Rosario Dawson and Dave Filoni Can Finally Discuss Ahsoka Tano’s Journey
In the last two decades, Ahsoka Tano has been the most important character in the Star Wars franchise.
Tano was first introduced in Star Wars: The Clone Wars as Anakin Skywalker’s bratty young Padawan. While fans were initially turned off by her attitude, Ashoka quickly proved her meddle and became a hero in her own right.
During the past two decades, fans have seen Ahsoka grow from Padawan to war hero and from Jedi to rebel. Along the way, she has carried the spirit of Jedi forward, even after she walked away from the order.
Ahsoka and Anakin
In Star Wars Rebels, we meet an Ahsoka Tano who has survived the fall of the Republic and is living in the age of the Empire. It is in the animated series that Tano comes to the realization that Anakin Skywalker did not die in the closing days of the Clone Wars, but instead had fallen to the Dark Side and emerged as the evil Darth Vader.
The earth-shattering realization causes Ahsoka to not only question her past but also grow fearful of the evil that may lie inside her heart.
In the live-action series Ahsoka, Anakin Skywalker’s former apprentice must come to grips with both the fall of her master and her own past.
“She had a very particular idea of him, the Jedi order, and who she was in all of that for a very long time until that image was shattered,” says Rosario Dawson, who portrays Tano in Ahsoka.
“The point we graduate to here is, yeah, he did some terrible things, and he also did some really great things. And it’s always up to you how you choose the direction. She can look back at her own life. She’s gone through some hardships that could have been the moment that turned her dark. She didn’t go there. So I think she’s starting to trust herself.”
Coming to Grips With Her Past
While Tano learns that Darth Vader is in fact Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars Rebels, the ramifications of this discovery are not felt until Ahsoka.
“While I had introduced in Rebels the idea that she came to understand that Anakin had become Darth Vader, I never really dealt with the fallout from that,” Dave Filoni says.
“How does that affect somebody when a person that they really admire and looked up to turned out not to be the person they thought they were? Are we all just capable of a fall from grace? And what is forgiveness? What shape does that look like? Did I take the good parts of this person with me as well as the bad, or am I just the good? I thought there were a lot of interesting challenges for her.”
Facing Anakin
In episode five of Ahsoka, Tano is defeated and nearly killed by fallen Jedi Baylan Skoll. After being cast into the sea, Ahsoka finds herself in the World Between Worlds, where the spirit of Anakin helps guide her through the battle raging within herself.
“Maybe he’s also a warning of what can still happen, but that’s still significant in a positive way if you want it to be,” Dawson says.
A Rite of Passage
Eventually, Ahsoka comes to terms with both her master’s fall and her past as a soldier. The former Jedi then emerges as a new character — Ahsoka the White.
“We were able to take a little bit more time to go, ‘What does this feel like? What does this mean?’ and [explore] the choices that come from that kind of reckoning,” Dawson says.
“We’ve seen that when she decided to leave the Jedi order. We saw that when she walked away from Anakin. There’ve been pivotal moments; this felt like that seminal moment again. This is a different rite of passage.”
After Ahsoka came to grips with her past, she was able to accept Sabine Wren as her apprentice. Though the duo remain stranded on Peridea, their relationship has been mended. Hopefully, the story will continue in Ahsoka Season 2.
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