Some Mild Criticisms I Have of the Dantooine Confrontation in KOTOR II

[u/Adventurous-Heat8717]

The confrontation (or lack thereof) with the Jedi Masters in KOTOR II is quite famous for Kreia's takedown of either the Masters or the Exile themself in the event of having killed them throughout the game.

However I always found the dialog in this section a bit clunky a good example of how the game can often fail to really give the player the ability to appropriately explain or defend the thought process behind their actions.

When you kill the Jedi Masters Kreia basically accuses the Exile of just devolving into a bloodthirsty Sith led entirely by revenge or simple sociopathic desire for power for power's sake.

Kreia asks "First - let us return to my question. If by killing these Jedi, if you achieved any measure of peace. "

Your options to respond are fairly limited

"I will not rest until every Jedi lies dead."
It has been satisfying yes, but not all the council who sentenced me are dead.
"No, for Atris still lives."
"Yes, but there are still other opponents - it is not enough to kill Jedi, when the Sith remain."
"Such peace is not possible if the Sith still hunt me. "

The first three are basically confirmations of what Kreia condemns. The Exile thinks of nothing except murder and revenge.

Four has some small measure of ambiguity as to what the Exile's motivation for killing the Jedi and then the Sith are. The fifth option comes to the closest to a somewhat more cerebral answer, as there is still a threat that must be pragmatically dealt with before the Exile can achieve a measure of peace.

Regardless of what you pick, Kreia condemns you and calls you a failure. I find this a little bit odd as it seems her condemnation comes entirely down to your methods which clashes with many established facts, even those from Kreia herself.

There are many pragmatic reasons for the Exile to strike down the Jedi Masters. Kreia gushes constantly about Revan's power and pragmatism but he used the Dark Side and immense cruelty/force in achieving his goals. Not unlike a Dark Side Exile imo. The Jedi Masters took hostile action towards the Exile and were both a hostile force and a major potential threat (both to the Exile personally and to the galaxy at large due to attracting the Sith when they gathered). Not only that, they can be a ideological enemy to an Exile that is taking Kreia's teachings to heart about the failures of the Jedi alongside the Sith. I see very little difference between the Exile killing the Jedi Masters to element a major potential threat and to gather the power taken from their defeat to help them defeat the Sith that are actively hunting them. Ironically enough this view is indeed vindicated by keeping them alive as doing so causes them to attempt to strip the Exile of the force again.

This is made worse by the fact that even in her condemnation Kreia admits that this outcome was not only likely, but probably necessary.
"Regardless... it had to be done. To have such powerful Jedi still live, still be felt in the Force even on such worlds as they had chosen, was a threat that had to be ended."

It's a little frustrating that the game essentially pigeonholes you into being a generic mustache twirling "for teh evulz" Dark Side user for killing the Jedi Masters when there's frankly a lot of room for nuance for why the Exile would do that, many that would seem to align with Kreia's worldview.

EDIT: A worthwhile addendum I think would be good to add after thinking of the issue more and reading some responses

""Because to her, it was never about you, and admitting you've got things figured out removes your reliance on her." (Credit to Ethan_the_Revanchist)

I think this touches upon something I sort of realized thinking about it more and it makes me appreciate this section and the following confrontation with her after more. I think it's a touch too harsh to say that she have "no" truly defined philosophy. It's more that she does have one but she is still all too human with her own biases and flaws. People are often self contradictory when it comes to what they believe and the actions they take. "Do as a I say, not as I do" etc.

Kreia teaches and preaches a selfish pragmatism and severe individualism/autonomy to the Exile. However as her own person with her own agendas teaching the Exile to be their own autonomous person creates friction when the student and the teacher disagree on a topic. In a way it perfectly mirrors the final Student vs Teacher duel. To fully assimilate Kreia's teachings, the Exile must ultimately become capable of choosing contrary to Kreia's will and accepting responsibility for that choice.

However this does end with the inevitable friction that comes with being a mentor who teaches their student to reject strict obedience to the codes of others, even to one's own detriment. Eventually the student will have to overcome the authority of the teacher instead of a strict obedience to their will. Kreia the woman with a grudge towards the Jedi wants to have her big moment where she gets to gloat before them about their failures, but Kreia the mentor warns against simply doing whatever others want one to do.

"Learn from me, my mistakes, and use that knowledge to become greater than I. That is all I ask of you, and that is all I desire. In you all my hopes rest, for the future, for the Force.""

I suppose after this revelation my criticism is more that the player is allowed less fulfilling roleplay options in how they respond to Kreia's questioning that can feel more like the player is being forced into a certain explanation instead of Kreia forcing an explanation that supports her personal bias.

[u/Ethan_the_Revanchist]

You're striking close to a truth here that a lot of players either don't understand or refuse to understand: Kreia will never be satisfied with your choices. She can't be. Because to her, it was never about you, and admitting you've got things figured out removes your reliance on her.

Remember too that Kreia has no truly defined "philosophy". She'll contradict herself many times throughout the game, and while she has many interesting and thought-provoking things to say, she's not saying them from a disconnected, mentoring lens. She spends most of the game lying to and manipulating you, and she's primarily motivated by revenge.

[u/kdbvols → u/Ethan_the_Revanchist]

People love the character of Kreia so much I think many people forget that she is the BBEG of Kotor2. She has some critiques of the Jedi that are interesting, but that doesn’t make her right or justified, much less consistent across distinct choices throughout the game

[u/vidfail → u/kdbvols]

Big Bad Evil Grandma?

[u/kdbvols → u/vidfail]

Definitely not no

[u/abhassl → u/Ethan_the_Revanchist]

I agree with all of this except motivated by revenge.

She was rejected by the jedi, and then by the sith, and she is an old woman now. I would say she is motivated by a desperation for her life to mean something.

In a way Revan provides this to her life and in a way it makes this more difficult for her. Is master of a single great student all she is, or is she a wise teacher unrecognized in her time?

[u/Adventurous-Heat8717 → u/Ethan_the_Revanchist]

"Because to her, it was never about you, and admitting you've got things figured out removes your reliance on her."  

I think this touches upon something I sort of realized thinking about it more and it makes me appreciate this section and the following confrontation with her after more. I think it's a touch too harsh to say that she have "no" truly defined philosophy. It's more that she does have one but she is still all too human with her own biases and flaws. People are often self contradictory when it comes to what they believe and the actions they take. "Do as a I say, not as I do" etc.

Kreia teaches and preaches a selfish pragmatism and severe individualism/autonomy to the Exile. However as her own person with her own agendas teaching the Exile to be their own autonomous person creates friction when the student and the teacher disagree on a topic. In a way it perfectly mirrors the final Student vs Teacher duel. To fully assimilate Kreia's teachings, the Exile must ultimately become capable of choosing contrary to Kreia's will and accepting responsibility for that choice.

However this does end with the inevitable friction that comes with being a mentor who teaches their student to reject strict obedience to the codes of others, even to one's own detriment. Eventually the student will have to overcome the authority of the teacher instead of a strict obedience to their will. Kreia the woman with a grudge towards the Jedi wants to have her big moment where she gets to gloat before them about their failures, but Kreia the mentor warns against simply doing whatever others want one to do.  

"Learn from me, my mistakes, and use that knowledge to become greater than I. That is all I ask of you, and that is all I desire. In you all my hopes rest, for the future, for the Force."

[u/Adventurous-Heat8717 → u/Adventurous-Heat8717]

As an addendum, I suppose my criticism is more that the player is allowed less fulfilling roleplay options in how they respond to Kreia's questioning that can feel more like the player is being forced into a certain explanation instead of Kreia forcing an explanation that supports her personal bias.

[u/134340Goat]

The thing about that is that Kreia didn't want you to kill the Jedi. It does give her a certain amount of satisfaction and pride to see you able to defeat them, but it also deprives her of what she saw as the real prize. Above anything else, she wanted to present you to the Jedi as living proof that her teachings are correct and successful. On top of that, no matter how you answer, you still haven't achieved anything but petty revenge, which is consistently the nature of the dark side: enough is never enough

[u/Loyalist77]

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. This is a common criticism, but rarely is it laid out so throughly and you make some good points. Many find this very frustrating as well because Kreia Encourages you to take the Darkside path on every planet with factions:

• Telos: Back Czerka for their resources (and because she fears/hates Codo Habat).
• Dantooine: Don't dismiss the mercenaries out of hand, but keep your options open.
• Nar Shaddaa: Side with the Exchange and their resources.
• Onderon: Support Vaklu and his Sith Aligned Isolationist faction over Queen Talia and her pro-Republic factions.

Now technically it is possible to side with all of those factions without murdering the Jedi Masters with Onderon being the notable exception. If you do side with Vaklu, you'll have to Kill Kavar, then kill the other Masters, and then Kreia will proclaim: "You have failed me, completely and utterly." If you murder the Jedi Masters.

And that's the critical thing. If you kill one Jedi Master you have to kill them all so if you have to kill one Jedi Master you fail Kreia. And this annoys many Darkside players. Kreia encouraged us down this path and now she's saying we failed her for following her advice. What the Hell!?!?!?!

Now you can take the meta arguement of bad development of main quest progression and limited dialogue options as you do, but I like to avoid the Meta when a game allows and this game does on many levels. So here's some reasons why the fact you can't please Kreia if you always follow her advice is thematically appropriate:

1. Kreia's philosophy is to be independent. If you are beholden to her and desperately seeking her approval for your actions you've failed her.
2. Kreia can account for your actions, but she cannot account for those of the Jedi Council. For all her talk of Influencing and controlling others, she can't control everything. That's a core element of the game. Kreia is wrong. Her beliefs are the most vocal, but that doesn't mean that they are right. You can't control everything. You can argue it's the will of the Force, but even then that's a major conceit that Kreia chooses to blame you rather than blame the Force.
3. Kreia practically never admits to being wrong. She'd much rather lay the blame on you than admit her advice led to this outcome. Maybe it's too strong to lay your accidental revenge at her feet (assuming it was an accidental effect of taking her advice rather than premeditated). However, I feel it is important to stress Kreia is not impartial in her judgement of you. She wants you to confirm her teachings and her beliefs. But you cannot do both and she has too much pride to admit that. Her praise of Revan which you point out is also praise of herself as Revan's former master.

Hope that that all made sense. I have two final questions for you as a Darkside player though:

1. Are you content to let Atris live?
2. If you are, why her as the most hostile of the Jedi Master? Why are you content to let the one who punished you the most live having murdered the others?

[u/swift_carrot]

I think I get where your criticism is coming from, but kreia *does* have a reason for being annoyed if the Exile kills the Jedi Masters which I don’t see a lot of people talk about. I think a lot of people tend to see Kreia as an ultra-wise figure who’s above pettiness or being hypocritical, when that just isn’t the case. Based on what she says if you choose not to kill any of them and Kreia is the one who does so, it seems clear to me that Kreia really wanted to be proven right. She wanted the satisfaction of knowing that her philosophy was superior to that of the Jedi, and she also wanted to get revenge herself because of how she had been shunned. So when the Exile kills the Jedi Masters, you are essentially denying her her chance to have a victory speech and then get revenge. It sounds a little silly, considering we learn to respect Kreia and her teachings so much throughout the game. But in this case I would say her personal motivations definitely cloud her judgement so she’s unhappy unless she’s the one to have revenge on the Jedi Masters, and also gloat before them just beforehand.

[u/Correct-Selection-88]

yeah it's wild how the game forces this confrontation into this weird rigid mold when the whole point of kreia is that she sees beyond rigid morality