Ahsoka Tano

Template:Infobox Star Wars character Ahsoka Tano is a fictional character in the Star Wars universe and a protagonist in the 2008 animated film: Star Wars: The Clone Wars and the following series. When the series began with The Clone Wars movie she was depicted as a 14 year old Togruta female, and the show ended with her as a 16 year old.

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. However, Master Yoda worries about Skywalker's personal relationships. By giving Skywalker 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 Skywalker 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 Skywalker's apprentice a young woman.

Background

Ahsoka Tano was discovered by Master Plo Koon. Abandoned by her parents, she was raised in the Jedi Temple. She graduates to Padawan at 14 (two years earlier than most Padawans), both due to the ongoing Clone Wars and as an effort by Master Yoda to teach Anakin Skywalker a greater sense of responsibility. She uses her lightsaber in an unorthodox Shien reverse grip, different from most Jedi (only three other Jedi, including Starkiller, are known to use this style). Later in the war (when she is 16) she wields 2 lightsabers—one green, one yellow—and she wears a Togruta-inspired outfit that includes the akul-tooth headdress (a surprising feat for someone her age).

Ahsoka displays the same type of rash and rebellious behavior that Anakin is known for. She adopts a highly informal attitude towards her new master and tends to address individuals by nicknames; for example, Anakin is known as "Sky Guy", R2-D2 is referred to as "Artooie" and CT-7567 Clone Captain Rex as "Rexster." Anakin in turn refers to her as "Snips," in reference to her "snippy" attitude when they first met.

Ahsoka goes on many adventures during the Clone Wars with her master Anakin and often learns a lot from him. Despite the conflict of war, Ahsoka manages to make her way through getting stronger for such a young age. She also learns many life lessons from the clones in the 501st legion. At the beginning of the war, she is very naive and immature; this dramatically changes as the war progresses. She becomes particularly close to Jedi Padawan Barriss Offee during the Second Battle of Geonosis.

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.

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 Yoda. However, the book has since become non-canon material.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars (TV show)

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 in 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 Separatists' new weapon. The Jedi rescue the Lurmen people from dying, and 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 of 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 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 she 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 assigns 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 has activated the self-destruct sequence. Later, Ahsoka finds out that Bane is in their ship. Ahsoka tries to stop him, but Bane escapes. 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. 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 Barris Offee run an errand to go to 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 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 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 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 becomes embroiled in a power struggle between powerful Force users and is briefly turned to the darkside. Later on, Ahsoka sneaks on a mission to free Jedi Master Even Piell and Captain Wilhuff Tarkin from the dreaded Citadel, and 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 taken away to a jungle planet. There, she teams up with three Jedi Padawans 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 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

In the fifth season, Ahsoka plays a larger role and appeared more frequently in the following episodes. She first appears in the Onderon arc, wherein she, Anakin, Obi-Wan and Rex travel to the planet and go train the rebel alliance to fight the Separatists in the hope that they will join the Republic in the end. Ahsoka finds out that the people of Onderon will not be joining even after the battle is over, because they retain the belief that the Republic is corrupt and untrustworthy. She reunites with her old friend Lux Bonteri during this time, Onderon being Lux's homeworld and the one he had briefly represented in the Senate after his mother's death. While training the rebels, she starts to grow close to the other rebels such as Saw Gerrera and his sister Steela. She helps Saw and Lux destroy a tank when the rebel base is discovered. She stays on Onderon when Anakin, Obi-Wan and Rex leave, and works as a supervisor, but does not feel good about being unable to assist them. She later breaks her cover and helps the rebels save their king from the Separatists at a public execution. During the final battle of Onderon, she attempts to save Steela from falling to her death, but a droid gun shoots her arm, and Steela dies. But the battle is won, and a future for Onderon is made. Lux, who has been reappointed as Senator for Onderon, declares that the Jedi's assistance during the conflict made him believe that he may have been wrong about the Republic and he decides that he will use his position in the new government to bring themback into the fold.

She later appears in the Young Jedi arc. She leads a group of younglings to the planet Ilum so they can construct their own lightsabers with the special crystals. She and Yoda watch as the younglings search for the crystals, and are pleased when they all get their saber crystals. She later has to fight Hondo Ohnaka when he attacks her ship to steal the lightsaber crystals belonging to the younglings. She later has to help Hondo when Grievous attacks Florrum and destroys his stronghold. She ends up dueling Grievous while defending the younglings. Though the cyborg general is still more than a match for her, Ahsoka's agility allows her to escape from Grievous.

Ahsoka is the main focus of the 4-part arc that concluded the 5th season. After a bombing of the Jedi Temple hanger, Anakin and Ahsoka are sent to investigate. Eventually they discover a woman called Letta was behind the attack. After a chase Letta is captured and is taken to jail. After the funeral for Jedi caught by the explosion, Ahsoka visits Letta in jail where Letta tells her a Jedi gave her the explosives. During this conversation, Letta is mysteriously force-choked. Letta is killed, and Tano is arrested. Later on, Tano breaks out, only to come across three dead clones. Commander Fox then sees Tano standing over the corspes, incriminating Ahsoka even further. After a long chase by massive squads of clone troopers, Anakin catches her at the end of a pipe line. Skywalker tries to convince Ahsoka to come back, but unsure of who she can trust and certain no one will believe her, Ahsoka says goodbye, asking Skywalker to wish her luck. She then leaps off the pipe, down into the Corusant underworld. She goes through the underworld looking for the one behind everything, keeping in contact with only her friend Barriss Offee. Asajj Ventress crosses paths with Ahsoka, looking for the money that is offered for Ahsoka's capture. Ahsoka believes that Ventress is behind everything, but Ventress herself is confused. The two form an alliance together, and Ventress leads Ahsoka to the warehouse that Letta got the nanodroids from. Ahsoka is then attacked by someone wearing Ventress's helmet and wielding her lightsabers. Ahsoka believes herself to be betrayed and dueled with them until an explosion disarms her, and they escape. Ahsoka is later captured, expelled from the Jedi Order, and put on trial before the Senate. Just as her verdict is to be delivered, Anakin walks in with the real culprit Barriss Offee, much to Ahsoka's shock. After her name is cleared and Barriss is put under arrest, Ahsoka is offered to be re-instated into the Jedi Order. Unfortunately, feeling that she cannot trust the Council, or herself, anymore, she refuses and tearfully leaves the Jedi Temple following a somber goodbye with Anakin.

Sixth season

Ahsoka briefly appears as a vision before Yoda. Ahsoka wonders if she will still become one with the Force after her death now that she is expelled from the Jedi Order. She is next seen killed, lying next to master Mace Windu. But because this was only a vision, it doesn't mean that she died. She actually survived Order 66 because she wasn't associated with the Jedi Order anymore.

Legacy

During a mission on Utapau, Skywalker spoke of calling her for help, only to then realize that she was gone. In an emotional conversation with Kenobi, he expressed heartfelt grief at her disappearance, describing her as "one of us." Kenobi told him that it was her decision to leave, but Skywalker felt that they had not given her any choice and that the Council had turned their backs on her. Kenobi, however, stood by the Council's authority, much to Skywalker's annoyance and anger. Kenobi did admit, however, that he would not sleep well were Skywalker to leave the Order.

Star Wars Rebels

In the first season of Star Wars Rebels, there is a character known as "Fulcrum" who provides the rebel crew of the Ghost with intelligence and supplies. In the episode "Out of Darkness" Fulcrum is heard on the radio in a disguised voice, and leaves a symbol similar to one of Ahsoka's markings on one of the crates he/she leaves for the rebels. In the season finale "Fire Across the Galaxy", Fulcrum is revealed to be Ahsoka Tano.

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.

Merchandise

Action figures

2008 "The Clone Wars Ahsoka (with Rotta the Huttlet)" The first figure of Ahsoka based on her appearance from the movie and first 2 seasons. It comes with a lightsaber and a backpack that fits Rotta the Huttlet.

2008 "Vulture Claw Battle Pack" A battle pack released that is based on a scene from the episode "Downfall of a Droid", it comes with Ahsoka, Anakin Skywalker, an IG-86 droid, and Gha Nachkt. Ahsoka and Anakin are wearing their Jedi ponchos.

2009 "Space Suit Ahsoka" A new sculpt of Ahsoka in her space gear based off the episode "Cargo of Doom". It comes with a Lightsaber and space helmet.

2011 "Ahsoka (New Outfit)" A new older-looking mold of Ahsoka, based on her new design from the third season and beyond. It comes with two Lightsabers and their hilts.

2011 "Cad Bane's Escape Battle Pack" A battle pack released based on a scene from the episode "Children of the Force", it comes with a more accurate repaint of Ahsoka in her space suit, Anakin Skywalker and Cad Bane in his Denal disguise with a Jedi holocron.

2012 "Scuba Suit Ahsoka" A new mold of Ahsoka based on her appearance in the Mon Calamari trilogy of episodes from Season 4. It comes with two Lightsabers and removable scuba gear, and a "Lightsaber launcher".

2012 "The Clone Wars Vintage Collection Ahsoka" A new mold of Ahsoka, based off a realistic imagining of her. She is in her newer design that is used from the third season onward in the show, with two Lightsabers and their hilts.

Star Wars: Transformers

Ahsoka Tano was added to the Star Wars Transformers line of toys in 2009; it was a remold of the toy first used for Saesee Tiin. She becomes a Delta-7B Aethersprite starfighter with Astromech droid R7-A7. She is the only female character in the toy line.

External links

• Ahsoka Tano Official Page at StarWars.com
• Ahsoka Tano on Wookieepedia, a Star Wars wiki