“Here the darkness reigns eternal…”
Revan is one of the more fascinating characters in the Star Wars Expanded Universe. He straddles both the dark and light sides of the Force, and he constantly seems to be wrestling with foggy memories and amnesia. Revan was the protagonist in the fan-favorite video games Knights of the Old Republic and Knights of the Old Republic II (neither of which have I played) as well as a large comics run, however author Drew Karpyshyn, who also wrote the Darth Bane trilogy, was a writer for both KOTOR games and as such his novel Revan takes place squarely between the two games as a work of multimedia tie-in fiction.
Approximately two years after the conclusion of the first KOTOR game (some 4,000 years before the Battle of Yavin), Revan is back among the Jedi (albeit in an uneasy situation after the Jedi Council forcibly brainwashed him back to the light side of the Force.) He is now married and expecting his first child with his wife Bastila Shan. However, all is not well. Revan is haunted by nightmares of a dark and stormy planet from his past: “A terrible world of thunder and lightning, shrouded in perpetual night.” What could this mean? He fears there is a great evil lurking out in the Unknown Regions that threatens to destroy the stability of the republic.
We are reminded of Revan’s complicated and tumultuous backstory: he was once a Jedi Knight with an apprentice named Malak. Together, they disobeyed the Jedi Council and aided the republic in fighting off an invading force of Mandalorians led by Mandalore the Ultimate (in the Mandalorian Wars) when they attempted to take down the republic. They defeated the Mandalorians on Malachor V and pursued their fleeing remnants into the Unknown Regions. Despite being praised as a hero by some, the Jedi Council remained skeptical. And they are proven right when Revan and Malak are lured to the dark side of the Force after encountering a hidden Sith Empire on the planet Dromund Kaas and their leader, an emperor known as Darth Vitiate, who uses Revan and Malak as weapons against the republic. When the now-Sith Lords, Darth Revan and Darth Malak, return to the galaxy to attack the Jedi (sparking the Jedi Civil War), fractures start to show as Malak accuses Revan of being too “soft” which leads Revan to slice off his jaw with a lightsaber (forcing Malak to wear a mechanical speaking device). Malak betrays and abandons his master. Revan is then rescued by Jedi Knight Bastila Shan (who has the useful power known as “battle meditation” which boosts the morale of allies, while demoralizing enemies). Revan is brought back to the Jedi Council, barely alive with his mind shattered. The Jedi Council on Dantooine then controversially stripped Revan’s mind of memories, brainwashing him and rebuilding him as a weapon to be used against Malak and his followers. Something had apparently happened to them out beyond the Outer Rim. They had gone to defeat Mandalorians, but returned as disciples of the dark side. What happened? The official story is that Revan and Malak had been corrupted by the power of the Star Forge, an ancient super-weapon. The Star Forge is a giant automated shipyard factory designed by the Sith to create the most powerful army of all time (built by the ancient Rakata species, a cannibalistic, amphibious, dark force-sensitive species that first developed many important things like hyperdrive. They were conquerors who built an “Infinite Empire” until a mysterious plague devastated their whole race from which they never recovered). The Star Forge’s great capability is it can produce a never-ending supply of warships, droids, and other weapons. by harnessing the power of a nearby star combined with the power of the dark side of the Force. It eventually became a tool of dark side power. Apparently, the Emperor tasked Revan and Malak with finding the Star Forge, and after tracking down star maps leading to its location, Revan and Malak granted the emperor the power to build his own new Empire. Thus, when Malak betrayed Revan, he took over the Star Forge until Revan and a bad of Jedis were dispatched to the Star Forge where they destroyed it and Revan faced off against Malak, ultimately killing him in a lightsaber duel. In the first KOTOR game, players are given the option to choose either to become a Jedi or Sith, however the material published in the Expanded Universe assumes that Revan chooses to follow the Jedi path.
At any rate, this is but a brief overview of Revan’s story. Suffice it to say, there is an incredible amount of lore to unpack here. But in Drew Karpyshyn’s novel, Revan decides to venture out to solve the mystery of his troubling dreams and hopefully save the republic from impending doom. Curiously, he decides to leave behind his pregnant wife Basila while he ventures forth with his astromech droid T3-M4 and a Mandalorian mercenary named Canderous Ordo. They board Revan’s ship The Ebon Hawk and head for the planet Rekkiad where they join up with a band of Mandalorians in Clan Ordo, the clan to which Canderous belongs (by now, the Mandalorians are mostly scattered and reduced to mercenaries after Mandalore the Ultimate’s failure in the Mandalorian Wars) to track down the hidden location of Mandalore’s Mask, which is traditionally worn by the leader of the Mandalorians, including Mandalore the Ultimate who was slain by Revan. The voyage to the frigid planet of Rekkiad slowly jogs Revan’s memory, but he goes undercover as Canderous’s sidekick to conceal his identity from Clan Order (which is led by a female Mandalorian named Veela). In a rather silly plot decision, Revan decides to go by a different name simply by switching the letters in his name (“Avner” instead of “Revan”). Using Revan’s broken memory, the troupe finally finds a burial chamber containing the crypt of an ancient Sith lord named Lord Dramath II whose father was the ruler of the planet Medriaas before being overthrown by the Sith Lord Tenebrae, later renamed Vitiate. Vitiate then renamed the planet Nathema while Dramath and his son fled to Rekkiad with his followers and was buried here in this crypt (which is reminiscent of the tombs on the Sith planet of Korriban as in the Darth Bane trilogy). Later, we learn that the Emperor (also known as Tenebrae or Lord Vitiate) is actually the illegitimate son of Dramath. Anyway, Revan, Canderous, and the other Mandalorians eventually find Mandalore’s Mask exactly where Revan had left it inside the empty sepulcher, but by now Veela has predictably figured out Revan’s true identity, thus Revan and Canderous turn on her. They kill her and the rest of the clan before Revan departs for Dromund Kaas, leaving behind Canderous to lead the Mandalorians with the mask.
At the same time, the novel pivots and alternates its stories, depicting the rise of a Sith Lord named Lord Scourge on the tempestuous planet of Dromund Kaas, a remote Sith homeworld. Here, the Sith Empire has been building itself up under the rule of a Dark Council and an Emperor (Lord Vitiate). Interestingly enough, at this point in the Star Wars lore the Sith were considered a distinct species with their own red skinned complexion. Lord Scourge has been summoned to Dromund Kaas by a powerful female Dark Council member named Darth Nyriss. He goes on several side-quests for her and proves his loyalty, including on a mission to a Uxiol Droid Manufacturing plant on the planet Hallion alongside Nyriss’s chief aide Sechel as well as a mission to Bosthirda to put down a separatist uprising. He slays one of the other Dark Council members named Darth Xedrix and uncovers a plot to among the Council to overthrow the Emperor who has apparently sapped all life from the planet Nathema, performed a dark Sith ritual, and effectively rendered himself immortal. Lord Scourge soon grows skeptical of the Emperor, as well as his master Darth Nyriss, and decides he must work to defeat the Sith Emperor.
One other unique character explored in this book is “The Jedi Exile” named Meetra Surik (the protagonist of the game KOTOR II). During the Mandalorian Wars, she also disobeyed the Jedi Council and joined Revan and Malak in their fight against Mandalore the Ultimate. She became renowned and reviled during the final battle on Malachor V after she personally gave the order to activate the Mass Shadow Generator device which unleashed mass killing and devastation on all ships and living beings in the area. It was regarded as a severe war crime and ultimately cut off her connection to the Force but in the end her decision led to the Mandalorians being defeated. She later returned to the Jedi Council to defend her actions but she was exiled to the Unknown Regions where she disappeared for about ten years until she returned again to fight for the Jedi and defeat the Sith triumvirate of Darth Traya, Darth Sion, and Darth Nihilus (as depicted in KOTOR II). But in this book, she appears in Part II some four years after the events depicted in Part I. Revan has been been gone for years now and his wife Bastila has a little child. Meetra briefly visits with Bastila before deciding to track down whatever happened to Revan. She joins up with Lord Scourge on Dromund Kaas in search of Revan while Lord Scourge leads the Emperor to believe there is a conspiracy against him (the scenes of the Emperor are truly terrifying).
The Emperor sends his army against the entire Dark Council, and during the chaos, Scourge and Meetra free Revan, who surprises Scourge by effortlessly defeating his master Darth Nyriss by returning her force-lightning back at her. A wild battle ensues in the Emperor’s throne room before (spoiler alert) Scourge suddenly betrays the Jedi. He stabs Meetra, killing her while Revan is tortured and imprisoned by the Emperor. Why did Scourge suddenly turn on his allies? He had been having visions of the Emperor being killed and he realized the only path forward was to secretly gain the Emperor’s trust and strike him at the right moment. Lord Scourge is rewarded by being named “The Emperor’s Wrath” and being given the very painful gift of immortality. Revan is then imprisoned in the Emperor’s Maelstrom prison while the Force spirit of Meetra lives on, assisting Revan through many centuries of agonizing torture as the Emperor keeps Revan alive to harvest his energy.
“…if my role is to sacrifice myself for the one who will come next –then I embrace it” (290).
In a brief epilogue, we see an elderly Bastila Shan, now a grandmother, talking with her son Vaner and reflecting fondly on the memory of Revan, still wondering whatever became of him.
What happens to Revan? Does he ever escape imprisonment? What about Lord Scourge? Does he ever kill the Emperor? And what about Meetra? Is she really dead? And how about Bastila? Will she and Revan ever be reunited again?
Drew Karpyshyn’s Revan is another lively, engaging, well-researched novel in the Star Wars Expanded Universe. I was hooked all throughout Part I (I found myself particularly interested in all the extent KOTOR lore from the Mandalorians to the Sith, as well as the brief references to ancient Sith like Exar Kun and Naga Sadow), however I think the novel started to lose steam in Part II and ultimately the ending was unfortunately unsatisfying, with such an abrupt, bewildering plot twist (apparently many fans of KOTOR II found the sudden death of Meetra to be particularly egregious, but I have also seen a great deal of criticism of the depicted marriage between Revan and Bastila). Much of the novel is reliant on Revan’s incomplete memory (a convenient plot device) and there is some fairly corny romantic dialogue between Revan and Bastila, among other little quibbles. Still, in spite of these criticisms, I enjoyed this one. Would I recommend it? Perhaps only to the most exhaustive Star Wars readers who crave all the Old Republic lore.
Karpyshyn, Drew. Star Wars: The Old Republic: Revan. Del Rey, New York, New York, 2022 (originally published in 2010). Dedicated to his wife Jennifer.
What about Darth Plagueis? Disney Snoke, methinks.