(Note: This article was originally published on Tumblr)
In Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, from the first conversation you could have with Brianna, also known as The Last Handmaiden, in the secret Jedi academy on Telos, to the moment where you train Brianna to become a Jedi Guardian if she joins your party, the game has consistently shown that Brianna's family plays a major part of her story and character arc due to her identity as an illegitimate child of the Echani general Yusanis and Jedi Knight Arren Kae. I have always enjoyed Brianna's arc, so even when I am playing a female Jedi Exile, I always use mods that allow Brianna to join a female Exile's party.
As I have thought more about Brianna's family drama, one day I have come to realise that there is a mystery about Brianna's family that I find it unfortunate that we know next to nothing about: the mother of Brianna's sisters.
I find it curious that we never get to learn anything about the mother of Brianna's sisters at all, aside from the fact that she was not Arren Kae. Given what we know about Brianna's family and the drama surrounding it, the realization that the game never explores the mother of Brianna's sisters has made me want to ask a lot of questions about her:
Where is she? Is she still alive? How is her relationship with Yusanis and her own biological daughters? How much did she know about Yusanis' affair with Arren? Did she know Arren? Did she actually know Brianna? If so, how did she feel about Brianna?
In the conversation where Brianna confirms she had a different mother than her sisters, she says she never saw her mother's face, so we can assume that Arren was not part of Brianna's life when Brianna grew up. In the same conversation, the extent Brianna talks about her father, like the reason her father went to fight in the Mandalorian Wars was to join her mother and how he had changed after returning from the war, suggests that Brianna knows her father well enough, so I guess she have lived with her father, though this makes me wonder: was the mother of Brianna's sisters part of Brianna's life when she grew up?
I also wonder, when exactly did Brianna's sisters know about their father's affair with Arren? Did Yusanis tell them himself or did they find out in another way? Did Brianna and her sisters know each other before learning about their father's affair?
I guess it makes sense that we know more about Arren Kae than we did the mother of Brianna's sisters, since she was the mother of one of the party members, while the Handmaiden Sisters are NPCs who are not even given any names. Arren is also mentioned by Mical the Disciple as one of Revan's masters, and Revan is an important character in both Knights of the Old Republic games. If you subscribe to the theory that Arren Kae and Kreia are the same person (I have my own reasons not to, however), Arren's importance increases even more.
However, I would still like to know at least a little more about the mother of Brianna's sisters, since Brianna's complicated relationship with her sisters also affects Brianna's character and story arc.