Star Wars: The High Republic: Who were the Guardians of Javin?

For many, The High Republic era of Star Wars storytelling is proving to be everything fans could hope for in a primarily literary approach to the galaxy far, far away. In addition to creating a story in which the Jedi are the heroes of the galaxy we’ve been waiting for since Obi-Wan first mentioned the “thousand generations [that] the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic” to Luke in A New Hope, The High Republic is expanding the mythology of the Star Wars universe one story at a time. This includes alluding to ancient Force users other than the Jedi and Sith.

Light siders playing with the dark?

Justina Ireland’s middle-grade novel A Test of Courage features a young Padawan named Imri Cantaros, whose loss of his mentor makes him vulnerable to the whispers of the Dark Side. As he considers what he’s learned about the Dark Side, he remembers studying “about groups of Force users with fewer rules, like the Nightsisters and the Guardians of Javin.” Of course, the Nightsisters we’ve heard of. They played a significant role in The Clone Wars animated series. But the Guardians of Javin have never been mentioned before. Their mention is easy to miss, but any Star Wars fan would be curious to know about a new class of Force users that aren’t a part of the Jedi or the Sith.

Javin a name taken from Legends?

So who are they? All we know so far is that they seemed to be Light Side users whose code wasn’t as strict as the Jedi. What this means fully is a matter of speculation, but at the very least, it means that they used the dark side in some way. Javin was the name of a colony in the Javin sector in the outer rim in the Legends timeline, as mentioned in the Star Wars: TIE Fighter video game, but Javin hasn’t been mentioned in canon yet, so we don’t know if they’re tied to this location or not.

Are they the in-canon version of the Gray Jedi?

A Test of Courage describes them as a cult that “found something of value in the chaotic, destructive side of the Force.” For many fans, what immediately comes to mind is probably the concept of Gray Jedi, a group of Force users from Legends that walked the line between the light and the dark without going full Dark. Jolee Bindo, a character from the Knights of the Old Republic video game was an example of this. Some have suggested that Qui-Gon Jinn was a Gray Jedi because of his frequent questioning of the beliefs of the Jedi Council. Ahsoka Tano has also been considered by some fans to be a Gray Jedi after leaving the Jedi Order.

The ever-expanding mythology of the Force in Star Wars

The concept of the Gray Jedi hasn’t made its way into canon yet, but perhaps the Guardians of Javin will be the in-canon version of these unique Force users. Or maybe they’re something else entirely. As Lucasfilm continues to expand the Star Wars mythology through stories like The High Republic, we’ll surely discover more about these and other uniquely Force-sensitive characters in the future. For now, we can only guess what role the Guardians of Javin will play in the galaxy’s history.