Evil is not born, it is taught.
When Count Dooku calls upon the Nightsisters seeking a replacement for Ventress, she and her kin seize the opportunity to exact revenge. Ventress visits the far side of Dathomir and the males of the planet seeking the most brutal and powerful warrior among them. Talzin has Asajj secretly select a warrior from the distant Nightbrother village: Savage Opress. With the power of dark magic, Talzin transforms Savage into a hulking warrior ultimately loyal to Asajj. She then delivers Opress to Dooku, where he will serve as his secret Sith apprentice in a plot to overthrow Darth Sidious.
Tropes:
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: After Ventress commands Savage to kill him, Feral pleads with his brother for mercy. Now corrupted by the Nightsisters' magicks, Savage shows nothing but contempt for Feral before fatally breaking his neck.Savage: You beg? Weakling!
- Big Brother Instinct: Savage towards Feral, pre-transformation.
- Big "NO!": Padawan Knox screams out one after Savage kills his Master on Devaron.
- Bloodless Carnage: During the Selection, Ventress uses the Nightbrothers' own bladed weapons (spears, axes, etc) against them, but there isn't a single drop of blood whenever she impales one of them. Likewise, Savage's rampage on Devaron sees him slaughter clone troopers and Jedi with a spear, but none of them are shown to bleed.
- Body Horror: Savage's transformation is clearly incredibly painful and transforms him into a hulking brute.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: The Nightsisters enchant Savage from a Noble Demon who cares about his brother into a hulking brute who kills him with almost no hesitation.
- The Brute: The Nightsisters transform Savage into this.
- Curb-Stomp Battle:
- Ventress versus the Nightbrothers. Savage is the only one to come near to matching her.
- Savage versus Jedi Master Halsey, his Padawan Knox, and their clone troopers. When Savage kills the clone troopers, it's even shown how pieces of their armor are broken apart easily by his attacks (The only time this happened in the show).
- Curb Stomp Cushion: Halsey, while no match for Savage's monstrous strength, manages to land several blows before being floored and skewered. It isn't much, but it's better than his Padawan or any of his troops managed to do.
- Establishing Character Moment: Savage gets two, establishing what he's like both before and after his transformation:
- Savage's first line is warning his much-weaker brother not to draw attention to himself, showing his fraternal tendencies.
- The first thing Savage does after his transformation is to try to strangle Ventress on sight, showing his newfound brutality and violent temperament.
- Exact Words: Pre-transformation, Savage asks Ventress only that she does not kill his brother Feral and his life would be hers. She does not kill Feral, but the now-monstrous and corrupted Savage does.
- Expy: Savage to Darth Maul, both in- and out-of-universe.
- Foe-Tossing Charge: Upon arriving at Devaron, Savage tosses aside battle droids and clone troopers alike to reach the Jedi.
- Foregone Conclusion: The end of the episode has Dooku tell Savage that he plans to go starscream on Palpatine in typical Sith manner with Savage's help. We all know this will not happen.
- Foreshadowing:
- Mother Talzin tells Dooku that she can get him an apprentice of the same lineage as Darth Maul.
- Ventress' control over the transformed Savage is clearly less than perfect; she has to order him twice to stop strangling her and to kill Feral before he obeys.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: Savage goes from one of the many tribal members of the Nightbrothers to a hulking monster, and Dooku's new Sith apprentice.
- Glowing Eyes: The Nightbrothers' irises glow in the dark.
- Gory Discretion Shot: The blow that kills Master Halsey is entirely offscreen.
- Hero Killer: Savage proves himself to Dooku by slaughtering his way through a regiment of clonetroopers and a pair of Jedi.
- Hitler Cam: This is used to accentuate Savage's new height after he is transformed by the Nightsisters.
- If You're So Evil, Eat This Kitten!: Savage's last test of brainwashed loyalty to the Nightsisters is to kill his brother. He hesitates, but ultimately obeys.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: After he manages to floor Master Halsey, Savage kills him with a brutal stab through the chest.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Both Ventress and the corrupted Savage display contempt for Feral's weakness, which may be cruel (she's been slaughtering Nightbrothers for half the episode and he's strangling his brother as he says it), but they're both right that Feral is a pathetic excuse for a warrior who wouldn't have survived the trials without Savage's help.
- Kick the Dog: After Savage's transformation, Ventress presents him with Feral, whom she had promised to spare, and commands Savage to kill him, slapping him across the face when he hesitates.
- Klingon Promotion: This is the first time Count Dooku actually considers the possibility of overthrowing Palpatine.
- Lightning Bruiser: Having not yet acquired a lightsaber, Savage can't parry or block the Jedi's attacks, so he just sidesteps them.
- The Load: During the trials, having to keep an eye on the much weaker and less competent Feral proves a hindrance for Savage, who at one point has to abandon a chance to actually land a hit on Ventress to tend to him.
- Meaningful Name: Zigzagged. "Savage" is in keeping with the names all the Nightbrothers have, but he doesn't really fit it until after his transformation.
- Muscles Are Meaningless: Zigzagged; Ventress is much skinnier than any of the Nightbrothers she fights, but she's much stronger than any of them, but after Savage's transformation into a hulking behemoth, he's much stronger than she is and barely notices when she slaps him across the face.
- Neck Snap: How Savage kills Feral. With one hand.
- No-Sell:
- When the transformed Savage initially hesitates to kill Feral as commanded, Ventress slaps him across the face to reinforce the order; Savage, who was previously knocked around like a ragdoll by Ventress, barely seems to notice the blow, not even blinking.
- One lucky clone trooper hits Savage square in the chest with a blaster bolt. Savage feels the hit, but doesn't even break his stride before he starts slaughtering the troopers.
- Noble Demon: Savage is a caring brother before the Nightsisters transform him.
- Oh, Crap!:
- One of the Nightbrothers, after Ventress catches the spear he throws at her, has a brief moment of panic before Ventress throws it back at him, impaling him.
- The clone who manages to shoot Savage has just enough time to recoil in shock that the blast did nothing before Savage kills him.
- Ominous Latin Chanting: When Savage attacks the temple on Devaron and kills the two Jedi, chanting in an unknown language plays in the background.
- Panty Fighter: Ventress has a few, very quick panty shots during her fight with Savage, with some of her kicks shot from an appropriately low angle.
- Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Palpatine ordered Dooku to execute Ventress because he worried that Dooku might use her to turn against him. Until then, Dooku never considered the possibility, but once he has Savage as a replacement for Ventress, he immediately decides to turn against his Master, once Savage is ready.
- Single-Stroke Battle: Padawan Knox's fight with Savage is over even more quickly than his master's was; he charges at Savage, who is heard landing a single blow as Knox's corpse is sent flying backwards.
- The Starscream: At the end of the episode when Dooku officially makes Savage his apprentice, he states the two of them will do great things together, and will be even more powerful than Darth Sidious, with the two of them ruling the galaxy instead.
- Stock Scream: A Wilhelm Scream is heard as Savage is transformed.
- Supernatural Gold Eyes: Savage, and most of the Nightbrothers, have iridescent golden irises.
- Take Me Instead: When it's down to the two of them against Ventress, Savage asks that Ventress spare Feral and take him instead, which Ventress agrees to, though she violates the spirit of the bargain by later having Savage murder his brother as a show of loyalty.
- Too Dumb to Live: Clone Commander Trauma during the Devaron massacre tries charging at Savage to stop his rampage. He's unceremoniously cut down in about a second.
- Villain Ball: The Nightsisters lure an unsuspecting Dooku to their planet alone. They sit him down at a table and he drinks a potion of their making... that does absolutely nothing. They send him on his way and begin preparing a complex plan involving training an apprentice to replace Ventress and eventually betray Dooku.
- Villain Episode: The only characters associated with the Republic to appear are a couple of Red Shirt Jedi and their clone troopers.
- Villainous Legacy: Dooku refers to Darth Maul at the end of the episode, calling him a "great Sith Lord" and that soon Savage will rival his powers.
- Waif-Fu: Ventress' unarmed combat style, crossing into She-Fu a bit.
- Worthy Opponent: The Nightsisters choose mates/servants from among the Nightbrothers by competing with them in battle. The one who survives is worthy, and is taken from the village.
