Why did Ahsoka leave the Jedi Order?

Star Wars: The Clone Wars was one of the best Star Wars properties to be released since the original trilogy due to the number of great characters, storylines, and concepts the show explored. One particularly dynamic character was Ahsoka Tano, who went on adventures with Anakin Skywalker throughout the series as his Padawan only to leave the Jedi Order in season five of the show.

Before we see more of Ahsoka’s adventures in her own Disney Plus series, we have to take a look at the events leading up to her departure from the Jedi and what happened to her afterward.

Why did Ashsoka leave the Jedi?

At the beginning of the four-part finale that saw Ahsoka leave the series, there was a bombing at a Jedi Temple hangar on Coruscant. The Jedi Council suspected that a Jedi was the culprit, and instead of asking the Republic to handle the investigation of the bombing, they asked Anakin Skywalker and his Padawan, Ahsoka, to investigate since they were the only Jedi not on Coruscant at the time of the bombing. 

The pair managed to track down a lead, a man named Jackar Bowmani who was working at the hangar. They suspected that Bowmani was involved with the bombing after a series of interviews with him and tracked down his wife Letta Turmond to ask her about her husband’s whereabouts at the time. After some questioning, they left her alone, only to return to her house once they discovered the presence of explosive nano-droids at the crime scene. When they found more nano-droids in the food at the household, they scanned Letta, who had none in her system, and rightly assumed that she had fed the droids to her husband, who then became a suicide bomber in the temple hangar. After a chase, Ahsoka and Anakin captured Letta and she was sent to prison for her role in the bombing, at which point the matter seemed to be settled. 

Ahsoka was then told to go visit the bomber in prison by then-Admiral Tarkin, as Ahsoka was the only person Letta would talk to. Letta talked to Ahsoka about people’s rising disillusionment with the Jedi and their role as “peacekeepers” in the Clone Wars. Letta told Ahsoka that the bombing was not her idea, that it was orchestrated by someone else, but before Letta could let it slip who the mastermind was, she was murdered in her prison cell, with Ahsoka the only other person in the cell. Obviously, as the prime suspect in Letta’s murder, Ahsoka was apprehended. Anakin refused to admit that Ahsoka may have been behind the locked room murder. Jedi Plo Koon ⏤ having worked with Ahsoka before and being the one who found her at the age of three, inducting her as a youngling ⏤ also refused to believe that Ahsoka was guilty of the crimes she was accused of.

After escaping from the clones holding her captive, and with a little help from Anakin, Ahsoka fled deeper into Coruscant. She used her Jedi communicator to ask a fellow Padawan, Barriss Offee, to find any clues that might lead to her innocence. After escaping more clones, Ahsoka was taken captive by the former Sith assassin and now impromptu bounty hunter Asajj Ventress. Ventress planned on taking Ahsoka into the Republic and claiming the bounty on her head, but Ahsoka convinced her that if she helped prove her innocence, then she might be able to talk the Jedi into looking the other way for the assassin’s past crimes. Agreeing, Ventress fled with Ahsoka after Anakin caught up with them. Anakin’s faith in Ahsoka wavered after seeing his Padawan with the assassin. 

Ahsoka contacted Offee yet again and discovered that she had a clue regarding a warehouse that Leta visited while she was still alive. Unfortunately for Ahsoka, Barriss Offee was the orchestrator behind the bombing, Leta’s death, and her subsequent framing. After Ahsoka and Ventress parted ways, Barriss knocked Ventress out and stole her lightsabers. Barriss, hidden by a mask, attacked Tano with Asajj’s lightsabers and left her there so she could be found with the nano-droids that were in the warehouse, further cementing her guilt.

Ahsoka then stood trial in front of the Jedi Council and told the truth of how she was being framed. Even though some Jedi, notably Anakin, Plo Koon, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Yoda, believe her innocence, she was found guilty of her crimes, stripped of her Padawan title, and kicked out of the Jedi Order. Ahsoka was then put on trial by the Senate, with Padme as her defender. Meanwhile, Anakin tracked down Asajj Ventress, with a little bit of the dark side spurring him on, to interrogate her. Ventress pointed out that Ahsoka communicated with Barriss and told him that if he found her lightsabers, anyone in possession of them was the culprit behind everything.

Anakin confronted Offee while Ahsoka was before the Senate, playing coy as to ascertain what she knew. Eventually, he drew his lightsaber and she defended herself with the two red lightsabers that belonged to Ventress. She was therefore the culprit behind the bombing and Ahsoka’s framing and was defeated by Anakin in battle. Anakin brought Offee in before Ahsoka, Palpatine, and the Senate, in cuffs, and proved Ahsoka’s innocence. Barriss yelled at the Senate, letting them know that she thought the Republic and the Jedi were failing to do their duty and uphold the peace, that they were instead the true villains of the Clone Wars, which she was right about. Once Ahsoka was proven innocent and Barriss Offee arrested, the Jedi Council apologized for their mistake and were happy to restore Ahsoka back into the Order. After the whole ordeal and her growing disillusionment with the Jedi from seeing their role in the Clone Wars, Ahsoka declined and chose to abandon the order.

Where is Ahsoka now?

Of course, that wasn’t the last time we saw Ahsoka, as her journey was only just beginning. She returned in the final episodes of Star Wars: The Clone Wars and we got to see how she survived Order 66. In the final episode, she left her lightsabers behind and faked her own death, a sign that her time as a Jedi was over for good. She then appeared as a recurring character in Star Wars: Rebels before making live-action appearances in both The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett, played by Rosario Dawson. Of course, Ahsoka had ditched her old lightsabers and now carried dual white lightsabers, a sign that her allegiance was not with the Jedi or the Sith. 

Ahsoka’s time in the Star Wars universe remains unfinished. We’ll see her again on Disney Plus after her standalone show Ahsoka wraps production.