Ahsoka Tano is having quite the moment. She’s been a fan favorite since her introduction in Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008), but the character’s transition to live-action through Star Wars shows like The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett has led to her amassing a whole new level of popularity. That being said, Ahsoka’s complicated backstory has led to some confusion among younger fans.
While she was introduced as the Padawan of Anakin Skywalker in The Clone Wars, Ahsoka’s path towards becoming a Jedi is rife with personal setbacks, galactic battles, and Anakin’s turn to the Dark Side. While the training of most Jedis can be attributed to a single master, Ahsoka is a rare instance of someone who received training from a number of different masters. Let’s break it down.
Anakin didn’t want a Padawan when Ahsoka was assigned to him. He was still maturing as a Jedi, and the notion of training someone at the same time seemed like too big of a challenge to take on. Unsurprisingly, Anakin and Ahsoka butted heads at first. They argued constantly, even when they were placed in life-threatening situations. As both of them matured, however, a friendship blossomed. Anakin encouraged Ahsoka to maintain her individuality in the face of the Jedi council, and helped to sharpen her already impressive combat skills.
While Anakin lays the greatest claim to being Ahsoka’s mentor, Obi-Wan Kenobi was another major figure in her life. The Clone Wars animated series implies that Ahsoka was originally supposed to be Obi-Wan’s Padawan, and she was only assigned to Anakin because Obi-Wan insisted. While the details were never made clear, the quieter, less combative ways in which Obi-Wan trained Ahsoka were much more apparent. He nurtured her sense of inner strength, and ability to use her wits to get out of sticky situations.
Who has trained Ahsoka besides Anakin?
Ahsoka has formative stints with Jedi Masters like Plo Koon and Mace Windu over the course of the series. The former was the one who discovered Ahsoka’s force sensitivity when she was a child, and brought her to the attention of the Jedi Council. She worked under Windu during the Clone Wars, where she honed her skills on the battlefield. The bond between Padawan and Master was less than stellar in this instance, though. Windu was openly dismissive of Ahsoka, and made it clear that he lacked faith in her when she was framed for bombing the Jedi Temple.
The aforementioned framing was part of the reason Ahsoka left the Jedi Council in The Clone Wars season 5. She felt abandoned by the very group that had spent years training her, and decided to continue her training elsewhere. The handling of the Ahsoka situation was particularly bothersome to Anakin, and added to his growing discontent with the Jedi Council. We all know how that went down. Check out Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of Sith (2006) if you need a refresher.
The simple answer for who trained Ahsoka? Anakin. He was the master she bonded with the most, and that informed most of her outlook on the Jedi Council. The complicated answer? Several masters over several different years. Ahsoka is the embodiment of the old adage “it takes a village to raise a child.” Whether or not the village did a good job is another story altogether. We might get a definitive ruling with the upcoming Disney Plus series Ahsoka.
