Not too many episodes are left in Star Wars Rebels, and there are still kind of a lot of characters arcs that need to be completed. One character whose story hasn't been visited in a season and a half is none other than Ahsoka, who seemingly perished after a lightsaber battle with Darth Vader back in the Season 2 finale. Rebels showrunner Dave Filoni dropped heavy hints that Ahsoka will return before the end, and voice actress Ashley Eckstein promised that viewers will see Ahsoka again, although she didn't go into detail. The epic new midseason trailer for Star Wars Rebels didn't feature Ahsoka as we last saw her on Malachor, but it did feature a couple of big clues about how exactly she could be back.
The manner of Ahsoka's return really depends on what exactly happened to her at the end of the Season 2 finale. After a lightsaber battle with Vader, the collapse of a temple on top of them, and Vader's departure from Malachor, all signs pointed toward Ahsoka being dead. The twist that has had fans speculating for years came in the final moments of the episode when Ahsoka seemed to be alive and well, although descending ambiguously down into the Sith temple.
Did Ahsoka die, and that was her spirit? Did Ahsoka live, but she decided to go down into the Sith temple rather than escape? Well, judging by the clues from the latest Season 4 trailer (which you can watch here), Ahsoka may be sort of alive and sort of dead. The first potential hint from the trailer of how she's going to be back in the mix was the appearance of an owl-ish creature called a convor, which fans will remember was featured in multiple Ahsoka scenes earlier in Rebels. Check it out:
A convor was present in Ahsoka's final scene on Atollon as well as in her ambiguous final scene in the Season 2 finale. The return of a convor in a trailer for the final batch of episodes in which Ahsoka is all but confirmed to appear seems an awful lot like a sign of the former Jedi herself. Of course, this is not the first time that speculation has arisen about Ahsoka's spirit being present in an animal, as a popular theory in the first half of Season 4 was that Ahsoka was somehow present in one of the loth-wolves. Dave Filoni debunked that particular theory. In doing so, however, he seemed to deliberately not debunk the idea of Ahsoka being represented by a convor.
On its own, the mere presence of a convor wouldn't be much of a solid clue that Ahsoka is coming back via bird. The game-changer is that Ezra spots the convor while traveling through what seems to be a Force dimension, and he comments that he's seen that particular creature before. The trailer made a point of showing the convor and Ezra noting it as important. The stage is set for Ahsoka to return in a way that is connected to the convor.
The next big question is why exactly she was connected to a convor even before what was likely her death on Malachor. While we can't be sure at this point, a quick shot toward the end of the trailer could yield the answer. Take a look:
While fans of Star Wars Rebels who haven't also watched The Clone Wars were undoubtedly perplexed by the three figures on the wall of the Jedi temple on Lothal, diehard Clone Wars fans would have recognized them as the Daughter, the Father, and the Son from the arc that took Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Ahsoka to a mysterious planet called Mortis. The Daughter represented the light side of the Force, the Son represented the dark side of the Force, and the Father represented the balance. The Son killed Ahsoka, but she was resurrected by the Daughter, who gave up what was left of her life to save Ahsoka.
In the mural of the Daughter on the wall of the temple in the trailer, a convor sits on her shoulder, and it has the same light green/white coloring as the convor that has been connected to Ahsoka for so long. If the Daughter is connected to the convor and the convor is connected to Ahsoka, it stands to reason that Ahsoka has lived on due to the life force that was given to her by the Daughter. The Jedi temple on Lothal seems to have a connection to the Daughter, the Father, and the Son. Ezra's visit to the temple in Season 4 could explain how and why Ahsoka finally appears so long after her presumed death in the Season 2 finale.
Admittedly, Ahsoka turning up due to her connection with the Daughter from way back in The Clone Wars, manifested now by a bird, is a pretty wild theory. That said, it could make more sense than the idea of Ahsoka somehow surviving her duel with Vader, spending time in the Sith temple, somehow getting a ride off of a planet that nobody ever visits, never getting back in touch with the rebels, and then randomly turning up on Lothal. Ahsoka's absence for the past season and a half only really makes sense if she died in the Season 2 finale, and bringing her back because of a connection to the daughter could incorporate her seamlessly into the plot rather than just inserting her into the action.
We can only wait and find out for ourselves. Star Wars Rebels returns to Disney XD for the second half of Season 4 on Monday, February 19 at 9 p.m. ET. If you want to watch the Mortis arc of The Clone Wars with the Daughter, Father, and Son, you can find them streaming on Netflix. For more viewing options, take a look at our midseason TV premiere schedule.
