For as much as The Mandalorian has managed to fix, repair, and altogether introduce certain aspects of The Mandalorian's timeline; it's been utterly inconsistent over the years, with some canon Star Wars sources stating that everything from The Mandalorian season 1 through The Book of Boba Fett takes place in the same year, while creator Jon Favreau insists it's more similar to the real-world gaps between stories.

One of the events that's been affected by this timeline inconsistency is the Great Purge of Mandalore. The Purge, first mentioned by Paz Vizsla in The Mandalorian season 1, episode 3, is a key event in The Mandalorian and the history of Mandalore as a whole. The importance of this event that nearly wiped out all Mandalorians, however, goes far beyond the screen. It also served a real-life purpose for the Star Wars timeline and overall continuity that's now become a plot hole yet again.

The Purge Of Mandalore Was Envisioned As An Explanation For One Simple Problem

Where Were The Mandalorians During The Original Trilogy?

When Favreau began writing The Mandalorian, he ran into one big problem: there weren't any Mandalorians in the original Star Wars trilogy. Boba Fett, of course, was the exception, but even his status as a Mandalorian is, at best, uncertain in Star Wars canon. Creating a story that takes place just a few years after the original trilogy thus had the difficulty of explaining why this was, and how the Mandalorians had managed to avoid getting involved in the Galactic Civil War.

In April 2020's issue of Empire Magazine, Favreau himself posed the question:

I thought, "How come there are no Mandalorians in the movies? What's going on there?"

That was what led him down the road of creating the Great Purge, an event that could do the work of explaining why Mandalorians were entirely absent from such critical events in galactic history. The Purge saw Moff Gideon essentially level Mandalore and those who inhabited it after betraying Darksaber in exchange for the preservation of her people. As a result, Mandalorians nearly went extinct.

Naturally, this would have taken place before the original trilogy era, as Mandalore would have already been in ruins by the time Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa, and Han Solo were helping the Rebel Alliance to defeat the Galactic Empire. This, however, didn't remain the case for long. Instead, Star Wars further complicated things, including their own timeline, to essentially defeat the purpose of the Purge as a whole.

Star Wars Has Now Retconned The Purge To The OT Era

This Event Is Concurrent With A Major Galactic Conflict

Rather than taking place before the original triogy era, the Purge now takes place during that time period. This complicates the matter tenfold; it means the Mandalorians are still active during at least the early part of the original trilogy, and it also means that those movies completely glazed over one of the galaxy's most devastating cases of what's essentially attempted genocide. Now, it makes even less sense that the Mandalorians weren't a part of the original trilogy.

Not only that, but the timeline of the event has also continued to jump around in ways that are more and more nonsensical. The Ahsoka season 1 finale saw the droid Huyang insisting that this event had happened after the war had ended, while the video game Star Wars Outlaws dated a discussion of the Purge by stormtroopers to 3 ABY - which would be around the time of The Empire Strikes Back. This is at least a two-year difference, if not more.

Now, it makes even less sense that the Mandalorians weren't a part of the original trilogy.

It's unrealistic to think that the Mandalorians wouldn't have somehow been involved in the conflict if the Purge hadn't happened, especially given the distaste that the Empire had put into their mouths just a year's time before A New Hope. The animated series Star Wars Rebels saw Mandalorians together to rid Mandalore of Imperial influence, ultimately culminating with Bo-Katan wielding the Darksaber and uniting various Mandalorian clans underneath the blade.

Given that Mandalorians are people of honor, and of the early Rebellion, namely fellow Mandalorian Sabine Wren, Ezra Bridger, and Kanan Jarrus, assisted Bo-Katan in reclaiming the planet, it's hard to imagine that they wouldn't have returned the favor by helping to fight the Empire during the war. This new retcon of the Purge's timeline, however, means that it really is the case that Mandalorians simply kept to themselves during this critical time in history.

We Even Have A Mandalorian JEDI In The OT Era!

Sabine Wren Was In Jedi Training During This Time

The more The Mandalorian and its adjacent stories go on, however, the more unrealistic this seems - especially with new developments in Ahsoka. The aforementioned Mandalorian Sabine Wren is now confirmed to have been in active Jedi training with Ahsoka Tano during the original Star Wars trilogy era, which means they both should have been rather prominent figures in the Rebellion's fight against the Empire. This is especially true when ing that Sabine was a founding member of the unified Rebel Alliance as a member of the Spectres.

Mandalorian Jedi are already extremely rare in Star Wars, dating back to the creator of the Darksaber himself, Tarre Vizsla. The knowledge that one of them was in active training during this time makes it seem even harder to imagine that a Mandalorian Jedi would not be a part of the greater story. Sabine would have continued to be a great asset to the Rebellion with the addition of her Jedi training, and as someone who's always stood up for the right cause, her master, Ahsoka, would also have done the very same.

This, unfortuntely, is not, and cannot, be the case. What has transpired in the original three Star Wars movies has already happened, and little can be done to change what actually takes place on-screen in those movies. While the franchise initially endeavored to resolve one of their biggest plot holes, they have unwittingly created not just a bigger one, but also another smaller one. It's unclear how The Mandalorian franchise will manage to explain all this, but it's beginning to seem like it may be a necessity.