Xanatos

"You destroyed me that day, Qui-Gon. Yet I was reborn. Stronger, wiser. I have surpassed you."

- Xanatos to Qui-Gon Jinn Xanatos was a Human male failed Jedi and the second Padawan of Qui-Gon Jinn, who earlier had trained an unidentified Padawan. He was the son of Telosian Governor Crion and fathered a boy named Granta with Tura Omega.

During the final trial that would have made him a Jedi Knight, Xanatos was corrupted by the mind and power of his father. After he witnessed Crion's death at the hands of his former master Jinn, he became a Dark Jedi and the head of a mining facility on his homeworld of Telos IV.

Many years later, Xanatos fought Jinn and his new pupil, Obi-Wan Kenobi. He planned to bring the Jedi Temple into ruins, but the two Jedi put a stop to that at once. After one final humiliation that nearly placed him at the hands of Telosian authorities, Xanatos committed suicide by leaping into a pool of acid.

Early life
Qui-Gon Jinn discovered Xanatos when the boy was three years old. Impressed by his Force-potential, Jinn decided, after some brief hesitation, to bring Xanatos to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant for training. In doing so, Xanatos was taken away from the two things he loved most at an early age: Crion, his father, and Telos IV, his home planet. Crion gave his consent for Xanatos to leave for the Jedi Order.

In the Jedi Order
After achieving Knighthood going on solo missions in a matter of five years, Jinn took Xanatos to be his Padawan. Jinn trained Xanatos for a number of years going on various missions, though Xanatos tended to be aggressive, which concerned the Jedi Council. As a final test for Xanatos, Yoda, skeptical of his readiness to be a Jedi Knight, sent the two back to Telos, where the planet was in a brutal civil war started by Xanatos' corrupt father Crion&mdash;governor of the planet Telos IV.

Fall to the dark side
Crion, now a corrupt governor of Telos, regretted sending his son to the Jedi Temple. He encouraged his son to stay with him on Telos and enjoy wealth and power. Xanatos sided with his father in the civil war, thus failing his final test. He watched in terror as his former master was forced to kill Crion. Jinn tried to apologize, but Xanatos' inextinguishable anger at his father's death caused him to turn to the dark side. He picked up his father's ring out of the nearby fireplace (which had been cut off by Qui Gon's lightsaber) and pressed it to his right cheek. The broken-circle scar later became his "trademark" and the symbol for the Offworld Mining Corporation, a company he took control of through deceit and conspiracy.

Jinn told the Council that he had "died" in the fighting on Telos. It was also symbolic as he intended to disrupt Jinn's life and the lives of others he could exploit. Xanatos would go on to stir up trouble for Qui-Gon Jinn and his new apprentice Obi-Wan Kenobi in the decades preceding the Invasion of Naboo.

The final campaign
As the leader of Offworld Corporation, Xanatos claimed that he desired peace between Offworld and rival company Arcona Mineral Harvest Corporation, but secretly planned to eliminate Arcona and take their ionite mines on Bandomeer for himself. He tricked Obi-Wan Kenobi into thinking he would not make it as Jinn's Padawan and then sent him off to a mining platform. He then set a series of charges to ignite a chain reaction around the planet, planning on killing his former master. With the help of Kenobi, Jinn thwarted his plans. Xanatos fled into hiding, returning to Telos, where he planned to stripmine the planet to obtain wealth. Jinn and Kenobi tracked him down and put a stop to his plans. Xanatos had planned an attack on Yoda and caused multiple sabotages with the help of a Temple student, Bruck Chun, who manipulated through his father. His modus operandi was Disruption + Demoralization + Distraction=Devastation, a maxim he recalled from a previous mission as Jinn's Padawan. Xanatos held a Mon Calamari Padawan named Bant Eerin hostage to force the Jedi to give back his transport, which they had found in a tunnel close to water purification tanks. He narrowly escaped, but not before planting volatile crystals in the Temple's fusion furnace. However, Jinn discovered his plot and managed to save the Jedi Temple.

Jinn and Kenobi doggedly tracked Xanatos all the way to Telos, to find him thought of as a hero by the Telosians and possessing a lot influence within the government. Xanatos then used his influence to turn Jinn and Kenobi into criminals. They soon found out that Offworld Corporation was mining in Telos' restoration areas and distracting the citizens with a gambling project supposedly controlled by the government, called Katharsis. The profits from Katharsis were supposedly used for the restoration of Telos. In truth, Xanatos' company, Offworld, controlled Katharsis, which was fixed so the winner was only given a fraction of the credits and the rest, including profits, were used by Offworld to conduct its mining programs. The Jedi were able to show the public all of this and Xanatos was caught.

When cornered, Xanatos said "I am your biggest failure, Qui-Gon Jinn. Live with that. And live with this." He then leaped into a pool of black acid rather than be captured by his former master.

Legacy
Later, Obi-Wan Kenobi encountered Xanatos' son, Granta Omega. Omega followed the same formula that his father did, although he believed that Jinn killed his father and refused to believe what Kenobi was trying to say. He would then walk in his father's footsteps by trying to convert Kenobi's Padawan, Anakin Skywalker to the free life.

Kenobi had a vision of Xanatos' death while on the Sith planet of Zigoola in 22 BBY.

Xanatos would be remembered even by the Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Sidious. He was the protégé of Senator Sano Sauro sometime after his fall. He taught the Senator everything he knew about midi-chlorians. This compelled Senator Sauro to eventually come up with a plan to use Force-sensitive children to train pilots for the Galactic Empire so within a decade the Empire would have an invincible fleet. Anakin Skywalker, now as Sidious's Sith apprentice, Darth Vader, thought it was an absurd plan.

Personality and traits
"I always have a back door"

- Xanatos

What made Xanatos special, even as a young Padawan, was the quickness of his mind and strategical prowess. He always had a dual reason for every action and always seemed to be one step ahead of his adversaries. He was manipulative, deceiving when he wanted to be, and of course, like all Dark Jedi, pursued his own interests. Jinn saw all of this and chose to ignore it out of affection for him, like a father who chooses not to see his son's faults. Xanatos employed the dark formula for destruction very effectively and his only undoing was his singular hatred for Jinn.

Behind the scenes


Xanatos and his father Crion's last name is unknown, although it is most likely Omega, since Granta Omega is the son of Xanatos. Xanatos had no actual known wife, so it would assume that Tura Omega had given Granta the Omega surname herself.

Though as far as names go, the name Xanatos is similar to "Thanatos", which is the Greek word for "death", and the name of his home planet, "Telos", also means "end" in Greek. Unlikely to be coincidental, "Omega" is the last letter in the Greek alphabet, implying another synonym to "end." It is also important to note that the "broken circle" emblem of Xanatos looks similar in some respect to the actual letter Omega (Ω).

Other implications as to this comes from the use of OC. It was believed by Qui-Gon Jinn that stood for Offworld Corporation but knowing Xanatos it could be other things.

He is suggested to be a practitioner of Ataru by his skills in Jedi Apprentice: The Dark Rival.

Appearances

 * Jedi Apprentice: The Rising Force
 * Jedi Apprentice: The Dark Rival
 * Jedi Apprentice: The Hidden Past
 * Jedi Apprentice: The Mark of the Crown
 * Jedi Apprentice: The Uncertain Path
 * Jedi Apprentice: The Captive Temple
 * Jedi Apprentice: The Day of Reckoning
 * Jedi Apprentice Special Edition: Deceptions
 * Jedi Quest: Path to Truth
 * Jedi Quest: The Trail of the Jedi
 * Jedi Quest: The Shadow Trap
 * Jedi Quest: The False Peace
 * Jedi Quest: The Final Showdown
 * Legacy of the Jedi
 * The Clone Wars: Wild Space
 * The Last of the Jedi: A Tangled Web
 * The Life and Legend of Obi-Wan Kenobi

Notes and references
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