There are a couple of reasons that Darth Revan is trending on Twitter lately, and one of them is pretty easy to explain, while the other is kind of humorous and might take a bit. The first one is that the image of Darth Revan showed up in the animated series after Bo-Katan returned Darth Maul to the Republic in an ancient container designed to hold Jedi. It can be seen by those that are looking that Revan’s likeness is on the front of the container, which is accurate since Revan was an important figure in the Mandalorian War that pitted the fierce warrior culture against the Jedi. It’s even more important because Revan was the Supreme Commander of the Jedi at that time before he was turned by the dark side and became Darth Revan along with his apprentice, Darth Malak. As a Sith, Revan was a true nightmare that the Jedi had to deal with, and it took wiping his mind after he’d been betrayed by Darth Malak to deal with him. But as those that have played the Knights of the Old Republic game, or have researched Revan know, he’s a rather powerful Jedi that became a Sith, regained his memories, and learned once again of the Star Forge that he and Malak had planned to use to rid the galaxy of the Sith, even though they ended up fighting in the Jedi Civil War against the Jedi and the Republic. It was a mess to be certain, and one that Revan did much to right before he finally passed on. But there’s another reason that Revan is trending, and surprisingly it doesn’t have as much to do with him. The question of whether Disney will be bringing him into canon is the big one, the answer that people want to hear, but as one can imagine, things have been a bit sidetracked.
If there are still people that are not aware of this and care about it, Star Wars fans can get a little finicky about who claims to be a fan of their beloved franchise, and thus gatekeepers, those that try to act as the arbiters of who can and can’t like Star Wars, tend to spring up when they see people stating that they like Star Wars and have since the most recent trilogy came out, or have enjoyed Star Wars since the prequels. This is where the path of fandom diverges since those that act as gatekeepers are often resentful that something they love so dearly is apparently being co-opted by those that have no idea what they’re talking about, and have the audacity to ask “what’s a Revan?”. You can go ahead and laugh now because things have become pretty ridiculous when fans of a franchise aren’t willing to simply let people exclaim that they happen to like the franchise and have for a little while. The ‘gatekeepers’ are understandably ridiculous since becoming irate over someone not knowing as much about Star Wars but professing to know and like anything doesn’t mean much. If a person wants to like something about Star Wars, more power to them. I’ve been a Star Wars fan since the 80s, meaning back in pre-school I was ‘oohing’ and ‘aahing’ over the golden C-3PO figure and Luke Skywalker in his black suit from Return of the Jedi. I wanted the X-Wing, I had the Millennium Falcon, Han Solo, and Chewbacca, and yet it’s been easy over the years to talk about the franchise with those that might not know much but want to learn.
The point is this: being a fan doesn’t mean knowing absolutely everything about the franchise. A lot of people that have been Star Wars fans for years don’t know about Revan, and that’s okay since they don’t need to know in order to be fans. But those that want to learn more about Darth Revan and what he could mean for the franchise would be wise to search online, possibly read up about KOTOR, and simply follow along until they get the gist of the story, then think about what this could mean since the Mandalorians have already been presented in a big way thanks to the last two seasons of The Mandalorian, and will hopefully be featured even more prominently in the years to come. Even better, if Darth Revan is brought into the canon, it could stretch the story even further since Revan lived thousands of years before the stories that have people have come to know, and inspired several Sith, including Darth Bane, who came up with the Rule of Two. In short, bringing Darth Revan into the canon would be a huge boost to the franchise and would open the door to even more stories that could last for a long, long time. But when claiming to be a Star Wars fan it’s important to remember, gatekeeping isn’t a favored part of the franchise. Teach people what there is to learn, and help them to enjoy it.
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