#Star Wars: KOTOR | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

thehylianbatman · 4 months

Text

Some Thoughts on Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

This post has nothing to do with Disney or their movies.

This post contains minor spoilers.

Hello. I've been playing Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic recently. I've picked up it again just after the Leviathan Escape, which is where I left it many years ago. I'm working my way through Korriban now, so I'm interacting a lot with Yuthura Ban.

I've heard rumblings in my readings that Yuthura was originally intended to be a companion character. Although I have no sources at all for this and thusly do not truly know if it is true of false, I find it likely; of the three Jedi companions you pick up, none are aligned with the Dark Side, meaning the only way to potentially explore the Dark Side gameplay is with the player character, which has large ramifications on the story. Bastila and Juhani are aligned to the Light, while Jolee is on the light side of neutral, and doesn't read as any kind of Dark Side user, even though he is best-equipped within the game's mechanics to be so. This means that most players will almost never encounter Dark Side elements during gameplay unless they specifically choose to do so, which changes story beats and the ending.

Yuthura as a companion character changes that. Her alignment is neutral, so she's mechanically fine to use the Dark Side (if not optimized), and her story makes sense for using the Dark Side; while Juhani makes sense story-wise, her alignment makes it uncomfortable.

Yuthura also adds to the team dynamic of the party. As it stands, for the Force representation, you have the player character, Bastila, Juhani, and Jolee. If you add Yuthura to the mix, it adds balance and results in a more fully-rounded view of the Force. A larger view, you might say.

Consider this dynamic: you have Bastila, an instructor for the Light Side. Although she's not a Jedi Master (I think), and you are not her padawan (I think), she is the one best-equipped to take that mentor role in the player's story as the leader of the party. You have Juhani, a student, like the player character, who is tempted by the Dark Side. And you have Jolee, representation of that said larger view of the Force.

Adding Yuthura to this dynamic, you'd have three instructors and two students. For the instructors, you get Bastila, a Light Side instructor who falls to the Dark Side; Yuthura, a Dark Side instructor who finds the Light Side; and Jolee, who simply seems to believe in the Force. For the students, you get the player character and Juhani, and, since Juhani can be romanced, this adds even more to the dynamic; Juhani, as a student, is rooted in the Light Side but tempted by the Dark Side. Spoilerific game events show that the player character is rooted in the Dark Side but tempted by the Light Side. The poetry and the balance of this team is simply sensible.

But how could it happen? Assuming the game's cut content were to be magically restored (Unlike KotOR II, KotOR I's cut content was cut very early in development, as far as I know, and so was never really developed at all, and was simply ideas at the conception stage), I imagine it'd go somewhat as follows:

Sleheyron (the only known visit-able planet cut from KotOR I) is added to the planets as the last planet the player visits. This makes the "canonical" order of planets Dantooine, Tatooine, Kashyyyk, Manaan, Korriban, and Sleheyron. In-game, the party is captured by the Leviathan before the last Star Map is retrieved; as it is, the last Star Map is on Korriban, where you meet Yuthura. In this imaginary scenario, the last Star Map is on Sleheyron.

These are all assumptions on my part.

While on Korriban, in-game, you can convince Yuthura to abandon the Sith cause and Return to the Jedi. If you visit the planets out-of-order and convince her to abandon the Sith before the party is captured by the Leviathan, you can find her at the Jedi Enclave on Dantooine. However, if you visit Korriban last, after you do this, Yuthura simply vanishes, since you cannot return to Dantooine at this point.

In this magically-restored version of KotOR, you go through Korriban as normal, but, at the end of the planet's storyline, you ask Yuthura to come with you, and , as in the game, she says no, but you offer to at least take her to the Jedi Enclave. She reluctantly agrees and boards the Ebon Hawk, just in time for the ship to be captured by the Leviathan, Bastila to leave the party, and a whole lot of spoilerific story things to happen.

This changes how the Leviathan rescue occurs; in-game, you can choose Mission, T3-M4, Canderous, Juhani, HK-47, or Jolee to do it. They all sneak around and spring the other characters out. Imagine this rescue if Yuthura is an option. As a high-ranking member of the Sith academy, whose finding of the Light Side has not yet spread to the ship, as it only just happened, choosing Yuthura is an easy option, as she can lie and say that she was captured by the party. While this might paint her as weak and cost her some prestige and respect, the Sith troopers handling the capture won't know any better, "free" her, and let her wander free as one of their own, rather than relying on guile, Jedi mind tricks, or stealth.

This can then become Yuthura's great test of loyalty with the party; while she's being controlled by the player, and thusly won't betray the team for gameplay reasons, narratively, the characters don't know that. Some of them will be disinclined to trust her, most likely Carth. She can use her (now former) position with the Sith Academy to get into locations on the ship that would be locked or barred to other characters, making the rescue easy for her if done right, but really hard for her if done wrong, since one wrong move reveals her hand and turns the entire ship against her. I imagine in this scenario that it would go down similarly to a Juhani/Jolee rescue.

However, we'll trust that she plays her cards right, and uses her position in order to quietly and easily free the party. This proves to them that they can trust Yuthura. It can also be a character arc for her; she initially does it for self-serving reasons, since the party could reveal that she had joined up with them and get her in trouble, so if she frees them, she can escape just as she had been planning to do. Just as the party doesn't trust Yuthura, Yuthura probably has trouble trusting the party, and just wants to get to Dantooine. However, the party reveals when they are freed what happened to Dantooine, and let's say this shocks Yuthura, who viewed the Dark Side as ruthless, but nuanced and personal, not flat-out evil (another assumption on my part). With her position at the Sith Academy vacated and no Dantooine to run to, in the party's eyes, she has a choice to make: either betray the party and try and return to the Sith, or join up with the party and continue her climb to the light side. Naturally, she joins up with the party, since there's almost certainly no way the Sith would take her back at this point unless she plays her cards really well, but she still isn't trusted by Carth and other such members.

Everything else on the Leviathan happens as in-game, and then the player goes to Sleheyron, and, just like almost everyone else gets a personal quest, Yuthura gets a personal quest here. She doesn't like being back, but she is, and now she can do what she's always wanted to do: free the slaves and free the planet. This can also tie into the larger story of Czerka Corporation being in the pockets of the Hutts and other such criminals. Sleheyron was intended to be under the control of four Hutt families, and cut content on Tatooine would mean that the player could turn both Tatooine and Kashyyyk against Czerka Corporation, but this aspect of the story lacks a meaningful conclusion. I imagine Sleheyron was intended to be that meaningful conclusion.

So let's say the Hutts are the original financial base of Czerka Corporation; maybe Czerka is a front entirely, or maybe it was founded by the Hutts to legitimize and cover their operations and it got so big that it broke free, or it was still founded by the Hutts but remains under their control while still able to pursue an independent path; they have a business relationship, let's say. Yuthura finds out about this and is particularly outraged, since Czerka has always been painted to her as a flawed but capable and neutral company that can help the Sith Empire, so the player character can go through the gladiator ring and do the combat and best the Hutts and put them in a begging position. This can lead to Yuthura making demands for the "right" option: free the slaves, have them revolt against Czerka Corporation AND the Hutts, reveal the connection between the two to the galaxy at large, and ruin them both (though only for now in the Hutts' case). Yuthura's choice of the "right" option also finally proves her trust and loyalty to the party and completes her character arc, while also adding extra evil to the Sith Empire for working with slavers (I can't remember if the Empire themselves uses slaves in-game, though I would certainly believe it if so). This is also a net positive for Sleheyron, which is changed for the better by the player, just like the other planets. Not only all of that, but it also completes the sub-story of freeing the galaxy from crime, cruelty, and corruption that's not being done by the Sith Empire.

Then you get the last Star Map, as well, fly off to the final location, and the game's story progresses as normal.

Yuthura and the other Force users would also be able to banter in this hypothetical scenario; she can banter with Jolee about using the Dark Side (how he does not feel bound to a Light or Dark Side, but doesn't make people suffer just because he personally views it not only as wrong but also generally inefficient), and speak with Juhani about balancing the temptations of the Dark Side with the faith in the Light Side, as people that both went down the path of the Dark Side but got off it at different times. Although her time with Bastila would likely be short in a canon case, and so they wouldn't have much of a chance for banter, if the player does the planets out of order, they could have an opportunity for banter, and I imagine they'd speak about instructing the Light Side versus instructing the Dark Side, and it's just be kinda funny, as most of Bastila's banters are.

I don't imagine she'd be a romance-able companion, as there is already a lack of such content as-is in the game, but, if she were, she'd be an interesting balance to Bastila, as a Force user not bound to the Light Side. Perhaps she could lead the player down a darker path in an inversion of Bastila's story. I personally feel, however, that she doesn't quite fit for such a role, and besides, Juhani is a better romance option anyways from a narrative standpoint; two Force students pulled in by both the Light and Dark Side, and all they have is each other. Very Star Wars.

Most, if not all of this, is conjecture on my part. I've read that Sleheyron was a cut planet, that it was supposed to be in control of the Hutts, that the planetary gameply would revolve around a gladiatorial combat ring, and that Yuthura, as a companion, would replace a Juhani that is not in the party. I don't have a source for any of that, although the last point I have only seen once, whereas I feel as though I've read multiple sources, some "official" in some way, about the first three points. Of course, I am no expert on the topic, and I suppose the writers at BioWare are the only ones who know for sure.

Please feel free to reach out or add any thoughts or notes. I find this very interesting and would love to talk about it. Primary sources in particular would be excellent, I'd love to read more about the development of this game.

Thanks for reading.

10 notes · View notes