So my girlfriend actually had this complaint about Mando that didn’t even cross my mind and I didn’t see anyone else talk about: she said that Ahsoka in Chapter 13 was very out of character, in not wanting to train Grogu because of his attachment to Din, and she argued that it goes against Ahsoka’s TCW arc.
I guess in a way Ahsoka does leave the orthodox PT Jedi way behind when she refuses to come back to the order, but I’m not sure if that means she disagrees that attachments are bad and potentially lead to the dark side. At the end of the Clone War she just thinks the Jedi lost their connection to the real world and are little more than war mongers, even if some of them have an honest heart. Plus the only other, more affectionate, loving and compassionate Jedi she knew was Anakin, whom she formed a strong bond with, but we all know where that led him.
So I disagreed with my girlfriend, but I saw where she was coming from, that Ahsoka isn’t meant to be a PT Jedi, in fact quite the opposite. But I’m not too big on TCW myself, and only saw Rebels once, so maybe there are more factors here that I’m not considering. What do you Ahsoka and TCW/Rebels fans think?
I’ve seen this complaint before, and I absolutely see where your girlfriend is coming from. Ahsoka had an attachment herself once, a bit of a crush on Lux Bonteri by the look of it, but knew she couldn’t follow up on it. I think that’s no coincidence that that arc takes place in season 5, the same season she leaves the Jedi Order; she must have partly resented the Jedi dogma and strict rules, which were made out of fear. Ahsoka was young and wanted to feel free, probably seeing the Jedi as wrong for acting out of fear this way. So the thought that her behaviour in Mando feels weird occurred to me as well.
I think the key influence was her duel with Darth Vader on Malachor. Dave Filoni has emphasised before that the events at Malachor leave a lasting impact on all the characters, and I think this is the damage it did to Ahsoka: she absolutely must have known that Anakin and Padmé were in love, and seeing Anakin as Vader breaks her heart. It’s interesting that Ahsoka’s “better to let his abilities fade” is a contrast to Luke saying “he will not be safe until he masters his abilities” later in the season, which is pretty much what Mando argued in Chapter 13. Ahsoka seems to be acting out of fear herself in The Mandalorian. Ahsoka still has a long way to go in upcoming shows, and it may be that as she continues to grow as a character she will eventually be free from the impact of Anakin and Vader.
Last point: I find it weird how Star Wars treats the “no attachments” Jedi rule. Humans including myself usually view love as a good thing, and you’d think that Star Wars would show how that dogma is wrong, but it’s forever ‘proving’ that it’s correct! Anakin marries secretly and his intensely protective nature causes his fall to evil, Grogu hurts others because of his bond with Din Djarin, and even Luke probably regrets saying “he will not be safe until he masters his abilities,” in a few years, after teaching Ben Solo everything he knows and inadvertently creating a powerful threat. Man, we should have got Colin Trevorrow’s Episode IX. That showed how Rey could be the perfect balance of anger, sadness, fear, love and the rest of it. We would have finally got that issue sorted out! But I digress.