we want more Maul canon info 🙏🙏🙏, (like the deathwatch)
Okay! So I'm gonna talk a bit more about the M&M dynamic— Because, oh isn't there a lot to talk about these two.
For a bit context the whole portions about Maul on Orsis— The school for assassins and spies, didn't originally came from Wrath on its own. It came from a short story, written by James Luceno called "Restrain" and it is… weird.
There isn't a better word that I could use to describe it; The way the girls, Kilindi and Daleen, are written is kinda weird and- Idk, predatory? They're have a lot less character than in Wrath and seem to just be there to be female representation. There's a lot of aspects in this story that just give a bad feeling, like when reading those decade old superheros comic and immediately noticing the outdated problematics and weird themes.
Restrain is not really a read I would recommend, because even if there is good parts, they get overshadowed very easily by the unplanned discomfort the story in its overall gives. The M&M dynamic for example, whenever there is moments about them in the story it gets immediately run over by the weird obsession they gave Maul with the Force. Yeah, Maul thinking force-sensitive are better than non force-sensitive is a part of his character but the way he goes about it here is literally cartoonishly arrogant? Maul writing is all over the place in this story by a lot of aspects so as a read of a Maul fan? No, go read Wrath.
But since the short story is focused only on Orsis, we have a lot more on the school and it's characters as a whole! And Meltch is one of these character!
"Meltch glanced to the Rodians, who shook their heads. Furious, then, he stormed past Trezza. Maul sensed the punch coming long before the Mando put his weight behind it. Standing still, he turned his head in the direction of the gauntleted blow and managed to remain on his feet. Spitting blood to the ground, he glared at the Mando.
Meltch snorted and offered up his square chin. “Go ahead, Maul, since you seem bent on making this personal.”
“You’ve made it personal for two years.”
“To push you to your limits,” Meltch said. “To make you a warrior.” Meltch held Maul’s yellow-eyed gaze. “Personal or professional. You can’t have it both ways.”
A head shorter than both Maul or Meltch, Trezza stepped between them. It was never a good sign when a Falleen took on color, and Trezza’s face was shifting through the spectrum.
“Enough,” he said. “No points for either side.”
Meltch scoffed. “He’ll never make the grade, Trezza. Not until he decides to be honest with us. Until then, we’re wasting our time.”
Just this moment set up a completely different dynamic than the one they had in Wrath. This is after the same exercise about Maul running from Meltch and the rodians on Wrath but we go into much more detail into it.
" As for Meltch, he was built for any climate, any terrain, and decades of combat on diverse worlds had transformed him into a kind of super-soldier. Not extraordinary in the way Maul was, but powerful in another way.
A profane way, as he had been taught to think of it."
Maul has a more open respect for Meltch which is tainted by the thoughts Sidious pushed into him, but its still comes to surface in some moments.
"Meltch would be harder to fool than the Rodians. By now the Mandalorian knew all of Maul’s tricks, and indeed was responsible for his learning some of them. But Maul had learned some of Meltch’s tricks that the human hadn’t meant to teach, and was counting on the fact that the Mandalorian would send the Rodians to outflank him, while he himself continued to hound Maul from behind."
If Sidious was the one who taught Maul to be a sith and a master duelist, Meltch was the one who taught him everything else. The fighting, strategics, the skills that make him as dangerous as he is with or without the Force.
"Cautiously, Maul ascended to the top of the slope, only to spy Meltch not 50 meters in front of him, standing with his back to a jagged rend in the broken terrain. How Meltch had gotten past him, Maul couldn’t guess. Some Death Watch technique, he supposed. "
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"But only until they began to taunt him by kicking debris from the rim in the hope that Maul would lose his grip and plunge to an accidental death.
Scarcely the first under the Mando’s watch."
But there is still things about Meltch he does not know, and Maul is far from trusting him. Its a mutually untrustworthy and influential relationship between them and its good.
“Meltch is intent on goading you into revealing your true nature. Members of the Death Watch were brutally honest with one another and loyal to a fault.”
“Then why did the group splinter?”
“They underestimated a rival they thought they had eliminated. With their leader dead, the rest scattered and Meltch wound up here, because, we, too, value loyalty and tradition. If not an ideal trainer, he’s a gifted strategist. And he was correct about your making this personal. Especially now that your powers are increasing.” "… Meltch has long suspected that you have the Force, and now you’ve given him further reason to distrust you. Perhaps he’s envious, or perhaps he’s one of those who doesn’t view the Force with favor. .."
Considering Meltch past with Force users as being a member of the Death Watch and also known as a jedi hunter, the most likely was that he harbored a hatred towards them and distrusted Maul because of that, and this is confirmed a few pages later:
"…Talzin turned to the offworlder. “Normally I could be persuaded to excuse such a transgression, but not with a Nightbrother of such martial prowess.”
“Stands to reason,” the offworlder said.
Talzin appraised him. “I appreciate your bringing this information to our attention, but your reason for doing so is anything but transparent.”
“Maul isn’t simply another adolescent trainee,” the man said. “I think he might be an agent, inserted into Trezza’s school by some Republic faction or the Jedi Order. Periodically he leaves the school, probably to meet with his control…"
He actively believes Maul is a danger and a problem to Orsis, but doesn't do anything regarding him because of Trezza. He knows how dangerous Maul is because he made him like that! He created his own personal problem!
