"It's Called Training: In Defence of 'Practice Makes Perfect'"
A Meta on the Difference Between Tough Training and Abuse, and Why Anakin's Exercise Was the Former (or a Meta born of bitching...)
Preface: What the Fandom Claim Is, and Why It Needs Addressing
A persistent claim in some corners of Star Wars fandom characterises Anakin Skywalker's training exercise for Ahsoka Tano in Tales of the Jedi Episode 5 — "Practice Makes Perfect" — as abusive. The argument goes that throwing a padawan into an overwhelming combat situation without warning, allowing her to be stunned unconscious, and repeatedly subjecting her to this exercise constitutes abuse of the master-padawan power dynamic.
This meta argues that this characterisation is wrong — not because Anakin is beyond criticism, not because the exercise was comfortable or gentle, but because tough training and abuse are meaningfully different things, and conflating them does a disservice both to the character and to the very real distinction that matters.
Part One: What Actually Happens in "Practice Makes Perfect"
The facts of the episode, confirmed from the Wookieepedia and TV Tropes episode summaries, are these.
Anakin arrives (late, characteristically) to observe Ahsoka training with standard Jedi training remotes — small droids programmed to fire at trainee Jedi. Ahsoka excels at this exercise. Anakin is unimpressed — not with Ahsoka, but with the exercise itself. He tells her the droids are inferior opponents, less challenging and less representative of real combat than what she will face.
He takes her to a military facility where Captain Rex and members of the 501st Legion are waiting. Anakin explains to Ahsoka that he wants her to be good enough to hold out against Rex and the boys, because if she can do that, she can take anything the droids can throw at her. He adds that training against living opponents will be more difficult because they are less predictable than droids, so a key part of the training will be sensing who will fire first.
The weapons are set to stun. Not lethal. Not even close to lethal. Stun.
Ahsoka is surrounded by clone troopers and begins deflecting. She is eventually stunned unconscious. She wakes up an hour later. Anakin reassures Rex that Ahsoka will be fine, and Jesse wanted to apologise for how hard he stunned her — which he does from across the room.
This training is then repeated, in various forms, over the course of the Clone Wars — shown in a montage across multiple locations, with Ahsoka progressively improving. Eventually she can hold out for five minutes before Rex himself finally stuns her.
The episode then flash-forwards to Order 66. The clones turn on the Jedi. Ahsoka faces the same soldiers she has trained with for years, now trying to kill her. Ahsoka utilises the skills she gained during the drills to survive the enactment of Order 66 aboard the Republic cruiser Tribunal.
This is the episode. These are the facts. Now let us examine what abuse actually is — and why this is not it.
Part Two: What Abuse Actually Is
Abuse is not synonymous with difficulty, discomfort, or even danger. If it were, virtually all athletic coaching, military training, and professional preparation would qualify. The distinction between tough training and abuse rests on several specific factors.
Purpose. Legitimate training is designed to prepare the trainee for real challenges they will face. It is calibrated to the demands of the actual task. Abuse inflicts harm that serves no legitimate pedagogical or preparatory purpose — or serves only the abuser's need to exercise power, express anger, or inflict pain.
Proportionality. Training is proportionate to its stated purpose. The difficulty is not gratuitous or excessive relative to what is being prepared for. Abuse is disproportionate — harm inflicted beyond what any legitimate purpose would require.
Benefit. Training benefits the person being trained. Its outcomes are improved capability, resilience, and preparation for genuine challenge. Abuse benefits only the abuser, or benefits no one — harm inflicted as punishment, as control, as cruelty.
Agency. While power differentials exist in training relationships (coach/athlete, instructor/trainee, master/padawan), abusive relationships systematically remove the trainee's ability to raise concerns, seek redress, or — where no alternative exists — exit. Legitimate training relationships, even hierarchical ones, preserve some mechanism for the trainee's voice.
Oversight and safety. Legitimate training has safety measures appropriate to its risks and operates under some form of supervision or accountability. Abuse operates in concealment or actively undermines safety measures.
Care. Legitimate trainers care about their trainees' wellbeing. The difficulty they impose is in service of the trainee's growth. Abusers are indifferent or hostile to the wellbeing of those they harm.
None of these distinguishing features of abuse are present in "Practice Makes Perfect." Every one of the markers of legitimate training is.
Part Three: The Military Training Parallel
The fandom characterisation of Anakin's exercise as abusive tends to apply civilian peacetime standards to a combat training context. This is the wrong framework. The correct framework is military and special forces training — because Ahsoka is, functionally, being trained as a special forces operative in an active war.
Consider what real-world elite military training actually involves.
US Navy SEAL BUD/S (Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL Training) includes Hell Week: five and a half continuous days of operation on approximately four total hours of sleep, extended cold water immersion, physical demands beyond almost anything civilian life produces, and psychological pressure designed to identify who can function under extreme stress and who cannot.
US Army Ranger School runs 61 days of extreme physical and mental demands, with sleep deprivation and caloric restriction designed to simulate combat conditions.
UK SAS Selection takes candidates into the Brecon Beacons in all weathers for navigation and endurance exercises. People have died during SAS selection. This is accepted because the alternative — sending inadequately prepared soldiers into SAS operations — produces worse outcomes.
SERE Training (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Extraction), required for military personnel at risk of capture, includes simulated capture and interrogation: stress positions, sensory disorientation, psychological pressure, and techniques specifically designed to replicate what prisoners of war experience. This is conducted with live instructors playing hostile captors, in conditions deliberately designed to be frightening and disorienting. It is not abuse. It is preparation for the real thing.
None of these programmes are considered abusive, despite involving discomfort, danger, psychological stress, and in some cases genuine risk of serious injury or death. They are considered legitimate — even essential — because the alternative is soldiers who cannot survive the actual conditions of combat.
Ahsoka Tano is a padawan in an active galactic war. She will face combat. She has already faced combat. She will face it again. The question is not whether she should be trained for difficulty — she must be — but whether the training Anakin devises is appropriate to that necessity.
The answer, on the evidence of the episode, is yes. The weapons are on stun. Rex and the 501st are controlled, disciplined soldiers who apologise when they feel they have been too rough. Anakin supervises throughout and monitors Ahsoka's recovery. The training is conducted repeatedly with Ahsoka's ongoing participation. And it saves her life.
Part Four: The Geonosis Precedent — What Traditional Training Actually Produced
The military training parallel established in Part Three is not merely theoretical. The Star Wars universe provides its own in-universe case study of what traditional Jedi combat training produces when tested in actual military conditions — and the results are catastrophic.
The First Battle of Geonosis in Attack of the Clones is the opening engagement of the Clone Wars. Mace Windu leads a strike team of 212 Jedi to rescue Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker, and Padmé Amidala from execution in the Petranaki arena. These 212 Jedi represent a significant proportion of the Order's active members at the time. As Screen Rant's analysis notes: this would be "the largest military-style deployment of Jedi in the Galactic Republic era, as the galaxy had been at peace for around a thousand years."
The result: by the time Yoda arrives with the clone army, all but just over 20 had been killed. Two hundred and twelve Jedi entered. Roughly twenty survived to be evacuated. The others — approximately 180 to 190 of them — were killed by battle droids in the arena.
That is an approximately 85-90% casualty rate on a single mission.
And the mission's primary objective — capturing or neutralising Count Dooku — was not achieved. Dooku escaped. The Jedi suffered catastrophic losses and failed to accomplish their goal. The "victory" of Geonosis was saved entirely by Yoda's last-minute arrival with clone reinforcements. Without the clone army, every surviving Jedi in that arena would have been executed.
In any real military, this outcome would trigger an immediate and comprehensive review. The After Action Report would examine tactical decisions, doctrine, training adequacy, and command responsibility. CBR notes that many of the 212 Jedi were individuals who "had never used their skills in actual battle" — the galaxy had been at peace for a millennium, and the Jedi's combat training had not been tested against an actual military opponent in living memory.
The lesson of Geonosis, stated plainly: traditional Jedi combat training was inadequate preparation for warfare against a military-grade droid army. The Jedi were trained as individual warriors, peacekeepers, and Force practitioners — not as soldiers capable of sustained combat under fire against overwhelming numerical odds. Their training against small floating remotes prepared them for one-on-one encounters with human opponents and small-scale engagements. It did not prepare them for being surrounded by thousands of battle droids firing from all angles.
This is not hindsight. This was observable to anyone who watched the battle of Geonosis. Anakin Skywalker watched it. He was there — he and Padmé arrived at Geonosis, fought, were captured, and participated in the arena battle. He saw the Jedi training doctrine tested against actual combat conditions and watched it produce 85-90% casualties.
Anakin's reasoning in "Practice Makes Perfect" — "if she can hold out against Rex and the boys, she can take anything the droids can throw at her" — is the direct application of the Geonosis lesson. Clone troopers are better shots than battle droids, more unpredictable, more tactically sophisticated. If Ahsoka can learn to survive against the best the Republic has, she can survive against the droids that butchered her predecessors. The traditional training against simple remotes had already been shown, at catastrophic cost, to be insufficient.
The fandom characterises Anakin's tough training as an aberration requiring justification. The correct frame is the reverse: the Jedi Order's failure to update its training doctrine after Geonosis is the aberration. An organisation that sent 212 members into a battle with inadequate preparation, lost 85-90% of them, failed to achieve its primary objective, and was saved only by external intervention — and then continued training subsequent padawans against simple floating remotes — is an organisation that has failed to learn.
Anakin learned. His training of Ahsoka is the corrective. His "harsh" methods are the minimum appropriate response to what the Clone Wars had already demonstrated. The alternative — continuing the traditional training that sent 180+ Jedi to their deaths in the Geonosis arena — was already proven inadequate.
Anakin Skywalker has many significant flaws that the Star Wars saga documents thoroughly. His training methodology for Ahsoka is not among them. It is, on the available evidence, one of the most defensible things he does.
Part Five: Applying the Distinction — Why This Is Not Abuse
Purpose: Anakin's explicit stated purpose — confirmed in his explanation to Ahsoka — is to prepare her to survive combat against opponents more capable than battle droids. This purpose is legitimate, proportionate, and directly relevant to her situation as a padawan in the Clone Wars. There is no punitive dimension, no expression of anger, no element of cruelty for its own sake.
Proportionality: The exercise uses stun weapons. The most that happens to Ahsoka is that she is stunned unconscious temporarily. This is unpleasant. It is not disproportionate to the preparation being provided for — Ahsoka will face lethal weapons in actual combat, and learning to survive against the 501st on stun is obviously preferable to learning the same lessons against Separatist forces on lethal.
Benefit: The training directly and provably benefits Ahsoka. She gets better. She can hold out for longer with each iteration. And when Order 66 comes — when the same soldiers she trained against turn their weapons on her for real — she survives because of what Anakin taught her. The episode exists to make this point explicit. The narrative validates the training by showing its necessity.
Agency: Ahsoka is not a prisoner. She is a padawan in the Jedi Order with access to the Jedi Council, to Obi-Wan Kenobi (who is present at the initial exercise), and to other institutional mechanisms. She continues training throughout the war voluntarily. When she asks Anakin why he is cold during the initial session, he answers her honestly. She is not silenced or controlled.
Oversight and safety: Anakin is present throughout. Rex — a disciplined, professional soldier with clear care for Ahsoka — supervises the exercise. Obi-Wan Kenobi is present at the beginning. Jesse apologises for stunning Ahsoka too hard. These are not the conditions of abuse. These are the conditions of tough but supervised training.
Care: Anakin reassures Rex that Ahsoka will be fine after the first session. He monitors her recovery. When Ahsoka confronts him about his apparent coldness, he responds not with dismissal or cruelty but with honest explanation. He is demanding. He is not sadistic. His motivation is her survival — and the episode proves this by showing the outcome.
Abuse would require: the harm being unnecessary, the harm serving Anakin's personal satisfaction rather than Ahsoka's preparation, or Ahsoka being denied agency over her participation. None of these conditions are present.
Part Six: Anakin's Character in This Episode
It is worth examining what Anakin actually does in "Practice Makes Perfect" — because his depiction is the source of some of the fandom's discomfort, and it is worth distinguishing between being a demanding trainer and being an abusive one.
Anakin is cold during the initial exercise. He does not celebrate Ahsoka's success with the standard training droids. He does not offer easy praise. He is focused on the inadequacy of the training, not on Ahsoka's performance within it. When she asks why he seems unhappy, he is honest: he is not unhappy with her, but with what she is being prepared for.
This is demanding instruction, not cruelty. A demanding instructor who holds trainees to high standards, who focuses on what needs improvement rather than what has been achieved, and who pushes their trainees beyond comfort is not an abuser. They may not be everyone's preferred teaching style. They are not abusive.
The critical detail: when Rex shows concern after Ahsoka is stunned, Anakin reassures him that Ahsoka will be fine. He is not indifferent to her welfare. He is not enjoying her difficulty. He is a man who has concluded, on good evidence, that inadequate preparation in training will cost Ahsoka her life in combat — and who is willing to make training hard in order to prevent that outcome.
He is right. The episode proves he is right. Order 66 comes, and Ahsoka lives.
The fandom sometimes struggles with the distinction between "this person put me through something hard" and "this person abused me." They are not the same thing. Difficult experiences produced by people who care about your outcomes and operate within appropriate constraints are not abuse, however uncomfortable they feel in the moment.
Part Seven: The Narrative Tells You Directly
This is perhaps the most straightforward argument available: the episode is not ambiguous about whether Anakin's training was appropriate.
"Practice Makes Perfect" is structured as a demonstration. The training is shown. The training is repeated and improved upon. And then Order 66 happens, and Ahsoka — surrounded by the same soldiers she spent years training against — survives because of exactly what that training taught her. The episode's entire narrative purpose is to establish that Anakin's apparently harsh training method was, in fact, the correct call.
As one reviewer put it: "This episode was pure poetry. The move that she learns is the move that would eventually save her life."
CBR's analysis of the episode notes: "Tales of the Jedi's fifth episode 'Practice Makes Perfect' expands further upon Ahsoka's bonds and the ultimate tragedy of Order 66" — and the point of that expansion is that her bonds with the clones, forged partly through this training, made the tragedy of Order 66 more devastating precisely because she knew exactly what they were capable of.
The show is not presenting Anakin's training method as a moral problem. It is presenting it as the act of a master who understood, better than the Jedi Order's standard curriculum did, what his padawan would actually face. He was right. She lived. The narrative is not ambiguous about this.
Calling the training abuse requires reading against the text in a way that the text does not support. "Practice Makes Perfect" is not a story about Anakin mistreating Ahsoka. It is a story about Anakin saving her life — years before Order 66, through the most concrete and practical expression of care available to him: making sure she was ready.
Conclusion: Tough Is Not the Same as Abusive
The distinction this meta has attempted to draw is simple but important: tough is not the same as abusive. Difficulty, discomfort, and even danger in training are not inherently abusive. They become abusive when they serve no legitimate purpose, when they serve only the trainer's satisfaction, when they are grossly disproportionate to their stated aim, or when they systematically deny the trainee's agency and welfare.
Anakin's exercise in "Practice Makes Perfect" meets none of those criteria. Its purpose is explicit and legitimate. It is proportionate to the actual stakes Ahsoka faces. It is conducted under supervision with appropriate safety measures. Ahsoka's ongoing participation is voluntary. Anakin's care for her wellbeing is demonstrated. And the outcome validates the method: she lives through Order 66 when many Jedi do not.
The fandom discomfort with this training is understandable — it is uncomfortable to watch someone we care about being knocked down, repeatedly, even with stun weapons. But discomfort in the observer is not the standard for abuse. The standard is whether the person subjected to the training was harmed unnecessarily, without appropriate care, for someone else's benefit or pleasure.
She was not. She was prepared. And when it mattered most, she survived.
That is what good training looks like.
Sources
Wookieepedia — Practice Makes Perfect (episode) — canonical episode summary; Anakin's stated purpose; Jesse's apology; Ahsoka's survival of Order 66
TV Tropes — Recap: Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi S1E5 "Practice Makes Perfect" — episode analysis; Ahsoka's objection that clones are better shots than droids; Anakin's response
CBR — "Tales of the Jedi Makes the Clone Wars Finale Even More Heartbreaking" (2022) — narrative analysis; the episode's relationship to The Clone Wars finale
Inside the Magic — "Tales of the Jedi Episode 5 'Practice Makes Perfect' Recap" (2022) — episode recap; Obi-Wan's presence at the initial exercise
IMDb — "Practice Makes Perfect" user review — "The move that she learns is the move that would eventually save her life"
RPGGamer — Tales of the Jedi Episode 5 review — progressive improvement documented across the episode montage
