Character Analysis: Nihilius

An energy being explicitly embodying hunger as a craving more than justifies the character’s monstrous nature, void in a literal sense, and something, formerly some one more visual evocative than most in the Star Wars setting. Nihilus is humanoid mostly due to the constraints of video game character and creature profiles, with one caveat, an oddity after the final battle which may possibly be an outlier or first-draft concept that wasn’t removed which will be discussed below.

He’s Stargate’s Anubis, and Warhammer’s Nagash to draw comparisons of a similar villainy from other settings; an archetype of a disembodied spirit within a science fiction setting, occupying a cloaked humanoid aspect due to glutting himself upon power, to the point of physical dissolution. And what I enjoy is his dual purpose. Theoretically, arguably the most terrifying, powerful Sith Lords written to date. Yet part of the lessons within KOTOR II’s story. A binary equation. A mirror that the player can overcome, either as a greater, sentient evil who has healed themselves and more malevolent in their hunger, or a light of neutral character that acts as a singularity, with dark powers that are utilised in a beneficial manner to the galaxy. Nihilus is overcome in the way all addicts and all hubristic villains do when they fall; utterly lost to desire, blind to others that are untouched by their hunger, they eat away some critical function, and succumb more easily to attacks as emptiness can no longer be accepted or locked in place by satiation.

“War is a hunger” is a sentiment expressed by Kreia, and Nihilus is the most obvious embodiment of this idea being tied in to Star Wars. His is not so much a representation of the Sith, so much as the black robed, red bladed evil they archetypically represent. Pure evil, in the sense of utter devastation and corruption. No philosophy. No face to attribute it to, not even an identifiable voice. Nihilus puts the war in Star Wars game as surely as his name is an obvious play on the word nihilist and the ideology of nihilism, which he infects his slave pupil Visas with.

The observation that Nihlus under the mask is just a man gives the potent, older idea present with many ‘villain’s behind the curtain. Similar examples I can think of off the top of my head would be Voldemort staying pointedly dead in The Deathly Hallows novel, decidedly unimpressive and utterly human as a point against the murderous wizard’s delusions of grandeur and immortality, or the character V in V For Vendetta being decidedly ordinary in the original comic book, this choice like Nihilus however being mere description, lacking visual proof. It may be a situation similar to pulling the mask from Legate Lanius of Fallout: New Vegas, and witnessing a bearded male rather than the supposedly mythically scarred face underneath. In all of these cases, a departure from reputation intentionally undermines the notions of an intimidating humanoid being able to truly transcend the basic shape of the face and flesh.

In the case of Nihilus, his face being real or not could either appeal to the reader as being another subversion of all the words that were said; or simply part of an unfinished draft. Regardless of its features, Nihilus is a being that drains the life force and latent biochemical energy around his ship or the planets he besieges, a power greater than any dictator, and many a fictional dark wizard.

Rather than being a figure of tragedy, ambition, or teaching; Nihilus as a more inhuman force also becomes robbed of critical aspects of humanity we enjoy: communication, written testaments, art. Even social connection does not count, his servants being one embittered slave happy to leave him at the earliest opportunity, and what becomes a haunted and drained member of his starship’s staff, an extension of his own malevolent rather than blind greed. Hunger is an urge throttling his apprentice Visas, as well as his deliberately intimidating robes indicate that part of the persona of Nihilus is indeed his nihilism, the wilful philosophical denunciation of meaning. For Nihlus specifically, it is not that sentient beings will devour the universe, or that it inevitably achieves total collapse; but that he willingly does so. We do not know if this is even to survive; all that we are told is Nihilus’s preferences. He wilfully seeks Jedi, he can manage not to consume Visas somehow.

Ultimately, this paints a picture of a creature weak enough to be enslaved by desire, yet self-aware, making it possible to identify a wilful malevolence in picking targets, and sharing a world view that is deeply unhealthy, lacking any creativity, and is a dead end even for the purposes of serving the Sith or himself.

Nihilus ultimately stands as a testament to power, and a creature to be defeated by a greater one; the Exile and his companions, most importantly the former slave who can wilfully sacrifice herself for her new master, or watch over his corpse robbed of the opportunity to kill any more.

References:

Knights of the Old Republic. BioWare. 2003.

Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords. Obsidian Entertainment. 2004.