Headscratchers / Revan

New entries on the bottom.

Name

• Meetra Surik. Just... "Meetra Surik". What was Drew thinking? Was it really that difficult to leave the Exile's name ambiguous?
  • I agree about the name, but eventually, it was going to have to come out. Revan knew her personally after all and it would sound awkward if everyone referred to her, inexplicably, as "The Exile" or "The General."
  • It also may have been chosen by the people who did the games, or whomever. Rights issues can be complicated.

Retcon

• Did the entirety of the second game outside of the Exile defeating a nebulous 'Darth Traya and her followers' get retconned into oblivion? None of the Exile's followers get mentioned in even the most cursory way outside of Kreia. The whole 'Exile creates force bonds and feeds on others' thing? Not a hint. The Exile's followers as the seeds of a new Jedi Order? Apparently not; a new Jedi Council seems to have sprung up magically from nowhere, all unnamed, while Bastila seemed to be remarkably undisturbed by the whole Jedi Order being hunted to virtual extinction all around her. The idea that Revan was corrupted at the Trayus academy and/or launched his invasion in order to strengthen the Republic, or that an increasingly Dark Side corrupted Revan strategically sacrificed those soldiers who weren't sufficiently loyal to him at Malachor V? Well, now he and Malak never even really chose to go Sith to begin with; they were brainwashed and only went Sith after meeting the Emperor! Its one thing to address plot threads from the sequel and then show them as untrue or spin them in a new direction; in this case, all details of the sequel plotline beyond Broad Strokes appear to have simply been excised without fanfare.
  • The Exile leaving behind her companions makes perfect sense, especially if they're rebuilding the Jedi Order. They're kinda busy, and she has this thing about mimicking Revan. He didn't bring any companions, so neither did she. Though I agree that it would have been nice to get some mention of that. Would've taken two lines. And her Force bonds are related to that: Without companions, her power isn't really useful. But a few words about how she instinctively forged a bond with Scourge, or how the bond with Revan was how they sensed each other the second she got within a hundred thousand kilometers would have been nice.
  • Give that she was killed I'm guessing Drew really didn't like her.
  • Drew doesn't play well with other people's creations. Look at the retcons he made to Kevin J. Anderson's original take on Darth Bane.
  • If I may play the devil's advocate here: In the games, a lot of the information you have about Revan and the Exile comes from other people, not all of whom might be telling you the truth, because Revan was mind-wiped and therefore doesn't remember the whole story until later, and the Exile was forcibly cut off from the Force and therefore also is somewhat in the dark about her own past. Some of the information you get on Revan in KOTOR comes from the Jedi Council, for example, but in that game they're portrayed as flawed beings. And the second game is even more ambiguous, because most of the information you get about both Revan and the Exile comes from Kreia. But Kreia is a liar. She "holds the knowledge of betrayal," after all. Kreia has ulterior motives and is using the Exile to serve her own ends. You can't even trust what she says at the ending, even there she might have been lying. The Jedi Council told you that Revan voluntarily chose the Dark Side, but if Revan was brainwashed the Jedi Council would have mind-wiped an innocent man and would therefore have a reason not to tell you the whole truth. Malak also told you that Revan voluntarily chose the Dark Side, but since Malak also fell to the Dark Side and betrayed his master, he would have a reason to portray Revan in a bad light. It's mostly Kreia who tells you that Revan was working for the greater good and the Jedi opposed him due to their own corrupt principles, but Kreia wants to use the Exile to destroy the Force and thus would have a reason to portray the Jedi in a bad light. Is it that much of a stretch to imagine that the discrepancies are due to having received corrupt information from other characters in the games, and receiving direct information from the novel?
  • Yes. Well played as your Devil's Advocate is, the problem is that the problems with the book don't even *remotely* come close to stopping with Revan's issues. The book gets very, Incredibly basic issues like the whole "Force/life eating/Void in the Force" problems wrong, since apparently we're supposed to believe the walking wound in the force that is the Exile (who fought a BLACK HOLE in the force like Darth Nihlius) apparently has no familiarity with the concept of siphoning off the power of the Force from other things. Nevermind the fact that to the game fan, the Sith Emperor being effortlessly able to brainwash Revan and Malak comes out of nowhere and isn't even hinted at in the previous games, and so comes out looking rather like an Ass Pull. Nevermind the fact that Drew had a golden chance to give the Exile and Scourge an awesome scene, where Scrouge asks his question about the nature of the Emperor to someone who draws her power from almost the exact same source as the Emperor does but Remained With the Light and instead he just blew it, mutilating the Exile's character even further. Again, I could give the explanation about Revan a pass if that were the only problem, but the fact remains that the book is such a hack job that would be wasted. Good Devil's Advocate, mate, just that this isn't really "forgivable" material.
  • Agreed with the above. This isn't even "the Exile's backstory might not be 100% accurate", this is "the Exile doesn't appear to have a backstory. Or friends, or notable character traits outside of slavishly following Revan around". When they could've easily substituted random female Jedi Jane D'oe for the Exile, yeah, it's a problem—not to mention the severely unfortunate implications of casually tossing a female video game protagonist (in the Star Wars universe, no less) into the fridge.

Kotor 1 characters

• A lot of people seem to be unhappy with how the Kotor 2 characters didn't get much of an appearence. Am I the only one who thought some of the Kotor 1 characters got a raw deal too? Revan chooses to not bring Mission or Zaalbar because of their "business". Okay, I guess that's considerate, but they really can't take a few days off for one last adventure? It gets worse with Jolee and Juhani. Revan doesn't bring them because they're part of the Jedi Order and apparently Revan doesn't trust them anymore. Hell, Carth doesn't even get a mention! On the other hand, way too much time was spent on Canderous in my opinion. We know he became Mandalore, was it really necessary to dedicate a bunch of chapters to show how he got the mask back?
  • You're not the only one. Something like eighty or ninety percent of all the characters from both games get thrown under the bus, and it`s really frustrating. (And now this Headscratchers page has basically turned into a "what I didn`t like about this book/what it got wrong" page. Huh.)
  • Thirded. I just emphasized the poor treatment of Kotor 2's material because it's just a demonstration of how utterly flawed this thing is. The treatment of Kotor 1's material was just as bad even if it actually is present, at least in my opinion. Rather than give a nice trip down nostalgia lane and paint a picture of the galaxy as it is after the great turmoils- as the thing that would eventually be what it is in The Old Republic and that Revan and the Exile went to protect- they dealt with it in one of the most unsatisfactory ways imaginable. Which is especially bitter because of things like this. http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/126490-KOTOR-III-Would-Have-Finished-Revans-Story
  • Mission and Zaalbaar being 'too busy' with their business doesn't even track with their characterization - Zaalbaar swore a lifedebt to Revan. "A lifedebt is the most solemn vow a Wookiee can make. It means he'll stay by your side for the rest of your life - wherever you go, whatever you do, Zaalbar will be with you," and Mission declared that she and Zaalbaar were a package deal. And yet Big Z is busy with some business rather than at Revan's side?
    • What if there's something you value even more than your life? Would a wise wookiee want to wander into wilderness when watching for westward warriors in a wounded world was what was wanted? (Uh, I mean doesn't Revan consider strengthening the Republic the most important task in the galaxy, beyond even his own safety? And wouldn't he have convinced Zaalbaar of the same?)
      • On the light side path (re: the canonical one), Revan ALSO convinces Zaalbaar of holding to the Wookiee concepts of honor. Would the Wookiees respect Zaalbaar if he were to abandon his life debt? Particularly since Zaalbaar is apparently also meant to eventually take up the mantle of being their leader in the future - if a leader sets an example, what example is Zaalbaar setting by not honoring the life debt, the most solemn vow a Wookiee can make?
  • Admittedly it's understandable from a business standpoint why K2 gets almost blatantly ignored, being half-finished and all.... even though Obsidian offered to make a patch. Still, there are a LOT of things that get ignored or outright retconned that really added to the universe. So Mission and Zaalbar are handwaved into not coming due to their business, Jolee and Juhani are too busy rebuilding the Order. Does that include Atton, Visas, Brianna, Mical, and Mira? They all canonically go on to do so. Bao-Dur's death was cut early in production, so perhaps he too was meant to be there. For that matter, what about Hanharr? He can either be killed or spared or even convinced to help you. It's so frustrating how entire events which would reshape the infrastructure of the galaxy and the characters responsible for it are ignored as if they're unimportant.