Full Series Rebels 3.20 - Twin Suns - Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)

Pain and Suffering You should watch the Rebels Recon for this episode. It goes into detail as to why Maul died the way he did. I thought it was very suiting and showed a real development difference between Maul and Obi-Wan.

The way I see it, if they did have a flashy and long battle, it would've shown that there's been absolutely no development between them. Nothing has changed.

 

Vader or Bo Katan killing Maul? Vader doesn't have an emotional reason to battle Maul, unless Sidious orders him to. And Bo Katan... sorry... is no match for Maul.

 

Thanks for the suggestion, but Rebels Recon doesn't really help. To me, it just shows how much care they put into portraying Obi-Wan, like he's the centerpiece of the episode, whereas it felt like Maul was a side note and Ezra was tacked on as an afterthought, whenEzra and Maul should have been the center of the show's focus (since they're the two characters the show decided to focus on developing), and Obi-Wan should've been put more on the side.

And I know that Obi-Wan and Maul are supposed to be playing out the duel in their heads, but evidently Maul didn't play it out well enough. I guess Maul's end was to highlight that he had sunk into total despair whereas Obi-Wan still had a source of hope, but it was a very unfitting end for Mauls' character, IMO.

Maul killed Qui-Gon, who would've been Anakin's master had he not been killed during the Battle of Naboo. That's enough of an emotional reason for me. Besides, from what the inquisitors said in Twilight of the Apprentice, Darth Vader and the inquisitors were already hunting down Maul, so am I supposed to assume that they just gave up and quit? Seems pretty lame for Vader to give up so easily. Anyway, you don't necessarily have to have an emotional reason to duel. And not much could feel less emotional than Obi-Wan killing Maul; that scene was extremely devoid of emotion, IMO.

I'll agree Bo-Katan isn't really a match for Maul, but her killing Maul would've been better than what we got, especially if we learned that she's been spending years training and searching for Maul specifically for the reason of dueling and defeating him to reclaim the darksaber so that she could unite Mandalore.

 

Anakin joined Maul's master during ROTS. When his apprentice killed Qui-Gon and Sidious was responsible for the entire Clone Wars.
If he didn't care in ROTS. Why the heck would he care later on?

 

The "Luke! Luke!" ending is great

 

I am curious to the discarded or deleted stuff from this episode, Savage was to have made an appearance . The best parts were really when Maul got to Kenobi, got him to shed all the pompous self righteous facade he was hiding behind and made Kenobi visibly angry once Maul ascertained Kenobi's true purpose there and that certain someone. Thats when you know Filoni is full of BS. Maul and TLJ Luke have quite a bit in common, almost parallel paths but one his a fully trained Dark Side fighter warrior-living weapon and the other a part timer Light Side warrior-monk with incomplete training that collapsed into waywardness and despair both both went out fighting despite their Colonel Kurtz phases.


Maul tapped into the holocron powers , so all the clarity of vision and knowledge gave him immense universe altering stuff. Death in Star Wars seems to be the ultimate gift of greater knowledge and source of power. So it may come down the pipe that Maul is simply on a netherworld journey and we know one such as he cannot die in Star Wars.

He has always shown himself to be an unstoppable killing machine and with god-like in-human physical strength, able to pull both a Rathtar and the huge tree it was clinging itself down together. He's also able to mask his exact presence & scale the great walls of the cramped Coruscant buildings in a blink of an eye before two Jedi could either see him or detect him in anyway other than the way he wanted them to . We're always learning more and more about him from the comics(both SOD and DM) and Battlefront. There does not seem to be a limit to his physical and Force abilities and what he's capable of. His life only ends when he saw fit for it to end.



He is a man of action, so him choosing action as a way out makes sense from "his end game" on Malachor to his showdown with Kenobi - but it should be noted his death was peaceful in its final moments which was more heroic than villain. Later on Kenobi gave him funeral pyre, it also was one of the few memories Kenobi recalls as he becomes one with the Force.

He's a dark warrior. Everything about him is of a warrior code and he's a Dark Sider, from Sith Lord to Nightbrother of Dathomir and son of the Great Mother[Talzin]. Maul is also a cerebral man, he's a self aware character this is for a fact once you read the Darth Maul comic. He's complex, there is great intellect and heart behind the menace and ferociousness.

It was not a very good episode as it could have been or perhaps should have been. They never explain why did Maul leave his ship, how did Kenobi and his beast of burden(and in turn Ezra) know where it was. Why did Maul decide to walk the entire desert apparently without any speeder or beast of burden or any visible provisions. Lots of strange things and the ambiguity of 3rd season's narrative also left a lot to be desired. Is Lucasfilm just getting rid of all their Legacy characters, it kinda seems so on one hand.

On the other, the idea in-universe is that apparently the mental damage of the old wound was returning as Maul aged , that both of them wanted to make it quick to end it cause they were both were experts of eachother's fighting styles and their ages is well and good, fine. However we also see that Maul's cyber prosthetic legs were weathered and breaking down during that episode from his time on wandering the sands of Tatooine. They even showed close ups and you can see when he leapt towards Kenobi he was far slower than Twilight of the Apprentice or when he defeated the Ghost crew later on with ease. Plus exhaustion and hydration had to be issues as well, Kenobi was rested and fresh. He was basically avoiding Maul the entire time and left to him to wander around and die of exposure or madness - Maul who was wandering through the desert calling him out for hours if not days.

Maul's evil is complex, normally always tempered with a twisted code of honor or warfare purpose. He could have slaughtered Moisture Farmers and other innocent beings to get Kenobi out from hiding(Kenobi was a protector figure on Tatooine in the Marvel comics so they would've mattered to him if Maul went on a rampage), something he did back in the Clone War(Raydonia - which was also down to empower his and Savage's connection to the Dark Side so there was more than one purpose at play there ). Instead he calls Ezra and does an elaborate game, but keeps things between Force sensitive combatants and the Light and the Dark and still undetermined boy.

Maul also rescues Ezra from the Tuskens. This also mimics Luke's rescue from them by Kenobi in ANH. And its a repetitive theme, Maul rescuing Ezra. Maul also gave Ezra the benefit for self determination, something neither he nor Savage were allowed and he seemed to have respected that, even if he was disappointed that Ezra did not join him.

Maul's reaction when he died was more of an acceptance of his next step, there was no burning anger stuff towards Kenobi as he had let on. Maul is deceptive as its tactic of the Sith and Nightsisters alike, its a weapon that trained Dark Siders implement. It is highly doubtful that Maul wanted to kill Kenobi(evidence of that is found in TCW and even TPM when he had Kenobi defeated in the shaft and even killing padawan Eldra Kaitis was done more or less out've necessity and code of a warrior than Sith malice and he did in his own way protect her from the criminals and ultimately avenge her by slaughtering the entire syndicate in such an oblique and Dark Side fashion it was artfulf). But rather that Maul wanted to be killed by him as a warrior's passage to the afterlife. Dying of old age or madness just isnt fitting. If he wanted to die it would be at least by someone to whom Maul respected rather than someone he despised. But more importantly, Maul understood his place at this stage that he must die for the Chosen One to complete his task to avenge him. So Maul follows the typical Star Wars pattern of Kenobi , Luke and Solo sacrifice or martyrdom. With Maul accepting his fate of the killing blow, he moved things to Kenobi and Kenobi to look upon Luke again with perhaps keener eyes than before.

And yes when you use your lightsaber hilt to block an incoming lightsaber strike you're killing yourself. That is what Maul did there. Either that or its some of the worst choreography in Star Wars to where they bastardized Maul's fighting ability to all hell.

Lucas had plans for Maul after the Clone Wars, we just don't know what they are yet. I view Kenobi and Maul as the "Twin Suns". I think there is more than meets the eye on whats going on. And in time Maul will be back, he will return.

 

Maul would need a significant reason to return - I'd love him to rebuild Dathomir , even in spirit form with Talzin. The Dathomiri society should exist in the grey - not holding to the light or dark, that way it can freely exist in the ST, as the dogmatic use of the Force is shifting in the movies as well. Maul knew that he'd never have his revenge on the Emperor, that it was in the hands of the Chosen One, so his desires should have shifted. Engaging Kenobi was suicide, but even if he was a bit angry that Kenobi and the Skywalkers would strip his chance at revenge, he could have used what was left of his life in a different way. I suppose without Talzin guiding him, his mind was lost and he gave in to those old wounds as a means to end his path on his own terms. It still leaves the audience wondering what was the destiny that Talzin gave her life to protect? Nearly an entire culture gone...for what?

 

@Mother_Talzin,

You don't know how often I asked myself this question. When I red about Ventress's demise, I wondered, if this was the other road, Ventress was phophecied by Talzin to hit after the eradication of the Nightsisters by Grievous.

 

I like to think that Maul messed that up when he joined the Holocrons. Irony, irony all the way.

This is the fourth part of a ridiculously detailed analysis of Twin Suns : https://dillondevelopment.wordpress.com/2018/01/04/twin-suns-4/

I love that thing. It's probably too long for what that episode actually is, but still, I love myself some quality fan content about Maul.

 

It seemed pretty in the dark to me.

 

Yes, in the CW they seemed to tap into the dark side of the Force, but in some instances, weren't they simply protecting themselves and their way of life? What I meant by "should exist in the grey" is how their culture can be renewed going forward, since the ST seems very open to that - "should" in the ideal sense, the way I'd picture them...

 

Another entry in the "beast of an essay" about Twin Suns, this time featuring a small book report about The Old Man And The Sea (it makes sense) :

https://dillondevelopment.wordpress.com/2018/02/10/twin-suns-5/

 

I agree with this. I like Bo Katan, but she could not take on Maul. This is pretty much established in Season 7 by how Maul bends the lasers she fires at him before telekinetically constraining her.



I imagine that Bo Katan could wound Maul if she organized some type of sneak attack against him. Maul may not be most powerful person in Star Wars, but if anything, he is very skilled at surviving.

As for Vader, we already saw Vader fight the Darth Maul doppelgänger in the EU after Maul was apparently resurrected or cloned by those darksiders under Sidious' command. Vader managed to use his own self-hatred to kill Maul. He may not have been as fast as Maul, but he was more skilled. And Vader really wouldn't've cared about Darth Maul one way or the other. Maybe as Anakin he would have because Maul killed Qui-Gon, but as Vader, not so much.



I watched this when it came out. While I would not call it the best duel in Star Wars, I do think it is an outstanding one. It goes to show how skilled Obi-Wan is, and it shows why he was harder for Vader to fight in ANH. Having Maul go down facing Obi-Wan makes sense. Maul is inherently insecure and something of a childish character in many respects. His hatred for Obi-Wan defines him. However, Obi-Wan does not hate Maul. He only wants to protect Luke, and he has some measure of pity for Maul like a true Jedi should. At any rate, Antoine is correct that the stances are just as much a part of a duel as the fight itself. Plus, Sam Witwer as Maul was phenom, given the deranged anger and desperation he brought to the character, and Stephen Stanton embodied the "Old Ben" Obi-Wan Kenobi very well.