I really like how they’re setting up Devon’s turn toward the dark side. So far, I can already see how it’ll make sense in her mind.
She’s a padawan who was raised on the ideals of peace and justice. However, she would have spent her formative training years at war, something that is inherently not peaceful and unjust. Now, she and her master are fugitives, starving and begging on the streets, and sticking to those principles seem illogical.
Her master, with his years of experience, can see the reward in itself in in keeping these principles despite everything, but all she can see is she’s starving, her master is starving, so where’s the harm in stealing a little fruit? Then, when she’s caught, he lets her be arrested for it.
(Which is a stupid move imo. You know the empire is hunting Jedi and you let her go be processed by law enforcement and risk being found by the empire over a couple space apples? Lecture her later, sure, but this lesson is not worth risking both your lives.)
Now, she’s been arrested, spent a night in jail, and got captured by a crime syndicate all because she took some fruit? Where’s the justice in that?
And that’s exactly the thread Maul can pull. Maul knows what starving is and is determined to never starve again. He can relate to her on that point.
But where’s the justice in punishing a starving girl for stealing food while criminals like Varrio are quietly allowed to continue operating because they have threads the pull? Why should she and her master be forced to starve on principles while others take what they want and go to bed with a full belly? And how does depriving herself help anyone in the end?
Never mind that Maul isn’t interested in helping people. She’s going to see that his way gets results. Maybe she’ll think to herself, “I don’t have to go as far as he does. I can learn from him but I don’t have to become him.” She can gain power, power to change things, power to help people.
At least that’s how it’ll start. But who knows how it’ll end?
