Star Wars Wednesday: Who the heck is Ahsoka Tano?

Who the heck is Ahsoka Tano?

          Star Wars Rebels has been over for a while now, and it does feel kind of weird to not have a Star Wars cartoon on TV at the moment. While we already have confirmation that Iron Man director Jon Favreau will be taking the reins of a live-action show set in the universe, I think we should look back at one of the most iconic characters created by Dave Filoni and his team: Ahsoka Tano.

          But who is she and what makes her such a great character? Let’s take a look.

          I still remember the confusion among fans back in 2008 when Ahsoka was announced as a new character to be featured in the upcoming Clone Wars cartoon. Introduced as Anakin’s padawan we never knew about, a lot of the reactions were summed up by: “…What? Anakin never had a padawan, who the heck is this?” Things weren’t looking much better after the disastrous Clone Wars movie happened, giving us a pretty annoying version of Ahsoka who constantly got in the way and screwed things up. Her constant calling Anakin “skyguy” was so poorly received that they promised she wouldn’t do it anymore later on in the show’s run.

          But Ahsoka proved to be like a fine wine: the more time spent with her, the better she got. Her character development came to a head in the penultimate season of Clone Wars where her fate was revealed. She left the Jedi Order after feeling betrayed by them, but viewers immediately asked for more.

          While we did eventually get more when she began to make numerous appearances in Star Wars Rebels, I always found it pretty crazy how a character that initially left the fans more than a little bewildered at first became the face of Star Wars TV for just under a decade. How did this happen?

          I think a lot of it is thanks to the fact that she’s one of the first strong female characters outside of Leia that really got a starring role in a Star Wars product. With Rey still a few years off, Ahsoka was the first prominent female Jedi to appear in a visual medium. I also consider her to be the quintessential female character from the Prequel era, similar to Leia in the Originals and Rey in the Sequels. She’s much more headstrong and self-assured than Padme, that’s for sure.

          We also might be able to thank Ahsoka that we have characters like Rey and Jyn headlining movies these days. Ashley Eckstien (Ahsoka’s voice actress) used her role on the show to create and promote “Her Universe”, a Star Wars themed brand of merch aimed primarily at girls. It quickly became a juggernaut that still runs today, proving once and for all that Star Wars is a franchise for everyone.

          If you want more Ahsoka, I definitely recommend the recent book named after her. It creates an olive branch between her stories in Clone Wars and Rebels, and is overall a really fun read. If you missed it be sure to give it a look.