Star Wars Villain Violent Death Saves Him From Worse Fate

The creepy spider droids are first seen when C-3PO approaches Jabba’s Palace in Return of the Jedi. Again, as seen in The Book of Boba Fett, the B’omarr Order has a long history with Jabba the Hutt, one of the many small details of the films that are expanded upon in novels. In this case, the strange monks are tied to the grisly fate of Jabba’s right-hand man, Bib Fortuna.

In Legends, Jabba’s palace was inhabited by a strange sect of monks known as the B’ommar, who largely stayed in the cellars beneath the palace. The monks believed that once one achieved enlightenment, they should leave their physical body behind and become a being of pure reason—hence, the brains being carried around by mechanical spiders.

Following Jabba the Hutt’s death at the hands of Princess Leia, Bib Fortuna was free to make Jabba’s criminal organization his own—or so he thought. Upon returning to Jabba’s palace, Fortuna found the place in utter chaos. All of Jabba’s underlings were grabbing whatever valuables they could and making a break for it while no one was in charge. Bib Fortuna attempted to take what he saw as his rightful place as Jabba’s successor, only to have his brain surgically removed from his head and placed in a nutrient bath inside a glass orb.

That orb hung from one of the B’omarr monks’ spider droids. The order decided for whatever reason, to remove Bib Fortuna’s brain from its flesh prison so that the scheming Twi-lek could achieve true enlightenment. Fortuna’s brain screamed for days but eventually learned to pilot the droid and wandered the now-empty palace, biding his time and dreaming of a way to return his brain to a working body.

Through a convoluted series of events, Bib Fortuna had his brain placed in the body of another Twi-lek, Firith Olan, and resumed his takeover of Jabba’s criminal empire. Fortuna had better luck with his new body than he ever did with his old one, managing to rebuild Jabba’s organization and broker an alliance with Jabba’s biggest rival on Tattooine, Lady Valarian. While it may seem like he had a happy ending overall, we can’t overstate the horror of being trapped inside your mind without a body and mentally screaming into the void for days on end.

Fortuna’s fate in the current Star Wars canon is arguably preferable. Sure, he got blown away by the galaxy’s most ruthless bounty hunter, but at least he never had to live as a brain in a jar. Plus, judging by the significant amount of weight he put on between Return of the Jedi and Book of Boba Fett, canon Bib Fortuna indulged himself. Ultimately, either fate is better than serving a disgusting brute like Jabba the Hutt and having to grovel and kiss his slimy tale constantly.