Holshef Holshef was a human male native of the Outer Rim Territories planet Lothal . Although he had a great love for his homeworld , Holshef was disturbed by its slow ruination by the Galactic Empire . By 4 BBY , he was an old man with wispy white hair who painted and wrote poet ry . His artistic expressions against the Empire ' s actions on Lothal resulted in an arrest warrant and forced him into hiding . He paid credit s to Yahenna Laxo of the Gray Syndicate to stay safe from Imperial attention . As rebellious activities increased on Lothal , the Empire also increased its efforts in corralling the planet ' s criminal underworld , and few elements escaped attention . The Empire targeted the Gray Syndicate ' s gambling operations and warehouse s , before finally accomplishing the Syndicate ' s near total destruction by raiding its headquarters and killing Laxo . Her death left Holshef in danger , as there remained an Imperial bounty issued for the old man ' s capture . Thus , Merei Spanjaf , a human female who had come to know and like Holshef through her activities with the Syndicate , sought to spirit him off Lothal . With the Empire further tightening its grip , Spanjaf eventually removed the artist from his place of hiding in a hasty and risky plan to escape . Holshef loathed giving up the only planet he had ever known , but Spanjaf convinced him that nothing good could result from his remaining . By then , the two were directly targeted by a dangerous bounty hunter , though a wild chase left the hunter dead , and Holshef escaped the planet with the help of a cantina owner known as Old Jho and was dropped off on the planet Garel . Biography . Early life . Holshef was a human male who lived on the Outer Rim Territories planet Lothal under the Galactic Republic and later its successor , the Galactic Empire . His grandmother had come to the planet as a young woman and built the family home in Capital City . In his youth , Holshef ' s first job was as an apprentice sap collector , gathering sap to make greel - wood syrup from the trees of the Far Hiradne region of Lothal . He also spent time in his youth at the reliquary of a saint . When the Empire first annexed Lothal in approximately 19 BBY , Holshef and his family threw a party because they felt the Empire could unify the galaxy in a better way than the Republic ever could . A fugitive artist . Holshef eventually learned that the Empire was strip - mining the planet and rapidly destroying its forest s to build heavy industry . He was upset that the Empire was poison ing Lothal ' s air and water when it could have been prevented by using less aggressive methods , such as making use of the local workforce instead of relying on crude harvester droid s . As a result , Holshef wrote poems and painted pictures to express his objections but only ended up with an arrest warrant and a bounty for his capture issued against him for his trouble , as the Empire was cracking down on all dissent and nostalgia on the planet under a directive code - named Operation Guiding Light . The artist thought about going to see Arihnda Pryce , Governor of Lothal , regarding his concerns , thinking she would understand , but was told by his daughter that it was a bad idea . As such , Holshef was forced into hiding , paying credit s to Yahenna Laxo of the Gray Syndicate , a small - time criminal outfit and protectorate based on Lothal , in return for keeping him safe . His misdeeds against the Empire were different from most of the other individuals being sheltered by Laxo , such as Apapaba , Durchine , Kinlo , Marhas , and Pinson , who generally fell into the category of gambling debts or other self - inflicted trouble . A new friend . Around 4 BBY , Holshef would sometimes be visited in his hiding place by Merei Spanjaf . A teenage human girl with slicing skills , Spanjaf had been investigating the Empire ' s capture of her boyfriend ' s older sister , Dhara Leonis , and had been drawn into the Gray Syndicate ' s activities due to needing a snooper program for her investigations . As part of Spanjaf ' s duties for the Gray Syndicate , she would collect Holshef ' s credits and give them to Laxo . During their meetings , Holshef would offer the girl tarine tea and ask her to describe the color of the grass or the sunset outside , and she found him to be terribly lonely . Spanjaf empathized with the old man ' s complaints about the Empire , and he found her to be a friendly face , promising to paint the girl a picture , though nothing that would get her in trouble by upsetting the Empire . As part of her continued duties , Spanjaf once visited Holshef to inform him that Rosey , also of the Gray Syndicate , would be moving him to a new hiding place in order to ensure his continued protection from the Empire . At some point after that , Laxo sold the details of Holshef ' s location to a bounty hunter and assigned Spanjaf to take the hunter to Holshef ' s newest hideout in 1044 Chapel , a warehouse building in the industrial quarter of Capital City . Spanjaf ' s orders were to wait as the hunter collected the Empire ' s bounty on Holshef , a portion of which would go to Laxo . However , Ake ' s Tavern , the Syndicate ' s headquarters , was soon caught in a raid orchestrated by Spanjaf herself and carried out by Imperial stormtrooper s . The raid left Laxo dead and Spanjaf seemingly free of his and the Syndicate ' s influence , as the Empire believed the girl to be an innocent civilian who had been taken hostage in order to stop an investigation being conducted by her mother . Nevertheless , Holshef remained a wanted man , and his former protectors whom he had been paying were now dead . A need to escape . Following the assault , Spanjaf wondered what had become of Holshef . As soon as she was in a position to do so , she visited the warehouse where she was told the old man was being kept . Upon arrival , Spanjaf spoke with a whiskered Lutrillian , who warned her that he had not received Holshef ' s credits and that , as a result , the fugitive would not be able to stay . She told the Lutrillian that alternative arrangements were being made and gave him enough credits to cover the week , plus a little extra , telling him to only deal with her regarding Holshef ' s situation . Upon seeing Spanjaf , Holshef greeted her cheerily , saying that he had forgotten her name , but she reminded him that she had never revealed it to him , as that would have been too dangerous . The old Lothalian was amused by the intrigue and pleased at the idea that he would be moved within the week , as he would have a chance to see the sun and enjoy early spring , though Spanjaf lamented that it was still cold . Both commiserated over no longer being able to enjoy the smell of the jogan blossoms , and , as Spanjaf ' s eye s water ed at thoughts of time past , he offered to read her poetry about Lothal ' s fragrances in the time of his youth . Overwhelmed , the girl fled for the stairs , reminding Holshef again that he would be moved soon . Spanjaf continuously fretted over the problem of Holshef . She finally reached the conclusion that there was no safety for him unless she moved him off Lothal and began making inquiries as to how this might be effected . Hatching a plan . Spanjaf realized that she would not be able to get Holshef off Lothal via the spaceport . She returned to the warehouse to find the Lutrillian manager in a state of near panic about the recent Imperial crackdowns . The girl was able to give him enough credits to cover ten more days , but he warned her that Holshef could not stay any longer than that . Spanjaf decided to visit Old Jho , a contact she had met during her time working with the Gray Syndicate . She told him about Holshef , and he asked her what it was that Holshef did to anger the Empire . The girl showed Jho some of Holshef ' s poetry , causing him to reminisce about the spine tree s in the forests of Pelamir Gorge , which had been cut down by the Empire . He told Spanjaf that he had people who owed him a favor and to be there with her friend and credits in six days . Holshef was visited by Spanjaf four days later , and he presented her with an unexpected problem . The artist simply did not want to leave , as Lothal had been his home for all his life . Though Spanjaf sympathized with the old man ' s plight , she helped him to understand that he would be of no help to anyone if he was locked up on Lothal and that he still had a chance to help the rest of the galaxy . Spanjaf ' s words seemed to strike something within Holshef , and he noted that she still had not told him her name . When she finally did , in barely a whisper , he agreed to go , then sobbed for what he had lost and was about to lose . Sudden flight . Spanjaf soon discovered that there was much more at stake than Holshef . Her deceptions were finally catching up with her , as the Empire had arrested Hestia Tarleton , a girl whose photo had been used a stand - in for Spanjaf . The girl knew that she had hours at most before the Imperials learned that Tarleton was not the person they were looking for . Spanjaf contacted her family , told them to meet her , and then went immediately to Holshef , informing him that they were leaving right away . Holshef tried to gather stacks of poetry , a year ' s worth of poems , only for her to cut him off at one week . What followed for Holshef was a wild ride on a jumpspeeder like the old man had never experienced in his life . The two nearly made it to Old Jho ' s when they were almost blasted off the bike . A chase ensued as Spanjaf saw that the individual pursuing them was the bounty hunter who had previously been after Holshef . As the chase continued , Holshef ' s bag of poetry paper s slipped , and one of them flew away in the wind , covering the face of the bounty hunter and causing him to crash into a droid truck . As the truck exploded , the two made their escape while Holshef mused that one should " never underestimate the power of poetry . " Leaving Lothal . The two arrived at Old Jho ' s , where Holshef discussed his and Spanjaf ' s thrilling exploits , and later Lothal ' s history , with Jho . The two established quite a rapport while Spanjaf confessed the truth of her activities to her parent s . That night , the group slept together in a storeroom , and the next morning Spanjaf awoke to find Holshef absent , though her father told her that the old man was out mooning over wildflowers with Jho . Spanjaf later found Holshef scribbling with a stylus as she received an important comm message from a group of old friends she knew as the Spectres . Spanjaf ' s group was to meet up with the Spectres at the edge of the Garel system after Jho brought them there . However , shortly after receiving the transmission , Spanjaf learned that her boyfriend , Zare Leonis , was scheduled for execution by the Empire , and the group was forced to depart from Lothal in a hurry as a result . Spanjaf left Holshef with Jho , joined up with her parents , and then picked up Leonis ' s parents . Evading pursuit by the Empire , the entire group then left Lothal on Jho ' s freight hauler . Spanjaf was delivered to a rendezvous with the Spectres , while Holshef was dropped off on Garel , a planet in the Lothal sector that , like Lothal , was ostensibly under the Empire ' s control but had not been so oppressed , making it a suitable place of refuge . Personality and traits . By 4 BBY , Holshef was a tiny , pale man with a halo of wispy white hair . In his past , when he was just sixteen years old , he was tall and strong with a rakish black mustache . Holshef was a kindly man with a single daughter but carried a great sadness about him . He had a sense of justice and used artistic means to express his dissatisfaction with how the Galactic Empire had poisoned the planet Lothal , his homeworld . Spending his time in isolation due to being wanted by the Empire , he took comfort in the presence of a kindly face . Holshef was fiercely loyal to Lothal , to the point that he had trouble accepting the idea of leaving it , even if staying placed his life in danger . He enjoyed the planet ' s bountiful nature prior to its ruination by the Empire , including the lush forests and subtle changing of the seasons . The old man could be transported to memories of youth by the smell of the planet ' s jogan blossoms . The Lothalian wished to share his poetry with as many people as possible and was very protective of it . Even knowing his own life was in danger , Holshef clung to his sheaves of paper , abandoning a year ' s worth of work only very reluctantly . Often lost in his own memories , the old man sometimes seemed oblivious to the very real danger of what it meant to have an Imperial bounty on his head . Behind the scenes . Holshef appears in " " and " " , the final two novels in the four - part " " series by Jason Fry . Both were published in 2015 . Fry considered Holshef ' s character to fill the role of the conscience of the planet Lothal , following the capture of the character Beck Ollet . Through the Jedi Council Forums on TheForce . net , Fry responded to a comment from a fan wondering when readers might see " Holshef ' s Poems . " Fry described the idea as being " awesomely unlikely to happen " but suggested that he might include such a poem as an in a future title . Fry also stated on his official blog that the rescue of Holshef initially " had more moving parts . " In his original version of the tale , Spanjaf had additionally enlisted Holshef ' s daughter in the rescue , as well as playing a game of " cat and mouse " with the bounty hunter to whom Laxo had sold him . This plot line was ultimately cut in the interest of economizing the story , as there was no room for another plot thread .