Anakin Skywalker’s former Padawan Ahsoka Tano first appeared in the animated film Star Wars: The Clone Wars. A powerful Force-user, skilled padawan, and a hero of the Clone Wars, Ahsoka should have had a bright future as a member of the Jedi Order. Despite this, she never ascended past Padawan, leaving the order to pursue other things instead. So what happened? Ahead of her standalone series Ahsoka, which debuts on Disney+ in August, let’s take a look back at Ahsoka’s history with the Jedi Order.
The bombing of the Jedi Temple
During the Clone Wars people began to turn on the Jedi, who were taking active military positions instead of maintaining their traditional peacekeeping role. This included members of the Jedi Order such as Ahsoka’s friend Barriss Offee, a Jedi Knight and Jedi General in the war. Offee decided to act on Ahsoka’s conviction that the Jedi Order had become corrupted by arranging a bombing in the Jedi Temple’s hangar, turning unwitting civilian employee Jackar Bowmani into a living bomb to do so. Ahsoka and Anakin were then called in to investigate the bombing, having been deemed above suspicion by the Jedi Council as they’d been off-world at the time. The two of them identified Letta Turmond, an anti-war activist and wife of the unfortunate Bowmani, as Offee’s non-Jedi accomplice. They arrested Turmond and turned her over for trial.
Turmond chose not to turn Offee in, instead taking sole blame for the bombing. Despite this decision and her long-standing friendship with Ahsoka, Offee decided to kill Turmond and frame Ahsoka for the murder. Offee Force-choked Turmond in her cell, then pretended to help Ahsoka investigate the murder, giving false information that eventually led Ahsoka to the same warehouse that housed the nano-droids used to turn Bowmani into a bomb. Offee, posing as the dark side assassin Asajj Ventress, waited for Ahsoka and attacked her. Though Ahsoka was able to defend herself, Offee escaped undetected, leaving Ahsoka to be discovered in the warehouse by clone troopers.
Ahsoka’s presence in the warehouse led the Jedi Order and the Galactic Republic Military to believe she was responsible for Turmond’s murder and the bombing, despite her exemplary service to both. As a result, Ahsoka was expelled from the Jedi Order and put on trial, facing charges of treason and murder.
Rejecting reinstatement
Anakin was able to capture Offee and prove Ahsoka’s innocence, just moments before she was convicted. The Jedi Order responded by offering to reinstate Ahsoka with the full rank of Jedi Knight as compensation for her treatment. Ahsoka, now thoroughly disillusioned with the Jedi Order, rejected this offer, instead deciding to take off and forge a new path on her own, continuing to use her abilities and training to help others.
Despite fighting in the Galactic Civil War on the side of the Rebellion and working alongside Luke Skywalker, Ahsoka declined membership in this New Jedi Order. Her distrust of the Jedi Order and its place in the Galactic power structure meant she had no interest in re-joining its new, reformed replacement, preferring to continue life as an independent actor.
(featured image: Disney+)
