Star Wars: The Origins of KOTOR’s Popular Darth Revan

Darth Revan made their first iconic appearance in the video game Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic, also known as KOTOR for short, twenty years ago now. Not only has Revan become a pretty memorable character in their own right but the plot twist in KOTOR 1 is also incredibly memorable. Who was Darth Revan though and how did they not only fall to the Dark Side but also become one of the most popular Sith in gaming let alone Star Wars history? 

Darth Revan: Legends vs Canon

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In Legends, before Revan became a dark lord of the Sith, he was a Jedi Knight who existed during the time of the Old Republic. During his time as a Jedi Knight, the Mandalorians attacked the Republic, and Revan, disobeying the Jedi Council, took a contingent of Jedi along with his friend and fellow Jedi Knight Alek.  Revan would eventually defeat Mandalore the Ultimate and end the Mandalorian threat. 

However, both Revan and Alek, by that point known as Malak, would both fall to the Dark Side and invade the Republic. Revan would eventually be betrayed by his Sith Apprentice Darth Malak, be rescued by Bastilla Shan, and be given a new name and personality which KOTOR players got to choose when playing the game. 

In Disney canon, however, not much is known about Darth Revan besides the fact their name is attached to a legion in Darth Sidious’s new Sith army. I suspect the KOTOR remake that Saber Interactive is working on will more than likely act as a way to canonize Revan as a character but the hope is that they leave it ambiguous as to what gender they truly are. 

KOTOR 1

In KOTOR 1, you play as a mind-wiped Darth Revan after waking up on the Endar Spire and being greeted by Trask Ulgo who is arguably the best character in the game. It’s a race to get off the ship before it explodes and it’s where you meet the game’s first companion, Carth Onasi, voiced by Mass Effect alum Raphael SbargeEventually, you meet Bastilla Shan voiced by veteran voice actor Jennifer Hale who also played Fem-Shep in the Mass Effect games. I am a massive fan of Bioware games

KOTOR 2

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In KOTOR 2, you play as Meetra Surik who also accompanied Revan to fight the Mandalorians and was one of his most accomplished generals. During the battle of Malachor V, she gave the order to activate the Mass Shadow Generator which killed untold amounts of Jedi, Republic soldiers, and Mandalorian soldiers. As a result, she cut herself off from the force. 

The MMO

Eventually, she meets up with Revan again and goes with him to confront the Sith Emperor where Lord Scourge (a future companion in the MMO The Old Republic) killed her and Revan was imprisoned.  Revan’s story eventually comes to a close in a series of flashpoints The Old Republic. Canonically, you play two of them with a Republic character and then the next two with an Empire character. Revan gets freed after being a prisoner of the Sith Emperor for over 300 years. 

In the Imperial character’s story, Darth Revan wants to kill anyone with Sith pureblood genes and your character ends up killing him. In some expansion-level content that was released years later, the Dark Side half of Revan’s character comes back and your character needs to put him down for good.  Overall, many fans of the KOTOR games weren’t happy with how Darth Revan was handled in the MMO including myself.  Not only did the Revan tie-in novel to the MMO hurt the main character of the second game, but it also rendered everything Revan did moot. 

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