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Ahsoka, Episode 5: a triumph for Star Wars

14.9.2023

Translation: Katherine Martin

Director Dave Filoni didn’t just transport me back to my childhood with this fifth episode of Ahsoka. He also proved that Star Wars has a future in Disney’s hands. Let’s piece the [SPOILER] together.

Beware: this article contains SPOILERS about Ahsoka, Episode 5: Shadow Warrior. Don’t read on without watching the episode first.

Okay, so that really was Anakin Skywalker. Not an illusion, not a trick of the Dark Side, but the man himself: Ahsoka’s Master, brother-in-arms and friend. Last week, I still had my doubts. Doubts that haven’t been completely dispelled by this episode. The thing is, they may never have to be. After all, we’re talking about the Force and all its mysteries. Mysteries that have never been fully explained to us.

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Ahsoka, Episode 4: we NEED to talk about that ending!
by Luca Fontana

Still, director Dave Filoni started out as a protégé of George Lucas. Having always had a direct line to the very person who invented the Force and its concepts, Filoni gives us plenty of new clues revealing more about it. Puzzle pieces, if you will.

Let’s put them together as best we can.

Is the World Between Worlds real?

«Back to the beginning,» Anakin says to Ahsoka at the end of the fifth episode. And yep, that seems like a good place to start.

Last week, I explained where Anakin and Ahsoka are right now: the realm known as the World Between Worlds. A place within the Force that exists not only on a physical level, but on a metaphysical one. An endless expanse of bridges and pathways, where everything that’s ever happened and everything that’s yet to come unfolds simultaneously. Obi-Wan Kenobi once said that the Force surrounds us, permeates us, and binds the galaxy together – and the World Between Worlds embodies exactly that.

But where exactly is the World Between Worlds?

We first encountered it in Rebels, Season 4 – Episode 13. Well, technically, it was Rebels, Season 2 – Episode 18, when series hero Ezra Bridger uses Jedi meditation to contact Yoda, without them physically being in the same place. Only, at that point, nobody knew how this was happening.

How and when people gain access to the World Between Worlds in still a mystery. Later, in season four, Ezra actually finds a sort of portal into the realm on his home planet Lothal. This time, he’s even able to access it physically. As a matter of fact, he manages to step into another portal, into the past, where he saves Ahsoka from being cut down by Darth Vader.

Does this mean that the World Between Worlds is a physical space that can be accessed via Force portals? Maybe. Then again, maybe not. Unlike in Rebels, there’s no portal in Ahsoka for the titular character to enter the World Between Worlds. Instead, the entire encounter with Anakin seems to take place in Ahsoka’s head. Mind you, this doesn’t make it any less real.

I’m more inclined to think that we simply haven’t found out how this mysterious World Between Worlds works yet. The only sure thing seems to be that Ahsoka’s spirit has entered the realm somewhere on her journey from this world to the next. She may even have been granted access by the Force itself. Who knows?

We’ll probably never find out. And that’s okay.

The first vision: Ryloth

Let’s talk about Anakin. Right at the beginning, he reveals he’s returned to finish Ahsoka’s training. There’s one last lesson he still has to teach her, he says.

«Live – or die.»

Actor Hayden Christensen is 42 years old. This is, undoubtedly, the best digital age reversal I’ve ever seen.
Source: Disney / Lucasfilm

Naturally, this nugget of wisdom isn’t as crude as it sounds. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be Dave Filoni’s writing. Even in The Clone Wars and Rebels, Filoni was a master at developing his characters without spoon-feeding us viewers everything in bite-sized chunks. We won’t learn what the lesson’s really about until we put together the puzzle pieces revealed in each vision.

Vision number one. The Clone Wars have only just started raging. A young Anakin, clad in good old Clone Wars gear, rushes to the aid of an even younger Ahsoka Tano. The setting? Ryloth. Not only recognisable on account of its rough, orange landscape. But also because of the Twi’leks talking to Captain Rex in the background.

Clone Wars fans will immediately recognise the battle as the one from Season 1, Episodes 19-21. Back then, Ahsoka was still a snippy little brat (hence why Anakin keeps calling her Snips), not an experienced, mature leader and wielder of the Force. She had to make – and learn from – plenty of mistakes to get to where she is now. One of her gravest errors was made during the liberation of Ryloth – the very battle we’re now reliving. In her eagerness to prove herself, she ignored Anakin’s pleas for caution. Subsequently, she led the soldiers under her command right into a trap – and lost.

Anakin became Ahsoka’s Master early in the Clone Wars.
Source: Lucasfilm

Ahsoka survived after being rescued by Anakin. Most of her clone troopers, on the other hand, did not. Dragged to rock bottom by the weight of her guilt, it’s the Anakin of the animated series who, to Ahsoka’s surprise, doesn’t admonish her. Instead, he encourages her to go on believing in herself and her abilities in spite of everything. In fact, this is the first major turning point in Ahsoka’s character development. While viewers had previously written her off as way too annoying, it was during this battle that fans started to warm to Ahsoka. She’d later become one of the most popular Star Wars characters ever.

The Ahsoka series runs a similar course. Anakin tells his apprentice that even leaders aren’t infallible. That there’s always a price to be paid in war. That she shouldn’t let this discourage her from continuing to fight. After all, it’s his job to train her as a soldier. And to become a leader. Part of the reason the Jedi exist is to lead. Those who don’t adjust to the times will falter. But Ahsoka doesn’t agree. She wonders whether all she’ll ever have to teach her own Padawans is how to fight.

Meanwhile, Anakin turns back to the battle – and Dave Filoni shows us one of the most beautiful shots we might have ever seen in Star Wars.

The second vision: Mandalore

Next vision. Once again, Filoni whisks us away to a familiar setting from The Clone Wars, Season 7. It’s the Siege of Mandalore, the last great battle of the Clone Wars. Anakin and Ahsoka parted ways there so that Anakin and Obi-Wan could return to Coruscant and rescue Chancellor Palpatine, who’d been kidnapped. These are the events unfolding during the opening sequence of Episode III – Revenge of the Sith. Anakin was then seduced by the Emperor, going on to become Darth Vadar. It’d be years before he’d see Ahsoka again.

The last time Ahsoka saw Anakin alive – as Anakin, not Darth Vader.
Source: Disney / Lucasfilm

«You did well. You’re a warrior now, as I trained you to be,» Anakin says.

«Is that all?» Ahsoka scoffs.

Ah, we’re getting to the heart of things now. Within Ahsoka, Anakin explains, is everything that he is. All the knowledge he possesses. Just like he possessed the knowledge of his Master, and his Master before him.

«You’re part of a legacy.»

That’s it. The crux of it all.

Ahsoka struggles with her role as Sabine’s Master because she fears this very legacy. A legacy of war, death and destruction. Maybe even more than that. Something worse. After all, Anakin, too, was stronger and more dangerous than anyone could have suspected. And if Ahsoka is everything Anakin is – everything he was – then that also includes his darkest depths. So if she carries on, she too will fall. Ahsoka. Sabine. The galaxy. Wasn’t that exactly what Baylan Skoll prophesied during their battle?

«That’s what this is about?,» Anakin snaps. «You’ve learned nothing. Back to the beginning.»

The Master and his Apprentice

We’ve come full circle now. To the lesson: «live or die». And for the first time, we see Anakin Skywalker with Sith eyes and a red lightsaber. Young, agile and seething with power. Free of the confines of his black suit and mask. Evil through and through. In other words, we see him as the Darth Vader that Obi-Wan Kenobi denied the Emperor.

Filoni, you son of a gun.

Star Wars doesn’t get better than this. I can die a happy man.
Source: Disney / Lucasfilm

Ahsoka almost falters. In the end, however, she manages to defeat the evil Anakin. For a brief moment, as she holds Anakin’s red lightsaber to her former Master’s throat, her eyes flash Sith red as well. But Ahsoka doesn’t succumb. She deactivates the lightsaber, realising that although she carries Anakin’s legacy, she’s strong enough (stronger than Anakin, in fact) not to fall to the depths he did.

Ahsoka lets go of Anakin and chooses to live. Chooses to go on. And to write her own story. Full of conviction. No longer drowning in doubt about her place in it. After all, the past is just that – in the past.

Anakin’s eyes return to their natural colour. A mischievous smile actually flits across his face. He has one last thing to say before he vanishes.

«There’s hope for you yet.»

That was the lesson.

Rebirth

So what was that Anakin? A Force ghost? I don’t think so. He didn’t have one of those classic, blue auras. Then again, maybe Force ghosts only glow when they manifest in the physical world. On this occasion, he manifested himself inside Ahsoka’s mind – in the World Between Worlds. That might explain it. Having said all that, this is one of those things that I don’t need to have explained to me in exact detail.

Some good, old-fashioned Christian symbolism comes next. Ahsoka is reborn, as the World Between Worlds floods. Cleansed of guilt, doubt and emotional anguish, she finally puts on the white poncho she first wore at the end of Rebels. Grinning from ear to ear, as if relieved of a burden she’d been carrying for years. She’s finally ready to grow. And maybe she’ll bring that growth to the Jedi Order too. Just as Anakin once taught her all those years ago during the liberation of Ryloth.

This is her legacy.

With a renewed sense of confidence in herself and the Force, she sets out to find Sabine – this time, without the use of a star map. Instead, she follows her instincts. Maybe she’s even guided by the Force itself. After all, who knows where the whale-like Purrgil will next pop up on their extragalactic migration?

«The Force will be with you. Always,» Obi-Wan Kenobi once said to Luke Skywalker.

And it’ll be with Ahsoka too.

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Luca Fontana

Senior Editor

Luca.Fontana@digitecgalaxus.ch

I'm an outdoorsy guy and enjoy sports that push me to the limit – now that’s what I call comfort zone! But I'm also about curling up in an armchair with books about ugly intrigue and sinister kingkillers. Being an avid cinema-goer, I’ve been known to rave about film scores for hours on end. I’ve always wanted to say: «I am Groot.»

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