Ahsoka Tano
| Ahsoka Tano | |
|---|---|
| Star Wars: The Clone Wars / Star Wars Rebels character | |
 Ahsoka in her redesigned outfit, introduced in the third season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and used for the remainder of the show | |
| First appearance | Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) |
| Created by | George Lucas |
| Voiced by | Ashley Eckstein |
| Information | |
| Species | Togruta |
| Gender | Female |
| Occupation |
Jedi Padawan (assigned to Anakin Skywalker) |
| Affiliation |
Jedi Order (formerly) Rebel Alliance |
| Homeworld | Shili |
Ahsoka Tano is a fictional character in the Star Wars universe. A Jedi student and the Padawan apprentice of Anakin Skywalker (the future Darth Vader), she is a central protagonist of both the 2008 animated film Star Wars: The Clone Wars and the subsequent TV series. Ahsoka reappears in Star Wars Rebels in the guise of Fulcrum, as an informant and one of the founding members of what will become the Rebel Alliance.[1]
Character development
George Lucas stated that the character of Ahsoka was developed for the series as a means of illustrating how Anakin Skywalker develops from the brash, undisciplined Padawan in Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones to the more reserved Jedi Knight in Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith.[2] By giving Anakin his own Padawan, it would place the character into a paternal role where he would be forced to become more cautious and responsible. It would also give him new insight into his relationship with his own mentor, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and explain how their relationship matured. Lucas stated that, having raised two daughters, he "knew something about the subject", and decided to make Anakin's apprentice a young woman.
Background
Ahsoka Tano is discovered by Master Plo Koon. Abandoned by her parents, she is raised in the Jedi Temple. She graduates to Padawan at age 14, both due to the ongoing Clone Wars and as an effort by Master Yoda to teach Anakin Skywalker a greater sense of responsibility. Later in the war, she wields two lightsabers—one being her original green, the other being a smaller yellow—and wears an outfit that includes the akul-tooth headdress worn by her people, the Togruta.
Ahsoka is rash and rebellious—much like her master—and has little respect for authority; she addresses her Jedi and military superiors by nicknames, ignoring the decorum usually reserved for them. For example, Anakin is known as "Sky Guy", R2-D2 is referred to as "Artooie", and CT-7567 Clone Captain Rex is "Rexster." Anakin, in turn, refers to her as "Snips", in reference to her "snippy" attitude when they first met.
Ahsoka and Anakin go on many adventures during the Clone Wars, and they learn a lot from each other; the film and TV series imply that they make each other stronger and wiser. She also learns many life lessons from the clones in the 501st legion, as well as her fellow Padawans, particularly Barriss Offee.
Appearances
The Jedi Path: A Manual for Students of the Force (book)
In the book The Jedi Path, Ahsoka writes that she was assigned to the Clawmouse Clan with many other Jedi Initiates that she would live and train with. She also writes that while a Jedi Initiate, she received training in sand levitation by Grand Master Gary .
Star Wars: The Clone Wars (film)
She first appears in the Clone Wars film as a messenger sent by Yoda to Anakin and Obi-Wan Kenobi. Anakin initially believes that Ahsoka is to be Obi-Wan's new Padawan, but she claims that Yoda has in fact assigned her to him, much to his chagrin. It is later revealed that Obi-Wan and Yoda engineered the confusion over who was to be Ahsoka's master as a means of forcing her upon Anakin in order to make him a more responsible Jedi. After earning Anakin's respect on a dangerous mission to destroy a Separatist shield generator, Ahsoka joins him on a quest to rescue the infant son of Jabba the Hutt. Her impetuous nature both annoys and endears her to her master, and, by the end of the film, Anakin reveals a newfound affection for his new apprentice, abandoning a duel with Count Dooku when he believes her life to be in danger.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars (TV series)
First season
In the Clone Wars series, Ahsoka and Anakin fight against General Grievous' ship, the Malevolence, which is armed with an ion cannon. They eventually destroy the Malevolence, but Grievous escapes. In another episode, Anakin and Ahsoka have to rescue R2-D2 from falling into the hands of the Separatists, in which Ahsoka fights Grievous and escapes. Afterwards, Ahsoka and Luminara Unduli have to defend a Republic ship in which they have as prisoner Nute Gunray, viceroy of the Trade Federation. Asajj Ventress, Dooku's apprentice, fights against Ahsoka and ends up escaping with Gunray. In another episode, Ahsoka, Anakin, and Aayla Secura end up shipwrecked on a far away planet inhabited by the Lurmen people. Although Anakin is gravely injured, Aayla Secura tells her she shouldn't get so attached and should focus on her mission. This planet is to be a test for a new Separatist weapon. The Jedi rescue the Lurmen people from dying, and they take the Separatist leader back to Coruscant. In another episode, Ahsoka, Anakin, and Obi-Wan discover a secret Separatist lab, controlled by Dr. Nuvo Vindi, on the planet Naboo. In this lab, Vindi had planned to spread a deadly virus, known as the Blue Shadow Virus, across the galaxy. Ahsoka, Padmé Amidala, and Clone Captain Rex are trapped inside the lab, when a bomb with the virus explodes. Anakin and Obi-Wan have 48 hours to get the antidote, and they arrive in time to save their lives. In the last episodes of the season, Ahsoka fights against the Separatists to liberate the planet of Ryloth from the occupation made by Wat Tambor. Ahsoka, Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Mace Windu free the planet and capture Tambor.
Second season
In the second season, Ahsoka helps Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Plo Koon to defeat the Separatists on Felucia. However, she disobeys orders to retreat and instead continues fighting the battle droids. Anakin and Obi-Wan retrieve Ahsoka in a gunship, and they are forced to leave. The Jedi Council removes Ahsoka from active duty as punishment for disobeying orders, and they assign her to guarding the Jedi archives. However, bounty hunter Cad Bane appears and steals a holocron. Anakin and Ahsoka then go to capture Bane and retrieve the holocron. In a space battle, Ahsoka and Anakin manage to corner Bane and enter his ship. However, Ahsoka recklessly chases Bane. After a short battle, Ahsoka is captured, tied up, and placed inside a force field. Anakin tries to rescue her, but Bane threatens to kill Ahsoka if Anakin does not unlock the holocron. Anakin unlocks the holocron and frees Ahsoka, but Bane escapes. They are forced to escape the ship, after Bane activates the self-destruct sequence. Later, Ahsoka finds out that Bane is in their ship. Ahsoka tries to stop him, but Bane escapes again. The Jedi Council find out Bane's plan: To kidnap Force-sensitive children and bring them to Mustafar. Ahsoka and Anakin find Bane on Naboo and capture him. After interrogating him, Obi-Wan and Windu recover the holocron, but Bane escapes once again. Ahsoka and Anakin find volcanic ash in Bane's ship, and they go to Mustafar. Ahsoka and Anakin manage to rescue the children. Ahsoka later joins Anakin to help destroy a droid factory on Geonosis. And after the battle, Ahsoka and Barriss Offee run an errand to go and get supplies, not knowing that Geonosian worms have infected the crew. On a mission to apprehend an arms dealer with her master, Ahsoka loses her lightsaber to a thief, but she recovers it and captures the thief with the help of an elderly Jedi Master. In another episode, Ahsoka, alongside Anakin, Obi-Wan, and four bounty hunters, endeavors to protect a village from Hondo Ohnaka and his pirates. She would later aid Master Plo Koon in the capture of Boba Fett on the planet Florrum, and she seemingly dispatches Aurra Sing, who was aiding Fett in his bid for revenge against Mace Windu.
Third season
The third season features Ahsoka in many other episodes. At one point, Ahsoka travels with Senator Riyo Chuchi to investigate the Trade Federation blockade of Pantora, uncovering evidence of links to the kidnapping of Chairman Papanoida's daughters. She also aids several Mandalorian cadets in putting a halt to black market dealings there. Another episode explores Ahsoka's friendship with Padmé. When Aurra Sing reemerges, despite her apparent earlier death, Ahsoka must thwart her attempts to assassinate Senator Amidala. Ahsoka and Padmé team up once more when they venture to the Separatist capital of Raxus to negotiate an end to the war, which proves inconclusive following a terrorist attack on Coruscant. However, Ahsoka meets a new friend, Lux Bonteri, during the journey, and she is forced to rethink her previously narrow views of the war. Ahsoka doesn't appear again until the Mortis trilogy, when she finds herself stuck on a mysterious planet with Anakin and Obi-Wan, and she becomes embroiled in a power struggle between powerful Force users and is briefly turned to the dark side. Later on, Ahsoka sneaks on a mission to free Jedi Master Even Piell and Captain Wilhuff Tarkin from the dreaded Citadel, and she aids the group in accomplishing their objective. Ahsoka finally features prominently in the last two episodes of Season 3, when she's captured by several Trandoshan headhunters following a battle, and she is taken away to a jungle planet. There, she teams up with three Jedi younglings and Chewbacca to defeat the Trandoshans and escape the planet.
Fourth season
In the fourth season, Ahsoka is featured in several episodes. She first appears in the Mon Cala arc, wherein she is part of a Republic task force alongside Anakin Skywalker, Kit Fisto, Padme Amidala, and Jar Jar Binks helping to defend Prince Lee-Char and aid his military commander Ackbar in defending the planet Mon Calamari against Separatist forces allied with the opposing Quarren. After the Mon Calamari forces and the accompanying Republic taskforce are forced to surrender to Separatist leader Riff Tamson, she helps the prince to evade capture and later assists in negotiations with the Quarren, who eventually turn against the Separatists after realizing their mutual mistreatment and marginalization at their hands.
Afterwards, Ahsoka does not make another appearance until the series adaptation of the Slaves of the Republic comics, wherein she helps recover the enslaved Togrutas of the planet Kiros from the Separatist-aligned Zygerrians, though briefly at the expense of her own enslavement, as well as that of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Captain Rex.
Following this appearance, Ahsoka features prominently in a stand-alone episode wherein she rescues her old friend, Lux Bonteri, from the clutches of Count Dooku's forces, and she is later forced to contend with Bonteri's alliance to the rogue Mandalorian terrorist group Death Watch, who plan to aid Bonteri in getting his revenge on Dooku. Managing to convince Bonteri of their dishonor and brutality, the duo manage to escape from the murderous brigands, before Bonteri departs from Ahsoka's presence yet again.
Later in the series, when Obi-Wan Kenobi is seemingly assassinated by bounty hunter Rako Hardeen, Ahsoka helps her master in apprehending a transformed and disguised Obi-Wan Kenobi, posing as the would-be assassin, before assisting Anakin Skywalker in tracking down "Rako Hardeen" and his newfound partners Cad Bane and Moralo Eval, in an effort to prevent a conspiracy to kidnap Chancellor Palpatine and hold him as a hostage. Ahsoka is last seen with her master at a diner on the planet Stobar, where her master senses a sinister force arising in the galaxy following an altercation involving Savage Opress at the location.
Fifth season
The fifth season focuses on Ahsoka's character development in three story arcs. She first appears in the Onderon arc, wherein she, Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Rex travel to Onderon and train local rebels fighting against Separatists. She reunites with her old friend Lux Bonteri, who represents Onderon in the Senate after his mother's assassination. She stays on Onderon after Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Rex leave, and supervises the rebels' training. She begins to grow close to the other rebels such as Saw Gerrera and his sister Steela, and experiences conflicting emotions between her feelings for Lux and responsibility as an impartial trainer and non-combatant. When Lux and the rebels' lives are threatened, she breaks her cover and helps the rebels escape from the Separatists, thus implicating the Jedi and the Republic in a local uprising. Ahsoka learns about the loss of life and family in the final battle when she fails to save Steela. The Separatists retreat from Onderon and Lux, who has been reappointed as Senator for Onderon, declares his intention to join the Republic. Ahsoka comes to terms with her feelings and parts ways with Lux as friends.
In the Young Jedi arc, Ahsoka leads a group of younglings to the planet Ilum to undergo their graduation to Padawan. Ahsoka learns about leadership when she and Yoda watch as the younglings pass their trials in the ice crystal caverns. Ahsoka fights Hondo Ohnaka when he attacks her ship to steal the lightsaber crystals and is captured. When General Grievous attacks Hondo's hideout, she parlays with Hondo using diplomacy. Ahsoka ends up dueling Grievous to cover the younglings' escape. Though the cyborg general is still more than a match for her, Ahsoka's agility allows her to escape from Grievous and she is rescued by Hondo.
Ahsoka is the main focus of the four-part series finale. After the Jedi Temple hanger is bombed, Anakin and Ahsoka are sent to investigate, but Ahsoka is framed when a Force user kills the suspect that she is interrogating. Ahsoka is arrested for conspiracy against the Republic, but she escapes and flees into the Corusant underworld. Asajj Ventress meets Ahsoka again and the two fallen Jedi form an alliance. Ahsoka continues to investigate the bombing independently and receives a tip from Barriss Offee. In a warehouse, a masked assailant duels and defeats Ahsoka, and she is captured by clone troopers led by Anakin and Plo. Despite Obi-Wan and Padme's objections, Admiral Tarkin orders Ahsoka's expulsion from the Jedi Order and prosecution before the Senate. Meanwhile, Anakin’s investigation eventually leads him to Barriss, whom he defeats in a duel and brings before Palpatine. Denouncing the Republic's corruption, Barriss accuses the Jedi Order of prolonging the Clone Wars as well as taking pleasure in violence and destruction. Barriss is detained, Ahsoka is exonerated, and the Jedi Council offers her reinstatement as a Jedi Knight. Ahsoka, confused and heartbroken by Barriss's treachery and the Jedi Order's distrust, declines reinstatement and leaves the Order, after bidding farewell to Anakin.
Sixth season
Ahsoka briefly appears as a vision before Yoda. Ahsoka wonders if she will become one with the Force after her death despite her expulsion from the Jedi Order.
Star Wars Rebels
First season
In the first season of Star Wars Rebels (which takes place 14 years after the end of the Clone Wars), there is an informant known as "Fulcrum" who provides the rebel crew of the Ghost with intelligence and supplies, and is implied to be coordinating numerous rebel cells against the Empire. Fulcrum is heard in the episodes "Out of Darkness", "Gathering Forces", "Rebel Resolve", and "Fire Across the Galaxy" on the Ghost's radio in a disguised voice, occasionally projecting a hologram of a hooded figure. On at least one occasion, Fulcrum leaves a symbol similar to one of Ahsoka's markings on one of the crates left for the rebels. In the season finale ("Fire Across the Galaxy"), Fulcrum is revealed to be Ahsoka, who has been acting on behalf of what will eventually become the Rebel Alliance.[3]
Second season
Ahsoka is a recurring character in the second season. In the season premiere "'The Siege of Lothal", Ahsoka uses the Force to enter the mind of Darth Vader, the Sith lord who is hunting down the crew of the Ghost. She realizes that Anakin Skywalker is Darth Vader and passes out after being overcome with pain and fear. She joins the Ghost crew and its continuing campaign against the Empire. In the episode "Future of the Force" Ahsoka investigates an Inqusitor attack on a transport ship, discovering that the Inquisitors had been abducting Force sensitive children. She later comes to the aid of Kanan, Ezra and Zeb when they are bested by two Inquisitors, and she easily defeats them both, but spares their lives as she escapes. In the episode "Shroud of Darkness", she has a vision of Anakin, who blames her for leaving him and allowing him to fall to the dark side. [4][5] In the season finale "Twilight of the Apprentice", Ahsoka duels with her former master inside a Sith Temple on the barren planet Malachor while her friends escape. She is last seen walking through the temple's ruins after its collapse.
Video games
Ahsoka is a playable character in the Clone Wars games Lightsaber Duels, Jedi Alliance, Republic Heroes, and Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars. She also appears on the Clone Wars table of Star Wars Pinball where she alongside her master Anakin battle with droids, Asajj Ventress, and Savage Opress. Ahsoka is also a playable character in Disney Infinity 3.0.
Novels
Ahsoka's Rebel alias, Fulcrum, is referenced in chapter five of Aftermath. Wedge Antilles recalls a mission encouraged by Ahsoka where he crashed his A-wing into the lip of a volcano, breaking his leg. That event almost ended his career as a pilot.
Ahsoka appeared in the Star Wars: Rebels, "Battle to the End". She was even mentioned "Tarkin" and "Return of the Jedi: Beware the Power of the Dark Side!"
On March 31, it was announced that Ahsoka will appear in her own novel spanning the time from her departure from the Jedi Order in Star Wars: The Clone Wars to her first appearance in Star Wars: Rebels. The book will be released on October 11, 2016.
References
- ↑ "Anakin Skywalker". StarWars.com. Retrieved 7 March 2015.
- ↑ TV Guide Article August 11, 2008
- ↑ "Fulcrum’s Identity Revealed". Star Wars Underworld. Retrieved 3 March 2015.
- ↑ "Two generations of heroes meet in new Star Wars Rebels trailer". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 18 April 2015.
- ↑ Breznican, Anthony (January 15, 2016). "'Star Wars: Rebels' — A deep dive into the shocking new trailer". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved March 10, 2016.
External links
- Ahsoka Tano Official Page at StarWars
.com - Ahsoka Tano on Wookieepedia, a Star Wars wiki
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