Why The Mortis Arc Holds The Key To Understanding The Force
Image Source: Wikia
Contains spoilers for The Clone Wars and Ahsoka!
The themes and allusions of the Mortis trilogy are as mysterious, confusing, and many as the Force itself, but this three-episode arc quite purposefully leaves more questions than answers. Is Anakin really the Chosen One, and does he believe it after waking up from what appears to be a shared dream? If the Daughter represents the light side and the Son represents the dark side, who does the Father represent? If the three who hold the power of the Force are truly dead, what does that mean for the material galaxy far, far away? Those questions have never been answered; not when the Mortis Gods were teased in Rebels and Ahsoka, and not from the creative writers after the fact.
In the behind-the-scenes on The Clone Wars season 3 DVD, the creative process for many of the arcs is explained, but not the Mortis trilogy. The Secrets of Mortis featurette is a two-minute video where supervising director Dave Filoni states “we have answers to those questions, but if I answer directly what something is, I feel that I’ll be robbing you of the purpose of that arc—which is to make you wonder, it’s to make you challenge certain ideas, to ask questions.” However, he also ends with, “we aren’t done exploring the nature of the Force and the kind of bigger mythical questions that we began to ask in the Mortis trilogy.”
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Image Source: StarWars.com
Turns out, The Clone Wars would only hint at Mortis’s connection of the Force in the season 6 Yoda arc—showcasing how a Jedi becomes a Force Ghost—but that is another mystical story that leaves more questions than answers. Will the next mention or appearance of these Force Gods answer any of the metaphysical gray spots left unanswered? Or better question: should it? Should the debate be cleared up if the mystery provides many more permutations of interpretation? After all, the Force is viewed as an unknowable energy field, in-universe and out.
Being so tied to George Lucas’s vision of the Force and yet still a mystery, the arc is an inspiration for other Star Wars projects that hinge on the legacy of the saga. Episode VIII writer-director, Rian Johnson, studied these episodes before crafting The Last Jedi. Colin Trevorrow, originally the director of Episode IX, would have pitted Rey and Kylo Ren on the realm of Mortis for their final duel.
Image Source: Entertainment Weekly
And then there are the monuments revealed at the end of Ahsoka season 1, where fallen Jedi Baylan Skoll (played by the late Ray Stevenson) stands. He cryptically alludes throughout the season that something new will be unleashed. Baylan will return in Ahsoka season 2, as the series director has stated at Celebration Japan that he did not want this character’s story to end abruptly, even though his original actor has passed away. Only time will tell how the Mortis Gods will play a role in Baylan’s iconoclastic plans for the future of the Force.
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Source(s): Wookieepedia, YouTube, ScreenRant [1], [2], StarWars.com
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