The Wise Eyes of the Goddess: Star Wars' Maz Kanata and Two of Mythology’s Most Powerful Archetypes

John Bucher, PhD
May 4
6 min read

Star Wars has always been powered by a timeless motif: wise mentors guiding the next generation of heroes and heroines toward their destiny. However, when the saga introduced Maz Kanata in The Force Awakens (2015), she was unlike any mentor we’d seen before. She offered guidance like the kind that Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda had given Luke Skywalker, but there was something different about Maz—something distinctly feminine.

Eye goddesses and visionary insights

For a thousand years, Maz Kanata has overseen a lakeside castle—a raucous crossroads for smugglers, seekers, rogues, and royalty alike. She’s not a Jedi, but she’s keenly attuned to the Force. And although she stands just over three feet tall, her presence looms large.

One of Maz’s most striking features is her oversized goggles, always perched atop her small orange face. These lenses allow her to see beyond surfaces, into the truth of those around her. It's a powerful metaphor with a deep history. Joseph Campbell noted the significance of feminine figures with exaggerated eyes, suggesting that ancient Eye Goddesses represented a shift from deities of fertility to those guiding spiritual growth (Goddesses: Mysteries of the Feminine Divine, 80).

Maz’s role is not to give birth to the next hero. Her calling is to see deep within those that stand before her and speak the words they need to hear, pointing lost souls toward their true destiny. Han Solo knows this when he brings fellow rebels Rey and Finn to meet Maz, seeking wisdom for an impossible quest. Maz, seeing right through Han’s agenda and usual bravado, speaks not to the external task he’s come for help with, but to the internal journey that Han has been avoiding. Looking deep into his eyes, she says, “If you live long enough, you see the same eyes in different people. I’m looking at the eyes of a man who wants to run … Han, you’ve been running away from this fight for too long. Go home.” In a rare moment for him, Han Solo is left speechless.

The myth behind the mentor: Campbell’s Wise One and Mother Goddess

In the grand tradition of Star Wars’ multi-layered mentors, Maz (Lupita Nyong’o) represents more than just another wise figure doling out advice. She taps into a mythic legacy stretching back thousands of years, embodying two of the most enduring archetypes Joseph Campbell identified in his studies of mythology: the Wise One and the Mother Goddess. In doing so, Maz Kanata offers a new way of seeing what it means to guide a heroic figure.

Campbell argues that, early in the monomyth, the adventurer meets a “protective figure (often a little old crone … ) who provides amulets against the dragon forces he is about to pass” (The Hero with a Thousand Faces, 57). This Wise One gives supernatural aid and tests worthiness. Later, in the stage Campbell calls “Meeting with the Goddess,” the hero encounters a maternal presence—“the epitome of beauty … mother, sister, mistress, bride”—whose embrace promises renewal and belonging (92). These two archetypes are frequently distinct (Merlin vs. Virgin Mary), yet Campbell notes they can merge into a single figure who is at once crone-sage and nurturing goddess. Maz Kanata is one of those rare figures who seamlessly combines both archetypes.

Maz Kanata offers a new way of seeing what it means to guide a heroic figure.

Maz as the Wise One

Like other crones and witches of myth, Maz stands at the liminal threshold between worlds—literally. Her castle on Takodana sits between the wild forest and the placid lake, a place of crossroads and decisions, between safety and peril. In her grand hall, Maz tests Rey and Finn with difficult questions, arms them with knowledge, and bestows a powerful talisman on the story’s heroine: Luke Skywalker’s lost lightsaber.

Offering the saber isn’t just a cinematic moment—it’s a mythic one. In Campbell’s view, the hero's first boon is often a magical object given by a wise elder, designed to aid them against the forces of darkness. For Rey, this moment is a first glimpse of her greater purpose. Through this mentorship, Maz propels Rey across the “Refusal of the Call” into active participation in a galactic destiny.

Maz as the Mother Goddess

Maz’s style is different from other mentors we encounter in Star Wars. She is no stern, distant sage. She’s warm, playful, and fiercely protective. She teases Han when he first sees her, calling Solo’s sidekick, Chewbacca, her “boyfriend.” She hugs patrons at knee height. And in her roaring tavern, she enforces a single, simple rule: “No fighting.”

Her hall becomes a sanctuary—chaotic, but safe—where all manner of beings coexist under her maternal care. To Rey, abandoned, yearning for belonging, and just wanting to return home, Maz offers a motherly comfort fused with unflinching truth that she has never known. “The belonging you seek is ahead of you, not behind,” Maz counsels her. In this moment, she embodies a rare fusion of the Crone’s wisdom and the Mother’s compassion.

Rey’s journey through the Underworld

Campbell labels the first deep, interior crisis “The Belly of the Whale”— a plunge across a threshold into symbolic death and rebirth (74). In The Force Awakens, Rey quite literally descends below Maz’s hearth. Drawn by whispers, she enters a stone passage lined with relics and catacombs once used by Jedi, discovering Luke’s saber in a chest. Touching it quickly batters her psyche with a kaleidoscopic Force vision—masked corridors, falling Bespin vents, her adversary, Kylo, in snow. The basement is thus an underworld in miniature, where Rey’s old identity (“I’m no one from Jakku”) dies and the nascent Jedi is conceived. Rey flees from the saber, but runs directly into Maz, who offers it once more. “Take it,” Maz says.

When Rey refuses, Maz respects her choice but speaks gently of the Force and of a light that has always been with her. The encounter fuses the roles of mentor and goddess into a single act of unconditional guidance. Rey accepts Maz’s invitation and takes the saber. Later, during her duel with Kylo Ren, she remembers Maz’s words—and awakens to the Force at last.

A quiet, unwavering confidence

In the vast Star Wars mythology, mentors sometimes split along two archetypal lines. Yoda embodies the sage but not the nurturer. Shmi Skywalker is a mother, but not a guide. Leia Organa eventually becomes both, but only after her heroic arc. Maz Kanta, however, arrives already complete and integrated. She is playful, wise, maternal, and fiercely attuned to the journey of others. Her example broadens what mentorship can look like—not through command or combat, but through the quiet, unwavering confidence that the Force lives within even the most unlikely soul.

For the audience, she reminds us of something older than anything from a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. True wisdom doesn’t just challenge the hero—it nurtures their process of becoming.

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MythBlast authored by:

John Bucher is a renowned mythologist and story expert who has been featured on the BBC, the History Channel, the LA Times, The Hollywood Reporter and on numerous other international outlets . He serves as Executive Director for the Joseph Campbell Foundation and is a writer, podcaster, storyteller, and speaker. He has worked with government and cultural leaders around the world as well as organizations such as HBO, DC Comics, Paramount Pictures, Nickelodeon, A24 Films, Atlas Obscura, and The John Maxwell Leadership Foundation, bringing his deep understanding of narrative and myth to a wide array of audiences. He is the author of six influential books on storytelling, including the best-selling Storytelling for Virtual Reality, named by BookAuthority as one of the best storytelling books of all time. John has worked with New York Times Best Selling authors, YouTube influencers, Eisner winners, Emmy winners, Academy Award nominees, magicians, and cast members from Saturday Night Live. Holding a PhD in Mythology & Depth Psychology, he integrates scholarly insights with practical storytelling techniques, exploring the profound connections between myth, culture, and personal identity. His expertise has helped shape compelling narratives across various platforms, enriching the way stories are told and experienced globally.

This MythBlast was inspired by Goddesses: Mysteries of the Feminine Divine and the archetype of The Wise One.

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This Week's Highlights

"I can tell you I could easily recognize my own material [in Star Wars]. I thought it was marvelous. I was really excited. It seems to me in the history of Western art, this is a major work. It speaks to the multitude—it’s talking to young people and old people—those to whom the mythic imagery must be addressed. The elite can sit home and read and soak themselves in these great things, but it’s the general public that must be informed of these images and ideas."

-- Joseph Campbell

Myth and Meaning, 158