To Fall So Far, pt. VII: Exar Kun

Now that I think about it, it really was Ulic who was pushing for the whole "conquest of the galaxy," wasn't it? Exar was just sort of drawn into it; he becomes Dark Lord and realizes that sooner or later the Jedi and the Republic are going to get him, so he might as well get them first. I think he'd really prefer just to isolate himself on Korriban or somewhere like that and study the darkness and increase his personal power, but he knows he can't get away with it yet. Even his storming the Senate seems more like rescuing his ally/apprentice and giving the Republic one last chance to just not bother him, not so much as the great conquering villain.

Completely agreed.

 

The best part of it was the fact that MANDALORE COMES TO HIM. Exar is just reading at the time. Best of all, Mandalore doesn't inform Exar that Ulic's been captured, Exar already knows. Instead, Exar just gets prodded into going to rescue his apprentice as if he can't be bothered. The only time he actually takes initiative is when he goes to murder ULIC AND ALEMA rather than the Jedi because apparently, he's angry they're stepping into his Dark Side mojo.

It's ironic really, the Jedi came to destroy Exar Kun as the big threat when the defeat of Ulic more or less already ended it. At least in the comics.

 

You know, I think have something there, and earlier where you said that Exar never really seemed intent on conquest. His entire fall is for knowledge, and the only reason he's lured away from his hidey hole on Yavin IV (which, AFAIK, he showed no signs of leaving) was because of the talisman Ulic had that Kun wanted. Only after Ragnos appears does he seem to have even a passing interest in domination, and he seems content to focus on a relatively small group rather than Ulic's immediate building of an army. Ulic goes pretty insane (although I'd argue that this was just as much a function of the Sith poisons running through him as of him simply losing his moral compass) while Exar retains his objectivity and patience.

Of course, because Exar turned and seemed to have little problem with it aside from the warnings against the dark side master Vodo drilled into him, I think he'd be harder to turn back. Sure, Ulic went crazier ... but once you purge him of the Sith toxins and separate him from Aleema and Kun, most of his reason for doing what he does is gone, while Kun will never lose his underlying motivation for knowledge and power in the Force.

Exactly. And while Ulic kills Cay, he obviously doesn't want to and cares a whole lot about it; Kun killing Vodo was done essentially without regret, it seemed. Vodo was no longer useful in Kun's quest for knowledge, and while he had some sentimental attachment to his old teacher, he didn't really mind, er, ending that relationship.

EDIT:

Well, Exar Kun's demonstrated that he's a huge threat if he's prodded into action, and he's also a font for Sith knowledge that could easily lead to a new Sith Academy being founded in opposition to the Jedi one. Even if Kun was likely to completely retire from galactic events (which I doubt; he and the Jedi would come into conflict over any sort of Force-based phenomena which occur, at least), his continued existence as an alternative to the Jedi way is incredibly dangerous.

 

Hell, if I do write that AU-fanfic, I could use that as ironic twist; Exar gets hailed as one of the greatest of his generation after killing the infamous Dark Jedi Ulic Qel-Droma, using some fill-in-the-blank knowledge he learned in his studies.

 

Of course, the Sith toxins were just an excuse to begin with. The Sith toxins as defined in the Fluff Text of the old Tales of the Jedi RPG handbook just make Ulic more aggressive. They don't make him into a galaxy spanning mass-murderer. They didn't make him take up Aleema's bed and when he causally murders her, that's all Ulic.

Really, I'm not sure I approve of the Aesop that truly depraved monsters are to be forgiven more than people who are just utterly ruthless if the depraved monters have people that they love. Of course, this starts with the Palpatine/Vader dynamic and became text in the Prequels.

The only thing that saves Palpatine from people wondering why we're more sympathetic to the walking bag of neuroses that is Anakin is that the EU has consistently written Palps as pure evil.

 

I read Dark Lords of the Sith last night, and I noticed something I didn't before. After his duel with Vodo, he says that only he knows his own heart. I think he was obsessed with the holocron rather than just hiding dark intentions. And then I noticed something else. When he accepted the power, he clearly did because he didn't want to die. Now the typical Jedi wouldn't do that, I know, but he got into trouble and wasn't necessarily happy with being restricted by Vodo. Fear is the path, right? I've seen many people saying it's garbage how he fell, but I think it agrees with the idea.

Then of course, people get corrupted by the power. He found Sadow's machinery, was regarded as a god by the Massassi and didn't need to report to any council.

Exar wished to complete training his Jedi converts before going into full-fledged conquest. Ulic and Mandalore just went straight ahead.

 

Reading that makes me think the "Kunite Remnant" being the same as the "True Sith" actually makes sense. If the Kunites were basically fanatical scholars obsessed with dark side lore and delving into the deepest and darkest mysteries of the Force, then it would answer why Kreia said the True Sith had "forgotten about the Republic".

Usually everyone takes that to mean they're part of the ancient Sith Empire and, over the millennia, had forgotten the Republic. If they were the Kunites, this kind of an outlook would explain how, within a generation, they had stopped caring about the Republic: Korriban et al had all they wanted. The Republic was nothing to them.

Who cares about the Jedi Order when you're planning to become God anyway?

That's basically my outlook on things, yes.

I actually must confess my views on Kun are not entirely my own. A friend of mine who writes a lot of fanfic about his RPG character has based him a lot on Exar Kun. He's a darksider who is essentially a Sith scholar but who couldn't care less about the Sith Empire, he just is obsessed with immortality.

I've always liked the idea Kun was much more interested in the "big picture" and just left Ulic to "go play" with the Republic and Jedi to keep them busy while Kun delved into the secrets of the ancient Sith to become a god. I guess it would make him a bit like Kreia in a way, beyond any real interest in the Republic, but in the Force itself.

Oddly, I actually feel thats what makes Exar Kun much more of a true Sith Lord (pardon the deliberate pun) than Darth Revan and his successors. Darth Revan and his successors all had an obsession with "resurrecting the Sith Empire". Exar Kun didn't seem to care about bringing back the Sith, he was the Sith, there was no need to resurrect anything.

I think perhaps thats what Kun understood that none of the others after him in that period did. Kun saw the Force the way the ancient Sith did. Revan et al were always playing catchup, trying to rediscover what the ancient Sith had discovered. Kun wasn't just graverobbing, he was forging his own future, defining the "New Sith" in his own image. Revan only had the scraps Kun left behind, whereas Kun was the first to plunder the tombs and loot all the knowledge that had been hidden away on Yavin IV (and probably Korriban too). Most Sith worry too much about "living up" to the Sith of the past, ensuring the Sith legacy survived. I don't think Kun really cared about the Sith, the Sith were as much just a source of knowledge for him as the Jedi: either way, in the end, all there was was the Force (or, in his case, the dark side).

Its an unintentional, if curiously appropriate, idea that Exar Kun embodies the concept of a "True Sith" far more than most of those since. He was directly acknowledged by Marka Ragnos as the next Dark Lord, he didn't need to prove anything, he was the True Dark Lord. Revan, Malak, Traya, Nihilus and Sion were all, as far as we know, self appointed. They were "pretenders" the way Krayt is, so to speak. Kun though was the genuine article. Revan's teachings may have survived the test of time, but when Kreia was alive in her eyes Kun was the embodiment of a True Sith, one who wasn't trying to be Sith but was Sith.

It would interestingly also tie in with the Disciple's "Sith worship" (I mean that in a negative sense) of Kun and Ulic. The Disciple made it out as if Kun

 

Right. Except the Kunite remnant were holed up at the Korriban Academy from the end of the Sith War to the point they were assimilated into Revan's ranks upon his arrival there.

[This is inferred from the Academy still being live and kicking as of 3986 according to Shadows and Light, which means it must have been established in the Kun Era. KotOR itself implies it's older than Revan and Malak, given the Jorak-Uthar relationship]

Kunite Remnant =/= The "True Sith" Kreia speaks of.

Or maybe it's better to say that the True Sith can't be "the" Kunite Remnant, but could perhaps be "a" Kunite remnant.

Or maybe Traya was talking about Kun himself, holed up in that Temple.

Um.

Exar Kun: "The Sith Empire will rise again, and we are the spark. The flames will wash over the crumbling Republic and consume all your works... establishing the glorious days of a lost golden age, far greater than any of us can know. You an choose either to be a part of this great rebirth, or you can stand in our way."

Lying or not, we have Kun on record saying that he wants to resurrect the Sith Empire.

We have no such record for Revan, whose interests seem to be less in "resurrecting the Sith Empire as it once was" and more in "establishing an ordered, strong Empire founded on Sith principles". I certainly like the suggestion that Kun has no interest in the Sith beyond what their teachings can do for him... but I don't think it's the case.

I'm... not convinced that's true. Kun spends most of his time graverobbing in the comics for starters...

And Malachor V, as well as any knowledge the Kunite Remnant had horded at the Korriban Academy.

Quite possible.

Though, this reminds me, I'm actually hoping for Revan to confront Exar Kun's spirit on Yavin IV (maybe in some twisted attempt to get his 'blessing'). I think that'd be awesome. Especially since Ghost-Kun is likely to still consider himself the Dark Lord of the Sith.

 

Let's be honest, it's the exact opposite. Darth Revan did not want to resurrect the Old Sith Empire in any way, shape, or form. His Sith Academy on Korriban had everyone dress up in brown shirts like they were joining the SS rather than becoming wizards. Darth Revan certainly studied the power of the Dark Side but he wasn't interested in the power of the Star Forge save as a means of military power. His interest in the Dark Side of the Force is purely practical and a means of establishing domination over the galaxy and preparing it for whatever threat he sees coming (be it the Kunite Sith who've been rebuilding all this time, the Vong, or whatever).

Exar Kun, on the other hand, is anointed as the spiritual successor of Marka Ragnos. He's Mandalore the Ressurector and Luke Skywalker all in one. The first of the New Sith Order. What Jacen Solo should have been. Exar Kun envisions a new Magocracy where wizards rule over Muggles and all the ancient knowledge of the world is collected for Wizard Kings to rule as gods over the simple foolish mortals that exist out there.

He's definitely an Ancient Sith. Except, oddly enough, he's better at being an Ancient Sith than the actual Ancient Sith were.

Sort of like Luke and the Jedi.

 

...

I like the way you think, good sir.

 

Well... yeah.

Though I still hate the retcon that it was Marka Ragnos that annointed him. It makes no sense! Kun was annointed by one of the successors of Naga Sadow, given the timeframe he and Ulic are said to be visiting.

Unless, of course, the spirit of Marka Ragnos was like: "Damn, if you want something done right", took over another body and reclaimed the Sith following Naga's exile. I could run with that.

 

I don't really see the problem in retrospect. Mostly because the Ancient Sith as depicted in the Golden Age of the Sith are such a pathetic bunch of poseurs. Naga Sadow may have seriously ran a cruddy war but he was at least trying to be a decent Sith Lord in the service to the Dark Side. Everyone else was....well Semus.

I think it's important to think of Marka Ragnos' spirit visiting Exar Kun is doing so as his ghost rather than his physical body.

 

That's not what the text itself implies, however. The implication is that there's some sort of communication going on across times.

Ragnos Kun, referred to as the "reigning Dark Lord of the Sith", is speaking from the time in which the "Jedi and Republic are hunting us to extinction". That time period is after Naga Sadow's Exile.

 

It's from a certain point of view. *waves hand*

But mostly, Ulicus, Marka was the only Sith with any dignity from that horrible horrible comic.

 

Point... which is why I see no reason he couldn't have reclaimed the mantle of Dark Lord post-death and in a new host body.

 

This is the best thread in here in months.

 

But then he would have lost to Jedi with chorded lightsabers and the lovable Empress Teta, brutal military despot + friend of the Jedi!

 

Agreed.

I'm really hoping we see Exar Kun in the "Untold Tales of the Jedi" KotOR arc/issue.

No, no, no... the body could simply not contain his DARK MAJESTY OF OVERPOWERING for long, and he had to abandon it. The minute he did, the Sith Empire fell.

 

Someone may want to re-read and post here parts of Star Wars Galaxy 8, it was their dark side issue and, among other things, had a long interview with KJA about Exar and Ulic and such TOTJ things, plus some backstory (I distinctly remember, for example, him saying that there were, I think, only 13 Sith Lords).

 

Yes, the 13 thing is one of those things Lucas has obviously abandoned.

 

He at least could have taken it to the shelter and let it find a new owner... (like, say, Abel)

 

Odd thought.

What do you think seems to inspire Sith Lords to want to carry on Exar Kun's Legacy?

Unlike the other Sith who seem to inspire envy and hate more.

I'd like to see an Exar Kun Holocron too.

 

Hmm, yep, have to back Ragnos in a fight against Teta, such a nauseating character.

As for Kun, I have to agree that what made the whole tale so refreshing, and now unusual, isthe lack of sympathy for him. From the start it's clear that something isn't right with Kun, he has too unhealthy a sense of ego and is incapable of believing that he can be in error - about anything.

At the same time though there is a theme in TOTJ of the dark side being all about coercion to get people to take that first step, that the dark side does not wish to leave things to chance - so Kun is screwed over on Korriban, just as Ulic is poisoned by the Krath and Satal Keto. But what if that had not been the case? Nadd was, the whole time amplifying Kun's sense of ego to open him to the dark side, what happened on Korriban was more catalyst than cause.

 

Maybe not... he could have it in his mind that there are thirteen Banite Sith Lords...