All Grans had three eyestalks and were a peaceful people. They lived on the planet Kinyen and spent their time eating goatgrass and mating. Ree-Yees was no different from this, except that he killed one of his own people. This meant that he was outcast from the Gran population. The Gran people were very social, and so the loneliness damaged Ree-Yees badly. His only way of staying alive was to drink huge amounts of alcohol, which then changed his personality. He became surly and unpleasant. This only served to take him farther away from his people, which depressed him even more.
Then by some fluke chance he entered Jabba's Place. All in the palace hated the Gran thief, thinking him disgusting and completely friendless. Even through all this hatred, Jabba did not kill Ree-Yees. He may have thought it amusing to see the way the Gran was despised, and the fights that he ended up in. By and by Ree-Yees was given the job of tending to Bubo, the horrible pet that served as some sort of guard dog. Unbeknownst to the Hutt Ree-Yees was secretly building a thermal detonator. The parts were hidden in packages of goat grass sent to him by the Empire, although no-one else knew this. He communicated with the Empire via a transmitter that was secreted among Bubo's many skin flaps and boils. If he killed Jabba, the Empire would clear Ree-Yees' murder record, allowing him to return to Kinyen.
As he finished the detonator, he began to dream. He dreamt of fire, and of burning alive. He had no truck with such dreams or premonitions, and so ignored them. Soon the Rebels arrived, and the Gran saw his chance to kill Jabba on the sail barge. But before he could do anything, Leia had strangled the Hutt. Then the sail barge exploded, and Ree-Yees remembered his dreams.
The fire enveloped him, freeing him from his life of thieving and murder, but sending him towards a new life beyond the void of existence.
