Warning! MAJOR SPOILERS for Star Wars Rebels ahead!
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Star Wars Rebels has finally answered one of its biggest questions: Ahsoka Tano lives!. Not only does the second of tonight's two episodes, "A World Between Worlds" reveal that Ahsoka did, in fact, survive her duel with Darth Vader in "Twilight of the Apprentice", but it explains how their duel ends and how Ahsoka escapes from the collapsing Sith Temple.
Ahsoka's fate has been a lingering question among fans ever since that dramatic Season 2 finale. Rebels executive producer, Dave Filoni made sure to remain frustratingly coy whenever discussing the fan-favorite character, even tormenting fans at a convention panel with a t-shirt that teased "Ahsoka Lives?", before changing into another t-shirt with an "Ahsoka Lives!" message. All that teasing has paid off, however, because while fans may have been confident in their assumption the former Jedi would return, there was no way they could have guessed at how.
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And the clues were all there, from the convor seen flying around whenever Ahsoka was near to the mural of the Mortis Gods to that final shot of Ahsoka walking down the stairs of the Sith Temple. What was missing was the piece of the puzzle that would tie it all together - Ezra. Having learned last week that the Jedi Temple on Lothal was in danger from the Empire, he and the Ghost Crew embark on a mission to save it, but they wind up saving - and learning - more than they could have ever imagined.
How Ahsoka Survives Her Duel With Darth Vader
Arriving at the Jedi Temple, Sabine and Ezra move to get a closer look at the mural the Empire has uncovered, while Hera, Zeb, and Chopper keep watch. The mural depicts the three characters known as the Mortis Gods or The Daughter, The Father, and The Son - three incredibly powerful Force-users who Ahsoka, Anakin, and Obi-Wan interacted with during The Clone Wars. Sabine is able to decipher the mural and explain to Ezra that by activating The Daughter's image, he will open a portal.
At first, Ezra assumes the portal will lead inside the Jedi Temple but where he winds up is somewhere far more special. The portal - designed to look like a spinning ring of running Loth wolves - drops Ezra into an otherworldly plane filled with more portals and illuminated walkways against a starry sky. He hears voices, too, speaking from across all time and space, suggesting that this strange place itself exists somewhere outside of the known universe - a world between worlds. As he walks along the pathways, Ezra sees a convor sitting atop a triangle-shaped portal - the same convor, Ezra remarks, that he's seen flying around whenever Ahsoka is near.
As Ezra walks closer to the portal, a scene begins to emerge - Ahsoka fighting Darth Vader inside the Sith Temple. It's the very moment Ezra last saw Ahsoka, with her pushing him away before she and Vader are sealed inside the temple's inner chamber. Through the portal, however, Ezra is able to watch their duel continue. They parry each others' blows until Ahsoka, noticing that the temple is tearing itself apart, thrusts her lightsabers into the floor and creates a chasm. Vader falls in but before Ahsoka can follow, Ezra reaches through the portal and pulls Ahsoka out of danger and into the world between worlds.
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Essentially, Ezra removes Ahsoka from the timeline at the very moment she likely would have died, saving her life. This leads Ezra to believe that he can also save Kanan's life, running towards a portal from which he can hear his dead master's voice. Thankfully, Ahsoka is able to convince Ezra not to pull Kanan out the timeline like he did for her, explaining that were Kanan removed from that moment, they all would die without anyone to stop the explosion. Similarly to how she can no longer save her master and now accepts that Anakin is lost to the dark side, Ezra must also accept that he cannot save Kanan.
Just then, though, the Emperor/Darth Sidious - who had sent the Empire to study the temple in the hope of reaching this mysterious world between worlds - appears in the portal, having found it by locking on to Ezra's location with ancient Sith sorcery. He attacks Ahsoka and Ezra but they manage to escape - Ezra back through the Loth wolves portal where seals the entrance, and Ahsoka the triangle-shaped portal back to the Sith Temple. She doesn't arrive at exactly the moment she left, however, and instead appears in another part of the temple near a set of stairs that lead deeper inside - the very same stairs it seemed that Ahsoka was descending in the final moments of the Season 2 finale.
How Ahsoka's Return Was Set Up
Without knowing that Ezra would discover a place like the world between worlds, there was no way to predict exactly how Ahsoka could have survived her duel with Darth Vader and make it out of the crumbling temple alive. But once such a place is revealed, so many of the clues scattered throughout Star Wars Rebels (and beyond) begin to make sense. For starters, the mural of the Mortis Gods first seen in the Rebels Season 4 trailer led to a lot of speculation about what roles The Daughter, The Father, and The Son might come to play in not only the series, but specifically Ahsoka's survival and return.
As it turns out, their role was a passive one, serving as the key to unlocking the entrance to the world between worlds. But their imagery remains a clue, suggesting that the planet Mortis - a place which is explained during those Clone Wars episodes as being a "conduit through which the entire Force of the universe flows" - might connect to this world between worlds. They may even be one in the same seeing as the world between worlds also appears to have the Force flowing through it, connecting it to all existing time and space.
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The convor sitting on The Daughter's shoulder in that mural was a definite clue that Ahsoka was alive and would soon return as it's been seen near her before. In fact, Ahsoka recognizes the bird when she enters the world between worlds and calls it by a name - Morai, a name never mentioned before but is perhaps another name for The Daughter. She also mentions that she owes the convor her life, which could either be referring to when The Daughter gave her life to save Ahsoka back on Mortis or some other, unseen adventure involving the convor specifically.
Where Will Ahsoka Appear Next?
But these weren't the only clues. It turns out a set of Star Wars Topps card illustrations created by Filoni contained the most intriguing hints. At first, they seemed a random series of drawings, nearly indecipherable until Ezra opened the portal to the world between worlds. Now that he has, it's evident this was a plan long in the making. Upon release, Filoni described the illustrations as, "images I made just for Topps that start to explain visually, metaphorically what the end is about." Whether he meant specifically the end of Season 2 or the end of the whole series is unclear, but we now at least have some basis for understanding what these illustrations possibly represent.
Of the ten images, those which depict Vader and Ahsoka seem to be the before and after of their duel. But now, having seen what happens with Ezra and Ahsoka in "A World Between Worlds", we can begin to guess at what some of the others represent. The one where the convor is leading Ahsoka as she wades through water could be what she finds as she descends deeper into the Sith Temple, since the convor travels with her back through the portal. And the image of Ahsoka stepping through the Loth wolves portal - something she isn't shown doing in these episodes - may suggest she enters the world between worlds again in the future (either that, or Filoni had the concept for the Loth wolves portal but hadn't yet decided how it would be used).
Regardless of whether or not these Topps cards hold any more clues as to what Ahsoka will do next, she does promise Ezra that she will find him after she returns to her original timeline. Based on that setting, though, this would have been some time ago, meaning that Ahsoka would be coming to Lothal soon if she is at all; unless, it was actually Ahsoka who was instrumental in first sending the Loth wolves to seek out Kanan and Ezra. Given the foreknowledge she now possesses, it isn't impossible that she is who puts into motion the events which lead Ezra to discover the portal to the world between worlds in the first place.
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Ahsoka's return came about in a shocking manner that no one could have predicted. Still, thanks to the clues which had been laid out in advance, even a strange and convoluted explanation as this manages to connect seamlessly. Both Ahsoka and Ezra now better understand their purpose and the role they have to play in the fight against the Empire and the Sith, and in next week's series finale, we can expect more about their futures to be revealed.
Related: Star Wars Rebels: Every Voice Heard In The World Between Worlds
Star Wars Rebels season 4 concludes next Monday with 'A Fool's Hope' and 'Family Reunion - and Farewell' at 9pm EST on Disney XD.