how Dooku’s famous Rattataki apprentice has changed since her 2003 debut.
6 Asajj Ventress Is No Longer A Rattataki
Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008-2020)
In Legends, Asajj Ventress is a Rattataki, a near-human species who may have descended from humans who became stranded on the harsh world of Rattatak and adapted to its environment. Rattataki are renowned and feared as warriors and gladiators, with Asajj Ventress’s parents being warlords, though they were both killed by the Vollick Osika Kirske. Ky Narec, a Jedi Knight who became stranded on Rattatak, helped the orphaned Asajj Ventress to survive and she became his unofficial Jedi apprentice. Tragically, Osika Kirske killed Ky Narec as well, driving Asajj Ventress to fall to the dark side in anguish. Arming herself with her own lightsaber and Narec’s, Ventress conquered her homeworld.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars season 3 extensively rewrote Asajj Ventress’s backstory for the new canon, making her a Dathomirian rather than a Rattataki. Dathomirians are exclusive to the new canon and are an offshoot of the Zabrak species. Despite their name, the Dathomirians themselves were retconned in newer canon works, with Ahsoka establishing them as an extragalactic species from Peridea who traveled to the main Star Wars galaxy and found a new home on Dathomir. Ventress’s new backstory also ties into the new canon’s version of Darth Maul, who is also a Dathomirian, having been a Zabrak from Iridonia in his original Legends incarnation.
5 Asajj Ventress Has A New Homeworld
Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008-2020)
As shown in 2003’s Clone Wars, Asajj Ventress not only controlled her homeworld, but she was also willing to participate in Rattatak’s gladiatorial pit fights. Ventress’ mastery of Jar’Kai and her dark side-corrupted Jedi teachings allowed her to best her many lethal opponents with ease. Ventress was no match for a true Sith Lord, however, as shown when Count Dooku tested her in a one-on-one duel. Ventress hated the Jedi Order for, in her eyes, abandoning Ky Narec, so she pledged her loyalty to the Sith and the Confederacy of Independent Systems, granting them one of their deadliest warriors as well as aligning Rattatak itself with the CIS.
Asajj Ventress’s rewritten origin in The Clone Wars makes her a Dathomirian, yet elements of her Legends-era backstory are still retained in the new canon. Despite being born on Dathomir, Asajj Ventress was enslaved by a Siniteen warlord from Rattatak and thus grew up on the harsh world. The warlord died when Ventress was young, but she was rescued and raised by the stranded Jedi Ky Narec, similarly to her Legends counterpart. From this point on, much of Asajj Ventress’s backstory in canon remains the same, with Ventress falling to the dark side upon Narec’s death and eventually joining the Separatist Alliance as Dooku’s unofficial Sith apprentice.
4 Asajj Ventress Never Becomes A Cyborg
Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008-2020)
In her original Legends continuity incarnation, Asajj Ventress remained a CIS leader for most of the Clone Wars, and, as shown in the Star Wars: Republic comics, she had an intense rematch with Anakin Skywalker following their epic lightsaber duel on Yavin IV. Ventress gave Anakin his distinctive facial scar while Anakin, once again, left her for dead, this time with extensive injuries. Ventress returned in Haden Blackman and Brian Ching’s Star Wars: Obsession with extensive cybernetic modifications, which allowed Ventress to fight the Republic during the Battle of Boz Pity.
This battle, however, would end up being Ventress’ final fight in the war. Dooku, not wishing to delay his escape from the planet, betrayed Ventress and ordered a MagnaGuard to blast her. This, combined with further injuries from Anakin Skywalker, nearly killed the Rattataki warrior, despite her modifications. In canon, Ventress is still the one who gives Anakin his iconic scar, but she never earns these cybernetic modifications after the duel – though there’s a different element from this story that’s been made canon.
3 Asajj Ventress Becomes A Bounty Hunter
Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008-2020)
Dooku still betrays Asajj Ventress in the new canon, albeit under orders from Darth Sidious rather than out of exasperation and impatience. This led Ventress to return to Dathomir and rejoin the Nightsisters, though her attempts to kill Dooku were unsuccessful. When the Separatists wiped out most of the Nightsisters during the Battle of Dathomir, Ventress was, once again left on her own. Needing to forge her own path, Ventress became a bounty hunter, a career she never had in the Legends continuity. She ended up working alongside notable hunters such as a young Boba Fett himself, attempting to escape her past and simultaneously make a new name for herself.
2 Quinlan Vos & Asajj Ventress Were Far Closer In Star Wars Canon
Dark Disciple (2015)
Asajj Ventress and the Jedi Quinlan Vos had few interactions in the Legends continuity, though there is one notable story they share. Vos had to feign falling to the dark side while working as a double agent for the Republic within the CIS, and when Vos returned to the Republic, Dooku sent Asajj Ventress to assassinate him. Vos survived their encounter, and this ended the thread of any other notable connections the two had in Legends.
In canon, however, Asajj Ventress and Quinlan Vos are far closer, as shown in Christie Golden’s Dark Disciple. In his re-imagined endeavor to temporarily embrace the dark side as a means of assassinating Dooku, Quinlan Vos was tutored by Asajj Ventress on Dathomir, though Ventress had renounced the dark side of the Force by this point and was careful to avoid falling to it again. Over time, Asajj Ventress and Quinlan Vos fell in love, and they remained together as long as they possibly could.
1 Asajj Ventress Redeemed Herself & Died In Star Wars Canon (But Survives In Legends)
Dark Disciple (2015)
In her original Legends incarnation, Asajj Ventress’s story ends on a more ambiguous note. Seemingly dying from her injuries on Boz Pity, Ventress was loaded onto the medical craft Bright Flight, along with the critically injured ARC Trooper Alpha. Ventress, who had been healing herself with Sith meditation techniques, awoke and commandeered the vessel, taking it as far away from the participants of the Clone Wars as possible. The fates of Asajj Ventress and Alpha in the Star Wars Legends continuity thus remain unknown.
Asajj Ventress’s story in canon, however, has a definitive ending. Towards the end of the Clone Wars, Ventress tries to rescue her lover, Quinlan Vos, from the dark side, with Vos having embraced its corrupting power after prolonged torture as a Separatist captive. Ventress sacrifices herself to save Vos from a lethal burst of Dooku’s Force lightning, and her death led Vos to renounce the dark side just as she once did. Despite her villainous past, the deceased Asajj Ventress was honored with a proper burial on her homeworld of Dathomir, bringing her Star Wars story in canon to an end.
