The Ahsoka Star Wars Plot Detail Hidden In Plain Sight

What does that mean, exactly? Reading between the lines, it’s clear that Filoni wanted Ahsoka to visually signify through the lightsabers that these two new characters are not true Sith. Sure, they use the Dark Side, have evil motivations, and love a good duel with their Jedi foes, but the villains just aren’t cut from the same cloth as characters like Darth Vader.

One reason Filoni may have wanted to emphasize this is, ironically enough, the Star Wars prequels. Before The Phantom Menace came out, the excellent Star Wars Expanded Universe introduced one Dark Jedi character after another. Fans came to expect such characters, and their addition to stories made a certain narrative sense: when you have a universe filled with an increasing number of new Jedi (courtesy of Luke Skywalker finding and training Force-sensitive warriors), Dark Jedi (like the ones we later see in Ahsoka) are some of the only foes who can keep up with characters who command the Force and wield powerful lightsabers.

However, when the Star Wars prequels came out, George Lucas didn’t populate his growing galaxy with Dark Jedi. Instead, he focused on the Sith, and Yoda gives us what seems to be a pretty ironclad rule in The Phantom Menace: “always two there are, no less…a master and an apprentice.” Palpatine remained the master throughout these films and went through several apprentices, including Darth Maul, Darth Tyranus (better known as Count Dooku), and Darth Vader (the recently fallen Anakin Skywalker).

What does all of this have to do with Ahsoka and lightsaber colors, though? After the prequels, Star Wars seemed very hesitant to show us the kinds of Dark Jedi that populated the Expanded Universe: the closest we really came to this were Imperial lackeys like the Inquisitors and the Knights of Ren (whose lack of screentime was matched only by how poorly they were explained). Before anyone throws a toy thermal detonator at me, I am only counting characters and events we see onscreen, so your favorite Quinlan Vos comics don’t count. 

All of this brings us back to Ahsoka, a show intended to bridge the gap between hardcore Star Wars fans who want to see characters like Grand Admiral Thrawn and Ezra Bridger and general Disney+ audiences who want to have a good time. Filoni not making the Ahsoka villains’ lightsabers pure red is a subtle visual indicator that they aren’t the kinds of Sith characters we saw in the prequels and are instead a fun throwback to the Dark Jedi of earlier comics, novels, and games.

Fan-favorite Ahsoka character Baylan Skoll is a great example of this: he’s not part of the Sith…he’s just a fallen Jedi who has his own agenda separate from the goals of Palpatine and Vader. He took on an apprentice (manic pixie nightmare girl Shin Hati), but it’s not out of any Sith tradition, and he seemingly doesn’t expect her to kill him per the Rule of Two. At one point, she even compares herself to a Bokken Jedi, a comparison actual Sith would never make.