Ep. 5 SHADOW WARRIOR

I wonder if we are really to expect the Thrawn and Ezra story to be resolved in this season. May be we just get him at the end, with us hanging on the cliff waiting for season 2.

 

I'd have to say an entire sewer full of excrement... haha. On a lighter note, tomorrow night should be exciting. The series is heading toward uncharted territory. With 3 episodes left there has to be a season 2, when we'll get it, who knows? The strikes are delaying everything. Mando season 4 maybe 2025/6 now, so Ahsoka season 2 will resolve a major cliff hanger years from now...

 

idk, it just seems like that's a contrived arc for her character. It's not really something I think we've seen her struggle with before.

This reading I like much better. But I think it's a bit of a stretch to say that was the intent of the show itself.

 

I took it in the vein of the old Shawshank line: “Get busy living or get busy dying”. Ahsoka is alive, but she isn’t really living. She’s caught in a sort of emotional limbo - going through the motions, but not really committed. If you’re not choosing to truly live your life, then it’s the same as choosing death. An inner death.

It’s kind of like Scrooge proclaiming “I want to live again!” after being visited by his own ghosts. The man wasn’t physically dead. He was spiritually dead, but could have his own sort of ‘resurrection’.

Granted, if that’s what was intended, the prior episodes could have hit that point a bit harder beforehand. I feel like it is there in Dawson’s performance though.

 

In fact, I'm not so confident into this statement I made anymore... it is not the possibility of a remorse that haunts her. It's bigger.
I rewatched the scenes a lot, and in fact, everything is here in the episode.

During the Siege of Mandalore scene, Anakin tells Ahsoka that he inherited everything he is from his master, who inherited everything from his, and so on, and that she will inevitably inherit everything from him.
That bugs her. Ahsoka knows Anakin will turn evil. Some time ago, she had fought Vader on Malachor and discovered who was the man under the mask.
Henceforth, her fear is to end up like him, and become evil too. @eeprom has a smart take when he says : "It’s not that she was afraid of Grogu being trained. She was afraid of Grogu being trained by HER.". Because she was afraid of passing to the little dude all that evil she had inherited.

Ahsoka says that explicitally to Anakin. To wich Anakin retorts she has failed the lesson, and had to restart from the beginning.
And, uuuh, what was the lesson ? Live or die ?
In fact, therein lays the true meaning of the whole WBW sequence : none of this is real. Anakin, or what looked like 3 different Anakin, dit not came to explicitly kill her. By this time in the timeline, the real Anakin Skywalker has lived his life as Darth Vader, and is long gone, burnt on Endor by his son Luke. What happened for real... by the Force, is Ahsoka experiencing a near death experience under the waters of Seatos, or has she entered a real thing that exists in the GFFA... who knows. We only know : this Anakin is not a real flesh Anakin. He cannot actually kill her. Ahsoka just cannot really die now, by his hands. He didn't came for that. It's not what needs to happen.

What needs to happens is that she understands the last lesson the phantom of her old master came to teach her.
Yes, the lesson is worded "Live or die", but even if it is pronunced with a buzzing lightsaber, it does not simply means live or die now.
Live = live your life as Ahsoka, don't let the hatred burn you, end up as a mature Ahsoka, not a rerun of the evil Anakin.
Or die = let yourself be overwhelmed by your anger, as he did, and fall, as he falled.

Eventually, Ahsoka has understood this lesson. "I choose to live". As she has just disarmed AnaVader, and is about to kill him, she holds back, turns off the saber and throws it away. The game is over. Ahsoka chooses to live. By sparing his enemy, she dominates her hate, and thus, she overcomes her fear, and makes it possible : yes, she can simply be Ahsoka. AnaAnakin can smile again. There is hope for her, yet.

 

Yeah, I suspect you're right. In fact, I can see Sabine finding Ezra all scruffy and hermit-like on top of some mountain island. She hands him back his lightsaber as the end-credits roll.....

......hey wait a second...!

 

If there is a porg around, I totally buy this !

 

We all are now firmly waiting for Yoda, Qui Gon, Obi Wan, Anakin and Luke meeting thru the WBW and have a blue milk.
You might throw Kylo in, as he is "the son of". But he will clearly be here to have his a## kicked by the Elders.

Dear Dave, will you dare, one day ?

 

I'm sure Luke will serve green milk

 

That stuff sours the brain. Regardless of the galaxy u reside in.

 

Rewatched the episode 3 times already

 

And that is what the duel was about. The lightsaber duel in this episode isn't about who is the better swordsman or Ahsoka finally being able to defeat Anakin. She wasn't really defeating Anakin in the first place. She was overcoming her own personal hang-ups within her own psyche.

Although I found the Ahsoka-Anakin interactions somewhat compelling, I wasn't exactly blown away. Just as I'm still not blown away by this series.

I don't agree. I don't believe in rushing the story. But I don't believe in unnecessarily dragging the narrative either. And I believe "Andor" was guilty of dragging its narrative in the first half of Season One, along with some other flaws. Storytelling, like many other things in life require the right pacing. I don't think "Ahsoka" is particularly guilty of this, at the moment. I'm just not dazzled by the story so far. But I do believe "Andor" had sufffered from flawed pacing.