Ahsoka Tano may have made the shoto lightsaber famous, but Star Wars actually introduced it 29 years earlier – wielded by Luke Skywalker against the Dark Lady of the Sith, Lumiya. Anakin Skywalker’s Padawan, Ahsoka is known for using two lightsabers in battle. Ahsoka’s second blade is unusually short, described as a “shoto.”
The shoto is a distinctive type of lightsaber, typically held in a combatant’s off-hand and giving them an advantage in duels. There’s actually another variant of the shoto, the guard shoto, which features an additional hilt at a 90-degree angle – allowing for unusual blocks and parries. That in itself gives a clue to the shoto’s purpose; these blades help Jedi when they’re engaged in lightsaber duels. Surprisingly, although Ahsoka is the most well-known Jedi to use a shoto, it had made its debut a long time ago.
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The Shoto Blade Was Introduced In Star Wars Legends
Star Wars: The Clone Wars drew heavy inspiration from the old Expanded Universe, which served as the main Star Wars timeline from 1977 to 2014, when Disney rebranded it as “Legends.” Although Star Wars: The Clone Wars launched before 2014, Lucasfilm’s Dave Filoni has noted he considered it part of a separate universe that still respected the original trilogy and the prequels. There’s a sense in which The Clone Wars set the pattern for the modern canon, not least in treating Legends as a wellspring of ideas to draw from – including with the shoto blade.
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Published in 1985, Marvel’s Star Wars #96 – by Mary Jo Duffy and Cynthia Martin – sees Luke Skywalker clashing with Lumiya, the new Dark Lady of the Sith and the founder of the latest iteration of the Sith Order after Darth Bane’s lineage. In their first bout, Luke is easily defeated, despite having bested Darth Vader himself aboard the Second Death Star less than a year beforehand. Before their rematch, Luke hastily constructs a second lightsaber, this one being a shoto – a lightsaber with a short blade – which, combined with his original green-bladed weapon, allowed him to defeat Lumiya in their next bout.
Luke Skywalker’s shoto has a red blade, a color that traditionally denotes membership in the Sith Order or similar dark side splinter groups. In Luke’s case, the red blade is likely because that lore hadn’t been properly established yet; it can be explained as the result of Luke rushing the construction. Both of Luke’s lightsabers use synthetic lightsaber crystals, made using the Force rather than the dark side. While Luke fashioned his first weapon slowly and carefully, giving it its signature green blade, he hastily built his shoto, perhaps resulting in the red blade. While Luke rarely used his shoto afterward, it returns decades later in the Legacy of the Force novels.
The Shoto Blade Was Always Used For Combating Skilled Opponents
In his duels with Lumiya, Luke used his shoto to counter her lightwhip – a unique lightsaber variant with flexible tendril-like blades – by blocking her attacks with one weapon and attacking with the other. While Lumiya remained one of Luke Skywalker’s deadliest foes, his new weapon and use of the Jar’Kai fighting technique put the two on more even ground, allowing Luke to best the fledgling Dark Lady of the Sith. Luke most likely learned Jar’Kai (along with other lightsaber combat forms) during his training on Dagobah. Yoda’s lightsaber, which he kept in his home on Dagobah at the time, was a lightsaber shoto and likely the first one Luke saw.
Before Yoda ignited his famous green-bladed shoto in the Star Wars prequels, shotos made their live-action debut in 1997, with the Sithspawn known as Pic using an orange-bladed lightsaber shoto in the live-action cutscenes of Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II. In Legends lore, shotos were commonly used by smaller sapient beings as their primary weapon, but typically the weapons were constructed and used the same way Luke used his against Lumiya. Shotos were usually intended to be secondary weapons, allowing their users to keep their primary weapon, a standard lightsaber, free while the shoto was used defensively.
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How Legends’ Shoto Blade Compares With Its Modern Use
The current Star Wars canon uses lightsaber shotos in the exact same way as Legends. Smaller beings like Yoda and the Lannik Even Piell each use a single shoto, matching their statures. The Tholothian Jedi Knight D’urban Wen-Hurd, introduced in Mike Chen’s novel Brotherhood, notably uses a pair of shotos in combat.
But the most famous Star Wars shoto-wielder is Ahsoka Tano, who used as a shoto as her backup weapon in Star Wars: The Clone Wars. She uses it alongside her primary lightsaber, in the same way Luke Skywalker used a shoto against Lumiya. Ahsoka continued to favor Jar’Kai during the reign of the Empire, building a pair of white-bladed lightsabers, though her shoto was destroyed by Morgan Elsbeth in Ahsoka. Hopefully the lightsaber droid Huyang will be able to make a replacement.
