It, like myself, is nothing more than a tool in your fist.
--Darth Maul to Darth Sidious, concerning his double-bladed lightsaber; Tales #10


Vader: The Ultimate Guide calls him "the ultimate assassin." The StarWars.com Databank says he is "A creature of pure evil." Star Wars: The Ultimate Visual Guide refers to him as "an almost unstoppable weapon." Darth Maul was nothing if not formidable.

Yet in Labyrinth of Evil, we are told that Maul "had been nothing more than a minion, like Asajj Ventress and General Grievous."

How to explain this apparent discrepancy?

Thinking back to when The Phantom Menace first hit theaters, I know I can remember being incredibly impressed by Darth Maul. Friends of mine were convinced that despite his apparent death, he would be back in Episode II (my hunch is that Dark Forces' Maw had something to do with their anticipation). But in the end, it seems that Darth Maul did go out like a punk, after all.

Yet we were all so impressed with him! Darth Maul--such a scary visage to announce that the Sith had returned!

A look into Darth Maul's psyche--and Darth Sidious's goals--explains why this is.

Labyrinth of Evil also tells us that Maul "had been driven by a desire to excel--to be the best," and that this was a flaw in his training. Darth Maul had drive. He was very close to being an ideal Sith Lord. But Maul lacked one important characteristic: ambition.

Darth Maul was much too content to follow his master's every command. It's near impossible to imagine him ever challenging Darth Sidious for the place of Sith Master. Maul was the eternal apprentice.

Marked, a short story in Tales #24, conveys this excellently. Darth Sidious sends Maul to confront a Dark Side user and slay him. However, when Maul arrives, he plays a hologram of his master for the Dark Sider, and much to Darth Maul's surprise, Sidious offers the Dark Sider apprenticeship if he can best Maul. Maul is nearly overcome with fear, worrying he has displeased his master. He thinks to himself, "My master has forsaken me. And without him, I am nothing."

Naturally, you and I see through Sidious's ruse. Clearly, this is but a challenge for Maul. I would suggest it is a challenge to remind Maul that he cannot always trust his master; a challenge to teach him that ability he lacks: ambition.

Yet when Maul calls upon the Dark Side and overcomes his opponent, he raises his double-bladed lightsaber and cries, "I am my master's servant!" And despite defeating his opponent, Darth Maul fails. He fails to become something greater than an apprentice, and binds himself to that destiny.

For it seems that ambition is an essential characteristic of a true Dark Lord of the Sith. Without it, one cannot truly master the Dark Side. Maul too readily accepted his place at his master's side. He had drive to please his master, but no ambition to truly conquer the Dark Side and all it had to offer. And thus he could never rise above the role of apprentice.

In some ways, Darth Maul's devotion to his dark master creates an excellent mirror to his eventual slayer, Obi-Wan Kenobi. In Legacy of the Jedi, Obi-Wan asks Qui-Gon Jinn to tell him what his greatest flaw is. After pausing for a long moment, Qui-Gon replies, "You will be a great Jedi Knight, Obi-Wan Kenobi. I know that with every breath, with every beat of my heart. You will make me proud I was there at your beginnings. If you do have a flaw, perhaps it is simply this: You wish to please me too much."

Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Maul, Jedi and Sith, suffered from the same flaw. In Obi-Wan's case, it led him to insist on training Anakin Skywalker, the future Darth Vader. Yet for Darth Maul, a Sith, punishment was much harsher.

For Darth Maul, failure to overcome this flaw led to his master casting him aside and sacrificing him to a higher purpose.

In Jedi vs. Sith: The Essential Guide to the Force, Sidious writes, "Ultimately, Maul was nothing more than a tool." And so it was. Had he overcome his complacency and satisfaction with being the apprentice, perhaps he could have become something more. But as it was, Sidious had no choice but to replace him.

And yet, in his death, Darth Maul served Sidious in a greater way than ever before.

Sidious trained Maul to be flashy and intimidating, and he was. Think back to those trailers for Episode I; remember how you felt when you saw Darth Maul ignite his double-bladed lightsaber. Could there be a more awe-inspiring image of the Sith?

And just as we, the viewers, were taken in to believing that Darth Maul was the embodiment of what the Sith stood for, so, too, were the Jedi. When confronted with Maul's red and black jack-o'-lantern of a visage, why would the Jedi ever suspect a gentle politician like Palpatine of being a Sith Lord? When confronted with a tattooed and flashy Sith, what sorts of Sith would the Jedi look for in the future? Lacking ambition, Darth Maul could never be more than a tool. And so Darth Sidious allowed that tool to serve its purpose, and serve it well.


Other "Anatomy of a Sith Lord" entries:
Darth Tyranus
Darth Nihl