Revan (Drew Karpyshyn?s New Novel Revealed) [SPOILERS]

TOR SPOILERS: It also prevented Revan from being broken into a servant of the Sith Emperor. I suppose that's something. Though he hasn't exactly emerged from the other side unscathed, given he embarks upon a genocidal plan.

It's implied (through his verbatim echo of Malak's final words) that he dies in the grip of the dark side.

I agree. But the ending of the novel isn't the "final" ending.

Though, I think it would have made more sense for the Exile to be in Revan's shoes, given she's the one most narratively primed for an "influence someone through a Force bond" plot. Which is essentially what's going on with Revan and Vitiate.

Speaking of which, does the novel establish that he's Darth Vitiate and, furthermore, does it explain why the Darth title is now being used in the latest incarnation of the first Sith Empire?

 

Millennia even. I had thought the ending was actually kind of hopeful for Revan lovers. But...

Not having played the game I of course need more information to understand.

 

The novel just calls him Lord Vitiate.

Call me cynical, but I'm not even certain that's what was intended. It could be.

 

If you want to get an extreme spoiler about it, here's a link to a new version of the Foundry Flashpoint:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvEjL0GWJGk&list=FLAE6Jylv4jpf-8FurHIp3IA&index=9&feature=plpp_video

 

Can't entirely say I blame him, to be fair.

He tried using the Jedi for help, and they ignored him; then he tried using the Sith for help, and they knifed his friend in the back. This time, he just said to hell with them all, and stuck with cranking out more HKs, which I can understand when HK had been the only "friend" who'd remained loyal, when he felt Scourge and the Jedi Council had equally failed to help.

After both Scourge and his former closest friend, Malak, had both turned against him, he clearly just lost any faith in "redemption", seeing the Sith Empire as beyond salvation, and possibly only felt that he'd ever been "redeemed" due to having his mind wiped. Life hadn't been good to him, and he wasn't going to underestimate the dark side again. Not a happy ending by any means, but then... Revan ultimately isn't the hero, the Jedi Knight and Jedi Consular are.

In a way, it's ironic we don't "connect" with either of them because they haven't got established names/characters, whereas once upon a time we all hated the fact that Revan had even been given a canonical ending and still wanted him to be a faceless figure too.

I didn't feel it necessarily leads to that conclusion either.

It can, certainly, but this sort of re-using of lines is pretty commonplace in the EU, so it's just as possible that nothing was meant by it other than an easter egg for those who'd played KOTOR1 to get a smile out of.

Personally, I just took "darkness" as a semi-prophetic statement of doom that "Without me, the universe is now karked."

 

Well, back under the original conception (don't know how well it holds up, now), he turned against Malak first. Seduced him to the dark side, trained him as a Sith. Malak was Revan's victim as surely as Anakin was Sidious'.

I would hope he definitely feels that way. It's true. Revan would have never cast off the thrall of the dark side by his own force of will.

He's no Darth Vader. But, then, who is?

Speak for yourself, Zor. I wanted Revan to be a badass looking asian man with a cool goatee, if only to break up the monotony of white male Jedi heroes.

(Assuming he didn't turn out to be Nomi and Ulic's love child, of course. )

I'm not certain how "And in the end, as the darkness takes me, I am nothing. Now I know how you felt, old friend" can imply anything but Revan experiencing the same kind of death as Malak.

Ahhh! They've switched his saber colour to purple? Excellent. Doesn't clash with his costume.

Yes, yes, I worry about the big issues.

Oh, and some of his battle cries are pretty intriguing: "I WILL SHOW YOU THE POWER OF THE FORCE IN BALANCE!" that is beautifully arrogant, on Revan's part. And then there's, "YOU'VE NEVER FOUGHT ANYONE LIKE ME! I WAS SITH. I AM JEDI!!!!" That in tandem with "NO-ONE COULD DO WHAT I HAVE DONE!" makes me wonder if he isn't harbouring some ever so slight messianic delusions.

"Crazy Revan thinks he's the Chosen One" could be a lot of fun.

 

I didn't catch the saber colour change. That's neat. I did read in the video comments that the fight had apparently changed quite a bit since the last build, so you can't be the only one bugged by the little things. [face_Tongue]

It'll be interesting to see how the final build works out given BioWare are clearly sensitive to the community reaction(s) to Revan. I really like the semi-messianic stuff, as it fits my feelings about him basically thinking "Without me, you're now all karked," and echoes that novel stuff about the Force always providing a champion, which he evidently (wrongly) believed he was.

The darkness? No, Revan, not that... it's just the truth that you aren't the Chosen One.

How dark it must seem, when you are no longer the brightest star.

 

He crosses over to the other side and a shimmery blue Bastila is there, tapping her foot, face like kinrath pup.

"And what time do you call this?"
"Oh... so that was the darkness I felt."

In seriousness, though, I'm pretty sure he's delusional and dark. Especially since I can now make out that there's a option of telling him: "You're corrupted."

 

I'd say it's not worse than your desire to focus on the singular aspect of my argument you do not care for and inflate that and only that. Or your hypocritical obsession with attacking for my tone. To my understanding my conversation with Ulicus also had a fair focus on whether the current narrative succeeds in humanizing Revan. And whether or not it maintains continuity with the general tone and tenure of other information regarding him in a thematic sense. I also felt it was a pretty interesting discussion. One for which I even thanked him. And one for which other people commented on both sides of things. So, while it might not have been the type of dialog you wanted (and clearly we must only engage in that), it was dialog. Rebut if you want but in all honesty, your raving about said conversation is more derailing than the conversation ever was.

Honestly, I wouldn't be shocked if they did their best to keep it somewhat ambiguous. At least, provided they don't somehow bring Revan back, which is certainly possible. It really can cut both ways; it can be the type of self realization that means redemption or a statement of despair.

 

The novel pretty clearly stated that he didn't regard himself as such. He was very nonchalant when asked about his champion theory. Like, "Maybe I am, maybe I'm not." Though he does seem pretty clearly delusional and (quite excessively) theatrical here.

Does anyone have a version of this fight where they don't just select "DIE DIE DIE"? This is the third time I've seen this (nice changes to camera/music/lightsaber/hood btw) and every single frakking time someone has to be the dumbass that just wants violence. The guy playing was choosing all of the right options (bless him) but he kept getting overruled.

 

Well, the laid back, "I'm not that cool, I'm one of you guys," Revan was before he'd had his ass handed to him. Come TOR, he's had 300 years stuck in a closet to finally remember all those forgotten memories of Kreia telling him that he was the most amazing guy ever.

 

That's possible as well, however, I think I prefer the idea that he isn't Force sensitive. It doesn't really come out and tell us, and I believe there have been cases of Force sensitive parents not having Force sensitive children.

Yeah, the one thing I'm afraid of when I play the game is missing out on the story because my teammates skip straight to the fight... especially on an important fight like this

 

That was something I was very pleased about in the video of the final battle with the Emperor that was posted in the TOR thread.

It was a one-on-one duel.

 

Okay. Couple more question to wrap my head around this. Does the Foundry sequence have to happen? Is it a fixed point in the game? In other words, does Revan die this way no matter what or is the Foundry Flashpoint from a DS POV only?

 

More likely he's trying to get stuck in Chaos forever so he doesn't have to face Bastila. I mean he's REALLY got a lot of splaining to do... abandoning her while pregnant, his 'relationship' with the Exile, not calling her for 300 years...

Besides if he does the Chaos route he and Malak can go hang out as bros for all eternity spooking people as ghosts and tricking stupid darksiders into believing they've been declared the new Dark Lord of the Sith.

Revan: Who enters the tomb of Darth Revan Dark Lord of the Sith?
Malak: And Malak the apprentice and then Dark Lord of the Sith?
Im Stu-pd: The Jedi have held me back! I have coming seeking your power!
Revan: (snickers) yes... you have (chuckle) great power...
Malak: Indeed, nope can't say it with a straight face.
Revan: Quiet!
Im Stu-pd: I shall become a new Dark Lord!
Revan: Yes... the force is strong with you... a powerful sith you will become...
Malak: (laughing uncontrollably)
Revan: Henceforth you shall be called... Darth... Fatuss.
Darth Fatuss: I shall bend the universe to my will!
Revan: Ah that was good... so how long till the Jedi kill him?
Malak: I give it four weeks.
Revan: (slams force credits on table) your on.

And seriously, even if he is dark someone could just pull and Ajunta Pall on him and ask him if he would like to not be in Chaos and go join the Force. I mean really if you can be redeemed AFTER death I'm not really worried about Revan being forever damned. Especially with Bastila on the other side... I mean she sent the Exile after him once, whose to say she won't send her again to nag him until he crosses over.

 

Random thoughts/questions:

-A little disappointed how Revan got smacked down by the Emperor. I was hoping he'd go down in flames, ala Darth Vader/Palpatine in RotJ. So basically, he failed since obvious the Emperor is around 300 years later in the TOR MMO game, and not even weakened.

-Where's Carth Onasi? There was mention of every single KOTOR I party member except him. Unless I completely missed it, there wasn't even a single mention that he existed. Even if the canon is he died, you'd think they'd mention that.

-The Exile seems to have lost some of her power. She defeats Treya, Nihilis, and the pain guy (forget his name), but has trouble with some wrinkly old hag.

-Bastila came across more like whiny Padme than the strong-willed, headstrong Bastila from the games.

 

^^I, uh, didn't add spoiler tags since the thread title says spoilers are allowed. And when I tried to go back and edit my post to include them, it doesn't seem to want to let me. It just shows a blank post box without the text I wrote.

Hopefully the stuff I said doesn't ruin anything for anyone.

 

I thought Revan performed very well against the Emperor. He knocked him to the floor twice, and the Exile could have killed him at one point.

 

Carth also shows up in KOTOR2, so we know he lives to when everybody else is talked about.

 

My guess is Revan's just angry because Carth moved in with Bastila and so refuses to talk about him.

 

That reminds me. Does Vaner have a step-father?

 

And, speaking of Vaner, I'd like to mention that I love that he goes into politics, instead of becoming a Jedi. Especially if he has the capacity to become a Jedi but feels his destiny lies along a different path.

Don't get me wrong, I love "squibs", too. And I think the franchise needs more non-FS children of Jedi parents... but we already know such is the case from Satele-Theron (right?) and there's probably a bunch of squibs between Vaner and Satele, too. So it doesn't matter so much if Vaner isn't one himself.

I'm coming around to his name more now, too. "VAN-er" is lame (as is Bastila naming her kid using an anagram), but it works okay when pronounced "VAHN-er/VARN-er".

It's the opposite of "Meetra", where it sounds fine (Mitra is an awesome deity, after all, and has a portfolio that aligns with the Exile's "influence and bonding" shtick) but looks like garbage.

No saving Surik, though.

 

Do we really need a novel to tell more backstory on Revan, the Republic, Malak, and the Mandalorians?

In Knights of the Old Republic videogame Vandar and the other jedi masters they tell you about what happened to Malak and Revan, They went farther into the galaxy and never returne yada yada. Then in the videogame, Canderous tells you this wild crazy war stories.

So why even bother buying the Old Republic: Revan novel?

 

After reading Revan, I am not as interested in TOR.

What a buzz kill that was.

 

Considering his parentage, going into politics - if we assume that somewhere in SW:TOR OR there are elections similar to those in RL democracies - might have been the easy choice. Mullet Man Junior could just bask in the light of his parents' accomplishments, make bad jokes about his first name being an anagram to remind everybody yet again who his mysteriously disappeared hero daddy was and a glittering political career would be almost guaranteed, as long as he could smile to the holocameras and show perfect, white teeth and not being caught in any scandals. The voters could basically feel that they had to vote the son as a reward for his parents saving the Republic...

Not that his parents might oppose it. Like the famous Chinese poet, painter, essayist, statesman and political prisoner & exile Su Dong-po aka Su Shi(1037-1101) wrote:

On the Birth of His Son

translated by Arthur Waley(1889-1966)

Families, when a child is born,
Want it to be intelligent.
I, through intelligence,
Having wrecked my whole life,
Only hope the baby will prove
Ignorant and stupid.
Then he will crown a tranquil life
By becoming a Cabinet Minister.