Ki-Adi Mundi – ‘Star Wars’ Character Spotlight
Welcome to our Star Wars Character Spotlight, where we take the opportunity to highlight the supporting and tertiary characters that pop up across the various different Star Wars eras who deserve a bit of love. This week, we’ll be looking at Ki-Adi Mundi after his recent cameo in The Acolyte.
Ki-Adi Mundi is one of the more recognizable Jedi Masters from the prequel trilogy. Even though lots of his Legends comics stories have been erased from canon (including a couple of cool lightsaber duels with Aurra Sing), he still has plenty of canon appearances and is getting new stories to this day.
Ki-Adi Mundi was a Cerean Jedi who sat on the Jedi Council during the prequel trilogy and is the reason why Star Wars fans know that the Jedi believe the Sith have been dead for a millennium by the time of The Phantom Menace. He was one of the more dogmatic members of the order – arguably a symptom of the Jedi having lost their way by the time of the prequels — as he supported the Jedi’s narrower view of the Force and limited interaction with the wider galaxy.
He was considered wise and highly intelligent by fellow Jedi though, thanks to his long life and binary brain (this is why Cereans have such large heads). He was one of the few Jedi Masters on the High Council to actually have lines outside of Yoda and Mace Windu in the films.
The High Republic
Surprisingly, Ki-Adi Mundi’s most recent appearance in Star Wars storytelling came in The Acolyte, where he is seen at a mission debriefing with Jedi Masters Sol and Vernestra Rwoh. It’s not entirely clear if he is a Jedi Master at this point in the story, but we learn he is not yet part of the Jedi High Council.
He warns that Mae could be a threat, as a talented and unregulated Force user. He is a symbol of the Jedi’s attitude towards Force users outside their order; if they are not Jedi, then they are a threat to be neutralized.
Legends continuity originally had him born 39 years later, but in current canon all bets are off. Now, it seems he’s even older than we thought by the time of the prequel trilogy.
Mission to Kwenn
Ki-Adi Mundi appeared in a new Star Wars novel earlier this year, The Living Force. Set one year before the events of The Phantom Menace, when Mundi is a member of the Jedi High Council, the Council members all go on a mission to the planet Kwenn to celebrate the Outer Rim world and its people before a Jedi Outpost there is eventually closed.
Ki-Adi Mundi initially didn’t see the point in taking time out of their busy lives to such a remote world that is not politically significant to the Republic, but was eventually won over by Qui-Gon’s argument that the Jedi didn’t do enough to help the average person on the street and Mace Windu’s agreement. He helped mediate several local disputes on the planet during his time there.
It should be noted that Ki-Adi Mundi has one other pre-The Phantom Menace appearance, as he pops up in a funeral scene for a fallen Jedi in the third episode of Tales of the Jedi.
Denial of the Sith
Ki-Adi Mundi made his live action debut as a tertiary character in The Phantom Menace, one of the few Jedi Masters on the Council to have any dialogue in the film. He reminds his fellow Jedi that the Sith have been extinct for a millennium, though whether he actually believes that statement or is simply covering the truth after the events of The Acolyte is currently in doubt (we’ll have to see what happens by the end of that series).
As a result, he was highly skeptical about Darth Maul’s Sith identity and can be identified as part of the reason why the Jedi were so blind to Palpatine’s rise to power. It is much more difficult for the Jedi to detect a Sith Lord in their midst if they are already insistent that they do not exist in the first place.
Mundi supported the Council’s decision not to train Anakin Skywalker in the ways of the Jedi, believing he was too old to begin the training. It is unclear how he felt about the decision to train him following the death of Qui-Gon Jinn.
In the early days of Anakin’s time as Obi-Wan’s apprentice, Ki-Adi Mundi also saved the pair of them after the young padawan was captured on Carnelion IV, in the fifth issue of the Obi-Wan and Anakin comic series.
Attack of the Clones
Ki-Adi Mundi has a fairly high profile presence in Attack of the Clones, attending a meeting with Chancellor Palpatine, Yoda, Mace Windu and others at the beginning of the movie. In another instance of failing to identify a Sith Lord in their midst, Ki-Adi Mundi defends Count Dooku, seeing him as a former peer rather than the dangerous man he actually was. He rejects Padmé’s claim that Dooku was behind her assassination attempt, stating that Dooku is “a political idealist, not a murderer”. This, along with his skepticism that the Sith had returned in The Phantom Menace, shows him as a symbol of the Jedi’s arrogance in their final years, a belief that they know everything and cannot be challenged on that knowledge.
He was present in council gatherings throughout the film, before featuring in the Battle of Geonosis, where he was one of the more prominent Jedi fighting off battle droids in the arena.
While he doesn’t have any more lines for the rest of the film, he does speak to Mace Windu shortly after the battle in the comic Jedi of the Republic – Mace Windu. The pair of them discuss the Jedi casualties at Geonosis, and we learn that it was apparently Ki-Adi Mundi’s idea that the Jedi carry the title of General during the Clone Wars. If that was indeed his idea, he again shows himself to be part of the problem in the fall of the Jedi, letting them run towards war as agents of the Republic rather than advocate for peace.
Later in the comic, Mundi is part of the Jedi Council’s decision to find fallen Jedi Prosset Dibs guilty of treason (though he offers him the chance to defend himself), and sentences him to confinement in the Jedi Archives (Dibs later becomes an Inquisitor).
In the novel Brotherhood, which takes place early in the Clone Wars and covers Obi-Wan and Anakin’s mission to Cato Neimoidia, we learn that Ki-Adi Mundi had recently encountered General Grievous, which left him with multiple scars on his cheek. He listened intently to Obi-Wan’s plan to investigate a terrorist attack on Cato Neimoidia and approved of it.
The Clone Wars
Ki-Adi Mundi made his animation debut in season 2 of The Clone Wars, as one of the key Republic generals in the Second Battle of Geonosis. When Republic forces arrived on the planet, Mundi’s gunship was shot down. Though he survived the crash, he was injured for the rest of the battle (though he still managed to destroy 65 droids). He was integral in the destruction of the droid forces, and accompanied Obi-Wan, Anakin and Luminara back to Coruscant with prisoner Archduke Poggle the Lesser.
That’s the most Ki-Adi Mundi was involved in The Clone Wars, though he did make small appearances in various scenes involving the Jedi council member in the second, third and fourth seasons.
He was a bit more involved in the final arc of season 5, when he willingly labelled Ahsoka Tano as a fugitive. Despite Obi-Wan’s plea to side with Ahsoka, Mundi refused along with Mace Windu and Saesee Tiin, believing that siding with her would anger the Senate.
When Ahsoka was brought to the Jedi Chamber of Judgement, Ki-Adi Mundi in particular doubted her testimony, pointing out that she was alone with the civilian when she was murdered (even though he should have been well aware that it’s possible to Force choke someone from another room).
When Ahsoka’s innocence was proven, Ki-Adi Mundi praised her efforts to prove her innocence with no hint of self-awareness or irony. He approved of anointing her as a Jedi Knight, and was shocked when Ahsoka decided instead to leave the order. It seems that the Cerean had lost his touch with the people outside his immediate sphere of influence at this point, another symbol of just how much the Jedi had lost their way at this point in the Clone Wars.
He next appears in the sixth season of The Clone Wars when Obi-Wan and Anakin reveal that Dooku had created the clone army and engineered the entire war. Mundi agreed with the rest of the council to keep this revelation secret so it would not undermine the war effort, again placing too much importance in galactic politics. He later fails to believe Yoda’s reveal that he had been contacted by Qui-Gon, electing to confine him to the medical wing. If he’d had his way, Yoda and Obi-Wan might never have learned how to become Force ghosts.
Finally, he was present in the Dark Disciple novel, agreeing with the council’s decision to send Quinlan Vos to assassinate Count Dooku and later supporting Vos’ arguments to involve Ventress, to his credit.
Order 66
During Revenge of the Sith, Ki-Adi Mundi was stationed on Mygeeto in the Outer Rim Sieges. It was he who raised the topic of Kashyyyk during a council meeting. When General Grievous was killed, Mundi was the one who recommended forcibly removing Chancellor Palpatine from office if he wouldn’t leave willingly.
That was the last time he spoke with the council. He was in the middle of an attack on Separatist forces on Mygeeto when Chancellor Palpatine executed Order 66, and was taken by surprise as his clone troopers gunned him down during the battle.
In the second issue of the Galaxy’s Edge comic series, it was revealed that his lightsaber ended up in the possession of a member of the Banking Clan before it was stolen by the bounty hunter Greedo. It now resides in Dok Ondar’s shop in Batuu (Galaxy’s Edge to you and me).
Though often considered to be one of the wisest and most intelligent members of the Jedi Order, Ki-Adi Mundi also proved to be one of their more arrogant members, often dismissing rumors of the Sith’s return out of hand and always managing to get big calls wrong. He can be seen as a symbol of everything that was wrong with the Jedi in the order’s twilight years, despite his best intentions.
What next?
Surprisingly, it’s possible that Ki-Adi Mundi might turn up in more episodes of The Acolyte should there be any further scenes set on Coruscant. The reveal that in current canon Mundi is alive 100 years before the events of the films means he can continue to show up in other High Republic-era stories, or any other stories set around the time of the prequel trilogy.
Do you think we’ll see Ki-Adi Mundi again in The Acolyte? If not, when do you think he’ll next show up? Let us know in the comments.
Josh is a huge Star Wars fan, who has spent far too much time wondering if any Star Wars character could defeat Thanos with all the Infinity Stones.
