Ahsoka features a Darth Maul reference – and it could be more tragic than it seems

Warning: The following contains spoilers for Ahsoka episodes 1 and 2, as well as The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels! Turn back now if you're not up to date! 

Ahsoka features a Darth Maul reference – and it could be a lot more tragic than it seems, setting up a sad story for new villain Shin Hati. 

In Ahsoka episode 1, Shin travels to the planet Lothal to find Sabine Wren. When Shin arrives, she sends out a probe droid, and when it returns to her, she's the mirror image of Maul on Tatooine in The Phantom Menace, searching for Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi. 

Of course, Maul met a swift end in The Phantom Menace – or so it appeared, anyway, with the character eventually returning in The Clone Wars and popping up again in Star Wars Rebels. Despite Maul's big comeback, though, his former Master Darth Sidious (AKA the future Emperor Palpatine) never took him back as his apprentice, instead sticking with Maul's replacement, Count Dooku. 

In The Clone Wars, Sidious and Maul clash in one episode after Palpatine learns his former apprentice could be becoming a threat. It's a brutal fight that sees Sidious kill Maul's brother, who was also Maul's apprentice, and when Sidious gains the upper hand, Maul pleads with his former Master for mercy – but, of course, there is none to be had. "Remember the first and only reality of the Sith: there can only be two, and you are no longer my apprentice," Sidious tells him in the showdown. "You have been replaced."

The story doesn't end there, either, with the comics revealing that Sidious and General Grievous later attack Maul and his mother, Talzin (one of the Nightsisters of Dathomir), with the cyborg actually killing Talzin. 

In The Clone Wars season 7, Maul even tries to warn Ahsoka Tano about Palpatine's plans to turn her own Master, Anakin Skywalker, into his apprentice, but she doesn't believe him. 

Maul ultimately becomes devoted to taking down Sidious, but never achieves his goal before he's killed by Obi-Wan in Rebels. 

So, that's a lot of complicated (and tragic) Master and apprentice dynamics to take in, with a baseline of Maul, the replaced apprentice, always losing. Considering Ahsoka episode 1 is titled 'Master and Apprentice,' and Shin is the apprentice of Baylan Skoll – even sporting a Padawan braid of her own – it's easy to speculate that Shin's story could take a turn for the worse thanks to this parallel with Maul. 

Shin and Baylan seem to be on perfectly good terms at the moment, but Shin does look a little worried when her Master talks of the "power, such as you've never dreamed" at their fingertips should Grand Admiral Thrawn return. That could be fear that Baylan will have no use for her once he's attained this power, or that he might replace her with someone more powerful themselves – a classic Sith move, though at the moment it's unclear if these two are strictly Sith or just dark siders. 

Dave Filoni has already said Ahsoka is all about the relationship between Masters and apprentices, so it's not a stretch to suspect we'll learn more about Shin and Baylan as the show goes on. If this Maul parallel goes deeper than a cool Easter egg, Shin could be in for some heartbreak. 

Ahsoka is streaming on Disney Plus now. For much more on the show, check out our deep dives on: 

• Who is Hera Syndulla?
• Who is Ezra Bridger?
• Explaining the mystical realm of the World Between Worlds 
• The history between Anakin and Ahsoka explained 
• Everything you need to know about Star Wars Rebels 
• The Ahsoka end-credits clues explained
• Who is Clancy Brown playing in Ahsoka?
• Huyang explained
• Who is Inquisitor Marrok in Ahsoka?
• Where have we seen Morgan Elsbeth before?
• What to watch before Ahsoka 
• How to watch Star Wars: The Clone Wars in order
• The Ahsoka timeline
• Our Ahsoka release schedule