At the time of The Mandalorian’s second season, Ahsoka Tano was already a character with a deep history on the animated side of Star Wars, in addition to appearances in The Mandalorian, The Clone Wars, Rebels, her own eponymous show and other media appearances. At the time of this writing, much of her life has been covered on screen (with some intriguing gaps) and it can be argued that she is one the franchises best and most beloved characters.
She wasn’t always so loved, however. First introduced in the theatrical release of The Clone Wars she was a character jointly created by Dave Filoni and George Lucas and takes some visual cues from Filoni’s love for Studio Ghibli movies, particularly Princess Monanoke. Ahsoka was initially met with controversy and disdain by Star Wars fans (imagine that!) due to her sometimes annoying and bratty characterization and over-familiarity with our beloved legacy characters (“Artooey!”). She was introduced as the Padawan apprentice to Anakin Skywalker which initially felt like a jarring retcon to the Prequels. Also, the idea of Anakin having an apprentice at all seemed crazy, although a characteristically terrible Jedi decision.
However, Ahsoka was slowly and methodically developed over the first few seasons of The Clone Wars and during the course of the conflict, Tano was layered with depth and the burden of leadership and responsibility. She also took on some of her master’s independence and tendency for improvisation as well as his martial skill. Ahsoka literally matured before us and through her eyes we experienced the toll of the Clone War on the galaxy and the Jedi. Soon fans were less worrying about her being a retcon than about her seemingly inevitable demise. Her complete absence from Revenge of the Sith hinted at a tragic fate for the young Togruta.
She went on too many notable adventures in The Clone Wars to really get into here and has experienced everything from brainworm-controlled zombies, to being sold off into slavery, to almost having a romance with a young Mandalorian. In possibly her most fateful arc on the show, she and Obi-Wan and Anakin find themselves on a mysterious world called Mortis on which live a trio of Force deities who's mythic struggle seems to mirror the balance of power in the galaxy. During the course of this storyline Ahsoka is killed and resurrected by the Daughter, the embodiment of the Light Side of the Force, and perhaps this act has imbued Ahsoka with some special destiny of which we have yet to really see. Ahsoka season two seems to be going in the direction of continuing this story. Ahsoka's frequent visual companion and herald, the owl-like Morai is also tied into this storyline and her connection with the Daughter.
Ahsoka's story came to a head toward the end of the fifth season of The Clone Wars in a series of episodes which saw her framed for a bombing at the Jedi temple, and which resulted in her going on the run and being captured and put on trial, with only Anakin really attempting to prove her innocence. Ultimately Anakin exonerates her, but the events sour her on the Order and, in a truly shocking moment, she leaves Anakin and the Jedi behind to go off on her own. This moment alone cements her status as a true icon of the franchise and one of the best characters in the whole saga.
We find out that after leaving the Jedi she disappeared into the underworld of Coruscant where she got mixed up with some smugglers. She eventually reconnects with the Mandalorian warrior Bo Katan who is attempting to liberate her planet from a criminal syndicate lead by Maul (yes, that one.) Ahsoka contacts Anakin and petitions the Jedi for military assistance on behalf of the Mandalorians and she is granted temporary command over a battalion of clone troopers. This final arc of The Clone Wars is some of the greatest Star Wars storytelling ever and includes one of the finest lightsaber fuels of the entire saga. Ahsoka defeats and captures Maul but en route to Coruscant, Order 66 is transmitted and Ahsoka and a clone narrowly escape. Maul also manages to escape on his own.
She lives on the run for a while trying avoid the Empire and its Jedi purge, eventually running afoul of one the Jedi-hunting Imperial Inquisitors (which she easily dispatches.) She takes the corrupted red kyber crystals from his lightsaber and purifies them into a pure white color. These crystals are in the katana-style sabers she wields hereafter. Tano then links up with Senator Bail Organa who is establishing the basis what will eventually be the Rebel Alliance, assuming the identity of Fulcrum.
We pick up her story next in Star Wars: Rebels as she is revealed as the rebel agent with whom our cell of rebels has been communicating since the beginning of the show. She’s now much older and wiser than during her Clone Wars years and despite not identifying as a Jedi, Ahsoka briefly serves as a mentor for our Jedi characters Kanan and His apprentice Ezra. Once again, she easily clowns Inquisitors practically taking their lightsabers and smacking them in the face with them. While she is not technically a Jedi, she has become quite a powerful Force-wielder.
Ahsoka and the Jedi make their way to the abandoned planet of Malachor, the site of a historic conflict between the Jedi and the Sith and the activation of an ancient and powerful weapon. The trio meet Maul there who is attempting to activate the dormant weapon. They are soon joined by a trio of Inquisitors and finally by Vader. Throughout her short time on Rebels, Ahsoka has been attempting to piece together the identify of the Sith Lord, with the dawning realization that he is actually her former Master. On Malachor, the two duel and Vader seemingly defeats her, in another one of the great Star Wars face-offs.
In a storyline in the final season of the show, Ezra Bridger returns to the Jedi temple on his homeworld of Lothal and uses it to enter a previously unseen-dimension in the franchise, The World Between Worlds-a kind of Force nexus in time and space. Indeed, the World Between World sequences are full of audio cameos from all over the saga, past and future. During his exploration of this realm, Ezra discovers a portal to Malachor during the Vader/Ashoka duel and manages to pull her out, rescuing her from her fate. Escaping the Emperor's attempts to enter the World Between Worlds, the two are separated and Ahsoka escapes back to Malachor at some point after the destruction of the temple. Since she is entirely absent from the Original Trilogy, it is entirely possible that Ahsoka was trapped on deserted planet for years.
Her live-action debut in The Mandalorian is her next chronological appearance in the Saga. Her brief animated coda during the finale of Rebels takes place later and is likely (although not definitively) an animated version of a scene in Ahsoka season one.
