why do siths get the really cool lightsabers? i’ve never seen a jedi with a different looking lightsaber. that’s probably how the sith lord “seduces” young jedis “hey kid you want a wicked lightsaber?”
i’m gonna be that guy on this post SORRY EVERYONE
“really cool” is relative, because there are plenty of feasible jedi-owned lightsaber variants beyond “mace windu’s is purple!” that are wicked cool to me. every jedi’s lightsaber is unique to them and is, in theory, a representation of themselves in the force (ever wonder why vader’s lightsaber is basically just anakin’s saber but … y’know, dark? just saying). everything from shape to material is specific to the youngling who builds it. i can see people talking in the tags and notes about how strictly the jedi regulate themselves, and this is true to a point, but the jedi had no rules for the construction of a saber according to what we know.
the jedi path is technically part of legends canon now, but i’m going to keep every part of the saber lore until they tell me i’m wrong and then shift things accordingly (because i care too much about lightsabers), so let’s look at some of the variants we see there:
so in this illustration we have:
a curved-hilt saber, which is generally favored by anybody with an attachment to Form II combat (the handling is more precise)
a shoto, which is about a half-meter long and which is sometimes carried with a perpendicular handle for guarding
a light club, or LIGHTSABER ON STEROIDS, fucking giant ass blade with a thicker-than-normal handle that are usually for those who are of Very Large Size
a dual-phase lightsaber, which is fucking cool! there are two kyber crystals in there, and it can go from a normal-sized blade to being twice as long. i think this is super neat, but evidently skarch vaunk thought they were pretty lame and only good for surprise attacks so WHAT DO I KNOW
anyway, those are all relatively standard in terms of hilt structure since the only one that’s not the straight-up sword hilt type is just a slightly bent one. so you’re probably like “cool story, still boring,” right?
WRONG
look at the absolute majesty that is NON-STANDARD HILT TYPES. here we have:
a dual bladed lightsaber! you should be familiar with this, everyone’s favorite ex-sith bae maul uses one of these, it’s iconic. it gets a lot of play as a sith weapon, which is fine, but there is nothing inherently sith about it. it’s harder and takes longer to master, but jedi use them!
a lightsaber pike. a fucking pike! the blade is short and one-ended here but the metal is lightsaber-resistant so you can’t just cut through that shit the way a lot of you are already thinking about doing.
LIGHTWHIPS LIGHTWHIPS LIGHTWHIPS. instead of a straightforward blade, the energy coming from the emitter on this kind of lightsaber is flexible, so you can use it to entangle or to cut. needless to say this is very difficult to master and not at all for a novice. you’d have to learn how to be very good with a regular whip before you even touched this kind of thing or you’d be losing limbs left and right (bacta and prosthetics can only do so much for you … although they can do a lot). lumiya had one of these that had multiple strands, and although she was kind of a sith, there’s still nothing inherently sith about the weapon itself.
and even among the “boring” straightforward lightsaber hilts, things were cool and unique. gungi, the wookiee youngling from season 5 of the clone wars, had a saber with a brylark wood hilt – brylark wood being just as strong as metal – because he felt through the force that he was meant to have a wooden saber.
anyway tl;dr no, sith are not the only ones who have really baller lightsabers! the jedi had a lot of problems but boring sabers wasn’t one of ‘em.
oooh fascinating. 🙂
Shen Ruwakada from Copper and Gold has a retractable lightsaber pike. He’ll use it to great effect later on in the Clone Wars but for now it’s mostly a cool bit of tech for him, Anakin, and Dax to fuss over while sharing snacks from the Inner Rim Snack Shop.
As one does when one is a teenager and is given a bare plasma blade to carry around like it’s no big deal.
A Force Sensitive Phasesixer 