Final week, Lucasfilm revealed our first correct take a look at Star Wars: Maul—Shadow Lord, a brand new animated collection that follows the titular ex-Sith build up his legal empire within the aftermath of Revenge of the Sith. This, as is widespread in a franchise that has now perfected the “By some means, X Returned” format, raised various questions from sure areas of the web expressing some shock, honest or in any other case, that this time it was Maul—a personality well-known for being very cool after which nearly instantly getting chopped in half in his debut look—doing the returning.
Placing apart among the peculiar oddities that got here with these reactions (a failure to do not forget that not simply that Maul’s survival after Phantom Menace has been a factor for nearly 15 years now, however that additionally that mentioned survival was on the behest of George Lucas himself, who was clearly nonetheless fascinated by Maul as a determine effectively after bumping him off) Maul’s loss of life, rebirth, and second loss of life converse to a thorny side of current Star Wars media—that the franchise, so beholden to its previous, can not assist however flip loss of life into a revolving door, wrenching characters and tales that had seemingly been granted finality again to life for the sake of pointing on the acquainted again and again.
On the one hand, it’s an objectively humorous factor, and a part of Star Wars‘ goofier elements, {that a} character can survive being sliced in half and falling down a large gap just by being actually mad about it. Alternatively, Maul is maybe the uncommon Star Wars character whose return from the seeming grave labored to actually enrich each his character—by, no offense to Phantom Menace, really giving him one—and now have one thing to say about what it means to erase your self from Star Wars‘ narrative.
From the second Maul’s survival was revealed to us and Obi-Wan Kenobi in Clone Wars to the second we and Obi-Wan Kenobi once more bid him farewell in Star Wars Rebels, his character was outlined by that ceaseless, unyielding rage. Maul’s fury—in opposition to Obi-Wan, in opposition to Palpatine, in opposition to a narrative that discarded him as little greater than a cool picture—is what sustained his survival and drives all the things we see him do throughout his animated appearances. There’s an endearingly chaotic sense of aimlessness to the plots Maul will get himself concerned in over the course of these appearances, each raised up as his Subsequent Nice Plan to get again at those that spited him, from his try to create a brand new Sith duology together with his brother Savage, to his facet quest in briefly eager to take over the planet Mandalore, to finally his extra profitable stint as a criminal offense lord, and finally to his climax as a faux-wizened crone negging a tween into serving to him discover out what his outdated frenemy has been as much as in spite of everything this time.
There’s a attraction in Maul, initially garnering his fame as this stoic, seething badass, turning into one thing of a loser operating more and more zanier schemes. However that feckless lashing out and biting of his thumb towards galactic machinations that chewed him up and spat him out the second his usefulness got here to an finish can be deeply tragic: if rage is what stored Maul alive within the first place, it couldn’t really fulfill his life or his desires of revenge, leaving him a husk flitting from one plan to the following, lashing out fruitlessly as he tries to get somebody, anybody, to care about his plight. All Maul had wasn’t some place within the galaxy, however this anger he couldn’t put wherever or preserve in a single place for any time frame to do something significant with it.
That’s, till Rebels superbly pays all of it off. “Twin Suns” is arguably Maul’s best hour, regardless of it being an episode that brings him to the cusp of all the things he needed solely to chop him down as soon as once more, as rapidly as the primary time. There isn’t a last howl, no epic conflict of swords as he’s lastly drawn again to Obi-Wan Kenobi on Tatooine. A single strike lays him low, and the top of Darth Maul is upon us as soon as once more. As he begins to slide away in Obi-Wan’s arms, Maul breathlessly realizes that his place in Star Wars‘ narrative has to go to another person—in search of reassurance from Obi-Wan that at the very least somebody, if not him, will get revenge in opposition to his former grasp. His a long time of fury on the galaxy have led him to this one second that couldn’t be granted by his first “loss of life”: that the one method he can discover peace and an precise sense of path is by letting all of it go. And if Maul lets go of that rage, then what was maintaining him round?
It’s a lesson a whole lot of Star Wars characters have been requested to grapple with as their lengthy arcs have dragged out throughout new eras and iterations of the franchise—the conclusion of when the time is to exit the story, via loss of life or in any other case, and depart the galaxy’s struggles to different generations. However to take a personality whose preliminary loss of life was so meaningless and have him expertise this lengthy journey that’s basically about reckoning with and accepting that to grant him an really significant departure is way extra resonant than the pleasant absurdity of what he survived within the first place—and maybe the uncommon instance Star Wars has gotten proper out of letting a personality cheat loss of life.
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