It’s thanks to beskar steel that Sabine avoids joining the “Star Wars” club of characters who have lost a limb to a lightsaber. After being disarmed herself, she’s able to deflect a blow from Shin’s saber using one of her vambraces. Sabine’s Mandalorian arsenal similarly comes to her rescue when she tries to Force push Shin, but only manages to move her arm back slightly (the matter of Sabine’s Force-sensitivity is, as we learned last week, rather complicated). As Shin is gloating, “You have no power,” she gets disarmed herself by an explosive projectile fired from Sabine’s wrist.
Symbolically, this is Sabine’s training as a Mandalorian filling in the gaps where a Jedi would normally have natural talent with the Force. As we saw when Sabine was chasing Shin through the forest and firing off blaster shots, the worst thing a blaster can usually do to a trained Jedi is trigger their carpal tunnel syndrome. Between superhuman reflexes and a heightened sensitivity to danger, Jedi are able to block blaster shots simply by swinging their lightsabers with perfect timing and batting the blaster shot away (kind of like a high-stakes game of “Pong”).
Ancient Mandalorians presumably picked up on this pretty quickly, which is why Mandalorian wrist rockets explode on contact. Shin brings her lightsaber up and successfully blocks the shot with the blade, but the explosive dart still knocks the lightsaber from her hand. Sabine’s marrying of Jedi and Mandalorian fighting styles also has deep roots in “Star Wars” lore that date back to Tarre Vizsla, the first Mandalorian to join the Jedi Order, and the creator of the Darksaber.