Kanan Jarrus

"It was instantly clear that Kanan was in charge of the group, that he was the guy who called the shots. He's smart, like some sort of battlefield general. He's a crack-shot gunslinger and a born leader."

- Ezra Bridger

Kanan Jarrus, born Caleb Dume, was a Human male Jedi Padawan who survived Order 66. Going into hiding, he forsook the Jedi ways for some time, swapping his blue-bladed lightsaber for a blaster. Eventually, he would come to command the VCX-100 light freighter Ghost several years before the Battle of Yavin. While cocky and often sarcastic, Jarrus was eager to help out and fight the Galactic Empire. Five years before the Battle of Yavin, Jarrus met Ezra Bridger, a fourteen-year-old Force-sensitive Human, whom he decided to mentor.

Clone Wars
"My young strategist has been thinking again. Any other questions?''" "Await orders. What if orders never come? I won't know what to do." "Maybe you will." "Maybe I won't." ''"All right, maybe you won't. But anything is possible. Perhaps the answer will come to you in another form.""

- Depa Billaba and Caleb Dume

A Human male, Caleb Dume was born during the waning years of the Galactic Republic. He was integrated into the Jedi Order, and, as a youngling, caught the eye of Jedi Master Depa Billaba. He once attended a lecture by Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Jedi Temple central security station learning about the Jedi recall signal and inadvertently giving Obi-Wan the idea to use the beacon to warn Jedi away.

Billaba would eventually take Caleb on as her Padawan, but he had no time to reach the status of Jedi Knight; Supreme Chancellor Sheev Palpatine of the Republic issued Order 66, which branded all Jedi as traitors to the state and called for their immediate execution. Dume, at the age of 14, at the orders of his Master, somehow escaped the massacre and went into hiding, as Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi instructed all Jedi to go into hiding from the Empire. Meanwhile, Palpatine and his second-in-command Darth Vader started transforming the Republic into an authoritarian Galactic Empire, sending their Inquisitor to hunt down the remaining Jedi. Forced to hide his Force-sensitivity, he took the name "Kanan Jarrus" and kept his lightsaber locked away and forsook the Jedi ways for a long time, disguising himself as a freighter pilot, a bounty hunter, and a frontier ranger.

Becoming a rebel
"But&mdash;but you're''"&mdash; "''Shh. Don't tell anyone."

- Hera Syndulla & Kanan Jarrus

Jarrus would eventually wind up as a freighter pilot for the corporation Moonglow Polychemical, piloting Moonglow-72 between the tidally locked planet Gorse and its illustrious moon, Cynda. Jarrus became good friends with Okadiah Garson, the owner of a bar in Gorse City. After getting caught up with a ragtag rebellious group consisting of Twi'lek pilot, Hera Syndulla, the conspiracy theorist Skelly, and the Sullustan woman Zaluna Myder, Kanan helped prevent the Imperial Count Denetrius Vidian from destroying Cynda. Jarrus made the decision to accompany Hera on her VCX-100 light freighter, the Ghost.

Aboard the Ghost
"How about a little less attitude and a little more altitude?"

- Kanan Jarrus

At the age of 28, Jarrus led the motley crew of the Ghost, whose members tried to stand up against the Empire. One such stand was a raid on an Imperial supply convoy. After the raid, Kanan, Hera Syndulla, and C1-10P found themselves under attack by Imperial TIE fighters. After the attack disabled both the Ghost's shields and internal comm system, Kanan and Hera began giving Chopper conflicting orders over which system to fix first. It was Chopper who ultimately destroyed the final TIE, and his efforts were recognized by the two organics before the ship blasted into hyperspace. Another time, Kanan was supposed to rendezvous with Garazeb Orrelios. Zeb had shown up at the wrong alleyway and, against Kanan's protestations via comlink, picked a fight with several Stormtroopers, which culminated in the destruction of a TIE fighter. Kanan was nevertheless pleased and set out to meet Zeb.

Eventually, Jarrus and the crew met Ezra Bridger, a fourteen-year old Human pickpocket from Lothal who used the Force instinctively to survive. Jarrus ended up taking the boy under his wing to teach him how to deal with his powers. However, Jarrus was inconfident in his own ability to train the boy, his own teaching cut short by the sudden murder of Depa Billaba. Because of this, Jarrus jumped on the opportunity to save the supposedly incarcerated Jedi Master Luminara Unduli from The Spire on the snow planet Stygeon Prime, hoping to deliver Ezra to a full fledged Master for training.

However, Unduli was actually a trap laid out by The Inquisitor to lure unaware Jedi survivors to their death. Kanan and Ezra found Unduli's body after infiltrating The Spire, and Kanan was forced to defend Ezra from the Inquisitor's attacks. The ensuing lightsaber duel made its way through the halls of The Spire, with Kanan using the Force to pin the Inquisitor to the ceiling to cover his and Ezra's escape. After fighting their way back to the Ghost alongside Sabine and Zeb, Kanan vowed to continue Ezra's training on his own.

Personality and traits
Kanan Jarrus was a lean, tan-skinned man with blue eyes and brown hair. He sported a ponytail and a short goatee. A secretive man, he would rarely talk about his past. Having felt adrift since the destruction of the Jedi way of life, he had developed a cynical and cocky personality. Despite this, he was known for humorous banter and had "a thousand one-liners ready to go."

Behind the scenes
Kanan Jarrus was first revealed as a character from the forthcoming animated series Star Wars Rebels at the January 2014 Nuremberg International Toy Fair, where Jarrus was included on the packaging of the LEGO Star Wars Rebels Ghost model. However, the packaging merely represented Jarrus's LEGO mini-figure as a silhouetted form holding a blue-bladed lightsaber.

On February 11, 2014, Lucasfilm began a promotional campaign to introduce the characters of Star Wars Rebels, starting with Kanan Jarrus. USA Today ran an online story featuring an exclusive first look at Jarrus's character and announcing that he would be voiced by actor Freddie Prinze Jr. The story included a Lucasfilm production video revealing the character's full design.

Appearances

 * Star Wars: Kanan
 * A New Dawn
 * Star Wars: Ghost Raid
 * Chopper Saves the Day
 * Zeb to the Rescue
 * Ezra and the Pilot
 * Rise of the Rebels
 * Star Wars Rebels: Spark of Rebellion
 * Rebel Strike
 * A New Hero
 * The Inquisitor's Trap
 * A New Hero
 * The Inquisitor's Trap
 * A New Hero
 * The Inquisitor's Trap
 * The Inquisitor's Trap