Star Wars' Barriss Offee: The Child Soldier to Domestic Terrorist Pipeline - Part 1
This week on Glup Shitto Analysis...
A more general critical look at Star Wars’s current era can be found here:
Future Star Wars posts will be linked here.
Spoilers for The Clone Wars and Tales of the Empire.
Introduction
Barriss Offee is one of those Star Wars characters who many casual viewers don’t know exists, or at best may vaguely recognise but would struggle to name. In other words, she is a Glup Shitto, i.e. a background Star Wars character who is not only named, but given a bewildering amount of backstory, which is presumably meaningful to someone somewhere1.
However, Barriss could be described as an ascended Glup Shitto: she is a background character who grew into something more. She plays a small but actually pivotal role in The Clone Wars, having a key part to play in one of its most important arcs. Not only is she an effective counterpart to Anakin, but her actions contribute to his fate in a major way through a chain of cause and effect.
To give a brief outline of her biography, Barriss is introduced in The Clone Wars as a good Jedi girl who is obedient, dutiful, and selfless to the point of self-destruction, making her a foil for Ahsoka, who like her master (Anakin) is far less orthodox, and frequently struggles with the expectations of her Jedi elders. Barriss narrowly survives some perilous events, then proceeds to disappear for several seasons, returning for some major drama in The Wrong Jedi arc. This is a turning point in the whole series, in which Barriss commits a terrorist attack on the Jedi Temple and tries to frame Ahsoka for the crime.
On being caught, she confesses and declares her support for the anti-war movement, accusing the Jedi Order of being corrupt and of believing in nothing but violence. After this mic-drop, she promptly disappeared again, this time for twelve real-life years (!!!), finally re-appearing in 2024’s Tales of the Empire, in which we saw Barriss become an Inquisitor2, only to later renounce the Empire (she’s a serial-quitter), and finally die at the hands of another Inquisitor.
Barriss is genuinely one of my favourite Star Wars characters, despite (or because of?) the fact that she hardly ever appears, and also in spite of a few issues with characterisation. Nonetheless, I find her fascinating, not just because of what we see, but also because of the crisis of faith that is implied to be going on behind the scenes. Barriss’ off-screen arc is actually more interesting than many of those we see on-screen, and in some ways, the fact that we don’t see it makes it more impactful. This character is almost entirely subtext, but given that the text of Star Wars is rarely nuanced or coherent, that might actually be for the best.
The Geonosis Arc: Hints of a dark future
Barriss’ first Clone Wars outing occurs during the Second Battle of Geonosis, a gruelling campaign featuring bug people, parasitic brain worms, and numerous violations of the Protocol on Incendiary Weapons.
Here, we meet Barriss with her master, Luminara Unduli, and the two are notably similar. Not only are they the same species3, but they dress almost identically, and both have their species’ traditional garb and tattoos. Luminara looks suspiciously like a de facto mother to Barriss, although as we will see, this imagery is misleading, the relationship being very one-sided.
It may also be noted that Luminara and Barriss appear to be coded as Muslim, with head-coverings, clothes showing very little skin, and tattoos very similar to those traditionally worn by Berber women. This visual subtext helps to cement the idea that Luminara and Barriss are highly traditional, following a stricter version of the Jedi Code than Anakin and Ahsoka.
(The fact that the hijabi Barriss became a terrorist has some unfortunate subtext, but that’s kind of Lucasfilm’s MO. The quality of their output is inversely proportional to how sensitive they are trying to be.)
This contrast between the two pairs is central to the drama on Geonosis. Anakin and Ahsoka are impressed, if a little bewildered, by the disciplined way their counterparts behave. Barriss is an obedient, dutiful subordinate, following Luminara’s lead in everything. She's also apparently capable of memorising the layout of an entire Geonosian hive-factory. Is it because she's an alien? Is she autistic? We just don't know. Ironically, Ahsoka here refers to her as ‘Dependable Barriss,’ an inappropriate moniker if ever there was one.
As the Geonosis Arc progresses, the differences between the two sets of counterparts become very clear. At the climax of one episode, the Padawans are trapped under rubble, and their masters’ reactions are night and day. Luminara is an interesting example of what happens when you actually portray a Jedi as fully committed to the ideal of rejecting emotion and attachment - what happens is, she doesn't look good. Luminara is far too quick to give up on her apprentice, behaving as if Barriss is already dead, and stands idly by preaching stoicism and acceptance while Anakin makes every effort to save Ahsoka.
Barriss, likewise, is far too passively accepting of her fate, while Ahsoka's determination to survive leads her to find a way to signal her location to Anakin. This is one of several incidents in The Clone Wars that casts Anakin’s passionate nature and his strong attachment to his loved ones as positive qualities, especially when contrasted with the chilly and sanctimonious alternative.
Even after Anakin is proven right, Luminara continues to lecture him, far from being grateful or relieved at Barriss’ survival. This is all the more shocking since she and Barriss look so much like a mother and daughter, and yet Luminara clearly does not value Barriss as a daughter, regarding her only as an apprentice, and an acceptable loss.
The Clone Wars is, lest we forget, a family show, and so Luminara's lack of maternal affection appears far from sympathetic to its primary audience.
Reading into it
If we look at this incident from Barriss’ perspective, we can get more than an inkling as to why she later turned against the Jedi. She clearly idolises Luminara, has modelled herself on her very closely (to a degree that is unusual even in Jedi culture), is utterly obedient to her, and has absorbed her master’s values to such an extent that she does not value her own life. Yet this devotion only goes one way - Luminara evidently does not feel anything remotely equivalent for her apprentice.
If we look at the parallel example of Anakin, and his resentful feelings towards Obi-Wan, who was never able to take on the fatherly role Anakin desired, we have a very solid basis for understanding why Barriss might have come to resent Luminara and the tradition she represented.
Later in the same arc, Barriss’ life is once again saved, this time by Ahsoka, who spares a mind-controlled Barriss even at the risk of her own life and the lives of many clones4. So, Barriss is saved twice, by Anakin and by Ahsoka, both highly unorthodox Jedi, whereas her orthodox master would surely have given her up for dead in both instances, and in fact did in the first.
The events on Geonosis may not have been the turning point for Barriss, but representative of a trend that eventually broke the camel’s back off-screen. Of course, all of this was also happening during a war in which the Jedi had betrayed the ideals that Barriss evidently held sacred. Among other things, the Jedi gave their moral and political authority to the Republic’s use of clone troops, who are slaves in all but name.
The Clone Wars does not always handle this issue well, preferring to skirt around the edges so as not to lay the blame at the Jedi’s door, though that’s surely where it belongs5. Still, the word ‘enslaved’ was used in relation to the clones as early as Season 1, and their status as property with no rights was also highlighted effectively during the later Umbara Arc, and the subsequent story of the clone Fives6. It’s likely that Barriss’ disillusionment related to this issue among others, given her association with the anti-war movement, and based on the values she expresses in The Wrong Jedi and Tales of the Empire.
To sum up, the Geonosis Arc initially appears unconnected with Barriss’ later actions, but we can clearly see the seeds of her apostasy in Luminara’s callous attitude to her, contrasted with the warm and supportive relationship between Anakin and Ahsoka. It’s also fair to assume that wartime stress had a part to play in Barriss’ off-screen crisis of faith, especially given her apparent youth7.
The Wrong Jedi: The ‘All Jedi Are Bastards’ (AJAB) Arc
The Wrong Jedi arc is aptly named, as it revolves around mistaken identity, with Ahsoka framed for Barriss’ crimes. There are moments of brilliance in this storyline, and like all the best Clone Wars stories, the dramatic irony and sense of foreboding is palpable. It is also highly critical of the Jedi Order and especially the Council, which feels both warranted and overdue.
When Ahsoka is accused of Barriss’ crime, she is not given anything resembling a fair hearing, but a hasty show trial in which she has little opportunity to defend herself. The Council’s motivation is quite explicitly political, and has little to do with justice – they want to hand Ahsoka over to the Senate’s court to shield the Jedi Order from accusations of being above the law, though they know that she will be charged with treason and may face the death penalty.
Once again, it is Anakin’s much-maligned capacity for attachment that saves Ahsoka from an unjust conviction, as his persistence and refusal to give up leads to him finding evidence to clear her name. It is significant that in the process, he is helped not by his fellow Jedi8, but by the ex-Sith Ventress, in another instance of the arc’s subversive nature. The Wrong Jedi is about as vehement an attack on the Jedi’s moral authority as the writers could get away with, and surely wasn’t easy to get approved, given the company’s evident squeamishness about critiquing one of their biggest trademarks. It portrays the Council as a heartless and hypocritical institution, while the black sheep Anakin and the fugitive Ventress are the arc’s heroes.
From this point of view, having the seemingly hyper-orthodox Barriss as the arc’s real villain is entirely appropriate. Ahsoka is an easy target for blame because she is connected to Anakin, who the Council has never fully trusted, whereas Barriss’ connection to Luminara, who we can safely assume is above reproach in the Council’s eyes, shields her from suspicion.
It is worth noting that Barriss’ stated motivation is not a rejection of traditional Jedi values. Rather, she claims to be holding them accountable to their own ideals, and condemns their current role as soldiers rather than peacekeepers9:
I did it. Because I've come to realise what many people in the Republic have come to realise. That the Jedi are the ones responsible for this war. That we've so lost our way that we have become villains in this conflict. That we are the ones that should be put on trial, all of us! And my attack on the Temple was an attack on what the Jedi have become. An army fighting for the Dark Side, fallen from the Light that we once held so dear. This Republic is failing! It's only a matter of time.
The placement of this speech at the end of the arc is interesting in that it encourages the viewer to sympathise with Barriss, and perhaps even to share her indignation against the Jedi Council, who we have seen so coldly discard Ahsoka out of political convenience. In a way (or ‘from a certain point of view’), Barriss’ belief that violence was the only way to make herself heard is validated by the Council’s treatment of Ahsoka - it’s clear that Padawans like Ahsoka and Barriss are at best voiceless in the Jedi Order, and at worst disposable pawns like the clones and battle droids of the era. There is also a prophetic truth in the final words of Barriss’ speech, but, Cassandra-like, her warning falls on deaf ears10.
While Barriss’ argument to the court is framed in a fairly conservative Jedi way, as we would expect from Luminara’s apprentice, there is elsewhere a strong implication that she is disillusioned with the Jedi religion, and questioning the roots of their morality. This is shown when she asks:
Ahsoka, have you ever wondered if it was right to ignore your emotions?
This line is interesting, because we know that rejection of emotion is absolutely fundamental to the Jedi philosophy. Indeed, it is literally the first line of their Code:
There is no emotion, there is peace.
The fact that Barriss so directly questions the first principle of the Jedi religion is therefore significant. It’s also interesting that she questions the rejection of emotion specifically, given that (maternal) emotion is precisely what Luminara lacks.
Weaknesses of characterisation
Sadly, Barriss’ characterisation during The Wrong Jedi is not always excellent. It is hard to reconcile the cruel method of her bombing11 with a character who elsewhere appears to be compassionate, and seems to have seen herself as acting on behalf of the Republic’s people (per her speech at the trial, and similar sentiments in Tales). Her betrayal of Ahsoka also seems difficult to make sense of – one episode’s opening narration describes them as ‘close friends,’12 and as discussed above, there is also a possibility that Ahsoka’s example could have been a formative influence on Barriss during the Geonosis Arc.
On the other hand, there are hints that Barriss wishes she could confide in Ahsoka. She appears nervous and fidgety during their conversation at the Temple, and her loaded question to Ahsoka (‘Have you ever wondered if it was right to ignore your emotions?’) reads as an unsuccessful attempt to begin a deeper conversation, or even a confession. In this light, Barriss’ subsequent framing of Ahsoka could be explained as an act of panic in response to circumstances, as opposed to a plan that was coldly thought out in advance.
Unfortunately, The Clone Wars is a cartoon that sees itself as a cartoon, and as such the writers couldn’t help but give Barriss silly cartoon villain lines. ‘I think they suit me,’ she says of Ventress’ red lightsabers, after lying to Anakin in the same cartoon lying voice that Palpatine uses throughout the series13. So, we are left with a fairly confused picture of the character, which is not so much ambiguous as incoherent, and wouldn’t be resolved until Tales of the Empire years later.
It’s also worth noting that throughout all of this, Luminara is made conspicuous by her absence. This supports the theory that Barriss’ ideological crisis was connected to a rift with her master, perhaps explaining Luminara’s separation from her apprentice at this crucial time.
Fateful consequences
The Wrong Jedi also has a deeper significance – in The Clone Wars continuity, this incident is a crucial narrative turning point, effectively sealing Anakin’s fate and the fate of the Galaxy. Because of Ahsoka’s mistreatment at the hands of the Council, she loses her trust in the Jedi Order, and chooses to leave rather than accept their apologies. Anakin practically begs her to stay, but she refuses.
As such, Anakin, the man who lives in morbid fear of loss, suffers another heavy loss. He is left without his dependable Padawan for the remainder of the war, and his trust in the Council is shaken. In its final episodes, the series heavily implies that Ahsoka’s absence was a decisive factor in her master’s fall to the Dark Side, leaving the isolated Anakin with no-one to confide in but Palpatine.
So, from a certain point of view, it really was all Barriss’ fault. But from my point of view, Luminara is evil.
To be continued….
In this case, me, and perhaps you, dear reader.
A specialist Jedi Hunter for the Empire. Sadly, they’re all terrible at their jobs, so end up being rather less sexy than that premise would imply.
At the end of the episode, Ahsoka questions whether she was right to risk so many lives for Barriss’ sake, and Anakin of course reassures her that she did the right thing.
We can’t fully blame the show for this - the clone issue is always an elephant in the room in Lucas’ films.
More on this another time - the Umbara Arc gets a lot of praise, but my thesis is that it’s a let-down because it falls just short of a systematic critique of the Jedi, because the arc’s Jedi villain who treats clones as cannon fodder is revealed as a traitor and thus ‘just a bad apple’. The Clone Wars always comes so close to saying something meaningful, then puts its foot in its mouth.
It’s worth noting that The Clone Wars’ version of Barriss appears younger than her live action actress in AotC was, as she is presented as a peer of the teenage Ahsoka, and both character models are of similar stature. 2003’s Clone Wars had also shown Barriss building a lightsaber on Ilum, a rite of passage for young Jedi, and the 2008 series seems to have taken this as its cue, as opposed to her mid-20s actress from the film. TCW’s Padawans are never described as child soldiers, although that term has been used in subsequent media, notably Jedi Survivor.
Obi-Wan least of all. Note that Obi-Wan was willing to run off to another planet save his ex-lover (Satine Kryze) against Jedi orders, but he wouldn’t lift a finger to help Anakin clear his Padawan’s name. Obi-Wan had known Ahsoka for years and had been a mentor and guardian to her, and also knew how important she was to Anakin. See also that time he chewed Anakin out for wanting to look for a missing R2, or when he coldly allowed Oddball’s squad to get shot down having known them for years, or his complete lack of reaction to the destruction of R4. He may be the ideal Jedi, but the ideal Jedi is a psychopath.
This distinction (or dichotomy, if you will…) is made many times throughout The Clone Wars, including in a conversation between Barriss and Ahsoka in the Geonosis Arc, in which Barriss concludes that she doesn’t have all the answers, suggesting that even at this point, she doesn’t fully understand the dogma she lives by, and is not able to muster a rationalisation.
See also: Maul. The Clone Wars got a lot of dramatic mileage out of too-late or ignored warnings from maligned black sheep Force-users. I may write something about Maul in The Clone Wars another time; Katie Lucas did wonderful things with him and Savage.
Secretly feeding explosive nano-droids to an innocent maintenance worker.
We have to take the narrator’s word for that, as we haven’t seen them together since they first met.
Of course, this is partly just a natural limitation of the short episodes and the fact it’s aimed at a young audience - you kind of have to spell things out, and cartoons have their own language and set of conventions with which to do that.
I hate how wishy-washy Star Wars is about the Jedi. They consistently highlight their flaws, but never condemn them outright. It's like they can't decide whether to portray the whole 'let go of attachment' thing as good or bad.