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Female Sith lords rarely make an appearance in the Star Wars movies, but they have made regular appearances in Star Wars comics, books, and animated series.
Several female Sith have been featured in Star Wars Legends and Extended Universe material, though with the revamp of Star Wars canon, very few of them remain part of the official Star Wars universe.
Female Sith are typically either called Sith lords or Sith ladies, as in the case of Lumiya, the Dark Lady of the Sith.
The ambiguous naming conventions for female Sith lords reflect how hard it is to get a solid consensus on who is and isn’t one among female users of the dark side of the Force.
And if you’re interested in the other side of the coin, see our video roundup of the most badass female Jedis ever to grace the galactic stage:
The Most Powerful Female Sith Lords Across the Star Wars Expanded Universe
1. Darth Zannah
Darth Zannah is a female Sith lord who appears in the Star Wars Legends canon where she was introduced as the apprentice of Darth Bane.
Darth Zannah began life as a regular Human girl named Rain. She didn’t appear to have a strong attunement to the Force at the time which is why she was almost left behind by the Jedi scout searching for Force-sensitives on her planet. Despite this, she later grew up to become a powerful Sith.
Her affinity for the Dark Side of the Force drew the attention of Darth Bane, the Sith lord who invented the Rule of Two. This made Darth Zannah and Darth Bane the first Rule of Two pair of master and apprentice.
As an apprentice of Darth Bane, Zannah became a powerful user of Sith magic, similar to the kind used by the Nightsisters of Dathomir, a kind of Sith power that Darth Bane found difficult to learn.
Zannah was the first apprentice under the Rule of Two. She later takes on several apprentices of her own, one among them being Darth Cognus, another powerful female Sith lord.
2. Darth Maladi
Non-human Sith lords are already rare, making non-human female Sith lords even rarer than most other Force users. Yet that’s exactly what Darth Maladi is. A Force user from Devaron, Darth Maladi was born to a Jedi father but his untimely death led to her joining the Sith order of Darth Krayt, the same person who killed her father.
Darth Maladi, then known as Malincha, quickly climbed the ranks of Krayt’s Sith order, becoming one of the most powerful and well-known Sith ladies of her time. She specialized in torture and was a scientist on the side, hence her interest in psychedelics and poisons.
Among her notable feats is capturing Cade Skywalker and serving as the head of Darth Krayt’s Sith Intelligence and Assassination network.
After a psychic attack by Cade, however, she became paranoid and unstable. She later chose to work privately as a scientist, experimenting alone when she wasn’t needed on active duty.
3. Visas Marr
Visas Marr is just one of many female sith lords featured in a number of old Star Wars games. She was a contemporary of Atris, a Jedi Master and Grey Jedi, and an apprentice of Darth Nihilus, the Lord of Hunger.
Darth Nihilus absorption of all Force power on her planet resulted in the death of its inhabitants and the planet, leaving Visas Marr as the only survivor. The trauma from the event nearly killed her and knocked her out, giving Darth Nihilus time to remove her eyes. It’s why she now wears a veil over the top half of her head.
Visas Marr was eventually convinced by Darth Nihilus to become his apprentice.
Visas Marr was especially adept at using the Force to see the physical world. Her ability to sense life forms allowed her to see through all obstacles and detect other Force-sensitives. She could also heal people using the Dark side of the Force.
4. Assajj Ventress
Assajj Ventress will no doubt be familiar to people who’ve seen the animated Star Wars shows. Though the shows commonly feature female Sith lords, none of them have the distinctive bald head of Assajj Ventress and her signature two lightsabers.
Ventress was a Dathomorian Force-sensitive born to a Nightsister who was once part of the Sith Order. To keep her safe, she was eventually taken off the planet to be sold as a slave. She was purchased by a master who trained her to become a fighter.
She later returned to Dathomir to train in the Jedi arts but was ultimately turned into a Dark Jedi after joining Count Dooku who gave her the curved lightsabers she wields in the image above.
The powerful young Force user is known for being able to go toe to toe with Obi-Wan Kenobi. She had a rare gift for taming animals using the Force, using the Force to choke people, and telekinesis.
5. Vestara Khai
Vestara Khai is one of the few female Sith lords to be born to another Sith. Her father was a Sith Saber from the planet of Kesh, a kind of Sith knight trained in the arts of lightsaber fighting and war tactics.
Vestara became part of a Sith tribe offshoot on a remote planet. Though, she eventually formed an alliance with the Skywalkers to defeat Abeloth, an eldritch Force-sensitive entity that consumed other Force-sensitives.
She was incredibly good at using telekinesis in a fight and was powerful enough in the Dark side of the Force that she could easily wield Force lightning. Like Assajj Ventress, she often fought with two weapons except she used a lightsaber together with a short sword called a shikar.
Vestara Khai was also a love interest of Ben Skywalker with whom she had an unstable romantic relationship, though this was quickly put to an end after she betrayed him.
6. Tahiri Veila
Tahiri Veila is a former Jedi knight who later became a Sith apprentice under Darth Caedus, a Sith Lord once known as Jacen Solo.
Like Luke Skywalker, Tahiri Veila grew up on Tatooine where she was raised by Tusken raiders before being discovered by a Jedi Master who later brought her to Luke Skywalker. Skywalker was the one to train her in the ways of the Force. While there, she met Anakin Solo, with whom she had a romantic relationship. His death eventually paved the way for her to become a female Sith lord.
After Jacen Solo decided to commit himself to the Dark side, he approached Veila and preyed on her grief to turn her to the Dark side. Lured by the promise that she could learn how to travel back in time to see Anakin before his death, she agreed to be Jacen Solo’s apprentice.
She became powerful in the Dark side of the Force and specialized in a lightsaber technique that could throw off even Ben Skywalker.
7. Shira Elan Colla Brie, AKA Lumiya
Lumiya was a powerful female Sith who was raised in Coruscant, the same planet that Han Solo originated from.
Because she was Force-sensitive, she was taken in by the Galactic Empire to serve within the Imperial Palace of Emperor Palpatine. While there, she was trained as part of the Imperial Intelligence division where she learned martial arts and the ways of the Force.
She was later sent out to act as a double agent working within the Rebellion under the name of Shira Brie. Her talents and seeming loyalty to the Rebel Alliance led her to become one of the Alliance’s most trusted heroines as she even earned a rank and commendation from Princess Leia. However, she was secretly funneling information to the Empire and sabotaging them.
After completing her assignment, Palpatine made her his right-hand woman. Darth Vader secretly took her on as his apprentice and trained her as a Sith lady.
8. Darth Traya
Darth Traya was a Jedi master once known as Kreia. Her strict yet unconventional approach to applying the Jedi philosophy resulted in her being removed from the Jedi council which eventually pushed her to become a Sith.
Kreia began her journey as a Jedi historian and council member who was known for forcing her students to think about the true meaning of power, a method that raised the eyebrows of her fellow masters.
She later became the master of Revan who in turn became a Sith lord. His failures were pinned on Kreia after it became clear that many of the Jedi who switched to the Dark side were her students.
This persecution led Kreia to question the Jedi philosophy and eventually she decided that true wisdom could only be gained by understanding both the Sith and Jedi teachings.
Once she committed to becoming a Sith, she took on the task of rebuilding the Sith Order together with Darth Nihilus and Darth Sion. However, the two eventually betrayed her and kicked her out of the Sith Triumvirate.
These female Sith lords are just a few of the most notable ones in Jedi history. Other honorable mentions include Darth Nyriss, who served on the Dark Council for two decades, Darth Cognus, also known as the Huntress and an apprentice of Darth Zannah, and Darth Talon, a female Twi’lek who served as a Hand to Emperor Palpatine.
why are there no girls in the top 10 strongest sith??