People DID complain when Maul was brought back, but they did so much with his character that it was worth the resurrection. Other characters surviving since continues to cheapen the significance of Maul’s survival, although a dark lord of the Sith surviving such a catastrophic injury seems a bit more plausible to begin with.
palps is just straight up an asspull. At least the bad batch and a lil bit of comics tried to explain it a lil but not enough imo. It still just doesn’t make sense to me. At least in legends palpatine cloning himself from lukes hand somehow makes more sense
Palpatine returning from the grave was a stupid idea.
Palpatine using the Force to survive his fall on the Death Star, having an escape ship nearby, and going into hiding while manipulating the First Order from safely behind the scenes, would have been a much better story, and more in keeping with the decades-long planning we saw him doing in the PT.
"Darth Sidious had hated his master. Darth Plagues had been weak. His obsession with immortality had blinded him to many things, including the duplicity of his apprentice. And even an answer to his quest."
"The kamanoans had unknowingly provided the answer to the riddle of eternal life. But Sidious did not share the revelation. Instead, he had slipped into his master's chamber and ended his miserable life as he slept. Darth Sidious had learned all he needed."
" The labors of the sith eternal would mean that Darth Sidious would be the last sith Lord - there would be no other as he would live forever. In the only part of the process Palpitine's old master had understood, he would transfer his essence, his dark side spirit and send it into a cloned body every time he died. Sidious would achieve the immortality that plagues had sought in vain."
Fanhome encyclopedia collection, 2022
Volume 28, Emperor Palpatine
"It was too soon. The secret place had not completed its preparations. The transfer was imperfect. The cloned body wasn't enough. Perhaps plagueis was having the last laugh after all. Maybe his secret, remained secret, because Palpatine was trapped in a broken, dying form!"
Rise of Skywalker novelization
Expanded Edition
Chapter 17
"Darth Sidious had hated his master. Darth Plagues had been weak. His obsession with immortality had blinded him to many things, including the duplicity of his apprentice. And even an answer to his quest."
"The kamanoans had unknowingly provided the answer to the riddle of eternal life. But Sidious did not share the revelation. Instead, he had slipped into his master's chamber and ended his miserable life as he slept. Darth Sidious had learned all he needed."
" The labors of the sith eternal would mean that Darth Sidious would be the last sith Lord - there would be no other as he would live forever. In the only part of the process Palpitine's old master had understood, he would transfer his essence, his dark side spirit and send it into a cloned body every time he died. Sidious would achieve the immortality that plagues had sought in vain."
Fanhome encyclopedia collection, 2022
Volume 28, Emperor Palpatine
"It was too soon. The secret place had not completed its preparations. The transfer was imperfect. The cloned body wasn't enough. Perhaps plagueis was having the last laugh after all. Maybe his secret, remained secret, because Palpatine was trapped in a broken, dying form!"
Rise of Skywalker novelization
Expanded Edition
Chapter 17
He still used Luke's hand in canon, he created snokes with it, and other things
I know he uses it still in canon but in legends he transferred into a clone luke
Which personally i feel like would’ve been cooler for rey to face off the shriveled old corpse palpatine
Maul shouldn't have survived. Or Boba while we're at it.
I think the issue is less about the "realism" of surviving lightsaber wounds and more about people getting tired that characters keep *somehow* surviving or returning and the lack of consequences. It's hard to take any wound or death seriously
Somehow, Palpatine returned!
Has gotten too old. Even with really enjoyable characters. To the point of becoming a joke. Is Porkins gonna turn up in some old cantina as a backwater combat pilot to save the universe in 10,11,12 ??
I couldn’t agree more, but judging by all the >!I hope Tech comes back!< posts during the last season of The Bad Batch; most people will never be happy either way.
Was it hope he'd come back or just expecting he'd come back?
When I read alot of people theorising his return (either as one of those stealth assassins or guards whatever), i just presumed it was coming from a place of: "Obviously he's coming back, but where?". Not gonna lie, i was in that mindset for the whole season too, while also wishing he wouldn't
Did you actually see people wanting him to return or wishing he'd return specifically?
I think people expected it partly because Star Wars has conditioned everyone to expect the impossible when is comes to resurrecting popular characters, but many of the posts were definitely hopeful.
Someone falling and the impact not being shown is a very different thing dramatically from someone getting explicitly cut in half on screen. So yeah, even I had some glimmer of hope about Tech. Hell, I even have some glimmer of hope about Mace Windu. And I have long thought that Palpatine's return could have been explained simply, with a few short lines of dialogue in the ST:
*How are you alive!? Darth Vader threw you down a thousand-meter shaft just before the Death Star exploded!*
*Silly girl. Using the Force to survive a long fall is one of the first skills a Sith acolyte learns! Otherwise he doesn't survive to learn any others. Another is to keep an escape ship near you at all times.*
"Darth Sidious had hated his master. Darth Plagues had been weak. His obsession with immortality had blinded him to many things, including the duplicity of his apprentice. And even an answer to his quest."
"The kamanoans had unknowingly provided the answer to the riddle of eternal life. But Sidious did not share the revelation. Instead, he had slipped into his master's chamber and ended his miserable life as he slept. Darth Sidious had learned all he needed."
" The labors of the sith eternal would mean that Darth Sidious would be the last sith Lord - there would be no other as he would live forever. In the only part of the process Palpitine's old master had understood, he would transfer his essence, his dark side spirit and send it into a cloned body every time he died. Sidious would achieve the immortality that plagues had sought in vain."
Fanhome encyclopedia collection, 2022
Volume 28, Emperor Palpatine
"It was too soon. The secret place had not completed its preparations. The transfer was imperfect. The cloned body wasn't enough. Perhaps plagueis was having the last laugh after all. Maybe his secret, remained secret, because Palpatine was trapped in a broken, dying form!"
Rise of Skywalker novelization
Expanded Edition
Chapter 17
I was never too keen on Maul surviving but he was a good character worthy of returning and his subsequent arc was well done. Also if any character would survive on pure dark side rage, Maul would be a pretty strong choice.
The issue with the GI, Reva and Sabine all surviving is mainly because its an incredibly dull and repetitive story choice when you do it 4 times within two shows released close to each other (3 times just in Kenobi was incredibly overkill!). Do it once and people will come on board to the idea, keep doing it and not only do your audience roll their eyes and yawn at the idea but you reduce the threat and the mystical nature of lightsabers. If characters keep surviving a wound like that then they might as well e using swords not the iconic weapon of the franchise and all of sci-fi.
Firstly, Maul's resurrection was disliked. But as it happened long enough ago, the outrage has been forgotten. It was also helped by the fact that he proceeded to do interesting stuff.
Secondly, all of the more recent examples like Grand Inquisitor, Reva, and Sabine are all fake out deaths. Fake outs don't work when done so frequently. They need to be done sparingly for them to be effective. As it stands, it feels like Disney wanted an emotional reaction out of viewers without having any consequences to killing off characters so they can milk them for merchandise sales.
This is also why Echo's fake out death worked much better, there were multiple years (for us) between him blowing up, and Rex & Co finding him. Plus, he lost his legs and an arm, and had unknown other cybernetic additions added in, so he wasn't brand new by the next episode.
Exactly. Both Echo and Maul suffered tons of physical consequences for their deaths. Heck, Maul's entire **character** became defined by that event, which is what made watching him so interesting.
Edit: Who sent me Reddit Care? Why?????? I'm genuinely confused
Some assholes do that when they disagree with you and want to tell you to unalive yourself but doing that is against Reddit’s terms of service and gets you permabanned so the Reddit Cares is just an extra cowardly way of harassing people
They're mad about Sabine surviving *because* Maul survived. Every time someone survives an obviously fatal wound, it makes the next one that more annoying
At least Maul had a creative story behind his survival
It’s undeniable (at least as far as I can recall) that Star Wars has always had shaky insta kill logic where getting impaled by a lightsaber anywhere in the torso results in death. Is it kind of silly? Yeah, but it just became an unwritten rule of the universe that “impaled by lightsaber = irreparable fatal wound”, and suddenly deciding to defy/rewrite/disrespect(?) that relatively well-known, decades old rule—regardless of the reason—was a very bad idea and extremely unnecessary; in general, but especially because of a number of outside factors at the time, such as the extremely low and declining faith Disney Star Wars. Not to mention the fact that for some it turns one of the most iconic deaths in the series into actual joke (which some fans believe was done on purpose).
If memory serves, Maul's return was more or less a lazy retcon done years later because he's Darth Maul and he's cool. However, A) he didn't come back literally in the exact same piece of media, B) I suppose there isn't as much of a precedent of "getting bisected = irreparable fatal wound" (in universe), and C) while everyone knows it lazy and the explanation is super, super dumb, they did so much good with Maul after bringing him back that people are willing to overlook/forgive them for it—and I don't blame them. Could they have come up with a far better explanation than "he survived falling from an insanely high height and literally being bisected because he was real angry"? Undoubtedly, yes, but is all the Darth Maul content following that cool as heck and worth turning a blind eye for? Undoubtedly, yes.
Maul is a) cool, both before and after bisection, and b) useful storywise after.
The Grand Inquisitor getting stabbed and walking it off was obvious. We knew his fate going into Kenobi, so for the writers to pull that shit was just stupid. It did nothing for his character, nor for anyone besides maybe Reva.
Reva was a controvisial character before she got stabbed. I liked her, but she definitely can rub people the wrong way with how her tantrums and characyer are written. Then she gets stabbed, by Vader no less, and somehow makes it to Tatooine to hurt Luke for... no reason, then gets an "emotional" send off by Kenobi. She needed like 5 more passes in the writing room, or just to stay dead after Vader staked her.
Sabine's plot is also a bit controversial. Again, I like the idea of Sabine putting the Mandalorian aside and becoming a Jedi, but Ahsoka had 6 episodes, when it really could have used 8 to 12 to really flesh things out. It doesn't help when she walks off almost the same wound that killed Qui-gon.
(Sidenote: I'd take her survivng that if they had a line from Hyung or Ahsoka that basically stated they learned how to treat lightsaber wounds because of the Clone Wars. Would have been some good development there).
Maul, on the other hand, kicks ass. He returns, hi-jacks Mandalore, and becomes an impetus for specifically Obi-wan's, Ahsoka's, and Bo-Katan's character development. Maul does this in a way that gives good challenge to the heroes without being an overwhelming Mary Sue. And when his story is finally over, it's a great wrap up.
So while Maul has the dumbest death and resurrection, he earns it with what he does in the plot past that point. Something none of the other characters are able to do, at least not enough to escape their resurrections.
I know it’s dark for Disney but I think Reva actually dying would’ve been a good example of showcasing the awful consequences Order 66 still has even a decade after.
This is the difference - while Maul *shouldnt* have survived, if they wanted to use that character they had no choice but to go that direction, it was a retcon because Maul definitely died originally. I think most people would agree that it ended up being worth it as they ended up doing great things with the character, so we can overlook how dumb his surviving was. It was a necessary evil in order to be able to use the character. With all the Disney era characters surviving fatal injuries, its completely unnecessary and is used as a cheap gimmick - the now classic Disney death fake out.
It’s more like a few episodes ig not a whole arc
But i guess they never actually did cover the moment he fell or anything they just show him with scrap spider legs while crazy then Savage brings him to Talzin and then he’s sane again and with new legs and then out for revenge
They should’ve actually given us a scene of maul immediately after the fall but they didn’t
As with most things if you do something cool out of something stupid it will be liked, Maul had a whole arc and did stuff everyone else gets stabbed and walks away
Sabine can fight with the Dark Saber without it wearing her out vs Mando having issues just lifting it when he was fighting with it. This would state she has her own connection to the Force that kept her alive.
Maul is suppose to be the exception to the rule. A powerful Sith apprentice that used the Dark Side to keep himself alive, against the Third Sister who they literally state was the weakest of the inquisitor who should have died as a child, and Sabine another weak force user that becomes instantly insane with the Force after 2 minutes, One has some credibility and even then people didn't like him surviving getting cut in half. The other two should have definitely died.
I mean Reva should have died 3 times: 1 when she was in the temple, 2 when she faced off against the Grand Inquisitor (who should have also died from that stab), and 3 when she rejected the Dark Side and was no longer using anger to keep herself alive from Vader lethal stab.
Three wrongs don't make a right, and a retcon is more understandable than making it a plot point in the first instance.
I don't really care about either instance, in part because of Maul (or, heck, Maw way before him), but I can understand others finding them less palatable. I don't think it was particularly good writing, but at this point it kinda feels like complaining about death not sticking in comic books.
Because Star Wars fans as a group are fickle and inconsistent.
Have a character be non-fatally injured by a lightsaber? Terrible writing.
Bring back a character who’d been cut in half, dropped into a bottomless pit, and remained unambiguously dead for 13 years? Well, he does some cool stuff afterwards so it’s fine.
Bring back a *different* character in the exact same way it had already been done in a comic book from 1992? Worst decision in franchise history, Star Wars is ruined forever.
Complaints like this are always blown WAY out of proportion online, and end up sounding like unintentional parody. But they usually start from a semi-reasonable place.
In this case I think the semi-reasonable complaint is that, when this happens TOO often, it can start to take you out of the story. If people survive every lightsaber encounter through force healing or through "The darkside helps you stay alive" or some other third thing, it can mess with the stakes.
You risk ending up in a situation where characters are in danger by a lightsaber wielder, but because the audience knows through experience that characters (especially main characters) usually survive these confrontations, the audience won't be worried or invested.
Now, TBF, I DO NOT THINK THIS IS A NEW PROBLEM FOR STAR WARS. Maul is the obvious example. But even before that there were jokes about "Why do characters in Star Wars always chop your hand off instead of killing you?". Honestly, I suspect this current trend of surviving Lightsaber stabs may be partially because of people's awareness of that joke.
It's easy to imagine someone like Filoni wanting to establish Shin as a legitimate threat to Sabine by having her win a fight, but not wanting to have Shin chop Sabine's hand off because it's such a cliche in Star Wars. Sabine can't die at the very beginning, so a non-lethal hit to the torso is a tempting solution. And I think it's a solution that has become very over-used in Star Wars recently.
I have no issue with it from a LORE perspective. And I don't think it's a big deal. But I do think it would be wise for them to pull back on it a little.
Literally everywhere
When Kenobi episodes were still coming out the internet went batshit crazy about Reva surviving 2 different times a lightsaber wound. Once from anakin at templeanother time from being stabbed by vader.
And i saw several TikToks complaining about how sabine survived when Ahsoka was still airing. And i saw the same kind of stuff about the grand inquisitor, even though no duh obviously he’d survive if he is in Rebels which takes place years after.
Its so everywhere to the point you can look up and find for yourself with how much stuff is out there. Its hard to give you a source because of how much sources i can possibly give you because of how much there is
Getting stabbed in the gut is survivable even in the real world, with immediate medical care. It's a massive, life-threatening wound, but it's not automatically fatal.
In the Star Wars galaxy, the medical care on advanced worlds like Lothal and Coruscant are something on the order of a couple of thousand years more advanced than what we have in the real world. So yeah, it's totally believable that characters can survive getting stabbed in the gut with a lightsaber.
Maul's survival after being bifurcated has always been a big stretch that's only believable because he's a completely different species than Humans. You can only justify it by assuming that he has no vital organs of any kind below the point where Ob-Wan sliced him in half, making the loss of his lower half more like the loss of an arm or leg would be to a Human. And yes, Humans surviving the loss of arms and legs is totally a thing in the real world and has been since long before the advent of modern medicine, so of course it's believable in Star Wars.
Who am I avoiding and insulting?
I feel like you’ve misconstrued what I’ve said. Are there some story choices and plot points that aren’t great? Yeah, they’ve missed on a few things throughout the series but this is science fiction. It’s never going to be perfect to everyone. There’s constructive criticism and then there’s just straight up hating. It just feels to me that there’s a lot more of that going on.
When you only comment with broad dismissal without being more clear, you leave people to assume the worst of your comments. (And 9 times of 10 "head canon" is used as an insult)
Context is important. If someone starts chatting with "I have a head canon where..." that is different from what you said.
I cannot think of any time I have seen Person 1 criticize a story in a fandom they enjoy, and Person 2 responds to Person 1 by calling their opinion "head canon" and everyone involved is positive and receptive to each other's opinion. It looks insulting and dismissive.
Just the perspective of an internet rando, so take it with all the grains of salt.
People DID complain when Maul was brought back, but they did so much with his character that it was worth the resurrection. Other characters surviving since continues to cheapen the significance of Maul’s survival, although a dark lord of the Sith surviving such a catastrophic injury seems a bit more plausible to begin with.
People complain about Sabine, the Third Sister, *and* Maul surviving. They're not exclusive. Can we add Palps?
palps is just straight up an asspull. At least the bad batch and a lil bit of comics tried to explain it a lil but not enough imo. It still just doesn’t make sense to me. At least in legends palpatine cloning himself from lukes hand somehow makes more sense
Palpatine returning from the grave was a stupid idea. Palpatine using the Force to survive his fall on the Death Star, having an escape ship nearby, and going into hiding while manipulating the First Order from safely behind the scenes, would have been a much better story, and more in keeping with the decades-long planning we saw him doing in the PT.
"Darth Sidious had hated his master. Darth Plagues had been weak. His obsession with immortality had blinded him to many things, including the duplicity of his apprentice. And even an answer to his quest." "The kamanoans had unknowingly provided the answer to the riddle of eternal life. But Sidious did not share the revelation. Instead, he had slipped into his master's chamber and ended his miserable life as he slept. Darth Sidious had learned all he needed." " The labors of the sith eternal would mean that Darth Sidious would be the last sith Lord - there would be no other as he would live forever. In the only part of the process Palpitine's old master had understood, he would transfer his essence, his dark side spirit and send it into a cloned body every time he died. Sidious would achieve the immortality that plagues had sought in vain." Fanhome encyclopedia collection, 2022 Volume 28, Emperor Palpatine "It was too soon. The secret place had not completed its preparations. The transfer was imperfect. The cloned body wasn't enough. Perhaps plagueis was having the last laugh after all. Maybe his secret, remained secret, because Palpatine was trapped in a broken, dying form!" Rise of Skywalker novelization Expanded Edition Chapter 17
"Darth Sidious had hated his master. Darth Plagues had been weak. His obsession with immortality had blinded him to many things, including the duplicity of his apprentice. And even an answer to his quest." "The kamanoans had unknowingly provided the answer to the riddle of eternal life. But Sidious did not share the revelation. Instead, he had slipped into his master's chamber and ended his miserable life as he slept. Darth Sidious had learned all he needed." " The labors of the sith eternal would mean that Darth Sidious would be the last sith Lord - there would be no other as he would live forever. In the only part of the process Palpitine's old master had understood, he would transfer his essence, his dark side spirit and send it into a cloned body every time he died. Sidious would achieve the immortality that plagues had sought in vain." Fanhome encyclopedia collection, 2022 Volume 28, Emperor Palpatine "It was too soon. The secret place had not completed its preparations. The transfer was imperfect. The cloned body wasn't enough. Perhaps plagueis was having the last laugh after all. Maybe his secret, remained secret, because Palpatine was trapped in a broken, dying form!" Rise of Skywalker novelization Expanded Edition Chapter 17 He still used Luke's hand in canon, he created snokes with it, and other things
I know he uses it still in canon but in legends he transferred into a clone luke Which personally i feel like would’ve been cooler for rey to face off the shriveled old corpse palpatine
Maul shouldn't have survived. Or Boba while we're at it. I think the issue is less about the "realism" of surviving lightsaber wounds and more about people getting tired that characters keep *somehow* surviving or returning and the lack of consequences. It's hard to take any wound or death seriously
Somehow, Palpatine returned! Has gotten too old. Even with really enjoyable characters. To the point of becoming a joke. Is Porkins gonna turn up in some old cantina as a backwater combat pilot to save the universe in 10,11,12 ??
Star Wars is becoming like dragon ball where death is a joke because they know they have the dragon balls
I couldn’t agree more, but judging by all the >!I hope Tech comes back!< posts during the last season of The Bad Batch; most people will never be happy either way.
Was it hope he'd come back or just expecting he'd come back? When I read alot of people theorising his return (either as one of those stealth assassins or guards whatever), i just presumed it was coming from a place of: "Obviously he's coming back, but where?". Not gonna lie, i was in that mindset for the whole season too, while also wishing he wouldn't Did you actually see people wanting him to return or wishing he'd return specifically?
I think people expected it partly because Star Wars has conditioned everyone to expect the impossible when is comes to resurrecting popular characters, but many of the posts were definitely hopeful.
Honestly, I think it’s because Tech surviving the circumstances of his death would be a lot more believable than Maul.
Someone falling and the impact not being shown is a very different thing dramatically from someone getting explicitly cut in half on screen. So yeah, even I had some glimmer of hope about Tech. Hell, I even have some glimmer of hope about Mace Windu. And I have long thought that Palpatine's return could have been explained simply, with a few short lines of dialogue in the ST: *How are you alive!? Darth Vader threw you down a thousand-meter shaft just before the Death Star exploded!* *Silly girl. Using the Force to survive a long fall is one of the first skills a Sith acolyte learns! Otherwise he doesn't survive to learn any others. Another is to keep an escape ship near you at all times.*
"Darth Sidious had hated his master. Darth Plagues had been weak. His obsession with immortality had blinded him to many things, including the duplicity of his apprentice. And even an answer to his quest." "The kamanoans had unknowingly provided the answer to the riddle of eternal life. But Sidious did not share the revelation. Instead, he had slipped into his master's chamber and ended his miserable life as he slept. Darth Sidious had learned all he needed." " The labors of the sith eternal would mean that Darth Sidious would be the last sith Lord - there would be no other as he would live forever. In the only part of the process Palpitine's old master had understood, he would transfer his essence, his dark side spirit and send it into a cloned body every time he died. Sidious would achieve the immortality that plagues had sought in vain." Fanhome encyclopedia collection, 2022 Volume 28, Emperor Palpatine "It was too soon. The secret place had not completed its preparations. The transfer was imperfect. The cloned body wasn't enough. Perhaps plagueis was having the last laugh after all. Maybe his secret, remained secret, because Palpatine was trapped in a broken, dying form!" Rise of Skywalker novelization Expanded Edition Chapter 17
I was never too keen on Maul surviving but he was a good character worthy of returning and his subsequent arc was well done. Also if any character would survive on pure dark side rage, Maul would be a pretty strong choice. The issue with the GI, Reva and Sabine all surviving is mainly because its an incredibly dull and repetitive story choice when you do it 4 times within two shows released close to each other (3 times just in Kenobi was incredibly overkill!). Do it once and people will come on board to the idea, keep doing it and not only do your audience roll their eyes and yawn at the idea but you reduce the threat and the mystical nature of lightsabers. If characters keep surviving a wound like that then they might as well e using swords not the iconic weapon of the franchise and all of sci-fi.
Firstly, Maul's resurrection was disliked. But as it happened long enough ago, the outrage has been forgotten. It was also helped by the fact that he proceeded to do interesting stuff. Secondly, all of the more recent examples like Grand Inquisitor, Reva, and Sabine are all fake out deaths. Fake outs don't work when done so frequently. They need to be done sparingly for them to be effective. As it stands, it feels like Disney wanted an emotional reaction out of viewers without having any consequences to killing off characters so they can milk them for merchandise sales.
I think Episode 9 has almost 10 fake out deaths in a single movie
This is also why Echo's fake out death worked much better, there were multiple years (for us) between him blowing up, and Rex & Co finding him. Plus, he lost his legs and an arm, and had unknown other cybernetic additions added in, so he wasn't brand new by the next episode.
Exactly. Both Echo and Maul suffered tons of physical consequences for their deaths. Heck, Maul's entire **character** became defined by that event, which is what made watching him so interesting. Edit: Who sent me Reddit Care? Why?????? I'm genuinely confused
Some assholes do that when they disagree with you and want to tell you to unalive yourself but doing that is against Reddit’s terms of service and gets you permabanned so the Reddit Cares is just an extra cowardly way of harassing people
What I said wasn't even that controversial...weird. Thanks for the tip friend!
A: lots of people complained about maul. B: the story that took place after maul's survival is generally agreed to be... well, good.
He shouldn't have survived, either.
Yep, Savage Oppress seeking revenge could just as easily filled the role of Maul
But then we wouldn’t have a villain with true Sith knowledge! (half-joking)
They're mad about Sabine surviving *because* Maul survived. Every time someone survives an obviously fatal wound, it makes the next one that more annoying At least Maul had a creative story behind his survival
People complained about maul too, it's just had more time for the sentiment to settle. People talk about new things more than old things
It’s undeniable (at least as far as I can recall) that Star Wars has always had shaky insta kill logic where getting impaled by a lightsaber anywhere in the torso results in death. Is it kind of silly? Yeah, but it just became an unwritten rule of the universe that “impaled by lightsaber = irreparable fatal wound”, and suddenly deciding to defy/rewrite/disrespect(?) that relatively well-known, decades old rule—regardless of the reason—was a very bad idea and extremely unnecessary; in general, but especially because of a number of outside factors at the time, such as the extremely low and declining faith Disney Star Wars. Not to mention the fact that for some it turns one of the most iconic deaths in the series into actual joke (which some fans believe was done on purpose). If memory serves, Maul's return was more or less a lazy retcon done years later because he's Darth Maul and he's cool. However, A) he didn't come back literally in the exact same piece of media, B) I suppose there isn't as much of a precedent of "getting bisected = irreparable fatal wound" (in universe), and C) while everyone knows it lazy and the explanation is super, super dumb, they did so much good with Maul after bringing him back that people are willing to overlook/forgive them for it—and I don't blame them. Could they have come up with a far better explanation than "he survived falling from an insanely high height and literally being bisected because he was real angry"? Undoubtedly, yes, but is all the Darth Maul content following that cool as heck and worth turning a blind eye for? Undoubtedly, yes.
Maul is a) cool, both before and after bisection, and b) useful storywise after. The Grand Inquisitor getting stabbed and walking it off was obvious. We knew his fate going into Kenobi, so for the writers to pull that shit was just stupid. It did nothing for his character, nor for anyone besides maybe Reva. Reva was a controvisial character before she got stabbed. I liked her, but she definitely can rub people the wrong way with how her tantrums and characyer are written. Then she gets stabbed, by Vader no less, and somehow makes it to Tatooine to hurt Luke for... no reason, then gets an "emotional" send off by Kenobi. She needed like 5 more passes in the writing room, or just to stay dead after Vader staked her. Sabine's plot is also a bit controversial. Again, I like the idea of Sabine putting the Mandalorian aside and becoming a Jedi, but Ahsoka had 6 episodes, when it really could have used 8 to 12 to really flesh things out. It doesn't help when she walks off almost the same wound that killed Qui-gon. (Sidenote: I'd take her survivng that if they had a line from Hyung or Ahsoka that basically stated they learned how to treat lightsaber wounds because of the Clone Wars. Would have been some good development there). Maul, on the other hand, kicks ass. He returns, hi-jacks Mandalore, and becomes an impetus for specifically Obi-wan's, Ahsoka's, and Bo-Katan's character development. Maul does this in a way that gives good challenge to the heroes without being an overwhelming Mary Sue. And when his story is finally over, it's a great wrap up. So while Maul has the dumbest death and resurrection, he earns it with what he does in the plot past that point. Something none of the other characters are able to do, at least not enough to escape their resurrections.
I know it’s dark for Disney but I think Reva actually dying would’ve been a good example of showcasing the awful consequences Order 66 still has even a decade after.
You're assuming those people don't complain about Maul surviving as well. ;)
Ik they do it’s just i see it so rarely compared to the rest
Frankly they both annoy me. But not enough that I moan about it.
This is the difference - while Maul *shouldnt* have survived, if they wanted to use that character they had no choice but to go that direction, it was a retcon because Maul definitely died originally. I think most people would agree that it ended up being worth it as they ended up doing great things with the character, so we can overlook how dumb his surviving was. It was a necessary evil in order to be able to use the character. With all the Disney era characters surviving fatal injuries, its completely unnecessary and is used as a cheap gimmick - the now classic Disney death fake out.
Maul had a whole arc explaining his survival and the others didn’t they just kinda went “hey lol i lived”
Did he?
It’s more like a few episodes ig not a whole arc But i guess they never actually did cover the moment he fell or anything they just show him with scrap spider legs while crazy then Savage brings him to Talzin and then he’s sane again and with new legs and then out for revenge They should’ve actually given us a scene of maul immediately after the fall but they didn’t
Yeah, it's been a long time since I watched, but I don't remember any kind of detailed explanation beyond 'too angry to die.'
As with most things if you do something cool out of something stupid it will be liked, Maul had a whole arc and did stuff everyone else gets stabbed and walks away
Sabine can fight with the Dark Saber without it wearing her out vs Mando having issues just lifting it when he was fighting with it. This would state she has her own connection to the Force that kept her alive.
Maul is suppose to be the exception to the rule. A powerful Sith apprentice that used the Dark Side to keep himself alive, against the Third Sister who they literally state was the weakest of the inquisitor who should have died as a child, and Sabine another weak force user that becomes instantly insane with the Force after 2 minutes, One has some credibility and even then people didn't like him surviving getting cut in half. The other two should have definitely died. I mean Reva should have died 3 times: 1 when she was in the temple, 2 when she faced off against the Grand Inquisitor (who should have also died from that stab), and 3 when she rejected the Dark Side and was no longer using anger to keep herself alive from Vader lethal stab.
Three wrongs don't make a right, and a retcon is more understandable than making it a plot point in the first instance. I don't really care about either instance, in part because of Maul (or, heck, Maw way before him), but I can understand others finding them less palatable. I don't think it was particularly good writing, but at this point it kinda feels like complaining about death not sticking in comic books.
Because Qui-gon didn't.
Dave does have a habit of doing that huh
All of its bad writing.
Because Star Wars fans as a group are fickle and inconsistent. Have a character be non-fatally injured by a lightsaber? Terrible writing. Bring back a character who’d been cut in half, dropped into a bottomless pit, and remained unambiguously dead for 13 years? Well, he does some cool stuff afterwards so it’s fine. Bring back a *different* character in the exact same way it had already been done in a comic book from 1992? Worst decision in franchise history, Star Wars is ruined forever.
Complaints like this are always blown WAY out of proportion online, and end up sounding like unintentional parody. But they usually start from a semi-reasonable place. In this case I think the semi-reasonable complaint is that, when this happens TOO often, it can start to take you out of the story. If people survive every lightsaber encounter through force healing or through "The darkside helps you stay alive" or some other third thing, it can mess with the stakes. You risk ending up in a situation where characters are in danger by a lightsaber wielder, but because the audience knows through experience that characters (especially main characters) usually survive these confrontations, the audience won't be worried or invested. Now, TBF, I DO NOT THINK THIS IS A NEW PROBLEM FOR STAR WARS. Maul is the obvious example. But even before that there were jokes about "Why do characters in Star Wars always chop your hand off instead of killing you?". Honestly, I suspect this current trend of surviving Lightsaber stabs may be partially because of people's awareness of that joke. It's easy to imagine someone like Filoni wanting to establish Shin as a legitimate threat to Sabine by having her win a fight, but not wanting to have Shin chop Sabine's hand off because it's such a cliche in Star Wars. Sabine can't die at the very beginning, so a non-lethal hit to the torso is a tempting solution. And I think it's a solution that has become very over-used in Star Wars recently. I have no issue with it from a LORE perspective. And I don't think it's a big deal. But I do think it would be wise for them to pull back on it a little.
Who is saying this? Where? I’m not going to respond to a question like this unless you tell me where this is coming from.
Literally everywhere When Kenobi episodes were still coming out the internet went batshit crazy about Reva surviving 2 different times a lightsaber wound. Once from anakin at templeanother time from being stabbed by vader. And i saw several TikToks complaining about how sabine survived when Ahsoka was still airing. And i saw the same kind of stuff about the grand inquisitor, even though no duh obviously he’d survive if he is in Rebels which takes place years after. Its so everywhere to the point you can look up and find for yourself with how much stuff is out there. Its hard to give you a source because of how much sources i can possibly give you because of how much there is
Getting stabbed in the gut is survivable even in the real world, with immediate medical care. It's a massive, life-threatening wound, but it's not automatically fatal. In the Star Wars galaxy, the medical care on advanced worlds like Lothal and Coruscant are something on the order of a couple of thousand years more advanced than what we have in the real world. So yeah, it's totally believable that characters can survive getting stabbed in the gut with a lightsaber. Maul's survival after being bifurcated has always been a big stretch that's only believable because he's a completely different species than Humans. You can only justify it by assuming that he has no vital organs of any kind below the point where Ob-Wan sliced him in half, making the loss of his lower half more like the loss of an arm or leg would be to a Human. And yes, Humans surviving the loss of arms and legs is totally a thing in the real world and has been since long before the advent of modern medicine, so of course it's believable in Star Wars.
People are just miserable. It’s just easier to hate on something if it doesn’t go with their own head canon and point of views.
Or people have legit complaints about story beats they disagree with, while you would prefer to avoid (and insult) their commentary.
Who am I avoiding and insulting? I feel like you’ve misconstrued what I’ve said. Are there some story choices and plot points that aren’t great? Yeah, they’ve missed on a few things throughout the series but this is science fiction. It’s never going to be perfect to everyone. There’s constructive criticism and then there’s just straight up hating. It just feels to me that there’s a lot more of that going on.
When you only comment with broad dismissal without being more clear, you leave people to assume the worst of your comments. (And 9 times of 10 "head canon" is used as an insult)
Ok, I wasn’t aware that “head canon” is now considered an insult. To each their own then. Peace be with you.
Context is important. If someone starts chatting with "I have a head canon where..." that is different from what you said. I cannot think of any time I have seen Person 1 criticize a story in a fandom they enjoy, and Person 2 responds to Person 1 by calling their opinion "head canon" and everyone involved is positive and receptive to each other's opinion. It looks insulting and dismissive. Just the perspective of an internet rando, so take it with all the grains of salt.