Characters / Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords - Kreia

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KotOR I | KotOR I Party Members | Sith Empire
KotOR II: TSL | KotOR II Party Members (Kreia) | Sith Triumvirate

Tropes associated with party member Kreia from Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords. Beware of spoilers. For other characters from the second game, see the Characters index here.

Kreia

Kreia

"I am Kreia, and I am your rescuer — as you are mine."

^{Click here to see her without her hood}

Species: Human

Homeworld: Unknown

Class: Jedi Consular

Voiced by: Sara Kestelman (English), Danièle Hazan (French)

"There is no truth in the Force. But there is truth in you, Exile. And that is why I chose you."

A mysterious grey Jedi that the Exile meets on Peragus. Throughout the game she acts as the exile's mentor, guiding them along a path of pragmatism, neutrality, and encouraging them not to aid others, but make them help themselves. Other party members often voice suspicion of her motives, but she ultimately convinces them to cooperate... whether or not they want to.

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• Action Girl: Less so that other female members of the Party, as she sometimes sits out of the action in the story, but she's still a powerful Force user.
• Action Mom: There is a wealth of evidence that Kreia is Arren Kae. If true, Kreia canonically fights alongside her daughter, Brianna, though this can only be done in gameplay with the non-canon male Exile.
• All-Loving Hero: She despises this idea, believing that wanton good only makes people weak, but the basis of this reasoning is that she desires people to be strong, which ironically makes Kreia an altruist in her own way. In fact, there are well-hidden ways to do good actions in the game without losing influence over Kreia, usually involving you giving the person you're helping the tools and encouragement to solve the problem on their own.
• Ambiguously Evil: It's clear she has some kind of personal agenda, and she is ruthless in pursuing it - but at the same time, she's a Jedi who still wears the Order's brown robes, and is unquestionably in opposition to the Sith. At least so it seems.
• Ambiguous Situation:
  • Kreia's Jedi status is immediately apparent, but her role in the story is... ghostly. She introduces herself as a fellow surviving Jedi master who, in confidence, has been important enough to have trained famous Jedi, but the Exile doesn't know her, and none of the Council members visited in the game seems to be aware of her presence. Added to the fact that she was traveling in Revan's old ship before being picked up by the Harbinger, it hints that Kreia is definitely much more than a random Jedi Purge survivor seeking allies against the Sith Triumvirate. Which is ultimately revealed as the truth: she is not merely a longtime foe to Sion and Nihilus, but rather their original master, as well as another Sith conspirator herself who wants to exploit the Exile's unique Force powers. Also, whatever her real name is, Atris claims that it is not Kreia — in the one scene in which she reveals herself to the surviving Jedi masters, they seem to recognize her, but she kills them without giving them the chance to identify her any further.
  • Her flashbacks and dialogue explain she was stripped from the Force in the past, specifically when Nihilus and Sion expelled her from the Sith Triumvirate. How did she regain it, however, remains unclear. Her irritation towards her own dependence on the Force implies the latter had something to do with healing her connection, as she claims only people who actively reject the Force, like the Exile, can get rid completely of it without giving it a chance to crawl back. This makes a Kreia a fundamentally frustrated being, as for all her annoyance towards the omnipresence of the Force, she is so dependent of it that not even being cut from it against her will can free her.
  • Is she actually Arren Kae under a fake identity? Whether the creators meant it or not, many hints, timelines and dialogue pieces through the game only really make sense if she is Kae. The only point where their respective biographies differ is the circumstances of their exiles (Kae was kicked out before the war for having an affair, Kreia was after the war for inciting Revan to revolt), but we only have Kreia's word for hers and it isn't backed by the flashbacks shown in the game (she claims the Council denounced her influence, but the Exile's trial shows that only Atris condemned Revan's female master, with Vash and Kavar even outright defending her). Indeed, Kreia's conclusion that the Jedi Code only draws a destructive line between "being a Jedi" and "being human" would take a new meaning if Kreia had experimented herself the most elemental human emotions... However, the game avoids carefully having the Jedi identify Kreia by any name, so the whole thing is ultimately unrevealed.
• Anti-Hero: She's aligned firmly against the Sith, but she's also extremely ruthless, manipulative, and untrustworthy.
• The Atoner: Possibly, to some extent. Gaining maximum influence with her will have her reveal that she used to be a Sith, and feels responsible for the rise of Sion and Nihilus. She never says one way or the other whether she's seeking to make things right or just wants revenge on those who betrayed her, but either way, she considers her role on it a mistake and opposes them now. Which is only partly true, as she is still a hidden Sith waiting for her chance.
• Author Avatar: Chris Avellone has admitted he often used her to point out things that bugged him about the Star Wars universe.
• Awesome by Analysis: She figures all the Jedi Masters out when a Dark-Sided Exile faces them, all through telepathy, and gives the Exile indications about how to trounce their tactics.
• Badass Teacher: Very powerful and VERY protective of her students, the Exile in particular. She went so far as to say she would have killed the galaxy to protect her.
• Battle Couple: With Yusanis during the Mandalorian Wars, if the hints about Kreia being Arren Kae are true.
• Beige Prose: Uses this when narrating how the Sith betrayed her. It's stated after she gets beaten up by Sion and thrown to the floor, when the screen goes black, leaving the viewer to their own imagination of what happened.
  Kreia's Narration: I suffered... indignities.
  [Darth Sion pummels her senseless while her muffled screams echo in the darkness]
• Berserk Button: She's normally very calm and composed, but is quickly riled up by any Stupid Good or Stupid Evil decisions the Exile makes, perceiving the Exile as either denying themselves strength with useless charity or throwing away potential advantages with pointless antagonism.
• Birds of a Feather: Kreia shares many philosophic points about battle and conflict with the Handmaiden, which the latter claims to be an Echani thing. Now, if Kreia is Arren Kae, who was the lover of an Echani general and mother to the Handmaiden, this makes a new whole sense. Indeed, the Handmaiden said "her movements and spirit matches his".
• Blind Seer: Her eyes are blank white due to atrophy; she uses Force Sight to see.
• The Chessmaster: Even more than Atris, she manipulates the Exile into searching for the surviving members of the Jedi Council and taking down the Sith Triumvirate, herself included. Her goals from the beginning of the story were to challenge the Jedi Council over their own failed teachings, clean up the mess she made building the Triumvirate and rebuild the Jedi Order through the Exile and her companions-turned-students and by the end she has completely succeeded at all of them.
• Complexity Addiction: One of her flaws. Killing someone for no other reason than to get their valuables will lead her to chide the Exile, but getting someone killed by convincing them to leave the room they've hidden in to avoid savage beasts will have her compliment the Exile (bear in mind, this requires far more effort than just killing them yourself ^note to perform this, you have to sneak past the beasts rather than just killing them. With how stealth works, only one member of the party moves at a time, meaning the player has to split off from the party and go alone through a significant portion of the level while their companions remain behind. Characters in stealth also move at a slow walk, making this method time consuming. Triply so if the player wants to move the rest of the party to catch up afterwards, and if one of the characters gets caught, they're either on their own, or the others have to break stealth to help them, defeating the purpose. Suffice it to say, doing this by accident is unlikely; a player almost has to know about this option ahead of time to pull it off), despite it not really accomplishing anything but letting them loot the body. Her only justification is a vague mention of "creating an echo." In general, she seems to despise direct action as a whole, preferring manipulation and deception even when it would be simpler, easier, and potentially more rewarding to simply do it yourself.
• Consummate Liar: She never really lets slip what her goals, past, or knowledge of the situation are. Do not trust her personal accounts without hard evidence or third-party testimony.
• Contrasting Replacement Character: To Jolee Bindo from the first game, as a neutral or "Grey" Jedi Consular capable of using both light and dark side powers who serves as something of an older, wiser mentor figure to the player character. While Jolee is fundamentally a Jedi who is only gray because he's unaffiliated with the Order and disagrees with some of their teachings, Kreia's philosophy is much closer to the Dark Side, only staying gray because she doesn't approve of violence or cruelty for its own sake... and/or because she's deliberately hiding her alignment to keep other Force sensitives from discovering her true nature. Even more if Kreia is actually Arren Kae, who like Jolee had an affair while being a Jedi — Jolee's wife fell to the Dark Side and went on to slay several other Jedi when Jolee couldn't bring himself to strike her down. If Kreia is Arren Kae, on the other hand, then she fell to the Dark Side herself, and her former lover, the Echani general Yusanis, was slain in a duel by Kae's pupil, Darth Revan.
• The Corrupter: The Jedi Council, Atris in particular, accused her of being this towards Revan and the rest of her apprentices, who broke away from the Jedi Order to intervene in the Mandalorian Wars against the Council's orders. It is unknown whether Kreia's teachings were really that fundamental in their decision, but her personality implies the accusation was true to a basic level - even as a Jedi, Kreia is prone to question everything, almost in Socratic fashion, and actively tries to cultivate this mindset in her padawans. Interestingly, however, she doesn't even deny her role on their rebellion; her only complaint about the Council's opinion is rather that she doesn't believe Revan and his knights actually fell in the Dark Side For the Evulz.
• Cruel Mercy: She does this to Hanharr because she has plans for him.
  Kreia: I have saved your life, beast. That makes it mine.
• Crutch Character: She has a fairly good stat spread, she is an exceptionally useful Force wizard, and she boosts your experience gain while she's in the main party. However, overusing her denies you the opportunity to gain influence with your companions and train them as Jedi. She also leaves the party permanently at the beginning of the endgame, potentially leaving Visas as your only other Force-wielder.
• Deadpan Snarker: She has her moments, especially if Atton's involved.
  Atton Rand: Explain something to me.
  Kreia: I do not have the years required — nor the desire to indulge you.
• Deuteragonist: She gets more than enough focus to earn this title.
• Disability Superpower: She sees through the Force rather than through her own eyes to avoid being limited to a single perspective. As a result, her eyes just kind of... withered from disuse.
• Establishing Character Moment:
  • At first Kreia appears to be dead, but then wakes up in the morgue, identifies your character as a former Jedi just by how you walk, and snarkily chides you for looting a corpse (bringing a fairly standard genre convention you probably took for granted into question). Even more so when you recognize the very first thing she does on-screen (outside of the tutorial): she adjusts her hood, hiding her face.
    Kreia: Find what you were looking for among the dead?
  • She gets another more important one in Atris's academy. Up to this point Kreia has appeared to be a fairly standard if somewhat grey Jedi and Mentor Archetype. Then, while away from the eyes of the Exile, she viciously mind rapes Atton to discover his secrets, blackmails him into loyalty to the Exile by threatening him with a Fate Worse than Death and reveals that she's been playing a long-term game and that there is far more to her than meets the eye.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • She's a ruthless Manipulative Bastard and a former Sith Lord, but she despises Bao-Dur for his creation of the Mass Shadow Generator that slaughtered thousands of Jedi, Republic soldiers and Mandalorians alike. This makes sense with her Social Darwinist philosophy—in the face of a weapon like that, no amount of personal strength will matter in the slightest for one's survival.
  • While she scolds the Exile for altruistic actions, she is equally likely to tell them off if they do something needlessly violent. She prefers Pragmatic Villainy or Manipulative Bastard behaviour as opposed to being evil at the slightest chance.
  • Her antipathy towards altruism in general is not directed at kindness as a whole—rather, it is directed at the concept of making someone's life "easy" through inconsiderate charity; to her, the struggle is part of what makes someone grow as a person, and if you take that away from them, then you may as well have just killed them on the spot. Basically, if you're going to help someone, it should be done in a way that still allows them to solve the problem themselves, or at the very least require that they put real effort into it.
• Evil Mentor: Or very dark gray, at a minimum. Most of her influence choices are dark side oriented, and indeed her overall philosophy is closer to Sith than Jedi. However, it's worth noting that the Dark Side way of doing things has plenty of Stupid Evil choices that will lose more influence with her than on the Light Side, and the choices that give influence with her tend to give a smaller payout of Dark Side points, and one can still gain influence with Light-Sided actions provided you listen to what she has to say and at least acknowledge her lessons. Also, in the Dark Side ending she treats the Exile a lot worse than in the Light Side one.
• Evil Versus Oblivion: While it's pretty clear she isn't trustworthy, she does manage to convince Atton she's against Darth Nihilus since she doesn't want all life in the galaxy to die. Ironically, this very outcome might perfectly be a side effect of what she actually wants.
• The Exile: Happens to her twice, first from the Jedi Order for supposedly leading her students astray and then from the Sith Triumvirate she created to destroy the Jedi.
• Experience Booster: While she's in the party she offers a minor boost to EXP gained.
• Expy: With her old age, hooded robe, ambiguous morality and role as the mentor of the protagonist, she is officially designed to be a female combination of Ben Kenobi and Darth Sidious, and like the latter, she is a manipulative villain hiding in plain sight. Oddly, she evokes Leia as well, not only in the name Kreia, but also in sporting elaborate hairdos in the sides of her head.
• Fantastic Racism: She hates droids and aliens. It's likely that this is because she can't read their minds well or at all, making their actions harder for her to predict and control. However, alternatively, it's possible her disdain is the reason she can't read them. Bao Dur is a blank to her, but to the Exile his thoughts are as clear as anyone's.
• Fired Teacher: Her teachings were considered heretical by the Jedi Council—particularly Atris—who felt it was her that inspired Revan and his followers to join the war, leading to her being expelled from the Order. The truth of this is nebulous, but Kreia's teachings in the game confirm she does have a special interest in questioning established concepts, which might definitely have had some weight on her apprentices' decision to go against the Jedi Council.
• Girlish Pigtails: A subversion, possibly played with. She wears her hair in two side braids, but she's anything but young — yet at the same time, she might not be as old as she looks.
• Handicapped Badass: She starts out blind and soon loses a hand — and still kicks ass. It helps that, as a neutral-aligned Consular, she is a Force powerhouse with dark or light side abilities, and not that good with weapons anyway.
• Hazy-Feel Turn: Gaining enough influence with her will have her reveal that, in addition to having once been a Jedi, she also spent some time as a Sith, but was betrayed by her students and now sides against them. Despite this, it's unclear whether she's in it for genuine altruism or simple revenge.
• Healing Hands: When she uses Force healing on Tobin and Hanharr.
• Helping Would Be Killstealing: The crux of her problems with the concept of charity is that it discourages people from standing up and solving their own problems.
• Hypocrite:
  • Kreia holds a number of seemingly contradictory beliefs and opinions, almost in a Nietzsche-esque way. While some of these take the form of rhetorical devices deliberately meant to provoke a response from you as her disciple, she does lie by omission and implication on several occasions, and there are a number of paradoxical gaps in her worldview — take for instance her opinion about using the Force as a crutch, something she does both mechanically as a Squishy Wizard and in-story as a Blind Seer, which she acknowledged herself.
  • As mentioned, she is aware of her own hypocrisy in using the Force which she claims to despise. However, you'd think that'd mean she'd praise and respect those who do live and strive without the Force. Actually, it's the opposite: the only people she ever shows even a modicum of respect towards are other Force users. Droids like T3-M4? Aliens like Bao-Dur or Hanharr? Even just non-Force sensitive humans like Atton or Canderous? She treats them all with utter contempt, fit only to be used as pawns and tools. Her whole attitude (and even some of her dialogue) demonstrates that she considers existence fundamentally less meaningful without the Force, and regards those who cannot feel it as fundamentally inferior - all of which contradicts her claimed beliefs, or at least casts them in a whole different level of interpretation.
• Interface Spoiler: You cannot give her any dual-wielding feats, nor competence with two-handed blasters. And she starts with a duel feat (i.e. she gains bonuses from using one-handed weapons or fighting barehanded). Sure enough, she gets her hand lopped off before you're off Peragus.
• Invisibility: She comes with the Force Camouflage ability, which allows her to use Stealth without need of a stealth unit, a perk that is otherwise only available to one type of the Exile's Prestige Classes.
• I Was Quite a Looker: Implied. Atton says that she has the look of someone once beautiful that has lived very hard since.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Despite being an ally against the Sith, she's not nice in any sense of the word, and will question both charity and petty cruelty. Thing is, she's right. In her lesson on the issue, you deal with a refugee by either giving him a few credits or threatening his life. Help him, and he gets mugged for the money mere seconds later. Threaten him, and he goes on to mug someone out of desperation. Failure Is the Only Option.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Kreia may be extremely critical and treat everyone except The Exile like dirt, and even then, she still criticizes almost everything they do. However, she does want The Exile to be the best person possible, both physically and mentally, which is why she is mentoring them. Her criticisms of helping others comes from her belief that conflict improves a person due to the experience, and robbing them of those challenges will weaken them in the long-run; this means that she wants everyone in the galaxy—even people she's never met—to be as strong as possible. Even her ultimate goal, destroying The Force, comes from her belief that few, if any, wars will happen afterwards if she succeeds, meaning that she does want what's best for the universe. Cold as she may be with brutal methods, Kreia desires to improve everything and everyone.
• Kick the Dog: Bound to have a few moments, considering all the other tropes in this folder.
  • In cut content, unlocking the message about Revan in T3 will result in a cutscene where Kreia zaps him with Force Lightning for the supposed betrayal.
  • If you bring her along to the Nar Shaddaa refugee sector, she suggests currying favor with the Exchange on Nar Shaddaa by threatening the refugees into being more compliant.
• Last-Second Word Swap: Has an intriguing one when speaking about Arren Kae, whom Kreia praises in a curiously haughty tone. Hard not to think there is something personal about it.
  Kreia: She was... said to be... a skilled warrior. Beautiful. And strong in the Force.
• Legacy Character: Invoked by her, when she tells Atris "there must always be a Darth Traya", someone who embodies the spirit of betrayal. In fact, before the game had half of its contents cut, there was going to be a version of the final storyline where Atris declared herself the true Darth Traya.
• Made of Iron: Normally a frail old woman, but she somehow survived a particularly brutal beatdown by Sion, despite being cut off from the Force at that point.
• Mama Bear: She threatens a world of pain on anyone who dares to hurt the Exile. Ironically, she might be the opposite to this to her biological daughter...
• Manipulative Bastard: Constantly engaging in manipulative schemes behind your back. Manipulative behaviour on the Exile's part also earns her approval.
• Master-Apprentice Chain:
  • Said to be Revan's first and last master. Just like Arren Kae is said to be.
  • She's also responsible for teaching the Exile after her return, who in turn trained her companions on the Ebon Hawk who went on to rebuild the Jedi Order. That's a Master-Apprentice Chain that reaches all the way to Yoda.
• Mentor Archetype: Perhaps the straightest and deepest example of the trope in the entire Old Republic franchise, despite her Evil Mentor attributes. You spend a good part of the game not only training with Kreia in using the Force, which is appropriate as the Exile has to relearn using the Force after having been cut off from it, but also debating with her in order to build your own worldview.
• Mind Rape: Inflicted by her on several other party members. When your wise old mentor starts mind-raping your friends, you know you're in the middle of something special.
• Misery Builds Character: She believes struggles and hardships help you grow, and hates seeing the Exile deprive his/herself or anyone else of their troubles. See The Social Darwinist below for more.
• Missed Him by That Much: Both Kreia and the Exile are closely connected to Revan each, the former having been his master and the latter his lieutenant, but they didn't know each other before the events of the game, as Revan had long left Kreia's tutelage when the Exile became his partner. If Kreia is Arren Kae, then the separation is much thinner, as both the Exile and Kae were part of Revan's crusade during the Mandalorian Wars. In that case, the reason why they never met is presumably that the Exile was a commanding officer in Revan's inner circle while Kae fought along with Yusanis, possibly on the battlefield. That, or that Kreia already liked to hide her presence back then.
• Monochromatic Eyes: Blank-white Prophet Eyes in the Blind Seer tradition.
• Ms. Exposition: Provides much of the exposition in the game.
• Mysterious Past: Inextricably bound up in the Mandalorian Wars. And Revan and the Sith. She's also implied to be the Handmaiden's Missing Mom, Arren Kae. Most of what you learn about Kreia's past is told to the Exile secondhand, and what little she tells you is vague if not downright misleading — the player sees a major reveal about her past in a cutscene where Nihilus and Sion seize control of the Sith from her following an utterly brutal beating, but it's not clear how much of that she actually explained to the Exile, nor how she got away after the fact.
  Kreia: We all wage war with the past. And it leaves its scars.
• Mythology Gag: According to Chris Avellone, Kreia came about from the question "What if Ravel was a member of your party?". And he goes on to say that she was given a number of character elements that they wanted to explore with Ravel, but never got the opportunity to in Torment.
• Never Mess with Granny: Attempting to antagonise her almost always ends badly. Old or not, she is a powerful Jedi consular after all.
• Not So Stoic: Kreia is usually serene and ethereal even in the face of danger, but this has its exceptions, most particularly during the events of the Jedi Council in Dantooine.
• The Nicknamer: She calls nobody by their own name; see the page for examples. This makes a great excuse to avoid calling the Exile by their real name.
• Old Master: Of many Jedi and Sith, among them Revan himself.
• Old Soldier: Maybe or maybe not, as her involvement in the Mandalorian Wars is not well understood, but she clearly sees herself as connected to Revan and his military crusade. Possibly literal if she's Arren Kae, who fought personally in the war.
• The Omniscient: As an elderly Jedi historian, she is incredibly knowledgeable about the Force and the galaxy's history, and often meditates in order to further unveil their secrets. Her dialogue lines are usually so deep and twisty that it is difficult to solely imagine Kreia admitting outright she doesn't know anything.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: According to Atris, Kreia is not her real name. No one knows her real identity, though the preponderance of the evidence indicates that it is Arren Kae.
• The Only Way They Will Learn: Kreia is vocally disdainful towards dependance on the Force, but paradoxically, she shows no respect or interest either for beings that live every day of their lives outside of it, like non-sensitives or droids, and her words to the Handmaiden all but state Kreia doesn't feel like a life without the unique experience of the Force could ever be worthy. Assuming her disgust towards the Force is genuine, this implies her ideal way is not simply being unaware of the Force, but rather being aware of all its glory and still having the power and will to reject it.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Two cases.
  • One side quest on Nar Shaddaa requires you to find a man's missing wife. If you encourage him to help others as well, Kreia will actually praise you for using altruism to help strengthen both you and the victim in a way to encourage him to do the same thing you did.
  • If you do the light side Onderon main quest, she will suggest murdering Vaklu after he's defeated, knowing that he's an exception towards her no killing policy due to how dangerous he would still be alive.
• Oxymoronic Being: She is a Jedi Consular with a heavy personal dependence on the Force who abhors any form of dependence on the Force. She is painfully aware of this herself.
• Perception Filter: She uses her various Jedi mind tricks constantly, brainwashing others into forgetting she's even there. This happens more than once with the various members of the Ebon Hawk, Atris has no idea she's at the polar base until after she's left, and it's implied to happen even more often offscreen — it does seem odd, doesn't it, that everyone is looking high and low for Jedi but they only ever see the customizable Exile, never the old woman dressed in Jedi robes?
  Kreia: There are techniques in the Force, where one can cloud the memory of others, make their presence so small as to be unnoticed. And on the worlds where we have encountered these Jedi... there is much life and death, where sensing such things is difficult.
• Pet the Dog: On Telos, she compliments Atton by telling him that in some ways, even he is more capable than a Jedi due to not being dependent on the Force. Given her goal of destroying the Force, we can be almost completely sure she is being honest there.
• Psychic Powers: Demonstrates this trope more than any other character in the game. She has access to any and all the Force powers in-game (including Force Lightning), and in addition to her power to Mind Rape anyone regardless of their mental resistances, she can conceal herself from anyone, even members of the Jedi Council and is even capable of healing people from the brink of death.
• A Pupil of Mine Until He Turned to Evil: She introduces the Sith as being this, with Sion proudly claiming that "no longer do [her] whispers crawl within my skull." As it happens, it's more that she turned from evil. Allegedly.
• Pyrrhic Victory: If the Exile is dark-sided, Kreia declares the fall of the Jedi Council to be this for her. Even if the Exile has physically overpowered them, they have done nothing to prove the superiority of her way of thinking, which in her mind renders their victory hollow.
• Rape as Backstory: Heavily implied in the narration of her fall from the Sith Triumvirate. She bitterly claims to have suffered "indignities", which is exactly the same word she uses to describe Atton's lustful thoughts. Indeed, her views of the Exile's attraction towards Visas, disapproving it and calling it "mating" in a dismissive fashion, hint that she doesn't have exactly good memories about sex.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Frequently dishes these out. Gives a notably vicious one to Mandalore when he claims to be the symbol of the Mandalorian resurgence.
  Mandalore: This galaxy will be ours again, I promise you. That is the future.
  Kreia: Indeed? The future is always in motion, it is a difficult thing to see. Perhaps there will be no new age, Mandalore, no great Mandalorian crusade. Perhaps your people fought their last battle at Malachor V, and you have been dying ever since, a quiet death that will last centuries. And perhaps all that remains will be what I see before me: a man, wounded by a Jedi, encased in a Mandalorian shell, haunted by the thought of being the last of the Mandalorians.
• Shadow Archetype: Specifically sets herself up as one as part of her mentorship — a key tenet of her philosophy is that beliefs must be confronted with opposition to grow stronger, and the Exile is treated no differently. It's why she seems to have an argument against almost every choice you make save those based around her teachings of manipulation, and why in the end she considers you her greatest student, regardless of the path you choose.
  Kreia: I am but a mirror whose only purpose is to show you what your own eyes cannot yet see.
• Shipper on Deck: When she confronts the Male Exile about his possible interest int he Handmaiden and Visas Marr, the way she speaks is almost as if she would rather have the Exile choosing the Handmaiden, given who she probably is it makes an odd amount of sense.
• Shrouded in Myth: It is clear Kreia had some reputation within the Jedi, as characters knowledgeable in their lore speak about Revan's influential female teacher, which Kreia confides to the Exile to be. However, it seems she was already a secretive person back then, given that the Exile, who was Revan's very aide, doesn't know her name. Possibly justified by Revan being a man of secrets too, who also had several masters. Also because "Kreia" might not exist, but being an alias for Arren Kae.
• Smart People Speak the Queen's English: Kreia is definitely very intelligent and knowledgeable, being both a very unorthodox mentor in the Force and a master manipulator, and she speaks in a pure Received Pronunciation accent.
• The Social Darwinist: Kreia will often reprimand the Exile for showing compassion and mercy to other characters, as she says that helping others "weakens" them. Then again, survival of the fittest is one of the key principals of the Sith.
  Kreia: Why did you do such a thing? Such kindnesses will mean nothing, his path is set. Giving him what he has not earned is like pouring sand into his hands... By giving him something he has not earned, perhaps all you have helped him become is a target. Seeing another elevated often brings the eyes of others who suffer. And perhaps in the end, all you have wrought is more pain. And that is my lesson to you. Be careful of charity and kindness, lest you do more harm with open hands than with a clenched fist.
• The Spook: She's a Jedi, apparently a master, and is old enough to have been in the Order for many years. However, the Council members don't seem to recognize her at first, and the only explanation implied is that she was probably a no-name, unremarkable example among many Jedi masters lost in the wars. Invoked: she's later implied to have been using the Force to mask her presence from the Jedi, with Atris herself realizing that she didn't even notice Kreia until she was gone from the polar base. Moreover, "Kreia" might have been a fake name for Arren Kae all along.
• Squishy Wizard: She's a frail old woman, blind if not for her Force sensitivity, one-handed after Peragus so she cannot equip double-bladed weapons, and a Consular (the Force-heavy class). Rather hypocritically so, as she herself reminds the Exile to avoid depending on the Force too much.
  Kreia: A lightsaber - any weapon - only achieves worth in how it is wielded - in the effort, the struggle of one who holds it. Such a weapon does not make a Jedi or a Sith. And at times, it makes them much, much less than they are.
• The Stoic: Downplayed. Very few things disturb her to the point of losing her serene, composed tone, and her blank white eyes help give her a detached visage. However, she's far from being inexpressive, and can reach Cold Ham levels easily if properly pressed.
• Stop Being Stereotypical: She challenges the Exile to look beyond the Black-and-White Morality pervading Jedi and Sith beliefs and actually think about their choices, pointing out how Chronic Hero Syndrome may actually do more harm than good, while causing destruction and misery For the Evulz, serves no purpose. Ironically, in yet another of her hypocrisies, Kreia herself could be considered a walking Jedi stereotype: old, clad in a brown robe and constantly rambling about the Force, something that is noted by Atton and other characters.
• The Svengali: For all her talk about mentoring the Exile, she's this, stringing along the Exile into advancing her goals. This is especially apparent in a dark side playthrough, where rather than applauding the Exile for achieving their own goal (revenge), she instead decries them as a failure, because they didn't prove "their" (read: her) ideals right. She all but admits that the only reason she "trained" the Exile was to accomplish her own goals.
• Trickster Mentor: Engages in this type of training from time to time; one of the biggest examples is her lesson of strength that she imparts after Hanharr joins. She tells the Exile to consult the Wookiee to learn where he derives his strength from, then advises that they can also tap into a similar source of strength, boosting their Strength and Constitution. But the true lesson being taught here is that strength is the will to turn down power that is not one's own; this choice impresses Kreia, and rewards the Exile with more experience and a bonus to Wisdom.
• True Neutral: In-Universe. With regard to her Force alignment, she always sits precisely in the middle. No matter how much influence the Exile gains with her, her alignment will refuse to budge. The endgame heavily implies this is because she is cloaking her true alignment from the player.
• Understatement: The player sees the No-Holds-Barred Beatdown she receives from Sion in cutscene form, which Kreia describes only as "...indignities."
• Unreliable Expositor: She lies very often, making her exposition very suspect.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Despite living in an era where Jedi are being hunted down, Kreia is scandalously open about her Jedi status: she always wears the order's signature brown robes, has an otherworldly aura all over her persona, and constantly spews Force babble to everybody she speaks to. However, while a few characters do recognize her as a Jedi, they're always more interested in the Exile, who is ironically much less conspicuous. Even the Exile accepts pretty quickly that Kreia is a random surviving Jedi who just happened to be traveling on the same ship as them. This is all but outright stated to be Kreia's own doing, using powerful mind tricks to make people pay little if any attention to her. As often the case with Obsidian, particularly with writer Chris Avellone, this even extends to gameplay mechanics, as she has a unique "Force Camouflage" power, which allows her to enter stealth mode without a cloaking belt.
• Waking Up at the Morgue: You first encounter Kreia in the Peragus station morgue, laid out in a slab, apparently dead. When you loot one of the corpses there, Kreia will wake up, having apparently used a Jedi trance so effective that station personnel actually believed she was, in fact, dead.
• What the Hell, Hero?: She does it whenever the Exile is being too good or too evil.
• When All You Have Is a Hammer…: A deliberate, in-universe deconstruction. A large part of what Kreia seems to want to teach the Exile is about balance, not just within the Force, but in how to live without it. She believes that in using the powers the Force grants, whether light or dark, Jedi or Sith, one is compelled to develop only along specific paths, eventually becoming blind — in different ways — to other possibilities.
  Kreia: Take the greatest Jedi Knight, strip away the Force, and what remains? They rely on it. Depend on it, more than they know. Watch as one tries to hold a blaster, as they try to hold a lightsaber, and you will see nothing more than a woman – or a man. A child.
• Wild Card: Kreia is loyal to exactly two people: herself and the Exile. Everyone else, be they ally or enemy, is a tool to be used. In the very end she reveals she is also loyal to Revan, and encourages the Exile to join him/her.
• Woman Scorned: If Kreia is Arren Kae, then she has probably this backstory, as it is implied her lover Yusanis left her for dead in Malachor V or at least dumped her around the time. In that case, the fact that Darth Revan later slew Yusanis in a duel probably only added points to her admiration of him.
• You Are Not Alone: As the Exile leaves Kreia to meet the masters, the old Jedi still utters a typically personal variation of this. Although it's unclear if the Exile gets to hear it, it's still a powerful speech,
  Kreia: Know that much may happen here, but above all, do not forget this — you may trust in me. We cradle each other's lives, and what threatens one of us, threatens us both. And if you find you cannot trust me, trust in your training. Trust in yourself. Never doubt what you have done.
• Younger Than They Look: As revealed in All There in the Manual, she's supposed to be 40-50, which is still believable if she is really the Handmaiden's mother but exceptionally odd given that she looks around 70. Interestingly, this is lampshaded by Atton, who speculates she might be just prematurely aged due to a tough life. Which might be probably related to her forbidden training in Trayus...
• Zen Survivor: She's a former Jedi and a fallen Sith and now occupies a strange middle road in the Force, dispensing her bitterly-earned wisdom to the Exile.

---

Kreia's True Identity (Unmarked Spoilers)

Darth Traya

"It is such a quiet thing, to fall. But far more terrible is to admit it."

Voiced by: Sara Kestelman (English), Danièle Hazan (French)

"It is said the Force has a will, it has a destiny for us all. I wield it, but it uses us all, and that is abhorrent to me. Because I hate the Force. I hate that it seems to have a will, that it would control us to achieve some measure of balance, when countless lives are lost! But in you... I see the potential to see the Force die, to turn away from its will. And that is what pleases me. You are beautiful to me, Exile. A dead spot in the Force, an emptiness in which its will might be denied."

Kreia's true identity, the fallen Lord of Betrayal and Dark Lord of the Sith. A former Jedi Master, she left the order after she was blamed for Revan's choice to join the Mandalorian Wars. Believed to have been killed at the battle of Malachor V, she clung to life on the dying planet and discovered an ancient Sith Academy. Feeling betrayed by the Jedi and the Force itself, she formed the Sith Triumvirate with Darth Sion and Darth Nihilus. However, they too betrayed her after they failed to live up to her radical ideals of freeing oneself and others from the will of the Force, stripping her of the Force as an ironic punishment. For years afterwards, she wandered... until she found the Exile, and believing them to be the greatest of proofs that her dream of freeing sentient life from the Force could be realized, began plotting to reignite her crusade against the Force once more.

---

• Above Good and Evil: It is the basis of Traya's ideology, though she subverts it in many ways, not only because she calls herself a betrayer and therefore technically identifies as evil, but also because she doesn't necessarily see good and evil as meaningless. Traya's true negation of them, as she explains, comes from the fact that the Light and Dark Sides are the origin of a eternal conflict that only brings ruin to the galaxy, which she wants to put an end to for all the lifeforms' sake. In a galaxy without this continuous war, she would be comfortable with a tough-but-just code of behavior based around pushing everybody to improve themselves.
• Abusive Parents: If Traya is indeed Arren Kae, then she is this to the Handmaiden. Her own daughter is just another pawn in her games, to be used and sacrificed without a second thought.
• Admiring the Abomination: She admires the Exile for the same reasons the Jedi Council considers them a monster: because they are an unique Force user who holds the key to deafen the galaxy from the Force.
• Ambiguously Evil: She's the final villain of the game, but her real intentions are unclear enough to hamper any moral classification of her. Traya seems perfectly fine with turning the galaxy into a cosmic wasteland in the process of killing the Force, as it is known that not all living beings can match the Exile's ability to live without it, but she also appears to think of this as a genuine improvement that will be preferable to any previous state. Whether her plan is even rational is also in doubt - Atris calls it madness and impossible. On the other hand, her stated goals to help Revan also imply all of this might have been an elaborate Genghis Gambit meant to utilize the Exile to become stronger through the lessons and experiences throughout their journey to take battle against the true enemy. And in a third hand, cut content and using Force Sight while confronting her at the Trayus Core also make it clear that she is corrupted by The Dark Side regardless of any good intentions, which only further adds ambiguity to her motivations, if not to her sanity. At the end, it's impossible to say - true to herself, Kreia is cryptic to the very end.
• Ambiguous Situation:
  • The game shows that Traya was first a Jedi, then a Sith, and finally something that, by her own admission, could not be called a Sith any more than the fallen Atris could be called a Jedi. However, when did Traya develop her definitive beliefs, as well as what were her previous intentions towards the galaxy, or how does all of this fit together, are questions never really answered. She seems to have gone to great extents to reform both the Jedi and the Sith orders, first using the Sith Triumvirate to oppose the Jedi and later using the Exile to stop the rampaging Nihilus and Sion, all apparently in order to correct ideological misinterpretations and create strong allies for Revan against the true Sith Empire - but all of this would be rendered pointless if she managed to destroy the Force altogether as she claimed to wish. Therefore, Traya appears to harbor two different and hardly compatible goals, and the obscurity of her own vital trajectory only makes it even harder to analyze.
  • When and why did Traya decide the Force had to be eliminated, and what was the Sith Triumvirate really founded for in that case? The game implies the Trayus Academy was the core of all of it, hinting the recorded knowledge of its Sith builders was the source of Traya's deicidal views, and some supplementary materials suggest further that she formed the Triumvirate while seeking for Force wounds for her grand plan. However, others imply she only turned against the Force by her own reflections when she was kicked out of the Triumvirate and realized she had been rejected by Jedi and Sith alike. Supporting this is the fact that Revan, who also learned from Trayus and was actually the first in weaponizing Force wounds, never professed anything similar to her gospel.
  • In cut content, Kreia claims to have manipulated the Jedi Council into casting the Exile away instead of detaining her as Atris wanted, and Atris herself confirms Kreia's words. Having in mind that the Exile's trial happened at the very beginning of the Jedi Civil War, when Revan and Malak had just started their dark campaign against the Republic, her reasons to do this are impenetrable. Was Kreia/Kae simply trying to spare a fellow Revanite from a prison sentence or something worse? Was Traya already interested herself in Force wounds by this point? And how does Revan, whose actions as a Sith Kreia vocally defends, play into all of this? (In fact, whether Kreia is Arren Kae or not, the question of what was she doing during the rest of the Jedi Civil War also remains open.)
  • Her grand plan to destroy the Force is given credibility by other characters like Atris, the Disciple and the Jedi masters... but when her plans are foiled by the Exile, Traya is somehow happy at her apprentice's victory, not upset at her own failure. This makes it entirely possible that her goals weren't a genuine attempt at her plan, but just a way to shape the Exile into a messiah of Traya's personal philosophy for a new, stronger order that would learn from the mistakes of their predecessors (because, as she claims at the end, what the Exile learned from their experiences "could not be allowed to die") be they Jedi or Sith. Considering Traya's Dark Side corruption at the Trayus Academy, it might be also possible that Traya was actually wanting for her plan to be stopped, especially by someone like the Exile who had transcended Traya's own limitations, in order for Traya to be proven wrong in the omnicidal nihilism she had come to profess. Indeed, just before she dies of their duel, she claims the Exile has already "saved" her and "rewarded her more than they can imagine".
  • Has Traya really put her lies aside when the Exile finds her in the Trayus core, or is she again lying her way into something completely different, which would turn the previous points completely null?
• Anti-Villain: She wants to end the constant cycle of wars between the Jedi and Sith, which is a noble goal, but her plan to accomplish this is by destroying the Force itself, which might have dire consequences for the galaxy, and she is both fine with this possibility and willing to commit many horrible actions in the process. In a more positive example, she also claims to want to help Revan against the true Sith Empire.
• The Bad Guy Wins: What transpires at the game's ending is not easy to interpret, but there's no ambiguity in that Traya dies happy with the outcome, even being implied that this was what she wanted all along.
• Badass Boast: Against Sion in cut content, while Force choking him with the stump of the hand she lost against him.
  Sion: You were a fool to return... I spared you once, I will not do so again.
  Traya: Spare me? Ah, yes. No, you simply did not learn the lesson I sought to teach - that your strength is as meaningless as the strength of my hand.
• Becoming the Mask: Possibly. Judging by her plan, Traya was seemingly willing to ultimately slay the Exile in the Trayus core as a cultivated sacrificial pawn, but after the battle Traya admits she grew to actually care for the Exile as a person and apprentice.
• Big Bad: Turns out to be this, despite having some competition for the role.
• Black Eyes of Evil: Sports these once she returns to the Dark Side, as opposed to her usual Milky White Eyes.
• Blood Knight: For all her talk about how random violence only weakens oneself, in cut content she smiles before butchering a horde of Sith assassins at her arrival to Malachor, and she's later obviously eager to duel the Exile, whatever her intentions about it really are.
• Broken Ace: There are simply not many fields of the Jedi and Sith arts that she hasn't mastered, but her enviable knowledge and power only brought her an unsolvable existential crisis.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Again, subverted. She calls herself the Lord of Betrayal, has clearly some pride for her Sith lord role, and is definitely content with her evil actions - but she doesn't crave power or dominance for herself, except in order to help all living things, and her betrayals are not petty, but part of her plans to achieve this. If anything, she could be considered Card-Carrying Necessarily Evil.
• The Chessmaster: Everything that transpires in the game does so according to her design. It goes apparently back to the Exile's trial, when she manipulated Atris into calling for the Exile to be cast out instead of imprisoned as Atris vocally desired.
• Chewing the Scenery: While normally a Cold Ham, Kreia turns up several levels as Traya, presumably because Evil Is Hammy. She gives the Jedi Masters a solid "The Reason You Suck" Speech in a light side walkthrough, and later shows some chilling shrieks while dueling the Exile.
• Consummate Liar: In an aversion of Villains Never Lie, much of what she told you prior to The Reveal is revealed to be untrue, or at least heavily slanted. Even after outing herself as the Big Bad, it's never really clear how honest she's being with you. Even her ultimate plan to kill the Force itself could be a lie to force you into tracking her down for the final battle.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist:
  • To Malak. Both are connected to Revan in some way, Malak as his apprentice, Traya as one of his former masters. Malak was a clear-cut bully bent on domination through overwhelming military force, while Traya is a twisted philosopher with a lofty goal who acts mostly through manipulation and lies. Visually, Malak is a tall, muscular bald man in the prime of life, wearing bright red armor, with purple scalp tattoos and a metal prosthetic that covers his lower face; Traya, as Kreia, is a frail-looking old woman in plain brown robes with a hood over her eyes and long braided hair.
  • To Bastila when it comes to being a party member who undergoes a Face–Heel Turn. Bastila is young, brash, and naïve but heroic, before being tortured into evil. Traya is old and wise, but willingly began her descent into the dark side years before the game began. Bastila is just one late-game boss in The Very Definitely Final Dungeon, while Traya is the Final Boss of her game.
• Create Your Own Villain: Traya built her Sith Triumvirate from the remnants of the Malachor V cataclysm caused directly by the Exile, with Nihilus having been one of its victims.
• Dark Action Girl: Especially fitting, given that she is not only female and an antagonist, but also amps up the moral ambiguity to incredible levels.
• Dark Magical Girl: She has many elements of this archetype (even the pigtails are, being exhaustive), but especially her background and relationship to the Exile. Like most examples, Traya was initially endowed with a great potential for good back when she was a younger Jedi, but was rebuked by just everybody around her as both a Jedi and a Sith, and those experiences ultimately broke her into existential misery. She's also uninterested in social mores, and is seen as creepy by characters that, not being the all-loving Exile, don't see her as an ally nor get what does the Exile see on her. Her bond with the Exile only ties it up: Traya embodies cynicism while the Exile remains hopeful to the end, which draws Traya to her through the story, and after everything is said and done, the Exile's hope triumphs over Traya and saves her in her last moments.
• Death Seeker: After being defeated by the Exile, Traya demands to be killed, or as she says, "freed". Depending on how you interpret her plans, she might have been this all along, seeking either a physical or a spiritual death.
• Devil in Plain Sight: Oh, let's see. She knows about the Sith, she never explains why for most of the game, she mentions that there's a third Sith lord that you haven't encountered that will reveal "herself" in time, oh and uh, one of your conversations can reveal a flashback where she's in Sith robes and Sion and Nihilus nearly kill her. However, she uses a combination of blackmail and flat out mindwipes on anyone who manages to put two and two together. Atton even comments, "All that talk of hatred, manipulation, and standing on your own two feet — sorry, you don't get any more Sith than that."
• Disney Villain Death: Her Boss Battle ends with her falling into Malachor V's glowing-green core and unleashing a Force shockwave on the way down that's very similar to how Palpatine bites it at the end of Return of the Jedi.
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: In the finale, she reacts very poorly to mercy.
• The Dreaded: According to the Old Republic novels, why Bastila preferred to try to keep her son alive rather than facing Traya and her followers once the Sith Triumvirate rose up after the events of Knights of the Old Republic.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Admits that she grew to care for the Exile, in her own warped way.
  Traya: I would have killed the galaxy to preserve you. I would have let the galaxy die. You are more rare than you know; what you have taught yourself cannot be allowed to die. You are not a Jedi. Not truly. And it is for that that I love you.
• Even Evil Has Standards: She remains opposed to both Sion's wanton carnage and Nihilus's continuous annihilation of life after returning to the head of the Sith Triumvirate. She also denies the Disciple's accusation that she wants the death of all living things, even although it is a very possible side effect of her plans and she would do it deliberately anyways for the Exile's sake. Traya instead claims to him that her only victory would be by proving that she was right... whatever her true ideals are.
• Evil Costume Switch: She switches to black Sith robes and headdress after reclaiming the title of Darth Traya.
• Evil Matriarch: In a symbolic sense, as she led to the "birth" of Sion and Nihilus. Also in a literal sense if the hints about her being actually Arren Kae are true...
• Expy: In addition to her other parallels, she also serves as an expy of Palpatine, as both are largely responsible for the destruction of their time's Jedi Order, even if Traya's own was mostly incidental. They also suffer a very similar-looking Disney Villain Death.
• The Extremist Was Right: Subverted. Even if it's true that several wars between Force-sensitives happened after Return of the Jedi in both continuities, Kreia's goal to destroy The Force still will cause galaxy-wide omnicide, if not universal, as the Force is a part of all living beings, force-sentitive or not. What's more, being severed is at best a short-term solution, one can regain one's connection to it, as shown by Ulic Qel-Droma and the Exile, and even afterwards become one with the force.
• Final Boss: The game ends with Kreia's death.
• Flunky Boss: In the second phase of her fight, she regains all her health and levitates three lightsabers to attack you even as she continues to bombard you with Force powers.
• Flying Weapon: She can duel the Exile with three levitating lightsabers while simultaneously pelting you with lightning and Force Crush.
• Friendly Enemy: Make no mistake, Kreia does legitimately view the Exile as her student, and especially in the Light Side ending with high influence with her, she genuinely considers them better than she ever was.
• Foil:
  • She is this to Darth Sidious. Both of them are powerful Sith Lords that are both responsible for the destruction of their generation's Jedi Order, both of them sought to turn outcasts among the Jedi to their philosophies, both of them have plans that would affect everyone in the galaxy if successful, and both of them succeed at the end at some level. But the difference is that Sidious only cares about himself, and all his plans revolve around increasing his own power, while Traya, on the other hand, seeks to improve life in the galaxy by coming up with a plan that could potentially end all wars forever, or at least help Revan to fight the warmongering Sith Empire. Similarly, and in a huge contrast, Sidious only cares about the best ways to make everyone around him into perfect servants, but Traya actually wants her teachings to improve people both physically and mentally, and even her cruelest acts are seen by her as acts of enlightening in her awful truths. In short, Kreia could be considered a twistedly if sincerely benevolent counterpart to Palpatine in pretty much every way.
  • She is also one to Jolee Bindo from the first game. Both are the most neutral-aligned companions you have from the first game, the most cynical, are the ones you are least able to influence, and both will or can leave the party and fight you. Jolee's Karma Meter rating is brought down simply because he doesn't agree with the entirety of the Jedi's dogma, but he is one of the most morally incorruptible characters in the first game, while Kreia's neutrality is implied to be brought up by her own powers influencing how others see her, and she is likely much lower on the Karma Meter bar in reality. Kreia fights to test you near the end of the game (and possibly is a death seeker who is happy to have her life end despite her plan possibly being foiled (or maybe not)), regardless of your alignment while Jolee fights to stop you from becoming a dark lord and threatening many lives. Jolee hasn't truly done anything amoral, but feels the regret of things he could have done (namely killing his sith wife), and as a hermit, doesn't seek to exert his influence on anyone. Kreia has done many horrible or morally questionable things and regrets none of her actions. Lastly, Kreia is the Final Boss no matter what you do, while Jolee is an optional boss. Simply put, Kreia is a philosopher-type character, while Jolee is a comparatively normal person whose wisdom is less from introspection and more from experience.
• God and Satan Are Both Jerks: How she views the Light and Dark sides of The Force, not that it stops her from wielding the Dark Side herself.
• Hidden Depths: In her last dialogue lines, she reveals that, had Revan asked her to follow her to the Sith Empire, she would have at least considered it - and even if she declined, Traya would be still attempting to send him help. This is a surprising reveal on the master-padawan relationship between Kreia and Revan, which had never garnered a lot of attention in the game's story.
• Hypocrisy Nod: She hates the Force and seeks to kill it, but also uses it extensively both in combat (she's a Consular who will be throwing around Force powers all game) and out (she makes regular use of Force glamours to hide herself and is a master of Forceful Mind Rape). She claims to use it like a poison, to understand it better in order to know how to destroy it once and for all, but admits that might just be the excuse of an old woman who is dependent on something she hates.
• Hypocrite:
  • One of the reasons she claims to hate the Force is because she says it is manipulative, causing countless deaths for the sake of inscrutable goals. And yet this almost perfectly describes Kreia's own character. She openly states that she does not have "friends" and regards every relationship in purely utilitarian terms, and she certainly has little quams about sacrificing lives for her own purposes.
  • For someone who claims to hate the Force and considers it to be a crutch and an evil deity that needs to be destroyed, she is completely immersed in it. Her whole life, everything she does, was lived and experienced through the Force, and from the way she talks about it you'd think it was the most important and meaningful thing in existence.
  • It's highly questionable whether Kreia actually holds her stated beliefs. Taking everything she does and says into account, it's difficult to conclude she actually wants to kill the Force, or even, really deep down, actually despises it. She ultimately despises both the Jedi and Sith for their shortcomings, but wants to create something more. Of course, that could be just another layer of manipulation.
• I Let You Win: Seeing how Traya could submit Sion with just the Force, it is implied that she threw their swordfight in the Harbinger to make Sion believe she was not a menace for the Triumvirate anymore. Losing her hand might have even been another Batman Gambit, as the pain helped the Exile to realize their Force bond's apparent dangers and therefore decide they could not take the risk not to have Kreia in their party - it is not like Kreia, a Jedi consular, was losing any of her skills by losing a body part (in fact, apparently to make a point, she Force chokes Sion with the very stump).
• Internal Deconstruction: In a character. Her views are a criticism of everything in Joseph Campbell's The Hero's Journey that serves as the blueprint for the tale of the original Knights of the Old Republic and Star Wars in general. She questions the Bystander Syndrome brought about by a The Chosen One tale, the weakness and horror of embracing Because Destiny Says So just because you believe You Can't Fight Fate, and the Forever War Vicious Cycle that The Hero's Journey being a repeated cycle of forgetting and renewal causes. Instead, she advocates Anarchism and radical Nietzschean individuality that tears down The Hero's Journey, as represented by the Force, to create in her mind a universe of actual freedom and truth that the Hero's Journey only falsely promises.
• Kill the God: What she intends to do with the Force, or at least deafen the galaxy to the Force's influence.
• Kung Fu-Proof Mook: She submits Sion much faster than the Exile could take him down the first time, and it is later very palpable that she didn't pull any punches against the Exile in their own duel. It's therefore implied that, being Sion's own teacher and knowing well the techniques that sustain his body, Traya simply had the best tools to disable him quickly.
• Legacy Character: There must always be a Darth Traya.
• Love Makes You Evil: Implied if Traya is really Arren Kae. The reason why Kreia started questioning the Jedi Code is officially presented as merely intellectual, but considering Kae's downfall happened when she was caught with a secret affair, which the Code forbids, it might be possible that it was precisely the taste of love and human relationships what led her to start doubting the Code's tenets in the first place (or, alternately, that she actively pursued those forbidden joys due to her skepticism about the Code). Her expulsion from the Order would have only solidified this stance, pushing her towards the passion of the Sith way and ultimately driving her to seek the Sith knowledge hidden in Malachor V.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: There is a slew of evidence she is Arren Kae, the handmaiden's mother. Chris Avellone's comment was "Can't comment, but good catch. Sorry."
• Made of Iron: Despite being a Squishy Wizard as a companion, she has an incredible amount of health as the Final Boss. Of course, who do you think first instructed Sion in how to use the Dark Side to survive punishment far beyond what the living body alone could possibly sustain?
• Meaningful Name:
  • Her Sith name, Darth Traya, is derived from the word "betrayal." She has a bad case of Chronic Backstabbing Disorder, and has been on the receiving end of it in the past.
  • Furthermore, relating to the "Kreia is Handmaiden's mother" theories:
    Disciple: Revan had many masters. Zhar, Dorak, Master Kae...
    Darth Traya: But there must always be a Darth Traya...
    ???: I am Kreia.
• Morality Pet:
  • Sion states his belief that the Exile is the only thing that she actually cares about. Indeed, in the final confrontation with her, Traya says that she loves the Exile as one loves their child.
  • In those very moments, she also makes apparent that her apprentice Revan used to be this as well - and more decisively for her actions, he might still be.
• Naytheist: She is revealed to hate the Force, equating it to a malevolent deity.
• Necessarily Evil: Implied to be the reason of Kreia reclaiming her Darth Traya name, if not the reason why she became a Sith in the first place. She intends to save the galaxy, but believes the only possible way to do it is through unfettered manipulation and Dark Side abilities, which are both attributes of the Sith.
• Never Mess with Granny: Well, she's an ancient Sith Lord and the Final Boss after all, and while her attacks aren't overly dangerous, she has an insane amount of hitpoints and will hand you your ass on a platter if you aren't careful^note unless you're spamming Force Crush on her.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: She admits herself that making the Exile feel the Force again through their Force bond might have been a mistake from the beginning. However, she ultimately believes the Exile will take the right decision regardless of whether she can feel the Force or not.
• Nightmare Face: As Darth Traya, her face becomes deathly pale and she gets Black Eyes of Evil.
• Nonchalant Dodge: In the cut content, she demonstrates several stylish dodges against the attacks of the Exile's companions.
• Omnicidal Neutral: Jaded by the constant wars between the Jedi and the Sith, her goal is genocide.
• Oxymoronic Being: She hates the Force and all it represents, with her supreme goal being to remove it from the galaxy forever. And at the same time, she is an incredibly powerful Force user, who uses it constantly to the point of being physically handicapped in multiple ways without it. Traya herself is bitterly aware that her best strengths to reach her goal come directly from not having reached it yet.
  Traya: I use [the Force] as I would use a poison, and in the hopes of understanding it, I will learn the way to kill it. But perhaps these are the excuses of an old woman, who has grown to rely on a thing she despises.
• The Paragon Always Rebels: It seems to be a theme of both videogames that the most powerful and exemplary Jedi are the most prone to turn to the Dark Side at least temporarily, with Kreia, formerly a veritably wise Jedi Consular who shaped the best Jedi of her generation, being the final example after Revan and Atris. In her case, the reason of her turn is even more fitting, as she did it out of the wish to stop all the conflicts and wars in the galaxy - that is, the ultimate Jedi goal.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Comes to believe in this after her exile from the Sith. She despises the idea of an All-Loving Hero who does things For Great Justice, seeing it as pointless and knowing that in some cases thoughtless charity can cause more harm than good. In addition, her dialogue as Kreia as well as the dialogue of others show that many of the Jedi teachings as dehumanizing, completely forgoing even basic desires to serve others. At the same time, she heavily criticizes actions that are done For the Evulz and pointless cruelty, seeing it as equally useless to oneself as the old Jedi code, as one becomes obsessed with inflicting pain and suffering and gaining power rather than achieving any particular goal, causing one to become a slave to their own ambitions without thinking about what they actually want and what they'll do once they get the power they initially desired. She now prefers every action to have a purpose and to simply act in a manner most conducive towards achieving one's goals (or rather, what she thinks their goals should be), even/especially if it means manipulating others to do so.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: She is the original matriarch of the Sith Triumvirate, and it shows when she one-shots three Jedi Council members in Dantooine and later submits Sion easily. Judging by this and her vast knowledge of the Force, she might have been one of the most powerful and skilled Jedi masters before the order was wiped out by the war.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Gives an epic one to a Dark Side Exile, calling them out for being Stupid Evil and confusing cynical ruthlessness for understanding the truth.
  Kreia: I have taught you to hear the Force again, shown you the contrast, and yet still you do not understand. This is what you have wrought. Countless murderers, slayers, assassins, born of war that has, as always, taught the wrong lesson. You showed them life without the Force - and instead of showing them truth, power, all you showed them was how the galaxy may die. You are responsible for all of this. Even now, events spiral towards destruction, and there is nothing that can be done because you refuse to listen, to understand. You have seen the effects you have on those close to you, heard the echoes scream across dead planets, and watched as your strength has grown. Yet it is for nothing. To have the Jedi Masters brought low by such a failure, there is no victory in that. You have not heard a thing I have taught, and for all I have said, you have never learned to listen.
• Redemption Demotion: Inverted — in the Final Boss fight, she has powers, dueling skills, and vast reserves of HP she never showed as a member of your party. Of course, given all the other things she lied to you about, it's hardly all that surprising. Also played straight and justified, as she is implied to have been weakened by Nihilus when he and Sion overthrew her as Dark Lord of the Sith.
• Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: When Kreia reveals herself to the Jedi Council, they angrily state that they thought she died in the Mandalorian Wars. She kills them before they can go into any more detail on what they know about her.
• The Reveal: Kreia is the Big Bad. It might not come as a total shock, but it does make for a dramatic final confrontation.
• Self-Mutilation Demonstration: When confronting a Dark-Sided Exile in Dantooine, Kreia stabs herself with her lightsaber in order to show them the pain of their bond, and how she is prepared to endure such pain while the Exile is not.
  Traya: There - do you feel that, Exile? It cuts through your defenses - as unprepared for such an attack as you are. Let that pain be a lesson - and a reminder of what you have forgotten.
• Sequential Boss: After defeating her once, she regains an even larger pool of hit points and summons three flying lightsabers to continue the fight.
• Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids!: Subverted. She doesn't quite approve of Wide-Eyed Idealist behavior, but she finds it infinitely preferably to Stupid Evil behavior in the name of "truth", and in fact the Exile being a Hope Bringer actually proves her point about people not needing the Force to be functional and alive. As shown by her calling out of a Dark Side Exile who killed the Jedi Council, she actually believes Silly Rabbit, Cynicism Is for Losers!.
• The Spock: She's this in the Freudian Trio between her, Nihilus and Sion due to her subtlety and desire for a spiritual, even psychological victory over a concrete one.
• Superpowered Evil Side: Kreia could only barely hold her own against Sion in a swordfight and even lost a hand in the process, while the returning Darth Traya defeated him without even whipping out her lightsabers. Possibly justified, though, because Kreia had woken up from a morgue shortly before the first time they fought in the Harbinger and might have been simply not in the best state of body and mind to fight him. Given she's able to Force choke him with her handless arm, she might have even thrown their first fight to trick him into thinking he'd grown stronger than her while biding her time.
• Training from Hell: During the final confrontation on Malachor V, she admits that she engineered everything that had happened over the course of the game, all to make the Exile stronger... and it worked!
• Tragic Dream: One of Kreia's motivations in helping the Exile seek out the Jedi Masters is to show the Masters that they and their teachings were wrong, something hinted at when discussing Atris with the Exile shortly before leaving the Telos Academy and then explicitly spelled out to a Dark-Side Exile at the Jedi Enclave on Dantooine. She will never be able to achieve this; on the Light Side route, it is because the Jedi Masters not only refuse to take action, but also try to strip the Exile of the Force because they fear what the Exile has become after Malachor, necessitating her intervention; and on the Dark Side route, it is because the Exile has killed them all, demonstrating their personal strength, but not the strength of their ideals nor the flaws of the Jedi Code.
• Undying Loyalty: She claims to have been open to follow Revan to the Sith Empire had he ever asked her.
• Villain Has a Point: She's not wrong about the countless wars between Force-users causing a lot of damage to the galaxy, even if she's a willing participant and that the Jedi Council is too narrow-minded.
• Villainous Rescue: How she reveals herself on the Light Side path, when the Council reveals that they regard the exile being a wound in the force that outshines any good they've done with it and plan to remove their ability to use the Force at all. Kreia overhears, walks in, and singlehandedly demolishes all three of them, all while chewing them out for their willfully ignorant behavior and refusal to adapt their teachings for the greater good.
• Walking Spoiler: It's really difficult to discuss Traya without mentioning that she is the Sith identity of Kreia.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: If she was being honest about her motivations during the conversation just before the duel with her, then she wanted to purge the galaxy of the Force because she sees it as the reason every war in galactic history has ever happened, meaning that life would be more peaceful without it.
• Xanatos Gambit: What her real plan is implied to be, as it's noticeable that Traya seems just as happy at her defeat as she would have presumably been at her victory. She seems to be pursuing multiple mutually exclusive goals in the endgame and gives different explanations to different characters.
• You Are What You Hate: She relies on the Force in all things, yet seeks to destroy it, to free others from its hold. She's aware of her hypocrisy, though it's not enough to make her stop her plans.