YMMV / Star Wars: Tales of the Empire

• Awesome Moments: The moment Barriss renounces the Inquisitorius.
  Lyn: The Jedi are a threat to be eradicated wherever they are found.
  Barriss: Then you have one Jedi left to deal with.
• Awesome Music: As usual, Kevin Kiner delivers some new good tracks. Of particular note is "Morgan Elsbeth - End Credits", which incorporates her leitmotif from Ahsoka.
• Character Rerailment:
  • After infamously being subjected to Adaptational Villainy in The Clone Wars, Barriss Offee is shown returning to her Legends-era characterization as a wandering healer who tries to help others in the wake of the Empire's regime.
  • General Grievous was portrayed as an unstoppable force of nature in the 2003 Clone Wars series, only to turn into a Dirty Coward in Revenge of the Sith and most Star Wars: The Clone Wars episodes. In his brief appearance in Tales of the Empire, Grievous is once again a terrifying villain, absolutely dominating the Nightsisters and utterly breaking Morgan Elsbeth. Justified, as the episode is from the point of view of the outclassed Nightsisters.
• Continuity Lockout: Just as with Tales of the Jedi, this show is not meant to be a standalone show and will require a bit of prior viewing to fully understand. In particular, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, possibly Star Wars Rebels, The Mandalorian, and Ahsoka are all required viewing to understand both Morgan and Barriss's story arcs.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • The "Ray of Hope" Ending of "The Path of Hate." The dying New Republic ambassador encourages Wing to keep resisting Morgan, even if his part in the fight is small. He will eventually play a small but crucial part in the liberation of Corvus.
  • Barriss attempts to kindly question a child after Lyn tries to intimidate the whole village. She even takes off her helmet when she realizes it scares the child. The child runs to her for protection after Lyn kills the village, Barriss even lets the child take cover behind her when she thinks Lyn is going to strike the child.
  • Barriss being a Martial Pacifist Warrior Therapist to Lyn and convincing her to renounce the Empire without taking any aggressive action against her.
• I Knew It!:
  • It's been a long standing fan theory that after her exposure as a traitor to the Jedi Order, Barriss Offee would somehow be involved in the Inquisitorius. The first trailer for the series confirmed that she would play a significant role in its founding and many fans correctly guessed that she would betray the Inquisitorius and redeem herself.
  • Grievous receiving an updated model for a brief shot of the Clone Wars Season 7 opener raised a lot of eyebrows since nobody bought that they’d go through the trouble of making a new model for such a brief moment, and suspected that something else was planned that would use the model. Four years later, and the trailer shows the model finally being put to use in a seemingly major role.
• Salvaged Story:
  • General Grievous' depiction in Star Wars: Clone Wars depicted him as an unstoppable badass, which left many fans disappointed when he was hit with Badass Decay during Revenge of the Sith, depicting him more as a Dirty Coward. While The Clone Wars did restore his credibility as a threat somewhat, many were disappointed that he was still a Jobber in some episodes (he lost to Gungans for Pete's sake), and a mustache-twirling villain in others that was still willing to cut and run when the going got tough. He gets the Darth Vader treatment in this series, depicting him as an unstoppable nightmare who decimates the Nightsisters with ease, and toys with them when he feels they aren't worth the effort.
  • Barriss's characterization in The Clone Wars - an eventual fallen Jedi who bombed the Jedi Temple and later framed Ahsoka for the deed - was met with a degree of criticism from fans and her actress in Attack of the Clones due to both a perceived lack of buildup and how it differed from her Legends incarnation; a healer who remained loyal to the Jedi Order until her death during Order 66. Her plotline in Tales of the Empire shifts her back towards both her Legends self and her initial characterization in The Clone Wars to a degree; while she does get recruited into the Inquisitor training program as a result of her crimes, she never embraces the role in the manner her fellow Inquisitors do, and ultimately renounces the Empire and returns to the light by the end of the show, with her final episode having her risk her life to convince the Fourth Sister to do the same, and indicating that she became a wandering healer.
  • More than a few people felt that the Fourth Sister's inclusion in Obi-Wan Kenobi felt somewhat superfluous, as she barely participated in action and in general had a very minor role in the show compared to her fellow Inquisitors. This series gives far more focus to develop her character, showing how she came to embody the Inquisitorius's beliefs, and is even given an arc where she comes to renounce her fall to the Dark Side, and spends her last moments trying to get a dying Barriss Offee to safety.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Darth Vader's appearance opens up the possibility of him taking out an old grudge against the woman who cost him his beloved apprentice, but instead he's limited to a very brief cameo with no lines and no interaction with Barriss.
  • The trailer shot of Marrok and the Unidentified Inquisitor from Tales of the Jedi raised hopes that they would receive some focus or even a proper name/title for the latter, but they're also just quick cameos.
  • Luminara Unduli, Bariss's former Jedi master, was canonically captured and imprisoned by the Inquisitorius before being executed by the Grand Inquisitor, as shown in Rebels, meaning that Barriss could have interacted with her somehow, maybe even helping spark her apprentice's Heel–Face Turn. But she doesn't show up.
  • In the final episode, Barriss mentions how an old friend of hers can help bring the family with the force-sensitive child to safety. It's heavily implied said friend is Ahsoka, but we never learn how they reconnected and reconciled.
• Unexpected Character: Amongst the Inquisitors, few would have expected the Fourth Sister would have such a large role in the show, after her brief appearances in Obi-Wan Kenobi.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Despite her above-noted attempt at Character Rerailment and her reforming, Barriss' redemption felt off to some. Her previous bombing of the Jedi temple aside, she did not really bring up her terrorist actions or show explicit remorse nor reflection on them. Additionally, her attempts to convince the young Jedi she and the Fourth Sister found come across as manipulation at best, as her attempt to "help" the Jedi would, at most have gotten the Jedi tortured into being an Inquisitor (although Barriss quickly leaves them) Also, in her third episode, after stalling the Fourth Sister for a bit, Barriss stands aside and lets her continued to pursue the family with the force-sensitive baby she's after while they are in view, in a very misguided attempt to "redeem" her despite Fourth Sister implicitly trying to kill them and kidnap their baby. Combine this with the fact Fourth Sister massacred a village in the prior episodes without remorse and fanatically served an evil empire (albeit out of fear), even going as far as to let herself be stabbed and Barriss comes across as a borderline Idiot Hero who takes unnecessary risks in a misguided effort to redeem someone who seems irredeemable. (It's probably worth noting that Barriss knows the other nature of this specific cave and that Fourth Sister would be trapped while the family escapes, but it still comes across as messed up to not directly stop her on principle.) Granted, this did seem to work at the end, but only time will tell.