The following contains spoilers for Obi-Wan Kenobi Part III through Part VI, streaming on Disney+.
Over the years, something happened to Star Wars fans. In 1977, when Ben Kenobi talked about the Republic and the Clone War, fans dreamed for years what those could be. However, with recent stories, fans are less curious about how or why something happened. Instead, they immediately assail the story as “bad” for not laying everything out in the beginning. While this is sad for many reasons, it means that fans don’t ask the questions we should. For example, how did the Third Sister, Reva, know about the Path, specifically the hideout and tunnels?
Reva is a great new Star Wars villain, similar in ways to many baddies of the past. She’s brash and rageful like Anakin. She’s able to play the long game like Sidious. She’s been let down by everyone who was supposed to care for her like Maul. Like Dooku, she was once a Jedi and fell to the dark side. With all this in mind, it’s probably not “bad writing” or “plot armor” that lets Reva uncover the secret tunnels that are part of the Path on Mapuzo. She’s not discovering them, she’s remembering.
The storytellers made the questionable decision to hide Reva’s history from the audience. The first scene we see is a pivotal moment in her life, but we don’t really know it’s her until Part V. Since she then immediately attacks Darth Vader, fans don’t really have time to process what her being a Jedi survivor really means. Truth be told, there are still plenty of questions about just how Reva survived and how she linked up with the Inquisitors. Yet, we can make some inferences.
Obi-Wan’s destruction of the probe droid alerts the Inquisitors to his presence on Mapuzo. When it’s mentioned and even after arriving, Reva doesn’t betray any knowledge. Yet, when she sees loader droid NED-B, her demeanor shifts. She enters the workshop NED-B left, and while she moves slowly she finds the door to the secret room very quickly. She looks at the names on the wall, lingering over an image of the Jedi Order crest. She then screams in rage, tossing some things that were hiding the control panel to the secret door. She then is able to enter the tunnels and get ahead of young Leia as she flees to the ship. Those looking for reasons to criticize the series say this was “too easy” and it “doesn’t make sense.” Yet, it might make sense because maybe Reva has been there before.
In the non-Star Wars world, scientists are still studying all the ways trauma can affect memory in kids and adults. However, some data show that “dissociative amnesia” is a defense mechanism whereby people simply forget traumatic events. Order 66 and Reva’s wounds were traumatic events, so perhaps she dissociated from them, including how the Path got her out of Coruscant. Perhaps, upon seeing NED-B, Reva remembered when she was young, wounded and fleeing the Empire herself. Perhaps instead of just lucking onto the secret room and secret tunnels, she was able to find them because she remembered them. This could also explain her rage when she sees that Jedi crest. Imagine, perhaps, that she was the one who carved it.
Since Obi-Wan Kenobi often relied on subtext for Reva’s character moments, especially before she revealed her past as a Youngling, it’s possible that seeing NED-B brought her own experiences on the Path back to her. The anger she has in that room could be her just juicing up her dark side powers, but it could also represent her anger at the lost potential. If she had come through here, perhaps she could have given up her plan for revenge in order to live a peaceful life. Or, like old Legends character-made-canon Quinlan Vos, she might have even helped save others. She used the Path, but her own path brought her back to them to destroy the folks that saved her life.
Because it is all left to subtext, there are other possible explanations for how Reva found the hideout and tunnels. One of the great things for Star Wars storytellers is that the Force works in mysterious ways. Yet, in stories like these the actual “how” of the magic involved doesn’t matter as much as its connection to the characters themselves. If Reva formerly traveled the Path, that gives this scene a new layer of tragedy. While this may be something the storytellers wanted us to wonder about, they should’ve perhaps made the connection more explicit.
Of course, Star Wars doesn’t mind making us wait for answers. The franchise waited 45 years to give viewers context for when Alec Guinness’ Ben Kenobi told Luke that Vader murdered his father. Hopefully, we won’t have to wait that long to find out whether Reva knew about the Path in Obi-Wan Kenobi because she once traveled it herself.
Watch Obi-Wan Kenobi, streaming on Disney+, to check for clues of Reva traveling the Path.