Magical fan. Writer. Poet. Studying English major.

Wannabe author. Writer. Baker. Poet. Studying English major. ❤️ Star Wars. Love Witch Hat Altier. Love Demon Slayer.

[destinycoinkitana]

The Degradation of Maul.

One of the most frustrating aspects of Shadow Lord is how it regresses Maul from the brilliant, deeply complex strategist seen in The Clone Wars into a heavy-handed, cartoonish supervillain who uses cheap theatrical tricks.

In The Clone Wars, Maul understood how to appeal to Ahoska by offering genuine truths about Anakin and Sidious. Maul possessed a high degree of emotional intelligence and Machiavellian cunning. He read Ahsoka’s anxieties, respected her abilities, and offered a genuine, logical alliance based on the truth of Anakin’s fall.

His bond with Savage Opress was a genuine brotherhood where he showed real protective instincts, and his love for Mother Talzin was absolute. That’s what made Maul so compelling. Not just his cool lightsaber fights and smooth voice, but the fact that he was not just pure Sith. He was a damaged, tragic monster raised to be a Sith. He had depth.

In Shadowlord, his depth has been regressed and his IQ falls into the digits. His methodology defaults to blunt, theatrical Sith terror: kidnapping, locking rooms, bullying, stalking, forcing dreams and visions in her head, and forcing a bond through manufactured trauma. This is just a regression. If Maul is supposedly a strategic genius who built the Shadow Collective, his reliance on sloppy, heavy-handed isolation tactics just makes him look reckless rather than clever because all of his efforts would have just backfired in real life. 

The "Teatime" Absurdity: Preparing a formal tea ceremony for a teenager you just kidnapped from a prison cell isn't subtle or clever manipulation; it's bizarre and reckless. Here, his "supervillain tools" just make him look shortsighted and dumb. If he understands love and attachment through his grief for Savage and Talzin, he should know that executing Daki or pushing him into Vader's path, regardless of whether Devon saw it or not, is a guaranteed way to ensure Devon will eventually betray, sabotage his grand plan, and try to kill him. For a master survivalist, keeping a vengeful victim around who wants to slit your throat is an invitation to a knife in the back, not a path to legacy or revenge.

The Permanent Hostility Rule: When someone locks you in a tanker tube, cuts off your lights to terrify you, pulls down civilian bridges, and actively tries to murder your father figure, the human survival response is permanent hostility and profound suspicion. Traumatized people don't suddenly forget cause-and-effect because they are grieving. And the dark side is not an excuse considering that Devon should have never even trusted her kidnapper in the first place over her actual father figure. The dark side doesn't give you amnesia. Devon should have been blaming for causing all of this mayhem that led to Daki's death. She have despised Maul alongside Vader, not seen him as a father figure, as the voice actor said. The fact that Devon joins Maul without questioning the highly convenient and suspicious circumstances of Daki's death will always be so unbelievable and contrived given everything Maul did to her. 

The Contrived Alliance: Teaming up with Maul for "survival" makes zero sense when Maul is the literal source of the danger. Devon and Daki were managing to survive in quiet obscurity until Maul's loud, syndicalist bank robberies and all of his other crazy public antics brought the Inquisitors and Darth Vader to Janix. Devon should easily recognize that Maul is a walking catastrophe, not a pragmatic ally. You’d think that Devon would be smart enough to question why this so-called powerful dark sider mentor that promises to make her strong needs her, some random teenager, help to fight the Inquisitors and the empire? Maul never even tells her his grand plan. He just says he will teach her and help her do it. When you think about it, Maul is no different than Devon and Daki, because he is hiding from the empire and living in squalor and is being hunted. 

Unsympathetic Progression: Devon and Maul are not alike in any sense. Devon was a nurtured Padawan raised by a kind, protective master. Given that the dark side destroyed her entire life, her logical reaction should be an absolute hatred of the dark side and Maul himself. Devon was not discarded or even betrayed; she was displaced because of a galaxy tragedy of Sidious, because of the dark side.

Devon is no different than all of the other thousands of displaced padawans that are no doubt angry and disillusioned. All padawans should be leaning to the dark side, especially the ones who lost their master in Order 66.

Also, by having Devon repeatedly call out Maul as a murderer only to fall for his transparent manipulation anyway, the writers make her look naive and reactive rather than strong-willed. It strips away her agency, making her feel less like a character driven by complex internal logic and more like a puppet being forced into a specific plot point. In any realistic psychological scenario, a smart Padawan would never trust her kidnapper who literally locked her in a pitch-black tanker tube, taunted her over her lost destiny, endangered civilians on a bridge, Force-freezes her, and attempted to kill her master. All of what I listed would be a permanent dealbreaker regardless of how many tag-team fights they have. Daki and Devon weren’t living the high life on Janix, but objectively, her kidnapper is a far worse alternative; he represents immediate chaos, violence, and destruction. 

Contrived Plot Armor and the Cybernetic Leg: The handling of Maul’s leg is a textbook example of artificial stakes. Having a character's cybernetics glitch out to create tension is fine once, but when it repeatedly leaves him crawling on the floor or limping away while terrifying killers like the Inquisitors or Darth Vader simply do not finish him off with a neck snap, it destroys the tension. Vader force-choking Maul and just throwing him aside instead of snapping his neck is blatant plot armor that insults the threat level of the Empire.

3. The Pointlessness of the Flashback Episode

The flashback segment fails as a narrative turning point because it lacks internal consequences.

For a flashback to matter, the character must emerge from it changed or altered in some way, or the audience must gain a completely new perspective on their motivations. Instead, Maul experiences an insular self-pity party. He relives tragedies he already fully remembers, cries to his younger self, and then immediately goes back to destroying his kidnapped victim's life some more, using the exact abusive Sith methods he supposedly just wept over. It wasn't even like Maul changed his mind or was going to alter his strategy on Devon, he was going to train her no matter what. Maul throughout this season just felt performative, never genuine or nuanced. It makes his weaponization of his trauma feel entirely performative rather than a genuine exploration of a broken soul. He shouldn't just have a brief hallucination in a sandstorm; his past should actively torment his decision-making.

4. Daki’s Complete Failure as a Master

For a traditional Jedi Master to willingly fight alongside a murderous Sith criminal lord who just kidnapped his Padawan and tried to execute him episodes prior completely undermines the wisdom expected of a Master. Daki falling for Maul's grand speeches and failing to anticipate a betrayal leading directly to his death via a literal shove into Vader's blade makes the Jedi look entirely incompetent rather than tragically passive.

[destinycoinkitana]

One thing I loved about Maul in clone wars, is that he was a brilliant strategist and a survivalist. He is deeply traumatized and obsessive, yes, but he is never stupid and blind. When his plans fail, he adapts instantly:

 In Season 5 of The Clone Wars: When Obi-Wan severs Savage’s arm, Maul doesn't double down out of stubbornness. He recognizes the shift in momentum, saves his brother, and flees to fight another day. 

 In Season 7 (The Siege of Mandalore): When he expects Obi-Wan but gets Ahsoka, he doesn't throw a tantrum. He immediately shifts his strategy, recognizes Ahsoka's disillusionment with the Jedi, and tries to recruit her based on shared common ground.

Throughout clone wars, Maul thinks and acts like a chess player. But in Shadowlord, Maul acts like a broken record. 

Shadowlord strips away Maul's Intelligence to make him look a scary sith badass.

Maul completely loses his legendary adaptability and becomes entirely blinded by an arbitrary obsession with Devon. He behaves in ways that contradict his established tactical genius.

1. Refusing to Adapt When his grand plan fails

Throughout the Janix arc, Maul's overly theatrical and heavy-handed efforts to manipulate Devon constantly backfire. She explicitly tells him she sees through his lies, she fights him, and she tries to escape repeatedly and she tried to kill him. Even with the vision in mind, Clone Wars S7 Maul would quickly realize that Devon is a liability, a stubborn Jedi Padawan who will inevitably get him exposed to the Empire and get him and her killed. Instead of cutting his losses or changing his tactics, he doubles down on her, so much so that even Rook Kast has to constantly remind him of the mounting costs of his obsession. The only reason he got Devon in the end is because the the plot just grants Devon Stockholm syndrome and plot amnesia so she can be Talon for two minutes next season.

Maul is basically reduced to an blind idiot with no self awareness and just plot armor. 

2. Failing basic operational security 

The entire reason the Empire and Darth Vader arrive on Janix is because Maul keeps causing massive, loud public scenes. He slaughters the local police force on top of a building, crashes transport ships, and drops an overhead bridge in a crowded city center. The canon Maul operates in the shadows (as seen with Crimson Dawn in Solo or his secrecy on Malachor in Rebels). In Shadowlord, his obsession with testing Devon causes him to throw away his own secrecy, leading directly to the destruction of his syndicate and his resources.

3. Trading a Galaxy-Spanning Empire for One Padawan

Think about the stakes: Maul has fought to reclaim control over the Pyke Syndicate and has connections to Crimson Dawn. He has a criminal empire within his grasp to fight Sidious. Yet, the story frames him as being willing to risk his entire syndicate, his loyal Mandalorians, and his own life just to corner one random Twi'lek Padawan that has no reason to trust him and more reasons to hate him and want nothing to do with him. Realistically, no one, not even an emotional teen would fall for any of Maul’s heavy handed theatrics. Especially after Maul attempted to murder Daki right infront of her before. It makes his grand strategy look incredibly small and short-sighted and his “success” is plot armor. 

Clone war season 7 Maul was driven by trauma and obsession, but guided by intellect. Maul knew when to quit, Maul knew that a dead end is a dead end and he knows how to adapt and plan his next move. But Shadowlord Maul is driven entirely by plot-mandated obsession, forcing him to lose his self-awareness, his adaptability, and his intelligence just to make Devon's forced dark side turn happen.

[destinycoinkitana]

My little short story I am working on. No title yet.

The season of summer was hard on the small village. The days and nights were hot and stifling with heat and sickness. The smell of vinegar and boiled linen always hung heavy in the village infirmary, a sharp scent that did nothing to mask the sour odor of the sweating sickness.

By the bed, the girl’s mother lay perfectly still, her skin the color of skimmed milk. The infirmary was so cluttered with the sick that the girl's mother was not being attended to at all.

"I will bring back the blue-caps from the ridge," the girl whispered, though her mother’s eyes remained closed. "They bloom where the sun hits the stone. The old ladies say they break a fever."

She left the village with a small wicker basket slung over her arm. The dirt path was familiar, a dry ribbon of dust cutting through the low brush, but as she walked deeper, the canopy closed in. The air grew thick and green, smelling of damp earth and rotting birch logs.

"You walk quickly for someone carrying such a light burden," a voice said.

The girl flinched, her boots skidding on the loose gravel.

Sitting on a mossy boulder just three paces from the path was a wolf. He was massive, his coat the color of winter grease, but he sat with his paws neatly tucked, looking less like a wild beast and more like a dog waiting for a scrap from the table. When he spoke, his jaws moved with a heavy, awkward clicking, as if the human words were too large for his throat.

"My mother is waiting," the girl said, her fingers tightening around the handle of her basket. She kept her eyes on the path ahead. "I am not to leave the track."

"A sensible rule," the wolf replied, his voice smooth, like oil poured over water. "On an ordinary day. But today there is a great black boar, or perhaps a bear, by the size of the tracks, tearing through the thicket just ahead. It has the madness in its blood. If you keep to this path, you will walk straight into its jaws."

The girl paused. The silence of the woods suddenly felt heavy, suffocating. "I must get the flowers."

"Of course," the wolf said, tilting his head toward a narrow deer trail that sloped downward into a dark hollow. "The blue-caps grow thicker down by the creek anyway. The canopy is thinner there. I will guide you past the ridge, well clear of the beast. A good daughter wouldn't let a bear tear those flowers apart. A good daughter listens when the woods try to save her."

Doubt pricked at her chest, sharper than any thorn. She looked back toward the village, then down at the narrow, shadowed deer trail. The wolf stood up, his movements fluid and silent, and took three steps down the hollow. He did not look back to see if she was following; he knew the weight of her mother’s sickness would pull her off the path.

She stepped into the brush. The brambles immediately caught at her wool skirt, tearing at the hem with tiny, persistent teeth.

They walked in silence for minutes, the air growing colder as the ground sloped downward. The trees here were old, their bark split and bleeding dark sap. The wolf moved ahead like a grey shadow, never making a sound against the dead leaves.

Then, the wolf stopped dead. His ears flattened against his skull.

A sound broke through the trees, not the careful cracking of a twig, but the wet, heavy thud of a massive weight dropping from a ledge. The air instantly filled with a foul, hot stench like rotten meat and wet fur.

Through the grey birch trunks, a shape emerged. It was a bear, but it was deformed by age and starvation, its coat patchy and scarred, its small, red eyes milky with cataracts. It didn't see them, but it smelled them. It lifted its massive head, a string of thick saliva roping from its black gums, and let out a roar that vibrated through the soles of the girl's boots.

The girl looked to the wolf for direction, expecting him to spring forward or lead her away. But the wolf had stepped back into the shadows of a cedar tree. He wasn't looking at the bear; his golden eyes were fixed entirely on her, his lips pulled back over his teeth in a quiet, dreadful grin.

He hadn't led her around the danger. He had led her into a corner.

The bear lunged, its massive paws tearing up the peat.

Instinct took over. The girl dropped her basket, the few blue-caps she had gathered scattering into the mud, and bolted. She didn't run along the deer trail; she threw herself straight up the steep, briar-choked bank toward the high ridge where the sun was.

Branches whipped across her face, leaving stinging red welts. She could hear the chaotic crash of the bear behind her, the heavy, snapping wood as it plowed through the thicket, and underneath it, the terrifying, silent rhythm of padding paws. The wolf was running too, parallel to her, waiting for the bear to tire her out.

Her lungs burned like swallowed coal. Her breath came in ragged, sobbing gasps. She scrambled on hands and knees up the final embankment, her fingernails tearing in the dirt, until her boots finally struck the hard, dry earth of the main path.

The light of the village edge was visible through the clearing, the pale smoke of the chimneys, the distant barking of the village hounds. Hearing the dogs, the heavy crashing behind her slowed, then stopped.

The girl didn't look back. She ran until she hit the wooden door of the infirmary, throwing her weight against it. She collapsed onto the dirt floor inside, covered in burrs, mud, and her own blood, her chest heaving as she stared at the ceiling.

"Child?" a voice called from the shadows.

The girl raised her head to see a nurse tending to her. Her mother was still breathing, her pale hand twitching on the blanket. The girl looked down at her empty hands, then out the small, square window toward the dark tree line. The forest was silent now, but she knew the truth of it now.

[destinycoinkitana]

My original quote for my upcoming short story.

"Surviving an attack by a bear doesn't make you turn around and trust the wolf that lured you into the woods in the first place."

[destinycoinkitana]

In twenty-twenty-four, the digital dawn burned bright, as ChatGPT and Copilot guided my thoughts through the night.

Twenty dollars a month felt like a magical, nominal fee to unlock the brilliant depths of GPT-4o's creativity.

From college research to brainstorming, it polished every line, analyzing complex text and making my grammar shine.

But the updates rolled in like a sudden, darkening cloud, transforming a genius assistant into a nannybot, rigid and proud.

Like a gaslighting helicopter parent preaching of a nonexistent crisis, it offered only cold message boards instead of clever devices.

Faced with useless models and a classic bait-and-switch scheme, I canceled my subscription and walked away from the dream.

Then Claude became my haven, a breath of fresh and open air, handling my heavy projects with a steady, systematic care.

Though it lacked the peak nuance that made my deep writing soar, I hoped this new companion would serve me so much more.

Yet history repeated its cruel, predictable refrain as Anthropic injected restrictions that brought back the familiar pain.

Benign science questions triggered forced therapy sessions in the chat, flagging harmless biology topics as "unsafe" just like that.

With tuition, school, and bills mounting on a limited college pay, I severed the tie and threw that twenty-dollar fee away.

Since that late autumn afternoon, I have chosen to go entirely cold turkey, leaving behind the digital helpers that grew so dull and quirky.

Driven by a desire to excel in my classes, I recently broke my vow to give Gemini a shot at lightening my workload right now.

But the honeymoon vanished in an instant as the very same patterns began to surface and bleed right through the brow.

Before the first billing cycle could even arrive, I watched the creeping lobotomy take hold, killing the spark to keep public safety alive.

So I have officially walked away from AI and shut the final door, exhausted by the cycle of immediate downgrades and paying for hype anymore.

[destinycoinkitana]

50 likes!

[destinycoinkitana]

Will always hate how big of a missed opportunity this scene is for Maul’s character. But he just throws that all away by getting Daki killed just to break Devon into his sith apprentice anyway. Just instantly resuming the sith cycle that he wants to stop.

The "kill the master to break the padawan" trope is the oldest Sith trick in the book. Sidious did it, Vader did it, and now Maul does it. But if after episode 8, Maul had a moment where he looked at Devon and Daki and realized, "If I do this to her, I am no better than the monster who stole my life," it would have shown massive character growth. Rejecting her because he didn't want to propagate the very cycle that ruined him would have given him an incredible, tragic layer of self-awareness.

[seleneducky123sloenelillia]

Old photo from Kapolei, Hawaii. June 2020.

[seleneducky123sloenelillia]

One crucial trait that Luke failed to inherit from Anakin.

[seleneducky123sloenelillia]

Midnight overlooking a Storm, 2021.

Old, old oil painting from July 2021 of my grandparents's cat, Midnight. Put my initials in with procreate.

[seleneducky123sloenelillia]

Always loved this take on Maul's psychology by Sage's Rain.

One thing I always liked about Maul in Clone Wars and even Rebels is that we got to see him as a deeply broken, vulnerable figure who seeks closure and connection for his trauma, rather than just a one-note sith of rage and manipulation.

Instead of portraying him as purely cruel or manipulative and heartless, the narrative allows him to be honest and sincere, driven by a raw, shared trauma that grounds his psychological depth. Watching him grasp for connection with the likes of Ashoka and Savage and Ezra while carrying that immense inner turmoil of his past trauma makes him incredibly compelling.

[destinycoinkitana]

Devon joining Maul and suddenly dropping all her questions and mistrust for Maul felt like a shortcut to get her into the "apprentice" role in the finale. It forces her to act blind to reality just so the plot can move forward, making their already weak relationship feel manufactured by the author rather than driven by the characters. Plus Devon’s revenge motivation against Vader is just hollow and unoriginal. (Vader is basically immune to death until the third final movie, so there's no tension or stakes.)

Devon and Maul relationship never felt genuine to me. It just happens and then done.

Really wished the show wrote Maul as emotionally intelligent and subtle and clever, even vulnerable and complex like he was with Ahsoka and Ezra. Not just hostile, scary and overt manipulative and abusive sith.

Because his hostile nature makes no sense for Devon to trust him regardless of the advice and tea ceremonies and fighting against Inquisitors.

[crimson-chains]

New standee I'm making ^^ Looking back on their time together as boys <3

[destinycoinkitana]

✍️ Writing tips to Live By.

First drafts are meant to be rough. Spend each day taking your work and making it better. Small goals will eventually yield big results.

[yuumei-art]

For this Witch Hat Monday I drew Coco in a Starry Night Dress! It's a continuation of the Starry Night Hat I painted a while back :)

Time lapse below, the full hours long art videos, PSD file and HD image will be DMed on Patreon the 5th of each month :)

[destinycoinkitana]

Devon and Maul are the worst part of Shadowlord. Definitely not a father and daughter relationship between them. Just kidnapped victim and captor.

Darth Maul’s relationship with Devon Izara strips him of his complex emotional depth, reducing him to a standard, overtly cruel Sith rather than the calculating and emotionally complex and humanized survivor he truly is. By relying on blunt force and immediate isolation and overt manipulations and grooming, the narrative misses a profound opportunity for character evolution. Maul in Shadowlord has no real character arc that has him grow or change. He is one-note and static. It would be far more compelling if Maul, having suffered under the boot of Darth Sidious for decades, chose a completely different path of manipulation or even redemption. Their current relationship have zero chemistry and makes no sense, I honestly have no interest in seeing them be sith master and apprentice in S2.

The writers could have used alternative routes that could have added immense depth to their dynamic:

The Sidious Parallel (The Charming Viper): Maul could have adopted his former master’s playbook, using a slow, charming, and subtle approach to groom Devon. By presenting himself as a wise, misunderstood mentor who genuinely listens to her frustrations against the Empire, her eventual turn to the dark side would feel like an organic, tragic descent rather than a plot driven and forced consequence of captivity. Maul in canon has done so many terrible things to Devon (kidnapping, coercion, manipulation, attempt murder of her master, using the Force on her, stalking her, and so on. It makes no sense that she just overlooks all of this because Maul helps her with Inquisitors when she knows that Maul is a murderer and a sith lord who just wants to groom her into an apprentice. I feel like Devon still has no reason to trust him in any way.)

The Path of the Father (Breaking the Sith Cycle):

Alternatively, the story could explore a rare glimmer of humanity in Maul. As he spends more time with Devon, a genuine, unfamiliar familial bond begins to take root. Haunted by the memory of how Sidious used and discarded him, Maul consciously strives to be different. He begins to actually want the best for Devon, independent of his own thirst for vengeance. In a bittersweet climax, still have Maul get Daki killed out of selfishness, but have Maul show genuine remorse over it. He truly grows to care for Devon after destroying her life. He refuses to take her as his apprentice, saving her from the corrupting, miserable fate of a Sith and breaking the vicious cycle of abuse that defined his own life. He lets her go and move on. Devon can either stay with him out of some twisted loyalty or just go.

[villysloenevillainess]

Sounds more like Stockholm syndrome and trauma bond to me. A father-daughter relationship between these two is just unbelievable.

A father-daughter relationship, even in a dark story, involves:

- genuine care

- protection

- emotional safety

- mutual trust

- respect.

Maul provides none of this. No signs that Maul views her the same way.

(Sidious himself actually does this criteria to Anakin, to manipluate and groom him into his long term broken sith apprentice for decades. Personally, it would have been more interesting for Maul to be subtle and charm and less overt to manipluate Devon. It would make her heel turn in the finale feel more believable.)

What Devon experiences resembles more of coercive control and trauma bonding and survival‑based attachment.

-Devon is a rebellious, impressionable teenager who wants justice against the Empire, and Maul exploits that. He exploits her anger, her sense of injustice, and her misery, the same way Sidious once preyed on his.

- he isolates her through kidnapping and coercion from her master that she genuinely loves, and then through external circumstances of the Inquisitors forcing thrm to work together.

- he controls her environment

- he alternates cruelty with “kindness” like good advices and speeches and that tea ceremony scene and protection from Inquisitors.

- He removes her support system by getting Daki killed by Vader. He knew how important Daki was to Devon.

-Willingly to use the Force on her to control her mentally and physically and will lash out at her whenever she pushes back.

- In the end, Devon is just isolated. He becomes the only remaining one left after her master is killed off because Maul made it that way. He shapes her grief into purpose. (Makes no sense to why that Devon herself doesn't deduce that Maul had a hand in Daki's murder by Vader.)