The Star Wars Legends continuity saw the live-action debut of a Nightsister decades before Morgan Elsbeth’s appearances in The Mandalorian and Ahsoka. The Nightsisters debuted in Dave Wolverton’s Legend-era novel The Courtship of Princess Leia, as one of many different sub-cultures within the Witches of Dathomir. The dangerous Outer Rim planet of Dathomir was ruled by various clans of Force-sensitive human witches, including the Nightsisters, whose ability to wield the Force was actually seen in live-action long ago.
Most of the Witches of Dathomir used only the Force in its natural state, living by the motto of “never concede to evil” coined by the rogue Jedi Allya, who became the first of Dathomir’s Witches. Some Witch clans, most notably the Nightsisters, use the dark side of the Force, with some nearly rivaling the threat of Dark Lords of the Sith. Thanks to a retcon, one of these Nightsisters actually appeared in one of the Legends continuity’s few live-action properties outside the original and prequel Star Wars movies: 1985’s Ewoks: The Battle for Endor.
Charal Was The First Live-Action Nightsister…Introduced 38 Years Ago
In Ewoks: The Battle for Endor, one of the leaders of the villainous Sanyassan Marauders is the mysterious witch Charal, who can alter her appearance and, thanks to a talisman, shapeshift into a raven. In the Star Wars franchise, “magick” is simply a manifestation of the Force, and while Charal was initially portrayed as a simple human with dark side powers, other Legends-era material would retroactively make her a Nightsister who became stranded on Endor after leaving Dathomir. The change was fitting, as Charal’s dark powers and appearance closely resemble those of other Legends-era Nightsisters.
Charal’s dark side-imbued Talisman of the Raven, however, is a Nightsister artifact that did not initially belong to her. For reasons unknown, Charal left the Nightsisters and stole the talisman on her way off Dathomir. After becoming one of the Sanyassan Marauders’ leaders, Charal had several run-ins with the Ewoks of Bright Tree village, as shown in Zack Giallongo’s Star Wars: Ewoks—Shadows of Endor. Charal’s fate is unknown, as she is seemingly trapped in raven form forever when her talisman is destroyed.
How The Nightsisters Have Changed Since Charal’s Debut
Nightsister lore was extensively rewritten in the new Star Wars canon, which supplanted Legends as the official Star Wars continuity in 2014. In Star Wars: The Clone Wars season 3, Asajj Ventress is re-imagined as a Nightsister, despite having been a Rattataki in the Legends continuity. Additionally, the Nightsisters are rewritten as the new Dathomirian species rather than humans, and Dathomir itself is visually quite different from its original Legends incarnation. Ahsoka further establishes that Nightsisters were not isolated to Dathomir, with the Dathomirian species having originated on the extragalactic world of Peridea. With Ahsoka also setting the Nightsisters into an alliance with Grand Admiral Thrawn, the Witches of Dathomir will likely have even more stories left to tell in the future of Star Wars live-action.
