Sabine Wren, the Real Star of ‘Ahsoka,’ Is a Giant Mystery

It’s safe to say that the first episode of Ahsoka featured one of the coolest character intros in a Star Wars movie or TV show ever. After an uneventful unveiling of a mural she created (famous to Star Wars Rebels fans), Sabine Wren is seen speeding down a lone highway on a space motorcycle with punk rock music blasting in our faces. If you hadn’t seen Star Wars Rebels and didn’t already know who Sabine was, that entrance was enough to tip you off to the fact that she had a lot of spunk and was not to be messed with. But as with many Star Wars characters, there’s so much more to her under the surface (and in her past).

Going back to her debut in Star Wars Rebels, Sabine Wren has always been a tough, capable warrior who has a lot of heart underneath. Voiced by Tiya Sircar in the animated series, Sabine came from a long line of fighters in the form of Mandalorians. Thanks to The Mandalorian, many people know about Mandalore and the warrior beings that inhabited that planet and its way of life. But from The Clone Wars to Rebels, Star Wars has introduced tons of Mandalorians before Din Djarin, including Sabine Wren.

There are so many reasons to care about Sabine Wren (including her adorable Loth-cat). Here’s what you should know about Sabine Wren to truly understand both her character and where Ahsoka is headed.

Who is Sabine Wren?

In the live-action series Ahsoka, Sabine Wren is portrayed by Natasha Liu Bordizzo. She comes across as a loner, very much in the tradition of Rey in The Force Awakens or even Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Kenobi series. While we feel Obi-Wan’s trauma and depression when he first appears in his self-titled Disney+ series, these feelings are a bit stymied in Sabine’s case. But there is still a clear somberness to her when we meet her at the top of the comm tower in Lothal. Aside from a Loth-cat she takes care of, she’s by herself, replaying the last hologram transmission she received from still-missing-and-presumed-dead Ezra Bridger.

But before viewers see her in Ahsoka, Sabine was a part of the Spectres team, the group of rebels that Star Wars Rebels focused on. It was headed by Hera (voiced by Vanessa Marshall in that series but played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead in Ahsoka) and included Jedi Kanan Jarrus (voiced by Freddie Prinze, Jr.) and Ezra Bridger (Taylor Gray). They were joined by Chopper—the chaotic, sassy droid by Hera’s side, voiced by showrunner and Star Wars master Dave Filoni himself— and Zeb, who we saw in live-action during The Mandalorian’s third season (voiced by Steve Blum in both iterations). Together, this crew worked on behalf of the Rebel Alliance to fight the Empire during the Galactic Civil War.

Even before that, Sabine was an Imperial cadet at the Imperial Academy on Mandalore. The Empire made sure to set up a big presence on Mandalore to keep this warrior race in check and loyal to the Empire. Since this is all Sabine knew, she was devoted to the Empire and learned lots of engineering and munition skills. She assumed she was creating weapons for good. But—spoiler alert!—the Empire was a fascist regime that was not, in fact, using these weapons for peace. Once Sabine realized that, she defected, much to the chagrin of her mother Ursa Wren, who deemed Sabine a traitor.

Is Sabine Force-sensitive?

Even though we haven’t seen a ton of Sabine in her Mandalorian helmet and armor in the Ahsoka series, knowing that she is a Mandalorian really puts into perspective why she’s such a good fighter. Despite badly losing to Shin Hati (Ivanna Sakhno) at the end of Episode 1 and not being super adept with a lightsaber, Sabine was able to hold her own for quite some time. Her natural Mandalorian grit and combat training are definitely still on her side, and her experience with the Darksaber also gives her some saber-fighting experience.

Despite wielding the Darksaber for a bit and training with Kanan before his death, Sabine never gave off the impression that she was Force-sensitive. And despite Ahsoka Tano choosing to train her as her apprentice in the second episode of this season, that is still the case.

In Episode 2, the droid Huyang (voiced by David Tennant) is very blunt with Sabine; he tells her that she has the worst chance of being a successful Jedi out of every Force-wielder he’s ever met. Despite the harsh words, he’s doing what droids do best and going by stats and odds. Because Sabine is not Force-sensitive and doesn’t have many midi-chlorians, Huyang senses that she doesn’t add up to the padawans and Jedi he served when the Jedi Order was still active.

However, in Episode 3, Ahsoka explains to Sabine that the Force can be found in all living things. This comes straight from Star Wars creator George Lucas’s mind; while making the original trilogy of films, he explained that every being has the Force. But, just as Ahsoka said, talent plays a major factor in whether someone can move things with their mind or sense things through said Force. While midi-chlorians generate life and are also present in all living organisms in the world of Star Wars, those that aren’t Force-sensitive obviously don’t have nearly as many as Jedi have. (And some Jedi have more than others; Anakin Skywalker, for example, had more than even Master Yoda did.)

We’ve even seen non-Force wielders access the Force in Star Wars before. There’s Chirrut Îmwe (Donnie Yen) in Rogue One, who is a part of the Guardians of the Whills, a religious order also known as Protectors of the Temple of the Kyber. In the 2016 movie, he chants, “I am one with the Force and the Force is with me” to access the Force and fight opponents even though he’s blind. This is why it’s not all that odd for Ahsoka to try to train Sabine to “think less and feel more” while taking away her sight with a training helmet in Ahsoka’s third episode.

What do we still need to find out about Sabine Wren?

Even though training someone who isn’t Force-sensitive is a pretty non-traditional way to go, Ahsoka does come from a long line of non-traditional Jedi, as Huyang points out in Episode 3. From Anakin Skywalker and his off-the-charts midi-chlorian count and abilities to Qui-Gon Jinn being Obi-Wan Kenobi’s Jedi master while questioning the Jedi Order, to Ahsoka herself walking away from the Order, things aren’t cut and dry with her. And within that tradition, Ahsoka treats Sabine as more of an equal than as a padawan, choosing to work alongside her instead of just teaching her the ropes.

With that said, though, we still don’t know what happened when Ahsoka tried to train Sabine the first time around. The timeline within 9 ABY is fuzzy at the moment, and that seems to be on purpose. But we do know that the scene from the Star Wars Rebels epilogue—where Sabine is narrating that she plans to find Ezra and Ahsoka shows up for the first time in the present timeline since her battle with Darth Vader on Malachor in Season 2 to take her on this quest—was recreated in live-action at the end of Ahsoka Episode 2. We know that sometime between Ezra and Thrawn going missing and Ahsoka’s second episode, Ahsoka tried to train Sabine but ended up walking away. Was this before or after Ahsoka met and then refused to train Grogu in The Mandalorian’s second season? It’s uncertain right now, but regardless, that history between Sabine and Ahsoka is still not fully fleshed out to the audience.

And again, we don’t know how Force-sensitive Sabine will end up being. Odds are, with her current lack of Force abilities, we won’t get a Force-wielding Sabine Wren. But that’s a good thing: Instead, we’ll likely get to see a Sabine who trains in the ways of the Force and becomes a better, intuitive fighter. We’ll see her expand on her Mandalorian training and potentially use a lightsaber in battle like any Jedi. This not only hits on Lucas’s idea of what the Force is and who can access it, but it also opens up new possibilities when it comes to Jedi in this galaxy.