WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Episode 6 of The Book of Boba Fett, “Chapter 6: From the Desert Comes a Stranger,” streaming now on Disney+.
One of the most rewarding aspects of Jon Favreau’s tenure as a creator for Disney+’s live action content in partnership with Dave Filoni, on both Star Wars: The Book of Boba Fett and The Mandalorian, has been the judicious use of guest appearances. Instead of random pop ups that deliver pithy lines on cue each show has been carefully balancing fan service and servicing the overall narrative. Their signature achievement thus far has been handcrafting specific moments that do not bulldoze through the plot on contrived vehicles forced down the viewer’s appetite for nostalgia, but delivering on some long awaited and sincere resolutions.
The latest episode of The Book of Boba Fett felt like it wasted one such opportunity in a way that cheated the fans out of something truly poignant and powerful. Ahsoka and Luke Skywalker had never shared the screen before and there is so much about their relationship to examine. They interacted with one another in a very formal, slightly distant fashion and the ties that bind them together were described off handedly to an acquaintance that could not fathom the depths of their connection. It is a moment that demands its place and space and apparently the framework of Chapter 6 wasn’t it.
There is a brilliant web comic created by Princepsed on Instagram that depicts the moment when Anakin’s son and his only Padawan meet for the first time. On the first page Ahsoka remarks on how much Luke resembles Anakin while stroking his cheek fondly and wishes quietly that Luke could have seen the man his father had been before falling to the Dark Side. Luke immediately conveys to Ahsoka that he did see him, not Vader, but Anakin. That he held him in his arms as he died and Anakin was redeemed in the Light by sacrificing himself to save his child. He did not die alone or in Darkness. Ahsoka is overcome as she mouths “he came back…” with her eyes wide puddled with tears before they slip in streaks down her cheeks and then she falls to her knees, overcome as Luke stands over her unsure of what to do or how to respond.
The moment is breathtaking, in part because it offers them each something that could only come from the other. In Ahsoka’s case she would have had no way to know that Anakin ever had a child, much less children, or that Vader had ever been cleansed from his soul. Even if she had felt a tremor in the Force she would never have known it for a certainty and even if she had been told this fact by someone else second hand she would still have a hearsay connection to the information. Luke’s first hand account, the fact that it was his life that provided the necessary catalyst to revert her former master to the man she admired and loved, must have priceless value to her.
The last canonical instance where Ahsoka and Vader met was during Star Wars: Rebels wherein Darth Maul pursued a Sith holocron with his would be apprentice Ezra Bridger in tow. Ezra’s true mentor in the Force, Kanan Jarrus, was blinded by Maul during the interaction and was ill suited to defy Maul on his own, until Ahsoka appeared. As she dispatched Maul once again, Vader joined the melee and the two saw each other for the first time since their separation in the moments leading up to the Battle of Coruscant. Ahsoka intimated as they took each other’s measure at a distance that she had a sense of who might be behind the mask but while within the presence of his deep malevolence, even though she was keenly aware of the litany of his crimes, she felt it couldn’t be possible that this thing in front of her could be Anakin.
As they fought her worst fears were proven correct. Anakin had somehow become Vader and all of the Jedi who survived Order 66 had been slain by him personally or his Inquisitor minions. The emotional toll it took on her was clear and though there are upcoming stories that may provide more background by way of flashbacks about Ahsoka’s journeys through the galaxy and potentially subsequent run ins with the Dark Lord, this is the last time they shared a space within established continuity. For her to learn that the shadow could be lifted from the mostly mechanical monstrosity she felt through the Force must have been life changing. Over the years she must have second guessed every instinct that she had ever had about anything of importance. She must have felt foolish about keeping faith with a ghost for so many long years but now those instincts had been validated.
For Luke, there was no one left alive who had known his father when he was Anakin in as intimate a way as Ahsoka. If Rex was still fighting the good fight somewhere in the galaxy, even he couldn’t speak to the type of rapport that exists between a Padawan and their master. The emotion Ahsoka displayed in the comic above would speak wordless volumes to a young man new in the Force who is coming to terms with his identity and legacy. Ahsoka could share things about his father that Obi-Wan couldn’t or never had the chance to because in some ways Ahsoka understood Anakin better than his master had. They were similar in ways that Obi-Wan and Anakin were not and Ahsoka’s response in this iteration also delineates the ways in which she abandoned certain Jedi prescriptions around decorum and most notably to the episode in question, attachment.
Luke is mindful of the dangers inherent to allowing relationships to take priority over a philosophical neutrality that dictates dispassionate acceptance of what one can and cannot change. His father is the ultimate cautionary tale and the consequences for his hubris cost the galaxy its freedom and the Jedi their lives. Ahsoka would be communicating a balance in the Force that Luke may not have even considered, a place where attachment can exist in harmony with greater discipline and might therefore inform the tutelage that he will one day pass on to his own younglings, Kylo Ren foremost among them. The live action rendering of this moment in Star Wars lore may come at some point somewhere down the line but its lack during The Book of Boba Fett‘s most recent episode was keenly felt by many.
To see Ahsoka and Luke ignore an opportunity for emotional healing, The Book of Boba Fett is streaming now on Disney+.
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