A reveal in the Obi-Wan Kenobi season finale raises questions over just how many lightsabers have been buried in the deserts of Tatooine. At the end of the episode, Reva decided to abandon her lightsaber in the sands of the desert planet. As proven by the show itself, Reva isn’t the first – or the last – person to take this course of action.
In Obi-Wan Kenobi episode 6, Reva became the latest Star Wars character to retire their lightsaber. Her ruthless mission to kill Obi-Wan made the chances of her surviving the events of the series extremely low, but Star Wars defied expectations and actually put the character on a pathway to redemption at the end of the series. After giving up an opportunity to take her revenge on Darth Vader by killing Luke Skywalker, Reva recanted her evil ways as an Inquisitor. In a moment that proved that Reva had walked away from the dark side of the Force, the character was shown leaving her red lightsaber in the desert. Whether or not she ever retrieved it after the events of Obi-Wan Kenobi remains to be seen.
It's worth noting that Reva’s lightsaber is one of four lightsabers that have been buried somewhere in Tatooine’s deserts at various points in time. The sands were home to two of these (including Reva’s) in the timeframe of the finale. And interestingly, one of these four weapons was actually buried on two separate occasions in the Star Wars timeline. The first lightsabers to wind up there were the ones that were wielded by Anakin and Obi-Wan in the prequels. Obi-Wan Kenobi episode 1 revealed that Ewan McGregor’s character put them there. Obi-Wan dug up the container that held them to retrieve his own, but left Anakin’s behind (for the time being).
Based on what happens in Star Wars canon, it’s no secret that Anakin’s lightsaber didn’t stay in the desert. It was eventually recovered by Obi-Wan and given to Luke in A New Hope. But by the end of the Skywalker Saga, it found its way back in the planet’s desert sands. In Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker’s ending, Daisy Ridley’s Rey was on Tatooine when she buried Anakin’s lightsaber and the one that belonged to Leia. Unless Obi-Wan Kenobi season 2 or a different Star Wars project brings back Reva and finds a way to resume her story, her weapon could have been one of three lightsabers hiding on Tatooine at a single time.
For some reason, burying a lightsaber on Tatooine has become a rather unexpected symbol of a character ending or at least taking a break from their Star Wars journey. What happened in Obi-Wan Kenobi goes to show just how important this seemingly boring desert planet has been to the franchise’s history. So many stories have begun and ended in the deserts of Tatooine.
