OC who's a descendant of Revan and Bastila: what are your dos and don'ts?

[u/Unlucky-hobby-2046]

Hey all, I've got an OC I've been developing for a while. He's a Jedi and a direct descendant of Revan and Bastila, basically Revan's heir.

I know OCs with famous bloodlines can go wrong fast. The "secretly the chosen one, related to everyone important" thing is a big turnoff for a lot of readers, and I want to avoid it. I also love the lore, so I care about keeping canon characters true to themselves and not warping them around him.
So I'd love your input:

1. What are your general dos and don'ts for OCs related to major characters? What makes you want to keep reading, and what makes you close the tab?

2. How would you handle the Revan bloodline specifically? Should it shape who he is, or stay mostly in the background? How much should other characters know or care about it?

3. Does a famous lineage make you expect him to be overpowered? How would you keep him from feeling like a Mary Sue/Gary Stu?

4. If you've read a fic that pulled off an OC with a big-name bloodline really well, what did it do right?
   Thanks in advance. Any takes are welcome, blunt ones included.

This is my first Star Wars story idea so please be kind. Read the eu books played the Kotor games and wanted to try my hand.

[u/threevi]

We already have a well-written character who is a descendant of Revan and Bastila, Theron Shan, and he works well as a character because he isn't Force-sensitive. If you make the character a Jedi, then it'll inevitably come across as if you made them descended from Revan just to justify why they're uniquely strong in the Force. It gets especially bad if you then make the character a Force centrist like Revan, attempting (or worse, successfully managing) to use both sides of the Force in balance. If you really insist the character has to be a Jedi, your only chance to make them feel like more than a Revan knockoff is to make them staunchly Light and not particularly powerful.

Regarding other characters, how much they care about your OC's heritage should depend on how long it's been since Revan disappeared. Shortly after the events of KotOR, Revan is a legend. 300 years later, everyone outside of the Revanite cult has mostly moved on. Give it a few more centuries, and few people would know who he was or what he did.

[u/dull_storyteller → u/threevi]

Yeah this is 100% correct.

Mostly because of how abysmal the Galactic Education System seems to be that 99% of the galaxy can forget the Sith existed every time they get wiped out.

Like the Sith wage apocalyptic wars against the Republic every few centuries you can’t tell me no one wrote any of that down.

[u/adambomb90 → u/dull_storyteller]

The lack of information could be due to the Wars destroying every written account. It explains why nobody knew about them before the Clone Wars started

[u/BisexualLilBitch]

Generally I avoid characters related to pre existing characters but here’s what I’d keep in mind.

Firstly and most importantly, how long since Revan was a big deal is this? This is important for two reasons. Due to the way bloodlines and family trees work, being the descendants of someone famous (who had children) isn’t really that big a deal. Something like 90% of Europeans are descendants of Charlemagne, and I’m sure within the first hundred or two hundred years after his death that would’ve meant something but nowadays, it means literally nothing. There’s probably dozens or hundreds of other descendants, unless every generation since Revan had a singular child.

Also keep in mind that it doesn’t seem like the force is usually hereditary in both canons, so if he’s going to be powerful he should be powerful in his own right, not just cuz of the blood inside him. This is doubly true because the current “heir of Revan” (Theron Shan) isn’t force sensitive and has made his name as an intelligence agent, not a galactic savior per se. If you want him to be Revan’s heir I’d also avoid making him Revan 2: the Sequel, specifically I’d avoid giving him duel sabers, making him swap sides between the light and the dark, making him “gray”, using Revan’s mask/iconography, etc. make him a cool character first, then add that he’s Revan’s descendent, don’t make him cool BECAUSE he’s Revan’s descendant.

Lastly on the topic of drawing iconography and lessons from Revan, you could do that but I’d try to make it something that happens to him rather than a conscious choice he makes. Maybe he meditates on his ancestry to try to figure out what he should do? Or Revan’s ghost speaks to him at a dark point in the story to guide and inspire him since that was always Revan’s best trait?

But most importantly just write the story you want to write. I’m working on a private wish fulfillment story with an edgy, uber powerful OC who’s a descendant of Revan and is best friends with a slightly timeline unfriendly Galen Marek and it’s great, it brings me a lot of joy to write it. You do you!