The Darksaber Refresher You Need After the 'Boba Fett' Episode 5
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Episode Five of The Book of Boba Fett opens, rather delightfully, with Mando, a man we haven't seen in a hot minute. (Or, if we're being precise, since the Season Two finale of The Mandalorian.) He's going about his daily business, telling a baddie he'll bring him in warm or cold, when... bam! Mando pulls out the Darksaber, the fancy-looking weapon he snatched from Moff Gideon in The Mandalorian. The problem? He doesn't really know how to use it. Turns out, that the thing is heavy. Who would've thought.
Now, as the Armorer reminds us in this episode, the Darksaber has a long, important history in the Star Wars universe. On the grand occasion of Mando returning to our lives, here's everything you need to know about the Darksaber.
What is the Darksaber, and who owned the Darksaber before Mando?
First thing to know about the Darksaber: There’s only one of them. It’s a bit of a collector’s item in the world of Star Wars, with a history a hell of a lot longer and more complicated than the Skywalker family’s blue lightsaber.
The Darksaber figures heavily into the canonical Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars: Rebels animated series. There was an OG Mandalorian who was the first from his planet inducted into the Jedi Order, named Tarre Vizsla. (Paz Vizsla mentions this in The Book of Boba Fett.) He crafted the Darksaber, which actually looks more like an oversized champagne saber, and makes lightsaber whooshes that sound less Star Wars and more Game of Thrones. Important note: If you want the Darksaber, you should have to beat its owner in a duel. And typically, if you have the weapon, you’re the Mand’alor—the leader of the Mandalorians. (By the way, if you don't win the Darksaber in battle, all of Mandalore is cursed. Be careful.)
After Vizsla’s death, the Darksaber becomes something of an Infinity Stone in the two series, with several villains and heroes chasing after it. At one point, it even lands in the hands of Darth Maul—who beefs with the Mandalorians and uses their weapon against them. While the Darksaber is chillin’ in his lair, a Mandalorian named Sabine Wren steals it. It's actually Wren who explains why, exactly, the Darksaber is so heavy. In an episode of Star Wars: Rebels, she remarks, "Energy constantly flows through the crystal. You're not fighting with a simple blade as much as you are directing a current of power. Your thoughts, your actions, they become energy. They flow through the crystal as well—and become a part of the blade." The lesson for Mando? Channel that Baby Yoda-sized hole in your life into the Darksaber.
Anyway, Wren fights with the treasured blade for a while, and passes it off to Bo-Katan, another Mandalorian warrior, who is later introduced in The Mandalorian. And that’s the last we saw of the Darksaber until The Mandalorian, which saw Giancarlo Esposito's Moff Gideon as the owner of the weapon Then... he lost it to Din Djarin. Now that Mando is learning the ways of the Darksaber, we're guessing that it won't go away anytime soon.
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