I’m no Jedi? Will Ahsoka ever have a change of heart and call herself Jedi?
One of the most famous lines uttered by Ahsoka Tano came in Star Wars Rebels during her duel with her master turned Sith Lord, Darth Vader in which she says “I’m no Jedi”, rather disdainfully, in response to Vader telling her that “revenge is not the Jedi way”. Though the disdain, contempt or whatever you wish to call it may have been intended for Vader, who was boasting that he “destroyed” Anakin Skywalker who was “weak”, it was still an extremely important and memorable line which fans never forgot and discuss to this very day. In fact a handful of fans got a bit riled up over the title of Chapter 13 of The Mandalorian being “The Jedi”.
The line felt like a slap in the face, and more so because she said it with so much conviction, to a person who was once her master. Ahsoka probably hoped that it would hurt him to some extent. We’ll never know if somewhere deep inside his soul, Anakin may have felt some amount of sadness at Ahsoka’s confession. He knew that she had left the Jedi Order, but he wasn’t blind to her strengths and how strictly she adhered to the Jedi way for as long as he knew her.
The question is, how much did it hurt Ahsoka to utter those words, if at all? Will she ever change her mind and call herself a Jedi? At the time she walked away from the Jedi Order, Ahsoka was still a Padawan, but had she stayed she would have undoubtedly become a Jedi Knight and eventually a Jedi Master. In the years that followed the Clone Wars, Ahsoka was on the run from inquisitors and defeated them with ease. She went on to aid the Rebel Alliance as “Fulcrum”, and in many ways has lived a life of a light side force wielder even better than many of the prequel era Jedi did.
But in Dave Filoni’s own words with regards to the upcoming Ahsoka series, she is a loner who’s walking a dead path. There are very few like her left in the galaxy. It’s a lonely place to be for someone to be What identity will she eventually take up? How will she eventually choose to identify herself, as a force wielder, a soldier, a Jedi or something else all together?
It’s undeniable that Ahsoka is in many ways a living embodiment of the light side of the force. Anakin used the life force of The Daughter of Mortis to save Ahsoka in The Clone Wars‘ “Mortis Arc”. That’s got to mean something, and perhaps it will play a role in where Ahsoka is headed and what she will one day become.
Ahsoka premieres August 23 on Disney+.