Daughter of Light

Can we talk about how right at the end there, Maul’s gaze loses focus.

He looks straight ahead, then to Devon, then at nothing. How during the whole ending there, he had not said a single word since the fight in the cave, and he is standing at the far back of the group.

He supressed any kinship he had felt before because it started to weaken him.

Like he does not scoff at her words or pulls a dismissive face or even SAYS anything. He disassociates instead, and I’m also wondering if that had been the first time someone called them his “friends” to his face and he needs to chew on that. Were they his friends? Were their actions that of FRIENDS who cared about him? Might their care have went above what a crewmember’s loyalty is defined by? I don’t know, WAS IT?

... Ok, no, back to the topic:

There's a decline in reaction AND time spend on his crew’s deaths going from this:

(Scorn’s death is literally complicit in his break down in the tunnels)

to this:

(stopping mid-fight to watch, afterwards shouting out in rage)

to this:

(being more and more surrounded, having no time to dwell on another loss)

and lastly, this:

(instead of making it out, being confronted with an even bigger threat than before)

We as the audience are right there with him, and we are not given even a second to mourn. Because Maul is not given that time either.

Mind you, Devon offering her condolences is right before Rook’s death. She does not even turn around, giving him the space to process this on his own, being the more sensible and emotional collected one, sensing that he’s struggling.

Just that right then Vader attacks.

But I am so very sure he WOULD have reacted more to Icarus and Rook would the circumstances have allowed it, would their and Spybot's deaths not have happened in the span of ... five minutes?, because he IS affected.

We know Maul is not modest in using his tragedies to evoke compassion or to proof a point - but for that to work, he needs to come to terms with what happened and mould it in his favour. He could have used that tender moment to evoke Devon’s sympathy by acting on this loss. I am not surprised if he will do so in the future, alá we both lost every remaining one close to us that day, it’s on us to make it worth it.

But right then and there, he does not know what to think. This was not planned. He wanted for his crew to grow, to gain a new strong ally with Devon, not for everyone to be killed during their attempt to flee. So now it’s just an open wound that Vader makes even bigger a second later.

This also circles back to him being genuinely conflicted for a moment when he pushes Daki towards Vader and leaves to save Devon. Her loss would be the final straw, because then it was all for nothing and he CANNOT have that.

Also why his emotions jump right into the opposite direction and he's smiling like a maniac when Devon dips into the dark for the first time and agrees to become his apprentice, later on. Y’know, this lovely image of him:

He is relieved.

Devon decided to follow him.

Meaning it - they - all served a purpose, and now he does not need to think about them as losses, but as sacrifices that were needed to be made.

Words can't describe how much I appreciate this interview with Sam that delves into a lot of the questions and thoughts that I had on the finale. If anything, the answers given just make me love Maul more as a character and validate a lot of the queries I had going on.

One of the things that gets explained, which had been on my mind a lot, was Maul's betrayal of Daki. When I watched episode 10 for the first time, I initially had a bit of a knee jerk reaction to Maul pushing Daki into Vader, thinking that maybe he'd regressed after episode 8 but now after re-watching the ending a few times and thinking about the dialogue leading up to it, Maul's warped sense of right and wrong due to his upbringing, as well as the tense circumstances all of them were in, it makes a lot more sense now. Maul genuinely didn't want anyone to die, we can see this in episode 9 when he encourages members of his team to cross the acid lake before he does, he even ends up being the last one to get to the other side, while putting up an intense fight the entire time with a fucked up leg. Even in episode 7, we see him leading Marrok and Crow away from his group because he probably knows they don't stand a chance against them, he even fucks up his knee from doing this by making such a daring jump between the platforms. Obviously, everything changes once Vader shows up, the ultimate big bad. He realises Vader is all about brute strength, something he can't really go up against with his fighting style, especially when you consider how broken his right leg is now, something that Sam also points out. Vader probably has had a good soak in the bacta tank, eaten and slept, he's at full health, while battling people at half, maybe even quarter health. Maul's leg is buggered and causing him constant grief, Daki's ribs are still broken, his body likely sore all over from his fight with Maul, he's sleep deprived and hungry, Devon, while only having a small injury, is likely exhausted herself. Maul quickly realises that they're fighting a losing battle, he tells Daki and Devon that they need to give into their rage if they stand a chance at winning. Daki is firm with his principles and obviously Devon is going to follow her master. Maul is pretty much internally flailing at the situation, especially when the tension is escalated by the return of the inquisitors, Crow and Marrok. Devon has to take them on both, alone, while Maul and Daki try and handle Vader. Devon already struggled with Marrok by herself, so she's really been pushed to her limit here. Daki is sure that if they work together, him and Maul, they can defeat Vader but Maul knows it's not possible, that they're fighting a losing battle, he can barely fight efficiently as is and he's partnered with someone who he believes is giving them both a handicap.

In that moment, he realises that Devon is losing as well, he knows that if he doesn't make a decision soon, everyone will die pointlessly. At the very least, if he abandons this fight alongside Daki, he can go to the aid of Devon and give her a fighting chance. When you look at him in that scene, he even seems to be struggling with the decision he has to make. Realistically, Daki likely would have wanted Maul to go help Devon if she was in danger, even if it meant losing his life in the process but because they're in such an intense situation, it probably doesn't even cross Maul's mind to simply say, ''Hey, your padawan is about to die, I can sense her struggle, I'm gunna go help her, that okay bro?''. It kinda sucks nothing is said because the scene frames Maul as this ruthless villain again, what he does to Daki, but genuinely, what could have been done in that fight against Vader? Nothing, it was a fight bound to be lost with Devon's life being lost in the process.

Maul really did the right thing but it was done in a way that was framed as ruthless, despicable and betrayal.

Ultimately, after everything that has been said in that podcast, I love that the finale wasn't solely about Maul being selfish and simply wanting to find a way to get Devon to turn to the dark side and get her to agree to be his apprentice. He truly wanted to get everyone out alive, he wasn't bullshitting but the Empire threw a massive curveball at him which he had to figure out on his toes.

Sam really is out here giving us such a nuanced look at Maul that isn't always entirely clear in the show from an initial watch.

In other words, it's an important character detail.

So, the first time we see Devon with a red Sith lightsaber is in Episode 3. And it's the remaid half of Maul's lightsaber, which she snatches from him. However, the way the lightsaber lies nearby throughout the conversation implies that Maul did this intentionally. He wanted to see whether Devon would listen to him or choose to attack. In a sense, he's giving her a choice, although it's not entirely a voluntary one. Devon knows Maul is a Jedi killer and a criminal; she has no reason to listen to him when there's even the slightest chance of escape. In other words, it's probably about as free a choice as Sidious gave Maul.

I had the thought last night that deep within Maul’s psyche, he’s not only trying to stop Sidious or get revenge on him. He’s trying to break the cycle. But what is one way that the nervous system tries to do that? By completing the cycle. By seeking out a same or similar situation, a same or similar person, to reenact trauma in the hopes of giving it a different ending.

Maul needs Devon. He’s tender towards her in a ways we haven’t seen him be with anyone else in this show. He’s more vulnerable with her than with anyone else in this show. And yet his underlying subconscious is currently not able to see how breaking the cycle and reliving the cycle are not the same thing, and that he can’t fix himself by bringing everyone else down to his level.

It’s like he’s on a spiral where this is a step up from killing Satine in order to make Kenobi miserable. That was sheer dark side misery. This time, he thinks he’s helping and protecting someone, and that they can help and protect him in order to reach the overarching motivation for his continued resistance—to see his greatest enemy destroyed. Relatively selfless, especially coming from him. But it’s still extremely damaging and unhealthy, and he can’t even (or isn’t willing to) acknowledge that yet. I’ll have to rewatch Rebels to determine if I think how he treats Kanan and Ezra is a slide up or down the spiral. (And we never got enough info with Q’ira to determine his motivations on that).

Maul obviosuly always has those red-shot Sith eyes, but normally they look something like this:

And that second shot is from when Marrok just told him Sidious wants him dead and he brought down the cave around them - rather upsetting moment.

You can see the veins and some patchy spots were they burst, but those turn darker with Vader's arrival.

Here he is right at the beginning, fighting him for the first time, looking pretty normal:

Here they start to get redder than usual already, when Maul questions what Vader is:

And after that, he has those dark red patches in them and his vessels are just completely busted.

Here he is freaking out right after, mumbling to himself, then trying to tell Devon she has to fight with agression to win and you can see half of his left eye turned completely red:

It stays like that until the end of the episode:

Now you can see it also very clearly from farer away, as on the ship:

Which I think is a nice detail and rather telling how much Maul overextended himself by this point but also how he instantly knew that Vader was such a threat that he tapped more into the dark - and now it does not surprise me that his previous ambitions to change were thrown out the window so soon again.

Despite it all, Maul's final shot of the season is one with a smile - he got what he wanted, no matter the costs and the dark sure feeds well on him.

They are executing Devon’s fall in Shadow Lord season 1 so well because as with any good tragic hero, the most laudable thing about her is also her fatal flaw. Which is to say: Devon cannot stand the idea of being passive. She was raised to be a Jedi, to take action to protect people, to use her power in defense of others, and now as Daki struggles to keep her safe in the time of the Empire by urging her to keep her head down and let things happen, she can’t do it. He taught her to be a Jedi too well for it. As one of her most dedicated enemies says: it’s like an itch, she cannot help it.

But. But. Take that and shift it a little bit sideways.

There’s been a consistent thread with Devon throughout this season that she is developing a superiority complex about the Force. And Maul is egging it on, but he didn’t start it—Order 66 did. Because she has this power, she’s spent her whole life training it, she believes in using it to protect and help others—and then what happened? Her family was slaughtered, her religion and culture was subjected to a genocide by a Republic that framed them for treason and used that as justification to transform itself into an Empire, and the galaxy looked at that and…largely shrugged, to Devon’s point of view.

Think about how we met her: She and Daki have been begging on the streets to survive for a year since Order 66. Devon has had to hide her power and identity (which is so tied to that power) and put herself in the shoes of the people she was raised to serve, and she’s watched herself and her master mostly be treated with scorn and indifference. She feels lost, confused, humiliated. Spend your whole life living according to the teaching that all life is precious and all things are connected and you treat everyone and everything with generosity and never judge by appearances—and then when it’s your turn, what happens? The reason Maul’s opening pitch leaves her so shaken is that he is giving voice to every nagging, resentful thought that she’s been trying to pretend she hasn’t been having for months now.

And there is a core of horrible truth here: she does deserve better than this, they all did, holy shit, of course they did! Everyone does, that's the whole point! But that is what the dark side does: it takes things that are true and twists them beyond recognition. She does resent that she’s now expected to be on the level of any other teenage girl in the galaxy, she knows she’s so much more and was meant for so much more and—you see? How easily her pain is twisted to the mindset of a Sith's resentment? Take the scene in Rylee’s room:

Like, this scene is hilarious, the culture-clash awkwardness of normal kid Rylee trying to communicate with Devon like she’s one of his peers at school and her just no-selling and shutting him down is hysterical, but what’s really happening here? What is here to tell us about these characters in the long run, in this show that is so concerned with character work and so thoughtful with its screentime?

Devon is downright derisive—she outright resents the idea that she could be considered a peer by this teenage boy whose biggest concern in life is sports. I've seen people taking her bemusement here in a woobifying direction—oh no she was a child soldier and she cannot understand such simple age-appropriate things!—and yeah maybe there’s a little of that, but mostly? She thinks these things are beneath her. How petty the concerns of these civilians are—she was a Jedi trained to wield a power Rylee could never comprehend, she’s a veteran of the Clone Wars who has witnessed horrors he can’t imagine, she was taught to be concerned with things of great import to the galaxy—and he’s trying to talk to her about sports?

She does not want to become a person like Maul, she's fighting so hard against the temptation of becoming a person like Maul, but also…she does, deep down, enjoy the catharsis of throwing her power around. She has just a bit too much fun stealing a speeder for the getaway vehicle when she’s given the excuse to take something she wants by force. It’s cathartic; it dulls the pain of her loss, of the ongoing humiliation of defeat.

Devon is not a story with a happy ending, she is not, as we have seen many a time in Star Wars stories that aren't villain-centered like this one, the story of a Jedi facing and defeating temptation. She is not Ezra Bridger or Ahsoka Tano or Cal Kestis learning how to act as a Jedi in the time of the Empire—Devon is a story about how a young person’s pain and loss and trauma is exploited by bad actors for their own ends, and how for the most tragic and understandable of reasons she is driven to become her worst self. There are so many people out there who Devon could truly fight the Empire by following—she could so so easily be turned to something like the Rebel Alliance if only someone else had found her!—but this is not that story. She gets Maul, and Crimson Dawn.

Devon wants to become this person now because it can give her the things she wants, and access to her lost station as a Jedi that she cannot get anywhere else. Power to get revenge, power to take what she wants, power to be looked up to rather than down at. Her fear of how much she wanted that deep down died with Daki, because Daki's death finally gave her the permission structure to admit she was only denying she wanted it for his sake.

Idk if I'm right but given that understanding healthy relationships is Maul's blind spot there's a very real possibility that Devon and Rylee bonding over losing their father figures is potentially going to become a massive hindrance to his plans at some point in the future. Rylee isn't just here for the heck of it. There's a purpose to his character not only existing but also seemingly intentionally paralleling the same type of loss Devon is also experiencing. Yeah, it's a motivation for Devon to team up with Maul now, but I feel like eventually her desire to protect her friend and her desire to get back at the Empire are going to clash. Those desires may align currently, but remember, when she defied either Daki or Maul it was explicitly because she chose to protect Rylee instead of obeying the adults. That was her priority in the moment above all else. If one goal at some point gets in the way of the other, which one is she going choose? Maul expects her to automatically choose the goal that aligns with his. But is he right or is that too presumptuous on his part?

What Maul fails to understand is that children - especially teenagers - are not merely extensions of adults. This is because he was never taught any different, which yes is tragic, but he's continuing the cycle Palpatine imposed on him. Neither Devon nor Ezra is an individual person to him - they're reflections of his own self. So he mistakenly assumes they're going to behave exactly like him. Feel the same feelings, make the same decisions. But while they're similar, they're not the same, and we've already seen that individuality win once when Ezra chooses to abandon his temporary brush with the Dark Side.

How close were Scorn and Icarus to him for them to be trusted with treating his wounds, to know and see his physical weakness, to be granted a glance at his hidden pain, and he called them his brothers... But didnt see their pain

How close was spybot to him for it to became a loyal companion of his, to call him simply by his name, to accept his and only his touch, and he kept it close like u do a pet... but he couldnt let himself be touched even by that benign sign of care

How close was Savage to him.... And yet he was able to feel it only after he lost him... And if that lost hunts him to the point of reaching and distorting his core past memories... to the point of swearing "never again"...