Star Wars: What is a Purrgil and the connection to Ezra Bridger, Thrawn and Ahsoka explained

First introduced in the rebels Animated series, these spaceship-sized creatures live in outer space, traveling across the galaxy on hyperspace routes. Not only can you travel at the speed of light, but you can also navigate in hyperspace without colliding with planets, moons or stars. That is, Purrgil have been the cause of ship accidents in space, such as when a ship accidentally collides with a ship while it is at the speed of light.

At first glance, the appearance of Purrgil is striking The Mandalorian may just seem like a fun piece of world building, a cool visual easter egg for live action, but there’s a little more to it than that war of stars reference than that. Finally, Purrgil are very strong with Ahsoka Tano’s own storyline in the post-Return of the Jedi Timeline and their search for Grand Admiral Thrawn and presumably the missing Jedi Ezra Bridger.

As rebels Fans know that Purrgil is actually the reason Thrawn and Ezra disappeared from the known galaxy at the end of the animated series. Ezra, who can connect and communicate with Purrgil and other animals through the Force, uses these creatures to defeat Thrawn’s fleet during the Battle of Lothal in the days leading up to the original trilogy’s launch. To remove the Imperial fleet from the battlefield, Ezra has the Purrgil wrap their tentacles around the ships and send them into hyperspace to parts unknown. Since Ezra was on Thrawn’s Star Destroyer when Purrgil attacked, effectively sacrificing himself to save his home planet, he disappeared along with the villain, never to be seen again during the Galactic Civil War.

But we Do know that we will see Ezra and Thrawn again during the Mandoverse saga. In The Mandalorian Season 2 we learned that Ahsoka was still looking for Thrawn, and has been ever since rebels ended with Ahsoka and Mandalorian rebel Sabine Wren vowing to find Ezra, wherever he may be, we know she’s trying to track down the Grand Admiral to find her fellow Jedi. In fact, Ezra has already been cast for the upcoming one Ahsoka series where He is played by Eman Esfandi (King Richard). So it’s far from confirmed that he’ll eventually return to the galaxy far, far away.

Whether the appearance of purrgil on The Mandalorian Season 3 is just a nod to that future quest or set to prep for Ezra’s live-action debut (is he using the Purrgil to watch over Grogu?!), remains to be seen. Either way, the scene is a nice reminder that all of these stories are constantly communicating and creating interesting connections. We shall soon see where these Purrgil lead.