Thought cortosis was the one factor with roots from Star Wars’ expanded universe that confirmed up on The Acolyte this week? Seems, one other previous idea was hiding in plain sight… nicely, from a sure perspective.
Watching the Stranger, Mae’s sinister master, carve his method by the Jedi on Khofar in “Night time” this week, you may need seen that his unorthodox combating fashion noticed him continuously disengage and re-engage together with his foes—a flurry of assaults, the deactivation of his lightsaber, just for it to repeat once more. It’s simply considered one of many duplicitous instruments within the Stranger’s arsenal that we see all through the episode, however not solely is it a type of lightsaber fight largely unseen on-screen thus far, it has its roots within the Expanded Universe. The official Star Wars web site’s trivia breakdown for “Night” confirmed that the Stranger makes use of a type of lightsaber fight referred to as tràkata—outlined by its leverage of the lightsaber’s distinctive property as a melee weapon to be turned on and off throughout fight.
First launched in John Whitman’s audio adaptation of Tom Veitch’s Darkish Empire comedian collection in 1994, however not formally given its title till the ultimate version of Wizards of the Coasts’ Star Wars Roleplaying Recreation in 2007, tràkata was not a completely developed type of practiced lightsaber combat, however extra of a philosophical approach that relied on utilizing the flexibility to extinguish and re-ignite a lightsaber’s blade mid-combat to both deceive or execute your opponent. A practitioner of tràkata would possibly briefly extinguish their blade to drive their opponent to overcommit to an assault, or turn into unbalanced by the sudden change in drive from exerting in opposition to one other weapon, opening up their defenses—or abruptly ignite their blade to ship an instantaneous, precision strike, resembling inserting the hilt of their saber to an opponent’s head or chest. Tràkata was frowned upon by Jedi and Sith alike: to the Jedi, it was ignoble to deceive your opponent in what was meant to be an honorable duel; to the Sith, the concept of a combating fashion that de-emphasized the facility and anger that fueled them was cowardly.
Whereas The Acolyte marks the primary time tràkata has been explicitly named in present Star Wars continuity, it’s not completely the primary time we’ve seen parts of the shape in latest materials. The Star Wars Visions first season episode “The Elder” sees a duel between a Jedi Grasp and a Sith climax with the previous briefly extinguishing his blade, and transferring his hilt over to the Sith’s chest, igniting it and mortally wounding him right away—and arguably an analogous transfer is employed in The Last Jedi, when Kylo Ren catches a lightsaber tossed to him by Rey, rapidly igniting and extinguishing the blade whereas the hilt was pointed on the head of a Praetorian guard restraining him. In Ahsoka’s fourth episode, “Fallen Jedi,” Inquisitor Marrok briefly disengages one of many blades of his double-bladed saber whereas Ahsoka is clashing in opposition to it, forcing her to lose stability momentarily.
The model of tràkata employed by the Stranger is a bit totally different from these earlier examples—selecting to disengage and re-engage from fight for longer intervals of time than simply fast extinguishing of his lightsaber—however it’s nonetheless cool to see one other method The Acolyte is weaving parts from throughout Star Wars’ historical past.
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