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Sabine and the Darksaber

How purpose and legacy found

a young rebel

Star Wars Rebels, Season 3, Episode 15,

“Trials of the Darksaber”

Writer: Dave Filoni

Director: Steward Lee

The hit animated show Star Wars Rebels grew up along with its core target audience. Airing on Disney XD from 2014 to 2018, the show was clearly for the children of earlier generations of fans and its early focus on young Ezra Bridger cemented that fact. Based on the early moments of the show, you would be hard pressed to believe that this series would eventually give us not only some of the best Star Wars moments but some of the deepest. Creator Dave Filoni, the cowboy hat-wearing legend among the fandom, clearly had a plan with Star Wars Rebels. As the characters began to grow up, bond with their fellow rebels, and get closer and closer to a full-on war against the Empire, the show matured as well. There were big themes and lessons and even bigger revelations. With each new bit of Star Wars lore, came a rich layer of character and story development.

Then the Darksaber arrived.

The Darksaber, a legendary lightsaber so black it’s more the absence of color than anything, carries an important place in the history of Star Wars…except we still don’t know much about it. Which only adds to its mystique. So, when it returned in Star Wars Rebels, a lot of focus, prestige and importance were paid to it. It was a Star Wars canon junkies’ dream. The great blade of Mandalore, featured as well in the beloved Clone Wars series, was back. However, who knew that behind that would be one of the Star Wars franchise’s best lessons of personal power and responsibility? Sabine Wren, the lost daughter of Mandalore, was about to get a powerful lesson in legacy and purpose. The character that had yet to be fully explored was about to go from the galaxy’s favorite spunky little sister to a layered, conflicted, and powerful leader. Sabine Wren was now wielding the Darksaber.

The specific moment that registers the deepest comes late in the episode “Trials of the Darksaber,” found in season three of the show, but there is certainly a lead up to it. At quick glance, the Darksaber is a “cool” Star Wars toy. A one-of-a-kind lightsaber to be exact. But we quickly learn from Kanan Jarrus and Fenn Rau that the weapon comes with the legacy of leadership. Like a Star Wars version of Excalibur, whoever wields that Darksaber will reunite powerful Mandalorian clans and create an army that could change the tide of the burgeoning Rebellion. Sabine is the one to do it. These are high stakes for sure. Except there is one problem: Sabine Wren doesn’t want the Darksaber.

There are several big lessons in this tale, and this is the first one. Sabine Wren has a higher calling and looks as though she is prepared to run away from it. After two and a half seasons with Sabine, we get the sense she’s done this before. A defector from the Imperial Academy, she also is estranged from her family, Clan Wren of House Vizsla—home to the creator of the Darksaber Tarre Vizsla. She did something wrong. That’s all we really knew at this point. So, it seems as though we have the timeless tale of someone not ready to accept their greater purpose and learning to no longer run away from it. Deep enough, but there is a lot more buried here.

Kanan Jarrus, the now blind former Jedi Padawan who has been training Ezra, takes it upon himself to train the non-Force-sensitive Sabine in the ways of the Darksaber. (The sequence also sheds some light on the nature of the Force and its connection between the lightsaber itself and its user. There is truly so much to love here!) She’s already a skilled fighter, but it’s not working. All of this is a challenge to Kanan, but the focus here is on Sabine Wren—as it should be. Sabine has lived a life with no one from her own family standing by her following the events of her past. Her independent nature, forever valuable and a key dynamic to the growing Rebellion, is also a shield to her deepest pain—a pain Hera Syndulla sees and identifies with. Sabine is racked with guilt, shame, and fear, but above it all, no one from her family believed her and supported her. She’s alone…and has been for a while.

All this leads up to the key moment in the story. After walking away (again) from the challenge, Sabine returns, ready to face it all. Kanan, patiently waiting, hands her the Darksaber and, for the first time, Sabine accepts it. Not just the weapon itself, but everything it represents on the surface—the legacy and purpose—and everything it represents to her: facing off with her family and her past.

And so begins an intense training session where the teacher, learning to instruct like he never thought he could, spars with the student fighting herself. With each strike of his blade, Kanan digs deeper and deeper into Sabine’s soul. She’s fighting back, but it’s defensive, restrained. The walls are up. Kanan presses harder and harder until she breaks. For the first time, Sabine is honest and her emotional breakdown launches this show well beyond the “for kids” realm. It’s raw and real.

Sabine Wren made a colossal mistake, accidentally creating weapons of mass destruction for the Empire that led to the defeat and enslavement of her Mandalorian people, and she left for them. To protect them. The cost was her own family as her father, mother, and brother, and entire clan did not stand with her. In a sense, she ran away, but the truth is she was abandoned, and she doesn’t want to face them again. This is why Sabine could not even comprehend taking the Darksaber and leading her people. It wasn’t just about responsibility. And, in truth, she doesn’t know if she even wants to lead them. Kanan assures her that this family—her rebel family—will stand by her no matter what she decides to do (something that is important later on when Sabine passes the Darksaber over to Bo-Katan Kryze).

Through the story of a treasured piece of Star Wars lore comes one of the deepest looks at the inner workings of family, confronting your biggest mistakes, and facing down the very core of your fears. All of which leads to true healing. Star Wars Rebels may have started out as a fun romp through the early days of the Rebellion through the eyes of a plucky orphan and his new friends, but it matured into so much more. It turned that corner when Sabine Wren went through the trials of the Darksaber.