22 Years Later, Star Wars Revives Darth Nihilus

It's fairly plain to see why Darth Nihilus has such an enduring legacy. Everything about him, from his tragic backstory to his terrifying character design and his long list of powers, makes him iconic. Nihilus is literally in a league of his own among Star Wars' villains; he's described as a living "wound in the Force," one who has lost his corporeal form and essentially possesses his mask while eating the Force itself to sate his unending hunger.

Nihilus' description alone is awesome, he's basically a force of nature rather than a person. However, it's what he stands for that gives him real staying power. Nihilus, as his name suggests, is an agent of nihilism, albeit a twisted understanding of the philosophical framework. Nihilism, to vastly oversimplify, posits that life and existence have no inherent meaning. Philosophers like Nietzsche and Sartre argued that nihilism allows humans to find their own meaning in life rather than search for an objective one, but Nihilus represents the more depressing form of nihilism, that since nothing has any meaning, nothing has any value, either.

Aside from his name, Darth Nihilus exhibits this twisted view of nihilism in a number of ways. Clearly, since he regularly consumes the living Force, the thing that binds all living things together in Star Wars, Nihilus doesn't believe it has any value. He has no regard for life, only power. Nihilus is an incredibly dense and nuanced character, of course, but his relationship to nihilism is a defining part of his character. Now, Star Wars has introduced a new character who mirrors Nihilus' philosophy.

The Ninth Jedi’s Nawaam Is A Spiritual Successor To KOTOR II’s Darth Nihilus

Warning! This article contains SPOILERS for Star Wars: Visions Presents - The Ninth Jedi.Darth Nihilus doesn't appear in any capacity in Star Wars: Visions Presents - The Ninth Jedi, but the new anime series does have a character who acts as his spiritual successor. General Nawaam, the main antagonist of The Ninth Jedi, is just as staunch an advocate of nihilism as Darth Nihilus was in KOTOR II. He doesn't have nearly the litany of Force powers, and his backstory is very different, but Nawaam is closer to Nihilus than almost anyone else.

Nawaam's main goal throughout The Ninth Jedi is to reach a complete lack of emotion, or, as he puts it, a completely empty heart. In the show, lightsabers crafted by Lah Zhima reflect the inner workings of their wielders' hearts, and Nawaam wants his to turn a clear silver to show that he has gone "beyond" the dichotomy of the Jedi and the Sith, of light and dark, in The Ninth Jedi's reimagining of gray Jedi. He believes that a state of nothingness will help him bring order to a galaxy mired in chaos.

Nawaam's outlook on the Force, his quest for nothingness, and the way he goes about galactic domination without any regard for the mass destruction and loss of life that his kyber cannon will cause, securely cement him as a nihilist. Nawaam, like Nihilus, values only one thing in the entire galaxy: power. Life, the Force, the Jedi and Sith, even the galaxy he seeks to conquer, are meaningless in Nawaam's eyes. He even outright tells Kara that "Good and evil are no different in the end. They’re two halves of the same whole. Unless you accept both, you will be lost."

Both Nihilus and Nawaam represent the same existential threat to the Jedi. Why fight for the light, for truth and justice, if none of it has any meaning? Why oppose a warlord taking over the galaxy if life has no intrinsic value? Of course, The Ninth Jedi and KOTOR II are very different stories, and Nawaam and Nihilus are very different characters. However, Nawaam may be the closest Star Wars has gotten to reviving Darth Nihilus and the philosophy he represented in the decades since he last appeared.

Nawaam Isn't The First Modern Star Wars Character Inspired By Nihilus

Nawaam is a spiritual successor to Darth Nihilus, but he's not the only character inspired by the KOTOR II villain in recent memory. The High Republic's Marchion Ro, the Eye of the Nihil, is also very closely related to nihilism and Nihilus. Some of Marchion's nihilism is plain to see: he leads the Nihil, a group of marauders whose name is clearly derived from nihilism, he outright says in one comic that he believes he's the only person in the galaxy that matters, and he eventually worked to extinguish all life from the galaxy before he was defeated.

Many of the ways Marchion operates also align him with Nihilus. At one point, Marchion weaponizes a Nameless, a being that feeds on the living Force, just as Nihilus ate the living Force himself. Later, Marchion uses the Blight, a disease that drains the life out of anyone that it touches, rendering them empty husks. His Nihil, as well, are anarchistic marauders who attack and pillage aimlessly, with no values and no respect for anything. He also cordons off a huge swath of the galaxy, cutting it off from the Republic's control; in a figurative sense, consuming it to service his own goals.

In each of their cases, Nihilus, Nawaam, and Marchion Ro are nihilistic villains who either literally or figuratively consume the galaxy to feed their own thirst for power and quest against the Jedi. They have no regard for life, they implicitly or explicitly deny that existence has any objective meaning, and they serve as existential threats to both the Jedi and the Force itself. Clearly, Star Wars has a track record of villains with ideas that are at least adjacent to Nihilism, and that usually makes for a very good antagonist.

Nawaam & Marchion Ro Are Great, But Star Wars Still Needs To Bring Darth Nihilus Back Properly

Star Wars clearly still has an interest in villains like Darth Nihilus; Marchion Ro and Nawaam make that very clear. However, as good and engaging as Nawaam and Marchion are, they're not perfect replacements for Nihilus. They may represent the same idea of nihilism as he does, but there's a lot more to Nihilus that makes him such an enduring and popular figure. Star Wars can keep trying to replicate Nihilus — it's clearly an effective strategy for writing an engaging antagonist — but the franchise should also bring the Sith Lord himself back properly.

There's clearly still a desire among Star Wars fans and writers alike for a villain like Darth Nihilus. Everything he stands for, both philosophically and in opposition to the Jedi, makes for a great Star Wars story. Despite that, and despite his popularity and "cool factor," Nihilus hasn't been canon since 2014. He's dismissed as non-canon Legends, and instead of using him to fuel new Star Wars stories, Nihilus has been relegated to a two-decade-old video game.

Luckily, there's never been a better time for Star Wars to consider re-canonizing Darth Nihilus. There's reportedly still a remake of Knights of the Old Republic in the works, though it has been in development limbo for years now. If and when it finally gets released, and assuming KOTOR II gets the same remake treatment, Disney and Lucasfilm can decide to make it canon once again. It would be unprecedented, but not entirely out of the realm of possibility.

Even if they never remake KOTOR II or decide to keep it as a Legends story, Disney and Lucasfilm still have a way to bring Nihilus into canon. The Star Wars timeline is incredibly lopsided, with mountains of canon stories taking place in the Skywalker Saga and almost nothing for thousands of years before that. The timeline is basically a blank canvas: it's so far removed from the main Star Wars movies that even major events, like a Force-eating Sith Lord, wouldn't have huge ripples in established canon.

Star Wars could even give Nihilus the Thrawn treatment. Famously, Timothy Zahn's Heir to the Empire novels started out as part of the Expanded Universe and were later designated non-canon. Thrawn, however, was so well-received and popular that Star Wars had Zahn rewrite the books as the Thrawn Ascendancy trilogy for canon. Star Wars could do the same thing with Nihilus; tell a new story about the character without having to canonize everything from KOTOR II.