Ahsoka Reduced To Tears Because Star Wars Fans Are The Worst
People think the toxic element of the Star Wars fandom started when Disney bought the franchise, but sadly, it’s always been there. The initial fan reaction to the Ahsoka Tano character when she debuted in 2008’s Star Wars: The Clone Wars makes that very apparent. As Popverse reports, Ahsoka voice actor Ashley Eckstein was driven to tears by all the hate unfairly dumped on her character.
Voice actor Ashley Eckstein, who originated the role of Ahsoka Tano in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, was deeply upset by the initial fan reaction to her character.
That’s right, the character usually brought up by toxic Star Wars fans in order to slag off other female characters—”Rey sucks! Ahsoka is the right way to do a girl in Star Wars”—was hated just as much when she was introduced, possibly even more.
While toxic Star Wars fans’ main complaint about Rey is that she’s a “Mary Sue,” Ahsoka was once compared to something much worse: Jar Jar Binks. Fans were so mean, in fact, that Eckstein had no choice but to pull a Golden Girls and drown her sorrow in cheesecake.
“So many people hated Ahsoka. First, I sobbed into my cheesecake,” Eckstein confessed during a panel at the recent 2023 C2E2 where she described the initial fan reaction to her character. Eckstein went on to say she gave herself one day to have a pity party before picking herself up and realizing what an amazing character Ahsoka was.
Eckstein noted that what fans were seeing was always a season off from what the actors were currently working on, meaning that the actress was already voicing a maturing Ahsoka by the time fans were introduced to the bratty, inexperienced Padawan of the first season of The Clone Wars and the accompanying theatrical release.
Apparently, the same fans who are such experts in film theory that they can produce three-hour-long YouTube videos on all the “plotholes” in The Last Jedi weren’t familiar with the basic concept of a character arc when they were busy talking smack about early Ahsoka.
Oddly, the same fans don’t seem to have a problem with bratty, inexperienced Luke from A New Hope or whiny, immature Anakin from Attack of the Clones. Could there be something else about Ahsoka that fans had a problem with?
That’s right, the character usually brought up by toxic Star Wars fans in order to slag off other female characters—”Rey sucks! Ahsoka is the right way to do a girl in Star Wars”—was hated just as much when she was introduced, possibly even more.
We don’t want to cast aspersions on a certain corner of the Star Wars fanbase but considering the most bullied actors, Ahmed Best, John Boyega, Kelly Marie Tran, Daisy Ridley, Moses Ingram, etc., all seem to be either women, POC, or both, we’ll let you draw your own conclusions.
Luckily, Eckstein hasn’t written off the Star Wars fandom completely and even called it one of the “most positive fandoms” around. The Ahsoka voice actor cited fan groups like the 501st Legion—an organization of cosplayers that do charity work and make appearances at children’s hospitals—as proof that the whole fan base wasn’t toxic.
“So many people hated Ahsoka. First, I sobbed into my cheesecake.”
-Ashley Eckstein
Fans eventually embraced Ahsoka, and she’s currently one of the most popular characters outside of the original trilogy of films. The actress shared how moved she was by stories of her character changing fans’ lives in a positive way, “When you all share your stories with me about how she’s changed or saved your life, that sticks with me.”
Eckstein went on to say thank you to the fans for sharing their stories and promised to “forever strive to be a real-life Ahsoka Tano” in any way that she can.
Eckstein continues to voice Ahsoka in animated Star Wars projects while Rosario Dawson has taken over the character in live-action. Both actors have managed to turn Ahsoka Tano into a hero that most fans are proud to look up to despite a small (but very vocal) toxic minority.
