The Grand Inquisitor

"There are some things far more frightening than death."

- The Grand Inquisitor's final words

The Grand Inquisitor, also referred to simply as the Inquisitor, was the name used by a male Pau'an who held the title of Grand Inquisitor of the Inquisitorius of the Galactic Empire in the years prior to the Battle of Yavin. The Inquisitor hunted and eliminated Jedi that had survived the destruction of the Jedi Order. Trained in the ways of the Force by Darth Vader, he was tasked with converting or destroying Force-sensitive children, as well as Jedi who could train them, before they could become a threat to the Empire. To accomplish his tasks, the Inquisitor studied the records of the Jedi Temple, giving him insight into the Jedi and their fighting style. As a result, he was a deadly foe for any surviving Jedi.

After being informed of the actions of a group of rebels on the Outer Rim world of Lothal, the Inquisitor took an interest in both killing Kanan Jarrus and converting his apprentice, Ezra Bridger to the dark side. His first attempt came when rumors of Jedi Master Luminara Unduli's survival led the rebels to the Imperial prison known as the Spire where the Empire was allegedly holding her. However, it was a ruse designed by the Empire to lure surviving Jedi into a trap. Although the Inquisitor failed to capture the two Jedi, he began his hunt for the two and headed to Lothal to track them. During the fifteenth anniversary of the Empire's birth, the Inquisitor came face to face with the two Jedi once again. During a confrontation on Fort Anaxes, the Inquisitor defeated Jarrus and tried to turn Bridger to the dark side, but the Padawan used his power to summon a giant fyrnock, who distracted his opponent long enough for the Jedi to escape once again.

Weeks after the confrontation on Fort Anaxes, Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin arrived on Lothal to take over the track for the rebels. Warning the local officials that failure would now have consequences, Tarkin had the Inquisitor execute two Imperial officers for their constant failure to stop the rebels. On Tarkin's orders, the Inquisitor and ISB Agent Kallus set a trap in which they successfully captured Kanan Jarrus. Interrogating the Jedi about his knowledge of a larger rebellion, they failed to break him and Tarkin ordered that he be transferred to an Imperial facility on Mustafar. When the rebels staged a rescue, Bridger managed to break his Master out of his cell aboard Tarkin's flagship, the Sovereign. The Inquisitor confronted them in the ship's reactor room where, after initially winning and nearly killing Bridger, Jarrus turned the tide by embracing the full power of the Force, allowing him to defeat his enemy. Hanging onto a walkway above an exploding reactor, the Inquisitor warned Jarrus that something far worse would come for all of them because of his defeat. Knowing the price he would have to pay for his failure, he let himself fall to his death into the exploding reactor.

Early life
The Pau'an male known as the Grand Inquisitor hailed from the planet Utapau, where he was born over fifteen years prior to the Invasion of Naboo. After Darth Sidious, publicly known as Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, transformed the Galactic Republic into the Galactic Empire and declared himself Emperor, the Inquisitor came into the service of the Empire and the Sith. Though not a Sith himself, the Inquisitor was tasked with hunting down and eliminating any Jedi who had survived Order 66, the order given to the Grand Army of the Republic by Darth Sidious to destroy the Jedi Order. To accomplish this task, the Inquisitor was trained in the ways of the dark side of the Force and studied the records of the Jedi Temple in order to defeat his enemies. At some point, he attained the rank of Grand Inquisitor.

Lord Vader's orders
"The Emperor has foreseen a new threat rising against him: the children of the Force. They must not become Jedi." "Yes, Lord Vader." "Hunt down this new enemy, and if they will not serve the Empire, eliminate them along with any surviving Jedi who would train them. This is my master's command."

- Darth Vader and the Grand Inquisitor

At one point, the Inquisitor spoke via hologram with Darth Vader, the Dark Lord of the Sith, who told the Jedi hunter that the Emperor had foreseen a new threat rising against him. Vader told him that the threat was the "children of the Force" and that they could not be allowed to become Jedi. The Dark Lord ordered the Inquisitor to hunt them down and either make them join the Empire or destroy them, along with any Jedi survivors who could train them&mdash;as these were the orders of the Emperor. With the order given, the Inquisitor told Vader that it would be done.

One method that the Inquisitor used to find Force-sensitive individuals was to look for cadets at the Academy for Young Imperials on Lothal who met a set of criteria, one that indicated their ability to use the Force, an operation known as Project Harvester. One known target of Project Harvester was Dhara Leonis, a promising cadet and the daughter of Imperial agricultural scientists. The Imperial authorities attempted to cover up her kidnapping by claiming that she had run away from the Academy. However, her mother Tepha and younger brother Zare Leonis suspected that the Empire was lying. To ascertain his sister's fate, Zare enrolled at the Academy the following year.

Trap on Stygeon Prime
"I am the Inquisitor. Welcome."

- The Grand Inquisitor meets Kanan Jarrus and Ezra Bridger

Some time later, fourteen years after the rise of the Empire, a group of rebels who operated on Lothal came to the attention of Agent Kallus of the Imperial Security Bureau. The rebels rescued a group of Wookiees that had been enslaved in the spice mines of Kessel, a mission in which the rebel leader, Kanan Jarrus, used a lightsaber and revealed himself as a Jedi survivor. After the rebels escaped, Kallus contacted the Inquisitor and informed him about what happened on Kessel. The Inquisitor was pleased that Kallus informed him of the rebel cell and the Jedi in its ranks.

The Inquisitor laid a trap for Jarrus and his apprentice, Ezra Bridger, on Stygeon Prime. Using the bones of Jedi Master Luminara Unduli, who had been killed during the fall of the Republic, the Empire was able to project an image suggesting that Unduli was alive. This information was then reported by Gall Trayvis, a former member of the Imperial Senate who went into exile after speaking out against the Empire; the information suggested that Unduli was being held prisoner in the Spire, a prison on Stygeon Prime. Not wanting to pass up an opportunity to rescue a Jedi survivor, the rebels undertook a mission to the prison where they intended to rescue the Jedi Master.

Once in the prison, the rebels fought their way through stormtroopers who were stationed there. Jarrus and Bridger made it to the detention area, and Jarrus believed he could sense the Jedi Master&mdash;though in actuality, it was the power from her bones. They entered the cell and saw a projected image of Unduli, which faded into a sarcophagus that revealed the remains of the Jedi Master. The Inquisitor entered the cell, his lightsaber ignited, and approached the two Jedi, revealing that Luminara had been dead for many years. Jarrus attacked the Inquisitor and the two engaged in lightsaber combat. The Inquisitor was able to correctly deduce that Jarrus had been trained by Jedi Master Depa Billaba, as she had been a teacher of Form III lightsaber combat in close quarter fighting, which Jarrus employed extensively. The two continued their duel within the cell until Bridger set off a small detonator that allowed him and Jarrus to flee.

Though they had escaped the cell, the Inquisitor pursued them and continued his fight with Jarrus in the halls of the prison. He soon pushed Jarrus away through the Force and, per Vader's command, attempted to convert Bridger to the dark side. The boy refused, however, and the Inquisitor prepared to strike him down, but Jarrus used the Force to pin the Inquisitor to the ceiling, giving the two Jedi a chance to flee. The Inquisitor followed them and chased them through the prison, before they met back up with their fellow rebels. Separated by a number of closed doors, the Inquisitor sliced through them with his lightsaber and arrived in time to see the rebels beginning to escape. He made one last attempt to stop them by throwing his lightsaber towards them, but Jarrus deflected it and the rebels escaped aboard the Phantom, the attack shuttle that belonged to their main ship, the Ghost.

Incident at the Imperial Academy
"Well, Leonis, let's take a walk, shall we? I want to know everything about your former friends."

- The Grand Inquisitor, to Zare Leonis

After his failure to stop the rebels on Stygeon Prime, the Inquisitor was contacted by Commandant Cumberlayne Aresko, the lead officer at the Imperial Academy on Lothal, who informed him of two students who potentially met his criteria for Force-sensitivity. He learned that these cadets were Dev Morgan&mdash;who, unknown to the Academy, was Bridger in disguise, who infiltrated the Academy to learn the location of a giant kyber crystal of great power&mdash;and Jai Kell. Having learned this information, the Inquisitor, speaking via hologram, told Aresko that he would arrive at the Imperial Academy the next day. Bridger overheard the conversation, and he and Kell escaped the Academy with another cadet, Zare Leonis, who suspected that the Inquisitor was behind the disappearance of his sister, Dhara Leonis; Dhara was the star cadet at the Academy before her disappearance, which the Empire claimed was a result of her running away from the Academy.

Upon his arrival at the Imperial Academy, Aresko and Agent Kallus informed him of Bridger and Kell's escape. The Jedi hunter was shown the datafiles on the two cadets and recognized "Dev Morgan" as Bridger from their encounter on Stygeon Prime. The Inquisitor informed Aresko that the incident was a black mark on the Academy's record, though he did have hope of learning more about the rebels, as Leonis was also present in the meeting. During the escape, Leonis had opted to stay behind so he could find out what happened to his sister, and pretended to try to stop Bridger and Kell upon their escape. The Inquisitor spoke to Leonis and told the cadet to tell him everything he knew about Bridger and Kell.

During his private chat with Leonis, the Inquisitor led the young cadet to an interrogation room. Once inside, the Inquisitor asked Leonis everything he knew about Morgan while trying to probe the cadet's thoughts. While hiding his collaboration with Morgan, Leonis pretended to support the Inquisitor's assessment that something was not right about Morgan. When the Inquisitor told Leonis that that Morgan was a pseudonym, Zare pretended to be a "perfect cadet" and asked whether the victories in his assessments would be vacated. The Inquisitor merely replied that he should ask Commandant Aresko.

Zare then attempted to convince the Inquisitor that he was Force-sensitive like his missing sister Dhara. He claimed that he could somehow sense that there was something wrong with Dev and Jai and that they were hiding something. The Inquisitor quickly deduced that Leonis was Dhara's younger brother. While the Inquisitor was fully aware that Dhara had been abducted and forcibly inducted into Project Harvester, he repeated the official Imperial account that Dhara had merely run away. When Zare claimed that he and his sister could always sense each others' presence, the Inquisitor merely told the young cadet that it made sense and that in time he would understand why.

Empire Day
"I still sense the Jedi and his Padawan, within my grasp."

- The Grand Inquisitor

The Inquisitor was on Lothal for Empire Day when the rebels destroyed the prototype TIE Advanced v1. When the rebels attempted to smuggle Tseebo, an Imperial Information Office worker who had fled with Imperial secrets, off Lothal, he led a TIE fighter squadron while piloting his own TIE Advanced v1 to stop them from escaping. He was able to plant an XX-23 S-thread tracker on their ship moments before they jumped to hyperspace.

Realizing they were being tracked, Jarrus and Bridger boarded the Phantom and ejected from the Ghost, flying it to Fort Anaxes. The Inquisitor took a squad of troops with him aboard a Sentinel-class landing craft to confront the two Jedi. As the Inquisitor and his troopers entered the base, they spotted Jarrus and Bridger along with a multitude of fyrnocks. The two Jedi used the Force to command the fyrnocks to attack the stormtroopers. Jarrus fought the Inquisitor once more, but he was easily overwhelmed and knocked out. Cornering Bridger, the Inquisitor told him to give into the dark side, and that his friends would die and that everything he fought for would be lost. Bridger briefly succumbed to the dark side and summoned a giant fyrnock to attack the Inquisitor. Jarrus reawakened, grabbing Bridger and reclaiming his lightsaber. After driving off the mother fyrnock, the Inquisitor attempted to halt their escape, but they managed to board their ship, the Phantom, and destroy the Imperial landing craft. Accepting his failure, the Inquisitor simply stated that his Master would not be pleased.

Dealing with Zare Leonis
"Who can doubt the commitment of such a promising young cadet?"

- The Grand Inquisitor probing Zare Leonis

Following the Lothal rebels' attack on the Empire Day celebrations, the Grand Inquisitor returned to Lothal to deal with another unfinished business: Dhara Leonis' younger brother Zare Leonis. While Zare was a promising cadet at the Academy for Young Imperials who had earned the glowing praise of his instructors, the Inquisitor suspected that Leonis was connected to Ezra Bridger and the other Lothal rebels. A perfect opportunity to make his move against Zare surfaced when the young cadet took action against an unscrupulous fellow cadet named Nazhros Oleg, who had attempted to shield his smuggler uncles from Imperial justice. Under the pretext of rewarding Leonis, the Inquisitor arranged for the cadet to be transferred to the Arkanis Academy, which was connected to Project Harvester. There, he hoped to create the circumstances that would expose Leonis as a traitor to the Empire. In addition, the Inquisitor wanted to ascertain whether Zare was actually Force-sensitive as he had claimed earlier.

Following Leonis' raid on a group of smugglers, the Inquisitor and Captain Piers Roddance summoned Zare for a private meeting. When Leonis suggested that Oleg was genuinely unaware that his uncles were involved in smuggling and suggested showing the delinquent some compassion, the Inquisitor replied that compassion was the most insidious business. After ordering Captain Roddance to leave the room, the Inquisitor told Leonis that he had arranged for the cadet to be transferred to the Arkanis Academy as a "reward" for his loyalty to the Empire. Throughout the meeting, the Inquisitor made every effort to probe Ezra's thoughts.

Pretending to be a "model" cadet, Leonis expressed gratitude at the opportunity to serve the Empire. Sensing Leonis' true motivations for joining the Imperial Academy, the Inquisitor patronized Leonis by asking "who could doubt the commitment of such a promising young cadet." Intimidated by the Inquisitor, Zare turned away from the Pau'an's gaze; prompting the Inquisitor to ask the cadet to make eye contact with him. Prior to Leonis' departure, the Inquisitor told the cadet that he looked forward to his training on Arknanis and "assured" the Cadet that his service to the Empire would be more important than he had hoped for. While Leonis was uncertain whether the Inquisitor knew his true agenda, his girlfriend Merei Spanjaf uncovered Imperial documents which confirmed that the Inquisitor had intended to use the Arkanis transfer to break the young cadet.

Later, the Inquisitor visited the Arkanis Academy and landed at Area Null, a secluded tower in the Academy that hosted several top-secret Imperial projects including Project Harvester and Project Unity, the latter a program for re-educating former dissident youths. After dining with Commandant Brendol Hux and the cadets in the Academy's banquet hall, the Inquisitor summoned Cadet Leonis for a private meeting at the Commandant's balcony. There, the Inquisitor asked Leonis why he had tried to enter Area Null even though it was off-limits to Cadets. Leonis claimed that he thought that a fellow cadet was in trouble but the Inquisitor quickly realized that he was lying.

He then gave Leonis a second chance to answer his question. Leonis claimed that he had sensed that there was something in that tower that he was meant to find. The Inquisitor then asked if Morgan had told him about the tower on Lothal or something called Project Harvester. In response, Leonis feigned ignorance but the Inquisitor could see that he was trying to hide something. Before the Inquisitor could carry on with the interrogation, the Commandant's droid DeeDee arrived and informed him that he had received a priority encrypted message from Lothal. Before leaving, the Inquisitor warned Leonis that he would soon have Morgan and his companions. He also vowed to get to the truth behind Leonis' connection to Morgan. Unknown to the Inquisitor and Leonis, this was to be there last meeting due to unexpected developments.

Capturing Kanan
"Inquisitor, I am giving you the opportunity to redeem yourself. Do not disappoint me, and remember, I want this Jedi, alive." "Your faith will be rewarded."

- Governor Tarkin and the Grand Inquisitor

The Inquisitor was present in the Imperial Complex hangar when Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin arrived to investigate the situation on Lothal. Reports of the rebel activities had reached the highest levels of the Imperial government and worries had begun to emerge as Lothal's industries were vital for the Empire's expansion into the Outer Rim. Immediately upon arriving, Tarkin berated Minister Maketh Tua and Agent Kallus for their inability to stop the rebellion. He also dismissed the rumors that a Jedi was leading the rebels, claiming that all the Jedi had died during the Purge and that he knew because he had witnessed it.

Later that day, Tarkin summoned Commandant Cumberlayne Aresko and Taskmaster Myles Grint who had been pursuing the rebels for some time and who had failed at every turn. After a brief conversation during which he revealed that other rebel cells were active in the Empire and that the rumors of a Jedi leading a rebellion could spark hope and encourage unity, Tarkin informed the assembled dignitaries that there would be consequences for failure henceforth. Upon these words, the Inquisitor activated his lightsaber directly behind Aresko and Grint and triggered the spinning feature, decapitating the two officers as a horrified Tua and Kallus watched on. When Kallus discovered that the Rebels were planning to strike at the Imperial communications tower, Tarkin instructed him to let them enter the tower but prepare his troops to intervene as soon as they did. After Kallus left, Tarkin told the Inquisitor that this was his chance to redeem himself for his previous failures. The Pau'an promised the Governor that his faith would be rewarded.

After the Rebels struck the tower, Kallus and his troops intervened, surrounding the tower and forcing the Rebels to escape to the roof. Only Kanan Jarrus remained behind to give them time to escape, at which point the Inquisitor arrived to confront the Jedi. Jarrus destroyed the console giving them access to the tower. Once again, the Inquisitor and the Jedi fought, with the former noticing that Jarrus had improved his technique. However, the Inquisitor proved the strongest of the two once again and he subdued Jarrus with the Force. However, the rest of the Rebels successfully escaped. With Jarrus in custody, Grand Moff Tarkin arrived and was given the captured Jedi just as a signal broadcast by the rebels begun to transmit by the tower. Tarkin gave orders for the tower to be destroyed before leaving with his prisoner.

Kanan's interrogation
"Tell me, Jedi, how did you survive Order 66? It was your master Billaba who laid down her life for yours. Do you remember her last words to you? Her last and final breath before she died? You do, don't you? You see it in your sleep, you hear her voice when you wake. Tell me Jedi, what was her last word to you?" "Run."

- The Grand Inquisitor asks Jarrus about his master's last words

After Kanan was captured, he was brought aboard Grand Moff Tarkin's flagship in orbit above Lothal: the Sovereign. Tarkin and Kallus proceed to interrogate Kanan with a mind probe but the Jedi proved stronger than this tactic. As Tarkin grew more frustrated with the lack of results, the Inquisitor arrived and told them that Jedi were trained to resist mind probes. Instead, he claimed that pain would be a more effective technique, as Jedi still felt it. The Inquisitor used the Force to try and pry the information from Kanan's mind but, once again, the Jedi resisted. Instead, the Inquisitor electrocuted Kanan to make him talk. However, the rebel proved to be far stronger than he believed and he resisted the torture. The Inquisitor came to believe that Kanan did not know anything of a larger rebellion. Tarkin eventually suggested to transfer him to a facility which had never failed to gain results. The Sovereign then departed Lothal for Mustafar, a world deep in the Outer Rim.

Over Mustafar, the Inquisitor continued his interrogation of Kanan, asking him about other rebels he may have known. Specifically, he wanted to know about a mysterious rebel known as "Fulcrum". Kanan still refused to talk so the Inquisitor changed tactics: he asked Kanan how he had survived Order 66. When Kanan failed to answer, the Inquisitor revealed that he knew how; Jarrus' Master, Depa Billaba, had sacrificed herself to save him, losing her own life in the process. The Inquisitor taunted Kanan, asking him if he remembered what his Master's last words were and Kanan answered that she told him to run. The Inquisitor told Jarrus that he could not save his friends anymore than he could save his Master because he feared his own power and did not even dare wear his lightsaber in public because of it. When alarms began going off, the Inquisitor was unsurprised to find that the other rebels had come to rescue their friend.

Confrontation aboard the Sovereign
"At last, a fight that might be worthy of my time."

- The Grand Inquisitor

After Ezra broke Kanan out of his cell, they headed back for their evacuation ship through the generator complex. The Inquisitor waited for them and ignited his lightsaber. Kanan borrowed Ezra's lightsaber and attacked the Inquisitor. As he was about to reach him, he activated the lightsaber's stun gun, surprising his opponent. The two engaged in a lightsaber duel with Kanan using both the blade and the stun gun to attack the Inquisitor. When Ezra used the Force to snatch Kanan's lightsaber from the Imperial agent's belt, the Inquisitor disengaged from the duel with Kanan and, activating his second blade, claimed that he would finally get the challenge that he had always wanted. After a brief engagement, he used the Force to push Kanan back before throwing his spinning lightsaber at Ezra, who fell from the pathway, to Kanan's horror. Distraught at the apparent loss of his Padawan, Kanan remained on his knees for a while as the Inquisitor stood over him, smiling sadistically at the Jedi's obvious anguish. However, he eventually pulled himself together, remembering his Jedi training and rose to his feet. When the Inquisitor asked him what would happen now that no one else would die for him, Kanan replied that he no longer had anything left to fear. He then used the Force to draw his lightsaber to him, using both it and Ezra's. After saluting each other, the Inquisitor and the Jedi resumed their duel. This time however, Kanan proved a much more effective foe and he gradually started to drive the Inquisitor back, the latter of whom began to show fear and uncertainty for the first time. When the Inquisitor came perilously close to the edge, Kanan interrupted the duel to say that his foe was right: he was a coward but that he had discovered that there was something far more powerful than fear: the Force. The Inquisitor made his blades spin to defend himself, but Kanan destroyed the Inquisitor's lightsaber and the Imperial agent fell off the edge, catching the side of the pathway in his fall. The two halves of his lightsaber hit the generator, causing it to catch fire and starting a chain reaction within the Sovereign.

As Kanan stood over his defeated foe, the Inquisitor looked up at him and told him that his defeat would unleash something far worse upon them all. Knowing the punishment he would receive for his failure, the Inquisitor told the Jedi that there were some things far more frightening than death before letting himself fall into the exploding generator, killing himself.

The Inquisitor's last words to Kanan eventually proved true. With their primary agent on Lothal dead and a growing rebellion in the galaxy, the Empire sent out a far deadlier agent to Lothal to root out and destroy the rebels: Darth Vader, the Inquisitor's master. Also, the other Inquisitors began hunting Kanan and Ezra as well, after learning of their leader's death.

Personality and traits
"Compassion is the most insidious weakness of all..."

- The Inquisitor, responding to a comment by Zare Leonis

The Grand Inquisitor was a male Pau'an with white, lined skin and red markings adorning his face. He wore black armor emblazoned with the crest of the Galactic Empire and carried a red gyroscopic double-bladed lightsaber, using this type of lightsaber in order to intimidate his opponents. In particular, he was able to throw inexperienced Jedi off-balance. Because Jedi relied on balanced emotions, the imbalance gave the Inquisitor an edge in combat. Although he was a physical opponent for Jedi and tapped into the dark side of the Force, he did not appear overly emotional, instead operating as a cold and analytical mind. Whatever intensity he showed was a result of his purpose in completing his mission.

Through the dark side, the Inquisitor was able to learn about individual Jedi and use their secrets against them. He studied the records of the Jedi Temple to not only identify Jedi, but also have an understanding of their combat forms and traditions. His knowledge was extensive enough that he could identity who a Jedi was trained by, such as when he identified Depa Billaba as Jarrus' Jedi Master. He utilized this, like his lightsaber, to inflict an opponent with fear, which was his most powerful weapon against his enemies. Once in combat, he did not show mercy, having been tasked with judging and eliminating Jedi survivors. The Inquisitor also supported Captain Piers Roddance's view that the Empire needed to purge itself of all weakness and regarded compassion as the most insidious weakness.

Powers and abilities
The Grand Inquisitor was a practitioner of the dark side of the Force and trained in lightsaber combat. He wielded a double-bladed lightsaber, which he used in multiple settings; single-bladed, double-bladed, as well as double-bladed with the blades spinning on the hilt. In addition to using the weapon to unnerve his enemies, he wielded it in order to quickly and efficiently end combat with as little effort as was required. This allowed him to skillfully execute the Jedi he encountered. The Inquisitor also demonstrated skill in the use of dual blades to the point of using a single-bladed lightsaber and his double-bladed spinning lightsaber at the same time, such as when he fended off a giant fyrnock in Fort Anaxes.

The Grand Inquisitor Held some skill in Makashi, able to hold his own with Kanan Jarrus twice whilst using the form, before quickly defeating him.

In addition to being a formidable lightsaber duelist, the Inquisitor was skilled in the use of telekinesis. He possessed enough telekinetic power to push Kanan Jarrus clear across a hall and throw his lightsaber with lethal precision. The Inquisitor had a keen Force Sense, which he demonstrated during his pursuit of Kanan Jarrus and Ezra Bridger on Empire Day. While interrogating Kanan, the Inquisitor demonstrated an affinity for mind tricks. The Inquisitor was also a skilled pilot, and commonly demonstrated his competence in flying a TIE prototype while hunting rebels.

Equipment
The Grand Inquisitor wore the Special Adjutant's Helmet during his flights in his TIE Advanced v1 starfighter.

Behind the scenes
"Once we put the Utapauan head on, it all kinda fell into place. Suddenly there was this black-suited, evil Inquisitor."

- Dave Filoni

The Grand Inquisitor was created as one of the primary antagonists of the animated television series Star Wars Rebels. When designing the character, who is voiced by actor Jason Isaacs, the look and species went through several different iterations and was a topic of much discussion at Lucasfilm. The production team wanted to ensure that the character was not a carbon copy of past iconic villains such as Darth Maul or Darth Vader. At one point, the Inquisitor was designed as a Chagrian. Eventually, it was decided that they would make the character a Pau'an, which, according to series executive producer Dave Filoni, was when the character fell into place. Fellow executive producer Simon Kinberg felt it gave the character a real and human quality, while at the same time evoking a "creaturely", terrifying, and nightmarish look.

In further differentiating the Inquisitor from past villains, the production team crafted him as a cold and analytical character who presents himself as elegant, sophisticated, and educated. Furthermore, they did not want him to be similar to villains from cartoons from the 1980s, which Lucasfilm's Pablo Hidalgo described as having the villains lose in every episode yet still be presented as a credible threat. Instead, the Inquisitor is meant to be someone whose arrival is a significant event and a challenge to the rebels.

The Inquisitor was the first character announced for Star Wars Rebels. The character was revealed at New York Comic Con 2013 during a panel about the show, in which a video was shown introducing the Inquisitor as a Jedi hunter who would be a recurring antagonist for the heroes. The character's action figure was revealed on December 30, 2013, with a more in-depth video about the character, as well as an announcement about Isaac's casting, released on July 17, 2014. The Inquisitor made his first on-screen appearance in Star Wars Rebels: Spark of Rebellion, which premiered on October 3, 2014. Spark of Rebellion re-aired on October 27 on ABC, with a new scene at the beginning of the episode featuring the Inquisitor speaking with Darth Vader.

On October 28, 2015, Dave Filoni revealed that the Inquisitor appeared in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, although the audience didn't know it.

Non-canon appearances

 * Angry Birds Star Wars II