Darth Vader vs. Reva: Who Is Really a Better Dark Side Fighter?

The history of Star Wars is a long and complex one. When the movies first came out, it was a simple space opera, but since then, the franchise has expanded to become one of the most lucrative ones in history. Today, we see Disney produce various streaming series related to George Lucas’ original concept, with Obi-Wan Kenobi being the most recent one. In this article, we have decided to compare two characters from the miniseries to determine who the stronger one is – one of them is Darth Vader, the show’s primary antagonist, and the other is Reva, the Third Sister.

As was shown in the miniseries, the Third Sister cannot defeat Darth Vader. She is a formidable Force user and a skilled duelist, but when compared to Darth Vader and his powers, she was simply no match for the great Sith Lord. Vader easily overpowered her both in terms of the Force and in a lightsaber duel, leaving her for dead.

The rest of this article will further elaborate on the above-given answer, as we are going to compare Darth Vader and the Third Sister in more detail. We are going to tell you a bit about the two characters, as well as their skills, feats, and abilities. In the end, we are going to give you a final verdict on why we’re certain that Darth Vader would win.

Darth Vader and his powers

The unprecedented number of midi-chlorians made Darth Vader one the most powerful members of the Jedi Order, however, this made him arrogant. When he arrived at the Jedi Temple at the age of nine, he began to develop his abilities at a faster rate than his fellow Padawans, to the point of feeding his ego and self-importance to himself.

He also had the ability to use the Force to smother anyone, a sign of his tendency to turn to the dark side. Anakin was also one of the most gifted lightsaber wielders in the Jedi Order. Being a Padawan, Anakin practiced Form V: Shien with a few fleeting Ataru moves. He began mastering Form V’s powerful modality, Djem So, after his defeat at the hands of Count Dooku on Geonosis.

He proved to be more effective: with his mastery of Djem So and his trickery using Shien’s open stance, which allowed him to overcome and defeat Count Dooku during their second duel. Anakin also used Djem So in his fight against his former Master, Obi-Wan Kenobi on Mustafar. Although Anakin was able to give Obi-Wan a fair fight in the fierce duel—the two appeared evenly matched—Obi-Wan’s patience and his experience in Soresu along with Sokan were enough to best Anakin.

The defeat made Anakin much weaker in the Force. Darth Vader was a brilliant strategist and despite his weakened powers, he was one of the greatest pilots in the Galaxy. His armor did not interfere with his premonition ability that he possessed since he was a child, and he was able to predict the movements of his targets during chases with pinpoint accuracy.

He continued to retain his amazing personal engineering prowess, overseeing the designs of his two TIE Advanced X1 fighters and the construction of the second Death Star. His mastery of the lightsaber, developed through the many battles and skirmishes of the Clone Wars and the Great Jedi Purge, was legendary and further honed through the duels he dueled with the Jedi following the Great Purge.

All of these abilities, however, were secondary compared to his incredible mastery of the Force. Because his limbs had been amputated and his body severely seared on Mustafar, he lost much of his Force potential. From Darth Vader, he was estimated to have roughly eight-tenths of the Emperor’s strength.

But even so, Vader wielded tremendous power. Had he not suffered any of his injuries on Mustafar, he would have been roughly ten times as powerful as the Emperor. The Emperor managed as best he could to keep Anakin alive, taking an alternative point of view. Although it was true that he did not expect much from an apprentice who was “more machine than man”, Palpatine was of the opinion that many of the limitations of Vader’s potential power were not physical but psychological.

He believed that Vader was facing his choices and his disappointments to completely rid himself of his despair and that he would be able to resurface the incredible power latent in him. Still, while Vader made progress in this regard, he was never fully able to accept who and what he had become. One of Vader’s talents in the Force was to block laser blasts with his hands, completely dissipating his energy, converting it into pure Force energy for him to use.

Yoda, Corran Horn, and Jacen Solo were shown to have the ability to channel the energy of exterior attacks into Force power in similar ways. Darth Vader also favored the Choke force ability, demonstrating it numerous times during his lifetime. The fact that Anakin was born endowed with the largest number of midi-chlorians in galactic history, and that he was considered the Chosen One, leads to several conclusions about his potential Force power.

During his lifetime he fell short of his full potential due to his destiny as a tragic hero, but before his fall to the dark side, though very young, Anakin was one of the most powerful Jedi. Had he not suffered the injuries on Mustafar, he might have been the most powerful being who had ever lived before, more powerful than any other Force user in galactic history.

However, after his death, he became one with the Force, thus reaching his full potential; Obi-Wan Kenobi told Darth Vader just before his death that he would become much more powerful than he could ever imagine in the afterlife. If this is true, the conclusion would be that when a Jedi joins the Force, he reaches the peak of its power.

Reva, the Third Sister, and her powers

The Third Sister, whose real name is Reva, was a Force-sensitive human woman who served the Galactic Empire as an Inquisitor during the Great Jedi Purge. Like the other Inquisitors, the Third Sister was a former Jedi turned to the dark side of the Force, tasked with hunting down surviving members of the Jedi Order during the Great Jedi Purge.

Around 9 BBY, the Third Sister was sent to Tatooine with the Grand Inquisitor and the Fifth Brother to hunt down the Jedi Nari, who was hiding on the planer. The Third Sister, who was obsessed with finding fugitive Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi to increase her standing with inquisitor ruler Darth Vader, arranged for the kidnapping of Leia Organa, daughter of Imperial Senator Bail Organa.

Rightly suspecting that the Senator would turn to his former Jedi ally, the Third Sister found Kenobi hiding in a hangar on the planet Daiyu, but the Grand Inquisitor arrived and intervened. Not wanting to concede to her superior that she had located the Jedi Master, she pierced the Grand Inquisitor with her lightsaber and watched as Kenobi fled the scene with Leia, swearing to find him.

After the Grand Inquisitor’s supposed death, the Third Sister had a chance of being promoted to her position by Lord Vader, aware of her ambitions, if she found out where the runaway Kenobis currently was for him. After Kenobi’s discovery on Mapuzo, the Third Sister, Fifth Brother, and Fourth Sister accompanied Lord Vader there as he attempted to carry out his vendetta.

As her master pursued his prey and her colleagues rounded up the townspeople, the Third Sister ambushed Leia through the hidden local tunnel network. The Third Sister has substantial skills with the lightsaber and could use it to cut people’s hands and stab people with it. Most notably, she could use her lightsaber to effectively block explosions from a T-47 airspeeder.

Reva was also able to utilize The Force, lifting and throwing an explosive at an airspeeder trying to escape Fortress Inquisitorius. She could also Mind probe people and used the Force to collapse an antenna tower while chasing Kenobi. Regardless of this, the Third Sister was quite defenseless against attacks from other force-users, as the Grand Inquisitor easily kicked her back after he blocked her lightsaber strike using the Force.

She was also forbidden from sitting on a specific chair in the fortress by the Fifth Brother and was also almost Force choked by Vader, being easily immobilized on all of these occasions.

Darth Vader vs. Reva, the Third Sister: Who would win?

And now for the most important and interesting section of our article – the analysis. Here, we are going to use what we have found out about these two characters and analyze how all these facts would (or would not) help them in a fight against each other. Let us continue.

And while the analysis of this duel wouldn’t have been a complex one, the Obi-Wan Kenobi miniseries has, somewhat, made the job easier for us in this scene:

In the fifth episode of the miniseries, we find out that Reva is actually a double agent working to kill Vader out of revenge; Obi-Wan Kenobi uses these sentiments to get her to join his cause, but he ultimately leaves Jabiim with the surviving Path members. Reva sees this as an opportunity and tries to kill Vader, but she fails miserably.

Vader managed to block her lightsaber attacks with the sheer use of the Force, without even giving it much effort. He then takes her lightsaber, splits it in two and gives her one saber, taunting her to attack him. She does, but ultimately fails again, only for Vader to pierce her torso with the lightsaber, leaving her for dead. She seems to have survived and will probably venture to Tatooine, as the Grand Inquisitor indicated about revenge being a catalyst, but we’ll have to wait and see.

The fact is that Vader defeated Reva effortlessly. He did not even try, nor did he have to in the first place. Even an exhausted Vader managed to deal with Reva so easily. The Grand Inquisitor was caught by surprise when Reva killed him, but Vader sensed everything that would happen and he was ready for all of that. Darth Vader is an enormously powerful Sith Lord and Reva stood no chance against him, but even if the miniseries had not given us the duel, the outcome would have been clear.

Darth Vader is simply on a higher level than Reva and her arrogance and thirst for revenge did not allow her to see past that.