DARTH MAUL
SHADOW LORD ORIGINS
PART 1: THE SON OF DATHOMIR
On May 4th, Star Wars Day, the day Star fans resonately say, “May the 4th be with you.” And with all the election buzz and the angst of hitting 30, I nearly missed it. But Disney treated it to one of the best episodes ever of their newly launched show “Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord”.
When the Maul series was launched, I was surprised, like, why a Maul show and not a Darth Vader show? Being a Skywalker fanboy, I can’t get enough of Anakin Skywalker. Yes, the prequels and sequels were about Anakin and his fall and redemption arc, but still I and a large community of Star Wars fans will still lap up anything, well, except the new sequels.
So I got to witness one of the best Star Wars actions in decades. It was Maul vs the Inquisitors, and renegade Jedi Devon and her master Eeko were fighting beside him, Maul taking on the Inquisitors with his Form VII (Juyo).
Most Jedi or Sith had a unique fighting form that oscillates between defence and offence, and each had their own pros and cons, but Juyo was the most aggressive form out of them all. Despite a damaged leg, Maul and the runaway Jedi were stalling when they ran into the unstoppable wall, Vader.
And that, coupled with his double blade, makes him a deadly opponent, and on top of that, Maul has learnt to better use his cybernetics to physically overpower his opponents. The Inquisitors had a feature in their lightsabres that would allow them to rotate their sabres at high speeds, but the irony was Maul spun it even faster with pure skill and no enhancements.
Being a Star Wars fan, I always assumed how a fight between Maul and Vader would proceed. Maul, with his crazy acrobatics and aggressive fighting style, couldn’t even land a single hit on Vader. Even with Maul teaming up with the Jedi, who could do nothing more than stall and escape from the Dark Lord.
The episode ended with Maul being Maul when he pushed Ecko into Vader’s sight. Maul needed an apprentice, and with Vader killing Ecko, Maul would have done the final nudge for Devon to join him in the ways of the Sith. The show ended with an electrifying finale, with the company fleeing away from Vader and Maul getting a new apprentice finally.
The creators wanted the show to bridge the gap between the end of the Clone Wars show and the mildly accepted “Solo: A Star Wars Story”. Maul is not your avg. Sith assassin. Over the years, he escaped death many times, went from leading criminal organisations to running Mandalore, and then came to even train future force users like Ezra, albeit for his own benefits. But before he was the dreaded Dark Lord, he was a regular boy from Dathomir, and I will tell you his tale.
ORIGINS
Maul was born on the planet of Dathomir, and Dathomir was a matriarchal society ruled by a coven of Force witches called the Nightsisters. The Nightsisters were a separate faction from both the Jedi and Sith. They tapped into the dark side but focused more on crafts like necromancy and physical transformation.
The sisters tapped into the Force through a glowing mist called Ichor, which was unique only to their world. In their society, the men were treated as nothing more than slaves, and Maul was the son of Mother Talzin, the leader of the Nightsisters.
In the past, when Sidious was on the planet, he sensed Maul’s potential. He abducted him and trained him under his wing. Sidious, being the manipulator he was, wanted Maul to be the proxy Sith for diversion purposes and never planned to make him a lord at all.
Because of this, his tutelage was restricted to the physical aspects of Sith training, where he excelled in lightsaber combat and, in addition to this, he also picked up Teräs Käsi, a martial arts form that allowed non Force users to take on the Jedi.
THE FIRST SITH IN OVER 1000 YEARS
The Jedi Order in the beginning of the show were convinced that the last of the Sith were extinct, but they were unaware of the Rule of Two that forced the Sith to adapt and evolve and become more powerful than the Jedi.
So when the first prequel, “Star Wars: The Phantom Menace”, came in, the Jedi were shaken when Maul clashed with the Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn on the desert planet of Tatooine. And Maul, like everyone else, was just a pawn of Sidious. With Maul causing havoc, Sidious had enough reasons to manipulate the Senate into electing him Senator with the threat of the Separatist faction being led by the Sith.
But in reality, the Separatists, the Jedi, and the Senate were all manipulated by Sidious. Maul’s main pivotal point in the story came when he killed the Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn, the only person who could have trained the Chosen One Anakin Skywalker. Over the years, even Maul must have thought of that fateful duel with the Jedi Master.
For the fans of the movies, Maul’s story ended with Obi-Wan Kenobi slicing him into two, but Maul’s story was far from over. Maul, in a way, mirrored Anakin Skywalker as both fell to the blade of Obi-Wan Kenobi through their hubris. Maul, post-killing Qui-Gon, underestimated his apprentice, but Kenobi made the famous jump and sliced Maul into two.
MAUL’S SECOND COMING
Fans of the Clone Wars show would have been surprised when Mother Talzin told her son, Savage Opress, about his brother, but when Savage tracked down his brother, he was a shell of his former self. Maul survived the junk world, being fed on vermin and whatever scraps he could salvage.
And what kept Maul alive was his hatred towards Obi-Wan Kenobi. His physiology allowed him to survive the initial fall, where he latched onto a vent and ended up in a ship that took him to the junk world of Lotho Minor. There, he used the Force to latch himself to a pair of spider mechanical limbs for his mobility.
Over a decade of isolation had fractured Maul’s psyche, but seeing Savage, he finally got his resolve back. What made him come back was his hatred towards Kenobi, the man who defeated his ascent to power and the master who discarded him.
REBIRTH ON DATHOMIR
At Dathomir, Mother Talzin revived him through her Nightsister magic. Through the green mist, she was able to remove the madness that infected his mind, and then she used her magic to refashion his spider limbs into raptor-like legs that became his signature throughout the rest of his life.
The legs were fused to him through cybernetics so he could move them with precision as if they were his original legs. Talzin was able to revive his body, but what drove his spirit was his deep hatred towards Kenobi and Sidious.
ESTABLISHING THE NEW SITH ORDER
Maul wanted to establish his own Sith order, so he decided to take Savage as his apprentice and counter Sidious. Initially, the brothers went on a killing spree to draw out the Jedi, specifically Kenobi. During this period, the brothers encountered an exiled faction of Mandalorians led by Pre Vizsla. Maul knew he required resources to take on the Sith and Jedi, so he decided to play the long game.
There were multiple crime syndicates spread across the Star Wars universe, and he decided to win over them one by one, starting with the Black Sun. The Black Sun were based around Mustafar; they were not ready to join his faction, so he went with plan B. Savage just decapitated all the leadership, and the leftovers joined him, and truth be told, that was a killer negotiation style, and post the fall of the Black Suns, the Pykes joined willingly so they could keep their heads intact.
And finally, it was the Hutts, the galaxy’s sleaziest group. The Hutts, despite their appearance, are strong, and even the usual Jedi mind tricks won’t work on them. This was one of Maul’s most formidable battles. After the Hutts dismissed the alliance with a formal Sith Lord, they decided to unleash their full might on them. Instead of a long siege, Maul used the Shadow Collective’s fleet to blockade the planet and sent Death Watch warriors to overwhelm Jabba’s Gamorrean guards.
Realising that Maul was prepared to execute every member of the Council and replace them with his own puppets, the Hutts finally capitulated. Jabba agreed to provide the Shadow Collective with resources, smuggling routes, and information networks. Jabba was more like the kingpin of the Star Wars universe. Maul used his immense wealth to buy advanced weaponry for his troops and used their secret hyperspace lanes to jump from one point of the galaxy to the next while evading the prying eyes of the Republic.
A TRAP FOR KENOBI
After striking deals with the crime syndicates, Maul planned a deceptive battle. He had the crime syndicate launch a brutal attack on the capital of Mandalore and had the Death Watch, a radical group of Mandalorians under Pre Vizsla, arrive as the saviours. The people, oblivious of Maul’s games, turned against the ruler, Duchess Satine Kryze, someone whom Obi-Wan harbouring feelings for. Once he took over the reign of Mandalore, Vizsla double-crossed Maul and threw him and Savage into prison.
But Maul, being Maul, anticipated all this and escaped the prison using his Force abilities. Once out, he challenged Vizsla for a duel for the throne of Mandalore and the control over the Death Watch. Maul, without any lightsaber or Force abilities, took out Vizsla with little difficulty and became the new ruler of Mandalore.
For appearances, he had a corrupt prime minister installed and sent a distress signal for the Jedi. Maul knew love would triumph, and Kenobi took the bait when he arrived to rescue Satine. After rescuing her, while making the getaway, the trap began to tighten, and Maul’s super commandos captured Kenobi and Satine. Maul didn’t just kill Kenobi; he chose to kill his lover in front of him while holding him down with the Force and left Kenobi to lament over his loss and failure.
THE COMING OF SIDIOUS
After having his revenge over Kenobi and ruling over the syndicate and Mandalore, Maul thought he was ready to take on Sidious. But the brothers were no match for Sidious. He took on the two brothers at the same time without any hassle, and despite a fight between two psychotic brothers against a Sith Lord, we may feel some sort of apathy towards the brothers, even if it’s for a brief moment.
After killing Savage, Maul fought with everything he had, but Sidious completely overwhelmed him and then relished in torturing him further with his Force lightning abilities. And again, he was under the captivity of the Sith Lord, the one who had stripped off everything all those years back, because Sidious was not done with the son of Dathomir.
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