In Star Wars: The High Republic, the Jedi apparently get a new lightsaber design. Moreover, it’s one of the few truly sensible designs in canon.

Concept art of Stellan Gios' lightsaber for "The High Republic".
OMG, you can actually block other lightsabers with this.

Disney is releasing a Lightsaber Collection book in partnership with Insight Editions. In this book, there’s concept art of a new lightsaber made specifically for Star Wars: The High Republic. This brand new (or rather, old-fashioned) lightsaber will be wielded by newcomer Stellan Gios. More importantly, this lightsaber will feature something that’s missing on the vast majority of lightsaber designs: a crossguard.

Lightsaber of Stellan Gios with the crossguard unfolded out.
And not just a beam crossguard either, apparently.

An Elegant Weapon for a More Sensible Era

Stellan Gios and his lightsaber.
Stellan Gios: one of the few smart Jedi in existence.

A crossguard is very important component of a lightsaber. In fact, it should be a key feature of all lightsabers, and not used just by a few stray individuals of any era, even in The High Republic. The crossguard allows a lightsaber-user to actually block other lightsabers. Without it, the other user could just slide the blade down towards the hilt, and easily chop off the user’s hand.

Lightsaber meets Luke's hand. It's not pretty.
There, see? What did I tell you, Luke?

The only other time we see one of these weapons is in the hands of Kylo Ren. Yes, that Kylo Ren. The ultimate in emo Sith. He’s one of the few Force-users to figure out that maybe, just maybe, being able to keep other lightsabers from sliding down the blade and removing your dominant hand is a good idea. What.

Kylo Ren's intelligently designed lightsaber.
The one smart thing you did in your life, Kylo Ren.

Star Wars: The High Republic then adds insult to insult. They say that Stellan Gios’ crossguard lightsaber is supposed to evoke a very famous mythical sword once used by the true king of Britain. Yes, I’m talking about Excalibur.

Excalibur from Fate/stay night.
Yes, this is Excalibur.

So crossguard lightsabers in The High Republic were supposed to be evocative of holy swords wielded by once and future kings? But crossguard lightsabers in the post-Imperial era are the tools of evil Sith? What, is Kylo Ren supposed to be Mordred? That would be…weird.

Conclusion

Kylo Ren and Stellan Gios are apparently some of the few intelligent lightsaber-users in Star Wars history. After all, they’re among the few who actually make crossguard lightsabers. Hopefully, this bodes well for Stellan Gios’ intelligence when we actually see The High Republic at last.

Source: Star Wars Blog