Jacen Syndulla could low-key be Ahsoka's most fascinating character

Jacen Syndulla in Ahsoka — (Image credit: Disney/Lucasfilm)

You should be keeping an eye on Jacen Syndulla. The youngster was introduced in Ahsoka episode 3 with just a sliver of screen time, but his future in the galaxy far, far away could be massive.

Young Jacen is the son of Hera Syndulla and the late Jedi Kanan Jarrus. Kanan has only been referenced in Ahsoka so far, but in Star Wars Rebels season 4, he heroically sacrificed his life to ensure his friends got away safely, ending up engulfed in an explosion at an Imperial facility. Hera later gave birth to Jacen, who was seen in the Rebels epilogue happily flying with his mother. When we meet Jacen in Ahsoka, he says he wants to be a Jedi – and that should be enough to send a chill down your spine.

Dark destiny

There are plenty of reasons to think Jacen's Jedi future won't be all bright and rosy. For one thing, Jacen shares his name with a Star Wars Legends character named Jacen Solo, the son of Han Solo and Leia Organa. This Jacen trained to be a Jedi with his uncle Luke Skywalker, but ultimately fell to the dark side, becoming the Sith Lord Darth Caedus. Jacen Solo fell for a number of reasons, but one was a belief that his dark deeds were necessary to save the galaxy. His is a tragic tale, ending when he is killed by his own twin sister.

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Of course, Legends is no longer canon, but the similarity in names was no accident. "It seemed, in a very small way, naming him 'Jacen' was a way to honor the expanded universe character of Jacen Solo who just really isn't there anymore as the timelines have changed," Filoni told io9 following the Rebels finale. "I thought that's a little bit of a wink to people that I know that was an important character. And maybe, in some way, that lives on through this character. I don’t know yet."

It's easy to read into Jacen Syndulla's name, then, and speculate that the youngster will one day become a sinister threat. But, to give the poor kid the benefit of the doubt, it's entirely possible that he won't turn to the dark side. He does want to be a Jedi, after all. There's not many left to teach him, though, which is just one more thing to worry about when it comes to Jacen.

Feel the Force

The Book of Boba Fett — (Image credit: Lucasfilm/Disney)

We know that Ahsoka Tano and Luke Skywalker have met, and we know that Luke is currently building his own fledgling Jedi school at this point on the Star Wars timeline. If Hera does want to send her son for Jedi training, it would make sense for Jacen to end up with Luke. That's already got eyebrows raising, though, because we all know what happens to Luke's school… ironically at the hands of Jacen Solo's canon counterpart, Ben Solo.

Kylo Ren eventually slaughters Luke's students and destroys his Jedi school, as we learn in the sequel trilogy, which means Jacen could be at considerable risk if he does end up enrolling in Luke's academy. Luckily, though, the youngling's life could be safe thanks to the timeline – Luke's school is destroyed in 28 ABY, while Ahsoka is set sometime around 9-11 ABY. That would mean Jacen would have to be in training for a seriously long time for something terrible to happen to him.

Plus, since Star Wars has confirmed that Ben Solo was Luke's first official student (though Luke did briefly train Leia and Grogu before his nephew), it seems more likely that Jacen will instead be trained by Ezra Bridger, assuming the missing Jedi makes it back from the distant galaxy in which he's stranded in one piece.

Master and apprentice

Kanan Jarrus in Star Wars Rebels — (Image credit: Disney)

With Filoni commenting that Ahsoka is all about Master and apprentice relationships, it would make a lot of sense for the returning Ezra to take up the role of teacher for Jacen. After all, his own Master, Kanan, is Jacen's father. It'd be a poignant piece of symmetry to have Ezra pass on what he learned from Kanan to Kanan's son.

Although, we're not out of the woods yet even if this is what happens. Ezra had his own significant struggle with the dark side in Rebels, too, and Darth Maul was particularly interested in recruiting him as an apprentice. If Jacen Syndulla does have the same destiny as Jacen Solo, that would be yet another heart-breaking parallel, just the kind we see so often in Star Wars storytelling (it's like poetry, it rhymes, after all).

With all that groundwork already laid, Ezra and Jacen could turn out to be one of Star Wars' most complex Master and Padawan duos. We don't know yet how Ahsoka's story will continue once the season is finished, but Filoni is working on a movie that will tie the Disney Plus Star Wars shows together, meaning we could end up seeing Ezra and Jacen together in this film. That could also explain why neither of them are around in the sequel trilogy (yet another reason to be concerned about Jacen's future). Though the Ghost ship makes a cameo in The Rise of Skywalker, anyone could be flying it. As Yoda would say, always in motion is the future: nothing is set in stone for Jacen, leaving his story tantalizingly open and on a knife-edge between light and dark.

It's clear that there are many pathways ahead of Jacen Syndulla, then, but wherever they lead, they're all significant – proving we should be watching his career with great interest...

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