Ahsoka reveals what happened to Sabine’s Mandalorian family
Warning: This article contains major spoilers from Ahsoka season 1, episode 4.
Ahsoka has answered what happened to Sabine Wren’s Mandalorian family after Star Wars Rebels. While the Ghost crew is Sabine’s found family, Rebels also introduced audiences to Clan Wren, the Mandalorian family she was born into.
Sabine’s mother, Ursa Wren, her father Alrich Wren, and her brother Tristan Wren all played important roles in Rebels. Ursa was even incorporated into The Clone Wars season 7 as one of the Nite Owls who worked alongside Bo-Katan Kryze and Ahsoka Tano during the Siege of Mandalore.
During the Rebels season 4 premiere “Heroes of Mandalore,” the Wren family collaborated with Bo-Katan, other Mandalorians, Ezra Bridger, Kanan Jarrus, and Chopper to successfully liberate Mandalore from the Empire.
The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett revealed that this liberation did not last long as the Empire retaliated by massacring countless Mandalorians and relentlessly bombing Mandalore in what became known as the Great Purge and the Night of a Thousand Tears.
Ahsoka has now revealed that Sabine’s Mandalorian family died on Mandalore, presumably during the Great Purge and the Night of a Thousand Tears. The revelation comes from Baylan Skoll as he convinces her not to destroy the map to the other galaxy, confirming that her family died on Mandalore and the map is the only way she can be reunited with Ezra, some of the only family she has left.
The deaths of Ursa, Alrich, and Tristan are made even more tragic by what Baylan says next, declaring that they died “because your Master didn’t trust you.”
While the exact details have yet to be revealed, it sounds like Ahsoka stopped Sabine from going to Mandalore or from doing something that Sabine believes could have saved her family. This lends more insight into the preexisting tension between Ahsoka and Sabine and why things didn’t work out as Master and Padawan the first time.
These revelations are devastating, but they are smart storytelling decisions that lend more impact to Ahsoka and the entire Mandoverse. It further raises Sabine’s personal stakes for finding Ezra as the only family she feels she has left. Her Mandalorian family is dead, Kanan Jarrus is dead, Hera Syndulla and Zeb Orrelios are busy with the New Republic, and Ahsoka seemingly gave up on Sabine until recently.
In addition to raising Sabine’s personal stakes, it also further explains Sabine’s attitude in the Ahsoka premiere, even toward one of her longtime allies, Lothal’s Governor Ryder Azadi. She has felt adrift and alone for so long, has lost practically everyone who was close to her, and likely feels responsible for some of these losses.
In terms of the Mandoverse, the deaths of the Wren family give more impact on the Great Purge and the Night of a Thousand Tears. With Bo-Katan and so many other Mandalorians revealed to have survived these atrocities, they lost some of their impact. The atrocities feels more personal for the characters and for the audience, knowing that they resulted in the deaths of Ursa, Alrich, and Tristan, supporting characters that fans grew to love as part of Sabine’s story in Rebels.
From a continuity standpoint, this information explains why Ursa isn’t still fighting alongside Bo-Katan and the other Nite Owls in The Mandalorian and why Clan Wren wasn’t among the Mandalorians who reclaimed Mandalore from Moff Gideon.
Sabine and her family both made their fair share of mistakes and hurt one another, but they reunited and reconciled in Rebels, all while leading Mandalore’s liberation from the Empire. The galaxy has been robbed of the great artist Alrich, the great warriors Ursa and Tristan, and Sabine has been robbed of her Mandalorian family.
This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the Star Wars content being covered here wouldn’t exist.