SABRINA

Convinced that still not enough people in this fandom have read the Heir to the Empire trilogy (aka Hat Man's favorite piece of EU media to pull from) because being one of the biggest Mara Jade stans on the planet, the way everybody is Big Braining their way through predictions and analyses right and left and yet has somehow failed to clock what may actually be the most obvious parallel out of all of them is both astounding and also annoying me

Mara Jade

Palpatine steals her from her family at a young age to serve as his personal assassin and manipulates her into being unflinchingly loyal to him. For her whole life she mistakenly believes that he took her in for more altruistic reasons instead of literally kidnapping her to mold her into a human weapon. Despite being interested in her power he also purposely prevents her from ever fully harnessing it to keep her from becoming a threat to him - she is trained only to the point where she can be useful to him without compromising his control of the situation. Thanks to him being a master manipulator, she develops a warped relationship with him in which she sort of sees him as a pseudo-father figure.

Fast-forward to years later, and she finds out that he lied to her and used her and it completely breaks her adherence to the false narrative he created for her. Once she realizes the truth, she abandons her allegiance to him (or the version of him that still lives in her head) and teams up with Luke Skywalker, who not only is her path back to the Light but is also the one empowering her to detach herself from this unhealthy codependent relationship that almost destroyed her. However she is deeply traumatized by this experience, and even a decade on from when she finally leaves him in the dust she's still haunted by it to the point that it has a significant impact on her decison-making (later outlined in the Hand of Thrawn Duology and Survivor's Quest)

Devon

Maul manipulates events so that she is now cut off from the only family she has ever known and in a perfect position both situationally and emotionally to become his apprentice. She has no idea of his role in Daki's death and mistakenly believes by the end of season 1 that they are simply kindred spirits brought together by shared feelings/goals. She also sort of sees him as her default pseudo-father figure. We know that part of his reasoning for taking on an apprentice is because he "needs" her (and her power) to help him in his personal goal of getting revenge on Palpatine. Again, Devon is unaware of the conversations he's had with Rook (RIP) on the subject and that she is sort of being used as a weapon for his own purposes.

Although not yet confirmed, it's likely he will train her only to the extent that she can be useful to him (we've seen this with Ezra in some capacity so it started somewhere) but not to the point where she's powerful enough to truly challenge his authority because then that would compromise his control of the situation. She has yet to learn the truth about how Daki really died and at some point this likely-not-a-throwaway-detail is going to circle back around and potentially be instrumental in breaking her adherence to the false narrative Maul has created for her. She may also throw this line back in his face once this happens

and abandon her allegiance to him. There is also a third party (Rylee) who may or may not be the Luke equivalent in this scenario. Even if/when she leaves Maul she will likely be traumatized by this collective ordeal for the rest of her life

JESSICA ALBA as Max Guevera in Dark Angel 1.01

JESSICA ALBA & MICHAEL WEATHERLY as Max Guevera & Logan Cale in Dark Angel (2000 - 2002) Season 1

Ewan McGregor in The Ghost Writer - 2010

The Count of Monte Cristo (2024) | Season 1, Episode 4 "The Red Room" | Sam Claflin as Edmond Dantès