'Star Wars' Characters Who Returned From The Dead

Star Wars

Aug 17

Ahoka, Maul and Fett — Image Source: CultureSlate (Wookieepedia [1], [2], Movieweb)

"No one's ever really gone."

When Luke Skywalker said these words to his sister in The Last Jedi, he meant this as a reassurance that Ben Solo was still inside her son even after all the evil deeds Kylo Ren had done.

From an out-of-universe perspective, this quote reflects Luasilm's tendency to bring back characters from the dead. But it would be unfair, to call this a behavior of the Disney era of Star Wars, as the former Expanded Universe included quite a few characters who were presumed dead, only to return to the living later on, with Revan probably being the best-known of these.

Bringing characters back from the dead is per se neither positive nor negative. Killing a (beloved) character is one of the most powerful instruments of story-telling, and the over-excessive use of resurrection makes this tool blunt and diminishes the impact of death. On the other hand, it can give a premature deceased character a chance to continue or even complete his or her character arc.

Today we take a look at eight (or rather 12) characters from current Star Wars lore, who were either dead or at least presumed dead until they were brought back to the living. So we exclude any force ghosts of spirits of formerly living beings or creatures, as well as corpses that were reanimated by some kind of Magik, like the undead stormtroopers from Ahsoka, or the Nightsister zombies from The Clone Wars.

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Boba Fett

George Lucas might have originally intended for the galaxy's most notorious and skilled bounty hunter to be slowly digested inside the belly of the Sarlacc for over a millennium, before changing his mind and stating that he was OK with Fett being alive after the events of Return of the Jedi.

The EU came up with stories on how Fett escaped the Pit of CarKoon early on, but it took more than three decades until he did so in the current cannon.

Fett being alive was more or less subtly hinted at in Chuck Wendig's Aftermath novel, but it was only in the first episode of season two of The Mandalorian that he officially returned to the living (if you don't count the fifth episode of season one, and we will get to that).

After escaping the Sarlacc he spent some time with the Tusken Raiders, who hesitantly accepted him as one of their own, before becoming a kind of the major of Mos Eisley and finally taking his revenge on the tentacolous monster.

Asajj Ventress

Dooku's "hairless harpy" as Ahsoka has called the Dahtomirean is the newest edition to the roster of Star Wars characters that returned from the dead. Her fate seemed to be sealed in Christie Golden's novel Dark Disciple, based on an eight-part story arc from The Clone Wars which was never finished due to the cancelation of the show.

At the end of the book, Ventress sacrifices herself to save her lover Qinlan Vos. Her body was later brought to her homeworld Dathomir, to rest among her sisters.

Ventress mysteriously reappeared in season three of The Bad Batch, where she became a short-term mentor for Omega.

So far there is no clear explanation if Ventress had actually died at the end of Dark Disciple and had later been resurrected by some kind of Magik, or just faked her death.

Echo

Alongside Captain Rex, the failing cadet, who later even became an ARC trooper is one of the most popular characters from The Clone Wars. His story seemingly ended with the Citadel story arc from season three, where he was caught in the explosion of a starship leaving only his burnt helmet behind.

When The Clone Wars was brought back for a seventh season, the audience learned that Echo had survived the explosion and was a captive of the Separattis, who tortured him to extract intel of the Republic's strategy.

The badly wounded, cyborg-turned-clone was later rescued by Rex, Analin Skylwalker, and Clone Force 99., whom a "rebuilt" Echo later joined, fighting the Empire long after the end of the Clone Wars.

Fennec Shand

Being a bounty hunter herself Fenn learned that she had a price on her head in the years after the fall of the Empire and hid away on Tattooine where she was found and captured by Din Djarin and the rookie Toro Calican in episode five of season one of The Mandalorian. When Fenn tried to negotiate her release, she was shot by Calican at point-blank, leaving her to die in the dune sea. At the end of this episode, she was found by a mysterious stranger, who was later revealed to be Boba Fett. Fett rescued her by having cyborg parts implanted into her belly. As a sign of her gratitude, Shand became Fett's Second in Command when he took over Mos Eisley.

Rey

When Rey and Kylo Ren/Ban Skywalker confronted Sidious on the Sith world of Exegol, the Sith used the life force of the Force Dyad to resurrect his body. When Ben was seemingly defeated, Rey was able to fire Sidious's Force lightning directly back at him, until the Sith exploded in a giant blast, killing Rey.

Ben revived Rey by instilling his own essence into her, giving his own life while rescuing his "other half".

Sheev Palpatine

When Darth Vader threw the Emperor down the reactor shaft of the second Death Star and the Sith perished in a flash of energy, this was the end of the Sith Master. Well, at least until JJ Abrams had the idea to bring Palpatine back for The Rise of Skywalker.

TV shows, books, and comics are still hard at work to explain how this came to be, but we at least know that it had to do with Project Necromancer and creating clone bodies, that were capable of containing Sidiuous's dark spirit.

Palpatine using cloned bodies to achieve immortality has been a part of the Expanded Universe for more than three decades when Dark Horse Comics released the six-.issue comic series Dark Empire in 1991.

It remains to be seen if Sidiuos will stay dead this time, now that he has been blasted into oblivion for the second time.

Ahsoka Tano

Anakin's padawan is one of the few characters on this list who actually died (or maybe not if you believe that the events of the Mortis story arc were just a dream or a vision).

When Anakin, Ob-Wan, and Ahsoka arrived in the realm of Mortis in season three of The Clone Wars, the young Togruata became posses by the spirit of the Son, the embodiment of the Dark Side, and tried to kill the other Jedi. When the Son saw no further use in Ahsoka he killed her and then tried to stab the Fahter with a dagger, but the Daughter stepped in, taking the fatal blow.

Using Anakin as a conduit the the Fahter used the life force of his dying child to bring Ahsoka back to the living.

Ahsika carrying the Dark and the Light Side inside her could explain her later role as someone, who walked the path "in the middle".

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Before we come to our last character here are some honorable mentions:

Phasma: Ren's enforcer was originally intended to die on Starkiller Base, but when Rian Johnson wanted to use her for The Last Jedi, her last-minute escape from the battle station was explained in a comic book
Cad Bane: Another bounty hunter, who was seemingly killed (in this case by Boba Fett), but the last shot of the blue-skinned Duro in The Book of Boba Fett left the door wide open, that he might return someday.
Aurra Sing: And yet another bounty hunter. Seemingly killed in a crash of her vessel in Season Two of The Clone Wars, she returned in a later episode trying to assassinate Padme Amidala. Sing was later (and finally?) killed by Tobias Beckett.
Burryaga Agaburry: the Wookiee Jedi from the High Republic was believed to have vanished when Starlight Beacon crashed, but managed to survive in the bottom half of the enormous space station. Burryagawas later rescued by his friend Bell Zettifar.

Darth Maul

When Obi-Wan Kenobi cut the tattooed Zabrack in half and let him tumble into a bottomless shaft on Naboo, it was all too clear, that the main antagonist of The Phantom Menace would never return. But like many fans, Lucas realized that the story of Maul wasn't completed and decided to bring him back for The Clone Wars.

Maul surviving his fall (and his lost legs) due to pure hatred, led to the meme "Man was simply too angry to die".

The remains of the former Sith were brought to a junk world where he attached himself to a spider-like lower body from machine parts while slowly becoming insane until he was found by his brother Savage Opress and returned to Dathomir where he was resurrected by the Nightsisters.

For some time Maul and Opress wreaked some havoc among the galaxy, to attract the attention of Maul's former master, and although he could not stop Sidious, Maul later became the leader of the crime syndicate Crimson Dawn and tried to bring Ezra Bridger under his influence before meeting his final fate at the hands of Ben Kenobi in one of the saga's most anti-climatic lightsaber duels.

George Lucas had even intended for Maul to be the main villain of the Sequel Trilogy, when he handed over his story outline, before his sale to Disney.

As unbelievable as his survival may seem, the return of Maul added so much to a character, that would otherwise just have been a dull enforcer of Sidious, had his story ended with The Phantom Menace.

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