Ahsoka's Age Throughout Star Wars History, Explained
When Ahsoka Tano was first introduced, she served as our eyes and ears in the "Star Wars" universe, the audience surrogate for this new chapter of the story, like Luke before her, or like Ezra Bridger in "Star Wars Rebels" and Rey in the new trilogy. Just as audiences grew up watching the show, they watched Ahsoka grow up before their eyes, going from hotheaded Padawan to one of the most powerful and wise Jedi ever.
It makes sense, then, that she would finally get her own TV show with the eponymous "Ahsoka," as Dave Filoni takes the character he co-created and brings her to the foreground in yet another galactic conflict. The show has been walking a fine line between being a standalone story and a continuation of several stories. There's the Mando-Verse story of the slow rise of the Imperial Remnant, but also the pay-off to the finale of "Rebels" with the disappearance of Thrawn and Ezra. Then there's the latest episode, "Shadow Warrior," which takes us back to Ahsoka's debut in "The Clone Wars," as we essentially see a summarized version of her life as a Jedi.
But many a viewer, whether familiar with the character's animated history or not, were taken aback by the casting of young Ariana Greenblatt as the character, because it really makes it clear that Ahsoka was but a child fighting in a doomed war.
War, huh, what is it good for?
In the first of three visions operating as flashbacks, we see Ahsoka in the Battle of Teth from the "Clone Wars" film, in which we first met young Ahsoka. At this time, the Togruta was but a youngling, not even earning her Jedi padawan rat tail braid yet, as she was literally only 14 years old. That's right, in our first introduction to Ahsoka, hero of the Clone Wars and fan favorite, she is barely a teenager, and yet, she is thrown into a bloody war where soldiers die left and right.
It should be noted that this new live-action retelling follows her episodes of the animated series "Tales of the Jedi," which show baby Ahsoka being kidnapped by Plo Koon and taken to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant to be indoctrinated into their cult when she was only three years old!
While the cartoons did a good job of portraying the horrors of war, such as the loss of life alongside innocence and morals, the character designs and the medium of animation itself failed to fully capture the fact that Ahsoka was a child soldier. Ahsoka is the "Star Wars" equivalent of a "Gundam" protagonist, a young teenager entrusted to commit war crimes and somehow trusted not to lose their damn minds in the process.
It doesn't help that Ahsoka's master, Anakin Skywalker — who is supposedly old and wise enough to take care of another living being — is only 19 years of age at this point. No child that young should be experiencing what Anakin did, let alone being given command of an entire army. No wonder he is a reckless maverick! The fact that we see him thrive in combat and act happier than he ever was in the movies should have been a rather huge red flag!
The children yearn for the mines... and the battlefield
By the last flashback of the episode, we see Ahsoka at the very end of the war, in the Siege of Mandalore. This is a battle Anakin missed out on because he was busy going to the opera with Palpatine, falling to the dark side, and slaughtering children – again, at the young age of 22. This is how you know George Lucas always intended to make "Star Wars" a political allegory, because the protagonist is armed with a weapon so powerful it should not be allowed on the streets, and he basically becomes a school shooter, killing a bunch of Jedi younglings, when he's barely old enough to drink.
As for Ahsoka, she not only fought a former Sith Lord during the siege and killed a whole bunch of fierce Mandalorian warriors, but she even survived Order 66, all when she was 17 — so not even old enough to vote.
Again, this episode really drives home something the animated shows can't fully capture (because of their kid-friendly tone). The Jedi were so incredibly corrupt, messed up, and lost in their ways that their rising ranks were literally made up of underage children. If Vader hadn't killed them, there's no way the Order wouldn't have had a bunch of fallen Jedi right after the war anyway.
War, war never changes
The next time we see Ahsoka in the timeline is years later, in "Star Wars Rebels." Here, the former Jedi is helping the Rebellion as an agent codenamed Fulcrum. At this time, Ahsoka is 33, and she has grown tired and disillusioned, especially once she realizes her former master turned into the bane of the Jedi, the villainous Darth Vader. Again, in animation, we don't dwell much on ages, but Ahsoka is treated as a wise old Jedi, almost like Obi-Wan, in the cartoon. And yet, she is barely in her thirties! She should be starring in her own sitcom at this age, not fighting Sith Lords and helping establish a rebellion.
Finally, we have "Ahsoka." For better or worse, the show has truly changed the former Jedi, with her sense of humor, her snark, and her warmth all gone and replaced by a cold and aging Jedi who has seen too much darkness to smile anymore. When we meet Ahsoka in "The Mandalorian," she is 48 years old, older than Anakin ever was, even counting his Vader years, which is enough to give anyone a mid-life crisis.
More than the references and callbacks, more than the promise of an "Heir to the Empire" adaptation, the best thing about "Ahsoka" so far is the same thing Filoni and his team did with "The Clone Wars," and that's providing context that enriches the "Star Wars" movies. In this case, the episode really shows how much Ahsoka has gone through in her young life, how much she has seen, and as a result, how much the Jedi suck for making her go through all that suffering.