Originally posted by The_Tempest
I don't have my JAT books on-hand. Can you provide the relevant passage that confirms this?
Exar Kun passed the millennia in uneasy slumber.
A few scant years later, Kun is brought sharply awake by the arrival of not one or two, but a dozen humans blazing with the power he needed to live again. Eagerly but cautiously, Kun observes each arrival, probing for weaknesses and the power he needs to restore his lost reserves of energy. For a time, he is able to subside by feeding on their residual energy, but soon he will need worshippers if he is to grow more active. With a nucleus of followers to provide him energy-providing anger and fear, Kun will have enough power to escape his exile and take on human form. To his surprise, Kun recognizes the leader to be the same man who had visited Yavin Four years earlier, now much more powerful in the Force. Too powerful, for the moment, for Kun to tackle.
Kun finds Gantoris, strong-willed and impatient to learn, to be a more promising first candidate. He easily seduces Gantoris in the same manner that Nadd had seduced him—by promising forbidden knowledge and the truly powerful Jedi secrets Gantoris cannot wait to learn. Carefully building up and feeding on the anger of his first apprentice, Kun grows in power. Soon he feels confident to make an attempt to subvert Luke, knowing that if he can sway the teacher, the students will all follow. Kun, posing as Anakin Skywalker, appears to Luke and attempts to pull him toward the forbidden Sith teachings by tempting hi to use Sith power to seize control of the New Republic and destroy the Empire. Realizing that this shade is not that of his father, Luke rejects the offer.
Enraged and drained, Kun returns to Gantoris. Desperate for more energy, he goads Gantoris to new heights of anger by showing him the Eol Sha colonists dying on Dantooine. Gantoris is pushed too far, however, and turns on his Sith master. Realizing that Gantoris is no longer his, Kun utterly drains him to provide himself a reserve of energy to last until he can subvert more students.
Kun has just begun edging in on Streen when Kyp Durron arrives at the Jedi Academy. Kun immediately senses in the young man his ideal subject. Like Gantoris, Kyp is strong-willed and impatient to learn. Moreover, he is far more powerful than the Eol Sha leader, and young enough to be overconfident and naive.
Over a number of weeks, Kun slowly bends Kyp to his will, and begins to augment his power. He grows very powerful on Kyp's hate, and soon his hold on Kyp is so complete that he can send Kyp beyond the planet to do his will and still retain control over his subject. Ultimately, he has Kyp return to Yavin Four and helps him reclaim the Sun Crusher. He also bolsters Kyp's talents to allow him to defeat Luke and place him in a coma.
- The Jedi Academy Sourcebook
Exar Kun himself possessed a great many other dark powers that he was unable to harness without the energy he needed to fuel his disembodied will. Some of these powers he was able to channel through Kyp, Gantoris, and Streen to achieve his ends. How he was able to do such things is a Sith mystery which has not been revealed for many centuries.
- The Jedi Academy Sourcebook
The only vaguely positive explanation for Exar Kun's dormancy that I could come up with was that his effort to draw the Suncrusher from Yavin and to down Luke had tired him out. I had no way to determine how powerful Exar Kun could be, but it struck me as possible that he'd expended a lot of energy to defeat a Jedi Master.
- Corran Horn, Jedi vs Sith The Essential Guide to the Force.
She[Tionne] supposes that the students have a chance of defeating him, since Kun no longer has his servants to draw power from, he[Streen] is his only source.
- The Jedi Academy Sourcebook
Kun had no power himself and was beaten easily without drawkng on those rich of the Force, hencd his wanting to regain human form for like Nadd wanted.