Each Clone Wars Flashback, Explained

Ahsoka’s fifth episode, “Shadow Warrior,” places its titular protagonist again into her personal previous, as she navigated her historical past on the entrance line of the Clone Warfare. In doing so, we and Ahsoka alike are pressed again into 3 essential moments from the warfare—conflicts from her previous that also resonate as moments basic in exploring who she is as a personality.

Although hidden by way of the haze of reminiscence and the literal fog of war, “Shadow Warrior” divides its flashbacks into three distinct battles from the Clone Wars animated series—ones that, by way of that fog, are laborious to see. However defining every, and the place in Clone Wars they got here from, tells us the moments which might be very important in our understanding of Ahsoka’s previous—and the place she sees herself because the presence of her former grasp Anakin pushes her to think about a brand new path.

The Battle of Teth

Ahsoka’s first flashback takes us to Teth—and again to the original 2008 Clone Wars movie. Though Anakin and Ahsoka met through the battle on Christophsis, Teth, the place they’re on a mission to besiege a mountaintop fortress the place the Separatists are holding Jabba’s son Rotta hostage for… nicely, causes. It’s a visually thrilling second within the film—just like Ahsoka, it begins shrouded in fog because the Republic takes fireplace on the bottom, as Anakin and his new Padawan vertically ascend the cliff face to finish their mission, large walkers climbing and clones rappelling up behind them in tow.

However that’s not the purpose Ahsoka is making carry its hero again to this second. It’s not simply Ahsoka’s first correct mission as Anakin’s padawan—the arrival of who has already created a substantial amount of battle for Anakin, uncertain of his capability as a trainer—it’s additionally the primary time we see Ahsoka thrust onto the entrance line of a warfare. And what Ahsoka actually captures that the Clone Wars film, and animated collection for essentially the most half, couldn’t all the time fairly successfully accomplish that is that, in giving us 16-year-old actress Ariana Greenblatt because the padawan learner, we actually get to see how younger Ahsoka was when the Clone Warfare breaks out. This can be a formative second for her in establishing her relationship with Anakin, nevertheless it’s additionally arguably the second she modifies as an individual endlessly for altogether worse causes, uncovered from the life she lead as Jedi provoke and reworked right into a weapon on the entrance strains of interstellar battle.

The Liberation of Ryloth

The subsequent flashback takes us to the climax of The Clone Wars’ first season, and the liberation of the Twi’lek homeworld Ryloth. Though we by no means see Anakin and Ahsoka take part within the floor battle on Ryloth, the episode “Storm Over Ryloth” sees Anakin and Ahsoka’s mission to interrupt the blockage across the planet, and one other essential least that’s mirrored on in Ahsoka as we see her tending to a wounded trooper.

“Storm” sees the Republic beat again by the Separatists’ navy over Ryloth, and after an overconfident Ahsoka disobeys a retreat order, she finally ends up shedding most of her fighter squadron. The second is devastating for her not only for the lack of life—though even at this early level within the present she’d already seen loads of troopers die—however as a result of it’s the primary time Ahsoka actually has to grapple with shedding folks below her command, due to a choice she makes. It’s a reckless one for her to make, however as soon as once more it can’t be burdened sufficient as Ahsoka itself makes clear in its casting: she is a little one navigating these moments in a warfare infinitely larger than she is, and thrust into a task she by no means anticipated to have. Relaying that value right here, exhibiting us her tending for a soldier she has to go away behind lest extra of these round her are wounded as he’s, actually hits residence simply how really wild Ahsoka’s upbringing was.

The Siege of Mandalore

The third and remaining flashback skips by way of many of the remainder of Clone Wars to tug us into the ultimate episodes of its seventh and remaining season: the Siege of Mandalore. That is essential as a distinction to Ryloth and Teth as a result of it’s not simply an older Ahsoka, one who has at this level nicely and actually been cast within the fires of the battle, however as a result of it’s additionally after Ahsoka had left the Jedi Order in disillusionment. We see the fruits of all these prior classes right here that had formed Ahsoka, as she spins and twirls across the misty battlefield along with her lightsabers: she is, as Anakin’s spirit tells her, the warrior he taught her to be.

Nevertheless it’s additionally arguably Ahsoka at a few of her most conflicted, and people cracks emerge when her older self, in her younger physique, begins to poke and prod on the lesson Anakin is making an attempt to show her. Who is he, the fallen Chosen One, to inform her about the necessity to develop past this battle? Who’s he to lecture, after the Jedi so completely broke her religion that she needed to depart the one residence she may bear in mind—and nonetheless discovered herself unable to flee the warfare that outlined her childhood, and nonetheless continues to outline her many years later? Mandalore is a basic second in Ahsoka’s arc, not simply exhibiting us the particular person she turned after selecting to go away the Jedi Order, however for a way the Clone Wars in the end tried to devour her sense of self—and the way in moments of weak spot she will be able to nonetheless discover herself again in these moments, even by the point of Ahsoka.

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