The villains in Ahsoka are shown to be wielding incredibly rare orange lightsabers – but Obi-Wan Kenobi fought with one before the Skywalker saga even began. In the non-canon Star Wars continuity, otherwise known as Legends, orange lightsabers were more common, though still used sparingly. They were mostly wielded by Force users who hadn’t fully committed to the light side or the dark. As such, orange represented the middle ground between the red blades of the Sith and the yellow ones normally wielded by Jedi Temple Guards. A few genuine Jedi also wielded orange lightsabers in Legends, however – Master Plo Koon used one for a time, as did Master Yaddle.
In the official Star Wars canon, orange lightsabers are even rarer. In the Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor games, Cal Kestis can be customized with an orange lightsaber; in Survivor, there is even a bounty hunter that wields an orange-yellow tinted one. The other canon instance of an orange lightsaber being used in Star Wars is much more surprising, and certainly less well-known. In Claudia Gray’s novel Master & Apprentice, Obi-Wan Kenobi briefly wields an orange-bladed lightsaber – and the reason behind this strange occurrence may explain the unusual color of the lightsabers used by the villains in Ahsoka.
