Who are the new villains in Ahsoka?
By Ben Winnell
Ahsoka season is well and truly underway, with just over a week to go until the two-episode premiere of the new original streaming series Ahsoka featuring Rosario Dawson as the legendary Jedi apprentice of Anakin Skywalker.
Joining Dawson in bringing animated characters to life is Natasha Liu Bordizzo as Sabine Wren, the feisty Mandalorian warrior who once wielded the Darksaber, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Hera Syndulla, the Twi’lek captain of the Ghost and former Rebellion general. Both characters starred in the animated series Star Wars Rebels, which Ahsoka herself also featured in.
Other notable cast members we have far less background detail on are a pair of lightsaber-wielding mercenaries, Baylan Skoll and Shin Hati, played by the late Ray Stevenson and Ivanna Sakhno, respectively.
Aside from what we can see in trailers and posters, these two Dark Side villains are almost a complete mystery. We witnessed the pair wielding orange-bladed lightsabers and demonstrating their skills with the Force, especially that of Baylan Skoll, who is the master of Shin Hati. Skoll also hints to Ahsoka that he once knew her master Anakin Skywalker, very much implying that he is a former Jedi.
Hati is even more enigmatic. She is young enough to have likely never been a Jedi prior to the purge at the end of the Clone Wars. If she was, it’s possible she was a youngling much like Grogu or Reva.
The demise of Darth Vader and Darth Sidious meant that the Dark Lords of the Sith went extinct. However, there will always be pretenders to the throne. While it’s unlikely that the new villains are true Sith, they could very much be aspiring to replace the dormant role as the masters of the Dark Side of the Force and create a new order, much like the Emperor and his apprentice once did.
One final detail we can confirm is that the pair are allies of Morgan Elsbeth, the former Magistrate of Calodan, who fans first met in the season two episode of The Mandalorian “The Jedi” which also served as Ahsoka Tano’s live-action debut. Elsbeth herself is a servant of Grand Admiral Thrawn, perhaps the best-known character from the old Expanded Universe who made a grand re-entrance to Star Wars canon in Rebels and has since gone on to appear in a litany of books and comics. Now he gets his own life action debut played by legendary Danish actor Lars Mikkelsen who also voiced him in the animated show.
Exactly what the relationship is between the new Dark Side characters and the last major Imperial power remains to be seen and will surely be explored in the upcoming series.
Ahsoka premiers exclusively on Disney+ on August 23 with two episodes and will span for a total of eight. What are your thoughts on the new Dark Side characters? Let us know in the comment section below! For all things Star Wars, check out Dork Side of the Force!