#Will Not Make Sense Without Prior Clone Wars and Rebels Knowledge

[greenconvor]

Friend: I don’t like that one Jedi lady

Me: Who?

Friend: The one with the two white lightsabers

Me: *trying to stay calm while talking about my favorite character* Ahsoka?

Friend: Yeah! I didn’t like her

Me: *taking deep, calming breaths*

Me: Okay. How come?

Friend: Her tv show made no sense

Me:

Me:

Me:

Me: Did you watch Rebels?

Friend: What? No I haven’t watched any of the animated sho—

Me:

[corellianhounds]

Criticism of Ahsoka Tano’s Character and Role in Season 2 of The Mandalorian with Suggested Changes

Word Count: 2.8k

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I’m largely indifferent to and more critical of Ahsoka Tano’s live action appearances in The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett than favorable. The short reason for why is that my introduction to her was the second season of Mando with “The Jedi” episode, and your audience only cares about Gandalf the White if they already know Gandalf the Grey.

The longer reason is that I don’t think she’s utilized well for Mando’s story. When I saw her for the first time I only knew through cultural osmosis that she was in TCW and was Anakin’s padawan. That’s it. I don’t know anything about her character and that episode doesn’t give me much to go on. I haven’t seen The Clone Wars or Rebels cartoons and I think it’s unrealistic to automatically expect your audience to know who this person is when this show was introduced as a standalone story with brand new characters, simply set in the world of Star Wars. There’s no indication that I should have seen two unrelated cartoon shows before going into The Mandalorian, so if you’re going to have this pre-established character from another medium, she should be written as if you’re introducing her for the first time. Don’t rely on what part of your audience knows about her, introduce her to this story as a new character because she’s entirely new to your main character (who in this show is also the audience’s proxy for new information). You shouldn’t be relying on our hypothetical prior knowledge for us to trust her or know where she’s coming from regarding the Jedi as a whole.

If your intention as the show runner is for your target audience to be people who have consumed select pieces/all of Star Wars media in the past forty years so you don’t have to do a lot of (or better) exposition, you have to be okay with automatically limiting your audience and likely having casual viewers (of which Mando had many) drop off when you start writing in characters without having more thorough storytelling establishing their place in this show. From a casual viewer’s standpoint, her character isn’t all that interesting, forthcoming, or fleshed out in “The Jedi,” at least not enough for me to care about the fact she’s apparently the main character of that episode since the central conflict/physical plot doesn’t affect or pertain to Mando’s overarching plot or character development, and the Thrawn name drop meant nothing to the audience regarding Mando’s story that far and— in the rest of two seasons of his own show and his participation in TBoBF— has yielded nothing as a result.

What the episode did was introduce Ahsoka so she could get her own show and it largely wasted Mando’s episode and his involvement with Ahsoka for that entire season. We’re not given any indication that the information he gets could only come from her and not another Force user, and at that point the show would have been better served with an original character not constrained by or beholden to an established (apparently canon?) history or the episode’s focus on her.

Bo-Katan comes back at the end of Season 2 and is involved with the overarching plot. Cobb Vanth was apparently from the comics but I didn’t need to have read them for his character to make sense in the Krayt dragon episode because they DID lay out his character well enough I didn’t need prior context. Objectively, “The Jedi” episode is poorly written as an episodic installment of The Mandalorian, the script and characters on their own aren’t all that compelling, the music is what really indicates I’m supposed to care about Ahsoka/her decisions, and if you look at it from the POV of knowing Mando’s story with no knowledge of Ahsoka, she’s kind of wishy-washy and vague in her response to testing/training the kid and her explanation as to WHY she has reservations. I don’t find her character admirable when she refuses to go through with their deal in the end, especially since it’s apparent she had bigger priorities from the beginning.

I know her being clear about her priorities would negate Mando’s purpose in staying there and the episode would follow him off to wherever he went next, but keeping Mando there for her for the whole episode only for her to go back on their deal makes her seem deceitful and not much different than Bo-Katan, who also used him for her own gain and changed the terms of their deal partway through the job once Mando was already working for her. The only difference is in their deliveries and personalities. The showrunners relied too heavily on the audience not wanting Mando to separate from Grogu to be what kept us from protesting about/criticizing Ahsoka’s decision; audience emotions are irrelevant to what will make a stronger story that will have more impact in the end. We don’t have to like every character who’s introduced, and our opinions about them can change over time as the story progresses and we see them develop.

If you don’t want me to think negatively of Ahsoka but you’re dead set on these circumstances being what keeps these two characters together for the length of the episode, she can’t have her mission take priority in the end. It’s that plain and simple. If she was never going to train the kid, she needed to be upfront about it AND you need to explain to Mando— somebody who has zero clue about the Jedi code or Force powers or the caution against attachment and it’s reason for existing in the first place— why the kid seeing him as his father is relevant to Jedi training at all. You can’t just say “You're like a father to him. I cannot train him,” you have to explain to Mando what being a Jedi™ means.

The Jedi were peacekeepers specifically trained to uphold and defend what was best for the greater good and to serve as protectors of other people, meaning the choice to train the child as a Jedi would mean Grogu dedicating his life to this schooling, and that people with strong emotional personal attachments tend to have a harder time separating themselves from their loved ones and tend to prioritize those loved ones over everybody else, meaning they’re less likely to be good at doing what the Jedi specifically were called to do. That doesn’t mean the kid or anybody with similar tendencies is ‘bad,’ it means they shouldn’t dedicate their life to being a Jedi™. There’s more than one way to learn how to use the Force.

Does that ruin the chance of Mando staying there on Corvus because he would logically move on, meaning we as the audience wouldn’t see Ahsoka’s Cool Samurai Episode™? Yeah, but those are the circumstances Favreau and Filoni came up with, so either you change the story or change Ahsoka’s character or change Mando’s role in the Calodan conflict. Kill your darlings and write a better story. It’s not the Ahsoka show, it’s Mando’s.

However, the episode isn’t unfixable.

One of my biggest complaints with Season 2 is that it failed to establish/drive Mando’s character with the inner motivation of why he’s bringing the kid to a Jedi in the first place: yes, the Armorer tasked him with returning the child to the Jedi so that the boy had the chance of being raised by people like him who may already know him and would understand how to raise him to control the powers he has, but that’s the external reason. The whole premise of the show is predicated on the child being in danger and Mando wanting him to be safe. The Armorer says in the finale for Season 1 that the boy is too small and young to be trained as a Mandalorian, but given the fact he’s capable of powers that allow him to do these incredible things, there’s a possibility he can be trained to defend himself in other ways. The point of giving the child to a Jedi is that he’s given the cultural upbringing closest to what he would know as his own (an ideal the Armorer, Mando, and Mandalorian culture as a whole would understand the importance and value of), and most importantly, he can learn to protect himself.

“The Heiress” should have established that as Mando’s internal motivation, and “The Jedi” should have been where the character voiced it because by this point in the season he should be at his most desperate. He’s finally found a Jedi and she’s reluctant to take him. Ahsoka’s his last lead. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: there is only one way for Din and Grogu’s story to end, and it’s with one of them dying before the other. The child does not age the same way humans do. He needs to be trained to use his powers so that he can defend himself when he’s alone. His proximity to Din makes him a target by association because Din simply being a Mandalorian invites conflict. Even when the Empire isn’t after the kid, the child is constantly in danger. Even if Din lives to a remarkably old age, the boy may still be a child by his species’ reckoning. Who’s going to take care of him once Mando is gone? What happens if they’re separated now and the child is in danger?

That’s a very real and compelling motivation for Din to want to give the child away for the child’s own good, permanently if he has to. If giving the boy to a stranger means he will be safe and taught how to keep himself safe, that’s the sacrifice Din is willing to make, especially since that’s mirrored in his experience and upbringing with the Mandalorians. That’s the kind of sacrifice any good parent with empirical evidence backing up their reasoning would understand, and Din has seen that evidence in spades.

We should see Din being scared for the child. That worry fuels his mission and it should stoke his anger and frustration when that mission continues to be foiled by dead ends (Cobb Vanth not being a true Mandalorian, therefore having no contact or information to give him), side journeys that cost him time, resources, safety, and possessions (the Frog Lady’s contact for information contingent on traveling sublight, which garners them the attention of the law), and personal conflicts and compromises (Bo-Katan’s heist, deception, and their culture clash). “The Siege” re-establishes that the child is still in the greatest possible danger he could be as a target of the Empire, and Mando is following his last flimsy lead to a Jedi who may or may not exist or even be on the planet he’s been sent to, considering the person who gave him that intel deceived him once already before giving it to him.

Mando should have been desperate for Ahsoka’s help. If she refuses to train the kid, he (as far as he’s aware) has no other options. If Ahsoka were honest about having larger priorities to attend to (ones Din wouldn’t object to if she explained she was fighting the resurgent Empire too), she could have told him about Tython at the beginning and the two would have parted ways without wasting Mando’s (and the audience’s) time on the Calodan storyline.

Mando wasn’t given enough time or personal connection to the people under the magistrate’s despotic rule for his bleeding heart and sense of honor to compel him to stay, and Ahsoka was honestly capable enough I don’t think she needed Mando’s help. She was planning to storm the castle herself anyway. Mando could have gotten the spear another way if that was to be his incentive for taking down Elsbeth.

In order to fix “The Jedi” and still have Ahsoka as the main secondary character and still have her be an honorable person by the end, a few things need to happen:

If Ahsoka was going to be a genuine option to take the kid under her wing, she should have been sent there by somebody else to depose the magistrate and gain the information about Thrawn that she would then relay back to her partner or employer, or she should had a personal vendetta against the magistrate (devoid of any connection to Thrawn) and genuinely needed help getting close enough to take her out.

Mando needs to be given more story and connection to the given circumstances of Calodan, forming connections with and gathering exposition from the people in town

Ahsoka and Mando’s discussion where she’s already reluctant to take the child as a student for personal reasons needed a better explanation based on how she saw her own master fall because of his flaws (just enough to flesh her out and give exposition to Mando/the audience who have no idea who she is), and Din’s own reasoning and desperation need to reach a boiling point where he reveals why he’s so insistent on the child needing a teacher (so the child can be taught to protect himself). This discussion needs to establish tension and stakes that make the emotional conflict (having Ahsoka take the kid and Mando’s mission being complete) dependent on the outcome of the physical conflict (the liberation of Calodan, Ahsoka resolving whichever conflict she has with Elsbeth)

That revelation allows Ahsoka to say she’ll consider taking the child as a pupil, but that it can’t be done until her mission is completed

The two of them have contact with other characters introduced from Mando’s more fleshed out connections and the story in town, grounding Mando’s involvement in this physical conflict

And most importantly, something Mando does in the ending fight/s inadvertently affords one of the citizens the chance to kill Elsbeth themselves before Ahsoka can get the information she wants. This reinforces Mando’s character as somebody who puts power into the hands of the people most affected by the conflict they’ve asked him to help with, and it inadvertently thwarts Ahsoka’s objective in obtaining information, forcing her to forgo the kid’s apprenticeship and forcing Mando to continue ahead, trying to find the information elsewhere. This outcome, based on consequences driven by character decisions, is much more compelling and satisfying and more naturally prevents the main character from achieving his main objective, forcing him in the story to continue forward.

This doesn’t mean the two of them have to be enemies. Conflict from outside factors prevents Ahsoka from being the child’s teacher and gives a logical segue for Ahsoka to give Mando the next best thing since she can no longer help (information about Tython and the chance of finding another Jedi or Force user). It provides a more natural exit for Ahsoka to either stay or go in the larger story of Mando and the kid, and her character doesn’t end up being wishy-washy or deceitful at all. Things just didn’t work out for the three of them, and it’s time for them to part ways.

If anything, doing that episode right could have meant it became a two-parter in order to really get into some of the nitty gritty of each of those characters and more worldbuilding and hey! Now die-hard Ahsoka fans get two episodes with her, and Mando’s character is given meaningful involvement in town and we can flesh out the storyline with Elsbeth a little more, raise the stakes and really give it some tension and make it more unique.

(This episode could have also had the optional bit of exposition of the two of them coming to the realization that the child doesn’t necessarily need to be a Jedi, that was just the information Din was operating under because that was what was available to him, and what Din really means when he says he needs to find a Jedi is that he wants the child to be protected by people who understand him and can teach him the kind of effective self defense he’d be capable of. Ahsoka or whoever you have filling her role (or even somebody in the town) can tell Mando that being a Jedi is not the only way to master use of the Force, that there are other avenues that would achieve Din’s inner objective, which in turn foreshadow and/or parallel Din dealing with challenges to his faith and the other ways he sees people being Mandalorians.)

(Him deviating from the exact wording of the mission the Armorer gave him is a non-issue. She gave him an objective with the broadest and biggest target she herself likely had knowledge of and she wouldn’t have cared if the kid ended up being given to a non-Jedi provided they were still a Force-user and they were who Din decided was best suited to fill that role. She trusts his judgment. This show had the opportunity to branch out into what else the world of Star Wars has to offer and diversify the setting so that we could have either gotten away from the Jedi or kept from rehashing things the audience is already aware of concerning them.)

[cruelfeline]

@traumatisedbabygay

Here, this is easier for me! So if you an understanding of how I assess the war, and Hordak's role in it, read on! If it's not in your interests, just ignore this post!

Hordak couldn't have fought the First Ones. Mara locked Etheria away in Despondos about one thousand years prior to the events of the show: long before Hordak arrives.

How do we know when Hordak arrives? We don't know exactly, but we can get some sort of idea. In Light Spinner, the Horde is show subduing the Scorpions. This appears to be people's "first view" of the Horde: the first time they're hearing of it.

Micah, at this time, looks to be about fifteen or so. If we assume he was... let's say, thirty when he had Glimmer, and Glimmer is around fifteen/sixteen at the time of the show, then Hordak has been on Etheria for roughly thirty years. Not nearly long enough to have fought the First Ones.

Another simple but of evidence regarding Hordak not fighting them is that he has no idea what First Ones tech is until Entrapta shows him. If he had fought them, he'd be familiar with their tech.

Now, in terms of the Princesses. This is... well, it's mostly headcanon, but it's headcanon made with canon logic in mind. So bear with me!

Once upon a time, back in season three, the understanding of Hordak was that he was a high-ranking general that had been demoted and sentenced to die in battle because he was found to be disabled. A tragic story, to be sure, but still one that allowed him to be the instigator of the war. If he had significant military leadership experience, then it stood to reason that he could form and lead an army upon landing in a new place.

But then seasons four and five aired, and it turned out that this... really didn't make sense.

Hordak was never a general. The Galactic Horde doesn't have generals because Prime's clones aren't even allowed names, let alone ranks in military leadership. They are all interchangeable connected to a hivemind that eliminates the need for orders to be passed down among generals and officers. Prime can just order the hivemind himself; no leadership needed.

The clones are nameless. They are not allowed to be their own people. They are not allowed to identify as anything but a cog in Prime's machine. Furthermore, they are dependent on him and on the hivemind. See how Wrong Hordak reacts when cut off from it? He panics. He cries. It's traumatic and terrifying and absolutely not something the clones are accustomed to.

So take this canon knowledge and think of Hordak when he first came to Etheria. Not as a general, because there are no generals, but as a sick, rejected clone freshly severed from the hivemind. Separated from Prime, from his brothers. Dealing with the trauma of said separation alongside the trauma of being declared worthless due to his illness.

He wouldn't have had basic independent-living experience, let alone the experience needed to create and lead an army. He'd have been enduring immense trauma, both physical and mental, while also figuring out how to live on his own for the first time; not really a state where warmongering is readily feasible without help.

Plus: at the time of the show, we see anti-princess propaganda in the Horde, used to persuade the cadets to fight. That wouldn't have been available when Hordak landed. How, then, did he convince a whole army to fight for him? Why did they agree to? The Horde is made of Etherians, after all. Why would they fight their own countrymen for Hordak? Especially when, again, he's not some high-ranking general with high charisma, capable of tricking hundreds of people with honeyed words. He's a lost clone cult-slave living on his own for the first time. Dealing with frightening amounts of trauma.

So how does one reconcile this?

Well, it's all headcanon from here, but my preferred concept is that Hordak stumbled upon a civil war occurring in the Scorpion kingdom.

Non-magic-users rising up against the magical royalty. Upper class against lower. That sort of thing. It makes a sort of sense, if you look at what sorts of people make up the Horde versus what sorts make up the Alliance. And when you consider that Etheria seems to be ruled by monarchies based upon hereditary magic.

Anti-princess rebels meet a lost clone with really advanced tech, and the two enter a sort of symbiotic agreement. Hordak gets a loyal army. The rebels get tech that can rival the royals' magic. One thing leads to another, and suddenly the Etherian Horde is trying to overthrow Princesses.

Hordak doesn't have to start the war because it's already there. He doesn't have to convince anyone to fight because they're already doing so. All he has to do is offer his weapons, and he gets and army with which to try to win back Prime's love and his own right to live.

Anyway! That's my take on it. For what it's worth c:

[greensword101]

Inquisitor!Kanan AU Pt. 1

Alright, this is going to sound stupid, but I’ve skimmed through a few fics where Kanan is an Inquisitor but is either a reluctant recruit or immediately becomes conflicted when he meets Ezra, his space son.

That didn’t make sense to me. An Inquisitor was a Jedi that fell to the Dark Side. And those who fall typically do so in a sense of “the road to Hell is paved with good intentions” at times or because they are disillusioned like Bariss was in the Clone Wars. In the event that Kanan ever turned to the Dark Side, I believe it would be for good intentions or because of his earlier characteristics as a Padawan (i.e. curiosity). It could be justified as Kanan was fourteen when Order 66 happened, but what if his master fell to the Dark Side prior to this right around the time she took him on as a student? Cue him becoming the Anakin to her Palpatine, except Depa genuinely cares about her student (ironic).

In this au, Depa Billiba had begun to lose faith in the Jedi Order right as she meets Caleb and she sees him as a kindred sou, especially after she learns more about the boy. One who is questioning the way of the Jedi in ways that the Council is very uncomfortable dealing with. Naturally, this feeling of isolation leads to Caleb trusting Billiba, especially when she states that the Jedi are afraid of people like him.

“But why?” Caleb asked, his brow furrowed in confusion.

“Because, my Padawan,” Depa smiled, “the most dangerous weapon one can have is a weapon that can think for itself.”

Caleb, having never known his parents, having been considered an outcast by his peers, puts his faith in the first person to openly express faith in him and encourages his curiosity. Thus begins the decent of Master and Padawan to the Dark Side. Depa, who was drawn towards it due to her disillusionment of the Jedi and Caleb, who’s hunger for knowledge of all kinds would become insatiable as his understanding of the Dark Side grew.

When the Jedi Purge occurs, Caleb and Depa are spared from the slaughter, having deserted their Clone comrades and killing those who have attempted to take their lives. They go into hiding, taking work as bounty hunters or stealing whatever they can. Usually, it would be Jedi archives or artifacts that the Council wouldn’t have wanted falling into the wrong hands.

It doesn’t take long for them to be put under the Emperor’s radar and he orders them to be hunted down to join him as his assassins or die. Naturally, Depa and Caleb agree to serve as Inquisitors, out of pragmatism and because they felt flattered that their abilities were acknowledged by the Emperor himself.

Depa and Caleb stand out among the Inquisitors, being the only Former Jedi to be a part of the Master/Apprentice dynamic before the Republic fell. Caleb stands out due to being the youngest, but somehow just as brutal as the rest of their comrades as the First Sister and First Brother. The First Sister and First Brother quickly become a dreaded duo, due to their strong bond to one another and meshing together fighting styles of Light and Dark. After all, the First Brother considers “know thy enemy” to be the greatest teacher (after Depa, of course).

As the Empire looms over the galaxy, the Emperor soon realizes what a great threat the duo would become if they continued without challenge. Never mind the fact that overthrowing the Emperor never crossed either minds of the First Brother and Sister. They are content with knowledge for knowledge’s sake, freedom to act as they please, and with staying as a team. The Seventh Sister made the mistake of suggesting the First Brother was being groomed to be the First Sister’s boy toy. Her screams still echo to this day in the old buildings of Coruscant.

Through Vader, the Emperor sets up an “accident” to occur on one of the duo’s missions together. Caleb survives at the cost of his beloved mentor, who’s last words to him were “Run!” When he learns that the First Brother survived, the Emperor placed blame on Vader (true from a certain point of view) and redirects anger at his apprentice. It is a clever plan that he knew would lead to the First Brother either killing Vader and taking over as the Emperor’s apprentice or Vader dealing with a potential rival a move is made against him. Caleb knows this himself and he goes through a drastic change in personality.

His thirst for knowledge, unbeknownst to the Emperor, would lead to him desperately searching for hidden knowledge of the Force, such as saving the ones he loves most from certain death. At the same time, he becomes ruthless as an Inquisitor, isolating himself from others and seeking comfort in pleasures of the flesh and drink when the memory of his beloved mentor burns too painfully in his mind to function.

Jump to “Spark of Rebellion” time and without meeting Kanan, the chances of Hera meeting the rest of Ghost seem impossible now, right? Wrong! The Force works in mysterious ways, after all, and while she doesn’t find her crew through one person, she still manages to find the like of Ezra by herself on Lothal.

Ezra is still the same kid from canon: trusting no one, hard to think about others, a thief. And he managed to steal Hera’s heart when he tries to run off with her ship. Chopper stops him and a deal is made: work as her employee and Hera would forget about the kid trying to steal her baby. She also promises actual payment which manages to keep Ezra invested and maybe allows him to open up to her.

And through Ezra, they still manage to find Zeb and Sabine. Ezra has a brief crush on Sabine that evolves into a platonic friendship. Sabine still views the Ghost crew as a family. Zeb still smells. Chopper is Chopper. Hera is suddenly like a single mom with the distant uncle that suddenly decides to help her raise the kids.

Without a second actual adult - no, Zeb, you may be the oldest but you are at the same mental age as Ezra sometimes - Hera is probably more stressed than usual. She loves her crew to death, but it can be a bit much sometimes without a second hand to help.

But they are still the same force - no pun intended - to be reckoned with and get under the radars of both the Empire and Rebel alliance.

Ezra doesn’t know about his Force abilities for a while, not even when they are executing a rescue mission to extract an old Jedi Master named Luminara. It’s trickier without Kanan to do the mind trick on Stormtroopers, but Sabine and Zeb manage to distract the two guards in the end while Ezra sneaks in.

The first thing he notices is how weak and frail this “Luminara” lady is. The second is how he seems to feel her presence in his very bones, like an old memory. The third is another presence, a colder one that makes him shiver.

Enter the First Brother. The years since he’s turned have changed him drastically. He wears the Inquisitor uniform, with a black cape. His skin tone is pale as snow, like he hasn’t seen the sun in years. His hair is long and not held down by a ponytail (imagine it a bit like a lion’s mane) and his yellow eyes. piercing and seeming to see through Ezra.

He’s expecting a Jedi risking discovery to rescue the body of Luminara, someone who would hopefully give him a decent challenge. He’s not expecting a teenage boy who is clearly not a Jedi and clearly has never seen what a lightsaber looks like when the First Brother pulls one out.

Ezra in canon was aware of the Force existing and had been pleading with his mentor to actually teach him. Here, he’s thrown into a massive loop and straight up terrified of this new enemy who clearly wasn’t a Stormtrooper. His typical maneuvering doesn’t work when the First Brother is able to pin him down without making physical contact. To Caleb, this is just him barely using Force Stasis. To Ezra, it’s like he’s walked into a nightmare.

Ezra, now frozen both literal and in fear, has a new enemy blocking his only exit and no way to warn his team about the danger they’re in.

“How did you know Luminara?” The First Brother asked.

Ezra doesn’t respond, he isn’t sure his mouth can work and his mind is numb.

“You can still talk if you want to, kid,” the man added in a surprisingly gentle voice.

Somehow, Ezra finds his courage, “I don’t know her. I was trying to rescue her.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s a prisoner of the Empire,” Ezra tries and fails to snarl defiantly at the man, “She doesn’t deserve to be treated like this.”

“You’re partially right,” the First Brother admitted, “She didn’t deserve the fate she got. But the Empire needed a honey pot to draw in the flies.”

“D-didn’t...?”

“Luminara is dead, been that way for a long time.” Out of the corner of Ezra’s eye, he notices the pale Mirialan’s body fading away like dust in the wind. His heart stills.

After a tense moment, Ezra collapses to the ground, having been freed.

“I don’t take pleasure in snuffing younglings,” the First Brother said dismissively. “Take your friends and leave this place.”

Ezra doesn’t even bother asking how the hell he knew Ezra didn’t come alone and simply runs out of the cell. He finds Sabine and Zeb and they all flee in one piece. He doesn’t speak for the rest of the day, too shaken from his experience with the new enemy to do anything.

He has no experience with the Force. He understands he is different, but not why. And he certainly doesn’t expect to see that man again after today.

Meanwhile, the First Brother, for the first time in years, feels something close to excitement. Someone who could use the Force, someone who clearly didn’t know about the Force until just then, someone that was on the side of the rebels.

He sincerely hoped his master was looking down on him in the afterlife, because he was going to become that kid’s new teacher whether the kid wanted him or not.

To be continued...

[aion-rsa]

What The Mandalorian Means for Ahsoka Tano’s Future in Star Wars

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Despite never appearing in the flesh in any of the movies, former Jedi padawan Ahsoka Tano is undoubtedly one of the most popular characters in Star Wars. A hero in every sense of the word, Ahsoka’s journey spans almost the entire film saga, just in animated form.

First introduced as Anakin Skywalker’s apprentice in The Clone Wars animated series, Ahsoka quickly became one of the main protagonists of the series, as we watched her grow as both a Jedi and a commander who led clone forces for the Republic. And even though her time with the Jedi came to an end before Order 66, when she chose to walk away from the Order in search of her own path, she continued to fight for others.

In Rebels, she became the spy known as “Fulcrum,” helping the fledgling Rebellion in its struggle to topple the Empire. It was during this time that she also faced Darth Vader on an ancient Sith planet called Malachor and learned the truth about the fate of her former master. But the revelation did not break her, even as her duel with Vader left her stranded on Malachor.

Stream your Star Wars favorites right here!

Ahsoka’s live action debut in The Mandalorian, played by Rosario Dawson, marks another major step in her journey. No longer someone trying to find her place in the galaxy or with the Jedi, she now uses her powers to help those who need it. And as Magistrate Morgan Elsbeth learns in the “The Jedi,” nothing will stop Ahsoka from seeking justice.

“She is, for lack of a term, a master, because she’s largely an independent at this point,” The Clone Wars and Rebels showrunner Dave Filoni, who is also an executive producer on The Mandalorian, told Vanity Fair. “I play her much more as a knowledgeable knight. A wandering samurai character is what she really is at this point. I’ve always made comparisons to her heading toward the Gandalf stage, where she is the one that has the knowledge of the world and can help others through it. I think she’s reached that point.”

But if you followed Ahsoka’s journey from the animated series to The Mandalorian, you probably noticed that there are still some gaps in her story. How did Ahsoka escape Malachor and show up on Corvus so many years later? And how was she able to speak to Rey in The Rise of Skywalker? Most importantly, what does “The Jedi” tell us about Ahsoka’s future?

How Is Ahsoka Tano Alive in The Mandalorian?

While we know Ahsoka Tano reappeared in the very final scene of Rebels, reuniting with Mandalorian hero Sabine Wren on Lothal before setting out in search of Ezra Bridger, who went missing after being launched into hyperspace while fighting Grand Admiral Thrawn in space, we don’t really know how Ahsoka escaped Malachor in the first place.

For those of you who don’t remember (or didn’t watch Rebels, which shame on you), Ahsoka stayed behind to duel Vader inside the Sith temple on Malachor while the rest of the heroes escaped in the season 2 episode “Twilight of the Apprentice.” For almost two seasons after that, Ahsoka’s fate was unclear, with some believing that the fan-favorite character had met her end at the hands of her master.

But season 4 episode “A World Between Worlds” revealed the truth. In the episode, Ezra gains access to a mystical realm containing portals to different points in time and space. It’s through one of these portals that Ezra is able to pull Ahsoka out of Malachor, just as Vader is about to land a killing blow with his lightsaber.

For a moment, it seems as if Ahsoka has found a way off Malachor. But when Emperor Palpatine senses the world between worlds through the Force and tries to gain access to it, Ezra and Malachor are separated while trying to stop the Sith lord. In the process, Ahsoka is forced to jump back through the portal to Malachor. She then walks back into the Sith temple to an uncertain future.

That’s the last we see of her on screen until she reunites with Sabine in the epilogue of the Rebels series finale “Family Reunion – and Farewell,” which takes place a year after Return of the Jedi. “The Jedi” reveals that Ahsoka is still searching for Ezra four years later, but doesn’t shed light on the sequence of events that led her from Malachor to Lothal and then Corvus.

The best answer we have comes from an unlikely source: the Star Wars Card Trader mobile trading card game from Topps. A series of Ahsoka cards designed by Filoni himself reveals that Ahsoka found another portal within the Sith temple on Malachor that led her back into the world between worlds and “on a spiritual journey that changed the course of her life,” according to Wookieepedia. That’s a pretty vague answer to a very big gap in Ahsoka’s story, but since Filoni designed these cards, they must be canon, right?

The good news is that Ahsoka’s escape from the planet means that we’ll hopefully get to watch many more of her adventures on The Mandalorian as an older and wiser hero.

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What Is Togruta Life Expectancy?

Just how old Ahsoka is when she appears in The Mandalorian? According to Wookieepedia, Ahsoka was born in 36 BBY (Before the Battle of Yavin). Since The Mandalorian takes place in five years after Return of the Jedi in 9 ABY (After the Battle of Yavin), this means that Ahsoka is around 45 years old in “The Jedi,” leaving plenty more years of adventuring ahead of her.

Barring an illness or any of the usual hazards that come with fighting bad guys in the galaxy far, far away, just how many years does Ahsoka have left? While there’s no canon answer when it comes to Togruta life expectancy, the old Legends continuity did state that Togruta could live up to 94 years, a pretty long lifespan when you consider that real-world human life expectancy is about 72 years. Of course, this pales in comparison to the lifespan of Yoda’s species, who can live for centuries.

Regardless of whether the life expectancy of Togruta is the same in the Disney canon, I wouldn’t worry too much about that. Beloved Star Wars characters rarely die of natural causes, which brings us to a big question about Ahsoka’s future: how is her journey fated to end?

How Did Ahsoka Tano Die?

Even if she’s not physically in the movie, Ahsoka’s presence is felt in The Rise of Skywalker when she speaks to Rey through the Force during the film’s climactic battle with Palpatine. She can be heard saying, “Rey!” when the young hero reaches out to the generations of Jedi before her to give her the strength to defeat the Sith once and for all. Although it’s just as likely that her inclusion in this scene is simply a wink at the Star Wars fans who love the character, Ahsoka’s single line in The Rise of Skywalker has led some to wonder whether this means she died prior to the events of the Sequel Trilogy.

There is some “evidence” that this might be the case, primarily the fact that the other Jedi who speak to Rey in The Rise of Skywalker — Luke Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker, Mace Windu, Yoda, Qui-Gon Jinn, Luminara Unduli, Aayla Secura, Kanan Jarrus, and Adi Gallia — are all dead. But the difference is that we’ve witnessed the deaths of all of these other characters, whether it be in the films, the TV series, or in the pages of the books and comics. (While we don’t see how Master Unduli died, her death was confirmed in Rebels.)

Ahsoka’s fate, on the other hand, is not written in stone. As far as we know, Ahsoka could have lived decades beyond The Mandalorian, and Filoni even suggested after the release of the film that, just because Rey could hear her voice on Exegol, that didn’t mean Ahsoka was necessarily dead.

Was thinking of all of you this fine morning, Happy Holidays! – Dave pic.twitter.com/WpD0kKMbfk

— Dave Filoni (@dave_filoni) December 25, 2019

Filoni went as far as to tell io9 that the movie “doesn’t really have any big implications to what I’m doing with the character, to be honest. I just thought it was a really fun thing. I thought J.J. [Abrams]’s instinct to be so inclusive with all these various elements of Star Wars and characters [was great]. And I thought it would be a great thing for the actors involved to be a part of something that was just really this celebrating moment of the Star Wars saga. So I didn’t think of it in a literal story [way]. The film, to me, is like a different area.”

In other words, Ahsoka’s cameo in The Rise of Skywalker could be nothing more than just a wink at fans. Certainly, Ahsoka’s story in “The Jedi” suggests that she has plenty more to do. Next on her list is finding Grand Admiral Thrawn, who could lead him to where Ezra is.

Will Ahsoka Be in The Mandalorian Again?

In many ways, and this is pure speculation, “The Jedi” plays like a backdoor pilot, setting up what could be Ahsoka’s own standalone series on Disney+. The episode introduces just enough of Ahsoka’s own mission without giving much of it away. By the end of the episode, we know that Ahsoka’s on her way to find Thrawn, a confrontation so many years in the making that it seems too big (and distracting) to happen on The Mandalorian.

But even if Ahsoka were to get her own series, that doesn’t mean she would never cross paths with Mando and Grogu again. Since Disney bought the Star Wars franchise in 2012, the studio has been working to build a shared universe of stories on screen that communicate with each other and share characters from one property to the next — just like the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In the same way that The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and WandaVision are meant to tie into the upcoming Marvel movies, The Mandalorian and a potential Ahsoka series (and the rumored Boba Fett spinoff) could be set up to interact with each other, too.

In fact, “The Jedi” has left the door open for Ahsoka to appear in future The Mandalorian episodes, even as she searches for Thrawn in her own series. She’s already played a pivotal role in Mando and Grogu’s own journey, not only helping the bounty hunter learn his little companion’s real name but also revealing Grogu’s tragic history. Unable to fully understand the child or the way of the Jedi, Mando has needed people to show him the way throughout his quest, and Ahsoka could prove to be the perfect guide and mentor for the duo when it comes to the mysteries of the Force, even if she won’t outright train Grogu as an apprentice. As Filoni said of Ahsoka’s resemblance to Gandalf: “She is the one that has the knowledge of the world and can help others through it.”

Will Ahsoka Meet Luke Skywalker?

In “The Jedi,” Ahsoka points Mando and Grogu to Tython, a mysterious planet powerful in the Force that could be the birthplace of the Jedi Order. There, Grogu must decide whether to reach out with the Force to another Jedi or stay with Mando.

“If he reaches out through the Force, there’s a chance a Jedi may sense his presence and come searching for him,” Ahsoka tells Mando. “Then again, there aren’t many Jedi left.”

Fans’ ears likely perked up at this line of dialogue since we all know of at least one other Jedi operating in the galaxy five years after Return of the Jedi: Luke Skywalker himself. Is the show hinting that Luke will make an appearance on the show to take Grogu in as his student? That seems unlikely since Mando and Grogu are the emotional core of the series, but Ahsoka’s acknowledgement that there are other active Jedi in the galaxy could mean that she’s aware that Luke is out there.

Could this mean that Ahsoka has already met Luke or is poised to meet him in the future? Either way, their meeting seems inevitable. In fact, an Ahsoka and Luke story would provide the rhyming poetry that Star Wars so often deploys: Anakin’s old apprentice finds Anakin’s son years after Vader’s death and helps him learn something new about the Force or the Jedi. Ahsoka could guide Luke in ways that Anakin could not, while she could learn more about her master’s ultimate sacrifice for his son.

The only issue, of course, is that Mark Hamill is much older than Luke would be five years after Return of the Jedi, which means that a potential meeting with Ahsoka would likely involve some heavy CGI to de-age Hamill or a recast of Luke. Unless Ahsoka doesn’t meet Luke until much later in his life, it might be time to ring up Sebastian Stan.

Keep up with all of The Mandalorian season 2 news here.

The post What The Mandalorian Means for Ahsoka Tano’s Future in Star Wars appeared first on Den of Geek.

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Image: Star Wars Rebels, Disney/Lucasfilm

Thrawn is a great Star Wars book that stands on its own. But the little nods and winks Timothy Zahn makes to Thrawn’s old life in the Expanded Universe novels—and to the events in Rebels, where Thrawn is currently the main antagonist—add another layer of delight. You should definitely read Thrawn (and watch Rebels), but if you don’t have time to go read a hundred EU books and watch three seasons of a cartoon, we’ve collected the major additions to the new Star Wars canon, as well as the threads planted in Thrawn for later stories.

[Note: There are some spoilers here, but we’ve avoided most of the novel’s main plotline. But seriously, just go buy the book already.]

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Thrawn is effectively a prequel to season three of Star Wars Rebels. So events like Rebels making his flagship the Chimaera again don’t make this list, but Lothal, Governor Pryce, Wulf Yularen, and other aspects of Rebels all play important roles in the book. I’ll hit some of that stuff here, but if you like Rebels, again, you really should just pick this book up.

Still, if you haven’t watched Rebels, Thrawn is easily read without knowing anything from the show. It’s a prequel that is truly its own story, and not just an excuse to throw out references to later material for fans.

Thrawn in his Chiss Expansionary Defense Force uniform (Outbound Flight cover by Dave Seeley, Del Rey)

Thrawn and the Chiss

The Chiss

Pretty much everything that was true about the Thrawn’s race, the Chiss, is true again, including the fact that the blue-skinned, red-eyed aliens are a fairly strong power in the Unknown Regions. Now, just as when we first met them in the EU, the Chiss Ascendancy rules a portion of the Unknown Regions and have a strong military with the inviolate rule that no preemptive strikes be taken. Their language, used fairly commonly in the Unknown Regions and their borders, is once again named as Sy Bisti. Chiss eyesight is also better than human eyesight, even getting close to seeing the infrared spectrum.

All of that has moved from old Expanded Universe to the new Star Wars canon pretty much intact. Slightly new is the idea that the Chiss have reached the level of urban legend/myth among the people who live near their area of the galaxy. One of the main characters of Thrawn is Eli Vanto, a young Imperial officer who was born in Wild Space, which borders the Unknown Regions. As a result, he speaks Sy Bisti and knows of the prowess of the Chiss from the local myths. However, just as before, the Chiss know far more about their neighbors than they do about the Chiss.

Additionally, the reason given for Thrawn leaving the Chiss is the same as his EU counterpart—he was exiled because he broke the “no preemptive strikes” rule. The opening chapter of Thrawn is almost identical to Zahn’s 1995 short story “Mist Encounter.” That means that Major Wyan, Colonel Mosh Barris, Captain Voss Parck, and the ship Strikefast are all brought back in their original roles of introducing Thrawn to the Empire and the Emperor. (There are some subtle changes that make sense within the new canon, like using Clone Wars-era ships types, for example.)

Thrawn’s Motivation

In what is actually a very smart subversion of what EU fans were expecting—we all know Thrawn was exiled and why he was exiled—Thrawn alters its eponymous lead’s motivations slightly. As before, Thrawn wants security and safety and sees the Empire as a better way to fight dangers than the Republic was. He basically thinks the Republic was useless in a fight and, while the politics and corruption of the Empire frustrates him, their military might and control is useful to him.

But now Thrawn’s exile was a ruse. Thrawn was sent by the Chiss to gather information about the government next door. When the Emperor refused to have Thrawn as a counselor, he took a job in the Imperial Navy in order to further his goal. The position helps him keep the Empire strong, but also always allows him to do what he thinks is best for the Chiss.

As he did in the old EU, Thrawn recruits humans to his cause and sends them back out to Chiss space. In this case, Eli Vanto is eventually sent by Thrawn to the Chiss. It’s both a way of exchanging information and Thrawn’s way of making sure everyone is strong enough to fight whatever dangers lurk out in the Unknown Regions. Vanto is met by Chiss admiral Ar’alani, who was Thrawn’s superior and ally in the EU. We still don’t know anything specific about the threat, merely that there is evil somewhere out there and it is bad enough that Thrawn will do anything to stop it.

It’s worth remembering that the Aftermath novels have said that Palpatine is obsessed with finding out what’s lurking in the Unknown Regions and was putting a significant amount of Imperial power was sent out there. We also know that Thrawn shares his knowledge of the region with the Emperor—everything except the information about the Chiss. What everyone finds out there had fucking better not be the Yuuzhan Vong (as it was in the EU) or I will lose it. Most fans are assuming it’s where the Imperial remnant—who fled to the Unknown Regions after the Rebel Alliance kicks their asses and became the First Order—picked up Snoke.

Thrawn Connections

Demanding its own book, novella, short story, whatever is the news that Thrawn met General Anakin Skywalker during the Clone Wars. They worked together in some sort of engagement in the Thrugii System (a locale from the EU that is now presumably closer to Chiss space in the new canon than it was in the old) and Thrawn was able to deduce even then that Anakin was under thrall to Palpatine. Whether or not Thrawn knows that Vader is Anakin is left unclear, but it’s Thrawn, so I assume he totally knows.

Thrawn’s time training in the Imperial military puts him under Commandant Deenlark from the new canon novel Lost Stars. And he gets some troublemakers sent to Skystrike Academy, which is where Wedge and Hobbie defect from in Rebels.

Rebels established that Thrawn attained the rank of Grand Admiral after the Battle of Batton, where he led forces against a group of rebels. The rebels died, but so did a lot of civilians. Thrawn makes Batton the last move in a long chess match between Thrawn and a criminal-mastermind-turned-Rebel named the Nightswan. It struck many as odd that Thrawn’s career-making battle would have so many unnecessary casualties, so Thrawn makes clear that he tried to avoid them; it was a selfish action by future Governor Arihnda Pryce—often seen in Rebels—that caused the many, many deaths. Thrawn knows it, and Pryce knows he knows it, but Thrawn doesn’t have any proof. But he’s not happy about it.

Thrawn’s ally from early on is Colonel Wulf Yularen, whose Imperial Security Bureau position helps the unconnected alien out. Thrawn is fairly awful at politics—well, specifically the full-contact sport and nepotism party that is Coruscanti politics. He always wins, but he makes connected people look bad, and his promotions usually follow court martial proceedings.

Thrawn with Pryce and Kallus in Rebels

The Empire

Since the old EU got junked, Palpatine’s non-human attendants and other smaller things gave the impression that the new canon Empire might hate non-humans a little bit less. Thrawn throws that out the airlock. Instead, everyone give a big warm welcome to the old EU’s love of characterizing the Empire as anti-alien, classist, and very, very corrupt.

Thrawn reveals that even if Palpatine himself doesn’t care about aliens (Palpatine cares about himself and his power only), the rest of the Empire has a very clear bias. Thrawn’s rise to power is faced at every turn by people not happy to see a non-human advance. Thrawn gives what I would call a justification for the racism rather than a reason: the Clone Wars were bloody and awful and the Separatists (the faction that lost) were mostly non-humans. So everyone’s content to generally blame all non-humans for the war and the resulting devastation. That’s obviously illogical and is clearly a justification for bias, but it’s unfortunately plausible.

Thrawn pairs this with a bias in the Empire’s government for the connected and those from Core Worlds (like Coruscant) rather than people from more “primitive” Outer Rim (Tatooine) or Wild Space (where Eli Vanto is from). Turns out the Empire—gasp!—is very corrupt. Who you know is most important and most people are lining their pockets. Pryce’s rise to Governor of Lothal is detailed heavily in this book and she faces obstructions for the same lack of connections, and suffers from bias for being from an outlying world. Also mentioned as a little shout-out for Rebels watchers is a reference to Governor Azadi retiring “against his will” and an explanation of how Minister Tua got picked to act in Pryce’s stead (and why). Admiral Konstantine also gets a brief appearance prior to Pryce asking for Thrawn’s forces to replace his in Rebels.

We also are reminded that the Empire uses slave labor, Wookiee slaves especially. A ship full of Wookiee slaves is intercepted en route to where else, the Death Star. Thrawn, rightfully, thinks the Death Star is a hideous waste of time and resources. Unfortunately, it is not his Empire. It belongs to the melted man with the lust for power.

Zahn brought back some things you wanted. But not even close to everything that fans really wanted (Del Rey).

Minor Shout-Outs

Ch’hala Trees

This is a very minor bit, but early on in the book Emperor Palpatine takes Thrawn into a garden where “small trees with shimmering bark stand at the periphery like sentinels of privacy.” Longtime fans will remember that trees with color-changing bark were a favorite of Palpatine’s in the old EU. The Ch’hala trees were both pretty and also a giant spy network, recording and transmitting everything that happened in front of them. Zahn used them in his original books as an important source of information, and if this wasn’t a reference to them, I’ll eat my hat (Thrawn describing them as “sentinels of privacy” is what sealed it for me).

Sturm Dowels

In the very first pages of the book, there is an improvised explosive made with blaster packs with the “sturm dowels” pulled out. “Sturm” is a favorite name in Star Wars, popping up a fair amount. The first instance is Zahn naming one of Talon Karrde’s pet vornskrs “Sturm” in his first Star Wars novel, Heir to the Empire.

But an overloaded sturm dowel was used by Zahn in Specter of the Past and the short story “Mist Encounter.” (As mentioned above, the first chapter of Thrawn is basically just “Mist Encounter,” slightly retooled.) It involves Thrawn, alone on the world he has been exiled to, utterly destroying an Imperial landing party. His tactics are impressive enough to gain him entry into the Imperial Navy, but we’ll get back to that chapter in a bit.

Doonium

In the old EU, doonium was a metal used to make starships. In the new canon, it’s a metal that is worth a lot of money, and acquiring it and the mines that produce it drive the plot. It will shock no one to find out that large amounts of this metal are being bought by the Empire and sent to the location of a large, unnamed secret project. (*cough* the Death Star *cough*).

H’Sishi

I hate to burst anyone’s bubble, but Mara Jade, Talon Karrde, and even Gilad Pallaeon are missing from Thrawn. However, Thrawn does bring back H’Sishi and her people, the Togorians. (Think... large cats walking on their back legs with a culture based on honor and warriors. Yes, another one.)

Through a series of events in Specter of the Past, H’Sishi ended up working for Karrde. In Thrawn, she shows up as the owner of Yinchom Dojo, where Pryce trains—and which, unfortunately for H’Sishi, is used by others in an anti-Imperial plot. H’Sishi’s not involved with it, but she’s told to leave Coruscant quickly after it’s discovered.

Raider-Class Corvette

Welcome back to the canon! Please join your fellows over on this list.

Beckon Calls

Basically, a beckon call is a remote control for a spaceship and Zahn used the technology to good effect in Heir to the Empire in 1991. He brought the idea back for Thrawn, where the title character uses one, along with some Clone Wars-era droids, to really just fuck some shit up in the usual, over-planned, steps-ahead, badass way Thrawn traditionally does.