Aniseya

Mother Aniseya was a human female who lived during the High Republic Era. She led an exiled coven of witches and eventually settled the group on the planet Brendok after they had suffered persecution for some time. Around 156 BBY, Mother Aniseya created the twin children Mae-ho and Verosha Aniseya, who were then carried until their birth by Mother Koril. Mother Aniseya and Koril raised the sisters together as their mothers, though the pair often disagreed on how to raise the twins.
In 148 BBY, Aniseya hosted Rite of Ascension ceremony for her daughters to become witches. When several visiting Jedi interrupted, and Mother Aniseya agreed to let the pair be tested after Jedi Master Indara insisted. Not long after, Aniseya died when she attempted to forestall further conflict during a confrontation with Master Sol and the Padawan Torbin where the Jedi questioned her about the nature behind her daughters' birth. Triggering the beginnings of a transformation within both herself and Mae-ho, Aniseya was killed by Sol, who mistook her efforts as an attack against him and struck out with his lightsaber, mortally wounding the witch, who explained with her dying breaths that she had been intending to allow Verosha to leave and join the Jedi Order.
Her death having spurred the following battle between the Brendok coven and the Jedi, which resulted in the deaths of most of the witches. Verosha and Mae-ho survived, with the former becoming Sol's Padawan and the latter becoming a Sith assassin under a Sith known as "the Stranger," with both grieving their mother's death for years afterward. Verosha's inability to let go of her feelings of loss for her mother eventually resulted in her agreeing to train under the Stranger following Mae-ho's departure from the Sith's tutelage.
==Biography==
===Leader of an exiled coven===
Mother Aniseya was a female human who lived during the High Republic Era. She led a coven of witches that eventually got exiled. During their exile, the coven was persecuted and could not perform their usual ceremonies, such as the Rite of Ascension. Aniseya eventually settled the witches in a fortress on the planet Brendok, with the leader insisting to a fellow witch—Mother Koril—that the world would be safe. When Aniseya created Mae-ho and Verosha Aniseya around 156 BBY,The events of The Acolyte take place in 132 BBY per the reasoning here. "Lost / Found" states that Mae-ho and Verosha Aniseya were eight years old when separated. As "Destiny" dates itself to sixteen years prior to the series' main events, equating to 148 BBY. The episode also depicts their separation, meaning the pair must have been created by Aniseya around 156 BBY. Koril carried them in her womb. After their birth, the women both became the twins' mothers. Though Mother Aniseya often adopted a more relaxed parenting style, in contrast, Koril's fierce protectiveness of the twins made her a comparatively stern and intimidating caretaker.
When Aniseya and Koril disagreed in parenting matters, the latter deferred to the twins' other mother due to the former being the coven's leader. By 148 BBY, Aniseya had a set of advisors that helped her make decisions, and some had varying levels of authority. Around this time, Verosha began sneaking outside the fortress to explore, which was against the coven's rules for the twins. Mother Aniseya felt that her daughter's rebelliousness was natural for a child, though Koril sharply disagreed and often reprimanded Verosha—and sometimes Mae-ho—for sneaking out. During their childhood, Mother Aniseya trained her daughters how to use the Thread—also known as the Force—to train them to become witches.
===Training with the Thread===
In 148 BBY, several Jedi—Jedi Masters Indara and Kelnacca, the Jedi Knight Sol, and the Padawan Torbin visited Brendok on a mission, soon discovering the witches after having initially assumed the planet was uninhabited. One day, Koril brought the pair's daughters back to the fortress after finding them wandering Brendok's forests. Though Koril did not want to allow the girls to indulge in spice creams, Aniseya disagreed, insisting her girls must have treats. The latter mother sent the pair away to prepare for their training session, while Koril deferred to the woman's authority.
Afterward, Mother Aniseya and Koril conversed about their daughters having left the fortress again, as well as the visiting Jedi on Brendok and their ship's location. When the coven leader encouraged the Zabrak to speak freely, Koril indicated her displeasure with the other mother's lenient parenting style but acknowledged that she deferred to the former's judgement due to her authority in the coven. Mother Aniseya expressed that she felt the fortress would keep them safe, though Koril countered that it would not remain so if Verosha continued to leave its safety.
In the fortress's common room, Aniseya then hosted a training session to teach Mae-ho and Verosha how to wield the Thread. She explained what she was doing as she floated a fruit through the air and fought off the attacks of one, and then later two witches. However, the twins began squabbling with each other and stopped paying attention to their mother. The coven leader threw both to the ground using the Thread, warning them that their enemies would not give warning before striking. When Mae-ho successfully blocked one of Mother Aniseya's attacks, Verosha hid behind her sister, causing Koril to scold her for not doing better. When a noise sounded in the training room, Koril exchanged a glance with Mother Aniseya and got up to investigate, intently surveying a nearby corridor leading to the coven's electricity generator.
===Rite of Ascension===
The coven's witches donned ceremonial purple robes and gathered in the fortress's courtyard for Mae-ho and Verosha Aniseya's Rite of Ascension ceremony to become witches, with Mother Aniseya putting on an elaborate version of the ones worn by her coven members. The gathered witches parted and let Mother Aniseya move through them, with Koril stepping aside to let the former take the lead position. After Mother Aniseya proclaimed the significance of the ceremony—which they had not performed since before the group's exile—and enumerated on the suffering their group had endured, until now, in which they could rejoice in the gift of life.
After Mae-ho vowed to keep the coven's secrets, even after its leader's death, Mother Aniseya completed a ritual that left a white, spiraling mark on the girl's forehead. Though Verosha made the same vow, albeit more reluctantly, two witches rushed into the courtyard and informed the leader that the Jedi were coming to their location before she could complete the second Rite of Ascension. At their leader's command, the witches quickly crowded around the children to hide them, with Aniseya making her way to the front and telling her coven to put down their drawn weapons. Indara introduced her colleagues by name to the witches, insisting to the skeptical women that the Jedi did not mean to intrude or cause harm, having thought the world was uninhabited. However, Mother Aniseya mocked these claims and reminded the Jedi that they were carrying weapons. The witches also rebuffed the Jedi's claim that children were present on Brendok, offended at the visitors breaching their sacred inner circle.
After Osha caught Indara's eye, the Jedi Master encouraged the child to come out of the crowd of witches, disappointing Aniseya. Mother Aniseya agreed to Indara's inquiry of meeting Mae as well, informing her that the children had no father. When Sol proposed to Osha that she be tested as a Jedi, the child implored her mother for permission. However, Mother Aniseya used a Thread ability to incapacitate Torbin, threatening Indara that they needed to leave or she would not undo the effects. Indara insisted that she could not deny the Jedi's right to test potential Padawans, prompting the leader to reluctantly agree to allow the twins to be brought to the Jedi's camp the following day. The Jedi Master thanked them for cooperating, exiting the courtyard with her colleagues.
===Testing and fire===
In a meeting of adult witches afterward, Koril Zabrak proposed killing the visiting Jedi, other witches disagreed, as the Republic would be angered if any Jedi blood was spilled. However, Mother Aniseya pointed out that it was her decision to make, and also reminded the Zabrak that she had created the twins. Koril countered that she had carried the twins and did not want to lose them to "deranged monks." The elder witch Naasa, however, offered her advice that the two children would be forcibly taken away if they passed the test, with the leader considered.
The following day, the girls were set to tested by the Jedi and sat with Mother Aniseya beforehand. The woman encouraged them to lie, though Verosha was hesitant. The coven leader told her that what she wanted may change, even if she wished to be a Jedi now, that may not always be the case, and that she and her sister were powerful, special girls. Following this, Mae-ho failed the test by lying, Verosha opted to tell the truth and passed the test. Mother Aniseya and Koril sat with the other witches in the coven's common room afterward, as the girls explained what happened. When Mae-ho began to tussle with her sister for their differing viewpoints, Koril dragged the child away forcibly to go on a walk at Mother Aniseya's suggestion. When Verosha continued to insist she had not wanted to lie and did want to be a Jedi, her mother accepted her answer and promised to consider her wishes as the witches discussed, but indicated such things were rarely simple.
After, Verosha began packing to leave with the Jedi. However, Sol and Torbin soon arrived, intending to take the twins due to a belief that they were a vergence in the Force. Aniseya, alongside Koril, confronted the Jedi once again for trespassing. Meanwhile, Mae-ho had started a fire in an attempt to prevent her sister's departure. Shortly thereafter, Mae-ho arrived to warn her mother, only for Koril to suddenly attack Torbin. In an attempt to prevent violence, Aniseya began to act, dissipating into a black smoke and triggering a similar transformation for Mae-ho. Before she could fully dissipate, however, Sol stabbed her with his lightsaber. Sol grabbed Aniseya, who confessed that she was going to let Verosha leave. Just after, she died. The witches then tried to shoot and mind-control the Jedi to death, but their revenge efforts were unsuccessful.
After Verosha was later saved from the fire by Sol, the girl saw Mother Aniseya's body dead on the floor as they fled, traumatizing her. Afterward, Verosha became Sol's Padawan, though continued to mourn her mothers' deaths for years after their passing and harbored resentment toward Mae-ho for destroying their family, having been told that the coven had perished as a result of the fire lit by her twin sister. Eventually, Verosha left the Jedi around 138 BBY "Lost / Found" establishes that Verosha Aniseya left the Jedi Order six years before its events, equating to around 138 BBY, as the episode's events take place in 132 BBY. and by 132 BBY, she still mourned the loss of her family. Mae-ho, who the Jedi believed to have perished that night as well, eventually became apprenticed to a mysterious Sith Lord calling himself "the Stranger", who eventually tasked her with killing the four Jedi stationed on Brendok at the time of her mothers' deaths. Many years after her death, Mother Aniseya was regarded by Sol as having been an unusually strong manipulator of the Force.
==Personality and traits==
Aniseya and Koril shared a close, companionable bond with each other, which was furthered by the matriarchal culture of their community. The pair shared several moments of gently emotionally comforting each other and Mother Aniseya encouraged the Zabrak to voice her opinions and concerns to her. However, the coven leader was also willing to exercise her authority and directly defy Koril's adamant wish for the Jedi not to test the pair's daughters, insisting it was her decision alone as their leader. Additionally, she was proud of her prowess at using the Thread, not bothered by how her abilities were dark. The witch thought that the continuation of her witch coven was of great importance. Aniseya was willing to let Osha follow her wish and become a Jedi, but never told anyone until she lay dying after a Jedi mistook her transformation into a mist form as an attack. Just before this incident, she tried to restrain Koril and the rest of her coven and the Jedi from coming to blows. Aniseya had brown eyes and brown skin with white tattoos. The coven leader had black hair with brown highlights, which she styled in a set of elaborate braids. Mother Aniseya stood 1.75 meters tall.
==Powers and abilities==
Aniseya was a Force-sensitive witch who could wield the Thread—also known as the Force—to move objects and shove people around, and to block Force attacks. To her, that her powers were dark was of no issue. During the ritual to initiate her daughters into being witches, she branded Mar with a mark of the coven, though she was interrupted before she could preform the rite on Osha. She was also able to weaponize the Thread by using an ability that would render an individual incapacitated and put them out of their right mind as their eyes turned fully black. This psychic assault worked by in a mindscape standing before her victim and preying upon the target’s fears. Additionally, she shifted into a smokey form and caused her daughter to seem disintegrate upon learning that her other child was in danger. In this form, she was still vulnerable to lightsabers and was killed by Sol when it seemed to him that she was unleashing another Force assault, this time on him and Mae. The way she utilized the Force to fabricate life was seen by Sol as a very powerful skill, and the Jedi wondered if these matters of spontaneous-seeming life were boosted by a Force nexus at Aniseya’s home.
==Behind the scenes==
Aniseya first appeared in "Destiny," the third episode of the live-action Disney+ series The Acolyte, which aired on June 11, 2024. In "Destiny," the character was portrayed by Jodie Turner-Smith. Prior to the episode's release, she was first identified and visually depicted in both a StarWars.com in an article revealing information about some of the then-upcoming series's characters, which included Aniseya's coven of witches, and Aniseya's StarWars.com Databank entry, which were both released on March 18, 2024. Her casting was also revealed in the article.
The robes Aniseya—and the rest of the coven's witches—wore during the Rite of Ascension were designed by The Acolyte costume designer, Jennifer Bryan. Bryan indicated that the original color of the fabric upon arrival was more similar to a fuschia shade and had to be dyed to the royal purple seen in the finished episode. The color purple for the costumes was chosen because purple evokes a feeling of royalty, and Bryan wished to reflect that the women in the episode were a group of elevated ladies. Mother Aniseya's costumes especially were meant to show her as a queen, elevated even above the other witches in quality of fabric.
In "Destiny," Aniseya and Koril are depicted as a caring pair of mothers who share several affectionate physical interactions. The Acolyte showrunner, Leslye Headland, later indicated that she knew the pair's relationship had closeness between them seemed natural and plot driven. The showrunner also stated that while she knew their relationship would read that their sexuality was queer, that there also were not any men in their community, and noted that it would be "really reductive to call them lesbians." However, the creator also felt that if any her content was seen as queer, she was proud elements viewed as such by fans could inspire people.
==Appearances==
*
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
*Legacy of Vader 1 
==Sources==
==Notes and references==
Category:Females
Category:Humans
Category:Individuals with she/her pronouns
Category:Members of Brendok coven