What 'Star Wars' Character Has The Most Kills
In every great epic, there are always those characters that have the highest “kill counts.” Star Wars is no exception to this. In fact, as far as characters with the highest “kills counts,” the Star Wars universe probably has characters with some of the highest counts of direct kills in all of cinematic history. That is, when you take into account the two Deaths Stars, Starkiller Base, and all the planets that were blown up…not to mention droids and people, both of which add significantly to the character kill counts. This does lead to the question: which Star Wars characters have the highest death counts? And what are those deaths that we are counting?
This debate has been a hot question on “ask a question” websites, Reddit threads, and Star Wars fandom websites for years, but was brought up again more prominently after the sequels came out.
Today, when adding the numbers, it will count droids, humans, aliens, and the full number of inhabitants on the planets and bases that were blown up. Also, the characters have a direct contact with the deaths that they have caused. These are also deaths counted across the Star Wars books, films, TV series, comics, etc. Star Wars fans in particular like to debate back and forth whether or not to include those directly caused by someone or just those that were ordered. And this is the exact debate that happened on Reddit among some avid Star Wars fans.
Many people on a Reddit thread on r/Star Wars 5 years ago answered this question that was posed by u/afriendlybackstabber: “I've been wondering who took the most lives in the galaxy (but only by himself, so things like order 66 don't count as Palpatine kills).” The discussion that ensued went back and forth about whether they should count deaths for Grand Moff Tarkin, for example, for blowing up Alderaan. But then, since Tarkin only gave the order, does that count for the deaths of the people of the planet?
Either way, the Star Wars fans on the Reddit article came up with some pretty big names and character death counts. Many of which, according to the List of Deaths Wiki, they got correct.
Danger-Wolf on the Reddit question hit the nail on the head with the answer: “Hux, guys. It’s Hux.” While many of the other fans on the post didn’t agree that that counted since he didn’t actively pull the trigger to fire Starkiller Base on the six planets in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the List of Deaths Wiki does list Major Armitage Hux as the Star Wars character with the most kills.
Hux’s total death count is listed as 155,572,361,721 kills. This counts for killing three people point blank, as well as ordering and helping blow up six planets full of people.
The next one on the list, and who was also brought up in the reddit article by QuickestHipster, is Darth Nihilus. QuickestHipster says: “Darth Nihilus was a Sith Lord afflicted with dark side hunger. He would hover above a planet and drain all of the life from the inhabitants. If he did not do this with some regularity, he would whither and die. So.. He's probably pretty far up there. This is legends, of course.”
The List of Deaths Wiki lists Darth Nihilus’ kills at 6,556,396,720 kills. These deaths (among others that he dealt) were because of the planet of Miraluka from the Star Wars Tales Volume 1 Issue #1: Unseen, Unheard.
Now, despite some of the debate being whether or not to include those who gave the orders or who actively carried them out, for the purpose of deaths and kill counts, Grand Moff Tarkin is up there at number three with 2,011,775,000 kills. This, of course, accounts for Alderaan, and also the other numerous deaths. This number will most likely rise due to what we may see in The Bad Batch or other Star Wars media.
Number four on the list is surprisingly Director Krennic from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story with 11,300,000 kills, from blowing up Jedha City and causing numerous other deaths.
Number five is Luke Skywalker with 873,035 kills. Now, above are all villains, and you’d expect to see villains all in at least the top five. However, don’t forget to take into account the fact that Luke blew up the first Death Star. Yes, it was for the greater good, but a lot of people were on that battle station, so technically, Luke is responsible for all their deaths. The same can be said of Poe Dameron and Lando Calrissian, who are number six and seven respectively, as well with their help in blowing up Starkiller Base and Death Star II respectively.
There are 31 kill counts posts on the List of Deaths Wiki. They are updated as new stories come out. Surprisingly, Anakin Skywalker and Palpatine are nine and 10 respectively, not having nearly as many deaths on their record. The List Of Deaths Wiki does count Order 66 and the Jedi who died because of Palpatine’s orders, though. So, it just depends on whether or not you count direct deaths or ordered deaths.
Overall, counting the deaths on planets and battle stations, there are some pretty large death counts in the Star Wars saga, which is to be expected since most of the story is the universe at war. And the numbers keep updating with each new story that comes out.
Source(s): Fatherly.com, List of Deaths Wiki, Reddit