Recap / Ahsoka S 1 E 7 Chapter 7 Dreams And Madness

Ahsoka arrives on Peridea as Thrawn takes measures to hunt her, Sabine, and Ezra down.

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Tropes:

• All There in the Manual:
  • Zigzagged with Thrawn's reaction upon learning Anakin Skywalker was Ahsoka's master and why he becomes so concerned. In the context of this episode, Thrawn clearly knows of Anakin's legendary wartime reputation and recognizes that anyone trained by him will likewise be unpredictable and dangerous. However, when taken in the context of Timothy Zahn's novel Thrawn: Alliances, it's clear that his apprehension is not only because of Anakin's reputation, but Vader's, as Thrawn correctly deduced Darth Vader's true identity.
  • Thrawn also learns of the Marg Sabl maneuver invented by Ahsoka in Thrawn: Alliances (although he only hears her name once, and not in a way that directly states she was Anakin's Padawan), which he later puts to use in Thrawn: Treason. In context, he would have understood that Ahsoka was a proven tactician as well as Anakin's apprentice, making her all the more dangerous.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: Senator Xiono describes Hera's report as "like a fairy tale", citing the Purrgils and mention of fallen and former Jedi, despite the Purrgils being a recorded phenomenon and there being security footage recorded of Baylan and Shin killing Republic troops and freeing Morgan.
• Asteroid Thicket: Ahsoka tries to lose her pursuers by going through the Purrgil graveyard, to the same effect.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • Leia saves Hera's bacon in her hearing by proxy of C-3PO delivering a message claiming she authorized her mission to Seatos.
  • Ahsoka saves Ezra and Sabine from being executed by Shin and the Night Troopers in the nick of time.
• Big Damn Reunion: Ezra and Ahsoka get to have one, reuniting for the first time since their encounter in the World Between Worlds.
• Bittersweet Ending: Ezra, Sabine, and Ahsoka have all reunited and are prepared to work together to get home. However, Thrawn is nearly done with his preparations to leave Peridea, having bought enough time to get most of the Great Mothers’ cargo ready.
• Bring It: A much more confident Ahsoka welcomes the challenge from Baylan with open arms.
• But Now I Must Go: Baylan tells Shin to go after Ezra and Sabine, but won't be aiding her, intending to pursue his own agenda.
• Call-Back:
  • Ezra is comfortable enough fighting with the Force alone without his lightsaber, as Ahsoka had previously trained him to do so in an episode of Star Wars: Forces of Destiny.
  • Huyang is exasperated when Ahsoka orders him to keep flying while she gets out of the ship like in the first episode.
  • Baylan's advice to Shin before he leaves ("Impatience for victory guarantees defeat") is something the audience should be familiar with. It's essentially the lesson Obi-Wan tried to teach Anakin as shown in the former's eponymous miniseries—which continued to persist as Darth Vader's Fatal Flaw.
• Call-Forward:
  • Anakin's Clone Wars-era message mentions that Ahsoka may find herself up against the likes of Asajj Ventress, General Grievous, or Count Dooku; while she never fought Dooku, Ahsoka did encounter both Ventress and Grievous several times in the war, crossing blades on multiple occasions, and even teaming up with Ventress the last time they met.
  • Sabine notes that she's skeptical that Palpatine died. As The Rise of Skywalker will show, while he really did die, it wasn’t the end for the Emperor.
  • Also checking in from The Rise of Skywalker is Sabine describing her sensing Ahsoka reaching out to her as a "feeling" as Finn would when he began to connect to the Force.
• The Cameo: Anthony Daniels makes a brief appearance as C-3PO, delivering a message from Senator Leia Organa claiming that she authorized Hera's mission and allowed Mon Mothma to dismiss the charges against her.
• Close-Call Haircut: Ezra narrowly dodges a lightsaber slash from Shin, but gets some of his hair burned off in the process. Ezra then proceeds to taunt her for it by showing her the trimmed hairs.
• Combat Pragmatist:
  • Baylan notes that Ahsoka can't beat him, a fact which she considers could be true. However, she doesn't have to beat him, which is punctuated by Huyang dropping in and strafing him from the air, providing a distraction for Ahsoka to steal his howler.
  • While he confidently declares the Force to be all he needs against the bandits, when outnumbered by Night Troopers, Ezra doesn't hesitate to grab a blaster and start gunning his enemies down.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Carson brings up the conflict on Mandalore, confirming this episode takes place after the events of the third season of The Mandalorian. This also confirms that Gideon's suspicions that Thrawn wasn't actually back yet were true, when Captain Pellaeon implied that Thrawn wasn't attending Shadow Council meetings out of concerns for secrecy.
  • Xiono says there's no sign of any connected Imperial warlord activity and that Gideon was just a lone wolf. This proves that as much grief as he was getting from his cohorts, Pellaeon's demands in "The Spies" that the Imperial Remnant stay as low profile as possible to not betray their true strength to the New Republic is working out for them, at least where the bureaucrats are concerned.
  • Ahsoka plays one of the instructional recordings Anakin was established to have made in "Shroud of Darkness".
  • The recording of Anakin tells Ahsoka to trust her instincts, as she told his son Luke in "From the Desert Comes a Stranger".
  • Asajj Ventress receives her first name-drop in live-action from the hologram of Anakin.
  • Ahsoka is shown to possess some training remotes.
  • Thrawn is surprised to learn that Anakin was Ahsoka's master, being very familiar with him from their encounter during the Clone Wars and during his time as Vader.
  • Thrawn notes that Jedi are good at hiding when he hears Ahsoka is hiding in the Purrgil graveyard, a cheeky nod to how Obi-Wan faked his death in the asteroid field while being pursued by the Fetts, along with a few Jedi having escaped and survived even decades after the Purge.
  • Sabine brings up Zeb's current occupation, training recruits for the New Republic, as was seen back in The Mandalorian.
  • Ezra recalls Sabine's training with the Darksaber during "Trials of the Darksaber". He also expresses surprise at learning she became Ahsoka's apprentice, calling back to his well-intentioned but occasionally insensitive reservations at the idea of her training with a lightsaber.
  • While it's not the same event, Anakin's dialog in his recording to Ahsoka mirrors his attitude in the Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi episode "Practice Makes Perfect", where he reasoned that Ahsoka had to be prepared for more than just droids.
• Continuity Snarl: From a certain point of view. Thrawn is surprised to learn that Ahsoka is the Padawan of Anakin Skywalker. Padme told him that Anakin used to have a Padawan apprentice in Thrawn: Alliances but only mentioned her by name once (and only by her first name, and not necessarily in a way that directly states she was the Padawan in question) and that conversation was at least 28 years ago, so it doesn't seem completely unreasonable for Thrawn not to know that Ahsoka was the Padawan Padme referred to. However, that conversation is where Thrawn first learned of Ahsoka's invention of the Marg Sabl maneuver, a tactic he co-opted and used extensively and it seems very strange that Thrawn of all people would not find out more about the history of the tactic or even the name of the person who invented it.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Shin is quickly defeated by the far more experienced and powerful Ahsoka, who doesn't even draw either of her lightsabers while fighting the Dark Jedi.
• Curb Stomp Cushion: Her fight with Ezra doesn't go much better, despite the fact that she's armed and he's not, but she does get in a good Force-push that lets her fight Sabine alone for a bit.
• Fantastic Racism: Xiono is outraged that a "mere droid" like C-3PO is being listened to. Threepio is somewhat miffed at the comment, while Chopper is ready to start a fight.
• Friendship Moment: Between Baylan and Shin, of all people; as Baylan prepares to part ways with his apprentice, he gives Shin a final bit of almost paternal advice, and they're both visibly emotional to leave each other, a sign that, despite their villainy, the two of them were genuinely close.
• Gunship Rescue: During her battle with Baylan, Ahsoka has Huyang do a strafing run in his ship to disorient him, and in the confusion steals his howler before he realizes he's been played.
• Hyperspeed Escape: When the purrgill jump right into Thrawn's minefield, they almost as quickly jump right back out. Unfortunately, that leaves all of the mines now focused on Ahsoka's ship.
• Hypocrite: Xiono continues to belittle Hera for supposedly letting her personal feelings cloud her judgment, but he's clearly personally got it out for Hera and smugly rubs it in her face how he's going to get her court-martialed. He's also proven to have held a vote against Hera's recon mission to Seatos without Leia Organa, who happens to be the leader of the Defense Council, whose presence must have been mandated in accordance with the rules and laws for such a vote, so he's no different from Hera.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy:
  • The chase between the Noti and the scavengers is hampered by the fact both the scavengers and Sabine are pretty lousy shots. Meanwhile, Ezra averts this, when he grabs a trooper's gun and every shot he fires hits.
  • Once Ahsoka's starship is out of cover, Thrawn's fighters are unable to land a shot on it, such that Huyang is able to keep the ship flying all by himself without any return fire for the bulk of the Jedi's fight down below.
• Inferred Survival: Sabine tells Ezra that Palpatine died, but says it with clear skepticism. She's right, but it'll be a few decades before that prediction comes true.
• Insistent Terminology: Xiono gets huffy when Hera calls the Imperial Remnant just that, because he feels that is crediting them with far too much organization.
• Internal Reveal: Sabine brings Ezra up to speed on what's been going on since the Battle of Lothal: the Empire's collapse, Palpatine's death (maybe), etc.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Xiono is technically correct that Hera's report on the incident at Seatos reads "like a fairy tale." What's more, she did disobey orders by going to Seatos and a court-martial is a valid solution for her actions. The really annoying part is that Hera is telling the truth about all of it, but she has no solid proof for any of it to convince the Senate. That said, Xiono isn't behaving like a Reasonable Authority Figure at all during the inquiry and frequently dismisses any claims of Thrawn's return either out of spite or just complacent ignorance of what the Imperial Remnant is doing.
• Kangaroo Court: The hearing goes mostly poorly for Hera since Mothma is unwilling or unable to put a leash on Xiono, who is the only council member who actually bothers to speak, and dominates the proceedings with his smear campaign.
• Know When to Fold 'Em:
  • When his two squadrons fail to kill Ezra and Sabine, followed by Ahsoka joining the fray, Thrawn calls off the attack since he's more interested in completing his cargo transfer and getting off Peridea, and their numbers have diminished to the point that leaving them to die would not accomplish anything. It helps that if he escapes without the heroes being able to pursue him and strands them, he wins anyway even if he can't kill them in direct combat.
  • Shin takes a few swings at Ahsoka, but once it's clear the older Jedi is by far her superior (and Thrawn's Night Troopers have retreated), Shin flees on her howler rather than fight or surrender.
  • Xiono reluctantly goes along with clearing Hera of any charges when Leia (by proxy) throws her weight around as the head of the Defense Council, pointing out that she was not consulted when Xiono vetoed Hera's mission.
• Kung-Fu Wizard: Ezra actively encourages Sabine to keep his (now hers, as he assumes she's practiced with it) lightsaber, instead choosing to engage Shin and the bandits with his fists and Force powers. Notably, he's able to use the Force to stop Shin's lightsaber mid-swing.
• Locked Out of the Loop: While Sabine has brought Ezra up to speed on the Empire's defeat and Palpatine's supposed death, she declines to explain how she found him or what happened to Ahsoka, just saying "it's complicated". He's clearly taken aback to hear that Sabine had reason to think Ahsoka was dead.
• Mage Marksman: Ezra starts off with just his fists and the Force, but when the Night Troopers arrive in force, he grabs a blaster rifle to even the odds a bit.
• Metaphorically True: When Mon Mothma confronts Hera over the fact that Leia did not authorize her mission, Hera insists she did... eventually.
• Moving Buildings: The Noti are caravaneers, their shell-esque homes doubling as their ground transports. They're capable of deploying armor to block blaster fire, though the transports aren't armed because they're pacifists.
• My Rule Fu Is Stronger than Yours: Xiono uses the fact that Hera went ahead with her mission in spite of the Defense Council vetoing it as cause to court-martial her and strip her of her rank. Leia, through C-3PO, then claims credit for authorizing the mission and points out that she was not consulted when Xiono held his vote when she should have been, forcing him to drop the issue.
• Mythology Gag: When C-3PO appears at the council meeting, he's unhappy at being asked for identification, saying "You don't need to see my identification."
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: When Thrawn's soldiers turn the odds in her favor, Shin immediately orders them to execute Ezra and Sabine. When Ezra tries to stall for time or suggest that they be taken prisoner, Shin just reiterates the order to fire.
• No One Gets Left Behind: When they're fleeing the bandits, one of the Noti trailers is hit and breaks down. The rest slow down and circle around it, giving Ezra and Sabine plenty of cover to fight with.
• Noodle Incident: Ahsoka and Huyang have apparently tried her jumping from the ship in mid-flight before, but it apparently went awry (Ahsoka blames Huyang messing up the timing).
• Not in This for Your Revolution: Baylan confirms again he’s not interested in the resurgent Empire that Thrawn is building, though he does leave Shin to join them because he sees that her interests align with theirs.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Thrawn has a mild moment of shock when he reads that Anakin was Ahsoka's master, because he knows this will make Ahsoka an unpredictable adversary.
  • He also has a clear moment of confusion when Baylan goes rogue, making for another element that he can't predict.
  • Xiono has a subtle, but epic one when Leia invokes her position as leader of the Defense Council to let him know she isn't pleased with his actions.
  • When Shin orders him and Sabine shot, Ezra quickly makes an attempt to talk her into taking them prisoner instead.
  • Shin, when her backup departs, leaving her alone with Ahsoka, Ezra, and Sabine. She opts to make a run for it.
• Psychic Link: Ahsoka locates Sabine by communing through their bond in the Force. This also marks the first time Sabine connects with the Force.
• Punch Catch: Baylan catches Ahsoka's free hand when she tries to decapitate him with her other lightsaber during a Blade Lock.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Mon Mothma is a limited case of this, clearly favoring Hera but being unwilling or unable to put her foot on the scale in any way. When Leia covers for Hera, she quickly dismisses the accusations against Hera and doesn't let on to the others that she knows Leia is lying. Adding to that, she reasonably asks Hera, personal feelings aside, if she truly believes in the Imperial Remnant conspiracy at work, along with Thrawn's return. Hera can only respond that "[They] must prepare for the worst, but hope for the best".
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Hera delivers a very blunt but scorching one to Senator Xiono in response to his dismissal of the Imperial Remnant or Thrawn's return.
  Hera: I don't know what frightens me more, the possibility of what might happen, or your unwillingness to see it.
• Redemption Rejection: After the arrival of Ahsoka, Thrawn calls back his forces which leaves Shin alone against Ahsoka, Sabine, and Ezra. Ahsoka tells her to put down her lightsaber and that she will help her, Shin hesitates for a moment or two before running off, with Ahsoka stopping the others from chasing after.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Rather than keep going through the minefield, the purrgil opt to jump to hyperspace and move on to another system.
• Self-Deprecation: When the Noti attack the bandits with slingshots, which put up a rather meager offense towards their attackers, Sabine asks if they have any actual weapons to fight with. Ezra infamously used an energy slingshot at the beginning of Rebels which was often cited by certain fans as evidence that the franchise was going to become too kiddy in the hands of Disney.
• Smoke Out: Ahsoka uses the smoke from the flares dropped from the T-6 to escape her duel with Baylan and steal his howler.
• Space Mines: Knowing the precise hyperspace path used to get to and from Peridea, Thrawn has the entire area mined. It doesn't stop the purrgil, who are too tough to be killed by the explosives, but it does drive them off and leave Ahsoka alone.
• Space Orcs: From what little we see of Baylan and Shin's new "allies", they bear a strong resemblance to Orcs along with riding howlers, like Wargs.
• Sword and Gun: After using them separately in all previous battles, Sabine finally uses her lightsaber in conjunction with her blasters and other ranged weapons.
• Tempting Fate:
  • While navigating through Thrawn's minefield, Huyang comments that at least the purrgil are providing some cover. Almost as soon as he's done talking, the purrgil jump to hyperspace. Ahsoka calls him out for this.
    Ahsoka: You just had to say something.
    Huyang: I was being optimistic!
  • After the bandits are defeated, Ezra confidently notes that the odds are now against Shin. Cue the two gunships Thrawn sent to back up the mercenaries.
• To Be Lawful or Good: Mon Mothma's main problem during Hera's hearing. Despite strongly suspecting that Hera was entirely justified in her actions, she seems reluctant to rein Xiono in when he's pulling a blatant Kangaroo Court on Hera (not to mention acting extremely unprofessional in the process) because he's technically right according to the letter of the law. Hera did disobey direct orders, she did conduct an unauthorized mission using New Republic military assets, and she did end up getting at least a couple of pilots killed. By the letter of the law, she should be court-martialed. As Chancellor of the New Republic, Mon Mothma can't use her authority to overrule the law without coming off as no better than Palpatine. It's only when Leia offers a legal escape hatch that Mon Mothma is able to quickly end the hearing in Hera's favor. She's also clearly not very thrilled about the fact that Hera went behind her back and had Leia bail her out in a questionably legal way, regardless of their reasons for doing so.
• Took a Level in Badass: Ezra's aptitude with the Force has improved even more than his last appearance at the end of Rebels, as he actually refuses to take back his lightsaber, preferring to fight his opponents with just the Force (and his bare hands...and, yes, a blaster).
• Touché: After Ahsoka's strafing tactic allows her to get away on the back of his howler, Baylan gives a brief, impressed smirk as she rides off.
• Verbal Backspace: Hearing that Ahsoka took Sabine on as an apprentice, Ezra's first response is "why?" before backtracking to "congratulations".
• Villain Respect: Thrawn sounds mildly impressed on seeing his troops get outmatched by Ezra and Sabine, remarking that it's like seeing the Jedi of old.
• Villainous Valor: Shin, though clearly outmatched against Ahsoka, bravely tries to fight her anyway. She pairs her valor with discretion, however; when her backup retreats and she's left alone against three opponents, she opts to run.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Sabine and Ezra share some moments being sarcastic with each other.
• Xanatos Gambit: Thrawn doesn't really care too much about whether or not Baylan, Shin, and his men manage to defeat Ahsoka, Sabine, and Ezra. Either way, the fighting will have bought him enough time to finish loading his cargo and leave Peridea before they can stop him.

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