#Kotor2 | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

klerothesnowman · 3 months ago

Text

Pretty much everyone completely misunderstands Kreia (yes, that includes you) (It doesn't include me though, I'm built different)

This is probably going to be my most pretentious ramble

If you're listened to anyone go hard into the paint about Star Wars you've probably heard about Kreia. Hell, if you regularly talk to someone who talks about the artistic merits of video games they've absolutely brought up Kreia. "The best written character in Star Wars" is thrown around a lot when talking about her, and with good reason. Kreia fucking rules. I love Kreia. I love her voice acting, I love her writing, I love her character and I love her story. There is nothing special about me in this regard, people fucking love Kreia.

No one has any understanding of what the fuck Kreia is about and it's hilarious. They'll throw out her iconic lines, they'll act out their favourite scenes but then they'll say what those lines and scenes mean and it will become painfully obvious they weren't actually understanding what they meant. Sometimes to an absolutely absurd level, where they will say with absolute certainty something about Kreia when she blatantly says the opposite in game.

So here's the more common misunderstandings about Kreia, and why they exist. Spoilers for the entirety of KOTOR2 obviously.

MISUNDERSTANDING 1: KREIA IS A SITH

Kreia's the final boss of KOTOR2. After the reveal she dresses in all black and red, has big black orbs for eyes, uses the Dark Side and waits for you in a Sith Academy guarded by Sith for the big final show down. Long, long before this it's revealed that she's the Sith that trained the game's central villains and is the third member of the Sith Triumvirate. What the fuck do I mean Kreia being a Sith is a misunderstanding? She's Darth Traya!

Well. She's just not. She was, she used to be Darth Traya, but when you encounter her in KOTOR2 she is no longer that person, and she is not teaching you the way of the Sith like people think she is. Even when you face her at the end of the game she's not really a Sith then either.

Explaining this will be wrapped up in other stuff, so I'll get back to it.

MISUNDERSTANDING 2: APATHY IS DEATH

Kreia never said this. The Exile's vision of Kreia said it. While Kreia's teachings absolutely rub against it, it's something that comes from The Exile, not her.

Apathy is Death is the summation of everything that drove The Exile to reach where they are at that point in the game. It's why they went the Mandalorian Wars, it's why they returned to the Jedi, it's why their Exile was a mistake and why their return is a heroic action that acts as an inciting incident for a story. Because if you can do something, you have to do something and doing nothing is the worst thing you could possibly do. Again, this brushes up against Kreia's teachings a lot, but it's not the central tenant of her way that people believe it is.

MISUNDERSTANDING 3:

One of the iconic moments in Kotor2 (For better or for worse) is "The Beggar Scene". In this scene a starving beggar comes up to you and asks "Hey man, can I get some credits?" and your method for dealing with him and narrowed down to options. You either give him credits or you force him to fuck off with a show of force.

If you give him credits, Kreia goes on a tirade about how that was actually a dumb thing to do, because by being nice to him you've taken away his chance to become stronger and made him easy pickings to be mugged later. You're then treated to a cutscene of exactly that.

There's a few times where Kreia criticizes you for doing a good thing. It's always with the same Darwinist argument of "By taking away people's chance to overcome a struggle you make them weaker." It's a pretty Sith-y argument to make.

The thing is though, there's an extra word that doesn't make it into these discussions that I intentionally left out. "MAYBE".

Showing the cutscene of the beggar getting jumped was a mistake, it muddied the argument and changed the meaning. By showing that Kreia's concern was objectively true it frames charity as "All it does it make people targets and never anything else." But Kreia's argument was less "Giving charity was a mistake" and more "Are you sure that giving charity was the best thing to do?" because Kreia's central teaching is to analyze and be aware of all of the consequences of your actions. Real butterfly effect stuff. And being able to understand what your actions will lead to is true power, in her eyes. Being able to understand what words whispered in someone's ear and just the right time can lead to and then being able to be the one whispering makes you the one in total control of the situation. Something Kreia is all about being.

If you pay close attention, this is the entire game. The plot revolves around all the little actions that characters do that feed into greater events down the road. From Revan fighting in the Mandalorian Wars leading to the Jedi Civil War, the success or failure of Telos deciding the fate of the Republic, the moral choices The Exile makes influencing companions, Kreia's entire thing, all culminating in further reveals that everything seen and talked about in the game is the result of Revan making similar, smaller choices to nudge the Republic into a position to fight back against the True Sith Empire. It's also the entire final act of the game but I'll get into that later.

MISUNDERSTANDING 4: THE FORCE BOND

There was no Force Bond. Or at least the Force Bond between Kreia and The Exile was not so severe that it'd kill them if she died. The Force Bond is Kreia's main failsafe in getting The Exile to follow her plans. Knowing that whatever happens to her is reflected on them keeps herself attached to The Exile, even if they'd rather she leave. She then dangles the Master's as the solution to the problem, forcing the Exile to find them.

The Exile instinctively makes bonds with everyone around them. Why would the bond with Kreia be special? Because Kreia specifically made it so, and then lied about its severity to string The Exile along.

MISUNDERSTANDING 5: KILLING THE MASTERS

This one's not very common anymore, I'm pretty sure most people have gotten it by now. Kreia did not want to kill the Jedi Masters. The entire point of her plan was to get the Masters to realize that she was right and they were wrong. When they continue to stubbornly insist on their position despite all the evidence The Exile shows them, that's when she steps in and cuts them all off from the Force.

Did she know that cutting the Master's off from the Force would kill them? Maybe, probably. But it was clearly her Plan B. It's what she did when things went wrong.

So what was plan A?

MISUNDERSTANDING 6: KILLING THE FORCE

This is the big one. This is the one that people do not get. This is the one that everything kind of feeds into. Why Kreia isn't a Sith, what her plan is, what she is ALL ABOUT.

At the end of Kotor2 Kreia makes her big move, and following her trail you find out that she's going to Kill The Force. She's talked about hating the Force, and how it seems to have a will. She's made it clear that she's a whacky control freak so obviously something having control over her makes it her enemy.

Your companions say it a few times, "She's going to kill everything, we have to stop her" and so you race to Malachor V for the final show down.

Just uh... Just a couple problems with that.

How exactly?

Does Kreia ever actually say "I am going to kill the Force." She doesn't. She wasn't. She probably can't. That was never the plan.

The closest she ever gets to that is before the final boss, and I need to nail some little details before I get into that.

First of all is "Why does everyone misunderstand Kreia so much?" it's because she lies. She lies all the time. She is the undisputed queen of Gaslight Gatekeep Girlboss. The second reason is because the game is, tragically, unfinished. I'm sure there's some cut or rushed dialogue that would have made it more clear if things could have worked out, but most of it is there for you to undestand. The third reason is because the style of Kotor2's writing is confusing, it's supposed to be. This is a game that expects you to figure out its twists and nuances. This is a game that presents a character with a tragic backstory as your POV character and then doesn't tell you what the backstory is until the end. This is the entire character of Bao-Dur, a character The Exile has a history with, who talks about that history and the player having absolutely no fucking idea what their supposed player avatar is talking about. It's very interesting.

The second thing that's important to figure out is "What exactly has Kreia been saying?". Everything Kreia has been telling The Exile has led to this moment, so what has Kreia been selling? Besides the "Your actions have consequences beyond the immediate" thing there's a few other things she fixates on. If you're reading this ramble I'm assuming you played the game and remember these, so I wont go too in depth, just keep these in mind.

"A culture's teachings, and most importantly, the nature of its people, achieve definition in conflict. They find themselves… or find themselves lacking."

"Perhaps Revan never fell. The difference between a fall and a sacrifice is sometimes difficult but I feel Revan understood that difference, more than anyone knew."

“To believe in an ideal, is to be willing to betray it. It is something no Sith or Jedi has ever truly learned.”

"Perhaps you were expecting some surprise, for me to reveal a secret that had eluded you, something that would change your perspective of events, shatter you to your core. There is no great revelation, no great secret. There is only you."

The third thing I need to remind you all is that Kotor2 isn't just an unfinished game, it's an unfinished story. This was supposed to lead directly into a Kotor3, but things didn't work out that way because of the true enemy, greater than even the Sith Empire. Capitalism.

Kreia is not trying to kill the Force, and she's not trying to destroy the Jedi Order either. It's quite the opposite, she's trying to rebuild the Jedi Order, but make it better. She's trying to build you up as the head of a new Jedi Order that will lack the flaws and weaknesses of the previous one. A Jedi Order more willing to take action, but also more aware of the consequences their actions will have. A Jedi Order that understands that overreliance on the Force is a weakness, and a willingness to reach out into other skills in their toolkit.

She is specifically doing this because The True Sith Empire™ is coming, she and Revan have been pulling strings and pushing institutions to become ready for the battle with them.

Don't get me wrong, Kreia WANTS the Force to fuck off, and she's thrilled that The Exile could maybe potentially do it, but it's not what she's trying to do.

"But then why is the "Killing the Force" plot point a thing at all?"

Just like the Force Bond thing, it's a lie to force your hand. Everything Kreia does after the meeting with the Jedi Masters is her making a tiny move, and sweeping the board of every major threat to the Republic.

First she goes to Atris, knowing that Atris would kill the shit out of her. Knowing that you know that Atris would kill the shit out of her. This forces you to go to Telos and confront her. This also puts you in the direct path of Nihilus, since she nudged Tobin to put Nihilus toward Telos earlier. This stops Atris from reviving the Jedi Order on her terms, specifically the terms of "I am actually a Dark Sider haha whoops lol" and has the Republic stamp out the majority of the Sith's remnants in a single battle.

Next she goes to Malachor, and subjugates Sion and the Sith there. Then she just waits. She sits, and waits for the Exile to arrive. The Exile defeats the Sith, then the Exile defeats her, completing their training and affirming their nature through conflict. She explicitly does this to make you stronger, make you a better ally for Revan. Kreia is propping herself up as the ultimate villain to make you into the ultimate hero.

The thing about all of this, that makes me absolutely baffled that people don't get it, is that this isn't me extrapolating anything. Kreia explicitly tells you this when you face her.

"From the moment you awoke, I have used you. I have used you so that you might become strong, stronger than I. I used you to keep the Lords of the Sith from condemning the galaxy to death with their power unchecked. I used you you to lure them to Telos, where they could be, at last, fought and killed. I used you to reveal Atris' corruption, so that her teachings could be ended before they began."

"I had hoped you would follow Revan's path"

"[Your companions] were the Lost Jedi, you know. The true Jedi upon which the future will be built. They simply need a leader, and a teacher."

"If she had asked, would I have gone? I do not know. But she will need warriors. Any who can be sent after her into the depths of space."

What Kreia is trying to do is pretty in your face when you talk to her, meanwhile all the stuff about her killing the Force at Malachor V comes from other people, it's basically just theories on what she's going to do based on vague stuff she's said. No doubt theories that she wanted people to make because it forces The Exile's hand.

#rambling #star wars #kotor #kotor2 #kreia #knights of the old republic

19 notes · View notes