Ahsoka Episode 3's 'Long Line Of Non-Traditional Jedi' Line Explained

Contains spoilers for "Ahsoka" Season 1, Part 3 — "Time to Fly"

"Ahsoka" Part 3 is an episode of training and dogfights. The training part, in particular, offers some interesting callbacks to the previous episode, courtesy of lightsaber droid Huyang (David Tennant). The old droid doubles down on his view that Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) isn't all that as a Jedi student, but ultimately concedes that the Mandalorian Padawan does come from a "long line of non-traditional Jedi." 

Being a Mandalorian, Nadine's own family tree doesn't really provide much in the way of Force-sensitive peculiarity — apart from herself, of course. Instead, Huyang is almost certainly referring to her Jedi training lineage, which indeed is one for the ages. After all, Nadine's master is Ahsoka, who in turn trained under Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen). The future Darth Vader received his training from the legendary Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) before turning to the dark side. Obi-Wan trained under Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson), who used to be Count Dooku's (Christopher Lee) Padawan. Like Vader, Dooku eventually became a Sith Lord, but before this, he received his Jedi training from none other than Grand Master Yoda (Frank Oz). Say what you want about their qualities as Jedi, but all of these figures definitely count as "non-traditional."

It's interesting to note that the particular training lineage Sabine belongs to has a wildly fluctuating success rate. While everyone in the line is extremely powerful — except for Sabine herself, at least for now — they also have severe difficulties adhering to the light side of the Force. In fact, the lineage boasts no less than two powerful Sith lords and one Jedi outcast. Even Yoda, Qui-Gon, and Obi-Wan, who stayed on the straight and narrow Jedi path, all had their own peculiarities and weren't above challenging the status quo in their own ways.

In fact, the lineage's peculiarities didn't even begin with Yoda. The diminutive Grand Master received his initial training from a serpent-like, four-armed Hysalrian known as N'Kata Del Gormo, who liked to hang around on a swamp world and carried a staff with a large crystal attached to it. Little did young Yoda know that centuries later, he'd spend quite some time on a swamp planet himself.  

The fact that Huyang is fully aware of Sabine's strange Jedi lineage and considers her connection to the Force abysmal is interesting, since in Episode 2, he nevertheless encouraged the Mandalorian to resume her training. It seems clear that the droid knows more than he's saying, since he's still willing to work on Sabine's training despite her apparent lack of natural Jedi talent and the highly volatile Jedi line she'd be a part of.