Twenty years after Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, the Disney+ corner of the Star Wars universe is in full swing and bringing back familiar faces from the prequels. Most notably, Ewan McGregor starred in his own Disney+ series, Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi, which also marked the exciting return of Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader. Following Kenobi, Christensen appeared in Star Wars: Ahsoka, reprising his role as Anakin yet again to guide his former apprentice in the dangerous journey upon which she embarked. With the overwhelmingly positive reaction to seeing the beloved actors back again after decades, rumors have been swirling about whether Natalie Portman’s Padme Amidala could be the next to return to the small screen.
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However, there is a way Natalie Portman could return as a new character that shares Padme’s face; one that would fit seamlessly into the presumed trajectory of Season 2 of Ahsoka.
The Finale of Ahsoka Brought Pivotal Star Wars Characters Into Live-Action
The first season of Ahsoka ended with the late Ray Stevenson’s fallen Jedi, Baylon Skoll, standing atop one of the outstretched hands of a trio of massive statues carved into the mountains of the planet, Peridea. The three statues are depictions of the Mortis gods–three ethereal beings living in Wild Space on the planet Mortis. The Mortis gods consisted of the Daughter, who represented the light side of the Force; the Son, who represented the dark side of the Force; and the Father, who maintained balance between the two.
The Mortis gods played a significant role in Star Wars: The Clone Wars and foreshadowed the fate of not only the entire galaxy, but Anakin’s role in it as the Chosen One. During Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Ahsoka’s encounter with the trio on Mortis in Season 3 of the series, the Daughter is accidentally killed by the Son. Using the last of her energy, the Daughter transfers her lifeforce to resurrect Ahsoka, who had also been slain by the Son’s hand.
At the Daughter’s death, the dark side consumes Mortis, as there is no one left to balance out the Son’s powers. In order to stop the darkness from consuming everything, the Father takes his own life, which gives Anakin the chance to kill the Son. With the death of all three Mortis gods and Anakin refusing to take the place of the Father, the Force is irrevocably thrown out of balance. However, with his dying breath, the Father reveals to Anakin that he is the Chosen One who will undo what had been done and bring balance to the Force, despite Anakin being unwilling to take up the Father’s role in that moment on Mortis.
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Prior to Ahsoka, the Mortis gods, though canon, only existed in the animated series. Throughout the events of Ahsoka, Skoll repeatedly states that he is searching for something far more greater than power. It isn’t until the reveal of the statues that Skoll’s plan and the striking resemblence between Mortis and Peridea become clear.
Whether he is seeking to resurrect the Mortis gods, inhabit the power of the Father, or has a completely different goal, everything he has done up until that point was to get to Peridea to find the Mortis statues and whatever lies inside. Significantly, the Daughter statue is destroyed, but the Father and Son are fully intact, perhaps indicating that the Daughter does not need to be memorialized in death, as her spirit still lives within Ahsoka.
The History Behind the Mother Is the Key to Natalie Portman’s Possible Return
With Ahsoka’s connection to the Daughter and Skoll’s presence on the Father’s hand, Season 2 of Ahsoka appears to be shaping up to delve into more lore regarding the Mortis gods, which is where theories suggest Natalie Portman could come in.
Besides the Father, Son, and Daughter, there was once the Mother–a formerly mortal woman who served the Mortis gods on their original homeworld. The Mother acted in tandem with the father, keeping the balance between the Daughter and Son as a unique family of four. However, the Mother, being mortal, continued to age while the gods did not.
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In a desperate attempt to become immortal as well so she could stay among the other three, the Mother obtained forbidden power behind the Father’s back; power that corrupted her soul and transformed her into an evil entity that came to be known as Abeloth. Upon discovering the Mother’s betrayal, the Father and his children imprisoned Abeloth and fled their native world to relocate to Mortis, leaving Abeloth behind in isolation where she could not cause any damage.
With the death of the Father, Daughter, and Son during The Clone Wars, the possibility exists that Abeolth seeks to escape her imprisonment and wreak havoc on the galaxy.
Abeolth’s Abilities and How They Connect to Padme
As the Mother’s transformation into Abeloth was significant enough to invoke fear in the Mortis gods, her powers were accordingly great and terrifying, opening the door for a twisted version of Padme Amidala. Abeloth has the unique ability to shapeshift at will, and often either possesses a nearby body or takes the form of someone significant to whomever she faces as a psychological tactic. With Anakin’s Force ghost watching over Ahsoka while she and Sabine are stranded on Peridea, what better face to assume than that of one of Ahsoka’s most treasured friends and Anakin’s wife?
As the Daughter gave her remaining lifeforce to Ahsoka, it has always been unclear as to whether or not Ahsoka is in fact a reincarnation of the Daughter and living personification of the light side of the Force, or simply absorbed a portion of the Daughter’s essence within her own. Morai, a owl-like bird that belonged to the Daughter, began following Ahsoka after the events on Mortis, and often acts as a precursor to Ahsoka’s arrival or during extremely significant moments for Ahsoka. If Ahsoka is indeed the living reincarnation of the Daughter, and Baylon Skoll is seeking to inherit the Father’s power in some way, that only leaves the Son. If the Father, Daughter, and Son are the only way to put an end to any destruction Abeloth causes, Ahsoka and Skoll may need to team up sooner rather than later to prevent Abeloth’s destruction. Being forced to fight against or even kill the likeness of Padme Amidala would be as tragic for Ashoka as when she had to battle Darth Vader.
Alternatively, if Skoll is seeking the only weapon that can kill a Mortis god–The Mortis Blade–to destroy Abeloth and the portion of the Daughter that resides within Ahsoka, both Abeloth and Ahsoka could have a common enemy. If Ahsoka and Abeloth are forced into a partnership of necessity, and Abeloth looks exactly like Padme Amidala, that could easily spell disaster for Ahsoka, as it would conceivably be difficult to remind herself that the Padme beside her is not actually the Padme she loved and lost. Abeloth donning Padme’s likeness perfectly parallels Ahsoka’s struggle to accept that the beloved master she once knew became twisted into an evil Sith lord she no longer recognized or could fully accept. The wounds of Anakin’s descent to the dark side left on Ahsoka would only reopen if she is faced with the same situation over again, only this time with Anakin’s wife, Padme.
Another possibility, and perhaps the most symbolic one, would be Abeloth replacing the Son as the embodiment of the dark side of the Force. With Ahsoka as the Daughter, Anakin as the Father, and Padme’s evil doppelganger as the Son, the trio who once meant so much to one another would be reunited in a very different way than they were during The Clone Wars, creating a perverse trinity.
Natalie Portman’s return to Star Wars as Abeloth would be a clever twist. With Abeloth wearing the face of someone Ahsoka loved deeply and who is inherently connected to her beloved lost master who was lost to the dark side, the emotional stakes for Season 2 of Ahsoka would be higher than ever.
