Disney+'s Ahsoka sacrified itself for the good of the larger Star Wars franchise
It's a very Jedi attitude, but serving the greater good might not service Ahsoka's fanbase in the short term
Given the way that the season finale unfolded, it was almost guaranteed that Ahsoka was going to frustrate and disappoint some fans. The final episode, 'The Jedi, The Witch, and the Warlord,' neatly sidestepped resolutions to much of the season’s big mysteries in favor of providing a surprisingly focused emotional through line that left almost all of the show’s main players in a new place, setting up the future of the Star Wars saga that showrunner Dave Filoni has been telling since the start of The Mandalorian back in 2019. In doing so, it transformed Ahsoka the show into a surprising approximation of Ahsoka the character.
It was clear from the first episode of Ahsoka that the show was as much a sequel to Filoni’s Star Wars Rebels animated series as it was a solo Ahsoka story; if anything, as the series progressed, it became far more a Rebels story than a true Ahsoka-focused storyline, as it emerged that Ahsoka was, if anything, a curiously passive presence in a storyline driven by Thrawn’s secret plans and Sabine’s desire to find Ezra Bridger, who’d been missing since the end of Rebels back in 2018. (Even further back in Star Wars canon time; Rebels took place in the space between the prequel trilogy and the original trilogy, while Ahsoka shares a timeline with The Mandalorian, taking place a decade or so after the original movie.)
This was, admittedly, something that reflected Ahsoka as a character to a degree. While she’s traditionally been far from a passive character — indeed, her entire purpose in Star Wars: The Clone Wars is pretty much about having the opposite of the Jedi’s more passive, emotionless attitude towards events — the older Ahsoka that’s appeared in The Mandalorian and now her own show is one who has learned to trust herself, and the Force, to a far greater degree… one that is quieter, more still, and more willing to play her part in a larger scheme that she might not fully understand. She’s still a force for good, that much will never end, but she’s serene enough that she’s happy to stand in the background until her moment comes.
In an unexpected way, that describes Ahsoka the show, as well; in terms of plot mechanics, Ahsoka is something that serves the greater good as opposed to stands alone on its own two feet. It wraps up a plot line from one show — Rebels — and sets up plots for future Star Wars projects, as opposed to tells any story in its own right. Ahsoka gets some degree of closure on her emotional journey by the end of the series, but that emotional journey took a backseat to other people’s stories in the grand scheme of things, despite the title of the series. It’s nice that Ahsoka gets to explore a new ronin life on Peridea, but it feels like a letdown because the audience is, bluntly, more invested in the fact that Thrawn got away and we still don’t know what he’s up to.
Just as Ahsoka the character was content to stay in the background and work towards other people’s goals, so Ahsoka the show was prepared to work towards storylines and projects that are far bigger than just one character. It’s a metatextual note that is feels curiously fitting on one level, but not something that is likely to calm the anger of a fanbase that feels shortchanged by the finale. After all, Ahsoka might not have been unhappy with how things turned out, but Ashoka’s fans? That’s another story altogether.
If you need a reminder of how the season finale went, we’ve got all the major details right here.
