Asajj Ventress

"Jedi. Their Order is a fading light in the dark. Corrupt and arrogant. They must be punished! The Jedi shall fall!"

- Asajj Ventress. Asajj Ventress is a Sith assassin and a major villainess in both Star Wars: The Clone Wars TV series and comics.

Asajj Ventress serves as the secondary antagonist of the film Star Wars The Clone Wars (2008) and one of the two primary antagonists in the series, she sometimes roles as the anti hero in some episodes.

History
Asajj Ventress was born to the Nightsisters clan on the planet Dathomir. However, some time later, Mother Talzin, leader of the Nightsisters, was forced to give Ventress up to a siniteen criminal named Hal'Sted to protect the clan and Hal'Sted took Ventress back to his home planet Rattatak to raise her.

A few years later, a gang of Weequay pirates attacked Rattatak and Hal'Sted was killed in the ensuing chaos. The pirates eventually cornered a young Ventress, but she was rescued by a Jedi named Ky Narec who killed the pirates and told Ventress she was strong in the force and took Ventress into his care. Narec also trained Ventress to fight with the lightsaber. Years later, when Ventress was in her late teens, the Weequay pirates attacked again.

Ventress and Narec fought bravely, but one of the pirates shot Narec in the chest, killing him. Ventress, in a fit of rage over Narec's death, ignited her lightsaber and began killing off the pirates, eventually causing them to call off their attack. A few years later, an adult Ventress came across the Separatist leader Count Dooku and he took Ventress as his assassin, stating he could sense the darkness within Ventress.

Dooku's apprentice
As Dooku's apprentice, she commited many plots for the dark lord. Her first assignment was to kill a Jedi Padawan named Anakin Skywalker. Ventress failed and Anakin defeated her. Ventress survived and later bribed a clone named Slick into betraying his allies and commanded battle droids on planet Christophsis. She later encountered Anakin, now a Jedi Knight, and his former master, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and dueled them. The two Jedi defeated her, but she was able to escape. Later, Ventress went to Tatooine and successfully kidnapped Rotta, the son of Jabba the Hutt on Dooku's orders in an attempt to frame the Jedi for the crime and have the Hutts join the Separatists.

Once the huttlet was kidnapped, Ventress held him hostage on the planet Teth, where he began to grow ill. Later, the Republic attacked Teth and Ventress yet again confronted Anakin, this time accompanied by Padawan Ahsoka Tano after they successfully rescued Rotta. They dueled briefly, but the two Jedi quickly escaped on a derelict transport ship called the Twilight. Ventress tried to pursue the duo, but was stopped by Obi-Wan, who dueled her.

Obi-Wan was able to defeat Ventress, but Ventress escaped by jumping onto a passing droid starfighter. Later, Dooku sent Ventress to Toydaria to negotiate an alliance with the Toydarian King Kantuunko to join the Separatits. Kantuunko allowed Ventress to fight Yoda and he will side with whoever wins. When Kantuunko decided to join the Republic, Dooku ordered Ventress to kill the king, but the Jedi Master Yoda, along with three clones accompanying him from Coruscant, stopped Ventress from assassinating the king, leaving Ventress no choice but to flee in her ship.

Later, Ventress was sent to planet Kamino to spy on the cloning facilities from underwater as part of a plan for the infamous cyborg General Grievous to invade Kamino and destroy the cloning facilities, thus preventing the Republic from producing more clones. Although Grievous failed the first part of the plan, Grivous returned and Ventress and her droids emerged on squid-like vehicles out of the ocean and attacked the facility, but were met with Jedi resistance. When Ventress managed to steal clone DNA, she was confronted by Anakin and she clashed with him while Obi-Wan clashed with Grievous.

Ventress was defated by Anakin who took the DNA, but when she tried to force pull it out of Anakin's hands, a clone grabbed it quickly. Anakin and his troopers cornered Ventress and ordered the Clones to execute her, but Ventress force pushed the clones away and jumped onto Grievous's passing escape pod and escaped Kamino. Later, Dooku was informed that Viceroy Nute Gunray was captured on Rodia and was being held prisoner on a Republic warship called the Tranquility heading for Coruscant and sent Ventress and her droids to intercept the Tranquility and rescue Gunray.

She killed the first few clones on board, but was confronted by Anakin's Padawan Ahsoka and Jedi Master Luminara Unduli. During the fight, she managed to blind Luminara in her left eye, and quickly fled and regrouped with traitorus senate commando Captain Faro Argyus, who was bribed by Dooku successfully freed Gunray and the trio made their way to an escape pod before the two Jedi caught up with Ventress, leaving the two Jedi to watch as their escape pod blasted off into space. Argyus then attempted to discredit Ventress, but Ventress quickly killed the traitor and escaped with Gunray into space, having succeeded in her mission.

Betrayed
Later, Ventress participated in a battle over the planet Devaron and led her forces in an attempt to destroy the Republic flagship. Much to her annoyance, her troops were destroyed by Anakin and Obi-Wan, who then pursued her and shot her down, forcing her to crashland in the Separatist flagship's hangar, where she fought Anakin and Obi-Wan. The battle was interrupted by an explosion, forcing Anakin and Obi-Wan to escape in their starfighters. Ventress was wounded and crawled into her damaged ship and contacted Dooku for reinforcements. Dooku, however, refused and betrayed Ventress to prevent her from killing him and replacing him as Separatist leader, stating that she had failed him for the last time and will die and turned off his hologram and ordered his droids to open fire on the flagship, causing it to explode and Ventress was seemingly killed.

In reality, Ventress narrowly escaped in her damaged ship just before the flagship exploded, though she slipped unconscious. Her ship floated through a graveyard of ships when a scavenger ship picked her up. Ventress told them to take her to Dathomir, though they refused. In response Ventress Force choked them to death and flew the ship to Dathomir. Upon arrival, she was surrounded by Nightsisters warriors, but were stopped by Mother Talzin, who recognized her and took her to the Nightsister village here she was born and read her mind, causing Ventress to relive her past up to the point of Dooku betraying her. Ventress then swore revenge on the Count, and Talzin enlisted two Nightsister warriors to help Ventress kill Dooku. Talzin also gave Ventress and her partners a potion to make them invisible and gave them Jedi lightsabers and a poison dart. Ventress and her two warriors then left for the Separatist planet Serenno to kill Dooku. Ventress gave Dooku the dart which dulled his vision and fought the trio.

However, the Nightsiters failed to defeat Dooku, and he used his Force lighning to send them off a cliff, which they survived. After returning to Dathomir, Ventrss reported their failure to Talzin, but she explained that them being able to attack Dooku directly proves he is vulnerable and promissed to find a replacement for Ventress. Later, Ventress went to the other side of Dathomir to find a member of the Nightbrother clan to replace her after Talzin contacted Dooku. Eventually, she found and took in a Nightbrother named Savage Opress and the Nightsisters empowered him with the dark side of the force and caused him to kill his brother Feral. The plan was to get Savage close enough to Dooku and become his killer.

The Nightsisters presented Opress to Dooku, who took him back to Serreno with him. Later, Ventress made her way to Dooku's Separatist frigate and teamed up with Opress against Dooku. When Opress was wounded by Dooku's Force lightning, Ventress angrily told him to get up and finish Dooku, but refused and attacked Ventress, giving Dooku time to flee. Ventress pursued Dooku and fought him again, but failed to defeat him and fled. Ventress quickly took advantage of the chaos on board the frigate and escaped by ejecting from the ship in an escape pod. Ventress glared at Dooku's frigate briefly before her escape pod jettisoned and vanished into space.

Goals and Ambitions
Ventress hopes to make her master proud by killing as many of the Jedi as possible. She also aspires to defeat the warlord that murdered her parents.