Ranking Legacy of the Sith's Major NPCs

I said that I'd have more to say about Legacy of the Sith now that its story has finally wrapped up. One of the things I wanted to go into in more detail were the characters, because without a doubt, LotS has been the most character-driven storyline SWTOR has ever had.

I decided I'd like to rank the story's major characters from best to worse in terms of how much character development they got and how much I personally enjoyed both watching and interacting with them. Note that this will contain spoilers for various events that occurred throughout Legacy of the Sith.

1. Rass Ordo

The top spot on my list goes to young Mandalorian Rass Ordo without a doubt. I liked him when he was first introduced in Spirit of Vengeance, and he's only continued to develop from there. I may be biased here because he's the only one of the characters on this list with whom I've pursued a romance so far, but I do think his character development has been apparent even in the non-romantic scenes. He was pretty carefree and cheerful when he was introduced to us, and over time we got to witness him first becoming annoyed with the shenanigans of the Hidden Chain and then seriously disenchanted after Shae Vizla's betrayal. At the same time this only strengthened his bond to our character as someone standing for loyalty and stability, and I can't wait to see him again in 8.0.

2. Darth Nul

She may be dead and/or insane, but Darth Nul has in some ways been the unexpected star of this expansion. It's called "Legacy of the Sith" after all and nobody else seems to have left a bigger legacy for us to deal with than her. Obviously she doesn't actually do (much of) anything herself, but the arc of our characters first learning of her existence and then slowly finding out more and more about her until finally confronting her crazed spirit in the mind trap is very satisfying. It looks like we're not done discovering more of her strange projects and inventions either.

3. Shae Vizla

If we look at the Mandalorian side of this expansion's storytelling, it's largely been driven by Shae Vizla's slow descent into... not insanity, but obsession with beating Heta Kol and doing so personally (which, to be fair, is a very Mandalorian thing to do). It's very well written, from her at first very understandable desire to sort out this beef one-on-one on Ruhnuk, to her increased annoyance with the matter of Heta after the latter gets away yet again, to Shae going off like a lone wolf to confront Heta for a third time, eventually dropping out of contact and making everyone's lives worse in the process. It's a classic tragedy as we watch her make several bad (but understandable) decisions after another, which eventually cumulate in her death - even if she does manage to take Heta with her.

4. Darth Malgus 

For being this expansion's original poster boy, Darth Malgus kind of had surprisingly little to do. He gets captured right at the start, then spends several patches brooding in prison not saying much. After he's broken out by Shae, we get a few cool cut scenes of him smashing Hidden Chain soldiers during the hunt for Heta and her machine, but he doesn't really get to shine until the Legacy Reborn update. Honestly, purely based on how much he actually does in Legacy of the Sith, I probably would have to rank him lower if I'm being honest, he just manages to be so cool in everything he does that he still manages to be pretty fun to watch even when it's not that impactful.

5. Darth Jadus 

How long have people been asking for this guy to return in some fashion? And we finally got it! He's still as cunning and infuriatingly smooth-talking as ever and the interactions we've had with him so far have been great. The reason I can't rank him any higher is that he doesn't show up until pretty late in the game and is obviously being set up to clash with us again at a later point, presumably in 8.0 or after.

6. Jekiah Ordo

I never thought that this character, originally introduced to us as basically Shae's P.A., would grow on me as much as he has, but his decision to stand by the Alliance Commander after Shae goes rogue really endeared him to me (which was not a given). He always exudes a calm air of authority but doesn't hesitate to get sharp when he thinks people are stepping out of line (mostly his little brother, hah) while also displaying a softer side with those he cares about. I'm very curious to see where his journey will take him in 8.0 and after.

7. Arn Peralun

Arn already underwent quite a journey in Onslaught, from becoming Tau's new Padawan to slowly coming into his own. In Legacy of the Sith we meet him after he's officially become a knight, and throughout most of the expansion he remains a Republic player's recurring buddy, helping you out on the occasional adventure and always having your back in negotiations with Republic leadership. He remains a solid character that is only "held back" by the fact that he never really has the spotlight, even if he saves your life at the end of Master's Engima. I'd like to romance him on a character one of these days as I suspect that might reveal some more interesting details about him.

8. Major Anri

Originally introduced in Jedi Under Siege, Major Anri is another character that has already undergone a bit of a journey. She's largely the Imperial equivalent to Arn in her role in the story, but at least my impression is that she hasn't had as much of a chance to grow throughout LotS, possibly because as a soldier she's more directly limited by the chain of command, though she does still speak up for you quite boldly at times. There are also hints towards the end of Legacy of the Sith that she's growing somewhat disenchanted with Sith leadership, but it's not yet clear to me whether that's going to go anywhere. Like with Arn, I expect that romancing her might reveal some more.

9. Sa'har Kateen

Sa'har is in some ways Legacy of the Sith's biggest disappointment to me. She was in the expansion's cinematic trailer, and from the get-go we kept getting little cut scenes in game showing what she was up to even when our characters had no involvement with that at the time. I kept thinking that surely this was building up to something big, but in the end it never really did. The biggest interactions we have with her are at the end of Chains in the Dark when she turns against Tyrus, and all throughout Desperate Defiance, but then she seemingly dies, just to immediately get "revived" again one patch later, and in the end nothing much even comes of that in relation to our character as she and Ri'kan just run away on Khar Shian. She does have some character development throughout, but she never stops focusing on Ri'kan, no matter how badly he treats her, and it just gets a bit tiresome to be honest. Mostly I just don't get why she got so much focus throughout the whole expansion when her role in the major events was ultimately relatively small. I expect we'll see her again in 8.0 - maybe something more interesting will happen then.

10. Heta Kol

Heta started as an intriguing new villain in Spirit of Vengeance, but I feel like ultimately that intrigue never really paid off. She's initially shown to be forceful and charismatic, which perhaps goes some way towards explaining how she's managed to rally several otherwise very different clans to her cause. But then... it just never really goes anywhere. In Galactic Threads, Jekiah comments that Heta has morale problems, but we never see her dealing with that. The way we saw her acting towards her underlings, I honestly thought that maybe at some point, internal conflict or betrayal would become a problem for the Hidden Chain, but it never really did (not counting Sa'har, who always remained a bit of an outsider). We never really get any more detail on why Heta does anything she does, other than that she hates what Shae has done with the Mandalorians - yet at the same time, she never seems as obsessed with Shae as Shae is with her. I just feel like her portrayal never entirely came together, meaning I was always chasing after her somewhat half-heartedly myself. She was just someone who was causing trouble for me for reasons that were not personal (to my character) but also not fully known, which just wasn't very satisfying.

 

11. Ri'kan Kateen

All I'll say is, I really hope they have something planned for Ri'kan in the next expansion still, because otherwise - what a waste of time this guy was. He's even more one-note than Sa'har, but unlike Sa'har, we barely even interact with him other than the one confrontation at the end of Ruhnuk and the big fight at the end of Desperate Defiance. Why have we spent as much time as we have on watching cut scenes with him? I thought maybe something would come from the Ordo brothers having personal beef with him over the death of their sister as explained at the end of Ruhnuk, but that never came up again.

Do you agree with my ranking? Are there any characters you feel should have been on the list that I left out? I went back and forth about including Darths Krovos and Rivix for example but ultimately decided that we didn't quite see enough of them throughout the expansion as a whole for me to include them here.