hi i am getting back up on my semi-annual hobbyhorse called 'we don't actually know who atton rand is as a person' or rather 'we don't actually know who the person who calls himself atton rand is'
the misogynist scoundrel we meet at the start of kotor 2 is an act. atton admits it's an act. his greatest skill is being able to project emotions that fool jedi about what his motives are - even to the point of, according to him, being able to get past force-sensitive sith without anyone noticing he's there at all.
the specific emotions he focuses on are things like lust, anger and cowardice, because they are either unpleasant or communicate a shallowness that causes force-sensitives (and other people) to ignore you, to declare you harmless but annoying. a guy who hits on you constantly or is always complaining about something is not a guy most people want to spend their energy on.
atton's entire jedi-killing strategy was based on exploiting that. he pretends to be the annoying han solo knockoff because he knows that in real life most people don't find annoying han solo knockoffs charming, just irritating. no self-respecting telepath wants to fuck around in han solo's head.
what the game also tells us is that he has been using this ability as a shield for so long that he's no longer sure how much of it is a front and how much of it is him. if some of it has always been him or not.
when he demonstrates how to do something similar to shield your mind to the exile, his explanation is based heavily in essentially tricking your own brain into believing the act. he cannot teach you how to shield your mind. he can only teach you how to be so preoccupied playing pazaak in your own head that you stop having thoughts other people can read.
added to that, mira says she's never seen 'anyone who wants to get lost more than [atton]'. he probably does not want to be in his own head. he sure as hell doesn't want to be around anyone who might get to know him. he's ready to run away from the exile the second he can despite being immediately impressed by her. who's the guy underneath all that? idk we barely meet him
in the dark side run, we find out that being tainted by the dark side made him feel cold, and he appreciated that about it, because feeling things is hard on him. we know that when the jedi who got him to leave the sith cracked open his skull and let the force in, he was overwhelmed by emotions. it seems logical he shelved a lot of stuff in the mandalorian wars years, which we know were traumatic for him; we know he has residual suicidal feelings related to the destruction of malachor.
we also know the dark side makes him jealous and obsessed with killing (and that explains a lot of his darker interactions with the disciple re: the exile), leeching off of the feelings his mandalorian wars traumas caused. we know he's supposed to be a mirror to darth sion, that like sion he could turn into a being kept alive only through his anger at the galaxy.
and... that's about it. there are a few moments in the game where atton seems utterly sincere. there's some of the later conversations with kreia where he drops the jokey han solo act and seems resigned, tired, afraid of people he respects finding out about his past, done with having so many feelings. there's the 'you'll be right here with me, playing pazaak where they can't find you' conversation with the exile. there's that blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment where he runs up to give you some stuff to help you on nar shaddaa. there's the ending where he dies and admits he loved the exile all along but tried to play it off as a joke, says he's ugly on the inside.
this tired, worn-down, conflicted man is probably the closest we get to finding out who he actually is as a person. but they're glimpses. and like atton, we don't know how much of the rest of his performance is real, if there's even a stable self left. the atton rand we know for most of the game is an act that's gone on so long the actor has lost himself in it. basing your take on the character just on the act means giving up what actually makes him interesting.
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