Teras Kasi Archive

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"I thought calling a piece of SW work canon meant it was absolutely accepted by Lucas to be completely true."

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No, Lucasfilm has an official definition of "canon".

"'Gospel,' or canon as we refer to it, includes the screenplays, the films, the radio dramas and the novelisations. These works spin out of George Lucas' original stories, the rest are written by other writers. However, between us, we've read everything, and much of it is taken into account in the overall continuity. The entire catalog of published works comprises a vast history -- with many off-shoots, variations and tangents -- like any other well-developed mythology."

This is the difference between canon and continuity. Furthermore, things that Lucas personally signs off on is considered "official continuity" while other EU is considered "unofficial continuity".

Yeah it's actually a bit sad that Lucasfilm has actually gone through the trouble to rigidly define these terms, but it does make these kinds of discussions easier.

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"I am not being intentionally dense here, but Darth Maul was in the movie, and he did use martial arts while appearing in the movie. If he knew at least some TK skills (and by his appearance in both the book and episode 1 suggests, he did) then wouldn't that make him at the very least a TK Novice, and by default make the profession Canon?"

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From Episode I, which was canon, we see that Darth Maul was a very physical and athletic warrior who combined acrobatic unarmed melee combat moves with his lightsaber dueling. That is canon.

A published work of fiction claims that he knew Teras Kasi. That is not canon. Not unless you see it mentioned in the Phantom Menace story by Terry Brooks is it canon, or if Obi-Wan were to say "look master he is a Teras Kasi artist" in the movie would it become canon. Just because someone does something resembling martial arts in a Star Wars movie does not instantly make them a TKA.

To me, Darth Maul is a TKA because I take EU seriously, but it's still not canonical. If Episode III were to mention at some point that Darth Maul studied the art of Zabrak Fu, it wouldn't conflict anything else in canon and it would in fact become canon (and trump whatever was in Shadow Hunter at that point).

Actually Runemon, in Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter they mention Teras Kasi:

"Using the momentum of the forward thrust, Maul dived over the collapsing droid before him, flowing smoothly into a shoulder roll. He came up twirling his lightsaber overhead, then stepped down solidly into the teräs käsi wide stance called Riding Bantha."

Later on in the book it was said about Anoon Bondara that "the Jedi was obviously a master of the Teras Kasi fighting arts as well, judging by the smooth way he parried and counterattacked". It could be implied by this that Darth Maul not only knew TK, but was a TKM.

Also, in regards to what Arden Lyn was doing in Masters of Teras Kasi, if you go to Lucasarts' web site you can see that they say:

"As the order of Jedi resurfaces, so do the teachings of teräs käsi, in the form of Arden Lyn, master of teräs käsi. A Palawan warrior from the time of Jedi, her youthfulness belies her actual age. Her skills as one of the last teräs käsi masters has attracted the attention of the Emperor and Darth Vader, who have assigned her to track down and take out key Rebel Alliance personnel. Arden, however, has her own agenda..."

She was hunting down more than Luke, she was hired as an assassin to take out all the big names in the Alliance.