Star Wars is among the most beloved franchises in science fiction. Despite turmoil within the fandom since Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm in 2012, Star Wars continues to be a household name and a powerhouse in the box office. One iconic installment in the long line of Star Wars media is Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Released in 2003 on the original Xbox console, the RPG quickly won over gamers. With revolutionary graphics for the time, gameplay, and mechanics, and above all a compelling story from Drew Karpyshyn, Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR) won game of the year in 2003. The main protagonist, an avatar character of sorts for the player to insert themself into the universe, would take his place as not only a Star Wars fan favorite, but one of the most beloved video game characters of all time. Something that has always defined Revan is his agency - both as a characteristic and by virtue of being the main character in an RPG.
RPGs are meant for players to imprint themselves on their characters, hence the choice of appearance, narrative actions, specializations, and more. However, when fitting into a larger universe, a clear definition is necessary. With Revan, Star Wars fans and writers were able to non-officially meet in the middle by identifying who the character is while also allowing room for players’ interpretations to thrive. Revan had agency from both the players' part and his own.
This is mirrored in how the Witcher games series preserves the essence of Geralt - cold, dangerous, threatening, but also loyal and protective to those he cares for, all while leaving room for players to make choices within those character bounds. As such, both the novelization of Geralt and Geralt in the games can coexist in canon.
KOTOR begins with the player character awakening on a Republic warship that is under attack by the Sith Empire. After escaping the ship, the player crashes on the planet Taris where they meet Carth Onasi, a Republic soldier who rescued them from their crashed escape pod. Together, Carth and the player search the planet for Bastilla Shan, a Jedi Knight who may be the key to defeating the Sith and Darth Malak. After finding Bastila, it is revealed after shared visions that the player and her share a Force bond. The motley crew of the Ebon Hawk is tasked with finding the Star Forge, an ancient machine capable of churning out armadas of warships in mere moments. While a Jedi Knight, Revan and several like minded Jedi defied the Council’s wait-and-see approach to the war faring Mandalorians on the outer rim and took the fight to them. After traveling beyond known space, Revan and Malak turned to the Dark Side and returned with an armada to fight the very Republic they just saved.
The main theme of KOTOR is incorporated into the game’s mechanics: do your choices define you and can you change? To that end, players are able to select dialogue choices, explore party members’ back stories, take branching narrative paths - or not. All these decisions made by the player determine their Revan’s personality and alignment.
KOTOR II: The Sith Lords begins several years after the events of KOTOR and the disappearance of Revan. This time the player follows Meetra Surik, one of Revan’s generals in the Mandalorian Wars. At Revan’s command, Surik activated the Mass Shadow Generator at Malachor V, which would generate an immensely powerful gravitational pull towards the surface. This killed thousands of Mandalorian and Republic Soldiers alike, shattering the planet’s surface and effectively ending the Mandalorian Wars. For this, Surik was cut off from the Force and exiled from the order. The player may select dialogue choices that describe Revan in alignment with either their own playthrough or canonical events of the first game. This adds more agency to the series, and now one game is not affected by the other’s canon, but rather how the player prefers the narrative.
Revan by Drew Karpyshyn is effectively bisected by KOTOR II. The first part of this 2011 novel follows Revan, now married to Bastilla and expecting a son, as he is plagued by nightmares of a storm-covered world. Now uncovering more of his lost memories, Revan recalls that he and Malak were in fact manipulated by the Sith Emperor Vitiate to turn to the Dark Side and turn against the Republic, conducting shaping operations of sorts to soften the galaxy for an all out Sith Invasion. Revan parts ways with Canderous in search for Dromund Kaas, the storm-covered world in his dreams. He is taken captive by two Sith lords and interrogated for information.
It is here that the narrative leaps forward in time four years to follow Meetra Surik. Meetra follows Revan’s path to Dromund Kaas, and after freeing Revan and recruiting Lord Scourge, the trio mount an offensive on the Emperor himself. During the confrontation, Scourge has a Force vision - something Sith are not equipped to receive and previously discussed between him and Revan - of the Emperor being killed by a Jedi Knight but not by Revan or Meetra. Realizing what must be done to secure this outcome, Scourge kills Meetra Surik. Revan is then placed in a suspension tank, interrogated for the decades and centuries to come. However, his will to save the galaxy allows him to stave off the Sith invasion of the galaxy and the Republic. Bastilla and their son are able to find solace in the fact that Revan’s absence means he succeeded in his mission to prevent another galaxy wide war.
Canonically, Revan is a human male that was born on the Outer Rim of the galaxy. He is described as cunning, tactically and strategically brilliant, and at his core an altruistic person. However, this altruism is balanced by a drive to do whatever was required to win any battle. This was demonstrated in his onslaught of the Mandalorians and the use of the Mass Shadow Generator, which killed thousands of his own forces to ultimately secure the war for the Republic. He was not opposed to using Dark Side powers, which are taxing to the practitioner, as he was focused on full victory. Revan’s appearance in the book sharing his name matches that of the go-to avatar for KOTOR affectionately referred to as “Mullet Man,” sporting medium length hair, a clean shave, and high cheekbones. The only difference in the novel is that Revan’s hair is described as darker, rather than brown in the game, as well as having an amount of stubble on his face. The fandom has also fan-cast a middle aged Keanu Reeves as Revan, with his popular look of dark, shoulder length hair and stubble with high cheekbones bears a striking resemblance to the Jedi.
Karpyshyn’s reinterpretation of Revan maintains the charisma, charm, and lethality of the Jedi, however does lose much of the agency. The first game allows players to imbue themselves into Revan, especially because for the first ¾ of the game they are unaware of the twist. In a sense, Revan becomes the player as the player becomes Revan. He was unaware of his identity because of his mind wiped by the Jedi, something he had no choice in narratively but had choice in everything else. In the book, it is revealed that Revan turned to the dark side not out of evil, or the drive to gain more knowledge, or the ambition for more power to further defend the republic. No, it was mind control and manipulation by the Sith emperor Vitiate. Bearing in mind that Drew Karpyshyn also wrote Revan’s debut in KOTOR, it is disappointing that he pulled the same trick twice on the same character.
While there are some discrepancies in the characters interpretation, despite being written by the same author as his first appearance, Revan’s altruism and sense of duty remains true to character. Despite inconsistencies, the novel does an exceptional job at interpreting a beloved character and introducing them into new conflicts and contexts. Despite seeming disregard by the corporate side for KOTOR, there is indeed hope for fans in the form of a true remake for consoles, which aims to revamp visuals, combat systems, and dialogue while remaining true to the original narrative. Creative powers at Lucasfilm, which now thankfully includes Dave Filoni - George Lucas’s de facto apprentice - as well as Disney would do well to learn from Drew Karpyshyn, Revan, and the Knights of the Old Republic.