Kenobi’ Lead Writer Explains the Chilling Jedi ‘Tomb’ and How It’s integral to Obi-Wan’s Journey

In Episode 4 of Obi-Wan Kenobi on Disney+, the ex-Jedi Knight goes to the water moon of Nur to rescue Princess Leia. While there, he discovers that the Inquisitors don’t just kill their Force-sensitive targets. They also put their dead bodies in cases that look like amber.

The exhibit in the museum is a reminder of the terrible things that the Empire did in order to achieve total domination. The head writer and executive producer of the show, Joby Harold, told SyFy that this frightening reveal was important for the main character’s emotional journey in Star Wars.

“Obi-Wan’s been in his cave [on Tatooine] and he knows what’s been happening, but he hasn’t been confronted with it and the reality of it and how it’s evolved,” he told us. “In that cave, you are somewhat cut off. Leia calls him to action, but through the course of his journey, he has to confront what has happened to the galaxy and also what’s happened to the Jedi. It stops being theoretical and philosophical and starts being right in his face to the point where it’s a couple of feet away, and he’s faced with this harsh horror. [It was about] finding those places along the way, where he was confronted by the reality of the world now.”

Harold points out that in Episode 2, Obi-Wan comes across the “panhandling soldier” (Temuera Morrison), who was callously tossed aside by the Empire once he outlived his Clone Wars usefulness.That and the tomb realization two episodes later “are moments where you step outside the narrative of the show and you have Obi-Wan get to reflect upon the bigger universe and the timeline. Because it’s such a specific time,” Harold adds.

“[We needed to find] something that could exist in the bowels of that fortress that could be dynamic enough, that it would really impact him in that way was tricky, but also important. And then finding this sort of butterfly display of these Jedi kept in perpetuity [and] forever enshrined in this horrific way. It felt like a really important moment within the bigger journey.”

This week’s infiltration of the Fortress Inquisitorius excited the fan base. The fans were excited because it was similar to a mission in the Jedi: Fallen Order video game. Harold, who designed the infiltration, said that they looked to the game for inspiration with regards to the fortress itself and what opportunities it provided.

He continues: “I know that that was a massive benefit to them, and an exciting opportunity to look to that and help weave everything together within bigger cannon. It’s a very cool facility and it’s a kind of world that we haven’t seen before. It’s intimidating and imposing in its own way, and it’s partly sort of just thinking, ‘What’s the worst place you could ask Obi-Wan to have to go?’ There’s few places that would be more horrific to have to contend with.”

Third Sister Reva is the leader of the manhunt for Obi-Wan. People think she hates the Jedi Order because she saw a lot of violence when she was a Padawan on Coruscant during Order 66. But we don’t know if that is true or not yet. What we do know is that she is very determined and willing to fight for what she believes in, even if it means angering Lord Vader.

“Story-wise, they were an important part of the puzzle for me, because this is a show about Obi-Wan in hiding and on the run,” Harold says of the Inquisitors. “And it’s also a show where you don’t want that to just be Vader from Page One — you want to slowly pull back the layers and there being the agents of Jedi hunting was a big part of that.”