Ahsoka Fixes Star Wars' Dumbest Scene (Or Makes It Much Worse)
Contains spoilers for "Ahsoka" Episode 1 and Episode 2
"Star Wars: Episode IX — The Rise of Skywalker" has plenty of controversial moments and multiple overarching worst things in the movie. Even in this overabundance of oddities, the bizarre "Skywalker Saga" moment where Rey (Daisy Ridley) uses the Sith blade that killed her parents to locate a wayfinder ranks among the strangest scenes in the film. By comparing the weapon's shape to the wreck of the second Death Star and using a hidden measurement tool, Rey manages to track down the right location, and the viewer is left wondering what the odds must be for her to stand in the exact right place to pull such a stunt.
It's easy to think that a show like "Ahsoka" would want to steer away from such a confusing moment. Instead, the Disney+ series opts to go all in with the "line up things to solve the riddle" thing. In Episode 1 of the show, Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) uses very familiar, Rey-esque tactics in the chamber where she lines up the pillars to discover a map of her own. In Episode 2, Morgan Elsbeth (Diana Lee Inosanto) provides yet another version of the theme by using the map orb to reveal the path to Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen).
Does "Ahsoka's" decision to bring back the tendency to find things by using conveniently-placed shapes and grooves fix the infamous Sith Dagger scene by confirming that this type of thing is surprisingly common in the "Star Wars" universe? The future will tell, but "Star Wars" apparently doesn't intend to shy away from this particular trope.
Rey and Ahsoka have a particular power that could explain the plot device
The Force works in mysterious ways and can function quite differently between Force users. In fact, some powers it provides are so rare that only a small handful of Force-sensitive individuals have access to them ... and as it happens, one of them could explain both Rey's and Ahsoka's ability to solve shape-themed riddles in plot-friendly ways. Said power is known as psychometry, a particular skill that enables a Force user to acquire information about places and objects by touching them and accessing their "Force Echoes."
As it turns out, psychometry is one of Rey's big Force powers, and the Sith Dagger's Force Echoes could indeed provide her with enough information to land the Millennium Falcon in the exact place she needs to be to use the blade's hidden map ability, as she does in the movie. Likewise, the way Ahsoka touches the pillars in the map chamber while listening to the Force seems a lot like psychometry. She's just more methodical about it, possibly either because she doesn't have as much innate talent, or simply because she's received more formal training than Rey and knows the process. As for Morgan, her thing is more about unlocking the map in a way she's already familiar with — though it's worth noting that as a Nightsister of Dathomir, she may very well have access to a witchy equivalent of psychometry.
When you look at all these scenes in this context, Rey's dagger moment in "The Rise of Skywalker" might not seem so out of place. If "Ahsoka" and other "Star Wars" works continue to feature moments like this, the franchise might even normalize seeker scenes like this in the way other powers — say, the Force push — now seem commonplace. Then again, the power can provide solutions to difficult problems a little too easily, so overreliance on this slightly too handy plot device might risk turning psychometry into a new midi-chlorian controversy.