Starwars TFA: Lightsaber with Raw Plasma Crossguard

[jack]

Oh yes, and I forgot to talk about the Lightsaber with the crossguard.

This makes more sense in the movie than it looks like it's going to. Kylo Ren is exactly the sort of character who IS going to have a lighsaber because it looks cool, whether or not it's the most efficient. Apparently it's also flawed (maybe Snookums and Darth Emo had to figure it out for themselves and weren't taught by someone who knows how to make lightsabers?) which makes so much sense: it means despite his force powers, Ben Solo is sometimes fighting at a disadvantage, and emphasises his hot-headed "I will make it work somehow" attitude.

For that matter, tactically, it may make sense too. Do lightsaber blades slide along each other? If so, having a crossguard of lightsaber-proof lightsaber would be really useful (assuming the metal covering is primarily cosmetic at that point). And having more pointy bits is always useful, if you can avoid stabbing yourself with them.

But I still think it LOOKS monumentally stupid...

Comments

[ptc24]

I'm not a big Darth[1] Emo fan, but I did like the lightsaber. It's not silly lightsaber escalation, it's Ren doing something different - like holding the blaster bolt in mid-air.

[1] Interesting thing: Ren appears not to be a Darth. There appears to be various chatter on the internet about Ren and Snoke not being Sith; as in, not identifying as Sith and not carrying on the Sith customs, but still being dark-side Force users. I suspect, given that Ren has some training to complete, that this matter will end up being explored in depth in future episodes.

[jack]

Ren appears not to be a Darth

Oh, good point, interesting, I hadn't thought of that. I guess, he does seem to have taken a new name without taking a Sith name, that suggests he actively didn't.

That would make a lot of sense: if the Sith were a community of "this is how to use the dark side of the force", but it's also possible to stumble onto it and use it independent of that tradition. Like how every possible fascist government aren't necessarily all allies. I think I was fooled because they seemed to be continuing the emperor's political work, but it makes as much sense that Snoke arose independently and then schemed his way into control of the first order and/or welded together ex-empire troops into the first order.

AND, if the emperor was killed, he may not have trained any other Sith, for fear of rivals, so it makes sense Snoke learned somewhere else. AND it makes sense that Ren (and I bet Snoke, although we don't know one way or the other) have powerful but slightly different force powers, if they learned from a different tradition. AND, if Snoke learned from an ancient temple or something, it ties in with Luke's seeking the first light-side force temples.

Or maybe Snoke did learn from the emperor (even if maybe he kept it secret and just cribbed off him waiting to overthrow him, or something). Either way, he might say "look how the emperor ruled for 20 years then fucked it all up by getting complacent and trying to corrupt Luke and screwing up the Death Star again and again. I'm going to be bad, but different."

It's not silly lightsaber escalation, it's Ren doing something *different*

I agree that makes sense. I think that sort of difference is good (Ren doing slightly more Force things was very effective). It just bugged me, I'm not sure why.

[seekingferret]

Someone also pointed out to me that both Luke and Anakin lost their hands in lightsaber duels, which means that Kylo Ren adding crossguards isn't just about looking cool, it's totally in line with how Kylo Ren's whole persona is a response to his uncle and grandfather.

[jack]

Oh! That's a really good point. Both from a practical point of view, and "of course Kylo Ren would be obsessed with those details".

[seekingferret]

I imagine Ben Solo growing up as the only person in the galaxy whose family is constantly telling him "Anakin Skywalker was a good man, who sacrificed himself to protect his son and the galaxy" when everyone else in the galaxy is talking about how evil Darth Vader was. And at the same time, Luke as his Jedi master is intensely urging him not to be anything like his grandfather, in spite of this contradictory insistence that he was a good man. And a teenage Ben Solo, galactic prince, thinks "I can do better than my uncle and my grandfather."

[jack]

Yeah, this kind of thinking is what draws me in to characters, where there's this potential for connecting stuff and getting the chills...