Star Wars: What Happened To All Of Those High Republic Lightsabers?
We’ve always had a lot of lightsaber questions, but the High Republic is answering one of them and telling us what happened to those ancient sabers.
The Star Wars movies have always left me with a ton of questions regarding lightsabers. Why are the dark side sabers always red? Do different colors mean different things, do you just pick your favorite, or is there a luck based system based on the kyber crystal you get? Where are all of the old Jedi’s sabers? Presumably, there were thousands of years worth of Jedi, each building their own weapon, so there must be thousands out there somewhere in the galaxy.
And every now and again one of the books comes back with some fun nugget of information answering these exact questions. The 2016 novel Ahsoka novel by E. K. Johnston explained that the dark side corrupts kyber crystals, causing them to turn red, and that purifying them again can result in white sabers like those that Ahsoka later wields. And now the High Republic and Claudia Gray’s Into The Dark answers one more: What happened to the lightsabers belonging to all of those long gone Jedi?
We’ve seen what happens to lightsabers sometimes in the movies, with Anikan’s being held onto by Obi-Wan and then eventually used and lost by Luke. But they take place a little more recently on the timeline and it stands to reason that this wasn’t the Jedi way before everything fell apart.
In Into the Dark Padawan Reath Silas discovers the Kyber Arch, an archway made entirely of the kyber crystals from the lightsabers of dead Jedi. Jedi are called by the force to climb and then cross the Kyber Arch, which gets narrower as it reaches the peak, as an advanced meditation practice.
Granted, this monument to the Jedi before existed hundreds of years before the Skywalker Saga ever takes place and between the Jedi Temple on Coruscant being turned into the Imperial Palace, ancient temples across the galaxy being discovered and sometimes destroyed, and the years-long Imperial aspiration of collecting and weaponizing every kyber crystal in existence, there’s a good chance that the Arch is no longer standing in the Star Wars era we think of as modern.
However, this does drive home some attributes about the more classic and idealized Jedi of the past. We always knew that Jedi weren’t particularly materialistic or attached to physical things, so it makes sense that their attachment to their lightsabers and the crystals within would be more functional than sentimental. Once the Jedi has passed they don’t need to be buried with their weapon when it instead could be used as a learning tool by the next generation. Similarly, this reiterates how important continuing on tradition and education was, between taking on Padawans and continuing their teachings in death, even without force ghosts for the more direct approach.
What do you think of the High Republic so far? What questions are you hoping to see answered as more books come out? Do you think you’d be able to scale the Kyber Arch? Let us know in the comments!
May The Force Be With You, Adventurers.
