The Clone Wars Wrap-Up
On both Full of Sith and RebelForce Radio this week, Ashley Eckstein discussed the momentous conclusion of The Clone Wars Season Five. In those interviews she mentioned the questions she submitted to Dave Filoni in advance of recording the Ahsoka arc. As promised on the podcasts, she posted those questions over at the Official Star Wars Blog. They are definitely worth the read, but here is my favorite:
Ashley: At this point, what’s the overall message you are trying to convey with her choices?
Dave: That we have choices, and that sometimes we must not always make the easy choice. That often the right choice can be hard, and against your friends. It does not mean they are bad people, or that you do not relate to them anymore, but you have to make choices that are right for you.
Dave Filoni also spoke to IGN at great length about Season Five. Again, it’s worth the read, but here’s some highlights:
On Steela’s death: It was really unfortunate, because we really like her character. We just felt that we couldn’t tell this whole arc and let everyone come through unscathed. We like to add an element of reality and consequence to the war that we’re portraying; that it’s not just all fun and games. You have these principals, and a lot of people are willing to die for those principals they believe in. I think Steela fit that well. For various reasons, it became clear that she had to be the character that was going to go. … Steela became our target. She mattered. You liked her character. 
She grew on you and was kind of like the one person that, in the whole arc, really understood what they were fighting for, which meant that her death would be that much more significant and honorific. It is one of the regrets I have this season, though. I really wish we hadn’t killed her because she’s such a strong female character, and it’s always good to have those on the show.
On Ahsoka’s growth: When you look at the very first episode with Barriss Offee and Luminara, there’s a distinct difference between the way Luminara is training Barriss and the way that Anakin’s training Ahsoka. It’s clearly stated in that arc that it’s ingenuity and spontaneity of mind that Ahsoka’s been trained with that Barriss kind of lacks. Unfortunately, she’s dealing a bit more in absolutes, which as we all know is something only Sith do. And that’s something, as a whole, the Jedi are kind of doing. They’re absolutely aiding the Senate, they’re absolutely trying to save the Republic. So they’ve fallen into a trap, and they’re a victim of their own politics, unfortunately.
On what Ahsoka knows regarding Anakin and Padmé: You know me, I love to shy away from giving you an absolute answer, but I will tell you that when I wrote that particular moment, I wanted some kind of common bridge between the two characters before she walked off. I thought that it served a double purpose, and one of them serves a very sneaky fan servicing, to be honest with you. But the one is that it shows that she knows and that she knows Anakin so well that she knows this about him. I don’t know that she knows they’re married, but I know that she knows that he cares very deeply about Padme, and Padme about Anakin, and probably that it’s crossed a line. But because of the way that she’s seen the Jedi treat her, especially recently, it kind of makes her think, “Well, it’s probably not as wrong as I would have thought when I was young.” It’s a perspective thing she’s gained.
Filoni pitches the Han Solo standalone with Hondo: That makes [Hondo] really interesting. I think his nod to Katooni at the end is giving you a little bit of, “Ah, he’s an okay guy.” He certainly doesn’t like to be thought of that way, but I think he’s got a good heart. 
I love that about him, and I use Hondo as much as possible. I could see him hanging out with a young kid Han Solo at some point — not on our show, but just in the future I think they’d be a natural duo. You know, Hondo asking, “Who’s this kid, this young guy running around with a Wookiee?” He fits so well together in that world, and I think that’s why we like Hondo.
On being in the Ahsoka Lives camp: For the Ahsoka arc, it felt like the right time. I had a lot of discussions with George over this stuff throughout the years. Every now and then I’d be like, “So, I’ve been giving a lot of thought about what happens to Ahsoka.” In the early days, he’d be like, “Well, she’s gonna die.” I’d be like, “Well… maybe not.” [Laughs] We would go back and forth. He’ll say stuff just to get me going, which is really fun. We have a similar sense of humor at times.
On Barriss: So I think there’s an element of that there, but Barriss, for the most part, I believe was working on her own. She might have been enabled, unknown to her, by someone like Palpatine, but it’s not like he conspired with her and that she was privy to being any sort of apprentice to Palpatine. She believes the Jedi are corrupt as a concept, and she acts out. Unfortunately, her fears about her own order, about herself, turn to anger, and that turned into aggression, and she made a statement by attacking her own people. What she says is true, but how she acts is wrong, and I think that’s something that commonly happens.
On incorporating an idea from the Revenge of the Sith novelization: It wasn’t all just about Ahsoka. Part of it was, when Revenge of the Sith came out and I read the novel and I watched the movie, I really got that the Jedi Order wasn’t in as good standing with the Republic as I had thought. There was an idea there, especially in the novel, that the public had kind of swayed their opinion against them. This really helped Palpatine as far as saying, “There’s been an attempt on my life, and I have been scarred, but my resolve has never been stronger.” I thought, “We have a real chance to tie that idea into what we’re doing with Ahsoka.”
Look for the FANgirl Blog The Clone Wars Season in Review discussion, coming soon!
And check out Ashley’s preview of the retro style The Clone Wars shirt from Her Universe.
Tricia Barr's novel, Wynde, won the 2014 Independent Publisher Book Award Gold Medal for Best Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror Ebook. She was also part of Silence in the Library's successful all-female creator science fiction and fantasy anthology Athena's Daughters, which is available now. For excerpts and tales of her adventures in creating a fictional universe, hop over to TriciaBarr.com.
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