Highlights
- Ahsoka Tano's white lightsabers signify her status as a gray Jedi and her sense of balance with the Force.
- The color of a lightsaber in Star Wars lore reflects the nature and relationship of the wielder with the Force.
- The white hue of Ahsoka's lightsabers indicates her neutrality within the Force and her commitment to using her powers for saving lives and protecting peace.
Over the course of her journey in the Star Wars franchise, the lightsabers used by fan-favorite character Ahsoka Tano have been blue, green, and now white. The colors have their own meaning in Star Wars that correspond to the nature of the user. Although blue and green are common colors among Jedi, white is among the rarest (just one of the many ways in which Ahsoka is unique). The reason for this provides more insight about the character of Ahsoka and her connection to the Force.
Star Wars lore holds that a lightsaber's color says something about its wielder. From a non-storytelling perspective, some color choices like Mace Windu’s purple lightsaber, were, at least initially, a creative decision on the part of the filmmakers. However, each color has meaning in-universe. It has also been established, that the connection between the color of the lightsaber and the wielder is an intimate one. It reveals more about their relationship with the Force and how they intend to use it. Some Force-users can even change their saber's color at will. However, the color white is achieved through a technique that only certain adept Force-users can perform.
How Ahsoka's Lightsabers Changed Colors
After faking her death during the Great Jedi Purge to become one of the most iconic survivors of Order 66, Ahsoka left her lightsabers behind. While in exile, she found herself in need of a lightsaber to rescue her friends from an Inquisitor known as the Sixth Brother. Ahsoka defeated the Inquisitor by making his lightsaber explode, which left her with two red kyber crystals.
The red crystals of the Sith are corrupted kyber crystals, and turn red after the Dark Side of the Force bleeds into the crystals from the wielder. Even if the Sith was first a Jedi, like Ahsoka's Baylan Skoll, lightsabers with Light Side crystals will not respond to the will of the users aligned with the Dark Side. Pain, anger, and hatred of the Sith must be infused into the lightsabers in order for them to use it. Realizing this, Ahsoka had to learn to reverse-engineer the corrupted red crystals through a purification technique, so that she could use them herself.
Ahsoka healed the crystals to the Light Side of the Force, and in doing so, came into possession of the two white crystals that would become the cores of her white lightsabers. This purification process tends to heal crystals to a white hue, rather than the crystal’s original color. Kyber crystal purification itself a rare Force ability that only those with a strong and balanced connection to the Light Side of Force can perform. Essentially, purification doesn’t just visually turn a crystal from red to white. Rather, it realigns the crystal from corruption to the pure will of the Light Side of its new user.
What Ahsoka's White Lightsabers Mean For Star Wars
Blue lightsabers are common among Force-users who are more physically aligned with the Force as a source of brute power. Green lightsaber wielders, on the other hand, are more reflective. They tend to prioritize non-violent means of conflict resolution, and can often be found meditating on the Force, like Yoda or Qui-Gon Jinn.
During her time as a Jedi, Ahsoka has held both blue and green lightsabers. When she was young, she was fierce and eager to prove herself in combat. As she grew older, she learned to value the Force as a means of protecting the innocence and securing peace. During exile, however, Ahsoka became a gray Jedi, one who is affiliated with neither the Jedi Order nor the Sith.
Ashoka’s white lightsabers are indicative of her gray Jedi status, and her sense of balance with the Force. If the Jedi and Sith are polar opposites along a spectrum, then Ahsoka is closer towards the middle. But she’s not centered in the same way as Mace Windu, whose purple lightsaber implicates his balance of the Light and Dark sides of the Force, a combination of red and blue.
Ahsoka, valuing peace most of all, is centered as one who purged herself of the Jedi’s violent means of peacemaking without being corrupted by the pain and anger that came with being a warrior. The difference between Ahsoka Tano and Mace Windu is that her use of the Force is not weaponized by the command of the Jedi Order, which historically has not always been on the right side of resolving conflict. The pure white of her lightsabers conveys her neutrality within the Force, as opposed to a mastery of both Light and Dark sides like Mace Windu. Ahsoka wields the Force solely in the service of saving lives and protecting peace wherever she is. Her will, just like her white lightsabers, is pure.