This week on Ahsoka, we went to another galaxy and finally found Thrawn. And we only had one scene with Ahsoka. But that's OK--there was enough going on in this episode without her.
Warning: This article will contain spoilers for basically every major detail of Ahsoka Part 6, "Far, Far Away."
We just came off of two consecutive episodes that ended with series main characters jumping to hyperspace on trips to a whole other galaxy, and this week we get to see how things are going for the first of those groups--the bad guys, with Sabine Wren in tow.
When the Nightsister Morgan Elsbeth, former Jedi Baylan Skoll, and the rest of them make landfall, they're greeted by three "Great Mothers" of the Nightsisters--these are clan leaders who were apparently on Thrawn's ship when the whales pulled them into hyperspace at the end of Rebels. Morgan then reveals that her whole quest was sparked by the Mothers' calls through the Force, before Thrawn makes an unnecessarily dramatic entrance by parking his star destroyer pretty much right on their heads.
Here we get the coolest scene of this entire series so far: Thrawn's battered stormtrooper legions, with broken armor taped and fused together after years of…whatever they've been up to out here, chanting Thrawn's name as he approaches. After some discussion of the immediate situation, Thrawn finds out about Sabine--he tells her that Ezra is somewhere out in the wilds of this planet, Peridea, and he lets her go after him, with a warning: In three days, Thrawn and everybody with him is returning to known space. And then Thrawn sends Baylan and Shin Hati after her.
Baylan has his own plans, though--whatever it is, it's doubtful that anybody other than him is going to like it. But it could be that he's not quite the antagonist that he's been positioned as so far. Which is a good thing, because Sabine managed to find Ezra after roughly five minutes of searching, thanks to the help of some local turtle people she makes friends with. Ezra is pretty good at bantering after being away from anybody who speaks his language for a number of years.
The episode ends with the Great Mothers delivering a warning of their own to Thrawn: They sense that a Jedi is riding the space whales to Peridea, and they're pretty worried. Thrawn immediately knows it's Ahsoka, and tells everybody to get ready.
This episode is a big one for Star Wars lore nerds--we got some new major lore here, and Baylan could be revealing himself as filling a niche we've only ever seen in novels, comics and video games--never a show or movie. Let's take a look at the Easter eggs and other references we got this time out on Ahsoka.
1. The History of the Galaxy, Part 1
In the first scene of the episode, we see Ahsoka and Huyang hanging out while they ride the whales. They talk about ancient galactic history--this is foreshadowing imminent Nightsister lore dumps--and Huyang refers to stories from an old series of Jedi textbooks: The History of the Galaxy Parts 1, 2, and 3. Ahsoka claims the first one is clearly the best.
This is likely a winking reference to the Mel Brooks movie The History of the World Part 1 (and the Part 2 sequel series that happened on Hulu this year), which was itself a joke about Sir Walter Raleigh's multi-part History of the World series that he intended to compile while imprisoned in the Tower of London in the early 1600s--but he only finished the first one.
2. Sabine's cell
Sabine is placed in two different jail cells in this episode, and the first is a classic Imperial design: a square room with a door on one side and a bench built into the wall on the opposite side, and nothing else at all in the room. This was the layout of Princess Leia's cell on the Death Star, and I guess they don't know how else to do it.
3. Nightsister backstory
Morgan Elsbeth gave us some major new lore this week when she claimed that her ancestors, who we always thought simply came from Dathomir, actually originally came from this planet, Peridea, that's located in another galaxy. Morgan says they rode the space whales to get out of there before recorded history. It's likely they were forced out, though, rather than simply making the trip for fun, else there would probably still be some residual society. The true significance of this place hasn't been revealed yet, however.
4. Thrawn and his Force-using pals
Thrawn being closely associated with Force users has been part of his whole thing since he was first introduced in the Heir to the Empire novel three decades ago. In that book, Thrawn was allied with an unstable old Jedi Master named Joruus C'Boath, whose abilities Thrawn took full advantage of to pull off some wild tricks. His relationship with the Great Mothers seems similar, since it was apparently his idea to have them call Morgan Elsbeth. The general vibe of the Great Mothers, meanwhile, also evokes the Bene Gesserit from Dune.
5. Enoch, captain of Thrawn's guard
There are two references here, both to real-world stuff. The first being Enoch, whose name comes from the Torah--he was a man, in the days before Noah and the Flood, who was so devout and holy in the eyes of God that God took him directly to Heaven instead of making him experience death first.
The other is his incredibly cool mask, which shows a gilded human face rather than the standard stormtrooper faceplate, reminiscent of all sorts of dope historical helmets from societies the world over.
6. Baylan the Gray Jedi -- and heir to Kreia's legacy?
"As you get older, look at history, you realize it's all inevitable. The fall of the Jedi, rise of the Empire. It repeated again and again and again…What I seek is the beginning, so I may finally bring this cycle to an end." Baylan cryptically laid out his philosophy and ultimate goal with these comments to Shin Hati upon their arrival at Peridea. While his position as an antagonist on this series indicated he was a fallen Jedi, it seems the truth is more nuanced. Baylan instead appears to be a Gray Jedi, neither light nor dark but instead walking a more balanced path, and he's got a potentially fascinating agenda.
It's one that should be familiar to those who've played Knights of the Old Republic 2 (KOTOR 2), or the MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR), which are non-canon stories that took place thousands of years prior to the movies. Both games featured storylines involving attempts to end the Jedi/Sith situation entirely because they keep wrecking the galaxy with their endless wars. In SWTOR, it was a secret group called the Star Cabal, which were manipulating a galactic war in hopes that the Republic and Sith Empire would wipe each other out and open the way for a new galactic society that isn't beholden to Force users.
In KOTOR 2, the focus of this idea was a companion character named Kreia, who questioned conventional compassionate Jedi wisdom at all opportunities as you played through the story, and whose ultimate goal was to either destory the Force itself or at least make it inaccessible to the people of the galaxy. I'd be very surprised if Baylan Skoll's true goals don't follow in this same philosophical vein.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.