#i mean. tbf. i am right about most things regarding revan (a joke)

[renesassing]

i know i said 'probably' but i have been thinking about this for over a year and i'm right about it. i noticed some weird coincidences in kotor 1 and legit, the only reason i re-read the novel again recently was to figure out if my hunch was correct and i'm pretty sure it is.

of the 18 characters who are squadmates between the two games, only 3 make an appearance in the book: t3-m4, canderous ordo, and bastila shan. the other companions of kotor 1 are mentioned only once (literally in a conversation that removes them from the plot) and none of the kotor 2 companions are mentioned at all.

revan and malak falling to the dark side before the end of the mandalorian wars is never really mentioned until kotor 2. in k1, almost all conversations referring to their fall reference something in the unknown regions "corrupting" them and turning them to dark side.

in k1, malak has devices on the star forge that let him trap jedi between life and death so he can feed off of their power. in the revan novel, revan ends up trapped in a similar prison.

drew karpyshyn was the lead writer for the first kotor game, and in 2009, he moved from canada to austin, texas to work as one of the major writers for the old republic mmo. the revan book came out in 2011.

almost half of the book doesn't feature it's titular character (revan) and instead focuses on a sith character named scourge, and the sith empire on dromund kaas, the empire which goes on to be one of the major factions in the mmo.

scourge specifically betrays revan and the exile when they try to kill the sith emperor because he has a vision of someone else defeating the emperor. that someone else is the player character of the mmo.

literally none of the plot points or characters or themes of kotor 2 are featured in the revan book at all. and kotor 2 was not developed by bioware (they passed it to obsidian entertainment) and chris avellone was the lead writer, not drew.

listen. drew just railroaded back to his cool fanfic idea bc he was mad that kotor 2 made revan seem like a bad guy. and no one could stop him, because he was the lead writer for a lot of old republic stuff.

also like, as an aside, and this is just me being a nitpicky and annoying star wars expanded universe fan but. you know a star wars book is gonna be boring when the dramatis personae features ten characters and six are human, three are sith, and one's a droid. that's a bland star wars lineup right there. not even a fucking twi'lek.

a lot of what makes the 2011 novel bad (besides the general quality of writing) makes sense when you realize the book was probably written with the primary goal of wrapping up kotor/kotor ii as simply as possible to set up for the then-upcoming old republic mmo, and at least the general idea of it was thought up before kotor 2 came out with it's massive tone shift, and drew just clumsily railroaded back to his "cool idea" because he didn't give a shit about kotor 2.