Dualities like light and dark or machine and man blur together under Revan’s mask.
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is celebrating its 20-year anniversary today, July 15, 2023.
Below, we look at how it challenged and subverted some of Star Wars' most common tropes.
Darth Vader is the clearest example of this.
Anakin’s descent to the dark side renders itself real in his deformed body.
But they are still seen as lesser.
Droids provide slave labor and are owned by heroes and villains alike.
A New Hope establishes within the first 20 minutes that droids' memories are routinely wiped.
Luke’s uncle Owen suggests it with the casualness of asking Luke to take out the trash.
In that way, it is distinctly un-subversive.
It offers many of the same thrills and plot points as the original films.
An evil empire rises that threatens an on-the-run group of resistance fighters.
Your hero picks up two plucky robots: an astromech and a protocol droid.
The climax involves destroying a powerful space station.
Most famously, of course, the plot hinges on a twist about identity.
Still, KOTOR does play with the established formula.
Its twist of identity is not about heritage, but about self.
The player’s own identity is revealed to be the memory-wiped Sith Lord Revan.
This twist has a decidedly queer character.
Revan was a chosen name, separate from both Jedi and Sith until they turned to the dark side.
The game is unable to reckon with that “queer horror,” to borrow a phrase and framework.
It’s hardly a compelling choice, as the difference between light and dark verges on the parodic.
However, buried in the game’s subtext, the difference between dark and light can feel slight.
But it’s only the regular Jedi that actually use these methods in KOTOR’s story.
Still, both sides cruelly leverage power to reshape others, unafraid of bolstering their ranks with coercion.
The equivalence between dark and light is something it shares with the prequels.
Neither of them have any intention of freeing slaves.
Binaries between flesh and metal are similarly questioned.
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Revan’s mind is just as malleable as a droid’s.
The primary difference is the colors of the flags flown and the music being played.
Lately, Star Wars has tended entirely towards the most conservative and restorative elements of its fantasy.
The Mandolorian and The Book of Boba Fett lead on the same empty mythologizing and action figure posture.
The movie ends with children playing out one of the films scenes with a handmade Luke Skywalker toy.
It’s easy to think of Star Wars as a great, glittering trap.
Revan makes me long for it.
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