Ahsoka Just Set Up a New Star Wars Jedi Mystery

This Star Wars: Ahsoka article contains spoilers.

The series premiere of Ahsoka has revealed that Grogu may not be a shoe-in to be the first Mandalorian Jedi since Tarre Vizsla after all. In “Part One: Master and Apprentice,” we learn that sometime after the Liberation of Lothal and Ezra Bridger’s disappearance in Star Wars: Rebels, Ahsoka took on Sabine Wren as a Padawan learner. It’s clear that tensions grew high between the two at some point, and they decided to part ways and end her training. But when exactly did Sabine’s training take place?

The series finale of Star Wars: Rebels features an epilogue where Sabine Wren leaves Lothal with Ahsoka Tano, presumably in search of their missing friend Ezra Bridger. At first it seems like this scene, which takes place in 5 ABY (after the Battle of Yavin in A New Hope), could be the moment that Sabine’s training started. This is the first time we’ve seen Ahsoka since Ezra saved her in the Rebels episode “A World Between Worlds,” and Sabine seems to have realized something about Ezra’s final message telling her that he was “counting on” her to do something.

However, the scene from Rebels is replicated almost exactly at the end of the Ahsoka episode “Toil and Trouble.” Just like at the end of Rebels, we see a short-haired Sabine paying respects to a painted mural of the Ghost crew before turning to see Ahsoka and her ship ready to journey into the unknown to find their lost friend. Because this scene in Ahsoka is supposed to be taking place in 9-10 ABY, 4-5 years after the Rebels epilogue is set, it’s hard to determine whether or not it’s meant to be an homage or parallel to the original, or if it’s meant to be a retcon of the Rebels epilogue timeline. Did Sabine leave to train with Ahsoka during the Rebels epilogue, or did her training take place some other time after the Liberation of Lothal and the fall of the Empire?

A four or five year gap between when Ahsoka and Sabine last saw each other is reasonable. It doesn’t seem like Sabine trained for long given her stubbornness and Ahsoka’s hesitation to become a master after losing her own to the Dark Side. If Sabine trained for 1-3 years and then they spent a couple more apart, the math mostly checks out. That gives Ahsoka time to make her solo appearances in The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett, and explains why she is so insistent on not training Grogu herself.

But if the redone scene in Ahsoka isn’t just an homage to the ending of Rebels and actually is trying to retcon the timeline, then there’s really no way to know when Sabine first became Ahsoka’s padawan unless the series specifically says or shows us via flashback.

As far as Sabine’s Force-sensitivity goes though, that mystery is a lot easier to solve. In Rebels, Sabine trains to use the Darksaber with the Jedi Kanan Jarrus and Ezra. She struggles with that training at first, growing frustrated when she doesn’t master the blade right away. Kanan gets a little frustrated too, confiding in Hera that Sabine’s Mandalorian stubbornness makes it harder for her to connect with the Force, but not entirely impossible. He says that “the Force resides in all living things, but you have to be open to it.” 

When Sabine speaks to Huyang in Ahsoka, he says that her aptitude for the Force falls short of all of the Padawans he’s seen over the centuries, but that doesn’t mean she can’t still learn how to wield it. Based on the conversations we’ve seen thus far, it’s likely that Sabine once again felt too emotionally blocked to fully give herself over to the Force, whenever her training took place. But regardless of when she first started training with Ahsoka, it’s exciting to see Sabine pick up a lightsaber once again.

Star Wars: Ahsoka is streaming now on Disney+.