‘The Mandalorian’ Has A Darksaber Problem

Jon Favreau, the creator of The Mandalorian, has been connected to this story for a long time. He was cast as the Mandalorian Pre Vizsla in The Clone Wars, the descendant of Tarre Vizsla, the first Mandalorian to also become a Jedi Knight, and the original owner of the Darksaber.

Pre Vizsla was heir to the Darksaber, and a fierce opponent of the Jedi. In the animated show, he fights Obi-Wan Kenobi with it, though originally his character was supposed to be using a vibroblade (like the dagger Mando uses in The Mandalorian to kill the mud beast). But that didn’t go over well with George Lucas.

“George didn’t like the logic of vibroblade being able to parry a lightsaber,” Favreau said of the scene. He had to go back in and record new lines once Lucas came up with the alternative: the Darksaber.

“I had to read the whole monologue about how it was found in a Jedi Temple. And I was telling my wife, she’s like, ‘That’s the coolest thing in the world.’ And it became so cool that we ended up making a whole TV show about it,” Favreau said. “That whole idea and how profound that thing is, that Tarre Vizsla was both Mandalorian and Jedi, that implies so much because those were two diametrically opposed warring factions. So, what does that mean? These are the clues that we look for, these little anomalies and things that instead of shying away from, we sort of delve into and explore.”

It is a very cool weapon with a rich backstory. Tarre Vizsla bridged the gap between Jedi and Mandalorian—something Mando and Grogu may do in the present storyline—and when he died, the Darksaber was kept in a Jedi Temple before being stolen back by the Mandalorians and passed down in the Vizsla line. It eventually was taken by Darth Maul and later again by Sabine Wren, before finally making its way to Bo-Katan—who later lost it to Moff Gideon.

At the end of Season 2, Mando defeats Moff Gideon in battle and takes the Darksaber, not knowing that the blade must be won in battle or taken from an unwilling foe or it curses whoever wields it. Bo-Katan would have to fight Mando for the blade, something she’s unwilling to do.

This created a problem that Season 3, Episode 2 solved. When Mando was captured by the alien in the Mines Of Mandalore, he lost the Darksaber. When Bo-Katan showed up and defeated the alien (using the Darksaber to slay it) the blade should have gone to her then and there. In fact, it was extremely puzzling afterward since it was unclear who should have the weapon going forward and neither character discussed it. This was odd given how badly Bo-Katan coveted the Darksaber, and felt like a massive oversight in the script.

But then, in Episode 6 when Axe Woves tells Bo-Katan she should be challenging Din Djarin rather than him if she wants to rule, Din explains that it’s already Bo-Katan’s by right. He explains what we’d all been thinking since Episode 2: Bo-Katan won it fair and square and it belongs to her. The Mandalorians all agree and he hands it over to her.

This is almost like winning the Darksaber on a technicality. It’s about the most anticlimactic way for Bo-Katan to get the blade you can imagine. While it would have been great if she’d won it in Episode 2 and when she tried to give it back to him, he’d said “No, it’s yours now” instead we had to wait four episodes and get the handoff at the end of an episode that was about something else entirely—a weird side-quest stuffed to the brim with celebrity cameos.

The Darksaber is absolutely one of the coolest things in Star Wars, but like the rest of The Mandalorian’s third season, the execution of its storyline is being fumbled pretty badly. This whole season seems to have lost its way, with both Mando and Grogu fading into the background and no clear overarching story to follow (or villain to root against). Hopefully the next two episodes pick up the pace and get things back on track. We don’t need a fetch quest starring The Rock and Amy Schumer.

Here’s my video on the Darksaber woes this season:

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