the good ship Steadfast

And we see that he did try to shoo off the “hero crew” when they arrived in Cloud City in such a way that a) they’d have a decent chance of escaping, and b) he’d have plausible deniability. We see him ribbing Han a lot, for example, in such a way that it would be entirely possible that Han, who’s very touchy, might well just … go off in a huff. Lando could then easily go “haha, sorry Darth Vader sir, didn’t realize that Han couldn’t take a joke.” Win-win.

Christopher Lee was 6’5 and huge. Adding onto that fact, we can imagine the physical reality of a person who dedicated their life to lightsaber study, who taught it as a Temple instructor for years as a full time job BEFORE blowing off to learn Sith combat arts. They could have easily made him a hulking space tank Gregor Clegane style fighter. Instead, he fights with lightsaber ballet. 

Which, as anyone who has done actual ballet knows, far from being delicate, is incredibly physically intensive and grueling work.  

What’s so interesting to me is that Makashi isn’t even a powerhouse form. Form II was developed before the good defense-as-offense of Soresu or the utility of Niman. It was a form designed by Jedi who were fighting against other lightsabers for the first time in the Sith Wars; it’s designed around disarming instead of killing, and lacks the big moves to fatally finish a fight. You can see a couple times (the end of the Obi-Wan and Anakin portion of his duel in AotC is a good example) where Dooku has to actually stop fighting to try to do a killing blow as opposed to seamlessly working a fatal stroke in. Even as a fully-revealed Sith at the height of his evil powers, he leaves duels, he rarely finishes them. 

And yet, Dooku is tremendously successful with Makashi in the prequels and the Clone Wars series for a variety of reasons that have nothing to do with the form itself, and everything about how he uses it. One, because he has the size and physical stamina to get hammered through the form’s weaknesses and lack of defenses to stay on his feet. Asajj is a prodigy, but she gets absolutely bounced around using the exact same form with a slighter build. And his reach makes him very dangerous. Two, because of the hallmark Makashi move, Contentious Opportunity, where a Makashi practitioner basically throws the sink at you to give themselves a little breathing room to get the complicated precision of the form back up and running. Dooku throws combatants through windows. He throws architecture at them. He throws dinner tables. His favorite, of course, is throwing lightning; in so many Clone Wars duels, you can see the exact moment a fight stops being fun for Dooku or where he’s feeling cornered or vulnerable by the point where he starts BBQing everyone. Ultimately, even his downfall can go back to the form: in RotS, he gets pinned down by a more burly form (Anakin's absolutely drilling form V) in a situation where he can't manage to buy himself a beat.

he's apparently left handed- he wears his lightsaber on the right side of his belt and usually fights left handed when using his saberstaff mode

but when fighting with a single blade he uses his right hand

(dual wielding is not really clear because he only seems to dual wield when facing an average of 2 blades per opponent, and there's too many red blades in there to tell which hand he's leading with)

early on in shadow lord, before daki kicks his knee, he opens with the typical left-handed double-bladed stance

but after (re)injuring his right leg he's apparently switched to fighting right handed, presumably to put less weight/movement on his injured leg!

idk man I think after all that *gestures to episode 8* he'd be exhausted as fuck. Give him a 42 hour nap or something please?

A lot of people are treating it as if this happened in objective reality, that Shadow Lord retconned his backstory. But I think this is what Maul wants his backstory to be, and in typical Maul fashion, deluded himself into believing. Honestly, I don’t think he remembers the truth. Anyhoo the dialogue felt oddly canned because it felt so…convenient for Maul.

He wants to believe that he had companionship before Sidious, that he was something before him. He’s a really lonely guy. He wants a benign brother figure that could’ve offered him a different path. All the evidence suggests that he & Savage weren’t even raised together, but since Savage is the closest thing to family Maul’s ever had, it makes sense he would project these desires onto him. Especially the “what have you done with my brother?” line.

Maul (through Savage) is putting all of the agency upon Sidious. Sidious corrupted him, Sidious ruined him, Sidious is responsible for all of the cruelty Maul inflicted upon Savage. Which, in a sense, is partly true, but not in the way Maul thinks it is. Sidious abused and warped him, yes, but Maul makes the choice to emulate him by being similarly cruel. Maul doesn’t want to confront this though. So instead we get Savage (a representation of companionship Maul desperately wants, the perfect life he believes he could’ve had without Sidious) standing up to man. Lets pretend that everything in the visions happened in reality Be honest. If Savage had said that in reality, do you think Palpatine would’ve let him live? He’s not one to take insults lightly. Do you think Savage would’ve had the courage to stick up to a Sith Lord? Or that he would be blaming Sidious for “changing his brother” rather than Maul making the decision to leave?

He didn’t even remember Savage’s last words correctly. In Maul’s vision, he said “Avenge me” but in reality he said “Brother. I'm an unworthy apprentice. I'm not like you. I never was.”

there’s no way maul doesn’t recognize this. the guy who we see applying every lightsaber form, who trained in combat doggedly his whole life, who still perfects his craft and calls back on his training as recently as earlier this episode, is absolutely noticing how the empire is perverting and hobbling its force-sensitive charges.

At least according to the old continuity, the Wookiees were skilled explorers, and their Clatuuvac Guild had the secrets to a number of hyperspace routes, especially through the Core (it's why the Separatists were so keen to take the planet in Revenge of the Sith)... And Chewbacca was one of the people who knew these hyperspace routes.