The final lesson Hayden Christensen’s Anakin Skywalker teaches Rosario Dawson’s Ahsoka Tano in Ahsoka makes Ahsoka a true Jedi at long last. The latest Star Wars Disney+ TV show welcomes back Christensen as Ahsoka’s former master in Ahsoka episode 5, and in the mystical World Between Worlds, Anakin teaches his Padawan one last lesson. The moment has already been regarded as one of the franchise’s best, between Christensen reprising his role as Anakin to the live-action flashbacks of scenes from the animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars series.
The meaning of Anakin’s appearance goes far beyond cool moments and fan service, though. Anakin arrives at Ahsoka’s most urgent time of need, when she finds herself at her lowest. For years upon years, Ahsoka has been using the skills and lessons she learned while she was training under Anakin’s teachings, but she’s never considered herself to be a Jedi – nor has she technically been one. Having abandoned her training before the end of the Clone Wars, Ahsoka never had the chance to face the trials and become an official Jedi Knight. Anakin’s lesson for her has at long last changed that.
Ahsoka Was Performing The Jedi Role… For The Wrong Reasons
Ahsoka was acting as a Jedi in the years following the fall of the Jedi Order, but her heart wasn’t in the right place. Ironically, it’s similar to what Ahsoka feared for her own Padawan, Natasha Liu Bordizzo’s Sabine Wren. Huyang tells Ezra Bridger in Ahsoka episode 8 that Ahsoka thought Sabine was training as a Jedi for the wrong reasons, when all along, she herself has been acting as a Jedi entirely out of fear. Her fear was the Empire, the oppressive authority that decimated the Jedi at the hands of her fallen master. This was Ahsoka’s motivation in everything she did as a Jedi, from helping the Rebellion to searching for Grand Admiral Thrawn – and it caused her to withdraw from everyone, even her own Padawan.
Ahsoka’s motivations were much like Anakin’s own, as he also was filled with fear. He was a brave warrior, no doubt, but most of what he did as a Jedi was to fight against the forces that he thought would bring harm to people like his mother and Padmé. This is why Anakin is the only one who can truly get through to Ahsoka and show her that she’s being overrun by her fears. She’s afraid in the same way he used to be, consumed by the darkness of the Empire and of the legacy she’s carrying with a master who became the galaxy’s greatest threat.
Anakin Skywalker’s Final Lesson Taught Her To Be More Than A Weapon
Because of the role Ahsoka had to take on during the Clone Wars, she’s always considered herself to be something like a weapon. Without the formal title of Jedi or ever actually acting as a peacekeeper, Ahsoka has clung to the identity she’s assigned herself ever since she was a Padawan. This is something she even discusses with Captain Rex in The Clone Wars season 7, when she confesses that all she’s been ever since she was a Padawan is a soldier. This is after she’s brought out of hiding by Bo-Katan Kryze to help in the Siege of Mandalore, quite literally cementing the way she sees herself as a weapon and a warrior to fight against evil forces.
What Anakin teaches Ahsoka in the World Between Worlds completely challenges this idea. By taking Ahsoka through her Clone Wars memories, he shows her exactly how she’s more than a weapon. In her first memory, one of their very first Clone Wars missions together, Anakin takes Ahsoka to the moment where she tries to comfort one of the clones who’s wounded during the fight. This reminds Ahsoka that she did her best not to just fight the Separatists, but to protect those who fought alongside her. It’s the very same with her memory of the Siege of Mandalore, and although Anakin didn’t experience the battle with her, he’s aware of how Ahsoka fought in it out of her strong desire to help Bo-Katan and the other Mandalorians in need.
Anakin Skywalker’s Final Lesson Completed Ahsoka’s Jedi Journey
Anakin’s lesson is the reason why Ahsoka now carries herself in a lighter way, emulating that of the Jedi who came before her. She’s letting herself be connected to the people around her once again, embracing Ezra Bridger upon their reunion in Ahsoka and even vowing to Sabine that she’ll always stand by her, no matter what. Ahsoka has learned how to fight for people and ideas that she believes in, rather than fighting against those she opposes. She’s always been this way, but it’s Anakin who convinces her of such, and his lesson becomes the catalyst for the change in Ahsoka’s outlook.
This shift has completed Ahsoka’s Jedi journey. In the days of the Jedi Order, one could only become a Jedi Knight by facing their trials and succeeding, and Anakin has clearly taken Ahsoka through the trial that has transformed her into a Jedi. Ahsoka’s transformation from Ahsoka the Gray to Ahsoka the White is physical evidence of this, proving that Ahsoka is actively seeking and serving the light rather than hiding in the shadow of the darkness she once thought she was stained by. She chose to protect herself and Anakin by choosing life and disarming him of his lightsaber, rather than using it to fight the darkness within him and thus choose death.
This transformation is what sets Ahsoka up for the journey ahead, whether it takes place in Ahsoka season 2 or in the upcoming The Mandalorian-era movie. Thanks to Anakin, Ahsoka understands herself and her motivations much better now, and she’s able to refocus on exactly what she’s fighting for. She wants to protect people like Sabine and Ezra, as well as create a galaxy that’s safe and free from oppression. Without Anakin stepping in to prepare this lesson and trial for Ahsoka, she may not have survived her encounter with Baylan Skoll on Seatos, much less earned the official title of Jedi. Now, Ahsoka is ready to take the path of a Jedi, seeking to be a true keeper of peace and passing on all she knows to her own Padawan the way her master did for her.
