BEWARE SPOILERS: Just like with the previous Disney Plus series, we at Fantha Tracks will be offering our own episode guide for your entertainment! Here we will post every reference, Easter egg, everything named and unnamed per episode and some fun trivia in-between that we have spotted.
Official summary: The search for Grand Admiral Thrawn reaches beyond the limits of the galaxy.
Trivia
A staple of Star Wars returns when Huyang echoes the words seen at the start of most of the movies: A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…. which is followed by the logo of the series, as the Star Wars logo would have been seen next.
They all arrive at Peridea, and with it comes a bit of new interesting lore: it was the original home world of the Nightsisters before they rode the star whales and settled on Dathomir.
And because of that we see many previously seen influences in the architecture return in this episode. The one we would like to point out are the screaming statues that they pass by as they travel to the surface. Statues like this were seen before like the one carved into Witches Horn, as seen in Jedi: Fallen Order.
The three Great Mothers are identified in the End Credits as Aktropaw (the one saying about Sabine that she reeks of Jedi), Lakesis (who said Thrawn was coming) and Klothow (the one who welcomed them). They are named after Atropos, Lachesis and Clotho, the three Fates from Greek Mythology who were able to read and know the threads of fate and destiny. And this is not the first time that Filoni turned to this bit of Greek Mythology, as in ancient Greek the Fates are known as the Moirai, which inspired the name of Ahsoka’s feathered companion Morai.
They are dressed in the same red clothing inspired by the unused concept art by Iain McCaig for The Phantom Menace, and are played by Jeryl Prescott Gallien (Swamp Thing and The Walking Dead), Jane Edwina Seymour (You and Star Trek: Picard) and Claudia Black (Farscape, Uncharted and Stargate SG-1).
As they wait, Baylan and Shin talk and Baylan offers his view on how history repeats itself. And he is not wrong, as the Jedi Order fell more than once, just like the Republic, the Sith and the Empire did. And it is doomed to repeat yet again with the fall of the New Republic and the First Order rising up, only to fall as quickly again. So Baylan wanting to break that cycle, makes complete sense for someone to try and accomplish. And one does wonder how he intends to do so, what it was that the old stories spoke about that can allow for such a change.
Carved into the stones around them we see circles representing the star map. These seem to be inspired by Atlantic Rock Art from the Bronze Age that are all over Europe.
The ominous music playing as the Chimaera arrives is Thrawn’s Theme, with the organ fully heard when Thrawn walks among his troopers. Just like Ezra’s theme later in the episode, these are tracks originally heard in Rebels, composed by Kevin Kiner, who does the music of the entire series of Ahsoka as well.
The Chimaera has been patched up, but not all the damage inflicted upon it by the purrgil in the Rebels finale has been fixed.
The closed captions identifies the troopers as Night Troopers. This could just be a play on the terms Nightsisters and Nightbrothers, but there may be a double meaning to it. It could be that they are actually dead and reincarnated by Magick. A term mentioned by Thrawn and something that he says he has used before. It could be that we saw this before, with Marrok.
The Night Troopers have their armor patched with gold by a Japanese technique called kintsugi. In this practice pottery is fused with pieces of gold. This was also what we saw Kylo Ren do to repair his helmet in The Rise Of Skywalker. The Night Troopers also wear red bindings that are reminiscent of the Witches, or are these bindings to keep themselves together?
Also supporting the ‘Troopers are Dead’-theory is Captain Enoch, who in the Bible was described as someone “who walked the earth and then was no more, for God took him”. Which theorists explain as Enoch having entered Heaven without dying, making him someone who defied death. His golden mask is reminiscent of an ancient Roman cavalry helmet, but also of the funeral masks found in crypts at Mycenae, Greece. Enoch was played by Wes Chatham, who can be seen as Castor in the last two The Hunger Games movies.
Last but not least for the theory: Thrawn mentions that his numbers have dwindled and they are loading cargo from the catacombs into the ship. Are these coffins of fallen troopers, waiting to be reanimated?
Thrawn was previously voiced in Rebels by Lars Mikkelsen, the older brother to Mads who played Galen Erso in Rogue One. Now Lars plays the full live-action version of Thrawn as well.
Thrawn’s uniform is no longer as pristine as it was during the days of the Empire, and eagle eyed viewers can even notice some fabric tears in it.
Also seen in the hangar of the Chimaera are LAAT/le patrol gunships.
Thrawn mentions Baylan not being the first Jedi who left the Order. He probably first thinks of Ahsoka, but there is also Dooku, and the others of The Lost Twenty as well that he no doubt knows about.
Thrawn honors Sabine’s deal with Baylan and gives her a howler to ride out to try and find Ezra. Besides the obvious that we are once again seeing a wolf-like creature thanks to Filoni’s love for wolves, these howlers resemble the vornskrs from Legends. These creatures had their debut in Heir To The Empire, and most visual depictions are quite similar to what we see in the show. Especially the most recent of these depictions, as made by Chris Trevas for Jedi vs. Sith: The Essential Guide to the Force come close.
When Sabine rides out, and is watched by Thrawn, Elsbeth, Baylan and Shin, we see a lot of Zeffo markings on the wall behind them. There is an interesting quote among the unlockables in Jedi: Fallen Order that could be tied into this episode and the plan of Baylan. In the quote a Zeffo Sage says, after acknowledging that his people have grown corrupt and may face extinction: “I lead the remnants of my people into the Great Unknown, hoping that we finally find peace.”. Perhaps they made it as far as Peridea.
And there is even more lore hidden here. When Baylan and Shin ride out we see the door fully and on the ledge we see upside-down ur-Kittât runes that spell out: “Raise Kujet ruler of all may his reign last for a…”. Raise is probably meant to be Praise. So they stand in the stronghold of someone named Kujet who was the ruler of Peridea in ancient times. And this is not the first time we heard of Kujet. Once again we turn to the game Jedi: Fallen Order, which introduced The Tomb Of Kujet as a location on Dathomir to visit. It also revealed that Kujet was a Zeffo Sage. Was it Kujet that led his people here? Or was it Kujet who led the people from Peridea back to our galaxy, only to die there?
Bokken Jedi is a new term introduced in this episode, referring to any Padawans who were taken on and trained after the fall of the Jedi Order. Bokken was earlier used as a wooden bokken saber, used for lightsaber training.
Ezra is now played by Eman Esfandi and Ezra spots some subtle callbacks to his Rebel’s appearances like the scars on his cheek that he has gotten in a fight with the Grand Inquisitor. And now he has a beard and longer hair he also really resembles his father Ephraim Bridger, as seen in Rebels.
When Sabine finally reaches Ezra he says that he knew he could count on her and is not surprised that she managed to find him. Back in Rebels his message to her was that he was counting on her. And even Ahsoka at the beginning says Sabine was fated to make the choice of not destroying the orb so that she could find Ezra. Was this all something that the Force told Ezra as a vision, or something more deeper like him having seen this to happen in the World Between Worlds?
Thrawn wants to know everything about Ahsoka, including who her master was. Which is ironic, given that Thrawn did spend time with Anakin in the novel Thrawn: Alliances and that Rebels seemed to have hinted at the fact that Thrawn realized that Darth Vader was once Anakin. In the same mentioned novel Thrawn was told about Ahsoka by Padmé, who did mention that Ahsoka is Anakin’s apprentice.
- Audible Audiobook
- Timothy Zahn (Author) - Marc Thompson (Narrator)
- English (Publication Language)
- 07/24/2018 (Publication Date) - Random House Audio (Publisher)