The Gray Jedi have long been left out of Star Wars canon, but The High Republic's Jedi Wayseekers could be the key to restoring them. Introduced in the novel Into The Dark, Wayseekers are Jedi who operate independently of the Jedi Council, drawn to strike off on their own path to gain a better understanding of the Force. The descriptions of the Wayseekers, the way they operate, and in some cases, their disillusionment with the Jedi Council’s rules are similar to the Gray Jedi, a separate sect of Jedi decanonized in Legends. After the Skywalker Saga showed the Jedi Council made huge mistakes by holding too closely to their dogma, Wayseekers could play a major role in the future of Jedi stories and might lead to a new canon equivalent of Gray Jedi.
The novel focuses on Wayseekeer Orla Jareni, who has come to question the Jedi Council after a disastrously failed mission. The Jedi Council respects the decisions of the Wayseekers to operate separately, and in the past, Wayseekers have used their independence to meditate, aid revolutionaries, and even become a singing sensation on Alderaan in one notable case. Orla Jareni used her independence to head to the frontier, a region of space just opening up to the Republic. Wayseekers are not entirely separate from the rest of the Jedi, as they maintain their Jedi identity and still have protocols to follow.
Such flexibility among the Jedi may be rather unique in canon, but is closer to the abandoned Gray Jedi identity than the Order have usually allowed in the past. The Gray Jedi of Legends were Force-users who walked between the light and the dark, neither Jedi nor Sith, and they did not adhere to or agree with the strict rules of the Jedi Code. However, canon more narrowly defined a Jedi as practitioners of the Light side of the Force, making a Gray Jedi a contradiction in terms. The Wayseekers could be a convenient loophole in this definition, as they are Jedi not subject to all of the same rules. This places them in an ambiguous position, similar to Jedi who operated after the fall of the Order like Luke Skywalker.
The Wayseekers set up an outlet for the Jedi to leave the Council behind without sacrificing their identity as a Jedi, which could create a pathway to introducing the equivalent of Gray Jedi into the High Republic era. While they Gray Jedi themselves may never see the light of canon, or at least not with that specific term, the Wayseekers and any Jedi who may break off more permanently from the Order this way could hold a similar role in the Star Wars universe. The novel also reveals that even within the Order, the Jedi Master Cohmac questions the Council’s division of the Force between light and dark, believing balance in the Force is more important than trying to bisect the Force neatly. In the High Republic, the definition of the Jedi may become more fluid than in the periods already explored.
The Wayseekers are an ideal way to move the Jedi beyond the mistakes of the Jedi Council in the Skywalker Saga, bringing the same ambiguity to practicing the Force that the Gray Jedi did. Star Wars canon has explored different sects of Force-users that are neither Jedi nor Sith, but Wayseekers come the closest to filling the gap the Gray Jedi’s decanonization left behind. Many ideas from Legends could appear in some form in the High Republic initiative, as the era is only now being established, and the new revelations may give the Star Wars galaxy even more complexity.