‘Star Wars’ Month: Revan May Be The Closest Thing ‘Star Wars’ Has To Actual Myth

Welcome to the table,

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic came to home videogame consoles in the summer of 2003. Its mechanics were based on Wizards of the Coast’s recently released Star Wars Roleplaying Game, which in turn was based on the systems developed and honed for Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition.

Within a few weeks of release, KOTOR became the talk of the town in most gaming circles, and within a few months, the protagonist elevated in conversation from video game avatar to pop culture icon. So today, we are discussing one of the most iconic Star Wars characters of all time: Revan.

Let’s get into it.

 

 

Revan remains one of the most fascinating figures in all of Star Wars, and what makes them endure is their ability to dwell in the space between monster and hero, canon and folklore, memory and mythos. Over 20 years after his (or her) debut, Revan still haunts the hallowed halls of the franchise and fandom as a kind of patron saint of morally gray storytelling in a setting that, more often than not, defines itself on clear divisions between the light and dark side of things.

The air of mystery comes largely from the fact that Revan was never designed to be one single thing. Created by BioWare, she entered the galaxy far, far away as a blank slate. Depending on how the player approached the gameplay, Revan could find themselves being a ruthless killer or a compassionate problem solver; a brutal birgan or a benevolent benefactor; a man or a woman. The choices allowed the audience experiencing the narrative to define how Revan engaged in the world unfolding around them. It in turn crafted a unique experience where the player defined the lore themselves. What became fascinating was that players worldwide were building Revan’s present, they were also uncovering what would become a strikingly clear identity based on a murky past that Revan had largely forgotten up and to that point.

Collectively, as gamers were writing new chapters to the legend of Revan, they were uncovering he made major moves that shaped the history of the Star Wars universe. Revan had been the Jedi Knight who defied the Jedi Council during the Mandalorian Wars, embracing the Dark Side along with their apprentice, Darth Malak. We would further go on to learn that Revan himself was stripped of memory after Malak betrayed them and was manipulated by the Jedi as a weapon against the very empire that they had built. To this day, that alone remains one of the most fascinating reveals in gaming history, but more importantly than the spectacle of it all, it re-framed Revan into something compelling within the lore of Star Wars.

 

 

Revan’s duality became central to their appeal. Where Darth Vader (David Prowse, James Earl Jones, and Hayden Christensen) may have been redeemed in death, Revan spent entire stories in a fluid state between the light and the darkness. The framing makes the character less of a traditional Sith and more of a troubled wanderer trying to reconcile seemingly irreconcilable parts of himself. It forms a story of discovery that we, as the audience, and Revan, as the subject, are learning about together. Subsequent games continue to further this fluid, lived-in mythos, creating lore that mirrors traditional religion in the sense that a deity can have many aspects and origins depending on who’s telling the tale. This unique origin elevates Revan to something akin to a messianic figure with considerable influence on what came after.

The character’s influence on Star Wars storytelling is difficult to overstate. Before Revan, the worlds of Star Wars largely framed the Force as a binary moral system. Jedi Good, Sith Bad. Revan complicated that equation. The existence of the character suggested that ideological rigidity itself could become dangerous, whether it came from the Sith or the Jedi Council. That thematic ambiguity paved the way for future characters like Ahsoka Tano (Ashley Eckstein, Ariana Greenblatt, and Rosario Dawson) and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) to exist in a more morally uncertain space.

 

 

Despite all the popularity and the franchise-changing ramifications Revan caused, the character continues to exist in this strange limbo within the current Star Wars canon.

 

 

When Disney reset the expanded universe in 2014, the Old Republic stories were rebranded as Legends, effectively removing Revan’s backstory from official continuity. For years, fans wondered whether Lucasfilm would ever touch the character again. Then came a surprising development in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’s Visual Dictionary, which revealed that one of the Sith legions was named the “Revan Legion.”

 

 

This single reference was small, but it restored the name Revan into the existing canon — though in name only — leading fandom to speculate if this was some other Revan or if this was the legacy character we have known and loved for years.

This raises the inevitable fandom question of “When does Revan fully return?”

 

 

At this point, it feels more a matter of “if” than “when.” The Old Republic era remains one of the richest untapped storytelling periods in Star Wars, and the powers that oversee the construction of these stories clearly know there is an enormous audience demand for it. We have recently seen a teaser trailer for the new “spiritual successor” to the 2003 KOTOR — the upcoming Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic — causing even more speculation on whether Revan will return or not in this new title, and how this will or won’t fit into the larger webwork of canonized material. His fate as depicted in Star Wars: The Old Republic also remains canonically dubious.

 

 

If I can get into a bit of self-speculation here: I think the reason we have not seen Revan as prominent in a canonical space is that he (or she) means something different to everyone. Revan can be a redeemed Jedi, a fallen Sith, a warlord, a monk, a slayer, or a savior. He exists in this nebulous space outside the fact that they are important and impactful to this generational mythology, and that is a hard thing to nail down in a traditional storytelling where a narrative has to take the audience from point A to point B.

If the new canon storytellers depict Revan as a villain, they risk upsetting those who see them as a savior; if Revan is seen as a savior, they risk upsetting those who worked so hard finding all those Dark Side points.

This is why I firmly believe Revan continues to occupy this rare space in franchise storytelling. There is seemingly no other character — especially in a franchise as well-loved as Star Wars — that can be something to everyone and still maintain this level of mystery. The contradiction is exactly why Revan continues to matter. Moreover, in a franchise built on legends, Revan may be the closest thing Star Wars has to an actual myth.

Until next time, there is a very nebulous nature when speaking of a character who is so fluid, but there is something so undeniable about Revan that I don’t know how they show up next in the canon. But when they do, and mark my words they will, no matter how small their presence is felt, it will for sure be a disturbance in the Force felt galaxy wide.