{"id":299820,"date":"2025-11-18T20:57:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T20:57:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/299820\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T20:57:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T20:57:10","slug":"rebels-writer-thinks-making-sabine-a-jedi-was-a-mistake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/299820\/","title":{"rendered":"Rebels’ Writer Thinks Making Sabine a Jedi Was a Mistake"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ahsoka\u2018s focus on the relationship between the titular ex-Jedi and her reluctant padawan Sabine was one of the most surprising, and yet paradoxically frustrating aspects of the series. On the one hand, it helped broaden Star Wars\u2018 vision<\/a> of the Force, and who could wield it, pushing back on narrow-sighted Jedi doctrines of the prequel era to give us a Force-wielding character with more parallels to Luke\u2019s journey with the Force across the original trilogy. On the other, for as much as some of those Jedi doctrines were pushed back on in making Sabine Force sensitive, at the end of the day, Ahsoka turned master and apprentice into pretty much the same kind of Jedi we already had, with the same kind of teaching methods and understandings\u2014teaching methods we\u2019ve spent the prequel era engaging with the failings of<\/a>, and being told in the sequel era that they\u00a0must be let go of<\/a> to allow a new generation of Jedi, free from the Order\u2019s dogma, to truly flourish.<\/p>\n

But one writer who helped shape Sabine\u2019s journey in\u00a0Rebels<\/a> disagrees that it should\u2019ve ever happened in the first place.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was absolutely not the plan\u2026 we really felt that not only did it step on Ezra\u2019s story\u2026 it was a weak retread, we already did this,\u201d reflected Henry Gilroy, a senior writer and executive producer on Star Wars Rebels, in a recent episode<\/a> of Pod of Rebellion, the Rebels cast\u2019s own rewatch podcast series<\/a>. According to Gilroy, the potential of Sabine discovering her Force sensitivity was an idea floated during Rebels, but ultimately dismissed by the writing team. \u201cThe idea of Sabine training as a Jedi when she is already this fantastic warrior of her own type, we felt like, \u2018This is overkill.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Sabine undergoes a parallel to Ezra\u2019s own Jedi tutelage in Rebels when she has to wrestle with the mantle of the Darksaber<\/a>, the ancient Mandalorian lightsaber that became a mythical symbol of the right to rule Mandalore\u2014attempting to reconcile her own trauma relating to the work she did in the process, work that ultimately allowed the Empire to oppress her people as a student at its military academies. But although she trains to wield the weapon, she ultimately passes it on to others<\/a> to lead the Mandalorians\u2026 so imagine Gilroy\u2019s surprise then when Ahsoka comes along and Sabine\u2019s swinging a lightsaber around again.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had nothing to do with the Ahsoka series, so I was shocked,\u201d Gilroy continued. \u201cWhat I love about the story with the Darksaber is that you don\u2019t have to be a Jedi to have Jedi ideals\u2026 I think that\u2019s what\u2019s really the more important thing, rather than Force pushing Ezra a hundred feet when she\u2019s never used the Force before.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although Gilroy does raise some interesting points, his commentary also serves as a challenge\u00a0Star Wars has by and large struggled to grapple with in recent years, especially as storytelling within the galaxy far, far away slowly moves further into the post-originals, post-sequels era: the separation of what it means to be a Jedi from a philosophical and moral standpoint, and what it means to be a Jedi in taking on the mantle as a follower of the Jedi Order as an institution.<\/p>\n

The afterglow of the prequels and their own nascent commentary on the Order\u2019s twilight has seen much\u00a0Star Wars ink spilled<\/a> on the profound failures and flaws that allowed it to be subsumed by Palpatine\u2019s machinations: a legacy of institutional rot and dogmatic busybodying that blinded the light of the Jedi\u2019s most profound beliefs as a force for good. But at the same time, we have seen Star Wars\u2018 heroes\u2014even some like Ahsoka Tano herself, a victim of the Order\u2019s most profound flaws<\/a>\u2014and the broader franchise itself wrestle with attempting to revive the Jedi and either seeing them making the same mistakes or not being willing enough yet to make the distinction between Jedi ideals and Jedi Order doctrine and make that separation.<\/p>\n

Maybe with time, that will change. Ahsoka season two<\/a> will see Ahsoka and Sabine closely bonded once more, and the potential for that discussion between them to arise. At some point we are still meant to get a<\/a> movie about Rey attempting to revive a new Jedi Order, and see how she blends the lessons she learned from Luke\u2019s failures<\/a> with the ancient texts she helped preserve after his death. Whatever vision of being a Jedi Star Wars eventually takes on going forward, a separation between it and what once was arguably means that we\u2019ll need more characters following in Sabine\u2019s footsteps, and helping to broaden the franchise\u2019s understanding of the Force<\/a> in the process.<\/p>\n

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel<\/a>, Star Wars<\/a>, and Star Trek<\/a> releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV<\/a>, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ahsoka\u2018s focus on the relationship between the titular ex-Jedi and her reluctant padawan Sabine was one of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299821,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[22926,88,206,5295,156079],"class_list":{"0":"post-299820","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-ahsoka","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-movies","11":"tag-star-wars","12":"tag-star-wars-rebels"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299820\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}