Hanharr

Hanharr was a male Wookiee who worked as a bounty hunter, operating primarily out of Nar Shaddaa, during and in the years after the Jedi Civil War. A ruthless hunter and brutal sociopath who was rumored to have murdered his own tribe in cold blood, he was regarded as one of the most deadly of his profession.

Biography
"You do not have the strength to kill, little girl."

- Hanharr to Mira on Nar Shaddaa

An anomaly of Wookiee culture, Hanharr was only a bounty hunter by name. In reality, he was a dishonorable slaver who skirted the razor's edge of insanity. Originally from the Wookiee homeworld of Kashyyyk, living in the canopies with other Wookiees, he began to take an interest in the Shadowlands, the ground level of Kashyyyk, at an early age and spent much time there moving freely and killing at will. This behavior was dishonorable to the Wookiees and they banished him to remain permanently in the Shadowlands and the various dangerous animals there. When the Czerka Corporation arrived and began taking slaves, Hanharr took it upon himself to slaughter his entire village, starting with the youngest, in order to 'save' them. The Czerka slavers eventually caught Hanharr and took him into slavery, but he later managed to escape and turn the tide on his captors. He disabled the ship so it would float aimlessly in space, granting him enough time to go about his work. Over the course of weeks, perhaps months, Hanharr moved undetected about the ship killing suddenly and without warning and stuffing his slaver victims into storage compartments as a surprise for the other slavers to find. After all the slavers were killed, the disabled ship eventually crashed on an inhabited world and Hanharr escaped. He traveled to many Human-inhabited worlds to enslave them as revenge. Eventually, however, he ended up on Nar Shaddaa. There was a bitter history between Hanharr and the human female bounty hunter Mira. Previously, Hanharr had been employed to hunt Mira, and had trapped her in a series of sewers, where he planned to ambush her. However, she escaped from him when his own explosives (set to kill her) exploded as he ran after her. He painfully discovered that Mira knew how to walk over a mine without triggering it. He was almost killed but, taken by pity, Mira saved his life. Unknown to Mira, this caused Hanharr to owe her a life debt.

According to the Wookiee code, a Wookiee should pledge a life debt to his savior. However Hanharr possessed a hatred for humans so extreme that it drove him to insanity. Whilst Hanharr respected the life debt he owed to Mira, his madness caused his interpretation of that life debt to become twisted and evil. Hanharr considered it a form of 'living death' to owe a life debt to a human such as Mira. Consequently Hanharr focussed all of his hatred for humanity upon Mira and instead of guarding Mira's life, Hanharr continually hunted Mira and threatened to kill her. Hanharr would often stalk Mira, grab her by the throat and promise to derive pleasure from killing her sometime in the future, when the time was right. Mira often told Hanharr that she didn't want his life debt but Hanharr's insanity meant that he could see no way out other than to kill Mira.

Hanharr was hired by Vogga the Hutt to meet Goto and kill him. "Goto" always appeared as a hologram, and so no one knew that it was actually the spherical droid projecting it. Vogga warned him to finish the job or not come back to him at all. Working with one of Goto's men, Visquis, they planned to capture the Jedi Exile and bring her to Goto so Hanharr could kill him. But Mira came in her place.

Eventually, Hanharr and Mira dueled in Visquis's secret base, and there Mira defeated him. Shortly after, Kreia saved his life, cursing him with another life debt that Hanharr had no choice but to accept. Hanharr claimed that Kreia honored him by showing him no mercy when she took him to Malachor V to challenge Mira when the Jedi Exile arrived. On its surface, Mira and Hanharr dueled and Hanharr lost again. At Hanharr's desperate call for death, Mira finally granted his request and killed him, putting him out of his life-long misery.

Personality and traits
He had simply been driven to the point of near-insanity by his anger and the pain of his past. He maintained a strong, if somewhat warped, sense of honor and duty. Despite believing that life-debts weakened him and that he could rid himself of them by killing the person to whom he owed the debt, he believed that he was bound by duty to serve them anyway. However, even with his rage, he was cautionus and never underestimated foes who were truly strong or superior as he would constantly argue with Visquis, who on the other hand said Hanharr thought too much of the Jedi Exile's chances.

He maintained that love was each partner in the relationship being willing to lay down their life for the other. He believed that the weak must serve the strong. He probably also sincerely believed that he was 'saving' his tribe by slaughtering them, with his warped perspective of everything around him. He perceived that mercy was weakness, and truly despised anyone who showed him mercy.

Behind the scenes
Hanharr is a playable character in the computer and video game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords. Both he and Mira are encountered on the planet Nar Shaddaa, and one of them will join the Jedi Exile's party, as determined by the player's alignment. Dark side-aligned players are joined by Hanharr, though he appears in cutscenes and in gameplay as an antagonist if the player is light side-aligned.

According to Chris Avellone, Obsidian Entertainment wanted to give the player an option to turn Hanharr into a Dark Jedi character, but this idea was rejected by LucasArts due to George Lucas's ruling that there should be no more Wookiee Jedi introduced.

Alternate ending
On Nar Shaddaa, two possible things can occur. If the Jedi Exile follows the way of the light side, then Mira is captured by Visquis, an overseer for the criminal gang called The Exchange, and he allows Hanharr to kill her. However, in a surprising turn of events, Mira defeats Hanharr, and escapes. After this, Hanharr is found by Kreia, the mentor of the Jedi Exile, and she takes him into her service. However, so as to maintain his servitude, she promises that she will show him no mercy or pity. Later, when the heroes traveled to Malachor V, Hanharr confronted Mira once again.

If the Exile follows the dark side, she will meet Hanharr on her way to meet up with Visquis. They make an agreement to try and kill the crime lord as well as Goto. However, Mira manages to render the Exile unconscious and fools both Visquis and Hanharr, as in the light-side story. Hanharr manages to kill her in a duel but Visquis leaves him to be killed by his kath hounds. He helps the Exile by opening the door to the base while leaving at the same time, possibly killing a few of Visquis's men in the process. However, Jedi Master Zez-Kai Ell appears and takes him down with the Force. Kreia finds him and forces him to serve the Exile. He did, and although he was stubborn, the Exile manages to break his will by creating a bond and breaking it after she finds out about his past, making Hanharr serve her without question. The Exile makes a pact with him in addition, promising to never show him mercy when the time comes that they no longer need each other, much like Kreia's promises. Like Bao-Dur, his fate is unknown, although there are some scraps of what seems like he was supposed to save the Exile from the crumbling Malachor V core by throwing her on the Ebon Hawk and dying with the planet. This was found to be too reminiscent to Chewbacca's death on Sernpidal, however, and was therefore cut.

Journeys with a Dark-Sided Exile
Hanharr tells a dark-sided Exile that he wishes to die and 'join his tribe', and that he wishes to walk in the Shadowlands no longer but instead on the tops of the trees of Kashyyyk, his homeworld. Hanharr also held a deep respect for a dark Exile for having the strength to kill members of 'her own clan', the Jedi, at Malachor V, despite the use of the Mass Shadow Generator to achieve victory being, in Hanharr's opinion, 'a coward's way of killing'. Hanharr also tells a dark Exile that she should have looked in the eyes of each victim at Malachor V before killing them, that being what he did when he slaughtered his own clan on Kashyyyk.

Appearances

 * Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords

Notes and references
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