#sky guy

Episode five of Ahsoka really hammered home how goddamn ridiculous the entire Clone War situation truly was. Watching Ahsoka on the front lines of that Geonosis battle, a fight where she was canonically fourteen or fifteen, was ludicrous back in the original show, but seeing the character in that situation portrayed by the age appropriate Ariana Greenblatt was f*cking jarring. Greenblatt is sixteen years old, splitting the difference of Aksoka’s age range throughout the Clone Wars. She’s as close to a real, teenage, Tano, that we’re going to get and it is wildly apparent that she is a CHILD. The goddamn Jedi Order, was sending child soldiers to fight in a trade war against an analogous Sith overlord and his army of drones. I don’t care how good at space wizarding your teenager is, they are still just a goddamn teenager! And Ahsoka wasn’t the only one. Barris Offee immediately comes to mind! The age you become a Padawan Learner to a Master Jedi is around twelve. That means there were children as young as twelve taking laser shots to the face, not to mention the wholesale slaughter of these cats during Order Sixty-Six, because of a goddamn trade dispute. How f*cking ridiculous is that? Anakin even said the quiet part out loud when addressing Ahsoka’s hesitation. He told her that Obi-Wan trained him to be a peacekeeper, but Anakin was training Ahsoka to be a soldier. That sh*t was the intent. That was the plan. That was the whole dynamic; Train an army of child astro-sorcerers in the ways of war, by throwing them headlong into one. From anyone’s point of view, that’s f*cked up and lends credence to everything Poppa Paps was talking about. Imagine trying to convince the ludicrously powerful Chosen One you’re in the right, when the only other person outside of his mom and wife whom he genuinely loved, was put in his charge to turn her into a weapon. And then when she turned out to be a fantastic one, they cast her aside the second someone gets murdered in those hallowed Council halls. Cats give Anakin sh*t for slaying them Younglings but how are the Jedi any goddamn different? They literally use children until they are used up. I can only imagine the trauma the kids who survived will have to endure. Hell, we’ve seen a few of them already. Ahsoka, Cade from those absolutely dope games, Hera's dead baby daddy, and that one chick from Kenobi; None of who are healthy, well adjusted, stand-up adults! Absolutely emotional train wrecks, the lot of them!

More than that, this episode proved to me just how much of Anakin is in Ahsoka. They mirror each other as much as Ahsoka and Sabine. It's wild to see in live action, especially getting that from Hayden who finally got to play a complex version of Anakin. Clone Wars went a long way to redeeming that character but seeing him actually force a catharsis in Ahsoka was rough. I've seen them cross lightsabers before and it broke my f*cking heart. I've spoken at length about that, but seeing it here? Knowing this is training from a fully fledged Jedi Master Anakin? I cannot articulate how amazing that is. He pushed Ahsoka to her limits. Forced her to confront the grief and guilt she had for being a weapon, for abandoning Anakin. Hayden gave this role so much depth, so much emotion, it was just breathtaking to witness. Seeing him flit between Vader and Sky Guy was almost too much but it very necessary. It was necessary for Ahsoka. She had to see that, to come to terms with that, in order to move forward. She is everything Anakin is, even Vader, as demonstrated by those Sith eyes when she contemplated the unthinkable. Interestingly enough, even channeling the Dark Side like a champ, you can tell Anakin was concerned for his Padawan. Not that he would be killed, Anakin is beyond even that at this point, but that his Padawan, would fall like he did. Ahsoka did not. She chose life and Sky Guy gave her that smirk, telling Snips there was hope for her yet. F*cking everything. That last exchange was f*cking everything. Especially when you take into account that Anakin pulled her into the World Between Worlds to save her life. As a goddamn Force Ghost. What the f*ck does THAT even mean??

Anakin was the Jedi who loved.

Even at his darkest, as Vader, he was driven to violence because he loved too hard. During and before the Clone Wars, he was put into a dogmatic, oppressive, militaristic religious order that prized unhealthy emotional suppression and was forced to watch it hurt and drive away all of his loved ones—Shmi, Ahsoka, Padmé and their children; and to a certain extent, the clones he bonded with, Obi Wan (though Satine’s death), and countless others. He cared for them, it hurt him too much—and instead of receiving something like therapy to handle his insecure attachment trauma, he got a healthy helping of PTSD. But in the end, with Luke on the second Death Star, he saved the Galaxy because he loved his son and his daughter.

Nobody learned that lesson in the sequels—at least not from his story. (You can make arguments about Reylo completing that cycle a bit, but before we got that, the Palpatine mess meant they first took a giant shit on his storyline with Ben learning hatred instead of love from Vader’s memory.) So I would really, really love it if Ahsoka could be the one to learn. She was afraid to train Grogu because of this fallacy that Anakin’s attachments were the problem, not the Order itself—she and Luke both made him choose between Din Djarin and further training. But she could learn from both Kanan and Anakin if she wanted.

Le extra