7 Reasons Darth Maul Rules
The film Billy Madison has many quoteable lines, and preeminent amongst them is the phrase, “O’Doyle rules.” We all laugh jovially at the image of a pale redhaired male proclaiming his entire Irish lineage “rules” in the immediate aftermath of his bullying someone. Closer inspection reveals, however, that O’Doyle does not in fact rule. It would be far more accurate to say, “Maul rules.” Even the biggest of the O’Doyle clan would be destroyed by Darth Maul’s two-sided light saber, without question. After all, ‘twas but a banana peel de Farley that ended the O’Doyle lineage with such a bang.
In this piece, we of General Snobbery shall consider 7 reasons why Darth Maul continues to rule today, nearly twenty years after his red and black face became known to the world.
NOTE: We have chosen 7 items because Darth Maul is powerful, and 7 is a powerful number, and we felt he/it would approve.
NOTE 2: This piece does not in any way promote a belief that George Lucas rules. We ascribe to the notion that someone else came up with the concept of Darth Maul, and George Lucas merely took full cred, as he tends to do.
1) His name is Darth Maul
We got Vader. We got Tyranus. We got Sidious. We got Plagueis. Above them all, we got Maul. Maul. It’s a powerful word that becomes more powerful when preceded by the word “Darth.” It conjures thoughts of the verb, “to maul,” which is exactly what Maul did to Neeson Jinn. Neeson Jinn — known to many as the worst Jedi of all tiempo — took a saber to the gut, a Maul saber. This occurred after Neeson Jinn was separated via door from Obi-Wan McGregor. O-W McGreg and Neeson Jinn matched Maul together, and once they were separated, Neeson Jinn got mauled. As it turned out, Obi-Wan McGregor defeated Maul on his own, when he could not do so with the help of his mentor. It appears one Jedi is stronger than one Jedi and one shitty Jedi. It took that separation for someone to finally maul Maul. Ironic…
2) Maul has horns
There are some pretty bad people and creatures in the Star Wars universe — i.e. the many aforementioned Darths — but none of them have horns. Maul does. We don’t know why he has horns, and he doesn’t seem to use them, but he has them. And they look really sharp. They’re sort of like that velociraptor claw Dr. #Grant uses to threaten that fat kid at the beginning of Jurassic Park. Except Maul has like seven of them, including a couple protruding from the side of his Maul head, and they don’t have to tap the ground to amp up tension. They just grow from that Maul dome and frighten everyone nearby. Even Darth Plagueis the wise.
3) Maul got sliced in half and didn’t die
When you watch Ewan Kenobi beat Darth Maul, you then watch Darth Maul falling down a big black hole. As Maul falls, you see his legs separate from his upper body. He is definitely sliced in half. This video, however, shows that Maul, like lava Vader, survived. And like lava Vader, he gets some fancy new gadgets to keep on mauling — in this case some prosthetic metal leg things. Lore maintains that he survived because his hatred of Ben “Ewan” Kenobi was so strong. He refused to be the last one mauled.
4) What the hell is maul after all?
We hesitate to even use the word “he”. Does Darth Maul have a gender? Is he an “it”? A “they”? Conversations like this did not happen as frequently in 1999, but we are certain that if The Phantom Menace came out here in 2018, there would be many conversations had on Darth Maul’s gender. We are gonna just go with Maul. Maul is a Maul. Genders aside, what is a Maul? What planet do Mauls come from? It’s possible The Clone Wars answers some of these points, but we haven’t seen that. We never said to take this shit seriously.
5) Maul’s face stomps arse
It’s a hell of a face. A face equal parts red and black. Take a good look at Maul’s eyes. They’re like orange, kind of like the lava that torches Darth “I Hate You!” Christensen. He’s got some pretty gross teeth as well, and he sneers almost as effectively as Christopher Walken in Sleepy Hollow (not a knock on Maul’s sneering, but an ode to the perfection of Walken’s). It’s a face that says, “I’m going to stomp yer arse,” and stomp the arse de Qui-Gon Schindler, Maul does.
(Synchronistic side note — The author of this piece just Googled the actor who portrayed Maul, Ray Park, to see if he was in other movies. Evidently, he was in Sleepy Hollow, and his role, according to Wikipedia, was “Headless Horseman [apart from Christopher Walken scenes].” The author was entirely unaware of this fact when he made the Sleepy Hollow reference above. Such is the absolute power of Maul.)
6) His name is Darth Maul.
This point is worth making a second time. Maul.
7) Maul doesn’t say much, cause Maul doesn’t need to
This is in direct contrast to Jar-Jar Binks, possibly the most hated character of Star Wars land — even more hated than the tit monster that Luke Hamill milks on Skellig Michael. Jar-Jar never shuts up, and we hate him. We know Jar-Jar was George Lucas’ idea, and even his favorite character. This is why there is no way Lucas invented Maul. If Lucas invented Maul, Maul would talk a lot, and he’d be way less scary. Maul has like one line in the whole movie. He says something about Tatooine. It’s scary. He doesn’t even groan or grunt when he’s kicking arse con saber. He’s just all silent, ready to maul. That’s why Solo got his Easter eggy return so wrong — they gave him all these lines. Keep him silent. People talk to Maul, and Maul destroys them when necessary. Such is the way of all Mauls, and Darth Maul is the greatest Maul of them all. Praise be, Darth Maul.