Star Wars Introduces Jedi With Dark Rey Style Hinged Lightsaber

Star Wars has introduced a Jedi that wields a hinged, dual-bladed lightsaber like the one Rey held in her dark side vision in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Fans will remember "dark Rey" wielding a lightsaber with two red blades and then letting one fall to form a weapon similar to the one used by Darth Maul in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. Star Wars: The High Republic reveals that such lightsabers did exist outside of Rey's vision and that one once belonged to a Jedi Wayseeker, a Jedi with a special calling to follow the Force wherever it leads them, often charting a course for the Jedi Order to follow.

That Jedi is Orla Jereni, the Umbaran Jedi who was first mentioned in Light of the Jedi and who is one of the lead characters in The High Republic novel Into the Dark. Her dual lightsaber has white blades, meaning that she found "bleeding" kyber crystals of Sith red and "healed" them with the Force, as Ahsoka Tano would do generations later between Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels. You can see the first concept art of Korla Kereni, revealed during the first episode of The Star Wars: The High Republic Show, below.

Dark Rey first appeared in a trailer for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, leading to lots of fan speculation about what her appearance could mean. Back before fans had their answers, star Daisy Ridley admitted that there was something special about getting to show off Rey's dark side.

"It's fun to play someone's best version, and then the worst," Daisy Ridley told Adoro Cinema and other journalists. "It's an amazing thing to do as an actress, but we can't do it often. ... I felt very good."

Star Wars: The High Republic is a new era of Star Wars set centuries before the Skywalker saga. ComicBook.com caught up with Charles Soule, author of Light of the Jedi, following the first The High Republic titles' debut. He spoke about what's coming next from the project.

"The High Republic is a multi-year initiative, a gigantic interconnected story told across many different publishing mediums, from comics to middle grade to adult novels like Light of the Jedi," Soule explained. "The story is huge, and we're going to move through it along all of those paths. Every book or comic has a piece of the overall story, and you can read as much or as little as you like – but the fullest experience will be if you read it all. Right now, there's an excellent middle grade novel by Justina Ireland out called A Test of Courage, and the Marvel comic series The High Republic just launched with its #1 issue, written by Cavan Scott and drawn by Ario Anindito. In just a few weeks, we'll get Claudia Gray's young adult novel Into the Dark, and Daniel Jose Older and Harvey Tolibao's High Republic Adventures comic, published by IDW. Then, in the summer, we'll see more stories released in various formats, and it'll roll on from there. And of course, there's Acolyte, the Disney + series set during the end of the High Republic, from Leslye Headland."

Star Wars: The High Republic - Light of the Jedi is on sale now here on Amazon.

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