An Elegant Weapon, For a More Civilized Age

This calendar week ’s episodeofAhsokagave its titular zep one last opportunity to pick up from a Master with a lot to discover himself , as Ahsoka ’s meter - bending trip through her life history take her side by side , and up against , Anakin Skywalker . But in doing so , both Master and Apprentice alike looked to a future tense for themselves beyond the melting pot the Jedi Order made them in .

“ Shadow Warrior ” takes Ahsoka on a journey through thebattles that defined her puerility — a point distressingly made as her look is put into the body of her younger self , played by 16 - year - old Ariana Greenblatt , making clear in way Clone Wars never could just how youthful Ahsoka was . Guided by a vision of her former master , Anakin Skywalker , the final moral he is to teach her is one of growth , and shedding the legacies of the past that they are both tie to . But it ’s also one root in the prison Ahsoka and Anakin ’s spirityearn to be free of : an interminable fight , from their youth all the way through to even whatever lie beyond in the cosmic Force .

At first , it ’s hammered family literally as Anakin ’s visual sense ego ignites his lightsaber and cut repeatedly at his former pupil — fighting or die , the lesson that always was and will be the crux of their human relationship as Master and Apprentice . They had no other choice , after all : the Clone Wars shove this life upon the Jedi Order , and the Jedi Order embraced it with open subdivision and blindness that had been damning their decline for generations . There was no choice for Ahsoka , a minor , to be anything other than Commander Tano . She , and thousands of children like her — thousands of nipper like Anakin , too — were turned into weapon the never wanted to be . And so she was , a warrior on the front lines of warfare , shoot into battle alongside her lord , the most legendary warrior of them all . A bequest Anakin likewise had no selection in , and fear make his apprentice ’s in act . The Jedi Order made peacekeeper soldiers , and as Clone Wars intoned : good soldiers follow orders .

Screenshot: Lucasfilm

It ’s say that the three battlefield we are take to in “ Shadow Warrior ” are all moments in the Clone War where the rightful reality of that bequest hits Ahsoka hardest . Teth , her first full fight experience alongside Anakin , Ryloth , a campaign where she was forced to confront her status as a Jedi and a loss leader of soldier whose living were in her deal as much as her own was , Mandalore , a low-spirited reminder that even as Ahsoka could escape the system of the Jedi Order , the conflict that Order shaped her in stillhad her in its grasp . Is it any wonder that she establish herself returned as Fulcrum in the age of the Rebellion , forever destine to drift the beetleweed engage in one fight after another like some nomadic Ronin ?

What Ahsoka ’s vision , and the reflection of Anakin in it — and one of an Anakin still wrestling with his own relationship to a bequest of violence — gives her is a chance to move on from the melting pot that had define her so long . It ’s telling that the only instant she trip in this ghostlike journey is when she reflects the lesson back on Anakin ’s spirit , when she doubts that she can be more than an endless warrior — and in doing so turns his contemplation wickedness and twisted , to give herself another affair to fight . It ’s not a moral about Anakin at all , even if he himself face similar battle , forged in that same melting pot , but about Ahsoka , so horror-stricken by a living of fight , not being able to see beyond it for so long . “ You lack strong belief , ” Anakin growls , but it ’s not the conviction to remain firm and fight , but the conviction to be more than that — more than her doubts of what she and her legacy can be . Until she makes the pick , disarming Anakin and tossing his sabre away , that there is a life to lead beyond that of a warrior .

And it ’s like a switch flips . From almost the moment Ahsoka income tax return from her visual sensation , there is a lightness and heat to her that could never really show up in Ahsoka ’s first four installment , or her prior appearances in The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett . While there , and here , she could push back against this legacy and wheel of conflict she intend had doomed her since puerility — be the Ronin , refuse Anakin ’s direct legacy in Luke ’s Jedi academy , and the baggagethat comes with it , undertake to , and fail , to teach herown malcontent student — she could never really escape it until this minute of catharsis , one form not in battle but in let go . Anakin ’s net lesson is a natural endowment that Ahsoka can determine herself anew , and be beyond the state of war that pushed them down their darkest , loneliest paths . No longer a tool form in engagement , but a individual who can merely be , can choose to fight if needs be , but can also choose to just live .

Screenshot: Lucasfilm

Who exactly Ahsoka Tano is has long been the fundamental struggle of her character arc — from the legacy of her master , to her exit from the Jedi Order , to who she was and what she entail to the wandflower in the age of the Empire . Now , at long last , she is complimentary to shape that definition herself , rather of having it shaped for her .

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Screenshot: Lucasfilm