Star Wars fans have been waiting a long time for a project revolving around Ewan McGregor's Obi-Wan Kenobi, and now the first official casting announcements raise the question of whether Obi-Wan Kenobi is also casting a younger version of another popular character: Ahsoka Tano. Ahsoka made her live-action debut in 2020 with Rosario Dawson playing a character who had previously only appeared in the animated Star Wars projects, voiced by Ashley Eckstein. Taking the Star Wars timeline into account, combined with what could be a clue from an Obi-Wan Kenobi star, and we might have another live-action Ahsoka on the way.
Unsurprisingly considering the shroud of secrecy usually surrounding Star Wars projects, the Disney+ reveal of the stars of Obi-Wan Kenobi didn't identify the characters the actors will be playing, although Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen at least are easy to identify. Moses Ingram of The Queen's Gambit fame is notably third in line after McGregor and Christensen, and her Instagram post celebrating the announcement features a caption worth speculating over. Take a look:
Moses Ingram didn't exactly drop a lot in the way of details in her post, but "I play with lightsabers" plus an emoji is enough fuel for speculation that Ingram will be the latest actress to take on the role of Ahsoka. Starting back in The Clone Wars and then continuing through Star Wars Rebels and then The Mandalorian, Ahsoka has wielded two lightsabers rather than the traditional one used by most of the Jedi showcased in Star Wars. And Ingram said "lightsabers," plural.
It stands to reason that Ahsoka could know or discover that Obi-Wan survived Order 66 at some point between the end of the prequel era and ten years later, when Obi-Wan Kenobi picks up. It also stands to reason that Obi-Wan Kenobi would need a different actress to play Ahsoka if she is indeed making her second live-action TV show appearance. Obi-Wan Kenobi is set ten years after Revenge of the Sith, with The Mandalorian Season 2 five or six years after Return of the Jedi.
The Ahsoka who would appear in Obi-Wan Kenobi (short of some kind of World Between Worlds twist) would be about 20 years younger than Rosario Dawson's Ahsoka in The Mandalorian. Dawson may not look especially old, but it might be a stretch to have her play both versions of the character with 20 canonical years in between. Possibly fueling the idea that Moses Ingram will play Ahsoka is a tweet from Rosario Dawson herself:
Was Rosario Dawson simply showing support for another show coming up in the Star Wars franchise, as she herself is the star of a future Ahsoka-centric series? Or was this Dawson specifically showing support for Obi-Wan Kenobi casting somebody to play a younger version of her character? It's hard to say one way or the other, but I will admit that I had considerably more doubts about Moses Ingram playing Ahsoka before Rosario Dawson tweeted a reaction.
In truth, my first reaction to Moses Ingram's post was to think that she'd be playing an Inquisitor, like those Star Wars Rebels fans saw hunting the Jedi in the animated series. Obi-Wan Kenobi's place in the timeline would make sense for Inquisitors, and the galaxy far, far away is after all a big enough place that Ahsoka doesn't need to stumble on key characters all over the place.
Star Wars fans also haven't seen a live-action Inquisitor, and what Rebels showed of them leads me to think that they could be fantastic in live-action. And maybe Ingram said "lightsabers" for no particular reason. Who knows? Maybe her character isn't a Force-user at all and and stumbled on the two lightsabers Obi-Wan has in his possession at this point in the timeline, before he handed Anakin's lightsaber over to Luke.
For now, we can only wait for the truth about who Moses Ingram is playing to come out, even if that means waiting for the show to premiere. Obi-Wan Kenobi will begin production soon after delays and probably won't be ready for a Disney+ premiere any time soon, but more Star Wars TV shows are coming up in 2021 and beyond.
