What Was Anakin Trying To Teach Ahsoka in Episode 5?

It was made clear by Ahsoka Tano during the earlier part of ‘Ahsoka’ that she never completed her training with Anakin Skywalker because she walked away from him and the Jedi Order, and this was one of the things that haunted her throughout her adult life as she had her own fair share of regrets. Of course, we know that Anakin appeared in the World Between Worlds in episode 4 and went on to teach Ahsoka a lesson in episode 5. But what lesson did Anakin teach Ahsoka?

Anakin was trying to teach Ahsoka the importance of learning how to live her life without regretting the things that happened in the past. Ahsoka’s past held her down too much to the point that she forgot what it meant to actually live, and Anakin tried to make her understand the importance of embracing the past and letting it go.

While Ahsoka was able to survive Order 66 and the Imperial era, the thing about her is that she never truly lived her life properly because her regrets often held her down. On top of that, she never stopped fighting the bad guys, all while never even trying to find her own place in life. That was why Anakin wanted her to understand what it meant to live. Now, let’s look at this lesson in greater detail. 

Accepting the past

Throughout the entirety of the ‘Ahsoka’ series, one of the things that Ahsoka struggled with was her past. It was not as if she hated her past, but she had regrets, especially regarding her master, Anakin Skywalker, who she believed fell to the dark side partly because she abandoned him as his Padawan. Of course, she also understood how difficult it was to handle her own Padawan because she knew that she also had to accept the possibility that she or her own apprentice might fall to the dark side, just like her master did.

So, when Anakin met Ahsoka in the World Between Worlds, he made it clear that he would complete her training. Of course, in terms of her abilities, Ahsoka no longer needed more training because she could fight Anakin on par. But the important part of her training was not her ability to fight. That was why Anakin took her to the past.

During the Clone Wars scenes, Anakin made Ahsoka understand just how important it was for her to accept the things that happened to her in the past and what led to her becoming who she was. Anakin told her that he trained her to become a survivor, and that was how she survived all these years, even though many Jedi fell to Order 66 and the Inquisitors during the Imperial era.

Of course, Ahsoka could no longer do anything about the fact that she was trained to become a soldier and a survivor, which she needed to learn how to live with. But she also needed to learn how important it was for her to face her past so that she could face her future headstrong.

Embracing who she was

As the training went on, Anakin told Ahsoka that his knowledge lived in her just like how the knowledge of his master and the master of his master lived in him. He told her that she was now part of a greater legacy. Of course, Ahsoka couldn’t embrace the fact that she was part of this legacy because she understood that Anakin’s legacy involved death and destruction when he fell to the dark side.

That means that Ahsoka was struggling to embrace the fact that her legacy had darkness in it due to what her master did. She knew that she wasn’t totally innocent of her master’s actions because she could have done something to mitigate the death and destruction caused by Anakin when he fell to the dark side and became Darth Vader. As such, Ahsoka struggled to embrace this legacy because she didn’t want to accept the fact that her part in this legacy had death and destruction in it as well.

But the thing that Anakin wanted her to understand was that she was more than that. It may be true that there was death and destruction in her legacy not only because her master fell to the dark side but also because she killed many people and destroyed many things during the events of the Clone Wars. But it was also true that her legacy didn’t define her, and that was something Anakin wanted her to understand when he told her she was more than that.

In a way, Anakin wanted Ahsoka to embrace the fact that she also had an inner darkness and that this was part of her legacy. Nevertheless, the more important part for her to accept was that neither her inner darkness nor her legacy defined her as a person or what she could do in the future. And for many years, Ahsoka held herself back due to what happened to her and her master in the past.

Learning what it meant to live

Ever since learning about the fact that Anakin had fallen to the dark side, hesitations clouded Ahsoka’s mind because she couldn’t accept that there was darkness in every person, including Anakin, who she often described as the greatest of the Jedi during the Clone Wars. And this made it harder for Ahsoka to live without holding herself back.

In ‘The Mandalorian,’ Ahsoka rejects the offer of taking Grogu in because she knows and understands that she isn’t the right teacher for him, as it is clear that she is hesitant due to her legacy of death and destruction. She was afraid of what Grogu could become in the future if she took him in. She even described how attachments could lead people astray, and sensing Grogu’s attachments to Din Djarin made her question whether or not he was fit to be a Jedi.

Similarly, her hesitations made it more difficult for her to connect with Sabine when she was her apprentice. Back in the Clone Wars, Anakin and Ahsoka were so close to one another that they were almost like siblings. In a way, they were attached to one another, and such an attachment was something that Ahsoka feared when she learned how Anakin’s attachments in life led him to the path of the dark side.

So, on Ahsoka’s part, she was afraid of allowing herself to live freely and form attachments with people because she feared what her inner darkness might do. After all, she was still part of Anakin’s legacy of death and destruction, so she often held back from living her life to the fullest.

But when Anakin gave Ahsoka a choice between living or dying, it was clear that he was referring to whether or not Ahsoka wanted to live her life to the fullest or to live with hesitations. After all, living with regrets, fears, and hesitations was almost like dying. 

As such, Anakin wanted to teach his Padawan how important it was for her to accept her past and embrace who she was so that it would be easier for her to live without regrets and hesitations. The moment that Ahsoka chose to live, she started acting more like the free-spirited and adventurous person she used to be when she was still Anakin’s Padawan. And that was what Anakin wanted her to learn as her final lesson under him.

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