Critical Drinker Tears Apart Sabine Wren Surviving Impalement In ‘Ahsoka,’ Explains The True Destructive Power Of A Lightsaber

John F. Trent |

Sep 7, 2023

Natasha Liu Bordizzo as Sabine Wren begins to lose consciousness in Ahsoka (2023), Lucasfilm

Popular film and TV critic as well as a novelist in his own right, The Critical Drinker aka Will Jordan, recently tore apart how the recent installment of Ahsoka depicts wounds suffered from a lightsaber, and explains how the weapon used to be a potent weapon of destruction.

Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) in Lucasfilm's STAR WARS: AHSOKA, exclusively on Disney+. ©2023 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.

For those who have not seen Ahsoka, the first episode sees Sabine Wren and Shin Hati face off in a lightsaber duel. Hati eventually gains the upper hand against Wren and impales her on her blade.

Ivanna Sakhno as Shin Hati impales Natasha Liu Bordizzo as Sabine Wren in Ahsoka (2023), Lucasfilm

By the beginning of the show’s second episode, it’s revealed that Wren has not died as one might expect, but is instead recovering in a hospital bed.

And by the end of the episode, she has fully recovered from the wound and gearing up to become Ahsoka’s Padawan.

Natasha Liu Bordizzo as Sabine Wren recovers after being stabbed with a lightsaber in Ahsoka (2023), Lucasfilm

In response to this, The Critical Drinker explained how lightsabers were used in the past, and what should have happened to Sabine after she was impaled.

He stated, “In the past lightsabers were depicted as pretty terrifying instruments of death that could slice through limbs, droids, steel beams, and blast doors like butter. And if you happen to get run through with one, well, it was pretty much curtains for you.”

Next, he compared it to Ahsoka and modern Star Wars shows, “Nowadays, though, major injuries like this are treated more like minor inconveniences that characters can walk off like Reva, who got impaled not once, but twice by a lightsaber and survived with no long-term repercussions.”

“Or Sabine from the recent episode of Ahsoka who had a blade stuck in her for a good five or six seconds and turned out to be just fine afterwards,” he added.

From there, The Critical Drinker goes about explaining what a lightsaber is and how it works, “Basically, a lightsaber is a blade of highly energized plasma energy that burns between 15,000 and 23,000 degrees Celsius, which makes it extremely effective at cutting through virtually any material in the Star Wars universe.”

“It basically melts and vaporizes whatever it comes into contact with, which makes it ideal for slicing off limbs to disarm opponents with quick, efficient strokes,” he observes.

He then looks at the case of Sabine and explains what should have happened to her, “We know that Sabine is a Mandalorian, which in Star Wars turns makes her human with roughly the same physiology as ours. … We aslo know that was impaled in the lower right side of the abdomen at an upward angle, which means would have likely penetrated her upper intestines, kidney, and possibly her liver too.”

“If this was just a regular old steel-bladed sword then such an injury would cause catastrophic damage to her internal organs and almost certainly be fatal without immediate medical intervention,” he explained. “But this isn’t a sword, it’s a lightsaber, which means that Sabine’s got much bigger things to worry about now.”

Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon Jinn in The Phantom Menace (1999), Lucasfilm

After recounting how hot a lightsaber burns and the temperature at which water and human blood boils. the Drinker rhetorically asked, “So what would this mean for Sabine? Well, in less than a second the blood plasma in the vicinity of the lightsaber blade would immediately heat up and flash into steam expanding rapidly as its density decreases. The convection effects of heat traveling through surrounding tissue would cause the effect to accelerate until it ruptured the containment vessel. In this case, her body.”

“Now, in the worst case this would mean a highly energized steam explosion similar to the one that destroyed the reactor core at Chernobyl,” he detailed. “The best case scenario is that her body would expand like a balloon with steam rushing out of every available orifice until it eventually lost all structural integrity and blew apart.”

“Either way I think it’s safe to conclude that such an injury would be fatal,” he concurred.

Ivanna Sakhno as Shin Hati impales Natasha Liu Bordizzo as Sabine Wren in Ahsoka (2023), Lucasfilm

He didn’t stop there. He then noted that if water is heated up to 2,000 degrees the hydrogen and water molecules will split apart. Given a lightsaber can obtain temperatures above 15,000 degrees, the Drinker observes, “The hydrogen atoms won’t just split away from their oxygen friends, they’ll ignite explosively in the extreme heat. Not in the same way as a hydrogen bomb, but more like the Hindenburg disaster.”

“So basically, Sabine’s entire body would literally combust right in front of our eyes as the hydrogen oxygen separation spreads as a chain reaction until it consumes all the available fuel in the vicinity. She would effectively be incinerated at the atomic level and all that would be left would be a small pile of chemical byproducts. So no, she probably wouldn’t be able to walk this one off,” he concluded.

What do you make of the Critical Drinker’s breakdown of what should have happened to Sabine Wren after being impaled by Shin Hati?

NEXT: Latest ‘Ahsoka’ Episode Full Of Inconsistencies, Shoddy Writing, And Ends With Major Nostalgia Bait

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