Reva receives attention on her fate and moral predicament in addition to viewers’ empathy.
Obi-Wan Kenobi was designed to be outstanding among its Disney+ rivals, despite being preceded by an amazing series that broadened the Star Wars realm. Viewers looked forward to renewing the volatile post-Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith contention between Obi-Wan and Anakin/Darth Vader with the reappearance of Hayden Christensen as Anakin/Darth Vader and Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan.
Vader performs admirably in each scene he appears in, provoking fascination with his savagery and moral convolution. Nonetheless, one does not simply neglect that in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, the Sith Lord does come back to the light side of the Force, finding atonement by giving up his life to save his son, Luke, 14 years after what happened in this show. With his dreadful destiny, he pioneers a well-known Star Wars trope in which a character who has fallen from grace must make a sacrifice in order to be saved. Another notable instance is Kylo Ren from Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, who sacrifices his own life to save the movie’s main character, Rey. The Inquisitor Reva Sevander (Moses Ingram), a Kenobi-original character, leaves the biggest impression on the series at this point. We see a Star Wars villain for the first time who does not perish after switching to the light side.
A recurring element with the villains in this series is that they are presented as hopeless cases with almost no chance for reform, only for the finale to disclose that they are capable of change—but only if they are willing to die as a martyr for the greater good. Although Reva’s fate was a fresh element to the script, many other parts of her story are similar to Kylo’s and Vader’s in structure. Because Reva is driven by her personal goal of vowing revenge for her fellow younglings, much like Anakin is by his resentment of the Jedi Order, viewers may draw comparisons between her and her master.
Kylo Ren is also motivated by his lust for power, heightened by a desire to exceed his ancestors. Since they don’t appear to be committed to any single organization, their own incentives make every action unforeseeable. Darth Vader‘s reputation as a harsh enforcer is set up early on in Star Wars: A New Hope. He brutally chokes a rebel officer in one of his opening sequences, and during the whole trilogy, he treats Imperial officers in the exact way without hesitation. During one of her earliest appearances in the show, Reva tries to kill a Jedi although the Grand Inquisitor planned to question him, establishing Reva as a cruel character, similar to her master. Reva is eager to use tremendous measures to catch Kenobi, even turning against her own group by killing (or so she believed she had killed) the Grand Inquisitor, similar to how Vader is eager to vent his rage on anyone. Kylo Ren, on the other hand, murders his own father despite having his sins forgiven and being exhorted to walk away from evil. He is compelled to kill his Sith master, Snoke, though, by his ideology of acquiring power.
Every character’s final atonement serves as a payout for the audience as their rage causes them to grow morally bankrupt. They spend a lot of time nurturing their wickedness to stress the point that in order for people like them to change for the better, they have to give up everything. More particularly, Kylo and Vader have to show the public their transformation by sacrificing their souls to save their morally superior counterparts (Rey and Luke, respectively). And here is the place that the Reva’s likeness with Kylo and Vader’s stops.
Reva receives attention on her fate and moral predicament in addition to viewers’ empathy. We wonder if Vader and Kylo would leave the dark side in their individual movies. However, in Vader’s instance, the tension is heated up to a particular moment when Palpatine is trying to murder Luke. The audience is made wondering if he will act wisely or foolishly at that particular time. Viewers are also aware that Luke would survive, therefore to Reva, the potential for “suspense” when she is going to kill Luke is erased. The tension therefore centers on the way that Reva will be prevented, or the reason she will let Luke go, as it is already clear that Luke won’t be murdered. To put it in another way, Reva captures the complete attention of viewers. In addition, in the penultimate episode of Obi-Wan Kenobi, following her botched assasination effort against Vader, Darth Vader stabs her. She is informed by the Grand Inquisitor that “revenge does wonders for the will to live,” suggesting that maybe her will to revenge is what motivates her to leave for Tatooine in spite of her severe wound. If that’s the case, viewers should have known that abandoning her dark side loyalty would ultimately result in her demise.
Obi-Wan underscores that her history does not decide who she is once she is determined that she cannot force herself to murder Luke. Obi-Wan responds, “Who you become now — that is up to you. Now you are free,” to her query about whether she has turned into Vader and is beyond lost to be saved. He kindly offers to assist her in getting up off the ground. Reva not only lives despite her misdeeds, but she also manages to find the strength to live her life without seeking retribution. This sequence, which is different from Vader and Kylo’s dying moments, is entirely concentrated on what preserving Luke means to Reva rather than appeasing viewers by letting a cherished hero go.
Star Wars advocates can take solace in this uplifting message, even though it is unclear what options Reva may choose after her atonement, which serves as an example of how a villain’s life need not be dictated by the need to forward the story of a protagonist. Instead, Reva gains the ability to follow her own story, free from the need for vengeance that drove her to the dark side. Maybe Reva, dissimilar to the Star Wars antagonists before her, would accept responsibility for her crimes and take the time to reflect on the universe from her newly acquired viewpoint. Reva is a well-known example of a person whose past would not define her present and who overcame her resentment to turn her life around, regardless of where she ends up in the huge Star Wars universe.
