The fact that Rex is the one who shows even an OUNCE of concern for Ahsoka's immediate wellbeing while Anakin does not is uh. Pretty telling about them both.

Rex. Literal child soldier trained from birth to place exactly zero value on his own life and has never known a normal life or real kindness growing up. Rex is the one who thinks they're going too far and that Ahsoka needs a break.

But Anakin, whose training would've been a lot kinder and inclined to allow him to take the breaks he needed, doesn't even give a shit about what this "training" is doing to his student.

I mean, that's definitely what Filoni's writing wants you believe, yes.

It's what the editing of the show definitely implies. I understand that that's what I'm supposed to accept as truth based on this show.

However, if you actually stop and think about this exercise for like 5 seconds, it makes zero sense. You also have to consider what actually happens to Ahsoka (and Rex) in that battle they walk into on the hangar during Order 66 and what they did during that battle, whether they could be considered to have "won" that battle, and whether this particular exercise would've actually had any use in keeping Ahsoka alive during that particular battle. You can apply this same exercise to the episode with the Inquisitor Ahsoka battles in TOTJ, as well.

To begin with, we must ask ourselves what this particular training exercise is actually teaching Ahsoka? What skill is she gaining from it that she WASN'T gaining from the Jedi exercise we see earlier? Ahsoka is standing mostly stationary in the middle of a group of soldiers who are ALSO standing pretty much stationary in a circle around her, shooting stun blasts at her. While it's never stated outright what the rules are, we never see Ahsoka attempt to "cut down" her opponents or defeat them in any way, we never see her attempt to get through her opponents to some sort of stated location, and we never see her try to escape some other way. So we have to assume, based on the fact that she never does these things, that they are against the "rules" of the exercise. ALL Ahsoka is doing then, is deflecting the bolts for as long as she can. There isn't even a stated amount of time she's supposed to be reaching. What this tells me is that there is no way to win the exercise. There's never any way to actually survive, because at some point, inevitably, Ahsoka will tire and fail. It's sort-of like a game of Tetris. You can do BETTER than you did in the last round, you can last longer perhaps, but you'll never win. You'll always lose eventually.

So if the entire point of the exercise, as per Anakin's little speech, is to teach Ahsoka how to protect herself, what skill is she actually learning that will protect her in a battle?

The best you can say is potentially endurance. But endurance will only ever get her so far. Even if she encounters an opponent that just stands there shooting at her without moving, she will always eventually tire. So what would ACTUALLY be useful in a situation like this, if she encountered one, would be learning how to a) defeat her opponent, or b) escape her opponent, depending on the skill level of the opponent and her own personal situation and goals. None of which she is actually learning from this exercise.

And even if endurance WAS the intended goal of the exercise, there's probably way better ways to teach Ahsoka this particular skill that don't involve stunning her into unconsciousness for an hour over and over again. Quite honestly, if endurance is the only skill being honed, she's probably learning plenty of that on the ground anyway in long campaigns and battle strategy sessions and marches and the like.

Let's compare it then to the Jedi's exercise we see her doing earlier. In that, she gets to destroy the droids and "survive" the simulated battle sequence. She gets to move around as necessary, so long as she stays within the energy barrier placed around her that is steadily creeping closer to her, which means she only has so much time to use to defeat her opponents. The skills she is honing in THIS exercise are actually varied. Endurance isn't really one of them because that's not really the point of this particular exercise. This exercise is asking her to be creative, aware of her surroundings, aware of time constraints, adaptable, and to actually WIN the exercise. She's blocking bolts, yes, but she's also ATTACKING, so there's multiple kinds of lightsaber skills she's having to use in this exercise alone whereas Anakin's exercise ONLY tests defensive skills.

And the Jedi's exercise happens to take place in a gym that has padded floors, so if she falls for any reason, she's not falling on a hard surface that could hurt her further. Additionally, if she gets hurt, there's MULTIPLE adult Jedi around who would be able to help her and get her the assistance she needs. In Anakin's exercise, it's just Anakin and the clones, and the one time we see Rex voice some concern about Ahsoka's wellbeing, Anakin brushes him off. So Ahsoka isn't getting anywhere near the same level of care during this exercise that she would with the Jedi's exercises, which means she could tire herself out and get hurt doing this exercise which means she'll be at less than her best potentially when going out into the field later which actually puts her at MORE risk of getting hurt, not less.

So not only is she less taken care of, she's learning less from Anakin's new exercise.

Now let's look at some of the ways in which she survives Order 66.

The thing that ACTUALLY allows her to survive the initial Order is Rex HESITATING before he shoots (and gives the order for everyone else to shoot) which gives Ahsoka critical time to understand what's going on and figure out a plan of action which is, actually, to ESCAPE. She jumps up and escapes the bolts rather than trying to hold out against them.

When she goes to rescue Rex, she creates a diversion that isolates Rex from the other clones so she DOESN'T have to fight them head-on by herself. I'll also note that by this point, Ahsoka's not working alone because she's being assisted by a group of droids, and she never works alone again in this entire episode because she now has Rex as a partner.

And having a partner to watch her back is an ESSENTIAL element to why she survives, an element that does not exist in Anakin's exercise. Please note here that a common element in other Jedi surviving Order 66 is often that one Jedi sacrifices themselves for another one to have a chance to run away. While both Rex and Ahsoka manage to survive, clearly having partners is an essential aspect to survival against multiple opponents.

And finally we hit the moment shown in the TOTJ episode when Rex and Ahsoka walk into a hangar filled with a lot of chipped clones.

Rex makes a comment here that he hopes all of Ahsoka's training pays off, but the entire point of the ruse they're pulling here is to try very hard NOT to end up in that exact situation. The idea is to attempt to convince Jesse (and everyone else) that Rex is still chipped and has captured Ahsoka, or that Ahsoka shouldn't count as a Jedi because she left the Order and to basically circumvent Order 66 and allow Rex and Ahsoka to just escape on a shuttle together or something with zero bloodshed. Obviously this idea doesn't end up going according to plan, but that IS actually the plan they have when walking into that situation.

After everything goes to shit, Ahsoka and Rex really don't often end up surrounded by a group of clones standing still in a circle shooting at them. There's some distractions that occur via Maul showing up and stealing their shuttle as well as the floor sections that move up and down allowing them to remove a good number of their opponents for a bit so they can focus on trying to just get to their destination (aka the shuttle). Ahsoka and Rex are MOVING, there is a goal in mind which is to GET TO A SPECIFIC LOCATION and there's no limitations on what they're able to do physically to GET to that location, including shooting back at the clones or shoving them aside or moving them via the floors or jumping over them. Ahsoka's allowed to be CREATIVE in how she approaches this battle in a way Anakin's exercise never allows her to be, and had Maul not stepped in and taken the shuttle instead, she'd have achieved the objective. But not because of Anakin's training, because of the JEDI'S. What Ahsoka does in this battle is WAY more similar to what we see her doing in the Temple gym than Anakin's exercise with the clones.

And I cannot repeat this enough, Ahsoka has HELP. She has Rex, who is literally watching her back and making sure that the shots that would've hit her in Anakin's exercise, never even get shot in the first place. If Ahsoka was only relying on ANAKIN'S training, she'd have died in that battle. If Ahsoka had been alone and just standing in a circle of clones shooting at her, she'd have died. We never ONCE see Ahsoka actually "win" Anakin's exercise, she just lasts a little longer, but there is never a point where she actually survives. Having a partner with her, having Rex keeping an eye out for someone shooting at her from somewhere she can't see, is essential to her survival.

And even WITH THAT, even with the ability to move and shoot back, even with Rex, she probably STILL would've died ultimately, if the ship hadn't lost power and basically thrown all of the clones off their feet and moved them away from her and made it next to impossible for them to keep shooting at her and surround her. Which, again, is not really a part of Anakin's exercise. She survives by sheer luck.

A combination of Jedi creativity, partnership with Rex, and sheer luck. THAT'S what allows Ahsoka to survive Order 66.

As for the Inquisitor battle, that one's going to take less time to debunk because that was, in fact, a LIGHTSABER battle which you might note is not what Anakin's exercise is testing in any way shape or form. Anakin's exercise is PURELY about endurance and defensive blocking, not offensive attacks or physical dodging of lightsaber blows, which is what Ahsoka ACTUALLY uses to win that particular battle. Whether Anakin taught her those specific skills or not is sort-of against the point here because what we're looking at is this SPECIFIC exercise we see Anakin make her do, which would've given Ahsoka exactly zero skills that would've been helpful in a lightsaber battle where her opponent has a saber and she does not.

Jedi died during Order 66 because they weren't necessarily given the time to figure out what was even going ON and didn't always have opportunities to escape. Plo Koon is shot from behind, as is Stass Allie and Aayla Secura. There is NO WAY and NO TIME for any of them to have fought off the clones shooting at them. Ahsoka gets an actual warning from Rex, something literally no other Jedi has the benefit of hearing.

The Jedi died because they were betrayed. The Jedi died because their friends who they trusted were turned on them. The Jedi died because they were kind and compassionate and chose to trust the clones even after they knew the clones were a potential trap set by the Sith. They didn't die because their training wasn't harsh enough.

I did wince when Anakin was training Ahsoka and was questioning if it’s the healthiest way of doing it. But I thought it’s to reflect Anakin’s bullheadedness and how he’s brute force methods while effective, is not the best way——if any other Jedi did this the Fans will be crying out in outrage and accusing them for child abuse (for Force’s sake she’s out for an hour at least get her some water, she girls probably had multiple concussions). Evidently I had too much trust on the creators 🤷🏻‍♀️

Thank you for putting this into better words than I did previously. That episode, while very emotional, rubbed me the wrong way and now I can articulate why.

Even though as George Lucas said, Jedi Knights are not "celibate", I believe this quote from the great Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk and teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh could be useful when it comes to the Jedi practice of avoiding marriages, and can shed a new light to the overall story of Obi-Wan & Satine and Anakin & Padmé.

"As a monastic you lead a life of monastic celibacy and community, and if the one you love realizes that, she will not suffer and you will not suffer, because love is much more than having a sexual relationship. Because of great love you can sacrifice that aspect of love, and your love becomes much greater. That nourishes you, that nourishes the other person, and finally your love will have no limit. That is the Buddha’s love." - Thich Nhat Hanh

It might worth to examine those love stories from this perspective, considering that Obi-Wan said to Anakin in Clone Wars: "It's not that we are not allowed to have these feelings. It's natural." even though he said, the relationship between Anakin and Padmé must not go beyond friendship, and what Lucas had to say on this: "Jedi Knights aren't celibate - the thing that is forbidden is attachments - and possessive relationships." and "So you have to learn to give up everything. And ultimately for a Jedi Knight, it’s very easy to give up. One of the things they give up is marriage. They can still love people. But they can’t possess them." and "A Jedi is never lonely. They live on compassion. They live on helping people, and people love them. They can love people back."

Anyway Ahsoka and Cody meeting during the rebellion and being completely unable to talk about Obi-Wan because in Cody’s mind he has to be alive or else he killed him and in Ahsoka’s mind he has to be dead or else he abandoned her

George Lucas: “[Anakin] still thinks he’s doing the right thing and still believes he’s a good person.”

“Anakin was a good kid, and even though he was a petulant, whiny teen - which I can say from experience seems to be the way it works; even I was one of those once - he was still a good person. Anakin has been struggling with some issues, especially about his mother, but also with Padmé and [deciding between] doing his job and his own, personal thing. And even in this film, the first third of it, he’s fine. He’s a good pal to Obi-Wan and doing a great job. But this is the one where you see him get manipulated and twisted to a place where, even in the end, he still thinks he’s doing the right thing and still believes he’s a good person.

It’s Padmé’s reaction to him that [makes Anakin understand], "You’re turned into a horrible monster.” Anakin thinks he’s the same; he doesn’t realize he’s any different. He’s sad that he has had to kill kids and do terrible things to all the other Jedi, but he knows he had to do that. Anakin made a choice, and that was the result of it. From his point of view, the Jedi were bad and that’s what happens. So in his mind, he’s doing the right thing, even in the end. People don’t do bad things thinking they’re doing bad things; that’s the point.“

- George Lucas, 2005, Staglog Magazine

Not sure if this asked in good faith, but the answer is simple:

Padmé had already fallen out of the ship and landed on a dune. Whether she was dead or survived the fall, the event had already taken place. Anakin wants to put the ship down so he can reassure himself that Padmé's okay, it's a selfish demand.

Yoda, on the other hand, had to choose between saving Obi-Wan and Anakin who were about to die, and letting Dooku escape. Life is sacred to a Jedi, so the choice was evident. Yoda is letting Dooku get away for a selfless purpose.

There's this notable difference, both in fic and in textual analysis and fandom reaction, between:

and

Change as an act of desperation, not change as an acknowledgement of moral failure.

I do not think the Jedi needed to change because of a moral failing. I do think that in fics where they change and grieve that change, because it was necessary to survive at all, hit much harder than fics where they change because their approaches to culturally subjective topics don't match that of the author.

(Was originally going to send this to @gffa as a prompt for a wider discussion but Eh, makes more sense as an original post on my own blog, lol.)

So during church yesterday, my pastor said something along the lines if you are trying to save someone from drowning but they are panicking and pulling you down and impeding your work - sometimes you punch them in the face. At the very least, this stuns them so they stop pulling you down and you can help them.

And all I could really think about was if during the Palpatine showdown with Mace and Anakin, if Obi-Wan just came in, he shoulda just punched Anakin in the face. It not only would have stunned Anakin for sure but probably Palpatine too.

And boom Mace and Obi-Wan kill the Sith Lord.

Done and over with.

The funny thing is that- Anakin at that point in time is absolutely doing everything to make the absolute worst of his own life and that of others. "Somebody shoulda just punched him" is absolutely a Saving Anakin From Himself (And Everyone Else) situation. The comparison is on point. 👌

Matthew Stover,  Author, Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith Novelization (2005)

Okay, this is all so perfect. Like, Yes! Yes! A thousand times, yes! to all that he is saying, I want to rant for hours about how perfectly Stover nails it here, but I would honestly just be repeating what he’s saying over and over again. I still will a little bit though.

Something I love about the Prequels-Originals combination is that while they are in many ways a story about how love conquers all, they make a distinction between selfish love and selfless love. Selfless love can bring about miracles, but selfish love destroys. The prequels are a cautionary tale about how selfish love ultimately brings suffering, both to the person feeling/doing it and what’s beloved. Just calling a feeling love doesn’t make it good, or compassionate. 

“There is love that’s about you, and there is love that’s about how I feel about you.” This is exactly what Anakin says to Padmé’ in “Hostage Crisis”

It seems like a sweet and romantic line, and he definitely means it as such. But underneath, we know, lies tragedy. Among the things that aren’t as important is Padmé herself. 

“And this is the crucial distinction that Anakin fails to realise in time.” Yes!  Anakin doesn’t want to see the difference between these two things, love that’s about her and love that’s first and foremost about his feelings for her. He blurs the lines between them because he’s Anakin, and he wants and needs so badly. He convinces himself that this is the same as loving Padmé for Padmé, that surely this love must be good, because his feelings are so strongly and he wants to be carried away, consumed, by his feelings for her. But as he blurred these lines he stops being able to tell from where he’s acting, care about Padmé or putting himself first. 

Full disclaimer: I’m not “huge” into Star Wars.  I’m indifferent to Anakin/Vader and his “fall to the dark side” (it was more “melodramatic” than believable for my tastes).  But this…this enlarges the character for me.  It adds a layer of depth I hadn’t seen (or cared to look into).  I’ve been playing The Force Unleashed and The Force Unleashed II and Vader plays a pivotal role in both games…so I guess I’m more open to “hearing about Vader” than I have been in the past.  And I think that’s the beauty of supplemental materials, especially for issues as complex as the ones seen in series as far-reaching/long-standing as SW.  Sometimes you just can’t “cover it all” in a 90-minute film.

I like this.  This is fascinating.

I used to feel the same way about the Anakin plot line in the prequels (and I grew up on this crap - we were a star wars house). I always thought he was just creepily obsessed with Padmé and now, as an adult, I see that that is literally the whole point. Look at Obi-Wan’s character and you see how much he loves, selflessly so. He loves so much but he is never tempted to darkness because his love isn’t an emotion for only himself. He gives his love with no expectations for his own gain, whereas Anakin lets his love burn him up. Anakin gets tunnel vision when it comes to Padme and even in episode three he says “I can’t live without her”. That’s not caring for whether or not she lives after childbirth, that’s caring about how he will feel if she dies. His feelings are so focused on himself, and reading the books for the first time it really fleshes it out, because you’re right. Some things just can’t be expressed in 90 minutes.

And so much about Anakin is about his unwillingness to face struggle, or with having to face dissapointment. It often strikes me when I think about how Anakin is willing to kill to keep Padme Amidala in his life, but he’s not willing to be honest with himself and others to dedicate himself to loving her. He prefers to do things halfway because he wants the benefits without the drawbacks, because he wants his life to be grander and better in a way that is only about feeling that he doesn’t have to lose anything. He thinks that love is the same as intense want, and doesn’t understand anything about devotion.

At the end of the day, he isn’t a man on the brink of desperation. He isn’t a man pushed to his limits. He is a man obsessed with not having to feel like he has to give up anything.

Which is why I like this specific quote so much:

Of all the ways Anakin could have aproached his problems, he chose the one way that didn’t ask he exchange anything of himself except his compassion and care for others. The Dark Side wasn’t a dragging inevitability but an open palm, and Anakin took it.

As happy as I am that Kelleran lived through the episode, that Grogu lived through Order 66, once again I am emotionally devastated we see that the Jedi died to protect their children, that over and over, every time there’s an Order 66 flashback, we don’t just see Jedi dying, we see them dying to protect their children.  To protect others, that’s what we see in every single iteration of Order 66 or even throughout the Clone War, they die because they’re giving up their lives to protect someone else in the galaxy. “What Jedi gave their life so that you might live?” is a taunt when we first hear it, it’s a brutal reminder that Cal Kestis’ Jedi Master died for him, that Trilla Suduri’s Master didn’t and that was the exception to the rule, but it’s also an axiom of who the Jedi are. They died so their children could live.

“Anakin/Kylo/[random EU darksider] turned to the Dark Side because of past trauma/people being mean/bad influences. Circumstances made him evil, and therefore it’s not actually his fault or his responsibility and he deserved so much better.”

Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah. 

Yeah, no.

… And in the end he’s still smiling, rooted firmly in the Light.

Obi-Wan Kenobi’s life is an absolute nightmare and the foil to every claim that living through terrible things justifies choosing to Fall.  

Even though as George Lucas said, Jedi Knights are not "celibate", I believe this quote from the great Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk and teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh could be useful when it comes to the Jedi practice of avoiding marriages, and can shed a new light to the overall story of Obi-Wan & Satine and Anakin & Padmé.

"As a monastic you lead a life of monastic celibacy and community, and if the one you love realizes that, she will not suffer and you will not suffer, because love is much more than having a sexual relationship. Because of great love you can sacrifice that aspect of love, and your love becomes much greater. That nourishes you, that nourishes the other person, and finally your love will have no limit. That is the Buddha’s love." - Thich Nhat Hanh

It might worth to examine those love stories from this perspective, considering that Obi-Wan said to Anakin in Clone Wars: "It's not that we are not allowed to have these feelings. It's natural." even though he said, the relationship between Anakin and Padmé must not go beyond friendship, and what Lucas had to say on this: "Jedi Knights aren't celibate - the thing that is forbidden is attachments - and possessive relationships." and "So you have to learn to give up everything. And ultimately for a Jedi Knight, it’s very easy to give up. One of the things they give up is marriage. They can still love people. But they can’t possess them." and "A Jedi is never lonely. They live on compassion. They live on helping people, and people love them. They can love people back."

I feel like the ‘the Jedi were too strict with Anakin and it was abusive and that’s why he fell!’ is telling of a certain … power fantasy some Star Wars fans have.

Because Anakin didn’t have to be a Jedi. We know he could’ve left the Order, because that’s what Dooku did. The man’s the most skilled fighter pilot of his era, a capable combatant, has experience with diplomacy, has worked as a bodyguard, etc, etc, he would not even remotely struggle to find work, even without taking into account that his wife is a wealthy senator who could easily support him. Hell, while he’d probably have to give up his lightsaber, it’s not like it’d be impossible for him to build another one – it isn’t illegal for a non-Jedi to own a lightsaber, and it’s clearly possible to acquire lightsaber crystals outside of the Order because, again, Dooku has a lightsaber. It’s not even like he’d have to give up his friendship with Obi-Wan – Obi-Wan has friends who aren’t Jedi, he has a whole bunch of them. So does Yoda.

(Hell, it’s not even like non-Jedi aren’t allowed to use the Force. As Palpatine points out in the Revenge of the Sith novelisation, it’s not even technically illegal to be a Sith Lord.)

The only reason Anakin can’t leave the Order is because he doesn’t want to. He wants everything: He wants the power, prestige, excitement, and community the Jedi offer, but he also wants to not have to follow their rules. 

And I think for quite a lot of people that’s a very relatable thing, right? We want to have it all. The fantasy of being a cool Jedi is, for a lot of people, ruined by the addendum that there are things you would have to forego to do that. That’s one reason why the idea of Grey Jedi, which fully is just that ‘you can have your cake and fuck it too’ is so appealing to so many fans.

But that’s not what life is like, in reality or in fiction. And Anakin’s fall brings that crashing in: He tries to have everything, and he ends up with nothing. Less than nothing, because at the end of it, not only does he not have any of the things he wanted in the first place, but he’s also lost his freedom (because let’s make no mistake, as much of a terrible, gleeful executor of cruelty and misery as he is as Vader, he is also Palpatine’s slave) and his body.

It’s easy and in a way quite appealing to shift the blame elsewhere and go “Well, he could’ve had it all, but people more powerful than him stopped him from doing so.”

I think it’s also important to take into account that, other than childhood slavery, the Jedi order is all Anakin had ever known. It’s very much like people who are converted into a religious sect or cult at a young age and have significant difficulty even considering the idea of leaving.

But it’s not the same thing at all though. That’s an argument you might make for the Jedi who joined as toddlers, but Anakin was nine. As an adult, you definitely remember being that age (and even younger), and nine year olds have already formed big parts of their identity. Plus GL has said that part of Anakin’s problem was his inability to fully identify with the Jedi because that’s not all he’s ever known. And he’s got Padmé! And he had friends on Tatooine, some who were presumably free! He knows what life outside of slavery and outside the Order is.

Also, real world religions rarely have statues of the guys who left in full display in the library, celebrating them for choosing their own paths. That’s the kind of thing that helps you understand leaving is an option. We even have confirmation that Anakin has considered leaving (he says as much to Ahsoka in TCW).

More significantly, the idea that it just never occurred to him that he could, or that it felt too difficult, goes against the core theme of choice in his story. The Prequels aren’t “and here’s why Vader had no alternative but to become Vader,” the Prequels are “okay, remember how Luke chose not to fall and Vader chose to come back in the OT? here’s how and why somebody chooses to do evil.”

The other thing about Anakin and the Jedi is that I’m pretty sure he could’ve gone to Yoda and been like “Look, I’ve been having a secret affair with Senator Amidala, she’s pregnant with twins, I’ve been having visions of her dying. Previously, my visions of loved ones dying have proved to be accurate, please can you spare some of the Order’s literally magical healers to assist her.”

And Yoda would probably be like “Hm. Grant healers, I can, but make promises, I cannot.  Matter of your departure from the Order, discuss at a later date, we will.”

Like, yeah, Anakin would have to stop being a Jedi, but if he truly loves Padme, that’s a no-brainer. 

But he doesn’t do that. What he does instead is … *checks notes* … murder children because an evil wizard told him a fairytale and then telekinetically strangle his heavily pregnant wife. 

Like I get that he’s emotionally compromised at the time, but the other thing he is is a grown adult man whose job description of ‘military general’ relies on being calm under fire. 

☆ - ̗̀✨ He's just Ken ✨ ̖́- ☆

The moment baby trout leaps from the water to catch flies buzzing overhead, 2008 - by Kim Taylor, Canadian

Looking back at these three moments is so interesting because we all know that Obi-Wan's "hubris" storyline got a little ret-conned in the making of The Phantom Menace, that a lot of it went to Qui-Gon instead and Obi-Wan became a very different character with a very different place in the story and relationship to Anakin as a result. Especially after the events of Obi-Wan Kenobi, he has gone from someone who takes responsibility here for at least SOME of Anakin's fall by acknowledging the arrogance he had in choosing to train Anakin, in believing himself better than Yoda, and instead turns into someone who is explicitly said to have exactly no fault in the entire situation. Obi-Wan did his best, it just wasn't enough and Anakin made his own bad choices, regardless of how well Obi-Wan did or didn't train him, regardless of how well someone else may or may not have done as Anakin's Master. Obi-Wan's choice to teach Anakin DID NOT cause him to fall, and the prequel trilogy films actually showcase a fairly good relationship between them and Obi-Wan's ability to, occasionally, break through Anakin's bad habits and enforce rationality over emotions.

But in contrast, we see that Anakin actually makes the exact mistake that got attributed to Obi-Wan in Return of the Jedi. With the caveat being that he does apparently have Yoda's blessing according to Ahsoka, but his statement here blatantly and arrogantly claims that he can train Ahsoka BETTER than Obi-Wan. It's a joke, in some respects, but this is also early enough in Anakin's Knighthood that his relationship with Obi-Wan is closer to what we see in Attack of the Clones (more contentious) than Revenge of the Sith (more equal and friendly). So the idea that this is Anakin sort-of taking an unnecessary and uncalled for potshot at Obi-Wan to impress his new Padawan doesn't strike me as out of character. The Force might believe they make a good pair, but that doesn't necessarily mean that Anakin is READY for the responsibility, it doesn't necessarily mean Anakin's actually going to ultimately make a good teacher for Ahsoka.

And this line is, from a Doylist perspective, meant to be ironic. It's a lampshade for the fact that the writers knew that the audience would question why Anakin was being given a padawan when he so clearly does not have one in Revenge of the Sith. This is letting the audience know that the writers are aware that Ahsoka ISN'T GOING TO MAKE IT AS ANAKIN'S PADAWAN. Even if they didn't know for sure what they were going to do in order to remove her from the story, there were three options available: she dies, leaves the Order, or just ends up with a different Master. Which means that we as the audience know that this statement will ultimately be proven FALSE. Anakin will be proven arrogant and full of hubris in this moment. And we know this from the moment this line is spoken.

Canonically, Ahsoka does not make it as Anakin's padawan. She just doesn't. She leaves the Order and never reaches Knighthood. That's the underlying irony of the entire scene.

And we see in multiple ways how Anakin's arrogance ultimately leads Ahsoka down the WRONG PATH.

Most damningly, are Ahsoka's choices during the Wrong Jedi arc, which predominantly seem to come down to training and opinions she received from Anakin. The first choice that makes her look especially guilty is when she takes the very suspicious key card because she thinks Anakin left it there, thinking that this absurd plan to break her out like this makes any sense at all and just goes along with it. I've seen the theory that this is Ahsoka reacting the way she would in a hostile enemy situation, which is probably true, but my issue with this is that Ahsoka is not mentally inhibited in any way. She knows she's not in enemy territory, she's perfectly aware she's on Coruscant. And ever since about season four onward, Ahsoka is actually presented as very level-headed and unlikely to just panic out of nowhere and suddenly fall back on instincts that make no sense for her current situation. So if we ARE supposed to believe Ahsoka is relying on training for how to handle being captured by an enemy, it seems OOC to me that she would do so.

More likely to me is that this is Anakin's training coming in. One of the very first lessons we ever see Anakin teach Ahsoka is in the Malevolence arc, when he teaches her how to lie to the Council and then do what she wants anyway and come up with a good enough excuse for it. Here, we see Ahsoka up against authorities, up against a system, that's asking Ahsoka to be PATIENT, to wait a little while until someone can find a way to prove her innocence, to trust that someone will believe her and help her. And instead, the moment she gets a hint that she can just... break the rules and run, she takes it. And she takes it explicitly because she thinks ANAKIN'S ASKING HER TO. In a situation where we already know she's aware that running makes you look more guilty, she does it anyway because it makes sense to her that Anakin would ask her to.

And then she continues to run after she escapes the cell because she claims she doesn't think anyone else would believe her OTHER THAN ANAKIN. She's been in that cell maybe a few hours at this point and the Council hasn't been approached by Tarkin yet to demand they expel her, so Ahsoka has exactly no reason to believe the Council WON'T listen to her, believe her, respect her. Which speaks of an inherent mistrust of the Jedi Order and the Council itself that Ahsoka may not have even been aware that she HAD up until now.

And where could she have picked that one up subconsciously? Certainly not any of the other Jedi she routinely spends time with: both Obi-Wan and Plo Koon are on the Council themselves, as is Yoda who she is seen going to for advice. Aayla and Luminara both seem pretty friendly with the Council even if they aren't on it. There's nothing the Council has done that would cause Ahsoka not to trust them. But that first lesson we see Anakin teach Ahsoka sows a seed for possible disrespect and lack of trust in the Council and their judgments. So if she doesn't trust them to believe her and thinks she has to prove her own innocence because the Council WON'T, she learned that behavior from Anakin. And this ultimately leads to her leaving the Order entirely. Had Ahsoka just stayed in her cell, recognized how suspicious that key card was, or just not run when she found the first attacked clone, she may have been able to put up a better defense for herself, Barriss may have been found out earlier. The Jedi may have been able to protect her easier if she'd acted smarter. Instead, Anakin's training and ideas fail her and she has to leave the Jedi.

Ahsoka doesn't make it as a Jedi, and it happens because she listened to Anakin.

Ahsoka doesn't make it as Anakin's Padawan. His training ultimately leads to her losing trust in herself and damages her relationship to the Council and the Order itself, so much so that she never manages to make it BACK to the Jedi before Anakin destroys them and makes it so she never can. Anakin's choices ultimately mean she can never return, and she has yet to reclaim that identity as a Jedi, though the upcoming show may ultimately have that change.

Anakin fails her as a Master. I believe that Yoda picked something up from the Force that told him Anakin and Ahsoka had the POTENTIAL to be a really good pair, this ultimately entirely relies on their own choices. And Anakin consistently makes bad ones. Anakin and Ahsoka are both stubborn, reckless, arrogant when they meet each other. Anakin forcing himself to teach Ahsoka lessons on patience and discipline and responsibility could have ultimately helped Anakin learn those same lessons and apply them more to himself; we see a similar concept happen with Kanan and Ezra, that teaching Ezra these lessons allows Kanan to actually fully understand them. Anakin and Ahsoka could have learned these things TOGETHER and come to help each other find balance specifically because of how similar they are to each other. But this was all POTENTIAL, it was all a MAYBE, and Anakin never actually ends up applying those lessons to himself, not enough at least. And Ahsoka picks up just as many of his worst habits as she does the few Jedi teachings he does manage to get across to her adequately, which could just as easily have been due to her foundation of Jedi training from growing up in the Temple or taught to her via all the other Jedi we see her learning lessons from (Jocasta Nu, Tera Sinube, Obi-Wan, Aayla Secura, Luminara Unduli, Yoda, Plo Koon).

In comparison, we are told in Return of the Jedi that Obi-Wan believes his hubris led to Anakin's fall. He says he believed he could train Anakin better than Yoda, and was wrong. That his training wasn't enough, that his training failed Anakin, because he was arrogant enough to overestimate his own power and abilities. But in the prequel trilogy, we see that this wasn't the case, at all.

Obi-Wan takes on Anakin's training against Yoda's advice, sure, but Yoda doesn't think he can train Anakin better, he doesn't try to convince Obi-Wan to let himself or anyone else train Anakin. And there's no real indication that what ultimately causes Anakin to fall was a failure in Obi-Wan's training. And, in fact, the reason Anakin didn't fall EARLIER was probably very much down to the training he got from Obi-Wan and the relationship they developed. Obi-Wan blames himself because he WAS Anakin's teacher and he loved Anakin and honestly has no idea about the visions of Padme's death so he can't quite put those pieces together and figure out why Anakin's done what he's done. So the easiest way to manage those feelings for a while, that confusion, is to just blame himself. But that doesn't make it TRUE.

Anakin and Ahsoka make their own choices, obviously. But while Anakin's choices cannot be attributed to bad training on Obi-Wan's part, Ahsoka's can be directly traced back to the training she'd have gotten from Anakin. The bad habits, the assumptions, the underlying mistrust aimed at the Jedi and the Council. All of it came from Anakin, and all of it leads to her own downfall and choice to walk away from the Order.

Even by Rebels, Ahsoka chooses to die rather than leave Anakin because she can't let go of her guilt and attachment to him. She'd have died because Anakin never really taught her how to let go of those things, because ANAKIN never really let go of those things himself and presented a bad example for her.

Anakin thought he could train Ahsoka even better than Obi-Wan Kenobi.

And he was wrong.

the 501st finest (please this is the dumbest thing i’ve ever made)

Man, now that I’ve made the connection between Palpatine intentionally manipulating Anakin against the Jedi and Anakin somewhat unintentionally poisoning Ahsoka against the Jedi, I can’t unsee it.

We have this lineage that, yes, is called the disaster lineage, but is full of such beautiful wonderful Jedi who seem to have genuinely loved being a Jedi (at least, for a while in Dooku’s case) and genuinely loved teaching and loved their students. And we see how that love and passion and dedication DID get passed down. We can see Yoda’s patience and cleverness in Dooku, Dooku’s passion in Qui-Gon, Qui-Gon’s love and determination in Obi-Wan. We can even see some of Obi-Wan’s lessons in Anakin every so often.

But Anakin isn’t listening the same way everyone else was. Anakin doesn’t believe the same way everyone else did.

Anakin gives lip service to the lessons he learned from Obi-Wan (“purpose before feelings”) and Ahsoka certainly HEARS them, but she’s also picking up just as much from Anakin’s actual actions and choices and the lessons he teaches that go unsaid as she ever is from the few times he throws out some platitudes. She picks up on his mistrust of the Council, his belief that the Jedi aren’t good enough. She knows that he wants to leave, that he’s not even necessarily HAPPY as a Jedi all the time. She picks up on his disobedience and arrogance and impatience and puts herself in dangerous situations because of it. She sees his attachments, his attachment to HER, his attachments maybe even to Padme and Obi-Wan.

Anakin passes on just as much if not more of what he learned from PALPATINE than he ever did from Obi-Wan. Because actions can speak louder than words, and Anakin’s actions show where his beliefs and values truly lie, and it isn’t with the Jedi.

So Anakin breaks the lineage. He destroys Ahsoka’s hopes of ever truly being a good Jedi Knight long before he commits genocide against the Order because he’d already started turning her against them, potentially without even realizing that that’s what he was doing. Ahsoka got trained by Darth Vader, by Palpatine’s apprentice, before he took on the name and position officially.

Which raises the question of whether Ahsoka WOULD’VE stayed in the Order ultimately in a situation where the Wrong Jedi arc doesn’t happen, Palpatine is killed early, and Anakin stays for longer for one reason or another, but remains married to Padme and living a life of secrecy and lies. Would Ahsoka have ultimately had just enough mindfulness to decide to walk away? Would she have always decided the Jedi were too busy playing politics to truly help anyone, or did that only happen because of the Wrong Jedi arc? Would Anakin’s training of her always have ultimately led to that end just because he’s giving her Palpatine’s poison, but she grew up on Jedi foundations of mindfulness that would give her the ability to actually walk away that Anakin has never had?

Guessing game! What did Anakin do this time and who did he piss off?

Bonus:

Inspired by this

Even better because Jedi don’t bury their dead

Obi-Wan: No, no, come here, we’ll give you a real Jedi funeral. IN THE INCINERATOR