More Secrets About Maz Kanata's Planet Takodana Have Been Revealed
One of the new locations that was added to the Star Wars mythos in The Force Awakens was Takodana, the planet where Maz Kanata's palace is located. Our heroes end up here in The Force Awakens after Finn and Rey escape from Jakku with BB-8 and run into Han Solo, who is predictably involved in some sort of swindle that inevitably goes wrong, but ends with him regaining the Millennium Falcon and taking Finn and Rey to Takodana to see Maz. Marvel has recently revealed some more details about Takodana in Marvel's Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures #8. I'll get to what those details are in this article, but first I want to look at Maz herself and give a little bit of backstory on her and what she has been up to in the Star Wars universe.
Maz Kanata is a very old being who knows the Force. She was born over a millennium before the events of the Sequel Trilogy and the war that broke out between the First Order and the Resistance. Maz lived on Takodana in an ancient palace and gained a reputation as a pirate queen because she let travelling smugglers live at her home, provided of course that they adhered to her prohibitions against war and politics. Maz spent years travelling all around the galaxy in search of significant items and collected many antiques and trinkets and kept them in her castle. One item in particular was of particular interest. As we all know, this item was Anakin's lightsaber, which had been lost by Luke Skywalker on Cloud City.
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Maz Kanata witnessed the rise and fall of galactic powers from her home on Takodana. She attributed this shift in powers to the balance between the light and dark sides of the Force, which as we have seen is a very delicate balance that has been in flux for most of the saga. Although Maz chose not to go down the path of training to be a Jedi Knight, she did have a strong connection to the Force, which gave the almost preternatural ability to sense changing fortunes throughout the galaxy. These powers also allowed her to sense other peoples presence, as demonstrated when she sensed the return of Han Solo.
The comic that reveals some new details about Maz Kanata's homeworld is actually set during the High Republic Era, which is roughly 200 years before the events of The Phantom Menace. Even at this time, Maz had made Takodana a safe place for scouts, treasure hunters and pirates. The interesting detail this comic revealed though is that there is in fact a long forgotten Jedi Temple right on Maz's doorstep. A data file in this comic shows that the temple is not too far from the palace. But given that we see Rey run away from Kylo Ren into the forest surrounding the castle during the events of The Force Awakens with absolutely no sign of a Jedi Temple anywhere, it raises the question of what exactly happened to the temple that once stood on Takodana. Most likely we will see these events in a upcoming comic as the one in question shows the first waves of Nihil invaders attack so we are likely to see this temple destroyed in the coming issues of High Republic Adventures.
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Sources: Screen Rant, Wookieepedia