The Big Picture
Sabine Wren has a tragic past filled with abandonment, betrayal, and shame, which makes her a relatable and emotionally engaging character in the Star Wars universe. After facing her past and finding redemption, Sabine triumphs over her tragic history and embraces her worth, no longer defined by the pain she endured. In the upcoming series Ahsoka, Sabine’s future remains uncertain as she continues to grapple with guilt and loss, but her resilience and determination are evident as she searches for her missing friend Ezra.
Sabine Wren looks primed for new adventures in the Ahsoka series, and she’s already no stranger to trials and tribulations, be they emotional upheaval or lightsaber skirmishes. Originated by Tiya Sircar in the animated series Star Wars: Rebels, with Natasha Liu Bordizzo inheriting the role for Ahsoka, this fan favorite suffered more tragedy by the time she was sixteen than most Star Wars characters do in a lifetime. Adolescent angst is a franchise trope as old as, well, 1977.
One could fill a football stadium with contenders for the worst childhood in Star Wars award. Yet Sabine was a Hall of Famer long before the Rebels timeline: familial abandonment, imperialist gaslighting, unintentional bloodshed, etc. Once she was a young woman, the hits didn’t cease. There are countless reasons Sabine should be everyone’s favorite character (I intend to count them), not the least of which is the empathy her hardships engender. The pain she endured, the redemption she earned, and the nebulous future awaiting her in Ahsoka paint a character portrait as viscerally vibrant (and relatable) as the murals she leaves in her wake.
Why Does Sabine Wren’s Past Matter?
Image via Lucasfilm
Star Wars: Rebels is replete with characters rich enough that gauging which one is the “best” is a subjective practice. Objectively, Sabine surpasses them all when it comes to heartbreaking pasts. Born into Clan Wren of House Vizsla, Sabine was raised as a loyal follower of traditional Mandalorian culture. She carried those ideals into her time as an Imperial cadet and trusted the Empire implicitly. While at the Imperial Academy, she channeled her affinity for mechanics into a weapon that weakened the normally indestructible beskar incorporated into all Mandalorian armor. It was an experiment to satisfy her creative side; her childhood naivety never imagined the Empire would appropriate her designs to murder and oppress her people. Spoiler: they did. Horrified, Sabine destroyed the weapon and openly opposed the Empire’s tyranny. Such compensation did her no good; her family exiled her and the Empire decreed her a traitor. Nor did destroying the weapon alleviate Sabine’s crushing shame. In her mind, and in her words, “I helped enslave my people.” That’s no easy mistake to heal from.
Branded a collaborator and with the Empire at her heels, Sabine fled Mandalore. Initially, she forged a new life as a bounty hunter with her friend Ketsu Onyo (Gina Torres). Their relationship crumbled over time, however, with the metaphorical sisters growing estranged and Sabine once again abandoned by a loved one. Alone, she scraped by before tentatively rediscovering a purpose as part of the “Ghost” crew, aka the other Rebels characters. The group’s goals were lofty and their missions tiny: helping those harmed by the Empire and punching back against its domination, but running on little food, littler fuel, and tested hope. In the first episode, Sabine describes her five-person resistance cell as “We’re not exactly anything. We’re a crew. A team. In some ways, a family.” (Don’t forget: this is her offscreen, pre-series backstory. Yeesh.)
Like family, Sabine clashed with Hera Syndulla (Vanessa Marshall) and Kanan Jarrus (Freddie Prinze Jr.), the Ghost’s de facto leaders. Sabine can’t trust authority — or trust at all — after Imperial autocrats warped her good intentions into evil. Betrayal turned her enormous capacity for love and loyalty into a fragile, caustic thing. She locks that trauma away under beskar and harsh quips, but Sabine’s a walking live wire. She bristles with anxious hostility. When offered a choice between shooting or talking, she shoots and blows things up. Those aren’t healthy outlets, but they’re understandable — what’s more, the more Rebels unfurls Sabine’s past, they’re emotionally engaging.
Sabine Wren Triumphs Over Her Tragic Past
Image via Lucasfilm
After Sabine accidentally discovers the Darksaber, a loaded symbol of Mandalorian lore, she reluctantly trains with it. Uniting Mandalore’s forces might turn the tide in the fight against the Empire. The problem is, convincing her people to join the fledgling Rebellion means returning to her blood family, an outcome she adamantly resists. Sabine’s at turns despondent and enraged, all misdirected fury and vicious self-hatred. “You’re not fighting me,” Kanan tells her, “you’re fighting yourself. And you’re losing.” Finally, Sabine’s forced to reckon with her past in one of Star Wars’ most emotionally destructive monologues. Confessing her so-called sins to her friends, Sabine sobs, “The Empire wanted to destroy worlds, and they did. They destroyed mine.” Then, her found family surprises her: they pledge their enduring loyalty. She’s shattered, and there’s no ostracizing to be found.
It’s a miracle of a sequence and poignant to the point of tactile. Three seasons’ worth of planted seeds come to fruition through Sabine’s emotional apotheosis. Her reunion with her Clan is still a hot mess, of course. Rebels makes its characters earn their happy resolutions. But familial devotion wins the day once Sabine defeats the corrupt Viceroy Gar Saxon (Ray Stevenson) in combat, securing her family’s freedom and her right to the Darksaber. After years of isolation, Sabine archives her redemption, heals her open wounds, and recognizes her worth — flaws and all. Even the Darksaber’s intimidating weight lightens to match her balanced heart. The tragedy of this sharp-edged woman informs her but no longer defines her. Anakin Skywalker succumbing to the Dark Side is nothing to sneeze about, but where tortured sad boys fall, Sabine soars.
What Does Sabine’s Future Hold in ‘Ahsoka’?
Image via Disney+
There’s one imperative for ongoing narratives: happiness never lasts. The Empire creates a new version of Sabine’s weapon and kills dozens of Mandalorians before she can intervene. Sabine kneeling in the ashes of her people’s bodies makes these so-called “dark” Star Wars movies flinch. Kanan sacrifices himself to save the crew’s lives. Then, Rebels ends with Ezra Bridger (Taylor Gray) catapulting himself and Grand Admiral Thrawn’s (Lars Mikkelsen) entire fleet into unknown space. Sabine channels her agony into winning the war; the series finale sees her determined to find Ezra even though there’s no guarantee her friend’s still alive.
Going into Ahsoka, Ezra remains undiscovered. The guilt likely eats Sabine alive, if her replaying Ezra’s hologram and training with his lightsaber in the trailers is any indication. If that wasn’t enough excess pain, her Clan might have perished in the Great Purge. For all her triumphs, for all the times hope prevailed, the grief of a loss-cluttered life endures. Sabine will always be made of glass shards; the question is how she uses them.
Star Wars has always shot itself in the foot over the conundrum of powerful women. Each film trilogy offered inspirational figures but never quite knew how to humanize them. Like the animated Ahsoka Tano (Ashley Eckstein) before her, Sabine Wren represents a decades-long culmination: a young woman who holds multitudes. She’s snarky, reckless, brazen, frightened, fearless, creative, loving, and lost and found and lost again. Her trauma, and her anger, are acutely relatable. She’s capable of exploding totalitarian regimes and literally painting beauty across the galaxy. And she just so happens to be the franchise’s most tragic character by a mile. No matter what awaits her in Ahsoka, one thing’s guaranteed: Sabine Wren always leaves her mark.
Ahsoka premieres August 23 on Disney+.
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