In 2008, the Star Wars world was taken by storm by a conflicted Sith Apprentice.  He wore his mastery of the Force like a mixture of a billboard and a battering ram in the way he acted as a mobile Hurricane Katrina in his missions throughout the Star Wars galaxy.  Most shocking of all, he did this in an era that was restricted for so long- a time period whose stories so far had been restricted to smugglers, gamblers, and spies and mostly published over twenty years ago.

In The Force Unleashed, Starkiller defined events fans had only dreamed about, while at the same time displaying public acts of Force prowess that would have made Obi-Wan Kenobi second guess his decision to leave an untrained Luke alone with Starkiller’s master.  And, in the end, Starkiller too, renamed Galen Marek after the child he had once been, made the ultimate sacrifice, becoming the inspiration not for the Rebellion itself, but for its leaders and its symbolism.  But there’s more to the story…

“The Jedi are extinct; their fire has gone out of the universe. You, my friend, are all that’s left of their religion.”

Such is our introduction to the Jedi Order, by none other than one of the most powerful men in the Empire at the finale of its Golden Age, such as it were. After years of hunting, the Jedi Masters, save two that exist on the verge of death, have been hunted and killed. Even the man who founded the doctrine that the threat of force is as effective as force itself has no fear of the Jedi.

Rewind, then, two years. A pair of high profile and powerful Jedi Knights- one a former Sith Assassin and one a General of the Clone Wars, do battle with the Emperor himself. One of them nearly destroys Darth Vader and they come very close to toppling the foundation of the New Order in the process of founding the Alliance to Restore the Republic.

Galen Marek, formerly known as the Starkiller, died, a martyr at the hands of the Dark Lord of the Sith. But Kota?

Rahm Kota, at the end of the events of The Force Unleashed, was not only alive, he was more dangerous than ever to the Empire. While he spent two decades lying in wait, preparing his trap prior to being defeated at the hands of Starkiller, now he’s recovered from his crisis with a resolve stronger than he’s had since the Clone Wars. He now has a martyr to inspire him, and has appeared in other games continuing to become enmeshed in the complicated history of the first Death Star battle station.

How, then, does Tarkin make this grand statement? Where is Kota when not one, but two Jedi- and a latent Force-Sensitive- infiltrate the Death Star, and then go on to take part in the battle to destroy it, along with another potential Jedi?

Simply put, Rahm Kota is dead, and the Empire knows it. And the Rebels know it.

LucasArts- and the rest of the monolithic story-telling structure behind it- could never get away with introducing a character in a major multimedia event, and then killing them off with barely a whimper in a magazine article or unknown game. The fan backlash would be tremendous, the loss of credibility more so (in that the latter would actually have an impact). With a franchise moving in a direction that’s already criticized by some as undoing decades of fandom, this would arguably be a shark-jumping moment.

(See other shark-jumping moments)

So here we have a character who was introduced out of thin air- a character who easily could have been a well known character, with a backstory and explanation. Instead, we have a new character- a character who will not sit back and hide through the Rebellion (unless somebody cuts off his ears), who must be fleshed out and then die, relatively quietly so as not to disturb the coming battle he will not take a part in.

How better to die with a whimper, yet still valiantly, still public enough for the public not to call foul, but to die in the shadow of a man who could almost be called your apprentice, fighting in the sequel to his game? Kota keeps his dignity, LucasFilms Ltd keeps their fans, and fans keep our canon. Any other way breeds despair.

Rest in Peace, Rahm Kota. We hardly knew ye.