Is The Bendu On The Light Or Dark Side In Star Wars Rebels? Dave Filoni Has An Answer
Heed my warning: never ask a "Star Wars" animation fan if you should watch shows like "The Clone Wars" and "Star Wars Rebels" unless you're prepared to get your ear talked off. For all of the franchise's high points in live-action, something about animation just fits a galaxy far, far away smoother than Lando Calrissian playing a game of Sabacc. Animated "Star Wars" projects are able to go weirder and wilder, bringing bizarre non-humans to life in a convincing way that's hard to translate into the real world. It's why I'm relieved that "Rebels" co-creator and current Lucasfilm Chief Creative Officer Dave Filoni has so far allowed the Bendu to remain purely in the animated realm.
The Bendu, for those who are not familiar, looks a little like a cross between a buffalo, a rock monolith, and Gimli from "The Lord of the Rings." This enigmatic, giant entity — who's voiced by none other than the scarf-loving Fourth Doctor himself, "Doctor Who" legend Tom Baker — made his debut in "Rebels" season 3, where he encountered the show's heroes in his preferred stomping grounds on the sparsely-populated planet of Atollon. Between his peculiar habit of speaking in riddles and head-scratching claims that he exists between the light and dark sides of The Force (the Ashla and Bogan, as he calls them), Bendu is a little like the Tom Bombadil of "Star Wars." Even his name comes from George Lucas' early script draft for "Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope," back when the project was a much stranger brew of sci-fi pulp adventure and psychedelic spirituality.
But as a being who insists that he's neither for the light side nor the dark, where do Bendu's alliances ultimately lie? Like with any god-like entity, it's complicated, as Filoni would tell you.
An unpredictable force of nature
The Force is a far slippier thing than the energy field once described by Obi-Wan Kenobi in "A New Hope." Indeed, Bendu is one of several mystical beings whose very existence muddles our understanding of The Force, along with the deity-esque Mortis Gods — the family of Force wielders who aligned themselves with the light side (the Daughter), the dark side (the Son), and the balance of the two (the Father) — introduced in "Clone Wars." That being the case, Bendu's reasoning for doing what he does isn't always crystal clear, as Filoni explained to Blastr in 2016 (via Star Wars News Net):
"Bendu is another branch of the tree we got into in 'Clone Wars,' where these Mortis beings that represent the dark side and the light side and the balance, and then the Force Priestesses who seem to go even beyond that type of division and be more like one person split into many different representations. Bendu is a little more in that realm, which I think is always an interesting character because they're unpredictable. He's not good and he's not bad. We'll have to see how he reacts to the Rebels throughout the course of the year."
Without spoiling too much for those who've yet to watch "Rebels," there is a point in the show when Bendu finally takes a stance in the never-ending battle between the light and the dark and unleashes his wrath upon the series' villains, much like the Ents from "The Lord of the Rings." (On the off-chance you hadn't cottoned on already, our boy Filoni very much loves himself some Tolkien.) Would he make the same choice under different circumstances in the future, should he ever return? Well ... that sure is an interesting question, isn't it?