Forever Aflame

Which is to say: the generation of Padawans whose apprenticeships were entirely defined by the Clone Wars had a very atypical experience, exemplified by Ahsoka but shared by everyone in her general age range (and despite what some people think I cannot read Devon as being more than a year or maybe two younger than Ahsoka): they were raised as Jedi and then the moment they became Padawans they became military officers. Weapons. And there were two options from there: either they became good at it, or they died before they even got the chance to die in Order 66.

Devon is very good at it.

So as she hits that formative age, she learns: she can solve problems with violence! She's very good at solving problems with violence, actually. She likes solving problems with violence, a feedback loop intensified by the fact that the very people who raised her not to solve problems with violence are now praising her for being good at solving problems with violence. Because we're at war and, well, the needs of the many come first and we can resolve any adverse developmental effects that'll have after the war. (There is no after the war.) Because Obi-Wan being knighted at 25 vs Anakin being knighted at 20 vs Ahsoka being "knighted" at 17 is a feature not a bug, or rather the bug IS the feature because the feature is institutional decay under the pressures of wartime, as a Padawan's ability to get results becomes more important than what's actually healthiest for them.

At the same time we are still paying lip service to the ideals that Devon was raised with, because no one wants to admit that none of them have really been acting as Jedi since the war started, because the war was a perfect trap designed to make the Order destroy itself spiritually before they were destroyed physically and admitting that they're caught in the trap means admitting they don't know how to get out of it—because these conditions create every pre-identified Inquisitor candidate, because breaking this cognitive dissonance is what drove Barriss (just old enough to experience being a Padawan before the war changed everything!) to despair.

So compared to a Padawan of her age a generation before Devon is both more martially skilled and less spiritually developed, which is what we in the Jedi Order refer to as being in the Danger Zone. She is exactly the thing Barriss was so afraid of, and unlike Ahsoka, nothing happened to shake her and make her realize this was Not Normal before Order 66. All she knew was—she was good at the violence she was ordered to do and she liked the praise she got for being good at it. But she couldn't say that out loud to anyone, couldn't quite admit it to herself—she certainly couldn't talk to Daki about it, because she loves and respects him and she doesn't want to make him disappointed in her, because sometimes you're so close to someone that there are conversations you don't know how to have with them that you can have with a relative stranger, and so she buries it. And then Order 66 happened and she she had to hide her power and skill and try to survive through passivity and all of her learned instincts are screaming at her that she needs to be active, she needs to fight, and—

And then Maul came along and was the first person to say to her: it's okay. You can do it. You don't have to feel guilty about it. It's just what you need to do to survive. You shouldn't have to hide your talents they should give you respect (they should give you power) (you should use that power for yourself).

Of course that gets to her. It's the validation she wants to hear. It's a simple answer to a complicated question. For all that she doth protest too much, it's obvious from how her words and her actions don't quite line up that he hooked her from that first encounter and the rest of the season was her slowly accepting that she wanted to walk down the dark path, culminating in Daki's death meaning his potential disappointment was no longer a factor.

It's the three stages of tragedy: There was no way this could have gone any differently, but at any time she could have chosen something else, but we know there was no way she would have chosen anything else.