Ever since I finished playing Knights of the Old Republic: The Sith Lords, Atton “Jaq” Rand has become one of my favorite characters in all of Star Wars. I’m a sucker for redemption arcs, so it’s no surprise that I have so much love for this character. Interestingly enough, however, I find him to be very similar to a certain man found in the Bible.

The Way of Persecution

Many of you, Christian or not, have likely heard of a man from the Bible named Saul, or, as he’s more commonly known, Paul. Paul, when he was Saul, was a Pharisee who participated in the persecution of the early Church. Saul of Tarsus was a man of the Jewish faith, well on his way to becoming a rabbi. He opposed followers of Jesus and the spread of the Gospel, and he was present at the stoning of the first Christian martyr—a man by the name of Stephen (Acts 7:57-8:1). Saul would go on to imprison believers before his eventual conversion to Christianity.

Atton served on the Republic’s side in the Mandalorian Wars. He watched the Outer Rim burn while the Jedi Council and many of the Jedi just stood and watched. Atton then joined Revan when the latter went to war against the Republic after falling to the dark side and becoming a Dark Lord of the Sith. He became a part of an elite force of Sith commandos and endured training that would fashion him into an effective Jedi hunter. Due to his innate talent for masking his presence and thoughts from Force-users, Atton used it to his advantage. He and others went on missions to either kill Jedi, or capture them and try to convert them to the Sith.

Encountering the Light

Saul was on his way to Damascus to arrest Christian men and women when he encountered Jesus Christ Himself. Jesus asked him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” (Acts 9:4). Saul asked who He was, and Jesus replied, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting…Now get up and go into the city (of Damascus), and you will be told what you must do” (Acts 9:5-6). Saul had fallen to the ground, and when he stood up and opened his eyes, he could not see. He was blind for three days afterwards, and in that time he neither ate nor drank.

Atton tortured and killed Jedi during the Jedi Civil War. Close to the end of the war, a female Jedi confronted him and informed him that he was Force-sensitive. She also warned him that, should the Sith find out, he would be broken and reformed into a Dark Jedi. He believed her, but he was also infuriated, and in his anger and hatred for the Jedi, he captured and tortured her nearly to death. Just before he believed she would die, the Jedi awakened the Force inside of him. In retaliation, he killed her. Initially he’d believed he’d loved killing her, but really he’d killed her because he loved her. Atton became consumed with self-hatred and deserted the Sith, going into hiding until the civil war ended.

The Guide

After Saul’s encounter with Jesus, God told a disciple named Ananias, “Go to the house of Judas on Straight Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying. In a vision he has seen a man named Ananias come and place his hands on him to restore his sight” (Acts 9:11-12). Ananias, knowing about Saul’s reputation, hesitated initially, but eventually obeyed God’s command to “Go! This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for my name” (Acts 9: 13-16). Ananias went to the house, placed his hands on Saul, and told him, “Brother Saul, the Lord—Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here—has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 9:17). Saul’s vision was restored, he was baptized, and he began preaching in the synagogues.

On the mining world of Peragus, Atton was in prison and the sole survivor of the facility’s sabotage. At this point in his life, he had been trying to lose himself and was consumed with self-loathing. There he met the Jedi Exile, Meetra Surik, who freed him from his force cage. With the help of Kreia, Meetra, and T3-M4, Atton was rescued from Peragus and traveled with them on the Ebon Hawk to Telos after the Sith-taken Republic warship, the Harbinger, fired on them. He thought he’d be free to leave Meetra and the others behind, but after the news that the Ebon Hawk had been stolen, their investigation led them to Telos’s surface, where they became stranded after it crashed. They encountered Bao-Dur, a Mandalorian War veteran and mechanic, who helped them recover the Ebon Hawk from the Jedi historian Atris. While being imprisoned by Atris, Kreia probed Atton’s mind and found out about his past, and then she emotionally blackmailed him into staying with Meetra so that she wouldn’t find out about him. Atton traveled with Meetra to Nar Shaddaa, where two Twi’leks told her that Atton was really a murderer. She confronted him, and he told her about his past, as she had started to earn his trust. She challenged his views towards the Jedi, eventually forgiving him and offering him a place with her to attempt to stop the Sith. Atton let her awaken the Force within him once again, and she trained him to become a Jedi Sentinel.

Chains of their own Making

Both men also had a knack for getting themselves locked in prison! Atton was imprisoned once on Peragus, and twice on Telos. There are three recorded instances of Paul being imprisoned.

Saul (now Paul) was first imprisoned in Philippi for freeing a female slave from a future-predicting spirit. Her owners profited from her fortune-telling and dragged Paul and his companion Silas to the magistrates and said, “These men are Jews, and are throwing our city into an uproar by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice” (Acts 16:19-21). Paul and Silas were then flogged and thrown into prison.

Paul was again arrested in Jerusalem for trying to preach to the Jews at the temple. Some Jews from Asia recognized him and stirred up the crowd. People came flooding in from all directions and tried to kill him, but the commander of Roman troops brought officers and soldiers to get control over the rioters, and in the process chained and arrested Paul. The commander tried to ask Paul who he was and what he had done, but the crowd was so unruly that Paul had to be carried to the barracks by the soldiers. This happened in Acts 21:27-36.

The third instance occurred in Rome. He was, again, imprisoned for preaching the Gospel in 2 Timothy. It is believed he was martyred shortly after.

Sticks and Stones may Break their Bones…

In Knights of the Old Republic: The Sith Lords, Atton has a very special ability. As long as he is not the last party member standing, he will always get back up when he is knocked down. Throughout his ministry, Paul was stoned, beaten, arrested, and flogged, but he always persevered. Both men exhibit extraordinary determination.

Atton Rand

From Sith…

…To Jedi

Saul

From anti-Christ…

…To Apostle

Both Atton and Saul started their journeys with blood on their hands. Paul was martyred, and while there is no confirmation of what Atton did after his time with Meetra, it can be assumed that he went on to rebuild the Jedi Order in her absence. Both men joined the organizations they once hated by encountering a member (or in Saul’s case, the Creator) of said organization. Both continued their journeys as the thing they once hated in the most ironic of irony to serve a specific purpose: Paul became a key apostle of the early and growing Church who began preaching to not only the Jews, but also the Gentiles; Atton became one of the people who rebuilt the Jedi Order. Paul was a martyr, and, in an alternate ending available in the Restored Content Mod for KOTOR 2, if Atton loses his battle with Darth Sion, he is tortured, mutilated, and left for dead. They lived as persecutors, lost in their hatred, and then were awakened to the truth and their purpose. They killed for their causes and then switched sides. Saul was referred to as Paul from Acts 13:9 onward, and Atton’s name is intentionally similar to the word “atonement.”

Two sides of the same coin? Perhaps. Unrelated comparison, or interesting discovery? I believe the latter. Nevertheless, one cannot deny that it is truly remarkable how parallel their journeys are!