| NOTE: This page is only about his Canon incarnation as the Legends incarnation of Grand Moff Tarkin was not voted Pure Evil, and thus only the canon version of Tarkin's info and crimes should be put here. |
| “ | You may fire when ready. | „ |
| ~ Tarkin commanding the Death Star. |
| “ | Fear will keep the local systems in line. Fear of this battle station. | „ |
| ~ Grand Moff Tarkin's most famous quote. |
Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin is a major antagonist of the Star Wars franchise.
He is a high ranking Governor in the Galactic Empire and the commanding officer over the first Death Star. He infamously crossed the Moral Event Horizon by destroying Alderaan in front of Leia. When Tarkin got more invested with the type of military government he was paying his service to, it was abundantly clear that his psychopathic position in power corrupted him to a ambitious direction of showing no hesitation whatsoever in using fear as his solution to rule (although he wasn't an angel before either, at least in Disney Canon). This slowly backfires tremendously on him as when he used the Death Star to cause a ludicrously high kill count, that alone got the Galactic Empire's publicity to go downhill as quickly as ever before. Ironically, he made decisions that ultimately became the death nail to the Galactic Empire.
He was portrayed by the late Peter Cushing in A New Hope and by Wayne Pygram in Revenge of the Sith. In Rogue One, he was portrayed by Guy Henry using Cushing's facial likeness. In The Clone Wars, The Bad Batch and Rebels, he was voiced by Stephen Stanton.
What Makes Him Pure Evil?
In General/Background
- As a child, while on an trip to planet Eadu, he abandoned his injured brother Gideon in a ditch to be eaten by wild animals, lying to their father that it was an accident with a smile on his face.
- Is revealed to fantasize about physically abusing his subordinates for no clear reason.
- Is indicated to be willing to kill thousands of his own men if it means killing even a few rebels.
- Despite following Palpatine's orders, this could not be any more pragmatic and is just a way to gain as much power as possible. Also, him blowing up Alderaan and Tipoca City were not even under his orders at all since he would be concerned of whatever loss comes towards the Empire (although for the same pragmatic reasons).
- While it is not entirely clear as to whether this happened gradually or suddenly, over time, Tarkin disposed of any kind of redeeming qualities as he was shown to embrace very heinous acts and was no longer the man of (relatively) admirable respect that he once was.
- During the Clone Wars, he was already shown to be very disrespectful towards Jedi and Clone Troopers, despite them rescuing him many times from Count Dooku and the Separatists.
- When Ahsoka Tano was falsely accused of killing Letta Turmond, Tarkin had the Jedi Council expel her without a fair trial and transferred to a Republic Military Trial to receive "impartial" judgment. He was even willing to have her killed, completely disregarding that Ahsoka previously saved his life from Osi Sobeck.
- Even after Ahsoka was proven innocent, Tarkin showed some shock but didn’t even apologize for falsely accusing her of murder.
- He had a crew of space pirates burned alive.
- He led the Antar atrocity, entailing mass arrests and executions of many former Separatists and even Imperial supporters on Antar 4 as punishment for their allegiance to the Confederacy of Independent Systems.
- As part of the secret Tarkin Initiative, he created a chimaera creature (which looked to him as a father) to be a living weapon of war. He then tried to terminate it amongst other failed subjects once he shut the project down. When the hybrid came after Tarkin for his crimes, he locked the Star Destroyer down and set it to explode to eliminate any witnesses of the project, forcing the creature to sacrifice itself so the imperials aboard could escape.
The Bad Batch
- During a battle simulation, he had the clone trooper training facility rigged for the droids to use live ammunition, which could have killed the Bad Batch.
- Told the Bad Batch that Saw Gerrera's rebels were Separatists all so they could be tricked into killing them and innocent civilians, including elderly and children, and spied on the Batch with probe droids since Tarkin was suspicious of their loyalty.
- When the previous action failed to show any improvements, he made the Kaminoans increase the power of Crosshair's inhibitor chip, which ultimately brainwashed him completely and made him turn on his friends. Not to mention the innocents on Onderon that perished at Crosshair's hands can be traced to Tarkin.
- When he caught the Bad Batch speaking with Saw Gerrera, he purposely misinterpreted the conversation as conspiring with rebels just because he wanted a reason to kill the enhanced clones.
- He ordered the destruction of all facilities on Kamino, including Tipoca City, letting Vice Admiral Rampart take the fall for this crime, leading to his arrest.
- He sent Imperial pilots in V-Wings to shoot down the rail line that the Bad Batch were stranded on due to a power failure. Not only did this force Tech to sacrifice himself to allow his teammates to escape (making him indirectly responsible for his death), but it also endangered, and could've killed, several Stormtroopers in the opposing rail car (with Tarkin outright admitting that he does not care about his own soldiers).
Rebels
- He had two Imperial members, Commandant Aresko and Taskmaster Grint, executed for failing him. This had both Agent Kallus and Minister Tua visibly horrified. Furthermore, he went out of his way to have Aresko and Grint beheaded instead of simply shooting them.
- He had the main communications tower on Lothal destroyed just to end Ezra's inspiration message, which also knocked out Imperial comms and systems on Lothal and forced the local Imperial garrison to rely on courier droids to deliver data.
- He aided in torturing Kanan Jarrus to learn more about the rebels.
- After the Grand Inquisitor failed to kill the Spectre Rebels, he brought Darth Vader to Lothal to finish the job.
- He ordered the sterilization of Geonosis to keep the Death Star a secret, exterminating all except a single Geonosian (who were believed to have a population of 100 billion) with chemical weapons.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
- He wished to spread fear throughout the galaxy using the Death Star, in order to keep them in line with the demands of the Empire.
- He authorized the test-firing of the Death Star on Jedha City, then took control of the station from his rival Krennic.
- He fired the Death Star at the Imperial base on Scarif, killing Orson Krennic (the very creator, though he also is not a saint, who was hit directly by the beam) along with everyone else in the vicinity, rebels and Imperials alike.
- Even though he does kill Krennic, he only did so to steal credit for making the Death Star, completely painting Krennic out of the picture.
Episode IV – A New Hope
- He stopped Vader from choking Admiral Motti only for his value in the Empire, not real care or standards.
- Ordered the destruction of the planet Alderaan with the Death Star's superlaser, despite Leia “complying” with his orders.
- After destroying Alderaan, he summoned all of the gunners who hesitated to fire. He punished them by throwing them out of an airlock, while stating that if he were asked to destroy his own world, he would do so with pleasure.
- Attempted to blow up Yavin IV, just to destroy the Rebels.
- Refused to let anyone evacuate the Death Star during the Rebellion's attack, confident that they would win. This would prove to be his undoing, as it was Luke Skywalker who ended up hitting the station's reactor core, leading to Tarkin's (and everyone else onboard) demise when it exploded seconds later
Trivia
- Only the Canon version of Grand Moff Tarkin can be considered Pure Evil, while his Legends version can't due to him failing the in-story's Heinous Standards with similar or fewer resources when compared to General Grievous and Lumiya, and for genuinely loving both his son and Natasi Daala.
- Grand Moff Tarkin's destruction of Alderaan is one of the most iconic examples of a Moral Event Horizon and one of the most vile crimes committed onscreen.
- In the Star Wars: The Clone Wars episode "The Wrong Jedi", it can be seen that Tarkin seemingly used to have some standards back when he was younger, as he was seen horrified and angry upon realizing that he nearly got Ahsoka Tano executed for Barriss Offee's crimes. Thus, it can be said that over the years, Tarkin let his thirst for power consume him and whatever morals he once had were gone by the time of Star Wars: The Bad Batch. It's also possible that he only pretended to be shocked that Ahsoka turned out to be innocent in order to save face (he still got to knock the Jedi down a peg and convict one after all).
- In the From a Certain Point of View anthology, it's revealed that Tarkin is having an affair with the stormtrooper TK-421 during the events of A New Hope and that part of his motivation to destroy Yavin 4 was to avenge TK-421's death. However, the story is of ambiguous canonicity given Pablo Hidalgo's statement that some of the anthology's stories can be true or not, but it all depends "from a certain point of view".
External Links
- Grand Moff Tarkin on the Villains Wiki
- Wilhuff Tarkin on the Star Wars Wiki
- Grand Moff Tarkin on Wikipedia
- Grand Moff Tarkin on the Hate Sink Wiki
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