#whereas clone wars was admittedly horrible even by kids show standards

[willowcrowned]

I think what really gets me about Maul post-TPM is that he’s the only Star Wars character with true agency. Because of the way the films were made, every character in the prequels is already predestined for a role—Obi-Wan must go to Tatooine, Anakin must become Vader, every person they care about must be lost to them, and every villain but Sidious must die. Maul isn’t constrained by the narrative because he’s already played his part. He killed Qui-Gon; his job is done. He was never meant to be anything more than a one-off villain, so when he’s brought back, he’s without a destiny in the way that so many other characters are not. He has nowhere he needs to end up, no one he needs to be. He alone has the power to escape from the narrative—but he doesn’t. He buys into the narrative, buys into the conflict between light and dark, buys into the idea that he has to participate in it. Maul dies to Obi-Wan on Tatooine because he makes the mistake of going back, of trying to put himself in a narrative that has no place for him anymore.