The Mandalorian Finally Reveals How Moff Gideon Won The Darksaber
Moff Gideon acquired the Darksaber via Bo-Katan's surrender of Mandalore.
The Mandalorian has finally answered the question of how series Big Bad Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito) came into possession of the Darksaber, an ancient weapon that confers political authority over Mandalore and can cut through things really well. In the seventh episode of the third season of the show (titled “Chapter 23: The Spies”), Bo-Katan Kryze (Katee Sackhoff) revealed that she had given the legendary weapon to Gideon as part of a surrender she hoped would spare the planet of Mandalore.
Of course, Moff Gideon being Moff Gideon, he went ahead and launched a genocidal assault on the planet Mandalore even though it had already surrendered, which is a war crime regardless of where or when a galaxy is. The Mandalorian had previously made it canon that Moff Gideon was the Imperial officer who gave the order to initiate what is known as the “Great Purge” of Mandalore, so it makes sense that he would have gotten his hands on the Darksaber at some point during that conflict.
Over the course of The Mandalorian, it has been gradually revealed that Moff Gideon seems to be behind most of the bad things happening in the post-Empire, pre-First Order galaxy. This last episode further revealed that Gideon is part of “the Shadow Council,” a collection of Imperial remnant warlords who really like to give things dramatic names, even if logically, they are the ones who would know how cool that sounds.
At the moment, the Darksaber is currently back in the hands of Bo-Katan, who is leading a confederation of Mandalorians to retake their home planet, which Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) had discovered to still be habitable. Things are not going particularly well for the Mandalorian expeditionary force, as it turns out that Moff Gideon has been retrofitting their technology to make bigger and badder stormtroopers.
Bo-Katan herself got the Darksaber by being given it by Din Djarin, who used the legal loophole that he had been defeated in combat (more like ambushed, but still) by some kind of weird bug-cyborg on Mandalore, which in turn was defeated by the former Death Watch member. According to lore introduced by The Mandalorian, the Darksaber (and by extension, authority over Mandalore) is owned by the person who defeated its previous owner in combat, presumably even if the victor is unaware they currently own it.
Interestingly, this raises the possibility that despite The Mandalorian showing the Darksaber to be owned in various turns by Moff Gideon, Bo-Katan, Din Djarin, and the aforementioned cyborg-bug, it actually belongs to Emperor Sheev Palpatine. Basically, the Darksaber was at one point owned in Star Wars: The Clone Wars by Pre Vizsla (the descendent of the Mandalorian Jedi who created the weapon), who was defeated in combat by Darth Maul, who was in turn defeated by his former master Palpatine. He might have to have some words with Bo-Katan.
