My favorite thing about Tales of the Jedi is just how scarily intense Anakin was in his training Ahsoka, that he was pushing her so hard she was getting shocked into unconsciousness for over an hour at a time, then he would haul her back up, face never losing its pinched intensity, she would wobble on her feet, clearly not stable yet, and he would make her go again. And again. And again.
This is Anakin Skywalker, his love and his fear wrapped up in the same package. He cares for Ahsoka, he sees potential in her, so he pushes her even until she starts to break a little, because he wants her to be ready to survive anything, he loves her, he wants her to soar as high as she can!
But he also fears for her, because he doesn’t want to lose her, so he drives her harder and harder and harder, it doesn’t matter that she’s wobbling on her feet, it doesn’t matter that she still can’t see straight, she has to go again, because he needs her to survive.
He wants her to learn how to protect herself, he wants her to find that fulfilment within herself, he’s training her to be able to survive anyone and anything. But he’s also doing it because he’s scared, because he can’t live without her.
Ahsoka will make the decision to walk away from everything she knows eventually, including him, and that may well have saved her life, because Anakin would cut down anyone who tried to stop him on that path, and he was so impossibly strong at the end there. Her walking away from the Jedi and her life isn’t just getting her out of the way of Order 66–because that didn’t save her–but getting her away from Darth Vader.
That’s the duality of knowing Anakin Skywalker. Knowing him molds people into these incredible versions of themselves, but staying with him destroys them. Everyone who ever loved Anakin died because of events surrounding him, except the one who walked away from him.
He taught her to survive because he loved her, but he also taught her to survive because he was scared to lose her. And Anakin’s fear is what destroyed so many, many people’s entire lives.
This episode of Tales of the Jedi captures that in every moment of Anakin’s face as he trains her. He’s intense, he’s at both extremes at the same time, his love and his fear, the good and the bad in him, are inextricable from each other and you see that illustrated so clearly in his relationship with Ahsoka.
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