A Different Approach to Ahsoka Tano
My approach to Ahsoka Tano is quite different than the standard one. With the trailer for the “Ahsoka” series now out, it might be
Unlike most people, my first encounter with her was not in the Clone Wars series, but, apart from a short video snippet from Star Wars Rebels, in the second season of The Mandalorian.
What I saw there was heart-balm for my sore Jedi-loving soul: unlike the barbaric dismantling of Jedi dignity especially in TLJ I beheld an exemplar of strength, clarity, valor and dignity. Formerly Jedi or no, this Ahsoka is an epithet of a knight as becomes the term!
Meanwhile, after having watched the Clone Wars series and a large part the entirety of the Rebel series, I see that appearance with mixed feelings. The Ahsoka depicted in The Mandalorian strikes me as a bit too above the fray, a bit too pithy and too little relatable and shows way less vulnerability then I’d expect from the previous embodiments of her. Her cameo in “The Book of Boba Fett” didn’t change much about that impression: although not in warrior mood, she seems strangely aloof, especially given the fact that she hangs out with the son of her former master who after his tragic downfall repented in the very arms of Luke.
And now the “Ahsoka” trailer: it puts a smile on my face, gives me goosebumps and all, but there it is again: the Ronin, the Gandalf-Rambo-hybrid, only less aggressive and less wry.
I agree with all the people who consider Rosario Dawson’s performance wonderful in its own right; however, for an ‘extrapolation’ of the animated Ahsoka, I tend to think we need some more ‘Venus’ and less ‘Mars’ (or, for “Space Trilogy” connoisseurs, more ‘Perelandra’ and less ‘Malacandra’) in this adorable figure.
Some people I talked to about this replied that it is OK like that, Ahsoka’s been through so much, has seen so much loss etc. I get it; and it is certainly within the confines of artistic freedom to depict the evolution of a character in a more swashbuckling way. Still, a different evolution would also have been possible. One where the cheeky Clone Wars Ahsoka is not gone, but just ensconced in a shell of part self-protection, part rebellion-leader-in-dark-times. I for one hope that the shell may show some cracks in the series to come.