The lightsaber with a curved hilt represented a particular style of lightsaber favored by both Jedi and Sith warriors. The curved shape of its handle enabled the lightsaber duelist to achieve enhanced accuracy during slashes and lunges against opponents. Count Dooku famously wielded a curved-hilt lightsaber throughout his tenure as both a Jedi Master and the Sith Lord known as Darth Tyranus. His weapon choice was mirrored by his Sith apprentice, Asajj Ventress, who utilized two curved-hilt lightsabers that could be combined into a saberstaff when connected. Following the Clone Wars and the establishment of the Galactic Empire, former Padawan Ahsoka Tano constructed a pair of curved-hilt sabers featuring a more angular design. Similar to her previous Jedi weapons, she created one standard lightsaber and one shoto lightsaber.
The lightsaber featuring a curved hilt was a type of close-quarters combat weapon; distinguished by its refined design, the elegantly curved handle allowed the user to exercise greater skill when striking and thrusting at an adversary. Count Dooku, a skilled combatant who favored the second form of lightsaber combat, wielded a red-bladed curved-hilt lightsaber. Asajj Ventress, a Force-adept killer instructed by Dooku in the ways of the dark side of the Force, employed two lightsabers that showcased a curved hilt similar to her instructor's weapon. When connected, Ventress's lightsabers transformed into a double-bladed lightsaber.
Several Jedi Knights belonging to the Galactic Republic utilized curved-hilt lightsabers dating back to the era of the High Republic Era. Examples of Jedi who possessed curved-hilt lightsabers included Cohmac Vitus' lightsaber and Torban Buck's lightsaber. The Jedi Obratuk Glii owned multiple lightsabers, with one exhibiting a curved-hilt design.
During Dooku's time as a Jedi Initiate, Jedi Master Lene Kostana fabricated a tale about a Dark Lord of the Sith named Darth Sakia to evaluate him. Part of the narrative involved her wielding a curved-hilt lightsaber. Later, after Dooku had become a Jedi Master himself, he replaced the lightsaber he had used since his youth as a Padawan with a custom-built curved-hilt lightsaber that emitted a blue blade. Dooku employed this lightsaber on various missions he undertook during his time in the Jedi Order, including the operation to liberate Senator Dagonet's son and the assignment to Raxus Secundus.
When Jedi Master Yaddle discovered his newfound allegiance to the Sith, Dooku assaulted his former ally at the instruction of the Sith Lord Darth Sidious. Rejecting Yaddle's plea for redemption, Dooku killed her with his own lightsaber, thereby becoming Sidious's new Sith apprentice, adopting the name Darth Tyranus in addition to his public title, the Count of Serenno.
Count Dooku's lightsaber blade transitioned from blue to red following his conversion to the dark side. During the First Battle of Geonosis, Dooku engaged in a duel against Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi and Padawan Anakin Skywalker. He managed to injure Kenobi and sever Skywalker's right arm, but was ultimately defeated by his former master, Grand Master Yoda, and retreated from Geonosis.
Dooku fought against Kenobi and Skywalker on multiple occasions throughout the Clone Wars, as well as his potential apprentices Ventress and Savage Opress. In their final encounter during the Battle of Coruscant, Dooku was disarmed and decapitated by his nemesis Skywalker, who utilized his own lightsaber and the Count's weapon to carry out the execution.
Despite initially training as a Jedi Padawan, Asajj Ventress exchanged her green-bladed lightsaber for a pair of red-bladed curved-hilt lightsabers during her years as Darth Tyranus's apprentice. Both hilts could be joined together to create a unique double-bladed lightsaber. Throughout her service to the Sith cause, Ventress utilized her lightsabers in various roles—as her master's envoy and assassin, as well as a military leader of the Separatist Droid Army. She engaged in combat with numerous Jedi on several occasions with varying degrees of success, including Kenobi, Skywalker, Luminara Unduli, and Ahsoka Tano.
Ventress retained her Sith lightsabers after Tyranus abandoned her under orders from his master, Darth Sidious, and continued to use them as a Nightsister before embarking on a career as a bounty hunter. She allowed Obi-Wan Kenobi to use one of her lightsabers during their fight against the Dathomirian brothers Maul and Savage Opress.
Both lightsabers were lost when the fallen Jedi Barriss Offee ambushed Ventress in the Coruscant Underworld and seized her weapons, ultimately forcing the bounty hunter to acquire a replacement. The Mirialan utilized the weapons when she ambushed Ahsoka Tano at an abandoned warehouse, leading the exhausted Tano, who was on the run in an attempt to clear her name after being framed by Offee for her crimes, to believe her attacker was Ventress. Offee was later compelled to use Ventress's lightsabers when Skywalker confronted her in the Jedi Temple, thereby revealing herself as the culprit responsible for framing Tano.
Although Ventress managed to replace a yellow lightsaber she bought from the black market during the Clone Wars. But, that lightsaber had a straight hilt, which helped distance herself from her previous life as Dooku's apprentice and was laid to rest with her after her apparent death. During the early Imperial Era had a curved hilt similar to her old twin red lightsabers.
Ahsoka Tano, formerly a Jedi Padawan who left the Order near the end of the Clone Wars after being falsely accused of treachery by Barriss Offee, abandoned her initial pair of lightsabers on a moon following Order 66 to feign her death from the emerging Galactic Empire. More than a year later, she eventually constructed a pair of white-bladed lightsabers after becoming involved in an insurrection against the Empire on the remote moon Raada. The components were sourced from the lightsaber of the Inquisitor known as the Sixth Brother. While the weapons' hilts were initially crude due to being assembled during combat, they were eventually curved with a rectangular shape. Similar to her original lightsabers, Tano's new blades consisted of a standard single-bladed lightsaber and a shoto.
Tano utilized the weapons throughout the Imperial Era, including during her encounters with the members of the Spectres, a rebel crew that included Jedi Kanan Jarrus and his apprentice Ezra Bridger. She used her blades in at least one sparring match with Bridger. During her association with the Spectres and Phoenix Cell, Tano clashed blades with Imperial Inquisitors Seventh Sister and Fifth Brother on Takobo. Ultimately, Tano accompanied Jarrus and Bridger on a mission to the dark world of Malachor, where they encountered the Inquisitors. Tano was eventually forced to duel her former master Darth Vader as Jarrus and Bridger escaped, after which she was presumed dead. However, Tano survived the ordeal when Bridger rescued her via the World Between Worlds, from his perspective several years later. Tano used her weapons to defend herself from Galactic Emperor Sheev Palpatine's Sith alchemy before they both escaped.
A curved-hilt lightsaber served as the weapon of both Jedi Master Kirak Infil'a and Sith Lord Darth Vader at different times. It initially belonged to Infil'a and was therefore a Jedi lightsaber that emitted a green blade. In the early years of the Emperor's rule, Vader sought to claim Infil'a's lightsaber, having lost the blue lightsaber he wielded as Anakin Skywalker, in accordance with the Sith ways. After killing Infil'a on Al'doleem, Vader traveled to the planet Mustafar to alter the blade's color to red by subjecting its kyber crystal to a dark-side process known as bleeding. His first attempt failed, resulting in a Force vision that depicted Vader returning to the light as Anakin Skywalker, and using Infil'a's green-bladed lightsaber to kill Darth Sidious.
However, Vader rejected the vision and made a second attempt to bleed the crystal. The process succeeded, and Vader returned to Coruscant where he presented his new curved-hilt Sith lightsaber to Sidious. Vader used the lightsaber when he fought the Grand Inquisitor and later when he hunted the Jedi Master and Chief Librarian of the Jedi Archives, Jocasta Nu. The hilt was subsequently destroyed during an attempt on Vader's life by a family of bounty hunters on Cabarria, during which the hilt was shattered by the combined strain of a tractor rifle and Vader's pulling it back with the Force. Salvaging the crystal, Vader soon crafted his own, new hilt for it.
During the hunt for the Spark Eternal, the Spark Eternal AI took control of Doctor Chelli Lona Aphra's body, forcing the doctor to live out the Spark Eternal's "memories" as it piloted her body. Inside one memory, after helping Miril, the leader of the Ascendant cult, defeat the Darkseekers group of Sith, Aphra picked up a curved-hilt Sith lightsaber. In another memory, as part of a test of the Null Blade, Aphra cut the swords blade, using the saber but the saber was neutralized as the Null Blade had a cortosis alloy.
Curved-hilt lightsabers made their debut with Count Dooku's lightsaber in Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones. It was first formally identified in the short story "Dooku Captured."
The lightsaber of Oppo Rancisis was intended to appear in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, but the show's cancellation prevented the blade from appearing. Designs for the lightsaber, which were based on Count Dooku's lightsaber and included the addition of a hilt-guard, were revealed by Dave Filoni and Pablo Hidalgo during their The Untold Clone Wars panel at Celebration Anaheim in 2015.