There’s no plot twist to Kreia, no deep dark secret. She’s Darth Traya, one who has been betrayed and will betray in turn, and the Exile’s journey - your journey - culminates at the heart of silent, toxic Malachor V. Here, at the graveyard of ships, your last words with Kreia are revelatory and insightful, with her gift of foresight teasing you the millennia of change from your journey.
But for every single thing you’ve accomplished, you’re teased of the very single thing she promised you: the truth. Purpose. Like the ships at Malachor, you’re lost; you’re drifting.
There’s a spectacular brilliance in Obsidian’s work on Knights of the Old Republic 2. Even though it was underdeveloped, underfunded, and unfinished, few games have ever approached the writing mastery that’s present in Obsidian’s near-masterpiece. Not even Bioware - that monolithic luminary of games writing - commands motivations and themes with such artistry.
And it’s nowhere as pronounced as Kreia. An old, wizened matriarch, Kreia is a former Jedi Master whose most powerful tool is her tongue. A generator of lies both small and large, her disgust with Jedi fixation on pacifism and analysis and Sith dependency on self-destruction permeates every word she utters. She’s a scholar scorned by both sides, an exiled moderate in two groups of extreme pedagogy.
That’s where the Exile comes in. A walking void of the Force, the Exile is one of Revan’s greatest generals, responsible for the death of millions at Malachor V. In many games, the protagonist is a blank slate with little background: in Mass Effect, Commander Shepard is famous, but vaguely so; in Dragon Age, the Warden can come from poor, destitute origins; in Kingdoms of Amalur, the Fateless One has no recollection of his or her background.
In comparison, the Exile has a background. It’s a rough background, and through his or her actions, echoes in the Force have led to the birth of monsters. After the loss of the Mandalorians at Malachor V, the Exile extinguished his or her connection from the Force in an attempt to save his or herself after the pain of having so many bonds destroyed. The myriad connections with people through the Force leads to the Exile becoming a Force black hole, siphoning it from those powerful in the Force.
To Kreia, the Exile is the ultimate pawn - and she relishes in what he is: an empty vessel. But for the Exile to go along with her plans, she needs to lie, trick, and scheme. She needs to betray the Exile.
You fight her at the heart of Malachor V at the Trayus Academy, a sleek and sharp crown of steel and platinum jutting out from the cliffside. Here, as your team members deal with being stranded in a hostile, poisonous environment, you’re fighting Kreia to the death, exhausted from your battle against Darth Nihilus just a short while before. After you defeat Kreia, she agrees to tell you the truth, about everything.
Ask Kreia why she chose you, and she tells you that “…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,” but firmly confides that “there is no great revelation, no great secret. There is only [the Exile].”
Knights of the Old Republic 2’s strongest point is in its denouement, where Kreia finally comes clean with the Exile. Players expecting some sort of plot twist along the lines of Knights of the Old Republic might be disappointed, but they’re likely to be hard pressed to hate it. It’s not about the shock or the relegation - there isn’t one. It’s ultimately about a journey that encapsulates so many small pieces, put together in so many ways, all of it underlined by Kreia’s philosophy of an amoral, neutral, Chaos theory-heavy belief. It’s an internal journey, looking into the Exile and his or her reasons for being there, and how they coincide or conflict with Kreia’s goals.
And it’s all about the lies. Kreia lies to you all the time, twisting and leading you and your companions to constant danger. She persistently avoids answering questions, shuns inquisitiveness where it would affect her, and puts up walls, both mentally and figuratively, against the crew of the Ebon Hawk. She’s a fortress of half-truths and falsehoods.
But when you emerge victorious against Kreia, she gives you the most satisfying present of all: the truth. It’s not profound. It’s just…the truth.
There’s brilliance in Obsidian’s work to have something so mundane as the truth to be cast as the penultimate prize and feel so satisfying. For that to work, Kreia’s lies need to work, and the entire time Kreia functions as an unreliable narrative. She sneaks around and creates deals, whispers dark things in the minds of your comrades, and corrupts those around her to inadvertently do her bidding. In the rare moments of conversation where she reveals a little bit more about herself, she only reveals what’s important to the question, and nothing more.
Much of the impact is due to Sara Kestelman’s phenomenal voice acting, perfectly catching the complex, minute inflections in Kreia’s voice. It takes a considerable amount of skill to recite with persistent weariness, yet at the same time hinting at some hidden drive. When Kreia speaks of Revan, she speaks with pride at having created a hero, a genius, a monster. When Kreia speaks of the Jedi, she speaks with disdain and disgust. When Kreia speaks of the Sith, she speaks with fear and shame.
When she speaks of the truth, she speaks with finality. She speaks with deathbed tenderness. For her, the truth is at the end of all things, a prize to be won. That’s the prize the player is given having reached Malachor V and the end of Knights of the Old Republic 2: the truth about why Kreia did what she did, about why she chose the Exile, and why she she believed in him so, setting the trials she did in the Exile’s path.
She’s selfish. “It is said that the Force has a will, it has a destiny for us all. I wield it, but it uses us all, and that is abhorrent to me.” She snarls. “Because I hate the Force. I hate that it seems to have a will, that it would control us to achieve some measure of balance, when countless lives are lost.”
She’s a puppet master who refuses to become a puppet, orchestrating the Exile to kill and destroy across the galaxy so that what she perceives as vileness can be removed. That knowledge is your reward.
But the player knows it all along. It’s been clear for a while. It’s not about the sudden reveal, or the information. It’s the openness and the fact that it came from Kreia, the liar. After 15-20 hours of exploring, of lies, of inferences and inflections and considerations and suggestions and passive aggressiveness, she takes it all away, just for you.
And you care about it - Kreia’s word are everywhere in Knights of the Old Republic 2, giving you advice and speaking to you about the moral nature of belief and consequence. She frequently hints at her end goals and ideals to the point where you can piece it all together. But as blatant as her goals are, they’re all drenched in layers upon layers of lies. You have to figure it out.
At Malachor V, that all changes. There’s no more inferences and inflections and considerations and suggestions and passive aggressiveness. There’s just the truth, and dear God what a satisfying prize it is.
Joe Yang
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