Mara Jade's Purple Lightsaber

Fellow Star Wars fans,

As I read through Star Wars: Jedi v Sith - The Essential Guide to the Force ("the Guide") I have noted some little tidbits which finally confirm some matters that have been unresolved for some time.

One such matter was that Emperor Palpatine / Darth Sidious supposedly arranged for Mace Windu's unique lightsaber to be retrieved and that it was given to Mara Jade as a gift. This theory made sense and was altogether plausible.

Nonetheless, p. 107 of the Guide has the following to say about the matter:

"...Mara constructed a new violet-bladed lightsaber for herself as part of her training to become a Jedi Knight."

I think this definitively puts that rumour to rest.

Note: I am a huge fan of Mace Windu as a character and personally would have loved for it to be Mace's saber, but alas it wasn't to be.

PS - I thoroughly recommend the Guide, even for those, like myself, who have almost all the books/comics/games and think they pretty much all there is to know about Star Wars and the EU. It's a great read.

Regards,
Darth Yasura

 

I think it's implied by SW: Allegiance that the crystal used in Mara's lightsaber that the Emperor gave to her was grown from base materials retrieved from the crystal in Mace Windu's lightsaber.

 

I missed that in Jedi Vs. Sith, interesting. When I talked with Tim Zahn, he said he meant for it to be Mace's lightsaber, but that they edited that out (in Allegiance of course). Oh wells, canon is canon.

Also, I agree that this book was really good. The art was amazing, specially the work done by Trevas. So clean and crisp and realistic, none of this silly abstract shapes and colors mashed together.

 

Say, whatever happened to the Anakin/Luke/Luuke/Mara lightsaber?

 

I forget where I read it (probably in the Jedi vs. Sith guide), but didn't they say that Luke retired that old lightsaber after a few years? Probably by the NJO years, and definitely by the LotF years. Although I can't remember where I saw that, so I might not be right.

 

Ask and thou shall receive re: Luke's lightsaber:

"Luke recovered his first lightsaber and gave it to Mara Jade... Luke has retired his first lightsaber, and continues to use the second one that he made for himself."

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Darth Yasura

 

What does Allegiance say that implies Mara has Mace's saber? That sounds like a terrible, terrible piece of fanon.

 

She had TWO violet lightsabers. The one being referred to in the above quote was the one she constructed while mutually apprenticed to Kyle Katarn, just prior to Mysteries of the Sith, in the Dark Empire timeframe. However, she apparently preferred Farmboy's old saber, as she was using that one in the Hand of Thrawn duology.

But she had a violet one before that, used in Allegience, Mara Jade: By The Emperor's Hand, and Mara's first CCG card (said saber also got a card of its own). This one was provided to her by Palpatine as one of many weapons available for her use on her missions. She escaped Coruscant with it, and she kept it at least until her confrontation with Lumiya on Caprioril (as seen in the artwork for "The Emperor's Pawns"). This saber can't be Windu's, since it's visually distinctive from his, but there's perhaps room in canon for the *crystal* from that saber to be in Mara's.

 

Room in canon for it to be Mace's? I'd say there's very little room in canon for it not to be. Aren't purple crystals supposed to be rare?

Or maybe the one Palps gave her was the Dark Lady's?

 

Don't the Lightsaber colors in the NJO reflect a rainbow of colors anyway? Or has this been retconned? I seem to recall Jaina having a violet saber at some point as I thought Kyp did. Alema's blade in Dark Nest is portrayed as "so dark blue its almost black". The whole idea of Mara needing Mace's crystal for a purple saber seems kinda silly.

 

The NJO has many different colors. Rise of the Empire and Dark Times not so much.

 

Let's see, the Dark Lady... didn't Vader kill her? I remember a Tales comic that had Mara reporting the location of the Dark Lady, and then Vader was sent to kill her, so if that comic is canon, then Mara probably didn't use the Dark Lady's lightsaber as she seemed to be a somewhat established/experienced agent by that point.

And the Young Jedi Knights (Jaina, Jacen, Tenel Ka, Lowbacca, before the current insanity) had lots of saber colors using crystals from various things (a Corusca gem, Hapan jewelry, etc.), but that was years before there was more info on the old Jedi Order, so basically any gem or crystal or shiny thing could serve as a lightsaber crystal and its anybody's guess what color that crystal would produce. Now after the prequels the old Jedi Order seemed to have mostly blue or green blades with not many exceptions, and its mentioned that most gems usually came from the same location (that ice planet, I think), so produced mostly the same color. The NJO is far less ritual-oriented, so any crystal will probably work for them. Luke's own crystal was made in a tiny furnace on Tatooine, and Corran used some gems he got, but now, who knows what's canon for a lightsaber crystal. Heck, Luke's used a Kaiburr crystal shard as a lightsaber crystal at least once. Though I think Luke's still using his old self-made lightsaber, though not entirely sure.

 

Well, there's the Dark Woman's, and Ki-Adi-Mundi's first saber, to name a few.

 

The book really doesn't impy that Mara has Mace's lightsaber. It just says, "It was a unique color, the Emperor had told her when he'd given her the bit of starter she'd used to grow the crystal for the weapon, one that had been seen only once in the last hundred years. He hadn't said where he'd gotten the crystal..." So, from that I would think it implies the only thing Mara had was a possilbe shard from the crystal itself. Considering the only purple saber we see belongs to Mace Windu, that would be who I would think of when I read this passage.

 

Ya know, at the start of the Last of the Jedi young adult series Mace's lightsaber was in Imperial hands. I can't remember if it was Malorum or Palpatine who had it as the book was a library lone, but I do recall it being mentioned so maybe its not as far fetched as I thought.

 

Why this obsession with who got whose lightsaber or parts of them?

For me Mace weapon ended in the sewers of Coruscant.

 

One account of Mara's sabers. Go to The Histories and click on Mara's name. I'm not familiar with some of the sources, so take it for what it's worth...

 

This then assumes Mara had Mace's saber in her possession during the events of TTT, when she was attempting to kill Luke...wouldn't having Mace's saber for such have helped?

If Tim really said it was Mace's, he needs to go back and read his own books.

Mara had Luke's first blue one until she built one herself that was purple (I believe this was to coincide with the DF2:JK expansion, right?)

Yet another excuse to make this universe as small as possible...foolish.

 

*nods* See below.

Mara lost her lightsaber on Caprioril. I'm pretty sure that was originally established in the Thrawn trilogy - which is where "The Emperor's Pawns" got the planet from. Presumably, she lost it during/after the duel with Lumiya?

Yep. I'm pretty sure this was discussed in an interview somewhere: Zahn intended Mara's lightsaber crystal to be Mace's, or at least to be a hurrikaine grown from a shard of it, but it was edited into ambiguity....

- The Imperial Ewok

 

I thought this conversation had come up before, and I was right; you can read my full rundown of Mara's lightsaber history in this thread (it's third post from the bottom).

The sources the authors of that page cite are legit, but in my opinion they are misinterpreting a lot of the material and inserting reams of fanon in the gaps. To my knowledge, Sabers 1-3 are the same, and Saber 6 is the same as either Saber 4 or Saber 5; artistic license make up the differences, not distinct sabers. If you want to be literalist about saber depictions, then that page's accounting is probably correct, but then you have to accept that Luke has been running around with *dozens* of lightsabers over his career.

For a canon close-up of her Emperor's Hand saber, look here.

No, the saber from her time as Emperor's Hand (whether it contained Mace's crystal or not) was lost by the time she hooked up with Karrde's organization (apparently in her confrontation with Lumiya on Caprioril, should Pena and Corroney ever get to tell that tale). She built a new purple one for the Mysteries of the Sith expansion (which you recall correctly), but that wasn't her first purple saber.

EDIT:

The Thrawn Trilogy mentions her losing the lightsaber on Caprioril? Neat, do you recall where?

It hasn't been established in canon yet that Mara lost her saber in her duel with Lumiya, but Abel Pena and Joe Corroney have hinted that they want to include that in a comic of that confrontation they've been planning for a while.

 

I may be misremembering.

I think there's a line that identifies Caprioril (along with Chibias from "Handoff"?), as one of the places she'd had her Force-sensitivity briefly return. I may be confusing this with the line reflecting on her lost lightsaber....

Let's see it, dammit!!

StarWars.com...?

- The Imperial Ewok

 

On the subject of Mara and sabers, there's one bit in HTTE that doesn't quite work anymore, I think, by Zahn's own later works. When Mara first uses one in the forest of Myrkr, there's a little note about how she'd only used one "a handful of times" or something like that.

McEwok, any ideas?

 

You know, I was remembering a think from TLC that has Mara stabbing a creature with Luke's lightsaber and Luke reflecting that stabbing must not be a Jedi technique since Obi-Wan and Yoda didn't teach it to him! What?!? C'mon.

 

According to "The Last of the Jedi: Return of the Dark Side", Sano Sauro purchased Mace Windu's lightsaber from a Duros that claimed he had found it on a street in the lower levels of Coruscant. Then Sano displayed the lightsaber in his office. If this was the case, then Mara Jade never had it.

 

Bear in mind that Palpatine tried to play on the fact that Mara Jade was very very special to him and probably could have fed her any line of crap like that. He may have had 100 purple crystals laying around. Remember, this is the guy that once told Anakin Skywalker he knew how to save his wife from certain death.