Who are Star Wars’ Nightsisters?

polygon.com:

It’s a great time to be a fan of Star Wars, witches, and witches who are in Star Wars. The writing has been on the wall for a while in The Acolyte, with the show’s mysterious coven of all-female Force users having quite a few familiar hallmarks of another all-female Force-using group from the Clone Wars era and on.

[Ed. Note: This piece contains spoilers for Ahsoka and episode 7 of The Acolyte, “Choice.”]

This week’s episode put the nail on the proverbial coffin, with Jedi characters referring to Mae and Osha’s coven as a “force cult,” and, pointedly, “Nightsisters.” Or, as they’re known in Star Wars media set hundreds of years after the events of The Acolyte: the Witches of Dathomir.

This isn’t the first time a live-action Disney Plus Star Wars series has mentioned the Witches — they got an extremely fleeting shoutout in The Book of Boba Fett, and an antagonist role in Ahsoka, where the group made a pact with Grand Admiral Thrawn to transport their fallen sisters back to the main Star Wars galaxy.

The difference between modern Star Wars and classic Star Wars is that said witches have been explored pretty extensively in other ancillary Star Wars media, namely The Clone Wars, but also in several novels, comic books, and a bit in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. In Ahsoka, Baylan Skoll notes that stories of the Witches are “considered folktales. An ancient past, long forgotten.” The Acolyte, set hundreds of years before the Clone Wars, seems to be peeling back the curtain on that long forgotten past.

This means that it’s possible to sate your curiosity should you hear about “the Nightsisters” and think they sound metal as hell and worth learning more about. We’re happy to tell you that they are metal as hell, and you can learn more about them.

There is a simple answer to this question, and then a more complicated one. Let’s start simple: Generally speaking, the Witches of Dathomir are the female denizens of the planet Dathomir that belong to the Nightsister clan.

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