What's up with all the different lightsabers?
Luckily for you, we know which colors are used by which kinds of folks, what they say
about the wielder's personality, and whether or not a yellow lightsaber makes sense for
you.
Here's the true meaning behind each lightsaber color.
The blue lightsaber is a classic for a reason.
It's the iconic first lightsaber seen being activated on screen in A New Hope, and since
both Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi had one, it seems like the standard issue for
the Jedi Knights.
Back in the day, a long time before "a long time ago," it was established that a blue
lightsaber meant the user was a Jedi Guardian, the samurai of the Jedi order.
With their training focused on outer space martial arts and lightsaber tomfoolery, Guardians
were warrior monks whose arrival heralded a hasty round of limb removal.
Especially if they had the higher ground.
So what does this mean about the person behind the lightsaber?
Mainly that they could be a little more of a soldier than your average Jedi, with the
blue saber functioning as their uniform.
A green lightsaber was the calling card of the Jedi Consulars, the thinking sentient's
Jedi.
Wielded in the films by folks like Qui-Gon Jinn, the wise master Yoda, and an older and
more self-assured Luke Skywalker, green lightsaber crystals seemed to indicate maturity and thoughtfulness.
Or at least as thoughtful as you can be while using them primarily to cut off people's hands,
anyway.
Typically, Jedi Consulars were especially Force sensitive, and they weren't generally
down for a fight in the same way that a Jedi Guardian might be.
They were diplomats, scholars, ambassadors, and teachers, focusing on their studies and
the subtle art of space meditation, Wisdom was their deal.
As for the real-world reason, well, it's not quite as philosophical.
The first green lightsaber that fans saw in Return of the Jedi was originally blue, but
the filmmakers realized that it was blending in with the sky too much during the outdoor
action sequences.
If you see a red lightsaber firing up in a dark alley, a seedy bar, or God forbid, a
smoke-filled carbonite freezing chamber on Bespin, then buddy, that's bad news.
The red saber crystal is a hallmark of the Sith, the nefarious bad guys of the Star Wars
canon.
The distinctive red glow of a Sith lightsaber comes from a particularly nasty construction
process that involves its wielder pouring all of their negative emotions into a synthetic
crystal.
Of course, a rough start in life doesn't always mean that a crystal is doomed for good.
Sometimes they get a shot at a re-branding a little ways down the road.
Purple, it's the universal sign of a hardcore dude.
For receipts, please see Prince, Thanos, Grimace, and Mace Windu.
And in the Star Wars universe?
A purple lightsaber represents a user's connection to both the light and dark side of the Force,
wielded only by the most bold and daring Jedi.
"You're impossibly outnumbered."
"I don't think so."
In the real world, which is occasionally even more fun than the one with Jabba the Hutt
in it, purple lightsabers exist because Samuel L. Jackson really wanted one.
Since he was going to be in a scene with dozens of other saber-wielding Jedi, he wanted to
be able to clock himself on the big screen, and asked Lucas to give him a more distinctive
weapon.
Bold and daring indeed.
You may not have seen a yellow lightsaber in the movies, but come on.
This is Star Wars, and we all know how expanded that universe can get.
A yellow lightsaber was the preferred weapon of the Jedi Sentinel, the pragmatic force-users
who skipped out on meditation and communing with the universe in favor of developing more
practical skills.
They were also frequently assigned as guards of the Jedi Temple, sporting two-sided lightsaber
pikes with distinctive amber blades.
For these guys, sabers were like a traffic light: you see yellow, you better slow down.
Even in the impossibly long list of characters in the extended, pre-Disney Star Wars universe,
there were only a few waving around orange lightsabers.
The most famous example was probably Yaddle, the female member of Yoda's species who was
barely seen in The Phantom Menace and then relegated to the pages of officially licensed
books and comics.
It's been speculated that orange sabers were only owned by Jedi who swore not to use their
weapons unless absolutely necessary, and that maybe that's why we never saw them in the
movies.
Rare even by fictional weapon standards, the white lightsaber borders on unique.
In the current canon, these bright blades belong to Ahsoka Tano, Anakin's old Padawan.
It's a long story, but Ahsoka wound up being one of the few characters to leave the Jedi
Order without immediately going to the dark side.
When she threw down with a Sith-affiliated Jedi hunter, she nabbed the red crystals out
of his lightsaber and "cleansed" them with the power of the Force, turning them a brilliant
but decidedly neutral white.
For the Jedi who wants a weapon that goes with everything, there's the black lightsaber.
It's one of a kind, at least until the Star Wars writers change their mind in a couple
of years.
The "Darksaber" isn't just your everyday Jedi weapon.
It was the saber of one Tarre Vizsla, the first Mandalorian Jedi.
Mandalorians were pretty famous during the Old Republic time period for their enthusiasm
about murdering Jedi, so a black lightsaber was pretty fitting.
The Darksaber wound up being handed down from warrior to warrior throughout the millennia,
eventually being used in battles with all of the usual suspects: Obi-Wan, Darth Maul,
and even Emperor Palpatine.
According to the Mandalorians, the only way to legitimately claim the blade for yourself
was to kill the person who had it before you, making the weapon's history a long list of
bad times and badder people.
These colors represent the lightsabers that currently exist in the official Star Wars
continuity, but they don't even scratch the surface of what fans have seen in the expanded
universe of Star Wars Legends books, games, and comics.
To the surprise of absolutely nobody, it seems like just about every creative mind tasked
with telling a Star Wars story over the last 40-odd years has come up with their own distinctive
look for a lightsaber.
Fans have listed nearly a hundred different documented lightsaber colors, from the slightly
different to the downright bizarre.
Lowbacca, one of the few Wookiee Jedi, had a bronze-colored blade, for example.
Really, just about any color you can imagine (with the tragic exception of beige) is yours
for the claiming once you start down the Jedi path.
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