Hey guys! This is my first actual discussion post in quite a while, so bear with me if I break any rules, I apologize for that!
Something that I have noticed for the last two years in the Star Wars Fandom is that many fans would like Ahsoka to stop appearing in series, or to severely limit her appearances. They claim she is “showing up in everything,” or that Dave Filoni “refuses to let her story end.” I find these claims to be utterly ridiculous, and in this post, I will refute said claims and hopefully change some minds in the process.
The first claim I will refute is that Dave Filoni “refuses to let her story end.” Many fans claim that Ahsoka should have been killed off in Rebels, during her duel with Vader. The justification for that being that Ahsoka’s death would make Vader’s story all the more tragic, in that he was so far gone that he’d kill his former apprentice and one of his closest friends. However, I feel that Ahsoka’s death at Vader’s hand would not only not benefit either of their character developments in any way, but also that it would specifically be detrimental to Ahsoka’s. We are already well aware of how far gone Anakin is. He caused the death of his own wife, he fought his best friend and Master with the intention of killing him. He murdered children. We KNOW Anakin is capable of killing people he loved. How does killing Ahsoka add to Anakin’s story in a way that hasn’t been seen before? It simply doesn’t. Having Ahsoka die at Vader’s hand makes sense narratively, and it’s perfectly within character for Vader to kill her, but doing so cuts Ahsoka off from future stories. If Ahsoka dies during her duel on Malachor, she spends her entire time as a character under Anakin’s shadow, first as his apprentice in the Clone Wars, and then in pursuit of him in Rebels. Ahsoka surviving past this duel is a transition for her character. After this duel and the subsequent events in “A World Between Worlds,” Ahsoka is finally free of Anakin, and it’s time to start exploring who she is without him. If she’s dead, we never get that opportunity.
Secondly, we must address the claim that she is “showing up in everything.” Simply put, she is not. Yes, Ahsoka had a major role in The Clone Wars. One could even argue that she was the main character of the series, despite her not appearing for an entire season. She then appeared in Rebels, but I feel that her appearance her is often misrepresented. She did not have a huge role in Rebels. She appeared in several episodes of Season Two, and was the focus of a supporting sub-plot. Though her role had a big pay-off in the Season Two finale, it was short, and she only really had three or four major appearances in the season prior. She was never a central focus. She then appeared in the very end of Season Four, but that’s it for Rebels. She never was a main character in the show. She was barely a side character for a single season. She went on to appear in a SINGLE episode of The Mandalorian and a SINGLE episode of Book of Boba Fett. One single episode of each of those shows and no more. Finally, Ahsoka is getting her own limited series, and so many fans are basically begging to see her story end in that series. That makes no sense to me. This is finally a chance to explore Ahsoka after Anakin. At this point in the timeline, it’s been twelve years since the duel on Malachor, and Ahsoka is essentially a new person, and I think it’s really exciting to finally get to see that.
But we also need to address the hypocrisy of claiming that Ahsoka is appearing in too much media. Take a character like Obi-Wan for example. Obi-Wan appeared in all of the Original Trilogy, all of the Prequel trilogy, he had a major role in the Clone Wars, he appeared in Rebels, he has his own series, which is now rumored to be getting a second season, he has been the subject of numerous other canon works, including the novels Master and Apprentice, Brotherhood, and the upcoming Padawan, with a supporting appearance in Dark Disciple. Additionally, he is the subject of a comic mini-series, and has played a role in several issues of the Star Wars (2015) comic run. Keep in mind that several of those appearances (those being Brotherhood, the Obi-Wan comic series, Padawan, and the Kenobi tv show) are not only being released within the same year, but within several months of each other. If we want to talk about over saturation of a character in Star Wars media, look no further than Kenobi, and yet fans are still clamoring for more from him. AND THEY HAVE GOOD REASON! There is still so much more story that can be told with Obi-Wan, from his Padawan years, to the time he spent on Mandalore with Satine, his training of Anakin has barely been touched, and I personally think it’d be interesting to see how becoming a member of the Jedi Council affected him. The same goes for Ahsoka. There is so much of her life that has yet to be told. Between the end of her novel and her appearance at the end of Season One of Rebels, there is 14 untouched years. Now obviously we know that during these years she was working to organize different rebel groups across the galaxy, but there is so much potential for interesting story to be told there. What about the twelve years between “A World Between Worlds” and her appearance in The Mandalorian? What did Ahsoka do immediately after returning to the temple on Malachor? What did she do immediate following her exit from the Jedi Temple? What did she do during the Original Trilogy? Was she involved in the war in any way that we just have yet to see? How and when did she meet Luke? And did she ever meet Leia? Like I said, so much story potential.
Essentially, what I’m trying to say is that there is no good reason to complain about Ahsoka’s appearances, because when you think about it honestly, she doesn’t have that many in comparison to other characters. I mean, how many comic series has Vader had centered around him? And novels? And people still want a Vader series or movie despite the entire saga being based around him and his family. Ahsoka has yet to even make a real comic appearance. She appeared in one novel. She has made guest-star appearances on two shows, a major role on one show, and a supporting role on another. That’s it. I would claim that of all characters that arguably fall under the “main characters” umbrella, which I do believe that at this point Ahsoka would, Ahsoka is the least saturated of all. Dave Filoni is very conservative about her appearances. It makes absolutely zero sense to me how fans can complain about her appearances.