Barriss Offee is a friend, a student, a prodigy. And to some, a traitor.
First appearing on-screen in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, Barriss was the young Mirialan Padawan of another Mirialan, Jedi Master Luminara Unduli. With stark black tattoos across the bridge of her green-skinned nose, Barriss was hard to miss, even in the background of the Jedi delegation present in Chancellor Palpatine’s office.
She was also on the ground during the initial Battle of Geonosis, wielding her blue lightsaber to protect the Republic alongside her master. But she did not enjoy the field of battle, preferring studying and learning to fighting, and in fact suffered a great amount of distress and nightmares afterward.
Though Barriss has exceptional skills, she did not consider herself a warrior by any means. Nevertheless, she was sent on multiple missions into the middle of the war effort, often alongside her friend, Ahsoka Tano.
It is this friendship with the Togruta Padawan that came to define Barriss’ life.
In several episodes of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, the relationship between Barriss and Ahsoka is heavily showcased, as they embarked on many missions side by side. It was during these assignments that the peace-seeking Barriss first truly witnessed the horrors of war (and once was infected by brain worms). The Clone Wars took a significant mental and physical toll on the Padawan, and she quickly became disillusioned with the efforts of the Jedi Order and its guiding Council.
As the war raged on, she became increasingly convinced that the Order had lost its way. Radicalized, she orchestrated the bombing of the Jedi Temple, and framed her former friend Ahsoka Tano as the plot’s mastermind. Eventually, however, Barriss admitted that she herself was behind the attack, not Ahsoka. Barriss was sentenced and taken away to Republic holding.
In the trailer for Star Wars: Tales of the Empire, it has now been revealed that, at some point following her imprisonment, Barriss was recruited into the Inquisitorius. But the full extent of her journey has yet to be revealed.
The fall of Barriss Offee is a tragedy of the Clone Wars. She stands as a foil to Ahsoka, two sides of the same coin.
Nevertheless, more of Barriss’ story will finally be told in the upcoming Star Wars: Tales of the Empire on Disney+, with all new shorts available on May the 4th.
