Reva, the Inquisitor played by Moses Ingram on Disney+’s Obi-Wan Kenobi series, is one of the best additions to the Star Wars canon in recent memory, which has been overshadowed by all of the racism online.
Let me start out by saying it is fully possible to enjoy Obi-Wan Kenobi while also recognizing that it barely makes sense—especially considering this is Star Wars and the series has played fast and loose with canon since it decided that Luke and Leia were related, despite setting them up for a relationship in the first film. We’re used to this by now. The new series takes place ten years after the events of Revenge of the Sith. The Jedi are being hunted by Inquisitors or Jedi Hunters, Leia is living as a transracial adoptee on Alderaan, Luke is on Tatooine with his aunt and uncle, and Obi-Wan, going by Ben now, is living a capitalistic isolated grind until Luke is ready to be trained.
The trouble comes when Reva/Third Sister, one of the Inquisitors, kidnaps Leia in order to bring Kenobi out of hiding. Reva is driven to kill the last remaining Jedi for her own reason and finds the connection between the Organas and Kenobi in the archives. It launches a five-episode story of Kenobi chasing after Leia. Then losing her. Then finding her again—a plot that, while very flimsy, is fun enough to keep you engaged if you choose to be along for the ride.
Reva, however, is a fascinating character. As the series progresses, we see that her desire to combat the Jedi is personal, and that leads to her escalating in cruelty. It is revealed that Reva was a Youngling who survived the Order 66 massacre. She is now working under Vader in order to get close enough to the Sith Lord to kill him, and is killing other Jedi out of trauma, for not protecting her and her friends.
When Reva appears, it is hard not to see the parallels between her and the sequel trilogy’s Ben Solo/Kylo Ren. Both have a chip on their shoulder, are strong in the force, headstrong, angry, and are styled in comparison to Vader. Both turned to the Dark Side due to the violent actions of a Skywalker.
A few things about the character development are weakened by Kenobi‘s storytelling being repetitive and a weak at times, but that is true for everyone. All the characters are damned by the fact that this is a midquel featuring characters who need to survive for at least 8 to 10 more years. (Fun fact: Alec Guinness was 58 when production started on Star Wars, and then 63 when it came out. Ewan McGregor is 51 right now, so he is the right age and, I guess, just goes grey quickly.)
Reva is powerful, but not overly so. She’s smart, but makes mistakes. She has a tragic backstory that ties perfectly into the series and is acted to perfection by Ingram. I am honestly astounded that she is so disliked by many, and not even for being a “bad guy.” Just for having a chip on her shoulder while Black.
The ultimate fandom sin.
Kylo is a polarizing character who had great set up but, due to the mismanagement of his character, was not allowed to reach his full potential. In comparison, Reva does come to revelations of her own, and while I do understand it feels rushed, it is not more rushed than Kylo turning to the Light because his mother dies to make it happen.
Originally, Reva was meant to die, according to writer Stuart Beattie to The Direct: “I wanted her story to end. I wanted Reva to play her part in the Kenobi-Vader story, which was, essentially, at the end, she was the one that allowed Vader, basically told Vader to stop hunting Kenobi. You know, she ended the obsession Vader had with Kenobi. She claimed it was over, it’s done. So that was, that was her role to play. And she’d done so many terrible things, I felt she had to die. You can only redeem so much.”
Originally, Reva wasn’t going to know that Anakin was Vader, and that would play into crafting 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.”
Beattie continued: “All she saw was Anakin as Anakin because he hadn’t changed in the suit yet, right? So Anakin killed her friends, put the scar on her, almost killed her, left her for dead, basically. So, in her mind, the Jedi Council were the biggest villains in the galaxy. She believed the lies that they were plotting a coup to overtake and get power and all that, but they were stopped by the Clones. So she believed that’s why she’s hunting Jedi, because she believed the Jedi are the worst, basically.”
In that scenario, Obi-Wan would be the one to tell Reva about who Vader really was.
“That revelation makes her kind of go, ‘Oh my god, I’ve been wrong this whole time,'” he said. “And so she goes and basically saved Kenobi by sacrificing herself, telling Vader, ‘I killed Kenobi.’ And then Vader killed her, [with her] knowing that Vader would kill her. So, that kind of completed her arc. So just a little bit different that she was, yeah, absolutely, the Inquisitor hunting Kenobi all the way through and driven by her own personal demons.”
In the final version of the show, Reva knows about Anakin and Vader from the start and doesn’t die. Instead, we last see her choosing to embrace the Light in some way. I hope we see more of this character, and I’m also just glad we got a badass Black villain for a whole season of television. I would have felt sad if she died, but she did try to torture a child, so I would have understood if that was a bridge too far. There is this illusion that those of us who want diversity only want perfect characters. That’s not true. We also want well written, messy, villains who don’t get their redemption just by being a love interest.
(featured image: Disney+)
