There are a lot of dark side characters who have utilized Force lightning in the Star Wars universe. We all know that Palpatine used it on Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker in Return of the Jedi to let the galaxy know about his unparalleled power. Note that Force lightning is a rare and unique power that’s used in times of stress or hatred the most.

Now, there are a lot of characters who have used Force lightning. So it made us wonder- why didn’t Maul ever use it during his big or small screen appearances? 

Did Maul Not Use Force Lightning Because He Wasn’t A Sith? 

Qui-Gon Jinn noted that Maul is extremely powerful with the Force. However, he didn’t use too many Force powers during his combat and this included the Force lightning. Fans mostly believe that this is because of two reasons. One is that he never mastered the ability and two is that he just wasn’t a Sith Lord. 

Now, these do seem like pretty reasonable answers. However, that’s just on the surface. If you dig deeper, then you will find that these reasons are not applicable for using Force lightning. After all, Snoke once upon a time made use of Force lightning but he certainly didn’t qualify to be a Sith. Also, as for training, Rey didn’t need much training to use this power. As such, there need to be other reasons for Maul not displaying his Force lightning powers. 

To get the answers, we need to go to his past. 

Why Maul Doesn’t Use Force Lightning? 

In the beginning, before Maul was renowned as a Sith, he was Dathomir’s Nightbrother. They were the male counterparts to the witches of the planet, called Nightsisters. For the Nightbrothers, strength, respect, and honor was above all. They aimed to achieve it all through combat. As such, they trained a lot to master various kinds of martial arts techniques and improve their agility.

Now, due to this upbringing, Maul was more focused on his lightsaber and thought of the Force as something he could use for complementing his fighting style. So it wasn’t the main tool for him. As such, all of this does make sense since we know Maul to be more of a warrior rather than just a Force-user. 

So, just because Maul never used Force lightning, does it mean that he couldn’t? We don’t think so. After all there are examples of characters not needing training to use the lightning. One of those examples is Count Dooku in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones and as we said in the previous section- Rey in the sequel trilogy. Both of them were Jedi (back then Dooku hadn’t turned his back to the light). 

As such, Maul definitely could have used Force lightning if the situation demanded it. Fans will remember that both Rey and Dooku used it during hatred or painful moments. Now, even though Maul had a lot of hatred for Obi-Wan Kenobi, he never lost himself in his anger. So there was no need for him to use the power. 

As we said before, Force lightning is a unique power that gets displayed in unique situations. For example, Dooku tried it against Yoda, but the powerful Jedi Master was able to repel it. After that, in The Rise of Skywalker, Palpatine upgraded lightning to a storm against the entire fleet of resistance warriors. However, it’s still a power that’s mostly used by Dark side users. So just because Maul didn’t, doesn’t mean that he couldn’t use it to wreak havoc. 

Check Out: 10 Sith Who Would Have Become Excellent Jedi In Star Wars