The Star Wars franchise is so ingrained in pop culture that any display of telekinesis (read ‘choking’) in my work has invariably drawn comparisons to The Force. As a fan of the original trilogy, I won’t deny that I’ve been influenced by Star Wars, but I never meant for my characters to be viewed as Force users or Sith Lords.

The Force is a term coined by George Lucas when he wrote the first movie to describe where certain characters’ telekinetic abilities came from. A few of my characters have been telekinetic, but they weren’t part of the Star Wars universe, and their ability to strangle their victims from afar simply proved a convenient alternative to avoid having to MacGyver ways to realistically pose throatlifts. I love throatlifts, but they are a time-consuming pain in the ass to set up for lots of technical reasons I won’t bore you with.

Nevertheless, as the old saying goes, “If you can’t beat ’em… join ’em…” I figured why not just create a Sith Lord trapped on present-day Earth, so that’s what I did in 2021, and Darth Gar’rote was born. These are his victims.