Why Cad Bane Might Have Survived His Showdown With Boba Fett
Cad Bane is dead. Well, so it would seem.
In the conclusion to The Book of Boba Fett’s first season, Boba Fett and Cad Bane face off in a duel. While Cad Bane proves faster on the draw, Boba Fett is wilier with his gaffi stick. He incapacitates Cad Bane before impaling him.
Bye bye, Cad Bane. Or is it?
Death is rarely permanent in various pop culture universes. Well, at least as far as popular characters go. Here are five reasons that Cad Bane may still be alive.
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5. We Did Not See What Happened To The Body
Presumably, the townspeople clean up and dispose of the dead. However, we do not know for sure if that is what happened to Cad Bane. We go from Boba Fett killing Cad Bane to the next scene. Is there a possibility that somebody else appropriate Cad Bane’s body, possibly even somebody Cad Bane has retained as a contingency just in case someone gets the better of him? For a bounty hunter as calculating and methodical as Cad Bane, it seems a likely possibility. There might be a means for his survival or resurrection.
4. Cybernetics
Cad Bane has cybernetic breathing tubes which help him avoid being Force choked. That means they can breathe for him even after his organic respiratory system has failed. That might be the case here. Physically, his respiratory system may have stopped, but his breathing tubes are continuing to breathe for his body, keeping him alive physically. Maybe this is a pathway to implantation with further cybernetics. After all, Fennec Shand was left for dead. Then Boba Fett found her and took her to have cybernetics installed in order to save her life.
Who is to say that Cad Bane is not in some mod shop having a cybernetic heart installed? Perhaps some other cybernetic physiology will be used to resurrect him?
3. The Bacta Tank
The bacta tank is a wonderful panacea for injuries. No injury seems too serious. We see Cobb Vanth lying in the bacta tank in The Book of Boba Fett’s mid-credit scene. Do not forget, we saw Cad Bane gunned Cobb Vanth down an episode earlier. Despite the shot hitting Cobb Vanth in the shoulder, the implication was that Vanth had died. It certainly seemed likely that was the motivation for Vanth’s fellow townspeople to travel to Mos Espa to help out Boba Fett in his battle against the Pyke Syndicate. Even if Vanth did not die, his injuries must have been critical.
Perhaps right now, Cad Bane is lying in some bacta tank, slowly recuperating.
2. Cad Bane’s Physiology
One of the wonderful things about Star Wars is all the different species that we meet. Usually, we do not get to learn much about them culturally let alone their physiology. Such explorations are handled as asides. For example, we learn about the Wookiees’ Life Day in The Star Wars Holiday Day Special, and the Tusken Raiders’ vision quest in The Book of Boba Fett.
Cad Bane is a Duros male. We know nothing about the Duros outside of how they appear physically. Their physiology might have redundancies that kick in when the primary organs are injured.
A wound that might kill a human might not necessarily kill a Duros.
1. Because It Is Star Wars
Unless you are a stormtrooper, it is hard to die in Star Wars. Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker, Yoda, Luke Skywalker, and Leia Organa are all people who have died, yet returned, albeit as Force ghosts. Even Han Solo returned in The Rise of Skywalker as a vision. Darth Maul was cut in half in The Phantom Menace. Yet he survived and, cinematically, would return in Solo: A Star Wars Story. What all these people have in common is that they are either Force-sensitive, or, in the case of Han Solo, dealing with somebody who is Force-sensitive.
As far as we know, Cad Bane is not Force-sensitive, but it just goes to show that science-fantasy offers you a lot of license to avoid permanence. We need to look no further than Boba Fett himself to see how death can be redeemed into life. While we see Cad Bane incur injuries that we think should lead to death, anything can happen in Star Wars.
Cad Bane might be healing and recuperating somewhere right now through some means we have not considered, just waiting to make his return.
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