After becoming a beloved Star Wars character throughout Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels, Ahsoka Tano’s story is expanding in her new live-action series, Ahsoka. Tano is a relatively new character to the franchise, as she didn’t make her first appearance until the Star Wars: The Clone Wars film in 2008. However, over the course of 15 years, her story has unfolded, and it turns out she played a role in some of the most major events in the Star Wars timeline.
When viewers first meet Tano, she is just 14 years old. During the Clone Wars, she was Anakin Skywalker’s padawan. She had many adventures with Anakin and Obi-Wan Kenobi, though she eventually left the Jedi Order after being framed for a crime she didn’t commit. After leaving the order, Ahsoka spent some time in the Coruscant Underworld. Despite being disillusioned with the Jedi Order, she still aided the Republic in the Siege of Mandalore. Unfortunately, shortly after this battle, Order 66 was carried out, marking Anakin’s turn to the dark side and the rise of the Galactic Empire.
Order 66 and Anakin’s turn to the dark side is where Star Wars: The Clone Wars concludes. Considering this was the project (before Ahsoka) that followed Tano’s story most closely, her timeline becomes fairly fuzzy at this point. Meanwhile, Ahsoka takes place around 9 ABY, which is nearly 30 years after Order 66. During this gap, the full original Star Wars trilogy takes place in which Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher), and the rebels succeed in overthrowing the Galactic Empire. So, where was Tano during the major events of this trilogy?
Ahsoka Tano’s whereabouts in the original Star Wars trilogy
The reason why Tano isn’t in the original Star Wars trilogy is quite simple: her character hadn’t been created then. The original trilogy was released between 1977 and 1982, over three decades before Tano was introduced to the franchise. However, the shows have established that Tano did exist in-universe during the events of the trilogy, and the franchise has shed some light on her whereabouts. In Dave Filoni and E.K. Johnston’s novel Ahsoka, it is confirmed that Tano survived Order 66 by faking her death and going into hiding.
She laid low for a while on the moon of Raada, where she adopted the identity of Ashla and worked as a mechanic. Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before the Empire encroached on Raada, inspiring Tano to rally the moon’s inhabitants in a rebellion against the Imperial Forces. After this success, she delves fully into the Rebel Alliance, working for Senator Bail Organa as an undercover operative called Fulcrum. The next time we catch up with Tano is in Star Wars Rebels, where she aids the Ghost Crew under her secret identity throughout season 1.
After revealing her true identity to the crew, Tano begins working with them directly and accompanying them on missions. During one mission, Tano heads to Malachor in search of knowledge to fight the Empire at the site of an ancient Sith temple. On this mission, she comes face-to-face with Darth Vader (James Earl Jones) and is seemingly killed while dueling him. However, two years later, Ezra Bridger (Taylor Grey) uses an aspect of the Force known as the World Between Worlds to save Tano from that moment in time. After being rescued, she returns to her own time, disappearing once more into the ruins of the temple on Malachor.
In these ruins, Tano finds another gateway to the World Between Worlds. This is where her story drops off—right where the original trilogy begins—and it doesn’t pick until the Star Wars Rebels epilogue, which takes place about five years after the events of the original trilogy, and in the same timeline as The Mandalorian. Where exactly Tano was during this gap is still unknown, but it seems that she may have spent all those years in the World Between Worlds on a spiritual journey; when she finally reappears in the Rebels epilogue, she is older, wiser, and dressed in white robes, earning the nickname Ahsoka the White.
Perhaps Ahsoka will shed more light on what exactly happened during Tano’s spiritual journey that kept her absent from the original trilogy.
(featured image: Disney+)
