Revan
- "Revan was power. Staring into his eyes was like staring into the heart of the Force. Even then, you could see the Jedi he would slay etched on his soul." — Jedi Master Kreia, in Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords
Darth Revan (pronounced /'ɹɛvɪn/) was a fallen Jedi and Dark Lord of the Sith in the Star Wars universe. Revan was featured in the video game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, which was set 40 years after the Great Sith War and the fall of Exar Kun, or 3,956 years BBY.
NB: In the game, Revan may be either male or female. Due to incomplete software development, several points in the game indicate that Revan is male, which is the canonically stated preference.[1] The player's choice of a male or female Revan will not change the game's endings or Revan's allies (beyond determining which characters the player character can fall in love with), but this article will follow Star Wars Expanded Universe canon and address Revan as male.
Name
The name Revan is possibly derived from the Czech word "revans", which means revenge in English. It could also reference a revenant, a corpse that has been reborn according to medieval mythology, or it could be an alteration of the word raven. There is also a possibility of Revan being gained from the French verb "revenir", which means to return, to come back. Unlike other Sith Lords, Revan did not adopt a pseudonym when taking on the Darth title.[citation needed]
Biography
Before the Wars
When Revan was first being trained as a Jedi Padawan, he was found to be very strong in the Force. His close friend Malak was strong in the Force as well, though Revan was undeniably the more powerful of the pair. Revan's first Jedi Master was Kreia, though he learned from several others, including Masters Zhar, Dorak, and Kae. But after learning from these Masters, he came back to learn more from Kreia. After the Jedi Civil War, Kreia was overcome with guilt and confusion about Revan's fall. She journeyed to Malachor V, where she was corrupted by the dark side, becoming Darth Traya.
The Mandalorian Wars
Nearly 4,000 years before the events of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, a warrior race known as the Mandalorians began raiding worlds on the edge of the galaxy. Despite Revan and Malak's belief that the Jedi should help the Republic, the Jedi Order insisted on staying out of the war, feeling that the true threat had not yet revealed itself. Many younger Jedi were unwilling to wait as the Mandalorians assaulted planet after planet, and so Revan and his friend Malak organized a force of rebellious Jedi Knights to assist the Republic in defeating the Mandalorians. Many Jedi felt inspired by the charismatic Revan, and so they joined him. The Mandalorians expected Master Kavar (an established general, and one of Revan's teachers) to lead the battle instead of him. Revan proved to be not only one of the most powerful Jedi in history, but also a master tactician and strategist. He was willing to sacrifice entire planets so as to make the most important ones impenetrable. And despite taking massive casualties (sometimes as many as ten Republic soldiers for every Mandalorian), Revan was consistently able to outmaneuver and overwhelm the enemy both in space and on the ground.
The final battle of the war took place at Malachor V, a cultural taboo to the Mandalorians. Revan sent his least loyal troops to lure the remnants of the Mandalorian fleet there, where a mass shadow generator had been placed. The general overseeing its use was the Jedi Exile, who gave the order to activate it. The result nearly destroyed the planet. Few on either side survived. Around the conclusion of the Mandalorian Wars, Revan fought Mandalore (the Mandalorian leader) in a grueling battle. Revan won, killing Mandalore, and thus struck a crippling blow to the Mandalorian war effort.
At Malachor V, Revan discovered the Trayus Academy, where he was supposedly corrupted by the teachings of the Sith. The planet itself was an ancient storehouse of the Sith; steeped in a darkness so great that it almost destroyed Revan. He was able to survive this darkness only by giving into the dark side of the Force. Taking the mantle of Dark Lord of the Sith, he began to corrupt other Jedi easily. Malak, now Darth Malak, grudgingly assumed the title of apprentice.
Alternately, it has been postulated (by his former Master Kreia) that Revan never fell to the dark side, but discovered a threat beyond the borders of the Republic for which the Jedi would be no defense, only the Sith. (Perhaps a foreshadowing of Grand Admiral Thrawn, who used similar tactics nearly 4,000 years later.) This is hinted at in the Sith Academy, when Yuthura Ban tells of the Sith'ari, prophesied to be slave to neither light nor dark side of the Force. That she tells of this prophecy directly to Revan would be incredibly ironic if one were to believe that Revan was the Sith'ari. According to both contexts (and being that they have both similar roles), it is commonly believed that Revan and/or Anakin Skywalker is the Sith'ari.
The Star Forge
After his corruption, Revan took ships beyond the known galaxy in search of an ancient artifact, a megastructure known as the Star Forge. For several years prior to the war, Revan and Malak had been researching artifacts in reference to this powerful Star Forge. They discovered that it was a massive space station with the ability to produce an almost limitless number of ships, accomplished by siphoning matter and energy from a nearby star as well as feeding on the dark side energies imbued within it. Revan and Malak, now beholden to the dark side, created a massive fleet to destroy the Old Republic and the Jedi, reforming the ex-Republic forces who followed them into a militaristic empire.
The reinvigorated Sith won battle after battle, until a young Jedi named Bastila Shan entered the fray with her Battle Meditation. This rare and powerful Force ability increased the combat effectiveness of the Old Republic's forces and sapped the will of enemy combatants. Even with this power, however, the Old Republic's forces knew that they could not hold out forever against the Sith. In a desperate attempt to end the war, the Old Republic set a trap for Revan and Malak, during which Bastila and a team of Jedi boarded Revan's flagship and managed to corner the Dark Lord on the bridge. Thought by many to be one of the most powerful Sith Lords of all time, Revan might have defeated Bastila and the remnants of her Jedi strike team if given the chance. However, Malak, likely knowing he could not defeat Revan in personal combat, took this opportunity to kill both Revan and Bastila with one swift stroke. He fired upon the flagship from a nearby battle cruiser but failed to kill either his master or Bastila. Revan, nearly dead, was partly healed by Bastila Shan, creating a Force bond between the two. His mind was reprogrammed by the Jedi Council to hide the Dark Lord's old identity, while enabling the Jedi to use Revan's subconscious memories to locate the Star Forge and destroy it.
Revan was enlisted as a soldier in the Old Republic army and placed under Bastila's command on the Old Republic warship Endar Spire. Malak, thinking his master dead, devoted all his forces to the hunt for Bastila. In orbit over the world of Taris, the Endar Spire was attacked by a Sith fleet and destroyed. Bastila managed to escape to the planet's surface, followed soon after by Revan and fellow Republic soldier Carth Onasi. The Sith blockaded Taris, intent on capturing Bastila. They were unaware that the young female Jedi had already been taken prisoner by a swoop gang called the Black Vulkars, who intended to give her to the winner of an underground swoop racing tournament as a slave. Revan eventually succeeded in rescuing her when he infiltrated and won the tournament. As the group decided on how to escape Taris, Revan mentioned to Bastila about a couple of visions he had had, and Bastila knew that Revan's Force powers were beginning to reawaken. Because of his winning the race, Revan received a message from Canderous Ordo about an offer to escape the planet. Meeting up with the Mandalorian at the cantina, Ordo said that he was tired of not being paid by his boss, Davik Kang of the Exchange. Canderous said that if they work together, he could provide the means to escape Taris, Davik's flagship, the Ebon Hawk. First, Revan had to break into the Sith military base and steal the launch codes to bypass the quarantine. Revan first had to buy a special droid Davik had ordered to break into the base, so Revan bought the droid, T3-M4. Breaking into the base, Revan had to face a Dark Side Adept who noticed Revan's Force potential. Killing the Adept, Revan gained the codes and took them to Canderous. Canderous' plan seemed simple; he would bring Revan in and ask if Davik could make him part of the Exchange, and while Davik was running a background check, they would steal the Ebon Hawk and make their escape. Everything went smoothly for the most part; the group rescued Hudrow, the Hawk's former pilot, who gave them codes to bypass the security around the hangar, and the group made their way to the hangar.
However, in orbit, Darth Malak, deciding that the search for Bastila was taking too long, gave the order to destroy the entire planet. Positioning themselves in strategic formations, the ships of his fleet unleashed a devastating planetary bombardment that wiped out nearly all life on Taris's surface. Revan confronted Davik and Calo Nord who both had the same idea of escaping and weren't about to let Revan take the Hawk. Revan killed Davik and Nord was about to blow everything and everyone up, but was caught and trapped underneath hanger debris. Revan and his new found crew barely escaped in time aboard the Ebon Hawk.
Revan and his companions fled to the Jedi stronghold of Dantooine, where Bastila convinced the Jedi academy council to retrain the amnesiac Dark Lord in the ways of the Jedi. After Revan completed his formal training, he and Bastila were sent to investigate an ancient stone structure. Inside, the two uncovered an ancient artifact known as a Star Map, a relic of the long-forgotten Infinite Empire of the Rakata. Though the Map was not complete, it pointed the way to the worlds of Tatooine, Kashyyyk, Manaan, and Korriban, on which more Star Maps could be found. Only with the combined information of these five worlds, Revan discovered, could the location of a mysterious Rakatan artifact called the "Star Forge" be found.
Revan, Bastila, and their companions journeyed to these worlds, tracing the steps Darth Revan and Darth Malak had taken years before. On each planet, the powerful dark side aura of the Star Maps had created perilous conditions that made access to the Maps difficult. Additionally, the crew of the Ebon Hawk found themselves hunted by Sith and bounty hunters, and confronted with the problems of the local populace at every turn.
After discovering the fourth Star Map (including the one found in the ruins on Dantooine), Revan and his allies were captured by the Sith flagship Leviathan. They managed to escape from their holding cells, but, as they fled toward the Ebon Hawk, Revan was confronted by Darth Malak, who revealed to him his former life as the Dark Lord of the Sith. A vicious lightsaber duel ensued, culminating with Bastila's capture by Malak. Revan was forced to deal with Malak's revelation and his loss of Bastila as the quest for the Star Forge stepped up, until at last it was found in the home system of the ancient Rakata.
After gaining the support of this race, Revan was forced to confront a fallen Bastila. Following weeks of torture at Malak's hands, Bastila had at last given in to her hate, or perhaps despair over her forbidden love for Revan, and had fallen to the dark side. She now claimed to be the Dark Lord's new apprentice. His original apprentice, a former Jedi named Darth Bandon, had previously been slain by Revan during the search for the Star Maps.
Atop an ancient Rakatan temple, Bastila attempted to entice Revan to reclaim his former title of Dark Lord of the Sith. This was the climax of the quest for the Star Forge, and it ended with Revan, once again, making a choice that would change the fate of the galaxy.
Revan's fate
Revan made the choice of a Jedi, rejecting Bastila's temptation. Enraged, Bastila retreated to the Star Forge. Revan and the crew of the Ebon Hawk pursued her as an Old Republic fleet commenced an assault of its own.
Aboard the Star Forge, Revan almost single-handedly defeated an entire army of Sith and Dark Jedi, a testament to his power in the Force and mastery of lightsaber combat. Near the end, he faced off against Bastila once again. After defeating her, he succeeded in convincing her to return to the light side by drawing on their love which had formed between them during the course of their quest. Bastila returned to the light and agreed to use her Battle Meditation to aid the Republic Fleet. The Old Republic fleet, now no longer hindered, but now aided by Bastila's Battle Meditation, continued its bombardment of the Star Forge. Finally, Revan again confronted his old friend and apprentice, Malak, in an epic lightsaber duel. During their duel, Malak continually sucked the life force from Jedi held in stasis to replenish his energies. This, however, was not enough to defeat Revan, as he forcefully released the captive Jedi, allowing them to become one with the Force. At last, Malak was cut down. Before dying, Malak asked Revan what would have happened if their roles had been reversed, and wondered what he would've become had Revan not led him down the dark path. Revan openly apologized for his friend's downfall, but reminded Malak that it was his own choice to continue down the dark path. Malak accepted his apology, realizing that he had no one to blame for his fate save himself. Then Darth Malak, Dark Lord of the Sith, died, his life ending in darkness and regret, and the Star Forge was destroyed.
A mere year after the defeat of Malak and the collapse of the Sith Empire, Revan left the Old Republic, having recovered his memories regarding the remnants of the ancient Sith Empire he had discovered as the Dark Lord. Hoping to put an end to the threat it posed before it could attack the weakened Old Republic, Revan bade farewell to the nine comrades who had accompanied him on his quest, knowing that none whom he loved could safely accompany him in the places he had to walk.
He entrusted Carth Onasi with the Old Republic's safety, and said goodbye to his love Bastila Shan. "It would have been better," Kreia would later remark, "if he had made her understand. But she was always strong-willed, that one, and did not understand war as Revan did." Then Revan disappeared, leaving the Ebon Hawk with T3-M4 and HK-47 on the edge of Known Space. It is believed that the Jedi Exile later chose to search out his former commander and assist him in his mission.
Whether Revan ever completed his self-appointed mission and returned to the Old Republic and his waiting friends is as of yet unknown. It is possible that answers to questions like why Revan had gone to the Unknown Regions and whether or not he defeated the Sith Empire single-handedly will be revealed in the projected Knights of the Old Republic III, expected to be developed by Obsidian Entertainment [1].
Alternate endings
Revan embraces the dark side
Accepting her offer, Revan and Bastila struck down the Jedi Jolee Bindo and/or Juhani (Juhani can be killed on Dantooine), the stain of their blood on the temple stone symbolizing Revan's return to power.
Returning to his starship, the Ebon Hawk, Revan explained the absence of Jolee and Juhani to his stunned party. Shocked by his return to the dark side, Carth Onasi fled, leaving Mission Vao to be mercilessly struck down by Revan. (Alternatively, Revan uses his mind-dominating Force powers to convince Zaalbar to kill Mission or Revan must kill both Mission and Zaalbar. There is no way to save Mission.) Canderous, who admires Revan's abilities and his expertise in tactics and strategy during the Mandalorian Wars, stays with Revan. The droids, HK-47 and T3-M4, who are programmed to do their master's bidding, follow Revan as well.
Flying to the Star Forge, Bastila used her Battle Meditation to thwart the Old Republic fleet, allowing Revan to penetrate the depths of the Star Forge to fight with Darth Malak. Ruthlessly striking Malak down, Revan regained his rightful place as Dark Lord of the Sith.
Using the resources he now commanded as Master of the Star Forge, Revan created an infinite fleet that rolled forth to crush the Old Republic. Surprisingly, however, Revan soon halted his offensive. It was noted as odd that Revan deliberately avoided striking the Republic's manufacturing facilities in his previous war, and again that he seemingly ended the Star Forge's production of vessels early. Bastila Shan, in a holocron discovered on Korriban, reported that Revan mysteriously vanished one day and told her to wait for him. Without its strong leader, the Forge atrophied and was destroyed. It is assumed that Darth Revan visited all his former strongholds searching for something that is not yet readily apparent. It is known, however, that he headed for the Unknown Regions with the intent of stopping something menacingly powerful, something that was apparently responsible for initially coercing the Mandalorians to invade. Revan's former master, Kreia, suggests that Revan was searching for the original Sith Empire.
Revan as a woman
Revan's history is largely the same regardless; however, if Revan is female she has the potential to fall in love with Carth. Juhani may express that she cares for Revan. Carth may attempt to offer his love and support in order to keep Revan from falling to the dark side.
If Revan is light sided, she will refuse Bastila's temptations on the temple summit and take the Ebon Hawk to the Star Forge, where she will defeat Malak. Later, she will leave Carth behind with instructions to keep the Republic strong. Carth knows beforehand about her leaving and tells T3-M4 to help her if possible.
If Revan is dark sided, she accepts Bastila as her apprentice and retakes the Star Forge after killing Jolee and Juhani (if she was not killed on Dantooine). After Revan defeats Malak, if she had previously fallen in love with Carth, he will show up on the Star Forge and attempt to turn her back to the light. He is unsuccessful in this, and either Revan or Bastila will kill him.
There was an alternate ending for Carth and the dark sided Revan's romance, but it was cut because of time constraints.[2] In it, Revan could choose redemption by staying with Carth, defeating Bastila, and destroying the Star Forge. Fans have released a mod that restores this ending, minus the unfinished cutscene.
Revan as a master planner
One of the most interesting revelations in The Sith Lords is one many gamers have missed, concerning Revan himself. Whereas the first game implied that Revan's actions in the Mandalorian Wars caused Revan to fall to the dark side of the Force, The Sith Lords features characters that knew Revan before and after his fall.
These characters point out that Revan, during the Wars, discovered something outside the realm of the Old Republic: the original Sith Empire, believed to have collapsed in internecine fighting millennia ago. In learning this, the characters say, Revan felt compelled to protect the galaxy from this threat. Under this revelation and others, Revan's actions become quite different than the rash, destructive goals of Darth Malak and other, later Sith. These include:
- Ignoring, militarily, any planet with a strong industrial infrastructure: one that would be required to defend the galaxy against the unknown threat. Revan's plan was to leave the Old Republic's infrastructure intact, giving him a functional military and economy to work with once he had conquered the galaxy, rather than starting from scratch.
- Use of assassin droids, such as HK-47, to assassinate those who would have destabilized local governments, planets, or entire sectors.
- Focus on conversion, rather than murder, of Jedi. In joining the dark side, or at the very least, abandoning the constrictive Jedi teachings, these Dark Jedi would be stronger against the ancient Sith Empire. In the games it is mentioned that "Revan had a plan for every single Jedi Knight."
Even Revan's fall to the dark side of the Force takes on new significance with this information. Darth Traya even goes so far as to stubbornly believe that Revan did not fall to the dark side: When Revan was faced with the power of the dark side on Malachor V, he came to realize that a Dark Lord of the Sith was the only one who could defeat the old Sith Empire. Embracing the dark side, Revan founded a new Sith Empire to defeat the old. To save the galaxy, he would conquer it. To become the galaxy's greatest hero, he would become its greatest villain.
In an ironic turn of events, Revan succeeded and failed at his task. Unexpectedly betrayed by Darth Malak, Revan's plans were quickly quashed by his brash and violent apprentice, who sought to destroy the Old Republic entirely. It was only the Force that kept Revan alive, being reborn with little existing memory of his earlier self. Using his slowly-returning memories, Revan began to accomplish his original undertakings. His memories once again fully restored, Revan left Known Space to take the fight to the old Sith Empire.
It is unknown if Revan succeeded or failed at his task. It is generally assumed that the fate of Revan and the Exile will be a key aspect to any new Knights of the Old Republic sequels. Some argue that Revan succeeded - the Sith would not conquer the galaxy for almost another two thousand years. Others take the perspective that Revan failed, stating that regardless of "old Sith" or "new Sith," the Sith do indeed triumph against the Republic - it merely takes them two thousand years.
Reference
- ^ "Daniel Wallace (author of Star Wars: The New Essential Chronology) on LFL's official stance with KotOR". TheForce.net. Retrieved January 14.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); Unknown parameter|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) - ^ David Gaider (lead writer on Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic) on"the romance between Carth and the female dark sided Revan". Retrieved April 12.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); Unknown parameter|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help)
External links
- Darth Revan on Wookieepedia, a Star Wars wiki
- Official LucasArts Knights of the Old Republic site