Vrook Lamar, certainly one of the most maligned and villified good guys I've ever seen, was probably the most honest person in the KotOR games. He doesn't hide from who and what he is, and I guess I value that in a person. And Bastila...well, she's a tool, just as much as Revan was, poor kid.
Sometimes, you've just got to look at things from a different perspective.
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The first time Vrook met Bastila, he was unimpressed. A slip of a girl whose only talent was a skill whose usefulness was only as good as the user's concentration…well, such a girl had no place on a strike team whose mission was assassinating the current Dark Lord of the Sith, he said. He said that several times, but unfortunately, his fellow Masters on the Council had lost their minds, for they overruled him.
"We need her power, Vrook. I don't think we can succeed without her skills," Vandar told him apologetically, and Vrook felt like pointing out that a seventeen year old girl with mediocre saber skills and a talent for thinking really hard hadn't won any of the wars he'd seen, and he was sure it wasn't any different now.
Instead, he bit his tongue and counted to ten, and told the others, "If she's doing this, I'm training her. Her saber skills are atrocious." They smile and give their assent, and Vrook tries not to glare at them. He's being used, and so is Bastila, but he's gotten used to it. He doubts she even knows.
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And he's right. The girl sees only the honor, not the shame. She can't fight, she can't think – but she can die. And Vrook hates the waste of it all – because even if she's nothing now, she won't always be nothing, not if she survives this war. There's no point in sending her to her death, no point at all. Battle Meditation will not save them, and he's reasonably sure that killing Revan won't save them – after all, that still leaves Malak, doesn't it?
Bastila is only a mascot, a sign of hope to the Republic. Unfortunately, the nature of such signs is that they rarely survive long, especially if they lack both common sense and swordsmanship.
So he drills her and drills her and drills her some more, until she can block and strike in her sleep. Jut that, though. He doesn't bother teaching her any specific lightsaber forms – that'd just distract her. She doesn't understand, though.
"Why won't you teach me a form? I would be less of a liability against Revan-"
"Wrong," he snaps. "Revan might be a military genius and the current Dark Lord of the Sith, but he was only a mediocre swordsman. Still better than you, of course, but what I'm teaching you are the basics, and these basics will keep you alive far longer than fancy footwork and flashing lights. Now begin again."
Fuming, Bastila picks up her vibroblade and gets into the proper position again. Vrook begins the pattern – block, strike, block, strike, strike, strike – "Pay attention to me, Padawan! Battle Meditation will not save you if Revan guts you where you stand!"
Bastila flushes, and renews her attack. "Yes, Master Vrook," she mutters through gritted teeth, and he grins and attacks her again, quickly disarming her. He sees resentment smoldering in her blue eyes, but he doesn't care. His duty is to teach Jedi what they need to survive, not molly-coddle them until they die. Maybe she's beginning to understand that, because she lunges for her weapon and begins again.
"Good," he says approvingly, and just for a second a triumphant smile lights her face.
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Three months later, another Council meeting is called, and Vrook wearily sets off for the long trip between Dantooine and Coruscant. It's uncomfortable in the shuttle, and he busies himself piloting, leaving Vandar to his meditation. The strike team left two weeks ago, and they've had no news. There was a small victory in the Mid-Rim, but there is no news other than that.
Vrook has never believed that no news is good news. Generally, it's the opposite, and he prays that what he thinks is not true, that it really was some insignificant little battle that the Republic won, and not some monumental mistake that had the added side benefit of temporarily setting the Sith back.
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It's nothing like he thinks it is, but that's cold comfort. Bastila is alive, but so is Revan. And he's sitting in the Council Chambers, listening to Kavar outline the most crack-brained scheme he's ever heard.
"By all rights, Revan should stand trial for his crimes and be executed according to Republic law. This abomination of a plan…I cannot support it. To do such a thing would go against all of the Republic's laws, all of our own traditions," Vrook says, and his voice is cutting and cruel. "This is something a Sith would do, not a Jedi, and I am surprised we are even contemplating it." His face is white with fury, and he stares disbelievingly at the faces of his fellow Masters.
In the end, his is the only dissenting voice, and he looks at the Council as though seeing them for the first time. These people…these people are not the same people he grew up with, not if they are going to do this.
And for the first time in his twenty-five-year tenure on the Jedi Council, he leaves before the session ends.
He refuses to be a part of this.
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Bastila finds him at the shuttlebay waiting for the shuttle to be prepped and fueled. As far as he's concerned, Vandar can find his own way home – he's leaving now.
"Master Vrook!" She sounds shrill and questioning, and he is reminded of how very young Bastila is. It's never far from his mind, but every so often it strikes him, and he realizes anew how far the Jedi have fallen. To send little more than children into battle as generals…
"Yes, Padawan?" he asks, and as he turns to face her, she looks insecure for just a moment.
"Master Vrook, I – I don't understand. Why are you leaving so soon?"
He snorts. "You mean, why am I leaving before Revan is destroyed?"
She flinches as though he has struck her.
"It's a second chance," she tells him quietly, and she meets his eyes honestly and he realizes that she really believes that.
"A second chance? No. A second chance assumes the individual redeems himself of his own free will. What is happening to Revan is not redemption, it is destruction. They will destroy who he is, leaving only the what as the raw materials for another weapon…"
Bastila looks at him like she's never seen him before, and Vrook knows she doesn't understand.
"Revan, whatever he is, deserves better than this," he tells her before he goes home.
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He keeps tabs on Bastila, as the war goes on. All of them, really, all the Jedi and Padawans he's trained over the years, all the children who now fight in dark places. News comes of this and that one's death, and he makes a note of it and light a candle in their memory.
There are many candles, now.
He knows that in many cases, he is the only person to mourn them, their only teacher, the only person who passes for mother and father, and a part of him acknowledges that his own end will be similarly unheralded. Another part wonders bitterly why they have to live alone, as well as die alone, but he's reasonably sure that's the old age talking. A Jedi's life is sacrifice, after all.
He just wishes it weren't so for the children like Bastila.
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A year after Revan's death, Bastila is assigned to a ship called the Endar Spire. Her posting is well-publicized, almost as if the Council wants her to be seen. They probably do – Bastila is the bait in a new trap. A former apprentice of his tells him that the Republic commander she's serving with is a man named Carth Onasi, a veteran from the Mandalorian Wars.
Hopefully, she'll have a better chance of survival with a man like that by her side. He's not entirely surprised, though, when he hears the Endar Spire is destroyed over Taris by Malak's fleet. He just sighs heavily and lights another candle.
What a waste.