Star Wars’ New Sith Lightsaber Twist Continues the Sequel Trilogy’s Best Change

Star Wars‘ sequel trilogy made various changes to lightsabers, certainly in terms of live-action if nothing else, though not all of them were successful. From the very first teaser for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, we knew things were going to be a little different thanks to the reveal of Kylo Ren’s red crossguard saber. After that, we also got to see a lightsaber destroyed and then put back together, a hinged double-blade lightsaber, and a yellow lightsaber, with much of that coming in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.

Unfortunately, most of those ended up being a bit underutilized, especially the latter two. Still, there were some intriguing concepts, and arguably the best was the idea of a lightsaber “calling” to someone, which we saw with the Skywalker saber and Rey in The Force Awakens. The kyber crystals within lightsabers are incredibly attuned to the Force, and thus display something that verges on sentience, which allowed it to sense and call out to Rey, acting as a guide to her greater destiny. Now, Star Wars’ latest TV show, Maul – Shadow Lord, takes that even further in a clever way.

Maul’s Lightsaber “Speaking” To Devon Is A Great Twist For Star Wars

At the end of Maul – Shadow Lord Season 1, Episode 3, as Maul and Devon duel, each wielding one of his lightsabers, we hear a strange language that comes from nowhere. The subtitles for the episode describe this as Maul’s lightsaber speaking “an alien language” and it seems as though it’s from this that the former Sith is able to learn Devon’s name, which itself is a pivotal moment in the journey to (perhaps) making her his new apprentice.

We’ve heard these kinds of Sith-language whisperings and chants around Maul before, going back to Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (and part of the iconic Duel of the Fates), but never so directly linked to his lightsaber. Speaking with io9, Brad Rau said this was intended to be a continuation of those “Sith-like whispers,” rather than the blade quite literally speaking. That makes sense, but it still means that the weapon, or rather, the bled kyber crystal it houses, is displaying its own sentience of sorts, as it’s from this that Maul learns Devon’s name.

It’s a neat twist that brings the audience in on how the users experience this sort of connection to a kyber crystal. These kinds of noises happen a few times, if not as overtly as that one specific instance, whenever Devon interacts with the blade. This is basically the dark side inversion of what happened with the Skywalker saber and Rey: it’s sensing on Devon’s fear and anger, on the dark feelings that could lead her towards, well, not the Sith since Maul is no longer one himself, but certainly to the dark side.

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It’s a fascinating way to showcase the dark side or Sith whisperings that Maul himself has experienced, and how someone else is now feeling that same pull. It seems clear that Devon has bonded with the weapon to some degree, and like with Rey, that implies it senses her future. It also adds to the importance of Maul’s saber: like the Skywalker blade or even the Darksaber, it is now a driver of destiny in some way.

The question now is whether she’ll be able to turn away from it, or if Maul is going to succeed in corrupting her as Shadow Lord goes on. That makes the battle between Maul and Devon, quite literally, another duel of the fates, and the lightsaber, and him learning her name, might have tipped the scales.

New episodes of Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord release on Mondays on Disney+.

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