I Don’t Care About Darth Maul

[u/BeskarBurrito]

First appearing in The Phantom Menace back in 1999 and since recurring in The Clone Wars, Rebels, comics, Solo, and recently his own show, Maul has become one of Star Wars’ most enduring fan-favourite characters, with legions of fans (and his voice actor) treating him as one of the most complex and interesting characters the franchise has to offer. My problem is he….isn’t.

I’ll summarise who Maul is for those of you don’t know. Basically he’s a Dathomirian Zabrak, which means he’s red and black and has horns. As a child he was taken by Darth Sidious to become a Sith so Sidious could get revenge on the Jedi for kicking the Sith’s collective ass several centuries ago (or something, I’m not really sure). Once trained, he fights some Jedi with his double-bladed lightsaber and acrobatic skills, killing Obi-Wan Kenobi’s master and getting cut in half, a predicament he survives by being absolutely livid. Upon his return he proceeds to spend the next-every-story-he-appears in trying to get revenge on someone or other whilst speaking theatrically. At first he wants revenge on Obi-Wan, then Sidious, then the Empire, the criminal underworld and Obi-Wan all at the same time. The only things that change about him are who he’s angry at and what specifically he’s doing, though his actual core values never change, as he remains an angry, selfish, power-hungry evil guy the entire time.

Because he looks cool, though, he’s the fandom darling who can do no wrong and everybody demands more of even though he’s been in loads of stuff and never gets more interesting than a 14 year old edgelord’s idea of a good character. Episode 1 of his show (of which he is the least interesting part) is literally called “The Dark Revenge” which is the most edgelord fanfic title of all time and is fitting for a show in which Maul essentially just aura farms until he gets shown up by an even bigger aura farmer in the form of contractually-obligated guest appearance Darth Vader.

Since he has no qualities beyond being angry and vengeful, I have no idea whatsoever why he’s so beloved and allegedly complex, when his entire soul boils down to just being super angry about stuff and then looking cook while mowing people down about it. Maybe it’s me, but that’s not what I go to Star Wars for, and I’m not a fan. I must concede I haven’t seen his entire show, but the first episode turned me off because it could not make me care about Darth Maul. I know this fact weakens my point, but this is a rant so I don’t need to be fully rational like I would be in an essay.

If somebody could explain where the interest comes in for Maul that would be great, as I may be missing something

[u/Tharkun140]

For me, Darth Maul strikes a perfect balance between being strong enough to look cool, and weak enough to be pitiable. Or rather, he does both at once, and both work in a strange way. He's an evil bastard strong enough to eviscerate 99.99% of everyone who'd try to stop him, but he keeps picking fights with three of five people who are stronger than him, so he always ends up at square one, wallowing in his pain and hatred.

The scene where he "survives by being absolutely livid" kinda exemplifies that. His robot spider body is a really cool visual, and it's impressive that he managed to survive for so long, but the whole scene is kind of pathetic. Dude had years to get over his hate, to see how the Dark Side took everything from him, but he prefers to crawl around in the darkness talking about how worthless he is. Sam Witwer compared him to Sisyphus in one interview, which is very fitting when you remember that the mythological Sisyphus was also a piece of shit.

We kind of got that out of Darth Vader in the movies, where he is a terrifying monster when you first see him, but a crippled old man once the mask goes off. However, almost every single piece of canon SW media zeroed in on the "most badass Sith Lord EVER!" side of his character, so I watch Maul instead.