January talking meme: January 10
what do you think Ahsoka Tano's legacy is to Star Wars (
grimorie ).
This was delayed so that I could finish my rewatch of season 5 of The Clone Wars
This is so hard to answer because it could go so many ways! Ahsoka was created in part to give us a bit of an idea of what Anakin would have been like as a father (and we also get to see Padme as a mentor to her) and within that context, we now have the Rebellion and the fall of the Empire being almost entirely at the hands of Anakin’s children, as Star Wars: Rebels established that Ahsoka is one of the principle architects of the Rebellion. With the EU no longer canon (and Rey not yet a Jedi, and without our knowing if she’ll want to become one or not), Ahsoka is currently the central female Jedi of the Star Wars universe, and we also learn more about the Jedi order through her adventures-her time in the library, her being sent into war so long, her adventures with various other Jedi, her training younglings and, of course, her treatment in The Wrong Jedi arc.
I think her real legacy, though, is outside of the canon. The original trilogy, of course, had no female Jedi, and female Jedi played a very minor role in the prequel films. Most people who consider themselves Star Wars fans have read few, if any, of the books and comics that made up the EU. To many of the people who watched the show (and particularly to adolescent girls), Ahsoka is The Female Jedi, even if she never technically became a Jedi, despite spending most of her life up through The Wrong Jedi preparing to be one. The Clone Wars bridges much of the time in the real world between the prequel trilogy and the sequel trilogy, making Ahsoka the female lead of Star Wars for quite a few fans. Ahsoka as the female lead is different than Leia and Padme. We watch her grow up, and she has many adventures without Anakin. She has a very nominal love interest in Lux if you WANT to read it that way, but that’s a very minor part of her arc, and she has important relationships with other women, the most important being with Padme and Barriss. Much of that, of course, is because it’s a TV series in anthology format as opposed to a movie (IMO, the world of the prequel trilogy works MUCH better in TV format than movie format because the prequels wanted to have and do so much that 3 movies couldn’t contain and develop it all the way it deserved, and that’s part of why, IMO, The Clone Wars is the best part of the current Star Wars canon). If you watched the “Ahsoka lives!” reaction videos after the finale of season 1 of Star Wars Rebels, there were people of varying ages and genders, but women who appeared to be in their late teens through their twenties were more prominent, based on my memories. So I think the real legacy of Ahsoka is that she gave Star Wars fans-especially young female fans-an entirely different kind of heroine than they’d had before.
grimorie ).
This was delayed so that I could finish my rewatch of season 5 of The Clone Wars
This is so hard to answer because it could go so many ways! Ahsoka was created in part to give us a bit of an idea of what Anakin would have been like as a father (and we also get to see Padme as a mentor to her) and within that context, we now have the Rebellion and the fall of the Empire being almost entirely at the hands of Anakin’s children, as Star Wars: Rebels established that Ahsoka is one of the principle architects of the Rebellion. With the EU no longer canon (and Rey not yet a Jedi, and without our knowing if she’ll want to become one or not), Ahsoka is currently the central female Jedi of the Star Wars universe, and we also learn more about the Jedi order through her adventures-her time in the library, her being sent into war so long, her adventures with various other Jedi, her training younglings and, of course, her treatment in The Wrong Jedi arc.
I think her real legacy, though, is outside of the canon. The original trilogy, of course, had no female Jedi, and female Jedi played a very minor role in the prequel films. Most people who consider themselves Star Wars fans have read few, if any, of the books and comics that made up the EU. To many of the people who watched the show (and particularly to adolescent girls), Ahsoka is The Female Jedi, even if she never technically became a Jedi, despite spending most of her life up through The Wrong Jedi preparing to be one. The Clone Wars bridges much of the time in the real world between the prequel trilogy and the sequel trilogy, making Ahsoka the female lead of Star Wars for quite a few fans. Ahsoka as the female lead is different than Leia and Padme. We watch her grow up, and she has many adventures without Anakin. She has a very nominal love interest in Lux if you WANT to read it that way, but that’s a very minor part of her arc, and she has important relationships with other women, the most important being with Padme and Barriss. Much of that, of course, is because it’s a TV series in anthology format as opposed to a movie (IMO, the world of the prequel trilogy works MUCH better in TV format than movie format because the prequels wanted to have and do so much that 3 movies couldn’t contain and develop it all the way it deserved, and that’s part of why, IMO, The Clone Wars is the best part of the current Star Wars canon). If you watched the “Ahsoka lives!” reaction videos after the finale of season 1 of Star Wars Rebels, there were people of varying ages and genders, but women who appeared to be in their late teens through their twenties were more prominent, based on my memories. So I think the real legacy of Ahsoka is that she gave Star Wars fans-especially young female fans-an entirely different kind of heroine than they’d had before.