Star Wars: Rebels Offers Another Big Knights Of The Old Republic Connection

With Disney recanonising elements of the old Star Wars Expanded Universe left and right lately, there's one huge element that fans of the EU are dying to have back: Bioware and Obsidian's beloved Knights of the Old Republic RPGs. And while it's not quite official yet, the newest episode of Rebels just added a lore more of it to the canon.

This weekend's episode, "Trials of the Darksaber," gave us a ton of new backstory for the titular weapon, which, turns out, is an ancient lightsaber originally wielded by the first Mandalorian ever inducted into the Jedi Order, Ta Viszla. But it also gave a chance for Kanan to discuss the Order's less-than-pleasant history with the Mandalorians since the Darksaber's creation. While training Sabine to use the weapon, Kanan casually reminds the cocky young Mandolrian that, "History lesson — the Jedi won the war with Mandalore."

Naturally, fans eager to see Knights of the Old Republic back in the canon took this as a reference to the Mandalorian Wars, a huge element of the backstory of the games — which are set thousands of years before the events of the movies — that saw the Old Republic, the Jedi Order, and the Mandalorians wage a massive war against each other.

The war saw the rise of the infamous Darth Revan, and ended when the future protagonist of Knights of the Old Republic II activated a superweapon over the planet Malachor V, exterminating seas of Jedi and Mandalorians alike. Not exactly a Jedi "victory," like Kanan describes, but still, it definitely seems like a big nod to this major aspect of KOTOR's galaxy-building.

This isn't the first time a bone has been thrown in the direction of KOTOR in the new canon. Taris, a planet originally introduced in the first game, has been namechecked in both The Force Awakens tie-in novels and got a nod in the form of Senator Pamlo in Rogue One.

Even Rebels itself hasn't shied away from hinting at the series, with the climactic events of the show's second season taking place on the planet Malachor, the site of the final major battle in the Mandalorian/Jedi conflict nodded to in this week's episode that formed a major part of the backstory of the lead characters in both KOTOR and its sequel, The Sith Lords.

Fans very nearly got their wishes to see Knights of the Old Republic canonized when Darth Revan, a major character from the series, almost appeared in a season six arc of Clone Wars only to be cut and replaced with Darth Bane at the request of George Lucas himself.

But now, bit by bit, names and elements from the era of the Old Republic are slowly making their way back into Star Wars' official lore. Maybe, one day soon, KOTOR will make its way there in its entirety too. After all, as Ahsoka teased in season two, there's always a bit truth in legends.


    So long as Disney reap the rewards from the current stable of movies and TV I have no doubt we'll be seeing KOTOR content at some stage and I'm more than fine with this!

      Hard to tell... EA have pretty much abandoned the IP after the MMO, so all that content is pretty much Legends (non-cannon) until such time the Story Group chooses to use them in either the cartoon, marvel comics or the movies.

      With them choosing Thrawn is a good start but they pretty much admitted that this episode they had to sit down and write the backstory of the Saber even though they have been using it as a story point in cartoon mandalores for two cartoons.

    It was a great episode for what has felt like a very slow season

      Definitely. It may not have been an action-packed episode, but damn it had some amazing lore & character development. Sabine basically breaking down in front of the others to reveal her secret was amazing.
      Rebels may have started off weak, but it's episodes like this that feel like it's returning to the style of the later seasons of Clone Wars.

      Still didn't like Kallus smiling at the end of last week's episode, though.

    I know people trashed their doing it but I've loved Disney doing this to Star Wars. They set everything aside, now they're cherrypicking the best bits and bringing them back slowly. Just adoring how well its slotting in together.

      I think it's greatcl. The old expanded universe was so bloated with hidden Jedi and secret sith

        Unfortunately ten years from now I think we'll be right back there. Everyone knows everyone and they're all Jedi.

      I don't know... I'm vexed that they discarded Kyle Katarn and Dark Forces for the plot of Rogue One.
      I'd rather Rogue One had been about Rogue Squadron.

    The hammerhead corvette design in rogue one that

    pushed the star destroyer into the shield generator

    was first seen in KOTOR or KOTOR 2.

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