In the classic Star Wars trilogy, we all knew that the baddies had red lightsabers because they were bad, but oddly, an explanation as to why the blades were that color wasn’t firmly established in canon until after the prequels, and while the sequel films were underway. Hardcore Star Wars fans might know that all red lightsabers were once a different color, but what’s interesting, is that we’ve never actually seen this process happen on screen. That is, until now.
In The Acolyte’s season finale, the process of a lightsaber “bleeding” is finally depicted in all of its creepy glory. Here’s what this scene meant, and how it doubles down on canon that comes from in-Star Wars comics and novels. Spoilers ahead.
Osha turns Sol’s saber to the Dark Side
As the episode brings nearly all the main characters back to Brendok, and the scene of the crime that started everything, Osha is confronted with the truth: Sol really did take out her mother, and then lied about it. Mae has known this for a long time, but when Osha hears from Sol’s on lips that he is the reason why her mom and entire family were slain, she snaps. She’s picked up Sol’s lightsaber, which was knocked out of his hand by Qimir during their duel, but she doesn’t use it to attack Sol. Instead, she goes full Vader, and Force-chokes Sol to an early Jedi grave.
While this seems to fulfill the idea that the Acolytes were being challenged to slay Jedi without using a weapon, the flashiest thing about this scene is when we see the cyber crystal in Sol’s lightsaber turn from blue to red. Later, when Osha picks up the weapon as her own, the saber’s color transforms fully to red. The magic of the crystal knows that she’s embraced the Dark Side, and there’s no going back.
The origin of lightsaber bleeding
Although we’d seen a lot of red lightsabers over the years, it wasn’t until 2016 and 2017 — in between The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi – that the full canonicity of lightsaber bleeding was established. First mentioned in E. K. Johnston’s Ahsoka in 2016, it wasn’t until 2017 with the Marvel comics issue Darth Vader #5 that we really saw this happen. Turns out, Darth Vader needed to prove he was evil by getting a red lightsaber, and the only way to do that was to convert a lightsaber from a Jedi they had vanquished in combat.
This is the rule: You have to have gotten the saber from Jedi that you took out yourself, which is why Anakin’s own blue saber didn’t turn red when he turned to the Dark Side. In theory, Anakin could have bled some sabers from Jedi he wasted in the Jedi Temple, but it’s also possible that Anakin was a very special case and at that point, there was such much conflict in him that his Dark Side Magic wasn’t converting blue and green lightsabers to red.
Osha is clearly much more hardcore than Anakin at this point, as Sol’s saber instantly becomes red after she finishes him off. Because Osha was created by Force witches out of a vergence in the Force, you could argue that she is the most powerful Dark Side user we’ve seen yet, which explains why Qimir/the Stranger wants her on his side. And it’s also possible that Qimir’s shadowy master — glimpsed only for a second in this episode — is Darth Plagueis, and the show is setting up Osha to take out both Qimir and Darth Plagueis in future seasons. Maybe.
Either way, this specific truth about lightsabers — that they become more evil after getting taken off of a felled Jedi — hasn’t been seen in live-action until this point. Back in 2021, the wonderful anime Star Wars: Visions episode “The Ninth Jedi,” presented lightsabers at some point in the future that were already attuned to the wielder's allegiance. While the canonicity of that is questionable, “The Ninth Jedi” did give us a sideways version of lightsaber bleeding, before The Acolyte.
But as of now, we know that if there’s an Acolyte Season 2, there will be more red lightsabers in it than in Season 1. And if our favorite Dark Side power couple has their way, nobody is keeping their yellow, green, or blue sabers. It’s time to paint it red.
