After years of dominating the Star Wars animated series, Ahsoka Tano made her live-action debut in 2020. 

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Played by Rosario Dawson, the longtime favorite character appeared in season two of The Mandalorian, and fans were instantly obsessed. Even viewers who were unfamiliar with the animated series were dazzled by the character, and the Star Wars fanbase is already clamoring for more. More is set to come in the form of a live-action Ahsoka series, which will debut in 2023.

As new fans swarm to the former Jedi learner, they’re finding themselves encumbered by questions about Ahsoka’s past. Fans of the Clone Wars and Rebels series are already well-informed on Ahsoka, but viewers who’ve avoided the animated series know next to nothing about her. Up until her appearance in The Mandalorian, Ahsoka had never appeared in any of the live- action releases, including the broad library of Star Wars films. That leaves surface-level fans in the dark, as they wonder after the mysterious Togruta and her importance to the story at large.

One major question on fans’ minds centers around Ahsoka’s lightsabers. Unlike most Jedi, Ahsoka wields two lightsabers, rather than one, and they come in a non-traditional color. The majority of lightsabers fall into one of three color categories: green, blue, or red. Mace Windu’s lightsaber is famously purple, but his remains the only blade of its kind. Ahsoka seemingly went the Windu route and managed to obtain not one, but two unique Jedi blades. Her lightsabers are white, and fans want to know why.

Ahsoka’s white lightsabers 

Ahsoka’s white sabers are borne of several different events, and they start with her departure from the Jedi Order. Fans of the Clone Wars animated series will be aware that, near the end of the show’s run, Ahsoka parted ways with the Jedi, and was forced to ditch her former lightsabers, both of which were of the classic green variety. This was largely the result of Order 66, which included the command to locate and kill all of the remaining Jedi.

A year after the Clone Wars concluded, Ahsoka came across the kyber crystals that power her current weapons. Following Order 66, an elite team of hunters — known as the Inquisitorius — began hunting down and killing the remaining Jedi, and Ahsoka quickly became one of their targets. Eventually, this brought her to blows with the Sixth Brother.

When they engaged in combat, Ahsoka unintentionally ended the Inquisitor’s life, and in the process purified his kyber crystals. For non-Star Wars fanatics, there is a very specific — and slightly silly — reason behind the red-toned Sith sabers. Sith kyber crystals are just like those used by the Jedi, according to Star Wars lore, and only turn red when corrupted and forced to “bleed.” This gives them their ominous color, and distances them from the weapons wielded by the Jedi.

Ahsoka’s purification of the Sixth Brother’s kyber crystals leeches all of the color from them, leaving them perfectly, pristinely, white. The reasoning behind their color is actually twofold, as it turns out, according to comments from Rebels creator Dave Filoni. Filoni revealed that Ahsoka’s white lightsabers are also a symbol of her lack of affiliation with either the Jedi or the Sith. Their lack of color represents Ahsoka’s neutrality, and removes her from the established, binary view of the Force.