Purple Lightsaber Crystals

Just how rare are purple lightsaber crystals? I know it seems a simple and maybe obvious question, but the EU has been relatively contradictory. In the original Republic comics, several Jedi like Ki-Adi Mundi wield purple lightsabers. Also, in the Clone Wars microseries, there are veins of purple crystals on Illum, where the Jedi get all their crystals.

However, in a Tales comic, they are implied to be rare when Mace Windu must go to a far away planet to get one. In addition, Palpatine told Mara the crystal he gave her was one of a kind.

So what is the deal?

 

Before 2002, there were all kind of lightsaber colours in the EU - yellow, purple, grey, bronze, many variations on the basic on-screen colours - you did not only have green, but turquoise, for example. Jedi also regularly had red sabers, most notably Leia herself. Back then, lightsaber colour was cosmetical and didn't really tell much about the good/evil factor of the user.

With AOTC, two things happened: For the first time, there was a fourth lightsaber colour on screen, Windu's purple. Which wouldn't have been that unusual. But there's also the Geonosis arena, in which all the Jedi (even the prequel Jedi who the EU happily provided with blades of all colours) only use blue and green sabers. Backstage (and online for fans to view), this was explained this way: Sam Jackson asked for a saber in his favourite colour, purple, Lucas elaborated that good guys in SW only had blue and green, but he would think about it.

Which leads to the visual rule that blue and green are the only options for prequel Jedi (and red for the bad guys), and this seemed to branch out a bit into other eras, too. Legacy, for example, has only added the silver blade for the Imperial Knight faction (they go with the broadened blue/green/purple spectrum for Jedi, though).

I honestly don't know what the official stance to "purple crystal availibility" is right now. Regarding the Ilum caves, yeah, there's lots of purple in there. Maybe that's played down as graphic license. As for the Tales story about how Mace got the crystal, those stories weren't in-continuity, and as it somewhat goes against previous EU that shows Mace with a blue saber at some point of his life, I'd doubt that they'd established this as in-universe reality. And the Mara/Palpatine scene was allegedly conceived as a means to show Palps give away Windu's crystal (which would already be special only by having been owned by such a famous Jedi) to one of his asassins, but Zahn wasn't allowed to say it explicitly or something like that (btw, I'd made that connection on this board, much earlier than Zahn did... ).

It's also nice to notice that with Luke's Jedi Order (pre 1999), the learners would take stuff like fake jewelry, gems, or parts from machinery they were working on, and the saber colour almost came out as a surprise. And with Anakin Solo, when he got that Vong spare part for his damaged crystal, it's also "coincidence" that his saber still was purple after that, there wasn't any technical reason to have expected that.

 

Azlyn Rae from LEGACY uses an orange bladed saber.

As far as Anakin Solo's Lambent crystal saber, when the Vong used a lambent to replace the crystal in Kol skywalker's saber, it changed from blue to green. I figure there are three options.
1-There are only 7 colors in the spectrum (red orange yellow green blue indigo violet) plus white, so there was a 1 in 7 chance Anakin's lambent would resonate at the same frequency as his old crystal.

2-the crystal doesn't determine the blade color

or 3-remember how Jedi have to use the Force to connect the crystal to the inner components? And how the Lambent Anakin had was "attuned" to him already? Maybe blade color is more dependent on the wielder? Though this begs the question of how did the Vong Shaper install that lambent in Kol's saber without the Force?

 

I've always liked the idea of the purple lightsaber crystal being extremely rare and only a few people in the galaxy have wielded one.

I don't know the 100% canon list except for these 5:
Sith Lord Kas'im
Darth Bane (from Kas'im as a gift)
Mace Windu
Mara Jade (from Darth Sidious as a gift)
Jaina Solo

That's an impressive list and should stay that way.

 

Actually, I think one of the New Essential Guides (Weapons and Technology, maybe?) mentioned Mace's teenage adventure with the purple lightsaber crystal, so that much is in-continuity.

Just to make the situation more confusing, I think I heard some of the Jedi Council's lightsaber colors were re-done to match their AOTC sabers in the recent Omnibus collections...

TC

 

I like to think that that crystal was Mace Windu's.

 

Agreed.

 

I went back and re-read the segment in Allegiance when Mara's crystal is referred to. It says that it is the only magenta crystal. Perhaps Palpstine was talking strictly about the crystal's shade and not purple crystals in general.

 

Anakin Solo's was also purple. So it is a very impressive list.

 

There's also Revan (before he was a Darth) and Sylvar from Redemption, in which they went out of their way to give the TOTJ-Jedi individual saber colours. I also wouldn't be surprised if someone or another from the New Jedi Order did have one, as well. What's with the Twi'Lek girl from Dark Tide? Oh, Kyp Durron maybe? And one instance of Gantoris' double-phase saber?

As for the Omnibus recolouring history - . Can't hide the fact that there's Even Piell toys out there with a purple saber.

 

Corran Horn's double-phase lightsaber had silver as the primary (regular) blade and purple as the secondary (longer) blade

 

Zez Kai-Ell also had a purple lightsaber.

 

They are widely available in both KotOR games. And Jedi trainers from both Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy use them. Kid Siri Tachi had one also. Not rare at all.