By George & Josh Bate
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Star Wars: Visions Presents – The Ninth Jedi
After the release of three acclaimed volumes of the hit animated anthology series Star Wars: Visions over the past five years, one of the show’s most beloved installments is expanded into a full-fledged, long-form series, which is now streaming on Disney+.
From Production I.G. and writer/director Kenji Kamiyama, Star Wars: Visions Presents – The Ninth Jedi takes place after “The Ninth Jedi” from Visions Volume 1 and “The Ninth Jedi: Child of Hope” from Visions Volume 3. The story takes place roughly 1,000 years after the events of The Rise of Skywalker, although it should be noted that the new series is technically non-canon. Lah Kara, daughter of renowned sabersmith Lah Zhima, continues to train under Jedi Master Margrave Juro, who is slowly attempting to reassemble the Jedi Order. Meanwhile, the warlord Nawaam, who has kidnapped Zhima, is determined to stop the rise of a new Jedi Order and take over the galaxy with his fledgling empire.
When it was released in 2021, “The Ninth Jedi” received attention and praise for its jaw-dropping twist (i.e., that all the Jedi were actually Sith Lords) and the unique concept of lightsabers changing color to reflect a wielder’s alignment with the Force. The latter proves particularly relevant in the new series as Kamiyama expands upon the unique idea by weaving in one of the most divisive elements from Legends / EU.
In the series, characters aligned with the light side of the Force, when the ignite a lightsaber, wield a blade that is either blue, green, or purple. Conversely, dark side characters wield a blade that is red when they ignite a lightsaber. Interestingly, midway through the series, Lah Zhima ignites a lightsaber that is a different color – silver.
It is initially unclear why Zhima’s blade is silver, rather than a color associated with the light side. Flashbacks to Zhima’s background reveal that he killed his master Reno, seemingly without explanation, years prior to the start of the series. In this attack, Zhima’s lightsaber turned from blue to silver.
Later on, Lah Kara dips her toes into the dark side when she slaughters a group of bad guys. Following this act, her green lightsaber turns red. However, after repenting for her actions, her lightsaber also turns silver.
Then, in the final stretch of the series, Nawaam’s blade turns from blue to silver as well. Interestingly, Nawaam is the antagonist and the leader of a new Empire, but his lightsaber glows blue throughout the episodes, until this culminating episode.
The series remains purposefully vague about the nature of the silver lightsaber, but it offers enough information to theorize with. Seemingly, silver lightsabers denote a person who is neither entirely good nor entirely bad. One character refers to it as “a state of nothingness.” More specifically, it appears that a lightsaber glowing silver reflects a wielder’s stance toward killing. Kara’s blade turns from silver to green in the finale once she agrees no longer to kill, while Zhima’s blade turned silver when he became content to kill his master. Killing without justification would be an act of the dark side and, therefore, warrant a red blade, but killing with justification exists in a murkier moral territory. Is murder ethical if there is some level of reasonable justification behind the act? The new series seems to suggest that the answer to this question is that such an act is neither good nor bad, but somewhere in between.
The similarities between the colors silver and gray, in addition to characters existing between the limits of the light and dark sides of the Force, indicate that the new series has officially brought the divisive concept of Gray Jedi into Disney-era Star Wars stories. In Legends/EU, Gray Jedi were independent Force users who tried to balance both the light and the dark sides of the Force without letting the dark side corrupt them. Gray Jedi often rejected the rigid dogma of the Jedi Code regarding emotional attachment and obedience, while acknowledging that tapping into dark side emotions like anger or passion can be used for good or neutral purposes without turning evil.
With this definition in mind, Gray Jedi seemingly appear in Star Wars: Visions Presents – The Ninth Jedi. Characters like Zhima and Nawaam tap into dark side emotions and engage in behaviors, such as murder, typically associated with the dark side for what they perceive to be good or neutral purposes. In turn, they are not fully aligned with the light, but they are also not fully aligned with the dark.
The concept of Gray Jedi in Star Wars has been meet with significant criticism over the years. Detractors suggest that Gray Jedi contradicts lore by fundamentally breaking established rules of the Force, misinterpreting light and dark, and conflating instutional disobedience with a magical middle ground. George Lucas affirmed that the dark side was inherently corrupting. As such, ‘balance in the Force’ is seen by most as a total absence of the dark side, rather than a perfect blend of light and dark.
It should be noted that, as Star Wars: Visions is non-canon, Gray Jedi are not suddenly part of canon due to their appearance in the new show. However, their inclusion represents an interesting turning point in the history of Star Wars storytelling as one of the most controversial elements from Legends/EU has been finally brought back into the fold.