Fear of Loss

Ahsoka Part 8 "The Jedi, The Witch, and The Warlord"

DON’T FEAR THE SPOILERS

Early in “The Jedi, The Witch, and the Warlord,” Ahsoka’s season finale, while helping Ezra in the handy lightsaber-building-workshop aboard Ahsoka’s ship, Huyang shares some key information about Ahsoka and Sabine’s relationship. It turns out when the Empire bombed Mandalore into glass, Sabine’s family was killed. After that, Ahsoka believed unlocking Sabine’s full potential could make her dangerous. Ahsoka Tano once saw firsthand what a Jedi obsessed with loss could become and hesitated to put her own apprentice in the same position.

Confronting fear is the destiny of a Jedi. After this scene, Ahsoka asserts that Anakin Skywalker was a good Master (weighing in on this poll) and that he always stood by her. She tells Sabine she will stand by her own apprentice as he once did. Even if Sabine makes decision no one else would understand, Ahsoka will be by her side.

Now, this interpretation of events omits quite a lot of Anakin Skywalker’s story (and I’m not sure it’s a particularly good way to define being a teacher) but it tracks with Ahsoka’s own journey just fine. Ahsoka overcomes her own fear of creating another Anakin, or becoming another Anakin herself, by embodying his best qualities instead. She overcomes her fear and commits to her mentorship of Sabine.

One might also get the impression that Ahsoka fears the return of Thrawn. She’s been on a declared mission to prevent his return since her live action debut in the second season of The Mandalorian. The finale is a race to prevent Thrawn’s escape, with Ahsoka leading Sabine and Ezra in the climactic confrontation.

Thrawn, though, wins. Ahsoka’s worst fear is realized. The Grand Admiral delays his foe until she’s too late to stop him. He doesn’t underestimate the power of a single Jedi or three, he throws a mountain of force at them: the battery of a Star Destroyer, zombie (!) Night Troopers, even a Morgan Elsbeth+3, after she’s received the gift of smudged eye-shadow and the badass Blade of Talzin. He leaves Ahsoka in his hyperspace wake, stranded on Peridea, far from the New Republic, with the words “Long Live The Empire.”

You’d think this would result in Ahsoka screaming into the void or fearing for the death of all she has tried to protect…but you’d be wrong. It’s nearly the opposite. I would call her expression nonplussed, like she lost competitive game of Monopoly with a sore winner. She returns with a placid smile on her face to the Noti mobile village, with her also trapped apprentice, who bears the same expression. They both seem amused and resigned to their fate, happy that they at least saved Ezra from exile. Even if they also saved Thrawn from exile and wound up exiled themselves. As far as they know, they will live out their remaining days on a haunted rock…and that’s kind of fine with them.

This is, at its core, one of the weirdest things about the Ahsoka series. The story doesn’t always match the characters’ emotions. Ahsoka overcoming her fear that Sabine could be dangerous is a logical narrative, for example. If you only read my description above, you’d agree it’s a worthy exploration of why Ahsoka would find being a Master challenging. Thematically, it’s perfectly in line with the themes of Star Wars. It understands the character. Ahsoka’s quest to stop Thrawn failing, leaving her trapped in the same way he was, is a bold story to tell, too. It’s full of dramatic possibilities.

But, as portrayed by Natasha Liu Bordizzo, you’d never suspect Sabine runs the risk of turning into Anakin Skywalker. She doesn’t have much of an edge, not a lot of darkness, she seems like a generally nice person. And, despite our being told of Ahsoka’s fears based on their history together, I would never have guessed that was their backstory based on their behavior. We were told about Ahsoka’s fear and Sabine’s tragedy, not shown the fear or the tragedy. Ahsoka doesn’t seem particularly afraid of Sabine or afraid for Sabine. She doesn’t seem all that afraid of anything.

To be fair, Jedi Masters are a pretty chill bunch. Their whole thing is overcoming fear. Qui-Gon Jinn doesn’t let his heart rate rise above 60 beats per minute for almost the entire runtime of The Phantom Menace (before he gets stabbed and his heart rate goes to zero). The Jedi Order of the prequels look at Anakin Skywalker’s passion as something of a failing. So, it’s a bit of a tradition for Jedi to say to themselves “trust in the Force, things look bad, but there’s a greater plan at work.”

Maybe Ahsoka has a reason to be Zen, besides general Jedi-ness. As the episode concludes, and we’re shown where all the characters have wound up, Ahsoka sees Morai on Peridea, her spirit animal, that represents her connection to The Daughter, a god of Mortis. We leave Baylan’s quest by finding him standing on a statue of the Mortis gods , notably without a representation of The Daughter. The combined implication is that there’s some deep imbalance to correct in the mythic past of the Saga. There’s a new adventure ahead. It’s time, as Ahoska says, to move on.

That’s why “The Jedi, The Witch, and the Wardrobe,” I mean “Warlord,” feels like the beginning of a story, not the end of one. (For more Star Wars related CS Lewis thoughts, read the preamble to my “Definitive Star Wars Watch Order”). Or, more accurately, the Ahsoka finale feels like the continuation of a story that has been going on in relationship with, but not as a part of, the Skywalker Saga for the better part of fifteen years. After eight episodes, our major characters were reintroduced, we visited a new, important location, grappled with a new villain, tied up the loose threads of Rebels, teased the future, and the credits rolled. We started at the end of one story, passed through the middle of a different story, and ended at the beginning of another.

For all the purported influence that George Lucas had on Dave Filoni, Filoni is his very own kind of writer, and his approach to storytelling diverges significantly from his Master’s. Lucas’s impulse with The Clone Wars, for example, was to create an anthology series rather than another epic. He just wanted to experiment. His original Star Wars movies took a long time to be released in Earth years, but in screentime, his own original six movie story took about twelve to thirteen hours. His screenplay structures influenced legions of pop culture filmmakers, and those structures were designed for the cinema.

Dave Filoni’s storytelling instincts lead him to connectivity and sprawl. He’s channeling JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis more than Buck Rogers and serials of the last century. With the Ahsoka finale, he’s taken the deepest cuts, known only to the most diligent fan, and made them central to the lore.

Mortis Ghosts, The Siege of Mandalore, Jacen Syndulla, The World Between Worlds, Morai, Dathomir, Purgills, Nightsisters, Mother Talzin, none of this has ever come within a whiff of the big screen. This is all wild mythology pulled from two animated series that had a collective eleven seasons of television between them. The trilogy of Mortis episodes were first aired in 2011, twelve years ago, on the Cartoon Network on Saturday nights. This is the nerdiest of nerd stuff, and except for Anakin Skywalker himself, none of it has much to do with the Star Wars the vast majority of viewers know.

I can’t imagine most of the people who watched the finale saw Baylan Skoll standing on those statues and said “Wow it’s The Father and the Son from Mortis!” the way I did (or the way a lot of people reading this newsletter might). Still, it could have been mysterious and surreal enough to inspire wonder in anyone. It could have also inspired a puzzled “huh?”

Regardless, no second season of Ahsoka has been announced yet, and Dave Filoni’s movie has no release date, so you can bet that it’s going to take three to five years before we get to the next part of his epic tale. In the meantime, the series only get more disparate. We’ve got Skeleton Crew, then Andor Season 2 in a totally different part of the timeline, and The Acolyte, which takes place in the High Republic era.

Perhaps you’re detecting a little strain in my voice as I write all this. I think I’m struggling to adjust to how daunting that all feels for a typical audience member to follow. Ahsoka didn’t feel like Star Wars for just anyone to turn on and enjoy. It felt like Star Wars for the very faithful. That’s not how Star Wars on screen really worked for most of my life.

So, maybe I just need to overcome my own fear of change. Star Wars, since it moved primarily to Disney Plus in 2019, has become Star Wars for lots of different audiences: the mega fan who watches everything (Ahsoka), the family audience who wants something accessible (The Mandalorian), the nostalgic (Obi-Wan Kenobi), the hard sci-fi audience (Andor), and of course, the fans of the movies, which will always be there to be enjoyed. For all the talk of their being One Big Story, it feels more like there is no longer a single Star Wars Saga or even Star Wars aesthetic on screen. It’s variety of Star Wars-es for a variety of overlapping audiences. Ahsoka, especially, makes that very clear.

As for me? I’m the target audience for the whole damn thing. I eat it all up with a soup ladle. Even with my reservations about pieces of Ahsoka’s storytelling style, and with my more abstract questions about the intended audiences for these shows, I happily dug Ahsoka on its own terms. It was a female-centric, sentimental reunion with state-of-the-art effects and design. It was rife with wish fulfillment and beat with the heart of the old Expanded Universe. It also established a new normal for the New Republic-era, and made some brave choices as it came to a close.

What will this all add up to? Will this wind up being a side quest or the main quest? Was this set up for a movie or a show? Is Ahsoka Tano going to turn into an owl? We’ll just have to wait and speculate. Anticipation is a very fun part of being a fan, in any case. Imagine how we’ll feel in three years when we see the first trailer for Ahsoka Season Two!

Maybe we’ll even see Zeb!