u/AlternativeBack6351

I genuinely think Juhani’s stand against a dark-side Revan on Lehon is one of the purest acts of light-side heroism in all of Star Wars, and I don’t think people talk about it enough.

What makes it so powerful to me is that Juhani is not the Chosen One, not a galactic prodigy, not the greatest duelist alive, and not someone with a realistic chance of victory.

Compared to Revan, the fallen Bastila, basically every protagonist we meet struggling with their morality throughout most Star Wars stories, she is ordinary, and that is exactly why it matters.

Most major light-side moments in Star Wars still contain some degree of hope, destiny, or hidden advantage.

Luke Skywalker standing against Palpatine in ROTJ is incredible, but Luke still believes there is good in Vader and that together they can destroy the Emperor. Darth Vader ultimately returns to the light when faced with the suffering of his son, proving that the love and humanity buried within him were never fully extinguished despite decades of darkness. Revan’s redemption is tied to rediscovering identity, companionship, and the person he once was before becoming consumed by war, power, and the belief that he alone could shape the galaxy’s fate.

Juhani has none of that. She is standing before a fallen Revan and a dark-side Bastila, effectively two of the most powerful Force users in the galaxy, and she knows she cannot win. She likely knows she is going to die.

What makes it even stronger is that Juhani has every psychological reason to fall.

Her entire character arc revolves around trauma, fear, anger, alienation, and the belief that suffering might inevitably turn her into something monstrous.

Even before the game begins, she already fears she is corrupted, and accidentally harming her master seems to confirm her worst fear about herself. Then the game continuously tests her.

Her confrontation with Xor is especially important because it forces her to directly confront the rage, exploitation, and degradation tied to her past. Xor treats her as something to possess rather than a person, and the entire interaction is designed to pull her back toward hatred and emotional collapse. Depending on how you handle the situation, Juhani can either move further toward healing or be encouraged back toward darkness.

That’s why her temptation feels so human compared to many Sith stories.

Characters like Revan, Luke, and Vader are tempted through power, destiny, and the belief that they can reshape the galaxy through strength.

Juhani’s temptation is much more ordinary and therefore much more relatable: “If I stay vulnerable and compassionate, the world will keep hurting me.” That is how most real people become bitter or cruel.

Not through dreams of domination, but through fear, pain, emotional exhaustion, and the desire to protect themselves from further suffering. This is what makes Juhani interesting me as an “average” person in a franchise filled with chosen ones, prophecies, and heroes.

And yet despite all of that, she still stands against Revan. Not because she thinks she can win, not because prophecy protects her, and not because she expects reward, but because she refuses to let suffering become justification for evil.

That is why I think her final stand is one of the greatest acts of light-side morality in Star Wars. It is not heroism through destiny or power, but moral fidelity in the face of hopelessness.

In that moment, Juhani proves that an ordinary person can still choose the light even when doing so guarantees pain, defeat, and death, and honestly, that may be more impressive than almost any victory in the franchise.

Why I think Tenebrae/Vitiate/Valkorion would’ve worked better if he was trying to mantle the Father

I’ve been thinking about why Tenebrae / Vitiate / Valkorion never fully works for me despite how ambitious the character is conceptually.

At a certain point, Tenebrae becomes so metaphysically powerful that he no longer feels like a Sith Lord and instead feels like a cosmic entity temporarily roleplaying as one.

He consumes worlds,transcends death, survives through multiple identities, and exists almost like a wound in the Force rather than a person.

Which makes me start asking:
Why is he still bothering with empires?
Why is he still sitting on thrones?
Why does someone this transcendent still act like a ruler instead of a cosmic force?

That’s where I think the character would’ve made much more sense if his ultimate goal had been mantling The Father from the The Ones mythology.

Similar to how characters from The Elder Scrolls series mantle Daedric Lords. “Walk like them until they walk like you”

Not merely becoming immortal.
Not merely ruling forever.

But literally attempting to become:
the singular being standing above and controlling all aspects of the Force itself.

And suddenly the “three faces” of Tenebrae start making thematic sense.

Instead of: Tenebrae, Vitiate, and Valkorion being just aliases or different emperors, they become: A failed artificial trinity.

Almost like Tenebrae is unconsciously trying to recreate the cosmic structure embodied by:

the Father,
the Son,
and the Daughter, except through himself alone.

The tragedy being: He fundamentally cannot understand balance because his entire worldview is built on domination and consumption.

So instead of becoming a true unifying cosmic entity, he fractures himself further and further.

You could almost interpret:
Tenebrae as the raw devouring abyss,
Vitiate as pure immortal intellect and control,
Valkorion as the paternal god-king attempting to embody transcendence and order.

Three manifestations trying to converge into one supreme being.

But unlike the Father, who exists to maintain balance between opposing forces, Tenebrae tries to absorb all things into himself.

Which means his “trinity” is inherently unstable and doomed from the start.
He is trying to force himself into a cosmic role that requires:
restraint, wisdom, and balance, using only ego, hunger, domination, and fear of death.

And I think this is why he doesn’t fully work compared to traditional Dark Side/Sith villains in Star Wars because the majority of them still fundamentally feel Dark Side. Most of their goals remain understandable within Sith ideology.

Conquest, domination, survival, revenge, power, legacy, destruction of enemies, imposing order through strength.

Even when they become extremely powerful, they still feel psychologically and ideologically grounded.

Tenebrae eventually feels disconnected from the Sith entirely.

He reaches a point where:
his power implies he should already be operating on an entirely different metaphysical plane, yet his actions still resemble a man building another empire.

That disconnect is what makes him feel strange to me.
The power scaling issues with the greater EU isn’t actually his problem to me. I’m totally fine with him being the most powerful Sith of all time alongside Palpatine.

It’s that:
his goals never evolve enough to match how transcendent he becomes. He accomplished like a solid 2/3 of all of Palpatine’s eventual goals like and still plays around with new empires and ideologies.

Tying him directly into the Mortis mythology and the idea of trying to mantle the Father would make that escalation feel purposeful instead of arbitrary.

The multiple empires stop being the point.

The multiple identities stop being disguises.

Everything becomes part of:

A Sith Lord’s failed attempt to ascend beyond individuality itself and become a cosmic principle governing the Force.

And the irony is that his failure would become inevitable from the beginning, because someone obsessed with domination could never truly become the Father in the first place.

Rant over. I just replayed KOTOR 1+2 and also replayed a fresh SWTOR Jedi Knight character all the way through to Echoes of Oblivion so all of this has been banging around in my head.

I understand that The Ones were not established until SWTOR had already been released (I think), but I think they could’ve played a part in the eventual SWTOR story.

I know nothing about Abeloth as I have not read Fate of the Jedi, so please correct me if I’m missing something due to her absence.