Star Wars: Who Trained Mace Windu To Be A Jedi?
Ask any "Star Wars" fan — any prequel fan, at least — to name their five favorite Jedi, and Mace Windu is likely to come up. After all, when you sport a purple lightsaber and are played by Samuel L. Jackson, you're likely to become a popular character. But, as suave and fierce as Mace is throughout the "Star Wars" prequels, especially the latter two, the films provide very little information about his past.
Supplementary stories have plugged in bits and pieces over the years, including the Legends novel "Shatterpoints," which remains a popular read even after being delisted from the official canon. Under Disney, we've gotten other glimpses into Mace's backstory, including "Tales of the Jedi," which explores his relationship and apparent rivalry with Count Dooku. But even in that show, Mace is already a fully-fledged Jedi Knight, earning his council seat over Dooku when all is said and done.
If you want to dig into Mace Windu's younger years, you can check out "Star Wars: Jedi of the Republic – Mace Windu," a comic from 2017 that includes stories from the Jedi Master's youth. In the comic, he's apprenticed to a Jedi Master named Cyslin Myr. Myr is a Mirialan, the same species as Jedi Luminara Unduli and Ahsoka villain Barriss Offee. Mirialans have a particularly strong connection to the Force, and though we still don't know much about Cyslin Myr, she was clearly gifted. Under her training, Mace Windu becomes one of the most powerful Jedi in "Star Wars," though her training doesn't save him in the end.
Mace Windu was quite the headstrong Jedi Padawan
In "Star Wars: Jedi of the Republic – Mace Windu," a padawan-braided Mace accompanies his master Cyslin Myr to the planet Mathas, where they confront a dangerous Jedi imposter named Drooz who's attempted to build a kind of cult. Unsurprisingly, the comic and other canonical "Star Wars" sourcebooks all paint the young Mace as headstrong, emotional, and quick to anger. One account from his padawan days in the "Age of Republic" comics details his lack of patience when building his first lightsaber with the droid swordsmith Huyang. On his mission to Mathas, Mace's master repeatedly instructs him to let go of his intense emotions and show mercy.
As seen throughout the prequel trilogy, those will continue to be issues for Mace later in life. He wears the face of a cool, calm, and collected Jedi Master, leading the order through difficult times alongside Master Yoda. In reality, though, his rage never fully goes away; it only simmers beneath the surface.
Mace's confrontation with Drooz as a padawan is meant to evoke his final moments with Palpatine in "Revenge of the Sith." In both cases, he's prepared to kill his opponent in the name of preventing future bloodshed. Cyslin Myr talks him down, reasserting that their task is to apprehend the villain, not destroy him. Perhaps if Mace had remembered that lesson decades later in the Chancellor's chambers, Anakin Skywalker wouldn't have turned on him. We'll never know for sure.
Mace Windu had a different master in Legends
Cyslin Myr is Mace Windu's master in the current "Star Wars" canon, but he learned from a different Jedi in the old Expanded Universe. There, he studied under T'ra Saa, a member of the Neti species of sentient plant beings.
T'ra Saa is a major player in the old Legends comics. Due to her species' incredible longevity, she exists in the background of "Star Wars" from before the prequels to long after the end of the original trilogy. Her stories detail her romance with a fellow Jedi master, her escape from Order 66 and evasion of the Empire in the following decades, and her role in the reformed Jedi Order in the wake of Darth Sidious' destruction. If you're not an EU diehard, you may not know the name of Darth Krayt, but T'ra Saa also fought against him later in life.
Cyslin Myr doesn't have quite the same resume that T'ra Saa has, and at this point, she mostly exists in "Star Wars" to add a bit more dimension to Mace Windu's backstory. It's possible that with stories like "Star Wars: The Acolyte" bridging the gap between the High Republic era and the prequels, we could get more stories about Mace Windu's time as a young Jedi. And with Samuel L. Jackson claiming Mace didn't die in "Revenge of the Sith," there are a lot of exciting possibilities for Lucasfilm to consider.