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"YaeVizsla;c-1589552" wrote:

"JacenRoe;c-1589485" wrote:
I thought both KOTOR protagonists had a definitive profile in cannon... or what was cannon... current legend but previously cannon. Point is you could play them as whatever you wanted, but the "real" Revan was male, and the Jedi Exile was female. Is that not right?

There was a set of novels based on the events of the game. Which gets into questions of canon levels, conflicting canon, the shifting of canon levels after the Legends novels have been ejected on the whole but KotOR has been nodded to repeatedly, and whether that nod goes to the game or the books.

However.

Galaxy of Heroes has not drawn from print media. And it's very clear, it's the KotOR games that hold that special place in the franchise, not the novelizations of them. There may be some people to whom the books are more important than the games. They are a minority, and the books are a consequence of the games; a peripheral product to the games.

The way Bioware RPGs work is, the protagonist is pants. They are not a character. Shepard in Mass Effect is a dull blank slate for the player to project onto. When the player creates their Shepard, goes through the game, makes choices, builds relationships? While the Shepard in the void is boring, my Shepard and your Shepard are interesting, fascinating characters, and a deeply personal experience. And our Shepards may be completely different, but they are both completely valid. And invalidating either of our Shepards is the worst thing a subsequent work can do to Mass Effect.

Also, KotOR holds a special place for a lot of fans because Star Wars at the time was very white and very male. Revan and The Exile were for many groups a precious source of representation, and representation matters. To a lot of folks, Star Wars is just the movies and the video games. And for those people, the only case of a black woman with a name in Star Wars until Solo came out could well have been their Revan and their Exile. (If we don't count the Life Day special. We should never count the Life Day special.)

Declaring what small amount of representation there was invalid is deeply problematic given Star Wars' fraught history with regards to race.

I understand completely that KOTOR is a very popular and personal experience that allows for fans to add their race or culture into Star Wars. However, the novels which many committed fans who also play this game this have read are old canon that portray Revan as a white male. Although that may be disappointing for most fans, it is the most likely path for EA to take.

I do agree though that this particular issue has greatly affected Revan’s absence in the game thus far.