call me terminally academia-brained but i do think a lot of the fun of character analysis is figuring out how to build a compelling argument for a particular reading using lines of evidence from canon as well as meta/intertextual support
and you could say that what i’m saying here is basically “a lot of the fun of doing character analysis is doing character analysis” but let’s be real a lot of fandom character analysis is pretty heavily vibes-based. and i think that’s where i really chafe up against the traditional thought-terminating fandom attitude of like, everyone’s opinions hold equal weight and any interrogation of that is inherently hostile. because i think it’s fascinating to dig into where others are coming from in terms of their views on characters or dynamics or whatever, especially when they differ significantly from more commonly expressed views, and part of that digging is asking people okay what parts of canon are you drawing from to support your opinion? what parts of canon are you disregarding or downplaying? how does this argument hold up in the light of how race, gender, class, ability, etc. operate both in the piece’s in-fiction and real world contexts?
Back when this show was first announced I jokingly referred to Devon (before we knew her name and just knew that Maul was training a Twi'lek girl a year after Ahsoka blew him off) as "Maul is creating Ahsoka's Wario" but the thing is. That really is kinda it, conceptually.
By which I mean: the thing Ahsoka and Devon have in common in a Doylist sense is that they are both original characters created to be a legacy character's apprentice (Anakin for Ahsoka, Maul for Devon) in a show that legacy character was nominally the lead of which existed between already-set points in their established timeline.
Which means: those apprentice characters are ultimately where the real action is. Because while the elaboration on how the legacy characters get from A to B is far from unwelcome, we know how things end for them, we know where their characters ultimately end up: Anakin becomes Vader and Maul dies to Obi-Wan on Tatooine. We learn the how, the why, but we already knew the what.
But Devon in Shadow Lord is wide-open, as Ahsoka in Clone Wars was before her: she's new, she has no fixed end, anything is possible! What happens to her? Where does she end up? Who does she become? These are the questions! And so once again the apprentice girl OC is ultimately the one to watch. Ahsoka outgrew her association with Anakin as people began to care about her in her own right and I have no doubt the same will be true for Devon and her association with Maul.
The "Wario" part is still tongue in cheek but, well, not inaccurate: Devon is the dark mirror of Ahsoka's character on that conceptual level, because this is a show about, in Sam Witwer's words, bad guys versus worse guys. And where Ahsoka ultimately learned to be better at being Anakin than Anakin was and thus never fell to the dark side, I think Devon will give us the answer to what happens when someone learns how to be better at being Maul than Maul is.
I keep thinking about that quote about how Devon will find she can talk to Maul about things/relate to him in ways she couldn't with anyone else in the Order, and like—I think I get exactly what it means, and it's key to understanding Devon's mindset as we meet her and how it makes her so particularly vulnerable to what Maul is selling.
Because when we meet her she's restless and dissatisfied with her changed lot in life and survival-through-passivity is driving her crazy and Maul gets under her skin by accusing her of wasting the opportunity survival has given her and refusing her call to fight. And my takeaway from that is:
Devon is a Clone Wars Padawan.
Which is to say: the generation of Padawans whose apprenticeships were entirely defined by the Clone Wars had a very atypical experience, exemplified by Ahsoka but shared by everyone in her general age range (and despite what some people think I cannot read Devon as being more than a year or maybe two younger than Ahsoka): they were raised as Jedi and then the moment they became Padawans they became military officers. Weapons. And there were two options from there: either they became good at it, or they died before they even got the chance to die in Order 66.
Devon is very good at it.
So as she hits that formative age, she learns: she can solve problems with violence! She's very good at solving problems with violence, actually. She likes solving problems with violence, a feedback loop intensified by the fact that the very people who raised her not to solve problems with violence are now praising her for being good at solving problems with violence. Because we're at war and, well, the needs of the many come first and we can resolve any adverse developmental effects that'll have after the war. (There is no after the war.) Because Obi-Wan being knighted at 25 vs Anakin being knighted at 20 vs Ahsoka being "knighted" at 17 is a feature not a bug, or rather the bug IS the feature because the feature is institutional decay under the pressures of wartime, as a Padawan's ability to get results becomes more important than what's actually healthiest for them.
At the same time we are still paying lip service to the ideals that Devon was raised with, because no one wants to admit that none of them have really been acting as Jedi since the war started, because the war was a perfect trap designed to make the Order destroy itself spiritually before they were destroyed physically and admitting that they're caught in the trap means admitting they don't know how to get out of it—because these conditions create every pre-identified Inquisitor candidate, because breaking this cognitive dissonance is what drove Barriss (just old enough to experience being a Padawan before the war changed everything!) to despair.
So compared to a Padawan of her age a generation before Devon is both more martially skilled and less spiritually developed, which is what we in the Jedi Order refer to as being in the Danger Zone. She is exactly the thing Barriss was so afraid of, and unlike Ahsoka, nothing happened to shake her and make her realize this was Not Normal before Order 66. All she knew was—she was good at the violence she was ordered to do and she liked the praise she got for being good at it. But she couldn't say that out loud to anyone, couldn't quite admit it to herself—she certainly couldn't talk to Daki about it, because she loves and respects him and she doesn't want to make him disappointed in her, because sometimes you're so close to someone that there are conversations you don't know how to have with them that you can have with a relative stranger, and so she buries it. And then Order 66 happened and she she had to hide her power and skill and try to survive through passivity and all of her learned instincts are screaming at her that she needs to be active, she needs to fight, and—
And then Maul came along and was the first person to say to her: it's okay. You can do it. You don't have to feel guilty about it. It's just what you need to do to survive. You shouldn't have to hide your talents they should give you respect (they should give you power) (you should use that power for yourself).
Of course that gets to her. It's the validation she wants to hear. It's a simple answer to a complicated question. For all that she doth protest too much, it's obvious from how her words and her actions don't quite line up that he hooked her from that first encounter and the rest of the season was her slowly accepting that she wanted to walk down the dark path, culminating in Daki's death meaning his potential disappointment was no longer a factor.
It's the three stages of tragedy: There was no way this could have gone any differently, but at any time she could have chosen something else, but we know there was no way she would have chosen anything else.
I am so amused by the idea that Maul will view Rylee as a threat to his influence over Devon. He will see it as Rylee being to Devon what Spybot or Scorn/Icarus was to him, as a useful scratching post for her to work out her lingering Jedi protective instincts on, but a rival for influence over her? His rival in that department was Daki, who is now dead; Rylee is some kid who plays space lacrosse. You think a normal sheltered high schooler who can't admit a divorce that put a galaxy between his parents isn't a temporary situation will have the emotional development to keep a fallen Jedi from plunging fully into the dark side? He doesn't even know what the dark side is.
I'm having a lot of trouble putting this together in a neat coherent post but imagine an early New Republic era story where Ezra has spent ten years with his turtle hobbit friends patiently waiting for his sister to come get him and has had plenty of time to reminisce and decide yeah, he still hates Maul but he also pities him, while Devon has spent ten years ruminating on the man who ripped her life apart and turned her into this. I'd love to see the two of them bitch about Maul/smoke together/try to kill each other, not necessarily in that order or at different times.
I still don't have my full "how does Devon actually see Rylee" breakdown ready and really this should just be the conclusion of it but—I am driven to talk about this moment right here after the jump to hyperspace even though most of this post should be my conclusion to that breakdown.
Because like. You have Devon breaking down in grief and impotent rage at everything that just happened, and then she turns around and notices Rylee sobbing in the corner. And—you know what's the expected thing to happen here. Devon will see Rylee is upset, and push aside her own grief and pain to comfort him in his that is parallel to hers but (with no offense to Rylee, who is having the worst day of his whole entire life) ultimately so much less than the loss she just suffered (Daki was not just her mentor he was the only remaining member of her culture that she had left!) Because that's how that goes. Because that's what girls are supposed to do for boys.
(Picture unrelated.)
So when that moment happened I felt myself instinctively brace against what was bout to happen: her expression would soften and her rage would dissipate and she'd go over to reassure him and there'd be a moment of hope that there she's not on the dark path for good because she's being selfless for the boy who has far less narrative importance than her! That's so the expected thing to happen that I've seen plenty of people trick themselves into thinking it did.
It didn't, though.
You see Devon look at him for a moment. Then the realization hits her: Brander didn't make it. And—that was Daki's last command to her, the last conversation they ever had, he told her to go ahead because the Lawsons needed her help and she resisted because she knew HE needed her help and she cares far more about keeping him alive than the civvies (you'll note that pattern, of Daki telling Devon to go ahead and protect the Lawsons mid-battle and her resisting but ultimately complying despite her instincts happened no less than three times this season—important number) but she did it anyway and Daki died and she didn't even succeed in protecting the civvies she failed as a Jedi she failed in everything she wanted and—
She looks down. She gets angrier. She turns her rage inwards. She does not go over to comfort Rylee; she does not interact with him at all. Standing in very stark contrast to the moment a few episodes earlier, she makes this moment about herself—and the music ends the shot on an ominous stinger to underline that this is not a moment of hope that there's Still Good In Her™.
And this is...really emblematic of how cathartic Devon is for me as a character. To which people will gasp at me: but you're saying she's not being a good girl! She's not doing what's expected of her as an animated girl protagonist! She might even become a bad role model! And yes, that's the catharsis. This is a story about her making the wrong decisions and becoming her worst self but the horror of that and the catharsis of that come in equal measure. Because sometimes stories are about bad things happening, as Star Wars knows all too well. Because Devon's story is about what it would be like if the narrative treated a teenage girl's anger at how the world has mistreated her as though it was The Rage of Achilles™.
Because you need stories about that too, actually.
I still don't have my full "how does Devon actually see Rylee" breakdown ready and really this should just be the conclusion of it but—I am driven to talk about this moment right here after the jump to hyperspace even though most of this post should be my conclusion to that breakdown.
Because like. You have Devon breaking down in grief and impotent rage at everything that just happened, and then she turns around and notices Rylee sobbing in the corner. And—you know what's the expected thing to happen here. Devon will see Rylee is upset, and push aside her own grief and pain to comfort him in his that is parallel to hers but (with no offense to Rylee, who is having the worst day of his whole entire life) ultimately so much less than the loss she just suffered (Daki was not just her mentor he was the only remaining member of her culture that she had left!) Because that's how that goes. Because that's what girls are supposed to do for boys.
(Picture unrelated.)
So when that moment happened I felt myself instinctively brace against what was about to happen: her expression would soften and her rage would dissipate and she'd go over to reassure him and there'd be a moment of hope that there she's not on the dark path for good because she's being selfless for the boy who has far less narrative importance than her! That's so the expected thing to happen that I've seen plenty of people trick themselves into thinking it did.
It didn't, though.
You see Devon look at him for a moment. Then the realization hits her: Brander didn't make it. And—that was Daki's last command to her, the last conversation they ever had, he told her to go ahead because the Lawsons needed her help and she resisted because she knew HE needed her help and she cares far more about keeping him alive than the civvies (you'll note that pattern, of Daki telling Devon to go ahead and protect the Lawsons mid-battle and her resisting but ultimately complying despite her instincts happened no less than three times this season—important number) but she did it anyway and Daki died and she didn't even succeed in protecting the civvies she failed as a Jedi she failed in everything she wanted and—
She looks down. She gets angrier. She turns her rage inwards. She does not go over to comfort Rylee; she does not interact with him at all. Standing in very stark contrast to the moment a few episodes earlier, she makes this moment about herself—and the music ends the shot on an ominous stinger to underline that this is not a moment of hope that there's Still Good In Her™.
And this is...really emblematic of how cathartic Devon is for me as a character. To which people will gasp at me: but you're saying she's not being a good girl! She's not doing what's expected of her as an animated girl protagonist! She might even become a bad role model! And yes, that's the catharsis. This is a story about her making the wrong decisions and becoming her worst self but the horror of that and the catharsis of that come in equal measure. Because sometimes stories are about bad things happening, as Star Wars knows all too well. Because Devon's story is about what it would be like if the narrative treated a teenage girl's anger at how the world has mistreated her as though it was The Rage of Achilles™.
Because you need stories about that too, actually.
thank u for always being there to kvetch with me when this fandom is being dull as fucking hell you are the realest and it keeps me from going crazy in a sea of wallpaper paste <3
groupchats with the girls will literally save your sanity from the pervasive fandom impulse to beat the life out of characters until they are so far removed from the narrative you wonder if you're the crazy one for actually having a relationship WITH THE STORY BEING TOLD. it's so hard to actually like the source material apparently but having friends who like it too helps :') <3
I'm curious, what are the three layers to the Devon/Talon mythology gag? I never got around to giving Legacy a try, so the only parallel I know of is "darksider Twi'lek woman".
[sighs] okay so
As the background: Star Wars Legacy was a comic series from 2006 that was set like 150 years in the future from the OT in a time when everything had gone to shit; it was very edgy and very 2006. Part of that is that one of the Sith characters in it was Darth Talon who...I'm going to be diplomatic and say she was not written in the comic as a particularly deep character and was really primarily there as titillation for the straight male audience. You've seen what she looks like you've seen what she was wearing. It was all very late-aughts (derogatory).
FAST FORWARD. At some point George Lucas, who never knew or cared jack or shit about what the Expanded Universe was doing (no matter what dudes try to tell you on YouTube nowadways), sees an action figure of Darth Talon at work and—to be brutally honest, is horny about it, because this is the exact same reason Aayla Secura exists in canon, she originated in comics and then he saw her on a comic cover and went "waow" at Twi'lek lady with a lightsaber and put her in Attack of the Clones as one of the background Jedi, we don't like acknowledging this but it is self-evidently true, the aughts were a dark time. Anyway he pushes the Talon figure and a Darth Maul figure together and says "they're friends :)" and everyone around him's blood pressure spikes and they know there's no use explaining the timeline gap to him they're just like "oh god hopefully he just forgets about this and doesn't bulldoze a bunch of stuff the fans will yell at us for on the internet again."
I can't remember if this happened before or after he'd already brought Maul back in TCW, but either way he was already thinking about it; it is known that doing a Darth Maul + Darth Talon team-up was one of the last concepts he was toying with before he got fed up with everyone yelling at him and sold the whole thing to Disney to retire. It's generally accepted that his concept of a sequel trilogy involved Darth Maul as the Sith Lord and Darth Talon as his apprentice; obviously this was not used by the people who actually made the ST.
Fast forward MANY YEARS. when Filoni and the Shadow Lord team (who are all long-term residents of Lucasfilm who worked under George on TCW) sit down to create a character to be Maul's apprentice they make her a pink Twi'lek girl. This is quite obviously a mythology gag nod to what George was on about even though they're totally separate characters and the context is wildly different. I think this is very funny of them and would not be surprised if there was SOME kind of easter egg about the name "Talon" in the future. The internet in general though is very hung up on this in ways that don't matter; most of them have not actually read the Legacy comics in the first place and just know from osmosis that this is a Lore Thing They Can Recognize To Prove They Know Lore Things. But it is simply not that deep. Devon exists in a wholly different context, she has a wholly different characterization and level of plot importance; Devon and Talon are not the same character BUT Devon does descend conceptually from Talon via that behind-the-scenes George connective tissue.
So THAT is the multi-layer Ship-of-Theseus-ass mythology gag reason why Devon is specifically a Twi'lek. Thank the Force we live in enlightened times when female characters are given interiority and also get to wear actual clothes.
If you want to understand what Devon's character trajectory will look like then you need to look at her in season 1 the way that Maul does. Which is: How could these character traits be warped into their most negative forms? What would happen if she stewed in her nastiest thoughts and embraced her most selfish motives? What does Devon Izara's worst self look like? These are the questions you should be asking yourself.
This would normally not be the way to look at a new protagonist! This would very obviously not be the way to look at any of the previous animated protagonists! But: this is a story about a corruption arc. This is the Darth Maul show and Devon's premise as a character is that she is Darth Maul's apprentice, yes, actually, for real. She's not the Jedi sidekick, she's not the token good team member, she's not a Padawan temporarily dabbling in the dark side before rejecting it. This is very obvious if you look at how the creatives of this show have talked about it; they are not intending to shy from the premise that they have outlined. So if you really want to understand where Devon going then that is the lens you have to look at her through.
like yes Devon being a Twi'lek is like a three-layer mythology gag and I can explain why if someone were to ask me but honestly it involves deep lore even I don't give a shit about
