It does look like a shield hilt, and a different design philosophy,
What i like about it is that sabre reeks of a brute force approach instead of the dueling sabres that we saw in the prequels.
Kylo is probably fairly untrained in light sabre dueling, and there probably aren't a lot of trained Jedi out there, so he's just going to batter through your defenses and overwhelm you.
to me it looks more like a rage weapon then a symbol of a more civilized age.
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