Summary
- Ahsoka’s refusal to train Grogu is attributed to her fear of his strong attachment to Din, which could lead him to the dark side.
- Ahsoka’s pattern of struggling to maintain commitment in her training relationships is evident through her history with Sabine and her own training with Anakin.
- Ahsoka’s fear of failure, stemming from her guilt of not being there for Anakin, contributed to her reluctance to train Grogu and risk repeating past mistakes.
The real reason why Ahsoka refused to train Grogu has been revealed by Star Wars. The Mandalorian season 2, episode 5 “Chapter 13: The Jedi” brought Din Djarin and Ahsoka together under the impression she would train Grogu. After learning more of Grogu’s story and testing his Force abilities, Ahsoka refused to do so, accrediting it to the strong attachment between Din and Grogu that could lead him to the dark side. She instead guided them towards Tython to let Grogu choose his path, where he connected with Luke Skywalker to eventually continue his Jedi training.
Ahsoka episodes 1 and 2 have since established that despite her concerns with Grogu, Ahsoka has taken on a Padawan before. She worked with Sabine Wren for many years after the events of Star Wars Rebels, though the two of them are seen with a fractured relationship in Ahsoka, as Sabine is no longer under Ahsoka’s tutelage. A conversation Ahsoka has with Hera confirms that Ahsoka walked away from her training with Sabine, just as she had done in her own training with Anakin. This pattern of Ahsoka struggling to maintain the commitment of training ties a consistent thread through her choices in The Mandalorian.
Ahsoka Seems To Have Commitment Issues
Ahsoka has kept other people at an arm’s length ever since the Clone Wars. She walked away from her master, she walked away from her Padawan, and despite making a deal with Din to train Grogu in exchange for his help capturing Nightsister Morgan Elsbeth, she passed Grogu off to someone else. There’s no doubt it’s because of how much she’s gone through, having survived Order 66 and losing many of the people she was once so close to, but her inability to commit to endeavors and relationships such as these has shown just how much fear she’s allowed to build inside herself over the years.
This made it difficult for Ahsoka to fathom the idea of taking on another Padawan, especially one like Grogu who was also around for Order 66. At this point, she had already failed to commit to one Padawan, and she wasn’t ready to take that chance again. With so few Jedi left in the galaxy, taking on the responsibility of training someone who learned under highly experienced masters such as Yoda was daunting. Given Ahsoka’s pattern of commitment issues, it’s no surprise she refused to take Grogu under her wing, though another fear of hers could have also contributed to that.
Grogu’s Attachments Made Ahsoka Afraid Of Failure
When Ahsoka found out what became of Anakin and witnessed it for herself, she took on a burden of guilt for walking away from her master and not being there for him in his time of need. She felt as if she had failed Anakin, and after seeing what became of him, she’s been afraid of doing the same to others ever since. When Ahsoka saw how strong Grogu’s attachment was to Din and vice versa, that fear crept back in, and she wasn’t willing to risk failing Grogu the way she felt she had failed her master and her apprentice.
Much of this fear is seen in Ahsoka’s conversation with Din about the matter in The Book of Boba Fett season 1, episode 6 “From the Desert Comes a Stranger.” Mando directly asks Ahsoka why she’s okay with Luke training Grogu when she refused to do the same, something Ahsoka insists was his choice and wasn’t something she could control. This reveals that Ahsoka would have continued to refuse training Grogu if she was faced with the choice once again, just as she’d done on Corvus. She was too afraid to commit herself to something that reminded her all too well of the failures she’d seen and experienced in the past.
Did Grogu’s Attachments Remind Ahsoka Of Sabine & Ezra?
Ahsoka has been establishing the importance of the missing Jedi Ezra Bridger to Sabine, following their close relationship in Star Wars Rebels. The attachment between Sabine and Ezra is strong enough for Sabine, as closed off from the Force as she is, to hear Ezra calling out to her. This attachment may have been the reason why Ahsoka ultimately walked away from Sabine, afraid of somehow repeating what had happened to her own master due to Sabine’s anger and grief over Ezra being gone. It could easily be, then, that Grogu’s attachment to Din reminded her of Sabine’s, and the cycle of fear repeated itself and led her to refuse training Grogu.
Ahsoka’s life certainly hasn’t been easy, and her inability to commit to the responsibility of training is a result of the trauma she’s endured as a survivor over the years. Grogu is also one-of-a-kind, the only member of Yoda’s species to be seen other than Yoda himself and Yaddle, and Ahsoka feared that she would fail him and watch him fall to the dark side in favor of his powerful urge to protect his father. It could have been a similar case with Sabine, which would have only motivated Ahsoka to push Grogu away even more. As the Ahsoka series progresses, the parallels between what happened with Sabine and Ahsoka’s refusal to train Grogu may grow as Star Wars continues to tie the threads through these eras.
