Hortath

Hortath

Physical description
Species	Human
Gender	Male
Chronological and political information
Era(s)	Old Republic era
Affiliation	Jedi Order

[Source]

"He was a kindly old Jedi who meant well, but the most near-sighted thing in the core, I swear."

―Jolee Bindo on Hortath^[src]

Hortath (or possibly Hartoth) was a kind Jedi Master prior to the Great Sith War. As an elderly man, he became near-sighted, but refused to admit it or submit to proper treatment due to pride. As a result, he often bumped into things, ran into walls, or mistook Padawans for dangerous animals.

A common but unconfirmed story went that a Padawan once asked Master Hortath for directions to the Enclave council on Dantooine, but the Master misdirected them; when the Padawan confronted Hortath with the error, the Master refused to believe it, and again misdirected the Padawan. As a result, the Padawan not only walked away from the council, but ended up walking away from the Jedi Order as a whole. Possibly out of respect for Master Hortath, the Council decided that the boy's fate would have been to leave the Jedi Order anyway.

Years later, Jolee Bindo retold the story of Master Hortath to Revan, in answer to the question of why Bindo himself had left the Order. However, he admits to Revan that his leaving the order and Master Hortath's story are not truly related; the padawan and Hortath were before his time. He also said that he did not really leave the order, saying that "It left me."