Darth Maul: The Restlessness of Hate

Darth Maul was initially introduced as the primary antagonist in Star Wars the Phantom Menace, the first episode in the Star Was prequel movie trilogy. He stood out to fans with his red face, horned head, and the first double-bladed lightsaber that we had seen. Even fans who dislike the movie remember Darth Maul as one of the best elements of Star Wars ever. His fight scene with Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn is absolutely incredible. So when he died at the end of that first movie, cut in half (horizontally) by Obi-Wan, fans were really upset, and they were even more upset when they learned that he was replaced by Count Dooku as the primary antagonist in Attack of the Clones (which they shouldn’t have been, because Count Dooku is such a handsome and elegant villain).

Years after the Phantom Menace was released, we were surprised to learn that Darth Maul actually survived in the Clone Wars tv show. His brother needs some help with his Sith training, as brothers often do, and so he goes and finds Maul on a junkyard planet, where he has been living as all these years, attached to mechanical spider legs that are held together by the Force. He helps Maul heal, and together they begin to build up their own powerbase, all in the name of exacting vengeance on Obi-Wan Kenobi, the Jedi who took Maul’s legs, and Maul’s future. It takes years, but eventually, Maul catches up with Kenobi, and they have one final duel. This time, Maul dies for what we believe is the last time. But what do these two different deaths mean for the former Sith Lord?

Maul’s last duel against Kenobi is brief. Most of the confrontation is a conversation between the two force users, and then a quiet moment in which each ignites their lightsaber and studies their opponent. Kenobi moves through three poses, one that is most recognizable as the signature pose of the younger Kenobi played by Ewan McGregor, then Alec Guinness’ Kenobi, and then a stance taken by his master, Qui-Gon Jinn, in his own duel with Maul. There’s a lot happening in this scene, but most of the analyses that I’ve seen have all pointed to Maul as being stagnant, stuck in his old ways, thinking that he is superior to Kenobi because he has more power and isn’t stuck on an isolated desert planet, aging at a rapid pace. He does call Kenobi a “rat in the desert,” and wonders if it is better to kill Kenobi, or to leave him to “fester in his squalor.” Maul admits to traveling Tatooine with the intention of killing his old nemesis. I think that Maul genuinely believes that to be his intention at the time. He has lost so much to the Sith and doesn’t have any recognizable path forward, and so he goes back to meet an enemy from his past, hoping to accomplish something, to exert a tiny bit of his power. He doesn’t realize the true reason he is there yet.

People then point to the phase in their duel in which Kenobi moves through his three different poses as a trap. When Kenobi reaches the pose once assumed by his former master, Maul attacks. They point to this as the moment in which Maul thinks that he can best Kenobi. He sees Qui-Gon’s old stance and thinks that he can defeat Kenobi in the exact same way. When he attacks Kenobi, Maul uses the same moves that he once used to kill Qui-Gon. He raises the hilt of his lightsaber to hit Kenobi, but Kenobi is too quick, and slices downwards, striking a fatal blow to Maul. Maul falls and is caught by Kenobi. This, I believe, is the crucial moment in which my theory is based on. Without any anger, Maul asks if the person Kenobi is guarding, Luke Skywalker, is the chosen one. When Kenobi responds in the affirmative, Maul claims that Luke will avenge them both. It seemed an odd thing for someone who supposedly hates his opponent to say, especially when knowing he has just been killed at the hands of that person. Why would Maul want Kenobi to be avenged as well? And wasn’t Maul’s hatred singularly targeted at Kenobi?

When Maul attacked, I think he fully believed, and intended, to die by his hand. Maybe he did go to Tatooine with the intention of killing Kenobi, or at least thinking that was his intention, but I don’t think that intention remained with him. When he saw Kenobi assume Qui-Gon’s stance, Maul must have recognized it, not as a sign that Kenobi was vulnerable, but as a sign that Kenobi remembered that duel in the Phantom Menace and would be able to counter Maul’s attack where Qui-Gon could not. It’s a perfect case of I know that you know that I know. Maul could have changed his approach, but despite knowing that Kenobi was prepared for it, he went ahead anyway. Now, obviously we don’t know for sure that this is what Maul was thinking, but it’s certainly plausible.

Fortunately for us, we have another Maul death scene to compare this one to. In the Phantom Menace, Kenobi cuts Maul in half, believing him to be dead. But Maul returns, not quite with full control of his mind, but he is alive. He is taken back to his village to recover, given legs, and then leaves his village to find Kenobi. When he meets Kenobi for the first time since being cut in half by him, Maul explains to the Jedi that “you cannot imagine the depths I would go to to stay alive, fueled by my singular hatred for you.” According to Maul, he survived because of his hate. I know some of you need a biological reason for him to survive, but let me just remind you that this is a fictitious world with space wizards and teddy bears that know how to drive speeder bikes and overthrow tyrannical governments, so it shouldn’t be too hard to accept that a Sith Lord, one of the most powerful beings in the galaxy, can survive being cut in half. And if you are struggling to accept that, allow me to introduce you to Darth Vader, another Sith Lord who had all his limbs cut off and burned for probably a few hours on the bank of a lava river. As a burning Vader is crawling up the river bank with only one metallic arm, he tells Kenobi that he hates him. Hatred of Kenobi seems to be the key to surviving impossible odds. But what is important is that Maul survived, and he did so because of his hate specifically for Kenobi. Just as Zuko’s firebending was fueled by his drive to catch the Avatar, Maul’s survival is made possible because of his specific drive for revenge against Kenobi.

Throughout the Clone Wars and Rebels, we see Maul pursue this revenge, determinedly pursuing the man who almost killed him. Almost everything he does is for the express purpose of hurting Kenobi. He slaughters a village of people, commandeers a crew of pirates, even takes over an entire planet just so he can get his revenge. If he gains some power along the way, all the better, but the end goal has always been Kenobi.

And then, Kenobi disappears. Order 66 happens, and the Jedi are wiped out. Maul doesn’t know if Kenobi survived or not, and he loses his seat of power as a crime lord. We don’t know exactly how he loses his power, but in the Rebels tv show he is older and weaker. He is trapped on an old Sith world where he fights three Imperial Inquisitors whom he only manages to kill with the help of three Jedi. Afterwards, Kanan, a man who never completed his Jedi training and who has just been blinded manages to unceremoniously toss Maul from the top of a pyramid. Maul has no allies. He is alone. Without his hate, his rage, he is nothing. There is nothing as potent as his hate that is driving him to do anything anymore. Sure, he claims that he is now fighting the Sith, the group that killed his brother, but remember, he only survived because of his singular hatred for Kenobi. Fighting the Sith isn’t enough to keep him alive, and so, we seem him diminished, unable to be the force he once was. He’s grasping for a purpose and trying new things by training the Jedi Ezra, but even that doesn’t fill the void where his hate once was. There is nothing left for him.

And then Maul discovers that Kenobi is still alive, and that the old Jedi is on Tatooine, the place where it all began. He races off to the planet so that he can catch up to his nemesis. He arrives in the desert and begins his hunt.

And that’s where he finds Kenobi. At a fire pit in the middle of the desert. The two talk. Maul attacks. Maul dies.

After he is cut in half on Naboo, Maul feels nothing but hate. He responds to this initial injury, to what should have been his death, with anger, and goes out of his way to claw his way back to Kenobi, to make the Jedi feel what he himself felt at that pivotal moment of his life. His response to being struck one last time is completely different. Whatever vestiges of hate he may have had are gone. He falls, and allows himself to be caught by Kenobi, the man who had once been his enemy. The two men connect with each other in their loss to the Sith, and Maul expresses his conviction that this new Chosen One, Luke Skywalker, will avenge both of them. If he had been fully committed to killing Kenobi, I don’t think he would have responded in the way he did. His mocks and threats to Kenobi and Luke aren’t sincere. As he is dying, he lets go of them. He allows his anger to fade, and he dies for real this time. Without his hate, he becomes mortal.

There’s really no way of knowing for certain if Maul thought he could win the duel or if he intended to lose it. We don’t actually know what he is thinking in that scene. But I do think that he would have been able to survive a second time if he had continued to feed on his hate for Kenobi. The fact that he dies, and that he reaches out to Kenobi as an equal just before he does, seems to indicate to me that Maul’s hate for Kenobi just isn’t there anymore. Moving away from Star Wars for just a moment, in a lot of different stories, ghosts continue to roam the world long after dying because of some unfinished business that they have. Maul, in a way, is a ghost. He remains in the galaxy in order to haunt Kenobi, following him, committing atrocities and orchestrating entire wars just to get Kenobi to notice him. And then that all ends, and Maul is able to move on.

Hate is all consuming. When we first learn that Maul survived what was thought to be his initial death, he doesn’t look comfortable. There is no space in his mind for anything other than his hate of Kenobi. He rummages around on a garbage planet feeding on lost scavengers who fall into his cave. He has ideas of who he once was, but they don’t seem to be clear or particularly focused. It isn’t until his brother brings him home and Maul participates in a magical ritual that he regains a sense of self. But even this is limited. His people have been massacred, but he does nothing to avenge them, and he has either been reunited with his brother or met him for the first time, but treats him as nothing more than a tool. Rather than try to forge a new path, he tries to reclaim the title of Sith. His hate keeps him stuck, unable to try anything new. Maul essentially becomes hate. And when that hate finally begins to fade, so too does Maul.

I hope you enjoyed this article! You can listen to more of my ramblings about fantasy stories on my podcast, “Determination, Deliberation, and Dragons.” My friends and I workshop original stories, interview authors, and analyze books and films. You can find the show wherever you get your podcasts.