Where It Began
A three episode story arc in The Clone Wars, the Mortis episodes find Anakin Skywalker, Ahsoka Tano, and Obi-Wan Kenobi responding to a Jedi distress code that appears to be thousands of years old. Upon arriving, they’re drawn into a strange, diamond-shaped monolith, and transported into what appears to be an entirely different dimension.This barren “world” is called Mortis, and on it the Jedi encounter the only residents: three Force wielders who claim to have become so powerful that they have escaped the physical world. They now dwell in a sort of Force-powered limbo, and seemingly represent different facets of the Force itself.
The “Daughter” represents the ability of the Force to preserve and create life, while the “Son” represents destruction and death. The third figure, the “Father,” keeps the two in balance. According to him, Mortis itself is key in keeping a balance to the galaxy, and perhaps even the source of the Force itself.
Eventually, Anakin, Ahsoka, and Obi-Wan thwart a plot by the Son to disrupt this equilibrium, resulting in the apparent deaths of all three of the Mortis “gods.” The Jedi are returned to physical space, only to find that mere seconds have passed since they were taken.
Following the conclusion of the Mortis arc, many fans pondered the ramifications of what all of it meant in the context of the larger Star Wars narrative. Was it meant to be taken literally, or as sort of an illusionary parable? How did it change our larger understanding of the Force? And would it ever be explored further in the canon?
What It Means for Rebels
We received an answer to at least one of those questions in this week's Star Wars Rebels, with Ezra and crew assisted by Loth-wolves in reaching the Jedi temple on Lothal. There, Ezra and Sabine decipher a mysterious wall painting depicting the Mortis gods. This unlocks a portal to a place outside of normal time and space, not unlike Mortis, which fans are referring to as the “World Between Worlds” (taken from the title of the episode).While exploring this place, Ezra is guided to its incredible true purpose: it is a conduit that connects every point in time and space. Ezra hears voices from across the Star Wars timeline, including lines from Rey and Kylo Ren, who haven’t even been born yet. Furthermore, Ezra discovers that the World Between Worlds not only allows someone to witness these points in time, but to actually manipulate past events.
Ezra uses this power to rescue Ahsoka from her duel with Darth Vader, bringing her into the World Between Worlds. Ahsoka then reveals a bombshell: the convor that had been accompanying her is actually a manifestation of the Daughter, revealing that some aspect of her survived death.
Eventually, Emperor Palpatine himself projects his presence into the realm, and Ezra and Ahsoka escape separately; Ezra back to the exterior of the Jedi temple, and Ahsoka seemingly back to her own timeline.Ezra then closes the portal to the World Between Worlds, and the voice of the Son can be heard saying, “the future, by its nature, can be changed.” With the portal shut (seemingly for good), the temple itself collapses upon itself, sinking into the ground.
All of this obviously shakes up the Star Wars mythos in some huge ways. From this episode, we now understand that the Force isn’t just limited to the physical world, but actually transcends time itself, stitching together past, present, and future. Sure, future stories involving time travel are now a possibility to an extent, but more importantly, this episode revealed a game-changing revelation about the nature of the Force.
With the Mortis gods on the temple wall, and the Daughter’s spirit inside of the convor bird, we can be fairly certain that the storyline that began years ago in The Clone Wars is not quite over yet.
What's Next?
Considering how momentous of a reveal these episodes proved to be, it’s no surprise that fans have been speculating non-stop as to where it all could be heading. With just three more episodes left in the series, Rebels has some big questions to answer regarding Ezra, Ahsoka, and the Force.While the return of the Mortis gods might seem a little out of left field, there have been little hints as to where this story was going for some time now. Additionally, the concept of Mortis and its inhabitants have always held a bit of a unique position in the canon. George Lucas himself was the one who first imagined the characters, and he personally outlined the three-episode arc in which they appear. Clearly the concepts at play there were very important to Lucas, and so it’s not entirely surprising that they will continue to be explored.
But what does it all mean?
It’s possible that what we’ve learned of the Force in this episode could explain some of what we saw in The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi. In particular, Rey seems to have the ability to access memories of things she’s never seen, a power that could be linked to the Force’s ability to reach out across time itself.
As far as the series finale though, one possible direction that the show could go in is further exploring the characters’ relationships with the mysterious animals on Lothal. The convor that has been following Ahsoka around (revealed to be named Morai) was heavily implied to be some kind of manifestation of the Daughter. Meanwhile, the Loth-wolf that Ezra communed with earlier this season was imbued with the spirit of Kanan Jarrus/Caleb Dume in some way.
That leaves one more animal, one that debuted in the very first episode of Rebels, and has continued to appear with regularity since then: the Loth-cat.
It’s interesting to consider that the Loth-cat has been very meaningful to Ezra during his tutelage under Kanan. Early on in his training, Ezra learned to feel the living Force by connecting with a Loth-cat. Years later, a strange white Loth-cat would guide him to revelations regarding his parents. This same white Loth-cat appeared again much more recently, in the company of a Loth-wolf, in the Season 4 episode, Flight of the Defender.
Could all three of these animals have some kind of connection to Mortis? We already know the bird is related to the Daughter, and the Loth-wolf is pictured beside the Son on the mural. Could that mean the Loth-cat has some kind of connection to the Father?
Perhaps our three Jedi are destined to one day take up the mantle of these Mortis gods, with the Daughter choosing Ahsoka to replace her, the Son choosing Kanan, and the Father seeing some kind of great potential in Ezra to keep the Force in balance. After all, the original Mortis storyline set the Father, Daughter, and Son up as important in some way to the overall balance of the Force.Surely their deaths had some reverberations across the Star Wars galaxy, perhaps creating a void that must now be filled by three new Force wielders.
As far as this larger Star Wars galaxy goes however, there may be even bigger ideas at stake. It's certainly possible that this episode could open the door for an exploration of stories beyond the 70 odd years between The Phantom Menace and The Last Jedi. After all, with the Force connecting all of time and space, it doesn’t seem quite so far-fetched anymore to consider the possibility of seeing eras well outside the three trilogies.
The Old Republic, the far-flung future, alternate timelines; it all might be on the table now that this door has been opened. With at least two new trilogies and multiple TV series in development, Lucasfilm is surely looking for ways to continue to expand the universe, and this might be a hint of what is to come.
It’s certainly an exciting future for Star Wars fans to look forward to, one in which almost anything now seems possible. For more on Star Wars Rebels, check out our recap of episodes 12 and 13.