Official Knights of the Old Republic (Video Games) and the EU Thread (KOTORII Spoilers)

Hey folks,

I have a confession to make. I use a laptop. I use a laptop that is a very cheap one that is servicible to my needs. However, until recently, I was unable to play Knights of the Old Republic and Knights of the Old Republic 2. Well, I upgraded at last to a decent laptop and after MUCH difficulty, I managed to get Vista working so that I could play Knights of the Old Republic 2 after discovering I could play KOTOR 1 just fine. It's interesting how much of your perspective changes when you play something second hand versus hearing about it.

I'm finished now with KOTOR2 and my first reaction is the monumental. "Man, Lucasfilm should have just delayed the game for a year and they would have had one of the best selling games of all time" with all the good stuff left out. Then we'd have undoubtedly had KOTOR3 where you go fight a bunch of Dark Side Warriors in the True Sith Empire and eventually kill the Dark Lord of the Sith there.

But no, instead, we get the Empire Strikes Back ending. Except, Mark Hamil and Harrison Ford have died in a plane crash along with all the other major staff equivalent. The project is dropped and there's never any sequels, leaving a massive left hanging. I can understand the almost universal frustration everyone feels. I've also purused the cut content as well, it's extremely good and I regret its loss. I'm definitely going to be in line for those who download copies of the TSLRP when it comes out.

It's interesting how this is something that really changes your view on the Expanded Universe. The writing of KOTOR2 is very similiar to Planescape: Torment and that is the all time greatest game created for Dungeons and Dragons or any other RPG system. As much as I love KOTOR, I've got to give it up to PC:T. The fact that the same guys responsible for KOTOR2 are responsible for PS:T gives a lot of explanation to the quality of the writing.

Here's more or less the response that I've gotten from these two games.

1:] I now understand the perspective of Jedi are Jerks

I thought it would be much more ambiguous from what I read but the games are almost ridiculously clear that the Jedi Knights refusal to fight into the Mandalorian Wars was wrong on pretty much every concievable level. Worse, it's also clear that the biggest mistake isn't that they didn't go with Revan into the Mandalorian wars, it's the fact that they utterly refused to acknowlege that they were in any way possible of being wrong. They just dismissed any arguments that Darth Revan's cause may have been just even if his methods were wrong and then punished the Exile for being the only one man enough not to fall to the Dark Side.

I also realize the game gives an excellent reason for the weakness in the Jedi Order as a whole. Their attempt to be Angels or Naaru (WOW reference). The Jedi Knights keep attempting to make themselves lofty and holy beings removed from the galaxy due to wrapping themselves in the Light Side of the Force. However, this actually removes them from honesty about their emotions and drives.

Zez-Kai tries to cover up the fact he's afraid of the Sith threat that's killing them all off. Rather than admit to a genuine human weakness, he attempts to pretend he's above such feelings. This is actually the biggest weakness of the Prequel and Jedi Civil War Jedi. They destroy themselves by pretending to be above the Dark Side, even in petty ways.

2:] The role of the Mandalorians

I actually like the Mandalorian "balance" in the fact they're simultaneously honorable and noble warrior poets and scum. The first game had Mandalorians gleefully talking about how they bombed cities to ashes and murdered the entire Cathar homeworld (I'm going to assume Sylvara died there) to ashes. Then, they have the psychotic Mandalorian teenagers using stealth devices to show just how "honorable" they really are. Not to mention the Mandalorians on Dantooine whose idea of glorious battle is to murder a bunch of local farmers.

[It also shows how bad the Jedi are in this perio

 

Ha, yeah, KotOR 2 lifts a lot from Torment. To the point that Atris (who at one point was going to be Darth Traya) is an anagram of Trias (the Betrayer). The Exile fits the Nameless One down to a T, too, and there were hints at one point that the Exile/Nihilus relationship was similar (if not the same) as that between the Nameless and Transcendant Ones.

Kreia's a total Ravel, too. Surprised she never got around to talking about a black brambled garden....

Of course, since Torment is the single greatest written game of all time, that's no bad thing.

While it's ridiculously good to see you, of all people, to say that... in the defence of the Jedi, they didn't refuse to fight wholesale, they refused to join the war effort immediately. In KotOR I, at least, the party line was always "We'd have joined eventually, we just needed a little time".

Though, yeah, had the Council joined in straight away a great deal of Revan's threat would have been mitigated and a lot of his excesses would have probably been reigned in.

Whether Malak did or didn't know about the threat can't really be discerned, even though at one point I thought the answer was an obvious "no".

What we do learn from KotOR 2 is that extended exposure to the Star Forge is dangerous. It is also speculated in the game that the Star Forge was responsible for the fall of the Rakatan Empire and the loss of their Force sensitivity. So, the important thing is that whether or not he knew about the threat, Malak was under the impression that he could use the Star Forge forever... which contributed to his destructive ways.

Revan, on the other hand, knew that it was a means to an end that should ultimately be discarded, which is why he captured planets that would be important to military production later on, instead of just bombing them to smithereens.

TSL turned the "You were blind Revan, blind and stupid. All you saw was an enormous factory..." line on its head, basically.

Which made me happy.

Kreia's endgame: Honestly, I seriously adopt a meta-breaking of the fourth wall outlook on this. Kreia realises that she is in a fictional gameworld, propelled forward by the Force/the Narrative. She desires the end of the narrative and, in killing Kreia - the last boss - the Exile fulfills her desire because then the game ends.

 

There were going to be more Planescape nods, actually as I understand it. Originally at Atris' place, there were supposed to be a bunch of Holocrons that would essentially act as Sensory Stones. I only heard this secondhand, however. It's a pity that we didn't have a scrappy Annah like love interest to contrast against the two statuesque Falls from Grace girls but I suppose that's Mira.

I would have liked the Nihilus/Exile connection that Nihilus is actually the Force that the Exile severed from himself but I understand that was always just fanon. Though it's a pity they didn't think of it.

Think what a mind-kriff it would have been to have Visas remove Nihilist' mask to find the Exile.

You know, I don't honestly know if I found any hint that they were waiting for the Sith specifically but Bastila and Carth's conversation pretty much explains the whole thing. Then the Exile can pretty much say the rest of it. The Jedi Council was holding back and were afraid to go to war again but they can't honestly give any real reason why they didn't go to war when asked.

Instead, they keep trying to justify themselves after the fact by pointing to Revan.

Bizarrely, I think it could be genuine subtext that part of the reason they held back was because other Jedi HADN'T. They were afraid of losing control and admitting they were wrong.

Earlier, we saw Malak as a total brute and monster but the KOTOR comic have since shown that while Alek is a bit of a headstrong jerk, there's nothing really to show that he's stupid or brutish at this point. It would go along way to redeeming Revan's Xanatos foolishness to have him share his secret with his apprentice and the two of them decide that the Republic needs a strong hand for the True Sith threat.

The KOTOR Guide indicates that he did feel the Republic needed to be conquered for reasons other than power but Order.

In fact, actually, that was in the first game where the Rakata Elders suggest that the Star Forge may have been partially responsible for the Rakata becoming the crazy lunatic conquerors that they were.

 

It's kind of surprising in a way that the Visas scene when she takes his mask off is perhaps one of the only scenes in the whole game where they gave us a definitive answer instead of left us guessing. The only thing I can really think of why they may have not wanted to do it (even though I'd totally have loved it) is if they were worried about being accused of "KOTOR1 rehash" had Nihilus taken his mask off and-- dun-dun-dun!-- it's you!!!

On one hand, I can see why that may have been a little too much like the Revan reveal. On the other hand, secret identities and twists is part of Star Wars. It's the kind of thing that makes me think "This is 'true' Star Wars" because of how much it echoes ESB. I tend to find in long running franchises there is an element that makes rehashes actually desirable.

She's long been one of the characters I really want to see, even in such a brief cameo as when we saw Atris in the Council chamber, because you don't actually need to do anything with her to at long last confirm that she is Kreia: her appearance would tell us all we needed to know. "Hello Master Kae" to a pencil figure that looked identical to Kreia would be all I need to see.

 

The KotOR CG establishes, unfortunately, that Kreia was a Jedi Master known as Kreia, as opposed to Arren Kae.

Of course, I wouldn't mind if they ignored that, particularly. Or, at the very least, made Kreia Arren Kae's mother.

 

Easy enough just to say it was a nickname. Kinda like how Revan and Malak aren't their real names yet they were still known by them way before becoming Sith.

Plus I'm also open to them just acknowledging it as an error and ignoring it. KOTOR2 is pretty explicit about the connection, and I'll take the primary source over the latter day summaries.

While I respect JJM's work, I also don't take everything WOTC come out with as gospel ever since the Jacen Skywalker gaff. When that can slip through the net, I see it as a case that lots of things can potentially do the same. That's why WOTC usually publish lists of fixes after the sourcebooks are released.

Plus, after all, she was a Jedi Master known as Kreia... from a certain point of view. That's how the Exile knew her.

 

I'd say it wasn't explicit at all
Some people think that Kreia is supposed to be Arren Kae, but the game does nothing to really confirm it, nor do Chris Avellone's interviews. There is a huge difference between hinting at something and confirming it. Especially those who read the KOTOR comics should know about that

In other words, if LucasArts had wanted to accept that connection, Chris Avellone wouldn't have so say that he can't comment on it, everytime he's asked. Saying "good catch" only means that he planned those hints to be there and that it's nice that you recognized them. However, it doesn't say much about whether those hints were supposed to be more than just hints, or what the official word is. That will remain in question until a new story picks up on this, which might never happen. Until then, we only have the guides.

 

I've always liked the idea that Kreia = Kae + Traya.

 

It makes it pretty clear that she was known as such before the Exile was the Exile.

Not sure how it works as a nickname... but then again Malak came out of nowhere, too. (Well, I guess it rhymes with Alek)

 

I dunno... even when you get a quote from "Jedi Master Kreia" that's still part of the subjectivity of a secondary account. We've had ample material talk about "Vader", or "Revan", or "Malak", when in reality what they meant was the Revanchist, Alek Squinquargesimus, or Anakin Skywalker. I just look on the CG as telling the story from the point of view that it wants to tell the story from. Same as any history textbook really. History is very rarely ever a truly objective thing. And Star Wars continuity is like Pandora's Box.

To be honest I mostly think Chris just knows his place: he told his story, he got his money, now it's LFL's puppy to play with so not his place to state facts that they may one day choose to retcon away. He isn't likely to give us a categorical statement either way.

We see the same sort of thing with most of the (good) authors. People often try and get Stover to confirm how much he knew about Vergere at the time, or try to get Denning to spill the beans on whether or not such-and-such he meant so-and-so... but 90% of the time their lips and sealed and they won't go into details. Abel is another prime candidate: there really is no reason why he shouldn't just tell us what was in Vader's Legacy about Lumiya, but he won't because it isn't currently published and he is well aware that LFL may totally change their minds. Or they may end up publishing it one day and canonise it. Until that happens though, most of the authors know better than to make categorical affirmations of things that weren't 100% in the actual material.

Frankly I half blame Wookieepedia. In the old days people were a lot more common sense about it all and happy to let the fans into their world, in the common sense belief that the fans would take it maturely and accept that it may or may not turn out to be true. In this Internet age though, if the author makes a statement, bam, it spreads like wildfire and suddenly people are believing it like it's been utterly from the mouth of God. After that, it becomes a lot harder to retcon away the dribble that gets fanonised into canon.

Trakata I'm looking at you.

 

One quick thought: something I thought was brilliant in KOTOR that is often forgotten:

That the ancient super weapon was a factory. It is hard for me to describe how much I love this, or why I love this so much, but let's just say that it is a nice subversion of usual trends concerning ancient, war changing machines, but it appeals to my inner historian.

The only super weapon that has ever even shown the potential to be war changing is the atomic bomb, and even that is too indiscriminate to a practical weapon. Conventional wars are decided by factories, my supply lines, by communication, by replacing combat losses....so instead of a usual death star knock off that stupidly destroys vital raw materials, we instead have a facility capable of single handedly fueling a real war effort.

 

It's not a quote attributed to Kreia, it's a reference to her fellow Jedi - during the days in which she was a Jedi - coining the phrase "Kreia's Conundrums".

There is a big difference between that and a Jedi, later on when Kreia is known as such, saying "Oh, Kreia was always coming up with conundrums" which, I agree, would leave considerable leeway.

Still, as I said, I wouldn't be adverse to that bit of Kreia's bio just being ignored. Much like I wouldn't be adverse to Bendak's bio being ignored.

 

What was wrong with Bendak's bio?

 

In KotOR, Bendak Starkiller is an aging duellist, past his prime, who has been in retirement for years. In the CG, he's a veteran of the Mandalorian Wars who didn't start duelling until 3959 BBY (or later) and, somehow, it was the Sith who banned the deathmatches - though KotOR implies that the Sith didn't even conquer Taris until after the battle with the Endar Spire. (Though that could be skirted around, perhaps, by having the Republic expecting a minor Sith force only to be ambushed by a Sith 'battle fleet')

This next bit is overkill, and Hydro will laugh at me some more because of this obsession, but... hey:

"They're illegal, they're banned, they've been outlawed for nearly TEN YEARS but we've got one here for you tonight... a good, old-fashioned, DEATHMATCH!"

Bendak's a government contract, but he's a legend on Taris. He started out as duelist in the Upper Cantina. He never lost, but he only fought death matches. He killed hundreds in his day. Then death matches got banned. Duel rings switched to non-lethal combat. But Bendak wasn't ready to retire. He keep dueling on the illegal, underground circuit. He kept killing people. Finally the government had no choice but to put a bounty out on him. But Bendak's a big folk hero, so not too many try to collect. Those who do all wind up dead, anyway.

"You're good Stranger, maybe as good as Bendak in his prime"

I heard Bendak Starkiller finally met his match. I can't say I'm surprised - he was getting on in years. People start to lose their edge as they get older.

Have you heard? Somebody's going to fight Bendak Starkiller in an illegal death match! Heh heh. I wonder if the old guy's still got what it takes. You figure he'd be out of practice, right?

So I heard Bendak Starkiller finally lost a death match. Can't say I'm surprised. The guy was retired for so long he probably lost his edge.

JJM, awesome as he is, has acknowledged the error and apparantly everything will be explained without rendering anything void. Even though that strikes me as somewhat impossible.

 

Can he do the same thing with Arren Kreia Kae while he's at it?

 

I found the "Kreia and Revan were right and awesome, everyone else was an idiot" message in KotOR 2 incredibly annoying. Especially when Kreia's philosophy/the plot (at times I feel like there isn't a differance) makes no sense with George Lucas' apparent conception of the force or the original description of how Sever Force works from TotJ.

I always assumed he was someone the developers wanted you to dislike. Which I decided to refuse to do.

There's a 40 odd year time gap, so from Talia's rough apparent age I would put her as Galia's granddaughter rather than daughter. Just doesn't make sense for them to wait so long to have a child, unless Talia was the youngest sibling out of a whole bunch of kids.

The whole Ondaron bit is pretty screwed up compared to the comics. The game shows the Beast Riders as violent thugs while the comics had them as unambiguous good guys at war with the Dark Side.

 

I find it difficult to dislike Ed Asner.

 

I like Vrook Lamar, too. It's one of the reasons I like the idea of Revan having been a bad seed from the start, because then he looks even better in comparison to the other masters (since he ALWAYS had his eye on Revan).

Dumbledore Lamar to Tom Revan.

 

Karpyshyn decided to depict them that way as well, although in a different era.

 

After I finished the game, I spent all day and most of the rest of the night watching the cut content and reading about it. Damn, that was a good game that was never made.

I wished I believed in romance more than Bioware. I just can't write it unless one of the pair gets impaled on a pike, set on fire, or betrays the other and then impales them on a pike or sets them on fire. Generally, I prefer unrequited, melancholy, quiet suffering whenever possible, which really doesn't go over well with a lot of the role-players out there.
-Chris Avelone

Source: http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=125

I believe this is pretty accurate. One of the interesting things about the KOTOR sequel is the fact that there's really no real romance. Annah and Falls-From-Grace are similiar to KOTOR2 because there's never any profession of "I love you" or a kissing scene, which would have made this whole things worthwhile (not that we ever really got in at Bioware either). In fact, I'm not really sure that FFG falls for Nameless and that you really have a romance with anyone but Visas and Atton in this game. Brianna is jealous of the Exile getting attention from the Miraluka but we never actually get to see her being anything more than passive-aggressive towards her.

But I must confess, I'm actually not terribly happy about some implications of Knights of the Old Republic: The Old Republic (someone needs to go find whoever came up with that name and smack them with a newspaper that has only the word "redundancy" written on it, a million times). The whole idea of the True Sith Empire being resolved by MMORPG seems about as good a way to resolve it as anything, you can understand how they get beaten with millions of Battle Junkies grinding them. But I wanted a proper resolution to the stories of Darth Revan, the Exile, and so on.

Them just going off, dying, and never being heard of again doesn't really feel right to me.

I've been exposed to the staggering amount of Mary-Sue/Gary-Stu accusations towards Revan's masterplanning in KOTOR2 but really, I actually think people missed it. Revan and Kreia are fun mirrors of each other in they're totally damn crazy control freaks. Which makes sense, Kreia trained Revan and Revan reflects his master's batshavit insane views of the galaxy as a bunch of tiny manipulations to bring about your ultimate goal. What's hilarious is that the second game touts Revan up so much that you are probably likely to miss the fact that both games are all about how this philosophy is totally meaningless.

They even REFERENCE Chaos theory and Quantum Mechanics with a "Mynock" flapping its wings. Which Kreia and Revan seem to totally miss is about the utter pointlessness of attempting to totally control a system.

Revan planned for everything in the Old Republic, up to and including the destruction of all his disloyal followers at Malachor V. There's some great subtext if you're a female Revan that Carth Onasi was at Malachor V. Why? Because, Darth Revan wanted Carth to die with the Jedi Exile because he knew that both of them were too moral to join with the Neo-Sith Empire that she was creating. It's a fun bit of serendipity that her future love interest had actually been nearly killed by her at that point.

The description as Malak as a brute becomes more funny as a Xanatos Gilligan.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SpannerInTheWorks?from=Main.XanatosGilligan

Revan had counted on everything except for the fact that Malak would betray him/her. It's a fun mirror of Thrawn and Rukh. Revan had an enormous blindspot in his own followers because he dismisses Malak as someone that he knows and holds in contempt. There's a lot of cracks in Revan's so-called masterplan from the very beginning. HK-47 would have turned upon Revan with the HK-50s had he known about them. The Exile survived and if Revan is Dark, it's just as likely, the Exile would eventually come and destroy him. Revan's whole plan was doomed from the start. It also more or less eradicated the Republic and Sith Empire

 

I'm pretty sure it's simply titled Star Wars: The Old Republic.

I actually much prefer TOR's method of dealing with the True Sith. The idea that Revan went off by himself to fight them always struck me as ridiculous. These guys were supposed to be a threat of unprecedented scale, to the extent that Revan began a devastating galactic war with the ultimate intention of preparing the Republic for invasion. But then he gets his memories back and decides he can actually beat them all on his lonesome.

What?

It just made no sense to me. One minute he needs the entire Republic to be re-forged into a war machine, the next he's abandoning his friends and attempting to pull a John McClane.

I rather like the theory that Revan is True Sith by birth (all that stuff Kreia says about how he was answering 'the call of home') and went out there to not to fight, but to bargain with his people. And convince them not to invade.

In any case, we can speculate that he and the Exile are responsible for the True Sith's delay in invading. A delay that lasted three centuries. That's much more than I would expect two individuals to be capable of, so I'm happy with their impact.

 

As things stand, I think a lot may depend on how exactly TOR is received.

If TOR takes off, then a whole lot of BioWare's future-- period-- will be dependent on how they deal with the transition from RPG company to MMORPG company. Blizzard, much as I have enjoyed WoW, did not impress me with how they basically went "Awesome. Let's milk this gravy train for all its worth. To hell with working on new single player games."

I'm hoping BioWare will be a little more committed to continuing their existing excellence as single player RPG creators. If so, and if TOR is popular, I wouldn't be surprised in a few years time if they decided to go back and fill in the backstory with a genuine KOTOR3 about Revan and the Exile. though, a lot will depend on what they actually tell us in TOR, of course. I'm still pretty torn on whether to expect some genuine revelations, or only some very veiled "They, uh, did stuff... that, like, stopped the Sith for a few centuries. Yeah." without going into the specifics very much.

Given the potential a KOTOR3 most likely still has though... to some extent I do wonder if we'll get any info at all, or whether they'll save it for a rainy day when TOR itself nears its end. On the other hand, they might plaster TOR with Revan and Exile references to get people to buy it... will have to wait and see I guess. In an ideal world, I'd prefer to wait and get a KOTOR3. On the other hand, I'd also like to just find out the answers in TOR rather than run the risk of a real KOTOR3 never being made.

I'm still holding out for that to be the case. Or, even if not a child of the Sith Lords, then a child of one of the planets the true empire has conquered and enslaved-- though making Revan the child of slaves might be too close to Anakin.

Though, echoing what I said above on the nature of rehashes in long running franchises in respect to the idea of having had a true Nihilus reveal, there is also a part of me that thinks making Revan's origins akin to Moses, with him being a baby that was stuck on a raft (ship) and fired off into the great unknown to take his chances would be rather powerful.

Instead of the Pharoah calling for all male Hebrew babies to be killed, it would have been the Sith calling for all Force-sensitive slave children to be killed and/or surrendered to them to be raised as their acolytes. I rather like the idea that Revan's parents risked their lives (and probably died in the process) to provide him a chance in life.

 

I think it's more likely that Obsidian will do KotOR 3 than BioWare, regardless of the ToR MMO. Just like if there's ever a NWN 3 that'll probably be Obsidian too.

They're like BioWare's sequel machine.

I wish they'd just merge, already.

BTW, I enjoyed your post, Charles. I agree especially on the Golden Age Sith being pathetic - I'm sort of hoping that the Sith Emperor was part of an Illuminati type organisation that had been running the Sith from behind the scenes until the events following the Great Hyperspace War. Perhaps the "Forces of darkness" that 'compelled' Marka Ragnos to speak at the battle of Naga and Ludo was not the dark side itself but the Sith Emperor and his council? The secret masters of the Sith.

As an aside, how DID you get KotOR 2 (or 1) working on Vista? I can't.

Winged_Jedi: Bargain!? You mean infiltrate and manipulate, don't you? After all:

Seriously, Zor, sometimes I think we're the same person. (Which means you're the same person as Becca, too )

For some reason, though, I never really thought about both of Reavn's parents being slaves. In an old fanfic I started (but never finished) Revan was the offspring of the Hidden Empire's Dark Lord and a slave who ran off with him.

I really, really hope that BioWare take Obsidian's lead in having Revan's origins lie in the hidden Sith Empire. It's the perfect answer to *every* question Kreia asks about Revan.

Kreia: And where did these Sith teachings come from? And why did Revan embrace them so strongly? So many questions... yet the answers are few.

If we don't get our 'Sephiroth' moment, I'm gonna be peeved.

FFVII Revan: ....I've always felt since I was small... That I was different from the others. Special, in some way.... But... not like this....

 

That connection is pretty well established at this point...