Ahsoka and the faces of discipleship, light and dark

Discipleship is a core element of the Christian faith. During his time on earth, Jesus called individual men and women to follow him as his disciples. After his resurrection, he commissioned these followers to make more disciples from among the people of every nation. From the earliest years of the church, being a follower of Jesus was synonymous with being his disciple.

As 21st-century Christians, we tend to use “disciple” as a verb more than a noun. We often speak of discipling new believers but rarely refer to our brothers, our sisters or ourselves as disciples. For us, the word suggests an introductory class at church, or coffee with an older Christian to talk about faith and life.

These practices are valuable, but they don’t begin to encompass the full meaning of discipleship in the ancient cultures of Jesus’ time, both Jewish and gentile. In that world, being a disciple meant literally following a master, living with them and learning at their feet, imitating their lifestyle and character.

Ahsoka, the latest chapter in the Star Wars saga, explores the nature of master-disciple relationships, both good and bad, and follows the heroine’s journey of faith and integrity in the face of disillusion and heartbreak. The series offers thoughtful reflection for disciples of Jesus who may have experienced hurt and disappointment in the church.

[Spoiler alert: This article discusses themes, plot and characters from Ahsoka. If you’re planning to watch the series and haven’t yet, you may wish to do so before reading further.]

Youthful joy followed by heartbreak

Before starring in her own live-action series, Ahsoka Tano was a featured character in a pair of long-running animated Star Wars shows, The Clone Wars and Rebels. She was introduced as a 14-year-old girl training to become a Jedi Knight, assigned as a Padawan to Anakin Skywalker. In Star Wars lore, a Padawan is also called an apprentice, but the concept is equivalent to a disciple in the ancient world.

At first, Ahsoka was sarcastic and brash, contrasting the moodiness of her master but also paralleling his fearless and even reckless attitude. As she aged, she grew and matured into a noble hero, gifted and courageous, willing to sacrifice for anyone in need and instrumental in the fight against the dark forces threatening the Republic. She was an invaluable aid to her master Anakin and well on her way to becoming a full-fledged Jedi Knight.

Then things went horribly wrong. One of her closest friends became radicalized and framed her for acts of terrorism that cost countless lives. Anakin stood by her, but the Jedi council, which she had faithfully served for most of her young life, turned on her and cast her out without a trial and with zero evidence of her guilt. Once she was exonerated, the council invited her to rejoin the Jedi, but they framed the awful injustice done to her as a learning experience, good for her growth.

Disillusioned and heartbroken, Ahsoka rejected the council’s offer and turned her back on them. She’d already been questioning how the Jedi had drifted from their original role as peacekeepers and become entangled with politics and warfare, and this was the final straw. She felt she could no longer trust the institution she’d given her life for, and she’d need to find her way on her own.

Nevertheless, she didn’t abandon the principles the Jedi stood for. She continued using the gifts she’d honed as a disciple of Anakin, fighting against evil and injustice and protecting the weak and powerless.

And then another blow followed the first. While she was on her own, her former master Anakin was seduced by the dark side and became Darth Vader, one of the ultimate villains of the Star Wars universe. Many factors contributed to this, most of them rooted in Anakin’s weakness of character. But at least a portion might be attributed to his own disillusion with how the Jedi council had treated his disciple. While Ahsoka clung to her faith and integrity, Anakin threw it all away.

It was a powerful story arc with some deep resonances for followers of Jesus who’ve been hurt in their church experience or know someone who has. Rather than showing the grace and compassion of the Lord it claims to follow, the church can sometimes be quick to condemn and reject a member who has made a mistake or struggled with sin or is even suspected of doing so.

At other times, leaders and teachers can fail in terrible ways, shaking the faith of the ones they’ve discipled, the ones who’ve looked to them as models for following Jesus.

Like Anakin, some of those who’ve suffered pain or disillusion in the church walk away from their faith and embrace the world. But others, like Ahsoka, may need to leave their toxic church context but still cling to their faith in Jesus and seek out new contexts in which to serve him. Both types of individuals deserve our sympathy and our prayers, as well as our repentance for any harm we may have caused.

An older and wiser Ahsoka

However, Ahsoka’s story doesn’t end there. Her own series is set years later, finding her older and wiser and still pursuing her unique path. She continues to fight the good fight, using her skills to resist evil and support the oppressed. While she maintains her faith in the principles of the Jedi, she is no longer a Jedi herself. The light from her twin lightsabers is pure white, signifying that she’s neither Sith nor Jedi, but follows a third way. She’s also become a lone wolf, with only her droid Huyang as a companion, because she trusts robots more than humans at the start of the series.

In the intervening years, Ahsoka had taken on a disciple herself, training a young Mandalorian woman, Sabine Wren, in the ways of the Jedi. Sabine was a talented artist as well as a fierce warrior. Her Mandalorian background didn’t mesh smoothly with being a Jedi, so the master-disciple relationship ended badly for both women.

Nevertheless, when a new crisis arises, Ahsoka begins to realize that she’ll need Sabine’s help. Their mutual friend, Hera Syndulla, encourages the two women to reconcile and to continue Sabine’s training. Even Huyang the droid comments that they’re at their best when they work together. In the end, Ahsoka welcomes Sabine back as her Padawan, her disciple, and the younger woman accepts.

There are no guarantees how the discipleship will go this time around, and there are plenty of rough spots ahead, as successive episodes of Ahsoka bear out. But the two women have left their solitary ways behind and are once more bonded in friendship and in mission with each other and with their friends who helped bring them back together.

Like all well-written characters, Ahsoka is complex and ambiguous at times. Although noble and heroic, she doesn’t handle every situation perfectly, or even well, nor does she brush off setbacks and tragedies as if they were nothing. Her journey of hurt and healing is portrayed with remarkable sensitivity and nuance, and plays out across numerous episodes of several series, both animated and live action.

Disciples of Jesus, the only true master

For followers of Jesus who’ve experienced harm and heartbreak in their church community, whether at the hands of former friends, alienated family members, or those who were supposed to lead and disciple them, Ahsoka’s story offers encouragement and thoughtful reflection. Her character arc examines the many faces of discipleship, both light and dark.

In her early years, she enjoyed a fruitful relationship with her master Anakin, followed by crushing disillusion when he turned to the dark side. Her faith community, the Jedi council, rejected her for something she didn’t do, then tried to gaslight her by telling her it was all part of her training. Her first attempt at discipling Sabine was a disaster for them both, but they were able to reconcile, forgive each other and continue their relationship.

Through it all, despite her emotional and spiritual wounds and scars, Ahsoka clung to her faith and her integrity, if only tenuously at times. She continued to live according to the Jedi way, even when the Jedi themselves failed to do so.

In the Star Wars universe and in the religion of the Jedi, it’s the pantheistic Force that binds all things together. But in the real universe, it’s the supreme power of Jesus that binds all things together, and his followers, his disciples, are to clothe ourselves with love, which binds all things together perfectly (Colossians 1:17; 3:14).

We are all broken people in a broken world, which is no excuse for treating anyone badly, especially our brothers and sisters in the faith. But it’s a reminder that even our closest and most beloved mentors, friends and family members can fail us and hurt us, sometimes catastrophically. How comforting that while we’re called by Jesus to make disciples, our ultimate call is to be his disciples.

In many cases, it may not be healthy or even possible to remain in the church community where we’ve been hurt. But by Jesus’ grace and through his Spirit, we can follow and serve him in a new community, where we can pursue our journey of healing with the help of our brothers and sisters. There we can continue to walk as disciples of our Lord, learning at his feet, being made more and more like him as we are joined to one another and to him in his perfect bond of love.

[Note: This article does not constitute an endorsement of the series Ahsoka by Focus on the Family Canada. Consult the full review at Plugged In to help you determine whether Ahsoka is appropriate for you or your family.]

Sources and further reading

Joylanda Jamison, “Ahsoka and the idol of isolation,” Think Christian, September 12, 2023.

Hector Miray, “Ahsoka Tano and church hurt,” Faith and Fandom, December 29, 2020.

Jennifer Vosters, “In an age of institutional failure, ‘Star Wars’ is saving my faith,” National Catholic Reporter, December 5, 2020.

Subby Szterszky is the managing editor of Focus on Faith and Culture, an e-newsletter produced by Focus on the Family Canada.