Star Wars Brings Back One Forbidden Lightsaber Form For the Coolest Duel I’ve Ever Seen

Warning: This article contains spoilers for the end of The Ninth Jedi.

The new Star Wars TV show, Star Wars: Visions Presents – The Ninth Jedi, certainly proves one thing: this franchise was made for anime. I’ve long considered Visions one of the best Star Wars TV shows ever made, simply because it offers so much room for creativity. Every episode is an opportunity to reinvent Star Wars, a chance for another animation house to play in George Lucas’ sandbox. Now, though, we have something even better – the first of hopefully many spinoffs that build on Visions non-canon worlds.

Welcome to a time far beyond the Jedi and the Sith, as legends of the Force re-emerge. This is a distant time, when new lightsabers have been developed that change color based on the emotions of their wielders, and where a new order emerges sworn to nothingness. In the end, it’s a time for a lightsaber duel like none I’ve seen before, one that’s only possible because of The Ninth Jedi‘s incredible anime style. Even better… this duel involves a lightsaber form both the Jedi and Sith banned.

The Ninth Jedi Just Showed Us the Power of Trakata

Introduced in the Star Wars: Dark Empire audio-drama, the lightsaber form known as Trakata is forbidden by the Jedi and even scorned by the Sith. Practitioners of Trakata turn their lightsabers on and off during combat, wrong-footing their enemies. The technique seems to have originally been developed by the Sith, because it makes for brutally quick duels; a practitioner feigns an attack, switches off their lightsaber before it can be blocked, then turns it back on for a swift killing blow. Even the Sith came to consider Trakata dishonorable, though, because an enemy is overcome through treachery without any trace of power.

In Star Wars canon, Trakata is one of the “forbidden forms.” We saw it in The Acolyte, when the Sith Lord known as the Stranger used Trakata as just one of many unexpected techniques to help him slaughter a contingent of Jedi. Forbidden forms like Trakata have been mentioned several times in the wider canon, including in Justina Ireland’s A Test of Courage and Madeleine Roux’s recently-published novel Legacy. The Ninth Jedi may not be canon, but it takes this forbidden form in a whole new direction – and gives it a Jedi twist.

Lah Kara Masters Trakata in a Way We’ve Never Seen Before

The Ninth Jedi essentially shows us two competing models for the Chosen One in this distant time. On the one hand, there is Nawaam (whose name appears to be derived from the Sanskrit word for “Ninth”), who believes he is beyond light and dark. Nawaam seeks to demonstrate the power of death over the galaxy as he establishes a new Empire. And on the other, of course, there is Lah Kara; the Luke Skywalker analogue who still believes in the ways of the Jedi, even if she does struggle against her own inner darkness. Naturally, it all ends in a duel, where Kara demonstrates her power in the Force.

At first, the duel is bewildering – for the viewers, as well as for Nawaam. He simply can’t block Kara’s attacks, and yet a series of what should have been fatal strikes all fail to connect – as though the lightsaber blade is passing through him. Nawaam eventually figures out that Kara has achieved an incredible level of mastery in the Force. She isn’t controlling her lightsaber with its switch, but rather with the Force itself; and her focus allows her to deactivate the blade a nanosecond before she strikes a killing blow. It’s Trakata, but as we’ve never seen it before.

Lah Kara Has Turned Trakata Into the Ultimate Jedi Form

It’s always seemed a little odd that the lightsaber is the symbol of the Jedi. It’s a weapon, after all, and Jedi are sworn to defend; we’ve seen other uses of the same technology, including kyber-powered shields, that seem far more appropriate. While Jedi know it’s sometimes necessary to kill aggressors in order to protect others, the lightsaber seems explicitly designed to be fatal. And yet, incredibly, Kara shows another way; she demonstrates her mastery, overwhelming her opponent without killing him. It’s so very Jedi.

It certainly helps that the entire duel is done in a stunning way. This year’s Maul – Shadow Lord already proved how incredible lightsaber duels can really be in animation, but The Ninth Jedi takes it one step further, revealing that anime is the perfect medium for this kind of combat. We don’t know whether this story will continue; it was created for Lucasfilm by Production I.G., and the showrunner is already talking about The Ninth Jedi Season 2. But we are most certainly hoping we see so much more of this going forward.

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