Actias

A lot of it is obvious. She, too, has been denied a destiny she sought to fulfill. She no doubt had expectations about what she’d be like as a Jedi once she grew up, and now both halves of that dream are uncertain for her. Suddenly, her fate is largely dependent on other people. Whether the Order is restored and she can become the Jedi she was supposed to be can only happen if somebody out there who is stronger and braver is able to go against the Empire. Master Daki says as much that all she can do is wait. Whether she lives long enough to become an adult will not be due to her actions, either, seeing as much more powerful Jedi have fought harder and better and still fallen. All she has is a finite amount of luck. And luck has not got her very far. Of course she wants what the Empire has stolen from her.

But some of it still doesn't add up. Consider Maul's choice of words. Refusing her call to fight. Even armed, her instinct is to run. Untested (in combat). Yes, Maul does mention the fact she lost everything she knows, but the underlying theme throughout his monologue is the physical power the Force gives you. In other words, violence. More than that, he's suggesting that because both he and Devon have the capacity for violence, they deserve to be revered. She's hungry, yes, but what he's tempting her with is not the power to never be hungry but the power to make other people suffer for how she’s suffered. And since we’ve previously established that Maul is voicing her thoughts here, well… she’s been mulling it over for a while. Certainly before Maul ever came into the picture. This poses the question: how does a Jedi come to value power gained through violence?  Some obvious answers. The Empire. Order 66. The war. It's easy to assume Devon was a good girl who got tricked by an evil man, who never would’ve gone to the dark side were it not for the listed traumas above. But I think that’s a little too simple.

For example, we know from Devon’s VA that she relates to Maul in “a way she wasn’t able to relate to Daki or people in the Jedi Order”. Not to mention that Devon herself, while not necessarily behaving in ways atypical of a Jedi, absolutely has thought patterns that are very atypical. The ends justifies the means is not a Jedi idea, but it’s what drives nearly all of Devon’s actions in the show. It's a very Maul idea, a very Machiavellian idea. If you asked me what I think Maul and Devon are relating on, I'd bet money it's a similar belief in that one, single idea. And if Devon relates to Maul in ways she couldn't to the Jedi, prior to Order 66, it makes me think that the roots for Devon's fall have been there for a while. And really, that rules out the idea of Devon as this ordinary, interchangeable padawan that slots into that narrative above, doesn’t it? Devon’s fall couldn’t have happened to anyone but her, because there must be reasons inherent to her alone for her fall. Those reasons must predate both meeting Maul and the fall of the Order. If she were any old padawan prior, Maul wouldn’t be the first person she feels understands her on this deeper level. To take it a step further, I think that she didn’t go to war hoping to do some good and became disillusioned. I think she liked the potential for power and status the war gave her, and losing it was a blow to her pride. Why? She feels denied the renown she thinks she deserves. She thinks that the Jedi have the right to insert themselves wherever because they have power. She believes the ends justify the means. She believes that they should do whatever necessary to capture Maul or rescue Rylee, because to her, the potential for good offsets what they must do to get there. Later, she uses that same idea to justify her service to Maul: does it matter how she does it, as long as her master is avenged? Not that her master would want this, of course. It would break his heart to see her beside Maul. But Devon’s ego says she should have been strong enough. Devon’s ego says if begging doesn’t work, she must take. Which must sound pretty strange, for a Jedi. Let's take a little detour to talk about what kind of galaxy Devon would've grown up in. Since we don't know her exact age, we'll compare her to other padawans from the same era. If Ahsoka was very young to be a commander at fourteen, then in order for Devon to be a combatant for the full war, she would need to be older than Ahsoka. But she can't be, because being even the same age as Ahsoka would make her eighteen or older. That's not possible. Rylee is a high school student, and Devon is Rylee's peer. So instead, she must actually be younger than Ahsoka. That rules out Devon being a combatant for the full war; she would've spent some time as a civilian. What would that look like?

Legends provides us with an idea of what it was like to be a child at the time. The Revenge of the Sith novelization describes the propaganda the Republic was both producing and subsequently, falling for. Anakin and Obi-Wan manufactured into heroes, legends, the idea of the "Hero with No Fear". How schoolchildren across the galaxy "know their names, know everything about them, follow their exploits as though they are sports heroes". (Stover, pg 13 of ROTS). Now, what if those children were Jedi younglings? Would that make them more or less likely to buy into this cult of personality? I think more. Can you imagine? Following the war because it is your duty to and you must, and the whole time you see this new status is able to elevate your peers that are just like you, only a little older? Your peers that have gone off to fight, one by one, that you have conveniently missed the aftermath of. At the very least there was a disconnect from the Republic children playing at being Anakin and Obi-Wan. Not here. A Jedi loss is your loss. And you will experience loss, because soon enough everyone will know someone that did not come home. You are too young, of course, to know that there is no glory in war, and every loss only fuels you against the Separatists. But a Jedi win is not your win, not personally. If you want a chance at the renown you think you can find, you must train enough, and then you must go yourself. 

Want something more canon? In Brotherhood, we meet a youngling who is rendered anxious by all mention of the war. And mention there is! It is all anybody wants to talk about. There is constant coverage on the news, constant discussion, constant reminders. The image of Anakin and Obi-Wan as war heroes has taken off, and their faces are everywhere. While her crechemates are excited, she is not, because she cannot reconcile her pacifism with the fact the Jedi have been sent to war. 

However, I’ve been ignoring something important so far, which is that her own master is something of a pacifist himself. Master Daki's own attitude towards the war is not said during Shadow Lord, but we can make inferences based on what else we know about him. He's not just against Devon using gratuitous violence, he's against it as a concept. And war is the most gratuitous of violence there is. He's a traditionalist. He's very old, easily several hundred years or more. He believes a Jedi presence can sometimes make situations worse, and in that case the right move is to leave people to settle it themselves without the Jedi. Largely, he seems to prefer letting the Force work itself out without intervention. He's an extremely competent fighter, able to get a hit on Vader, but won't fight unless forced. He will only use the Force in the service of others. He will not kill, as it is against his principles. The most he threatens of Maul is to turn him in, and possibly harm him in the process if Maul won't go willingly. He believes that staying morally good and true to oneself is more important than anything that could be accomplished without it. In other words, the ends do not justify the means. 

And since Daki is Devon’s master, what she gets involved in is ultimately dependent on what Daki was already up to. She might want to go out and cut her teeth and change the world, but if Daki has, for instance, a boring deployment and sees little action, that’s not very possible. And if her master is a pacifist that wouldn’t take his padawan to war unless forced… well, she might have some military experience. But she certainly wouldn’t be a hardened soldier, if her master was insistent on only doing the absolute bare minimum he was ordered. Ahsoka, in comparison, was able to become such a soldier because Anakin already was, not because it was a level of experience standard for padawans. I think, if Daki was ordered to the front lines, he just wouldn’t take a padawan if it meant they’d be forced to follow him. He’d wait. So, Daki would not have taken Devon as a padawan unless he was confident he could shield her to some extent.

So, Devon maybe isn’t the war hero of Republic propaganda. Maybe she’s not even a hero. Maybe she’s just a kid that wanted to be special. She’s not worldly. She wasn’t out dueling bounty hunters, or dining with senators, or meeting Force gods. Maybe when Maul says that Devon is untested, he means exactly that: someone who is very talented, and very well-trained, but has little opportunity to prove herself. Denied the opportunity, even, if you think about it from her perspective. Arguably, Daki made the right choice if he was able to keep his child padawan from becoming a soldier, but you can see how that could become a point of contention. Do you think she thought about it? Did she daydream as a youngling, of all the ships she could be flying and battles that might be won due to her? Did that grow into resentment? Jealousy? Was she able to put aside her impatience and see what master Daki is training her to become, or did she wonder what the purpose was if she seemingly couldn’t act on her training? Did she want more? Did she always want more? Is that why Maul is able to convince her?

So you're Devon. You've spent years waiting for your chance to prove yourself, but your master denies you the chance at every turn. You respect your master, maybe love your master, but you want. You want power, maybe. Recognition. Whatever it is, a Jedi is not supposed to want it, because a Jedi is not supposed to be wanting. But now, they can. Every time you turn on the holonet, you see Anakin Skywalker being praised for the same traits you hear you must give up. But that's different, because Skywalker is a war hero, and you are not. You do not understand yet that his image has been manufactured to drum up support for the war effort. You just know that he, and all of the other Jedi combatants, are allowed to act in ways that you are not. The more you see they are rewarded for their service while you must be humble, the more it festers. Maybe you're too young to become a padawan for most of the war, and by the time you're old enough, you barely see much action at all before Order 66. Maybe your master only takes up missions that contribute to the war in stealthier, more roundabout ways. Maybe when you finally see the war, you only experience dull, isolated deployments with little action. It doesn't matter which, because the end goal is the same. You're convinced that you're meant for something more. You want to change the world. If you told your master this, he might tell you war is a lie you've been sold, and so is its glory. But you do not tell your master. You think, when you're a knight you'll be in charge. But then comes Order 66, the Republic falls, and you and your master must flee. Suddenly the only thing you're able to do is survive. Your dreams are dead. And whatever minor disagreements you and your master might have had before, you can't think about them now. Because he's all you have, and you're all he has.

And there is not a single person in the world who voices how you feel, what you've repressed to avoid thinking about or what you've stewed in spite and anger – but Maul. Every secret thought you haven’t voiced, every bit of anger or jealousy you’ve tried to push down, everything. He takes everything you’ve worked to be and says, why work so hard? Doesn’t it feel good? Don’t you want it? The Order is gone. Master Daki is dead. Why keep it up when there is no one around to see it? No one but me, who is not judging you for it? Does it matter how you get there, if you achieve your goals? Don’t you want to change something? Don’t you think the ends justify the means? 

Speaking of which, maybe we should get back to him. After all, based on the arguments I was making, Devon and Maul’s backstories would need to be parallel to each other. And surely Darth Maul, Sith Lord, first Sith to appear in a thousand years – didn’t spend his childhood waiting around for a chance to prove himself. And he was certainly never an untested, but very talented kid who wanted to be special, right? Well… his Legends backstory would beg to disagree, but it’s of dubious canon and therefore unreliable. Think about it this way. Maul was raised to believe his own purpose was to kill, and kill Jedi especially. But because Plagueis was still alive, or Sidious wasn’t ready to reveal themselves yet, he did a lot of waiting. Doing missions he felt were beneath him, growing impatient, and living in the worst, poorest, and most awful district of Coruscant. All while he was being fed ideas about some nebulous power he would gain. And maybe it wasn’t a lie, but that power came at a heavy cost. Do you see what he might have in common with a Jedi padawan who grew up surrounded by war propaganda, yet with an inability to contribute to the war effort as fully as she could? Who is now living in a sewer while she waits, impatient, to be allowed to act at all, much less ever have the importance she feels she was promised again? These two characters are not so different. 

An important distinction to make is that none of this means Devon was always some evil person, nor does it mean that Order 66 had no influence as to why she fell. It’s simply an analysis as to why Devon would fall where others might not. She’s got all these ideas about glory and renown she keeps to herself – why is that? She grew up in a time that demanded Jedi to become high-profile generals and soldiers while she had a morally strict, pacifist master – is it connected? I think it’s all connected. Nearly every youngling no doubt harbored some kind of dream about saving the world from the Seperatists. Devon didn't need to be "corrupted" to gain these ideas, all she had to do was turn on the holos. No matter how much of an ordinary kid she was, there's no escaping the war. She must have a distorted idea of war, and consequently violence and power, as much as any youth of her generation. I don't think you can seperate that from who she is now. But everyone has their opinion.