2020 is quickly shaping up to be the year of Ahsoka Tano. Not only is Ahsoka back in action in the fifth episode of Star Wars: The Clone Wars’ final season, a new report says she’ll be making her live-action debut in Season 2 of The Mandalorian, with Rosario Dawson taking over a fan-favorite Star Wars role.
This news is so exciting because we know so little about Ahsoka’s story after the events of Star Wars Rebels. With that in mind, let’s explore what we do know and how The Mandalorian can build on a story that fans have been following for years in the animated series and novels.
[widget path=”global/article/imagegallery” parameters=”albumSlug=how-ahsoka-tano-helped-shape-the-star-wars-franchise&captions=true”]
Ahsoka Tano’s Story Before The Mandalorian
While we’ve previously done a deep dive into Ahsoka’s history, here are the basics. Ahsoka made her debut in the 2008 animated movie Star Wars: The Clone Wars and quickly became a major player in the animated series of the same name. That series explores Ahsoka’s coming-of-age story as Anakin Skywalker’s Padawan and eventual exile from the Jedi Order.
Even though The Clone Wars is only just now getting its belated final season on Disney+, Star Wars Rebels (which takes place after Revenge of the Sith) already revealed that Ahsoka survived Order 66 and eventually joined the Rebel Alliance. The novel Star Wars: Ahsoka helps bridge the vast gap between the two shows, revealing how she escaped the devastation of the Siege of Mandalore and eventually became a Rebel spy.
Ahsoka plays a crucial role in Rebels Season 2, which culminates in a battle with her former master Darth Vader on the Sith world of Malachor. For a while, Ahsoka’s fate was uncertain, as the Season 2 finale is intentionally vague as to whether Ahsoka survives that battle. However, the final season of Rebels reveals she was rescued by her ally and fellow Jedi Knight Ezra Bridger. Ezra was able to reach through time and pull Ahsoka to safety, though the two were quickly separated again.
That’s where Ahsoka’s story begins to get murky. She only has two other canonical appearances in the Star Wars saga after that point. She appears in a flash-forward epilogue in the Rebels series finale (which is set a little while after the events of Return of the Jedi), where she reunites with the surviving members of the Ghost crew to search for the lost Ezra. Ahsoka’s voice can also be heard in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, one of many Jedi who lend their support to Rey in her battle with Emperor Palpatine. This has led many fans to assume Ahsoka is dead by the time of Episode IX, though Lucasfilm’s Dave Filoni has hinted otherwise.
[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/01/08/whats-next-for-star-wars-after-the-rise-of-skywalker”]
How Ahsoka Tano Fits Into The Mandalorian: Season 2 Time Frame
The Mandalorian is set roughly five years after the events of Return of the Jedi, a time when the Empire is mostly vanquished but before the New Republic has been able to restore order to the galaxy. Because of this, we’re not expecting Season 2 to settle the question of whether Ahsoka is dead in The Rise of Skywalker. There is the chance she could die in The Mandalorian, but it would seem like an awfully big waste to go through the trouble of introducing live-action Ahsoka only to then immediately kill her off.
Plus. it’s not as though Ahsoka will be a senior citizen in The Mandalorian. Ahsoka is a young teenager at the start of The Clone Wars. There’s about 30 years of time between then and the era of The Mandalorian, putting her in her early to mid-40s in Season 2.
Even if Ahsoka’s sequel trilogy fate is off the table, the series could easily tie into the open-ended finale of Rebels. As we saw in the Rebels finale, Ezra and Grand Admiral Thrawn were both trapped aboard a runaway Star Destroyer as it jumped to the far edge of the galaxy. Ahsoka, Hera Syndulla and Sabine Wren set out to track Ezra down and bring him home. Conveniently, The Mandalorian is also set on the fringes of the galaxy, a lawless place where where bounty hunters like Din Djarin make a living. We could easily see Din crossing paths with Ahsoka as she continues her search for Ezra. Perhaps she would even enlist his services as a skilled tracker to pick up a trail that’s gone cold.
Granted, there are several years separating the Rebels epilogue and The Mandalorian, so it could be that Ahsoka has already completed her mission by this point. If so, she may be like Cara Dune, simply drifting through the Outer Rim and keeping a low profile now that there are no more wars left to fight. Encountering the Mandalorian could give Ahsoka the purpose she’s been searching for.
[widget path=”global/article/imagegallery” parameters=”albumSlug=the-strangest-lightsabers-in-the-star-wars-universe&captions=true”]
Ahsoka’s Role in the Fate of Mandalore
The Mandalorian has already been forging a connection to The Clone Wars with the reveal that Din’s nemesis Moff Gideon is now wielding the Darksaber. This ancient lightsaber is one of the most important relics of Mandalore. The owner of that saber is recognized as the rightful ruler of Mandalore. So the fact that it’s currently in the hands of an Imperial warlord suggests Mandalore is in a pretty bad place post-Return of the Jedi.
With news of Ahsoka’s role, we’re anticipating Season 2 will shed much more light on the current state of Mandalore. When Rebels ended, Sabine willingly ceded the Darksaber to Bo-Katan Kryze and joined her friends on the hunt for Ezra. We can assume Bo-Katan’s reign was short and tragic, with the Empire returning to decimate the world and its people all over again. Ahsoka may feel a certain sense of guilt over pulling Sabine away from her homeworld when it needed her most. With that in mind, Ahsoka’s role in The Mandalorian: Season 2 may involve teaming up with Din Djarin and other surviving Mandalorians to liberate Mandalore (or at least avenge it). Fingers crossed Sabine is still around to help.
Gideon actor Giancarlo Esposito has already teased a major lightsaber battle in Season 2, along with a complicated history between Gideon and Din Djarin. Could he have been foreshadowing a big showdown between Gideon with the Darksaber and Ahsoka her two white lightsabers? If so, we don’t fancy his chances of survival.
It’s also not out of the realm of possibility that Grand Admiral Thrawn could reemerge in Season 2 or a future season. As in the classic Expanded Universe novels, Thrawn may be the one to rally the fractured remnants of the Empire in this chaotic period.
Not only that, we have to assume Ahsoka’s return will tie into the ongoing mystery of The Child aka Baby Yoda. Din is a capable bodyguard, but he’s ignorant in the ways of the Force. It may fall on Ahsoka to train Baby Yoda, share what she knows about his species based on what she learned about Jedi Master Yoda during her years of training, and maybe even help Din track down Baby Yoda’s hidden homeworld.
[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/01/07/how-the-mandalorian-explains-what-happened-to-the-mandalorians”]
In short, Ahsoka should have plenty to keep her busy in Season 2. The wait until October 2020 just got longer.
[poilib element=”accentDivider”]
Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.
Source: IGN.com Ahsoka Tano: Recapping Her Story Before The Mandalorian