A'Sharad Hett

**A'Sharad Hett** was a Force-sensitive Human male who served as a Jedi Master and general in the waning days of the Galactic Republic. He also served as the commander of his father's tribe of Tusken Raiders. The son of legendary Jedi Knight Sharad Hett and his wife K'Sheek, both of whom lived among the Tusken Raiders of Tatooine, he eventually became the Padawan of Jedi Masters Ki-Adi-Mundi, and later, An'ya Kuro. When he was only a teen, Hett's father was murdered by the Ex-Jedi turned assassin Aurra Sing, who was later defeated in a duel by a young A'Sharad Hett. During the Clone Wars, he served the Republic as a General and established himself as a charismatic leader who often led his troops from the front. He eventually became friends with the young Anakin Skywalker and helped Anakin come to terms with the destruction which had been wrought by the galaxy-wide war. A'Sharad took part in key conflicts during the war such as the Battle of Boz Pity and the Siege of Saleucami. He managed to survive the Clone Wars, and was one of the few Jedi known to have escaped the Great Jedi Purge in 19 BBY.

A'Sharad Hett eventually made his way back to his homeworld of Tatooine where he vowed to wage a private war against the new Galactic Empire. However, after a confrontation with Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, he was exiled from Tatooine and later discovered that it was Anakin Skywalker who became the Sith Lord Darth Vader, who had aided Sidious in the annihilation of the Jedi Order. A'Sharad blamed himself for the destruction of the Jedi Order (as he had known about Anakin killing of a village of Sand People, and could have reported the young Jedi, thus getting him expelled, but did not—considering it Anakin's personal responsibility to deal with his own dark deeds) and became a bounty hunter. During one of his missions, he found himself on Moraband, where he trained as a Sith under the tutelage of the Dark Lord XoXaan. Hett eventually fell to the dark side and became the apprentice to the shadowy being known as Snoke, becoming known as the **Dark Man**. Subsequently, Hett studied under Snoke before the latter became invested into the Skywalker bloodline and settled on Kylo Ren as a new apprentice.

## History

Following his departure from Tatooine, Hett became a bounty hunter, masking his Jedi skills. While pursuing a bounty named Resk to the planet Moraband, a storm forced them down, and Hett continued his pursuit of Resk. Hett killed him after Resk threatened to turn him over to the authorities when Hett revealed himself to have been a Jedi. He shortly afterward heard a voice summon him.

Hett followed the voice that he felt rather than heard, a darkness calling to his darkness. He found and shattered a sealed door and discovered a glowing Sith holocron. The specter of the ancient Sith Lady XoXaan, one of the first of the Sith Lords, stated that she had been waiting for someone like Hett to find her. She offered him the teachings of the Sith, and Hett agreed to learn.

XoXaan opened Hett's eyes to the dark side, and Hett deluded himself into believing that he was only pretending, that he was really just learning new skills with which to avenge himself on Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine. But when he resurfaced from the tombs in 5 ABY, he found that more time had passed than he had thought; the Battle of Endor had already taken place, and the Emperor and Vader had already been defeated by Luke Skywalker. Disillusioned yet again, Hett left Moraband behind and made for the Unknown Regions, determined to lose himself.

In the Unknown Regions, Hett encountered fellow bounty hunter Boba Fett, who thought of him as an aggressor and shot him down with his *Slave I*. Subsequently, Hett crash-landed onto the planet Umaren'k, where he and Fett fought in a fierce fight. Giving into rage and fury through the Force during their battle, Hett was able to overpower Fett for a time. Drawing on the dark side and raw power, at some point during the duel Hett Force throwed Fett into a rock wall, almost knocking him out due to the force of the impact. Eventually, Fett gained the upper hand and used the element of surprise to defeat the former Jedi by shooting him in the shoulder and shin, wounding and incapacitating him. After this, Fett departed on his ship, leaving Hett behind. In his agony and pain, Hett received his vision of a new Sith Order, coming to believe that the galaxy was fractured and weak with the New Republic, and that a single will was needed to make it whole and strong again. He also foresaw a new power rising from the ashes of the Galactic Empire in the Unknown Regions, noting that he could've warned the Republic about this new development before passing out from his injuries.

Sometime after this, Hett, who had survived his encounter with Fett, fell to the dark side and became the apprentice of Snoke, a mysterious, enigmatic figure powerful with the dark side of the Force, who was secretly an artificial genetic strandcast created by Darth Sidious and his followers. Hett studied under Snoke, at some point encountering the Knights of Ren on Moraband.

Upon encountering the Knights, Hett confronted Ren, asking whether they are Sith. Ren replied that the Knights of Ren lived by their own code: using their power to take what they want. Ren said that Ben has power but had chosen to follow his own path when he could have so much more. Ren invited him to join the Knights of Ren and asked if he was afraid. The other Knights of Ren laughed.

Hett decided to take up their challenge. Ren handed him a dark costume and helmet. Ren let Hett ride a speeder bike. Traveling to Felucia in the *Night Buzzard*, the Knights of Ren terrorized the city of Har Gau. They played with the head of a protocol droid, who grumbled this wasn't funny. Hett and the Knights then jumped from a high bridge. Later, they were entertained by visiting a Bith musician. Following a wild night, Hett returned to Moraband, after telling Ren that was so fun and that he was in.

However, Ren told him that what they did was just the initiation. He shows Hett Sharad Hett's lightsaber. Hett asked how he got hold of Sharad's lightsaber. Ren replied that the Knights took what they want and told Hett to take what he wanted. He explained that to become a Knight of Ren took destruction. Ren instructed Hett to destroy his father's lightsaber and promised that he would be free. However, Hett replied that he was already serving a greater power, and assured Ren that they would all the rewarded in the new era. After some chatter among the other Knights, Ren ultimately agreed with Hett's statement, leaving Moraband.

However, Hett was not Snoke's most gifted apprentice, and Snoke eventually became invested in the Skywalker bloodline, believing that Ben Solo, the son of Han Solo and Princess Leia Organa, had the right balance of the dark side and the light side of the Force within him, and desired to claim him as his own apprentice.

## Personality and traits

Despite his largely informal training, A'Sharad Hett was highly devoted to Jedi philosophies and values. Ki-Adi-Mundi felt he might be too quick to use the Force to throw around those who might be a threat, yet could find no evil in his heart soon after they met. However, he remained silently vengeful towards Aurra Sing, his father's murderer, though he for a time thought he had conquered those feelings in honor of his father, a claim Yoda accepted. During their confrontation, he drew on the dark side of the Force, and while he was successful at subduing her, his guilt left him wishing to go into self-imposed exile. However, the Dark Woman saw the future which was laid out before A'Sharad and convinced him that going into exile would not cure his troubles. The Dark Woman took the young Jedi as her Padawan and finished his training to become a Jedi Knight, teaching him to accept death without anger. However, some of his fellow Jedi even back then sensed a darkness within him. Hett was also a firm believer in personal accountability, believing that individuals should own up to their actions. It was his belief in this that caused him to keep Anakin Skywalker's secret when he learned about Skywalker's mass murder of a Tusken Raider tribe on Tatooine, believing that it was Skywalker's responsibility to do so for himself. Despite his valiant attempt, Hett was unable to instill these beliefs into Skywalker. Had he been able to, it is possible he could have stopped Skywalker's fall to the dark side. Hett firmly believed all Jedi deserved a proper funeral, even one who fought against him.

However, with the advent of the Great Jedi Purge, all of Hett's beliefs fell apart, and he turned to the dark side. Seeking revenge against the Empire for the Jedi Purge, Hett returned to Tatooine and reemerged as a Tusken warlord. However, in his rage-blinded state of mind, he never actually took the fight to the Empire, instead ravaging the moisture farmers of Tatooine. His actions ultimately forced Obi-Wan Kenobi into action. Unable to understand why Kenobi didn't simply join his crusade, Hett and Kenobi clashed when the master of Skywalker refused to allow any more raids.

Defeated by Kenobi and exiled from the Tusken culture, Hett began wandering the galaxy, bereft of purpose or goal. While in pain after being shot by Boba Fett, Hett, in his agony, developed a predatory worldview, believing that the only way to establish lasting peace and order was to shatter the galaxy's current status quo. Eventually, he fell to the dark side and became the apprentice of Snoke, an artificial genetic construct created by Darth Sidious.

## Trivia

* Here, Hett is shown to be Snoke's other apprentice, whom in real Canon we currently don't know the identity of.
* Hett seeing a vision of himself as a Sith Lord and foreshadowing the rise of the First Order from the ashes of the Galactic Empire after being shot by Boba Fett and later falling to the dark side and becoming Snoke's other apprentice mirrors him having a vision of his new Sith Order while being tortured by the Embrace of Pain and later becoming Darth Krayt in *Star Wars* Legends, respectively.

## Appearances

* Dark Force Rising (First appearance)
* *The Dark Man*