Ahsoka Tano made her live-action debut on Disney+ in The Mandalorian’s “The Jedi,” and while many fans were excited to see their favorite from Clone Wars and Rebels come to life, others were meeting Ahsoka for the first time. The former Padawan to Anakin Skywalker, Ahsoka brings an important lore with her that had been teased in season 1 but is being explored more heavily in season 2 of The Mandalorian.
Dave Filoni being attached to the show from the jump is something that many fans of the animated Star Wars universe picked up on. Filoni, who was behind the animated Clone Wars and Rebels series, is slowly bringing storylines and characters from that world to The Mandalorian. First, it was the lore of the dark saber. When Moff Gideon brought the saber out at the end of season 1, fans of the animated series knew it wasn’t a good sign, and from there, the characters we’d come to know and love from the extended world of Star Wars slowly crept in.
First, there was Cobb Vanth from the Aftermath trilogy. Then, Bo-Katan appeared, and with each new reveal, it felt as if we were going to see more and more characters from the extended universe in the live-action world of The Mandalorian. While I have my hopes (primarily that Mara Jade will finally have her live-action time), I want to focus on Ahsoka and her mission that she’s bringing into the show.
Yes, the lore that Ahsoka carries with her connects heavily to her relationship with Anakin and that pain and struggle between them. Anakin betrayed everyone in his life when he turned to the Dark Side, and that includes Ahsoka. Throughout the Rebels series, she would come back to fight Anakin and the bond they once shared.
That lore was explained with Ahsoka bringing up Anakin to Din Djarin in the episode. She talks about how a Jedi with attachments isn’t one she could train because she saw what it does to a Jedi—meaning Anakin (and there are theories that this also applies to Ahsoka) was too attached, and it destroyed him.
But the lore doesn’t stop there. Sure, bringing Ahsoka into the live-action world makes everything in the live-action connected that much more to Clone Wars and Rebels, but she also mentions Grand Admiral Thrawn. When Ahsoka is fighting the Magistrate Morgan Elsbeth, she asks her where Thrawn is, and it is an important look into where Ahsoka is then headed.
Her search for Thrawn will, inevitably, connect to Ezra Bridger and his connection to Sabine Wren. Essentially, what Ahsoka’s Thrawn line did was tell us that we’re going to get deeper into Rebels, and our hopes of seeing Ezra again just got a little bit brighter.
It’s going to be interesting to see how deep into both these animated series the show gets and how much of their character arcs they explore. Sure, watching Clone Wars and Rebels would probably help you with all these new characters, but it also isn’t really something that The Mandalorian forces on its audiences. Ahsoka and Bo-Katan stood on their own without needing that history but who knows what the future holds for these characters.
(image: Lucasfilm)
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