Deathstick: Daughter Of A Witch, Able Assassin, And Repeat Revolutionary
Image Source: Wookieepedia
Created relatively early into the Star Wars canon, Deathstick was a character who played a notable role in the mobile game Star Wars: Uprising before vanishing off the face of the galaxy when the game went defunct. Mentioned in reference material, she ultimately made her glorious return in a big way, appearing across multiple series of the 2020 Marvel comic runs, where she played a considerable role, before eventually stepping back from the spotlight to enter the role she held during Uprising.
Many readers, and still many fans today, likely have no idea who Deathstick is, and with the growing importance of Nightsisters in Star Wars canon with Ahsoka Season 2 almost certain to build on the culture in a big way, we thought it was good to take a look at this daughter of a witch, assassin and ultimately, a revolutionary, who played a part in changing the galaxy in ways big and small.
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Daughter Of A Witch
Image Source: Wookieepedia
Deathstick is the daughter of the Nightsister Shelish, who left Dathomir some years before the massacre conducted against her people by General Grievous. Shelish thus escaped his wrath, and maturing in the wider galaxy, Deathstick learned the pain of losing her heritage from an early age. At some point, she parted ways with her mother and sustained a considerable physical injury that required her to possess a cybernetic jaw, but we have little context on this time in her life.
Despite these injuries and separation from her mother, it is clear that Deathstick tried to keep her Dathomir heritage alive in certain ways. For instance, as she fell into work as a hired killer, she made use of poisons derived from sources on Dathomir, and later, when she came to lead the secret society called the Kouhun, Deathstick appears to have crafted rituals that somewhat mimicked Nightsister rites.
Assassin
Image Source: Wookieepedia
Deathstick’s main trade was the art of assassination. We are uncertain when she came to lead the Kouhun, but regardless of when it took place, her initial loyalty on a personal level was to Crimson Dawn. It seems that she did not take the Kouhun with her into this devotion, suggesting that perhaps she felt the rest of the group would have nothing to gain from fostering a connection, or she was not yet the group’s leader at the time of the months after the Battle of Hoth. She was a formidable agent for Qi’ra for much of the Lady’s planning across the galaxy during this period.
She fought several notable Star Wars characters, such as Dr. Aphra and Beilert Valance, in the name of these operations, but her biggest was selling out a stranded Rebel group to the Empire, to kidnap an heir to two great crime families currently living with the Rebels. While, in the end, the Rebels were able to take down the military response of Commander Zahra and the heir called Cadeliah was unharmed, the event was still devastating for the Rebels on the surface and a clear manipulation by Qi’ra to keep the Rebels and Empire equally unbalanced.
Image Source: Wookieepedia
Yet eventually, Qi’ra’s quest began to tire Deathstick. The nature of the Kouhun, whose ideas she likely ascribed to at this time, was about fulfillment, specifically dying and killing extravagantly. She certainly was not dying, and Qi’ra increasingly began to use her as more of a footsoldier than a special tool, and so she gradually broke away from Crimson Dawn’s hold over her.
It is possible that she was unaware it was the Sith who had orchestrated the death of her people, a truth Qi’ra might have known, but the Corellian kept many cards close to her chest and ultimately lost one of her best agents, who decided to join a group of bounty hunters on their missions instead. Deathstick ultimately tired of this as well, and by the time the Second Death Star had been destroyed, she was back within the Anoat sector, near her mother, and with the Kouhun.
Revolutionary
Governor Ubrik Adelhard’s Iron Blockade locked down the Anoat sector in the days following the Battle of Endor as the man insisted the rumors of the Emperor’s death and the destruction of another Death Star were treasonous fabrications. Aiding Adelhard was a considerable military presence established in the region after the Battle of Hoth, and as the Empire began to collapse, military power was up for grabs. While Adelhard ultimately became distracted by external matters and his Blockade crumbled, part of its collapse was aided by the Uprising, an unlikely union of trapped and ragged Rebel agents, smugglers and mercenaries of the Trade Spine League, the region’s ancient nobility in the Noble Court, criminals within the Hutt-controlled Ivax Syndicate, and lastly, the espionage and assassin order called the Kouhun.
The smuggler who helped knit these groups together sought out a great deal of knowledge about the Kouhun, meeting with Deathstick herself, and learned about Nightsister Magick through a cooperative Shelish. While working for Crimson Dawn, it was perhaps a little abstract, Deathstick was fighting to bring down the worst elements of the Empire and create a more equal galaxy. The Uprising, while joined for purely selfish reasons regarding their survival, led to the Kouhun fighting for the freedom of millions against the collapsing Empire. Deathstick became a revolutionary twice, but in the wake of the Iron Blockade’s disintegration, we know nothing further of her story.
Conclusion
Image Source: Wookieepedia
Will we see Deathstick again? Possibly, while she was forgotten about for many years, her return was incredibly unexpected and has given parts of her career more depth. But this writer hopes that when we do see her again, the storyline she appears in actively includes the Kouhun or Shelish, or nods at all to the plot points of Uprising.
A big failure of The Battle of Jakku maxiseries was its poor use of Adelhard and barely addressing the Iron Blockade. Similarly, Deathstick and the Kouhun killed his wife, and yet his active hunt for them in Uprising is never mentioned in that maxiseries, nor is the fact that he had a partner at all. Regardless, as earlier stated, Nightsisters are growing in importance for Star Wars, and one might never know when this sneaky assassin will slip into an upcoming story.
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Source(s): Wookieepedia [1] [2] [3] [4], War of the Bounty Hunters Omnibus, Crimson Reign, Hidden Empire, Star Wars: Uprising
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