Holshef, hailing from the Outer Rim Territories planet of Lothal, was a human male and a native of that world. His homeworld held a special place in his heart, yet he was deeply troubled by the Galactic Empire's gradual destruction of Lothal. In the year 4 BBY, Holshef, an elderly man with thin white hair, dedicated himself to painting and writing poetry. His artistic protests against the Empire's actions on Lothal led to an arrest warrant, forcing him into hiding. To ensure his safety from Imperial attention, he compensated Yahenna Laxo of the Gray Syndicate with credits.
As rebellious actions rose on Lothal, the Empire intensified its efforts to control the planet's criminal elements, leaving few untouched. The Empire's focus shifted to the Gray Syndicate's gambling enterprises and storage facilities, culminating in the Syndicate's near annihilation through a raid on its headquarters and the killing of Laxo. With her demise, Holshef found himself in a precarious situation, as the Imperial bounty for his capture remained active. Consequently, Merei Spanjaf, a human female who had grown fond of Holshef through her involvement with the Syndicate, resolved to smuggle him off Lothal.
As the Empire tightened its control, Spanjaf orchestrated a swift and perilous plan to extract the artist from his place of hiding. Despite Holshef's reluctance to abandon his lifelong home, Spanjaf convinced him that his continued presence would only lead to harm. By this point, a dangerous bounty hunter had targeted them directly, but after a frantic pursuit, the hunter was killed, and Holshef, with the assistance of Old Jho, a cantina proprietor, managed to escape the planet and was left on Garel.
During the eras of the Galactic Republic and its successor, the Galactic Empire, Holshef, a human male, dwelt on Lothal, a planet situated in the Outer Rim Territories. His grandmother had established the family home in Capital City after arriving on the planet as a young woman.
In his younger years, Holshef's initial employment involved serving as an apprentice sap collector, tasked with gathering sap from the trees of the [Far Hiradne](/article/far_hiradne] region of Lothal to produce greel-wood syrup. He also dedicated time during his youth to the reliquary of a saint. When the Empire first annexed Lothal, around 19 BBY, Holshef and his family celebrated, believing that the Empire could unify the galaxy more effectively than the Republic. At some point before becoming an enemy of the Empire, Holshef had a daughter.
Holshef eventually discovered that the Empire was engaged in strip-mining the planet and rapidly decimating its forests to facilitate the growth of heavy industry. The poisoning of Lothal's air and water by the Empire, which could have been mitigated by employing less aggressive methods such as utilizing the local workforce instead of relying on crude harvester droids, deeply disturbed him. Consequently, Holshef expressed his dissent through poems and paintings, but this only resulted in an arrest warrant and a bounty being issued for his capture, as the Empire was suppressing all dissent and nostalgia on the planet under a directive known as Operation Guiding Light.
The artist considered approaching Arihnda Pryce, the Governor of Lothal, to voice his concerns, believing she would understand, but his daughter advised against it. Consequently, Holshef was compelled to go into hiding, providing credits to Yahenna Laxo of the Gray Syndicate, a small-time criminal organization and protectorate based on Lothal, in exchange for his safety. His offenses against the Empire differed from those of most individuals sheltered by Laxo, such as Apapaba, Durchine, Kinlo, Marhas, and Pinson, who were typically involved in gambling debts or other self-inflicted predicaments.
Around 4 BBY, Merei Spanjaf would occasionally visit Holshef in his hiding place. Spanjaf, a teenage human girl with slicing skills, had been investigating the Empire's capture of Dhara Leonis, her boyfriend's older sister, and had become involved in 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 stormtroopers. 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.
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 eyes watered 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.
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 trees 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.
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 papers 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."
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 parents. 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.
By the time 4 BBY arrived, Holshef was a diminutive, pale figure, distinguished by a halo of delicate white hair. In his youth, around the age of sixteen, he possessed a tall and robust physique, complemented by a dashing black mustache. Holshef, a benevolent individual with a daughter, carried a profound sense of melancholy. Driven by a sense of justice, he employed artistic mediums to voice his discontent with the Galactic Empire's detrimental impact on his homeworld, Lothal. Due to his status as a wanted man, he found solace in the presence of a friendly face during his time in isolation.
Holshef harbored an unwavering loyalty to Lothal, so much so that he struggled to accept the notion of leaving, even when staying endangered his life. He cherished the planet's abundant natural beauty before the Empire's destructive influence, including its verdant forests and subtle seasonal changes. The aroma of Lothal's jogan blossoms had the power to transport the old man back to his youthful memories. With a deep appreciation for the fragrances of Lothal in his younger years, he dedicated an entire small book of poems to the subject.
The Lothalian aspired to share his poetry with as many individuals as possible and was fiercely protective of it. Despite knowing that his life was at risk, Holshef clung to his sheaves of paper, only reluctantly abandoning a year's worth of work. Often absorbed in his own recollections, the old man sometimes appeared oblivious to the very real danger posed by the Imperial bounty on his head.
Holshef's inaugural appearance occurred in 2015's Servants of the Empire: Imperial Justice, the third installment in the four-part Star Wars Rebels: Servants of the Empire series penned by Jason Fry. Fry envisioned Holshef's character as embodying the conscience of Lothal, following the capture of Beck Ollet.
In response to a fan's query on the Jedi Council Forums on TheForce.net regarding the potential release of "Holshef's Poems," Fry deemed the prospect "awesomely unlikely" but suggested the possibility of including such a poem as an Easter egg in a future work.
Fry also disclosed on his official Tumblr blog that the rescue of Holshef initially involved "more moving parts." In his original narrative, Spanjaf had also enlisted Holshef's daughter in the rescue and engaged in a "cat and mouse" game with the bounty hunter to whom Laxo had sold him. However, this subplot was ultimately omitted to streamline the story due to space constraints.