AHSOKA EPISODE 6 BREAKDOWN! Thrawn Easter Eggs You Missed!
AHSOKA EPISODE 6 BREAKDOWN! Thrawn Easter Eggs You Missed!
Transcript
00:00 last episode, the phrase "far, far away" proving to be the answer to the question of
00:03 where Thrawn went, as well as the answer to this question.
00:06 WHERE ARE THE TURTLES?
00:09 So many cool questions and deeper bits of historical lore tied into this episode, so
00:13 let's take it scene by scene for all the details you might have missed, and thanks
00:17 to MystPlay for sponsoring this video, more about them in a moment.
00:20 And again, we really, really appreciate you tuning in to these Star Wars analyses.
00:24 It's honestly an honor to stay up late writing these breakdowns every week.
00:27 I just care a lot about this series, and I want to share all of that with you.
00:32 So let's dive in.
00:33 Okay, over that Lucasfilm opening, we hear this.
00:38 According to the closed captioning, "Distant Pergil Calls."
00:41 But we don't begin this episode distant from the Pergil, we open with them, inside
00:45 of one.
00:46 So this call being distant tells us that we are actually hearing this call from the perception
00:50 of the three great mothers of Peridia, native Dathomiri, Nightsisters who harnessed these
00:55 Pergil.
00:56 And this call is how they know the Jedi is coming.
00:59 Hyperspace in this opening shot looks different than we've ever seen it before in Star Wars.
01:03 Normally, it's a glowing blue tunnel surrounding the traveler.
01:06 Now it's streaks of teal and pink and yellow and orange, all the colors in the visible
01:10 spectrum streaking past the whales, streaking between each other and under their fins.
01:15 It's just such a cool way of showing that this form of hyperspace travel is beyond the
01:19 kind that we've seen before, because we are traveling from galaxy to galaxy.
01:23 Now you may remember that moment in the Mandalorian Chapter 17 when Grogu and Din Djarin were
01:27 traveling through hyperspace and Grogu saw a Pergil.
01:30 I might be crazy, but in this shot for a few frames on the right side of screen, you do
01:34 see a blur through hyperspace on the other side of this that could, could be Dins in
01:40 one Starfighter.
01:41 I had to scrub through it all frame by frame to see this.
01:44 I think I honestly spent an hour staring at this shot, but now I can't like unsee it.
01:49 Now you may be asking, would the timeline match up?
01:51 Ahsoka Tano doesn't appear in the Mandalorian Season 3, but Captain Carson Teva does appear
01:56 on both seasons.
01:57 And I suppose it's possible for his mission with Hera on C-TOS happens before all that
02:01 stuff he got into with the Mandalorian and like Tim Meadows in the Mandalorian Season
02:05 3.
02:06 But you know, for all we know, the Pergil could be bending time with their form of hyperspace
02:09 travel.
02:10 I just want this to be true.
02:11 Let me have it.
02:12 Ahsoka tells Hu Yang that she remembers a Pergil from the stories that he would tell
02:16 them.
02:17 And we were younglings back at the temple.
02:18 Ah yes.
02:19 History of the galaxy, parts one, two, and three.
02:23 One being the best, of course.
02:25 I love this.
02:26 It could be a meta nod to the Star Wars original trilogy where I would definitely say the first
02:30 is the best, but you know, I can respect the opinion that the Empire Strikes Back might
02:33 be better.
02:34 Although we could also see parts one, two, and three as the three trilogies, the prequels,
02:38 the original trilogy, and the sequel trilogy.
02:40 And Ahsoka might be saying that the prequels are the best because that would be more of
02:44 her era, but really she spans all the eras.
02:46 Look, if you legit think that the prequels are better than the original trilogy, no shame.
02:51 I just think Ahsoka would be more into a trilogy that ends with Anakin being redeemed rather
02:55 than one that ends in tragedy for him, even if Dave Filoni identifies most with the prequel
02:59 era.
03:00 But that's just our meta understanding of this.
03:01 What does this mean for the characters in the universe?
03:03 George Lucas originally conceived his Star Wars narrative as the Journal of the Wills,
03:07 with the Skywalker saga being an epic myth told by an advanced alien race called the
03:12 Wills to inspire their youth, which is why every film would begin with the phrase "A
03:16 long time ago in a galaxy far, far away," which again supplies this episode with its
03:19 title and is a phrase now being examined by this Ahsoka series as we, for the first time,
03:24 travel from one galaxy within the Star Wars universe to another.
03:27 But what would the actual in-universe history of the galaxy be that Hu Yang would tell all
03:31 these young Jedi?
03:32 Currently, the accepted chronology begins with something called the Wellspring of Life, the
03:36 birthplace of midichlorians.
03:38 This gets explored in Clone Wars Season 6, Episodes 11 and 12.
03:41 Episode 11 takes Yoda to Dagobah, where he hears Qui-Gon's voice explaining to him that
03:45 all living things form the Living Force, and that feeds the more abstract Cosmic Force,
03:50 and that Cosmic Force is contained in this Wellspring.
03:53 So in Episode 12, Destiny, Yoda heads to that Wellspring and encounters inside of it this
03:58 kind of planet, geysering up all this midichlorian energy, and he encounters these five masked
04:03 priestesses who each represent emotions and put Yoda through various trials.
04:07 It's a really cool arc, and it's really where life began in this galaxy.
04:11 Sometime after this, the gods of Mortis came to live in the ethereal realm of Mortis, and
04:15 then eons after that, sometime around 25,000 BBY, the Dai Bindu, an order of priests who
04:21 were precursors to the Jedi, established what became the Jedi Order on Ahch-To, led by the
04:26 Prime Jedi, which was the figure depicted in that mosaic pool that Luke set aside in
04:30 The Last Jedi.
04:31 And I feel like that last part of it, the Dai Bindu, would be the Part 1 that Hu Yang
04:35 would have told Ahsoka about, the dawn of the Jedi Order.
04:38 As the Wellspring of Life and Mortis were kind of surprises to Yoda and Ahsoka and Obi-Wan
04:42 Anakin, like while these mythological elements might have been buried somewhere in the Jedi
04:45 archives, I don't think it's something that Hu Yang would have been programmed with and
04:48 told as bedtime stories to all these young Jedi on the Crucible.
04:51 Then again, in Rebel Season 4, Palpatine and his archaeologist friend did kind of mention
04:55 how the Jedi archives mentioned the gods of Mortis.
04:57 I just don't know how much all the Jedi younglings would know about it.
05:00 Still, they are important for us to know, and I will explain why later.
05:03 Anyway, Ahsoka worries that Sabine went with Balen willingly, and that she didn't have
05:06 enough time to train Sabine how to make the right choice, but Hu Yang says the Force provides
05:09 insight but doesn't give all the answers.
05:11 "Perhaps for Sabine, it was the only choice."
05:16 "A choice she made for herself."
05:18 "That is your fear."
05:21 Ah, fear!
05:22 He's implying that fear is a path to the dark side, you know, it leads to anger, hate,
05:26 suffering.
05:27 He's saying don't let fear corrupt your mind, Ahsoka.
05:29 So Ahsoka takes the note, and she forces a fear out of her mind, getting back to some
05:32 stories.
05:33 "And second thought, tell me one of those stories."
05:35 "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away."
05:42 And I love it, because that is what Star Wars is for us, a way for us to escape our anxieties
05:47 and just lose ourselves in some great stories.
05:49 And this is actually the first time we hear this spoken aloud in Star Wars.
05:52 But unlike the Wills in some other galaxy telling the story of Star Wars, Hu Yang must
05:56 be talking about beings from another galaxy from his perspective who came to this galaxy
06:00 and settled it.
06:02 Those could be the celestial deities like the Mortis gods, but this episode also implies
06:05 other races like the Dathomiri originate from other galaxies.
06:08 So let's move on.
06:09 When the Eye of Sion exits hyperspace, it leaves a trail that crackles with electric
06:13 bolts, which feels like a sippy violation of nature, like they weren't meant to go
06:17 on this journey.
06:18 Like notice also that ring was smoldering orange when it first arrives and then cools
06:23 down.
06:24 Like it really feels like they pushed it to the limit.
06:25 So they approach the planet Pyrrhidia, surrounded by a ring, which turns out is composed of
06:30 Pyrrhial bones.
06:32 The Cetus star map depicted Pyrrhidia surrounded by a ring of Pyrrhial, but I didn't know
06:35 that meant a ring of dead Pyrrhial.
06:38 Morgan says Pyrrhidia is the ancient homeworld of my ancestors, the Dathomiri.
06:42 So the Dathomiri, the people of the planet Dathomir, home to Maul's mother, Mother
06:47 Talzin, were not originally native to that planet Dathomir.
06:51 They settled that planet after migrating from another galaxy and they just named it after
06:55 their own race.
06:56 This is a huge deal.
06:57 Morgan says that the Pyrrhgal, "My people were among the first to harness and ride the
07:01 creatures in the days before time was counted."
07:04 Jeez, between the Pyrrhal and Danny Trejo telling us that the witches of Dathomir also
07:08 used to ride the Rancors, these witches were just riding everything.
07:11 Now in Star Wars Legends, the ancient Rakata were the first to use hyperspace technology
07:15 and based on that blue kyber crystal celebrating the Rakatan uprising mentioned in Andor Episode
07:19 4, the Rakatans are Star Wars canon.
07:21 But Morgan says that the Dathomiri were among the first.
07:24 So there could have been like a few of them.
07:26 But she says the days before time was counted, which would be old.
07:30 Pre-dating recorded history, pre-dating the Jedi Order.
07:33 Because when the Jedi started, they were counting years back then.
07:36 Balin says, "Pyrrhidia is a graveyard."
07:39 Ah, so it wasn't a fairy tale that he grew up hearing, it was more of a ghost story.
07:42 A trick that Pyrrhal make at the end of their lives, kind of like elephants migrating back
07:46 to their known burial sites.
07:47 That's a real thing, folks.
07:49 That elephant graveyard in The Lion King was based on a real ritual that these massive
07:52 mammals do.
07:53 It sounds like Pyrrhal do a similar thing.
07:55 Their dropship takes them past towering statues of nice sister heads atop towering pillars,
08:00 with their mouths contorted in this grotesque scream.
08:03 I wonder if these could function as amplifiers for the Great Mother's voices that echo back
08:07 to Morgan through time and space.
08:08 The statues on Arcana, remember, were full statues that had bodies and feet, but just
08:12 their heads severed.
08:13 This is kind of the opposite.
08:14 It's just heads on skinny, skinny pillars.
08:17 It's kind of creepy, like they're giant pest dispensers.
08:19 But it looks so cool.
08:20 Remember, the statues inside the ruins on Arcana were not screaming like this.
08:24 They looked at peace.
08:25 So I just kind of like the idea that it's the witches who stayed who cry, and it's the
08:29 witches who left who listen.
08:31 They approach this towering structure built into the side of the cliff.
08:34 It looks a lot like a dour Minas Tirith from Return of the King.
08:38 Atop the statue is a more pristine version of the Cetos ruins, the slabs uncorrupted
08:42 by the elements.
08:43 And Morgan finds here three night sisters, the Great Mothers.
08:46 According to the episode credits, their names are Lachesis, played by Jane Edwina Seymour,
08:51 who played the Borg Queen in Star Trek Picard.
08:53 She's on the right with the rounded headdress.
08:55 Clotho, played by Claudia Black from Stargate SG-1 and played Chloe Frazier from the Uncharted
08:59 games.
09:00 She's in the center with a single pointed headdress, who does most of the talking.
09:03 And then Actropaw, played by Gerald Prescott Galleon, known for playing Madame Xanadu on
09:08 the Swamp Thing show.
09:09 She's on the left with the two pointed headdress.
09:11 So these names are a fascinating choice because Lachesis, Clotho, and Actropos are the names
09:17 of the three fates of Greek mythology that we've referenced before.
09:20 Those fates were also known as the Moirai, which is where De Filoni got the name of Ahsoka's
09:25 bird companion that represents a daughter of Mortis.
09:27 Now these witches, of course, wear similar red headdresses that Mother Talzin wore.
09:31 And that appearance was based off of original designs for the Sith, created for the Phantom
09:34 Menace and then repurposed for Clone Wars.
09:36 But the fact that these three headdresses that we see here are all slightly different
09:40 could be telling us something.
09:41 Because in Greek mythology, Clotho is the youngest and she spins the thread of human
09:45 life.
09:46 Lachesis is the middle, who measures the thread.
09:48 And then Actropos is the oldest, who cuts that thread and decides when people die.
09:52 So this Clotho, with a K, has the headdress with one point, like the pointed needle that
09:57 spins the thread.
09:58 Lachesis has the rounded headdress.
10:00 But Actropos, who would cut the thread of life, has a two pointed headdress, like scissors.
10:06 But of course, these were the three witches that Sabine referred to when she figured out
10:09 how to unlock the sphere in Episode One.
10:11 But since those ruins were thousands of years old, I'm wondering if there must always be
10:15 three caretaker witches on Peridia.
10:16 It's kind of like something that gets passed on generation after generation.
10:19 But yes, these were the voices that Morgan and Elspeth heard calling to her on Cetos.
10:23 Episode Two was titled Toil and Treble, which was an allusion to the three witches of Macbeth.
10:27 Double, double toil and treble, fire burn and cauldron bubble.
10:31 Like the fates of Greek mythology, they tell the future.
10:33 They tell the future of Macbeth, but it's always cryptic.
10:36 Anytime a political leader tries to use this magic, it always blows up in their face.
10:39 Clotho says,
10:40 Welcome child of Dathomir.
10:43 You do our ancestors credit.
10:46 She speaks with additional voices layered on top of her own, kind of like Mother Talzin
10:51 often did.
10:52 It's like when one of them talks, all three of them are talking.
10:53 They speak for all the witches of Dathomir throughout time.
10:56 Atropos says,
10:57 It reeks of Jedi.
11:01 And Lachesis confirms,
11:03 It is dangerous.
11:05 And this angle is especially creepy because it's from Sabine's point of view as Jane
11:09 Edwina Seymour looks directly into the lens of the camera.
11:11 But they refer to Sabine as "it", disrespecting Jedi as animals, like false practitioners
11:16 of the force.
11:17 Because yeah, it sounds like they predate the Jedi Order.
11:19 But it also indicates that Sabine does have some connection to the force, or at least
11:22 a connection to Ahsoka.
11:24 But my question is, do they smell this Jedi doo-doo on Balin?
11:27 Because later they seem surprised when Balin is revealed as a former Jedi by Thrawn.
11:31 So Balin just must be really good at blocking away that light side of the force.
11:35 Like the three witches in the Arcana Ruins, they hover the spheres over their own palms
11:39 and yeesh those fingernails.
11:41 It's just an interesting point to compare to Sabine because we saw Sabine's fingernails
11:45 in episode two that her fingernail polish was chipped.
11:48 And I like how the red beams that form between these spheres kind of work like rope that
11:51 ties someone up.
11:52 It's a kind of mystical thread being the weapon of these three witches that are based on the
11:56 fates and they're controlling the threads of fate.
11:58 Three creatures howl at the Peridia Tower.
12:00 Dave Filoni's wolf obsession coming back.
12:02 But rather than wolves or loath wolves or anything, these are the howlers that we see
12:06 later which share their name with reptilian creatures from Jedi Knight Jedi Academy.
12:10 But these seem to be more canine and horse-like.
12:12 The VFX on these things are actually pretty good.
12:14 You kind of forget that they're not actually there.
12:16 Balin's dialogue in this episode is fascinating.
12:18 - This is a land of dreams and madness.
12:22 Children's stories come to life.
12:23 - He describes Peridia as a kind of archetypal forest, kind of like in a Midsummer Night's
12:26 Dream where magic can happen.
12:28 But remember he called this place a graveyard.
12:31 So it's a place where magic once lived, but when it was abandoned, the magic started to
12:35 fade away.
12:36 Kind of like the ruins of Valyria in A Song of Ice and Fire.
12:38 The Doom of Valyria led to the gradual death of the dragons and magic leaving this world
12:42 altogether.
12:43 But Shin Hati says that she didn't grow up with these stories, but Balin says.
12:47 - Stories of this galaxy are considered folk tales.
12:50 Some ancient past, long forgotten.
12:53 - With good reason.
12:54 Sometimes stories are just stories.
12:55 - Yeah, it's kind of a bit of commentary on how sacred we should hold these Star Wars
12:59 stories.
13:00 - It's about stories.
13:01 But with Shin's response, it kind of feels like to the younger Star Wars fan, what was
13:04 sacred to the older generation might not be as sacred to them.
13:07 Balin says that he watched the Jedi Temple burn and he couldn't make sense of it at the
13:11 time, but.
13:12 - As you get older, you look at history, you realize it's all inevitable.
13:15 Fall of the Jedi, rise of the Empire.
13:18 It repeats again and again and again.
13:23 - Now George Lucas would describe this as, "Oh, it's like poetry.
13:26 It rhymes."
13:27 But for Balin, someone living inside of this story, he's just sick of the cycle.
13:31 So when Shin asks him if Thrawn will give them power, Balin says.
13:34 - That sort of power is fleeting.
13:35 What I seek is the beginning, so I may finally bring this cycle to an end.
13:40 - So Balin is on a fascinating quest.
13:42 Kind of like what Daenerys Targaryen spoke of in season five, wanting to break the wheel
13:46 before she just kind of forgot about all that in season seven and eight.
13:49 He wants a deeper power on Peridia beyond Thrawn.
13:52 - And that beginning is here.
13:54 - If the old stories are true.
13:55 - I have some thoughts on what this could be later.
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14:43 So in her dungeons, Sabine whispers.
14:45 - Ahsoka.
14:46 - Now in episode five, when Ahsoka was pulled out of that water, she said, "Anakin, but
14:49 we heard a female voice whisper from the cosmos."
14:52 That female voice might've been Sabine in this moment.
14:57 Sabine tries to use the force to escape the dungeon, and for a second it seems like, "It's
15:01 working!"
15:02 But nope, the rumbling is actually from the Chimera, the star destroyer of Grand Admiral
15:07 Thrawn that we saw in Rebels.
15:09 The Great Mothers and Morgan watch it arrive, and I love how Clovo seems to be holding a
15:13 rope or some prayer beads, as she would be the fate who initially spins that thread of
15:17 light.
15:18 The Chimera is framed perfectly so that it looks like it's rising from that tower, kept
15:23 alive by Nightsister sorcery.
15:25 You can see one of its top spherical shield generators, and several plates all over its
15:29 hull are augmented with gold parts, like the material the Eye of Scion and Morgan's Dropship
15:33 are made out of.
15:34 These golden additions may be repairs after the Purgle wrapped their tentacles around
15:38 the ship, or to make it so that the Chimera can easily attach to the Eye of Scion and
15:42 get that hyperspace toe.
15:44 You'll notice that its underbelly has the same painted pattern that it had in Rebels, and
15:48 I just cannot get over the symmetry of the shot, perfectly bisected by the fold of the
15:52 hull and the corner of the tower.
15:54 It looks so good!
15:56 It's worth remembering that since the Chimera got zipped off to hyperspace by the Purgle
15:59 in the Rebels finale, it still has on board, presumably, the pieces of the Lothal Jedi
16:04 Temple that Palpatine tried to use to corrupt Ezra.
16:07 Thrawn's forces are revealed.
16:09 I think this is my favorite kneel drop Kevin Kiner has ever composed thus far.
16:18 The organ plus the electric distortion just hits so hard.
16:22 It's such an uncommon sound in Star Wars, and it's done to shock us with this unlikely
16:26 return of a face that you do not normally see in Star Wars.
16:30 Thrawn's stormtroopers chant his name.
16:36 They still worship this guy, despite their dwindling numbers and their broken armor.
16:40 Yeah, their armor looks awesome.
16:41 It's been nine years since their exile in the Rebels finale.
16:44 Their armor's dirty.
16:45 It's got mismatched parts, probably taken from some of the dwindling numbers, used to
16:49 replace the broken pieces on the people who are still surviving, and it is all cracked.
16:53 It's held together with red cloth, which shows how their wounds have been nursed by these
16:57 witches of the red cloth, and their imperial conformity has been fused with a uniquely
17:02 Dathomirian aesthetic.
17:03 We actually saw some red cloth wrapped around Maul's temple behind that bonfire on Dathomir
17:08 in the Rebels season three episode, Visions and Voices.
17:10 Now the captain of these stormtroopers is Enoch, played by Wes Chatham from The Expanse.
17:14 This stormtrooper mask has been fully broken and pieced back together almost in the style
17:18 of Japanese Kintsugi art, but with a golden face mask, kind of like Tigress of Gaul in
17:23 Gladiator, a bit like the golden mask of General Klytus from Flash Gordon, which was a huge
17:27 influence on George Lucas in the early Star Wars films.
17:29 So it just shows how Enoch is part of a post-imperial cult of Thrawn, Thrawn being someone who always
17:34 loved art and history.
17:36 Actually the name Enoch comes from the Bible, who was a human who became the immediate attendant
17:41 to the throne of God, a human who actually got to enter heaven as a human.
17:45 This reflects Enoch being at the side of this godly figure of Thrawn.
17:48 Now Lars Mikkelsen voiced Thrawn in Rebels and plays him here, and images of this guy
17:53 from trailers just do not do him justice, because really it is his voice that makes
17:57 the character so good.
17:59 He enters with one of the sickest opening lines in live action of any Star Wars character
18:03 ever.
18:04 - What was first just a dream has become a frightening reality for those who may oppose
18:10 - Holy shit.
18:12 Remember Baelin described Peridia as a land of dreams and madness.
18:15 It's almost like Thrawn might've heard him with that, because his response here is
18:19 "What was first a dream has become a frightening reality.
18:22 Sorcerers deal in dreams, military strategists deal in reality."
18:26 So a reminder, Thrawn is a chiss with blue skin, red eyes, and I love how they kept the
18:30 V-shaped indentation on his forehead.
18:32 We've talked before about Thrawn's origins from Timothy Zahn's 1991 novel, Heir to the
18:36 Empire, Dave Filoni bringing Thrawn back in a canon as the villain of Rebels season three
18:40 and four.
18:41 Watch our Rebels recap series for more info on this guy.
18:43 I also did a whole Thrawn timeline video back in April, but just seeing him here carrying
18:47 himself with pomp and majesty, it is exactly true to form for Thrawn.
18:51 But that said, notice how they allowed Lars Mikkelsen to keep his normal aged appearance
18:56 and his build.
18:57 If you look closely at his white uniform, it has been wrinkled and frayed in some parts,
19:01 especially on the collar.
19:03 Despite Thrawn's best efforts, he cannot hide the toll nine years has taken on him.
19:07 Thrawn is now the Napoleon Bonaparte of Star Wars.
19:10 Napoleon being one of history's greatest military strategists who took over France
19:13 as a dictator and a god-king, then exiled to Elba, and then made a grand return to power
19:18 before his final defeat at the Battle of Waterloo.
19:21 Thrawn is about to depart his Elba.
19:23 Thrawn says Enoch will begin the cargo transfer as per Thrawn's agreement with the Great
19:26 Mothers.
19:27 Morgan says, "I have seen the catacombs.
19:29 It will take some time."
19:31 So what is this cargo?
19:33 They actually went into that in an amazing episode of Wookiee Leaks that came out last
19:36 night.
19:37 Go check it out.
19:38 But actually later, we see Thrawn's men moving these casket-shaped containers from the tower
19:42 to the Chimera.
19:43 I think these are corpses of past Nightsisters and Nightbrothers on Peridia that the Great
19:48 Mothers want to resurrect in this other galaxy.
19:50 Kind of like what we saw Talzin doing with the zombified corpses in Clone Wars.
19:54 It's not just this small army of stormtroopers that Thrawn plans to return with.
19:57 He's going to come back with a true army of the dead.
20:00 But later when we see one of these caskets floating past the camera, it shakes with an
20:03 unnatural rattle.
20:09 And as Thrawn tells Morgan, "Death and resurrection are common deceptions played out by both Nightsister
20:14 and Jedi."
20:15 A clue that these Nightsisters plot to resurrect their dead.
20:19 Actually Morocco may have been their first experiment at doing just that.
20:22 So back in this scene, Thrawn recognizes Balon.
20:24 "Then you must be General Balon Skull.
20:29 Of the Jedi Order."
20:30 He calls him General.
20:32 Thrawn knows that Balon had a military rank as a fighter in the Clone Wars.
20:35 This shows his expertise.
20:36 He knows all the names.
20:38 Kind of like Batman knows all the names of the detectives and the cops in the GCPD.
20:41 So then Thrawn meets Sabine.
20:43 Recalling her as one of those rebels he chased down in Rebels Season 3 and 4, Thrawn is shocked
20:47 that Sabine's obsession with finding Ezra was worth so much to her.
20:50 "That singular focus will reshape our galaxy.
20:54 You've gambled the fate of your galaxy on that belief."
20:59 You can see in his eyes though some uncertainty over this loose thread.
21:02 Kind of like a chess master trying to outsmart someone who is just kind of winging it.
21:05 That's one of the most frustrating people for chess masters to play.
21:08 Sabine gets a howler and blasters and Ezra's lightsaber back and Enoch says, "Die well."
21:14 Who called?
21:15 It is the kind of thing a stormtrooper on this graveyard planet for nine years just
21:18 trying to make the most of his death would say.
21:20 Sabine uses the same kind of scanner that Han used to look for Luke on Hoth in Empire.
21:24 Hera actually used a bulkier version of it last episode on CETOS.
21:27 But Sabine gets attacked by Marauders.
21:29 But where as before she's been a better shot with her blasters and not as good with
21:32 the lightsaber, now it's the opposite.
21:34 She has to resort to the lightsaber and with the lightsaber she successfully finishes them
21:37 off.
21:38 Now as Baelin and Shin ride out from the castle, it does have some runes written along the
21:42 top.
21:43 This is not the alphabet we figured out for our end credit Star Map video.
21:46 It's a different language.
21:47 It kind of looks like the Sith language of Ur-Katat, but it's not that either because
21:50 this would predate that.
21:52 These kind of look like the runes that were on the inside of the chalice that Maul had
21:55 Ezra drink from on Dathomir when he used the Nightsister magic to combine their minds.
21:59 Meanwhile, Thrawn and Morgan observe this galaxy's Star Map, which I'm going to assume
22:03 is not the galaxy Peridia is in, but the main galaxy's Star Map as it's all charted out,
22:08 whereas I don't think the Peridia galaxy would be as charted.
22:11 So it looks like Thrawn is making plans for where to strike when he returns.
22:14 We get some lighthearted hijinks this episode of Sabine shaming the Howler and then meeting
22:18 the Noti, which are nomadic creatures akin to turtles or crabs that disguise themselves
22:23 as rocks.
22:24 I think they're a lot like the Ewoks, but there's more pragmatism.
22:26 They seem a bit further along, like they wear multi-layered clothes with fasteners made
22:30 out of teeth.
22:31 My wife pointed this out, but those might not be shells that are part of their anatomy,
22:34 but rather shell backpacks that they wear.
22:36 Because think about it, how else would they get these slim-fitting clothes on their bodies?
22:40 But this Noti recognizes the rebel insignia on Sabine's pauldron because he has a similar
22:44 patch proving that they know Ezra Bridger.
22:46 It makes sense that Ezra would get along with these guys as throughout Rebels, he'd love
22:49 to disguise himself in different uniforms and using pseudonyms.
22:52 Like at some points he calls himself Jabba the Hutt and Lando Calrissian.
22:55 Balin finds a severed staff to know Sabine's lightsaber severed this, and Balin tells Shin
22:59 about Ezra Bridger.
23:00 "It comes from a breed of Bokken Jedi trained in the wild after the temple fell."
23:06 Bokken refers to the wooden training swords that we saw Ahsoka and Sabine use in episode
23:10 three.
23:11 So this just kind of refers to a homeschooled Jedi.
23:13 But Balin tells Shin that she's not a Jedi.
23:15 "He was trained as a Jedi.
23:17 You I trained to be something more."
23:19 Now Balin says that he misses the idea of the Jedi Order, but not the true weakness
23:23 of the Jedi Order.
23:24 And he sees the future here on this planet in what was once the great witch kingdom of
23:28 the Dathomiri.
23:29 And he says while the Great Mothers are fleeing, Balin sees an opportunity.
23:32 "Perhaps they flee a power greater than their own.
23:37 Something calls to me.
23:38 Can't you hear it?
23:40 Something stirs here.
23:42 Can't you see it?"
23:44 So what is this greater power in this Peridian wasteland?
23:47 The Thrawn that the Great Mothers are fleeing, but Balin is drawn to.
23:51 Maybe the Mortis gods, which might explain Balin's reluctance to kill Ahsoka because
23:55 Ahsoka has the spirit of the daughter inside of her.
23:57 Maybe Balin is drawn to the purest form of the Force religion through the father before
24:01 it was bastardized by the corruptible Jedi Order.
24:03 But maybe this great power is Bendu, the Force being in Rebel Season three that eluded Thrawn
24:09 and predicted Thrawn's defeat at the arms of the Purgle.
24:12 Remember, Bendu was kind of an agnostic.
24:14 He reached out to both Kanan and Ezra and Maul, and in the Rebel Season three finale,
24:18 he equally destroyed Imperial forces and the Rebel fleet.
24:21 He's kind of on neither side and would be really fun for Thrawn to see Bendu again.
24:25 But I'm going to throw another theory at you.
24:27 That power that Balin recognizes could be the priestesses from the Wellspring of Light.
24:32 What if the Nightsisters branched out from those priestesses and the priestesses cast
24:35 them out of the Wellspring like Lucifer from heaven and then banished them to this hell
24:39 of Peridia?
24:40 The reason why the Dathomiri might have migrated to our galaxy could have been some gradual
24:44 attempt to get closer and closer back into that Garden of Eden.
24:48 I got to dig into this in another video because it's really heady and there's a lot of moving
24:52 parts.
24:53 But Sabine follows the Noti to their lakeside village with rounded trailers that kind of
24:55 looks like the shells that they wear.
24:56 It looks like the females of this group wear shawls over their heads.
25:00 There's just a lot of good world building with these things.
25:02 And then our man Ezra Bridger returns.
25:04 I knew I could count on you.
25:06 He appears out of focus over Sabine's left shoulder just as Anakin appeared to Ahsoka
25:10 in the World Between Worlds.
25:11 Iman Isfandi plays Ezra Bridger nine years older and he has a beard and he looks just
25:16 like his father Ephraim Bridger.
25:18 Even with the hand on the hip.
25:19 He has animated Ezra's crystal blue eyes and that wrist tack that Ezra wore on his left
25:23 arm throughout the Rebel series.
25:24 Sabine and Ezra pick up right where they left off with some playful banter that they always
25:28 had.
25:29 Typical.
25:30 Always a plan.
25:31 It's never a good one.
25:32 Hey.
25:33 It worked, didn't it?
25:35 And I love that sudden seriousness from Ezra.
25:40 Like think about it for nine years Ezra would not have known if Lothal was saved or if the
25:44 Rebels ever had a chance of defeating the Empire.
25:46 He just kind of had to make peace with being completely out of the fight and being completely
25:50 in the blind.
25:51 But Ezra asks how Sabine found him like how she got there and she ducks this difficult
25:55 conversation the same way Ahsoka sidestepped Hu Yang's difficult questions in the opening
25:59 scene.
26:00 Once Ezra finds out what Sabine sacrificed to get here.
26:02 I don't think he's gonna be very happy.
26:04 But the Great Mothers warn Thrawn that another Jedi approaches and he susses out who it is.
26:08 Could it be the recently deceased Ahsoka Tano?
26:12 He tells Morgan that death and resurrection are common deceptions played out by both Nightsister
26:16 and Jedi.
26:17 And since Balin was a former Jedi, his words should be treated as flawed.
26:19 Thrawn says I want to know her background, history, homeworld, her master, everything.
26:24 Yes, this is always a huge part of Thrawn's strategic approach to learn everything about
26:28 his enemy, their history, their art, and weaponize it.
26:30 And it's interesting that he doesn't know that Ahsoka's master was Anakin Skywalker,
26:34 something that Balin Skull knew, but he was part of the Jedi Order during the Clone Wars.
26:37 Thrawn wasn't.
26:38 He was a military figure.
26:39 But there is evidence from various books that Thrawn was one of few people who deduced that
26:43 Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader were the same person.
26:46 So as soon as he finds out that Anakin Skywalker was a master, he's gonna know that Darth Vader
26:50 was her master.
26:51 Thrawn orders to destroy any approaching star whales with prejudice and he turns back to
26:55 the Great Mothers.
26:56 Great Mothers, I shall once again require the aid of your dark magic.
27:00 The thread of destiny demands it, Grand Admiral.
27:04 So the closed captioning spells this MAGIC, M-A-G-I-C-K, which gives it a more supernatural
27:10 metaphysical quality.
27:11 Like magic with a K is what witches do.
27:13 But he says once again.
27:15 So what past instance did Thrawn use the Great Mothers magic other than to summon Morgan
27:19 Elspeth?
27:20 Like in a way that he could use it again?
27:21 Could it have been these mothers that drew Ahsoka into the War Between Worlds to wrestle
27:26 with Ahsoka's demons and that Ahsoka just successfully passed that test?
27:30 Did they actually use the Lothal Jedi Temple that is still on the Chimera to do this?
27:34 Look, make no mistake, folks.
27:36 Thrawn's respect for this magic is transactional at best.
27:38 And the real story here is the relationships that Ahsoka and Bailon Skull have to the fairy
27:43 tales that they were told as kids.
27:45 Are the stories true or are they only fantasies that happen in a galaxy far, far away?
27:49 Thank you so, so much for watching this breakdown.
27:52 You can support our channel by grabbing an Ahsoka-inspired fulcrum shirt available at
27:56 Nerd Riot dot shop.
27:57 Please subscribe to the Break Room for all of our episodes of Wookiee Leaks, our Ahsoka
28:00 After Show, and subscribe to all three channels of the New Rockstars Network.
28:03 Thanks to Noah Chen for helping write and research this breakdown.
28:05 You can follow me at EA Voss, follow New Rockstars.
28:08 Thanks for watching and I'll see you next time.
28:09 Bye.
28:09 [Music]