Episode 53: Ahsoka + Younglings Arc, Part 1 with Raphael, The Geeky Dad, and Arianna, The Multiverse Kid

Hold onto your lightsabers, because Hondo Ohnaka is coming for them.

In the first half of the Ahsoka + Younglings arc (The Clone Wars 5.6–7, “The Gathering” and “A Test of Strength”) we meet a crew of Jedi younglings who find their very own kyber crystals — just in time to almost lose them to Hondo’s pirate gang. (And they actually DO lose Ahsoka.) But don’t worry. Petro, Katooni, Ganodi, Zatt, Byph and Gungi are up to the challenge!

For this week’s recap, we invited an actual youngling to talk about the arc. Raphael, the Geeky Dad, and Arianna, the Multiverse Kid, joined us to talk about lightsabers, Star Wars girls and the challenges we overcome to become better. If you like baby Wookiee Jedi, this is the arc for you.

Transcript

Anna: Welcome to Growing Up Skywalker. My name is Anna.

Sam: And I'm Sam.

Anna: Today we are doing one of the most fabulous arcs in the Clone Wars that I've ever watched. It is fantastic. It's the Ahsoka and Younglings Arc, part one — the Clone Wars Season Five, episodes six and seven, “The Gathering” and “A Test of Strength.”

Sam: And we have two absolutely amazing guests with us today, including a youngling.

Raphael: Yes! It's me, The Geeky Dad, Raphael Moran, and my amazing, beautiful daughter Arianna, who we call The Multiverse Kid.

Arianna: Yes!

Sam: Welcome to Growing Up Skywalker. We're so happy to have you.

Raphael: Oh, thank you. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be on your show, guys.

Anna: I'm so excited. All right, we're going to quickly go through the plot, and then we're going to talk all about the Ahsoka and Younglings arc with our favorite youngling, Arianna. So we begin with “The Gathering.” The fortune cookie: “He who faces himself, finds himself.” And we're starting off strong. The propaganda reel for this episode has the scene of Plo-Koon offering his hand to tiny baby Ahsoka. And I was just already in tears.

Sam: She's basically just eyes at that point.

Anna: Just big eyes and two baby little montrals. I'm dying. Then we move straight into the beginning of this episode. It is a code red. I repeat, we have a code red. There is a tiny baby Wookiee Jedi in this episode. I'm crying. I would die for him. His name is Gungi. I love him so much. So, we're opening, and there are all of these baby Jedi running up to Ahsoka, like ducklings behind their mom, because it is time for them to build their lightsabers. Our babies are Petro, who is a human, Ganodi, who is a Rhodian, Byph, who is an Ithorian, Katooni, who is a Tholothian, kind of like Adi Gallia.

Sam: Yes.

Anna: Then we also have Zatt, who is a Nautolan…

Sam: Like Kit Fisto.

Anna: And Gungi, who is my baby Wookiee friend that I love so dearly.

Sam: And Byph, the Ithorian, for those of you who are wondering if you can name your kids after them, that's “Byph” with a Y and a PH.

Anna: Yeah. Unexpected PH action. So they're all going with Ahsoka to the planet of Ilum, a sacred Jedi planet. Very cold, very snowy. They get to a cliff-face, and they all stretch out their hands and they unlock their super secret Jedi door. And they enter a temple where Master Yoda, is waiting because they are about to embark on their very own Gathering of the kyber crystals that are going to be the hearts of their lightsabers. So Yoda uses the Force to spin this prism in the ceiling around, and he focuses the sunrise on it, and he melts this frozen waterfall, revealing a door to a crystal cave. And the gambit is that all of the younglings are on a time crunch. They have to go into the crystal cave and then they have to find their crystal and get out before the waterfall freezes over again.

Sam: And as soon as they go in, Zatt, who's the computer science guy, figures that it'll be frozen for 19 days before the sun comes up again.

Anna: Yeah, I want to make it very clear that the waterfall starts refreezing immediately. So from now until the end of the episode, I had this ticking time bomb in my head and just crazy anxiety, and it was a lot. So they get inside. Petro skedaddles off on his own — later, losers, deuces — and the rest of them are like, you're a jerk. We're going to stay in groups. They get to an intersection and they split up. Except baby Byph has to go alone. And he is very scared, and I love him so much. So they each start to be drawn to their particular crystal. Sometimes it's by sound. Sometimes it's because it flashes only for them. Petro finds his first, but when he gets back to the lobby, it melts. He literally picked up an ice cube. And then they all have a moment where they have to trust themselves and trust in the Force to find their crystal. So Katooni has to climb a cliff. She's afraid of heights. Gungji has to find patience to wait for these ice floes in an ice lake to freeze again so he can walk across it. Byph has to go find his crystal from the mouth of kind of what looks like one of those war caterpillars from the Umbara arc. He's afraid of monsters.

Sam: Which is fair.

Anna: Fair. Ganodi is surrounded by so many crystals that she can't even pick one — she doesn't know which one to pick. And Zatt gets so frustrated that he and his little Game Boy can't locate the kyber crystal that he starts banging it on a sheet of ice. And then, lo and behold, it's literally right behind the sheet of ice.

Sam: So they all overcome their obstacles, except for Petro, who's running very late, and Katooni.

Anna: Finally it's just Petro and Katooni. Katooni has gotten trapped behind a sheet of ice. She's literally a few feet from the door, so she can see the door, and Petro won't help her. He can't take the time to help her, because he hasn't found his crystal yet. So he runs away from her. He's kind of spinning in a circle. And then he finally decides, “I can't leave my friend.” He comes back for her. They press their palms up against the sheets of ice, and together they use the Force and they shatter it. Katooni is free. She sprints to the door. She gets under the waterfall just as it's freezing shut. And then Petro sees something glittering in the ice sheet that they cracked together. So the door closes. Everyone is losing their minds. And then Petro burst through with a war cry. It is a total Jedi move. They all made it. And they all learned a lesson that they needed to learn in order to become greater than themselves. Byph learned courage. Ganodi learned to hope. Gungi learned patience. Zatt learned trust. Katooni learned confidence, and Petro learned how to be selfless.

Sam: And they all learned a lesson from Yoda, because they said, “But Master Yoda, you said we'd be trapped in there.” And he's like, “Trapped by your mind. Ice is just water made solid. You can break through it. You were trapped by your mind.”

Anna: And then they all did it. And they're all young Jedi. And I literally cried so hard. It was the best. It was the best. Sam, what happens in “A Test of Strength”?

Sam: So now it's to the next step of building these lightsabers. So now that they have their lightsaber crystals, they're super proud, and they are aboard their ship, and they meet Master Huyang. Huyang, who is a droid…

Anna: An extremely sassy droid.

Sam: Very sassy, and who is an architect and lightsaber designer, contains the knowledge of every lightsaber ever built and every Jedi who's wielded them in every lightsaber battle and is showing them all of the ways to put together a lightsaber. And he reaches out to Gungi and says, “Think about, describe your perfect lightsaber and how it represents your people.”

Anna: And Gungi is like, “Mine is made out of wood.” The best.

Sam: Yeah. And so then Huyang goes and rifles through all these drawers and pulls out the exact right pieces. And so then he's training them how to make their lightsaber.

Anna: Because they have to do it themselves. They have to use the Force to construct their own lightsabers.

Sam: So there's a bunch of little kids who are using the Force to hold up, like, the 25 or 30 pieces of a lightsaber as they align them and then shove them together into a lightsaber. Petro, of course, gets his done first, and then he hands it to Master Huyang. And Huyang is like, “If you turn this on, it'll explode.”

Anna: “The only thing you're killing with this is yourself.”

Sam: So Petro still has to learn his lesson, but he's very excited to challenge Obi-Wan Kenobi to a lightsaber duel. Meanwhile, pirates attack. Hondo Ohnaka in his UFO is flying nearby, and he says, “Kyber crystals are priceless. And I'll be able to just capture the ship full of younglings, take their Kyber crystals, and bounce. It'll be great.” Ahsoka runs off, sees that it's Hondo, and decides, “I need to keep these kids safe.” So she sends the kids down into the ventilation shafts, and the pirates start boarding. They send out a big boarding tube. They spear the ship. They've disabled it, so they're hiding in the ventilation ducts under the floor. She sends off Zatt and Katooni to the cockpit to meet with R-2 and come up with a plan. She sends the rest of them with Master Huyang, who has taken all of the lightsaber crystals, save Petro’s, because…

Anna: Petro is a jabroni and he only pretended to throw his in with the rest of the crew, but he kept it.

Sam: He puts it in a little heart chamber for them, because that's what robots have, which is very cool. And there all these younglings are running through the air ducts underneath, trying to escape to the cargo hold, where they can seal it off and be safe. Ahsoka’s plan is, she's going to go to the engine room. She's going to restart the engines with Zatt and Ganodi's help. She's going to scoot the ship away and let the gantry way in between the pirate ship rip open and suck all the pirates out.

Anna: It's very “Alien.”

Sam: It's a scary plan. So it's going off really well until Hondo Ohnaka decides to be like, “You guys are dumb. They're in the air ducts, of course they're in the air ducts.” And the pirates are like, “Oh yeah, I guess they are.”

Anna: So Ganodi and Zatt do make it to the cockpit. One pirate does spot them, but R-2 is the best babysitter ever and zaps him, and they shove him out into the hallway. But the pirates smoke out the rest of them.

Sam: They throw smoke grenades all over the floor and the kids have to come up coughing, and they get caught by the one big pirate. Petro puts his lightsaber together and Katooni is like, “You realize that the emitter is still backwards.” And he winks at her and then shakes it a little bit and lets himself get disarmed by the big pirate.

Anna: And then throws it at them!

Sam: He taunts the big pirate into turning it on and it does in fact explode. Knocks over all the pirates, and the younglings run off, but they're very sure that they're going to have to stay and fight. Master Huyang is shot, his head is shot clean off and he gets into a karate fight with some of the pirates.

Anna: So here's what they did. The younglings lured some of the pirates into the training room and they like, sic all of the little lightsaber practice orbs on some of the pirates, but they got blocked before they could get to the hold. Master Huyang is like, “I've lived on this ship for a thousand years and I've never lost a fight.” So, it's very Monty Python. His arms are sliced off, his head is sliced off.

Sam: He does win the fight.

Anna: He does win the fight.

Sam: They take all of his parts and they all eventually run off. But they are only able to escape from Hondo because Ahsoka, after having fixed the engines, comes by, defends them, and she's now defending and pushing the pirates back closer to the airlock so that when they pull ahead they'll all get sucked out. So they start the engines, they start moving.

Anna: Zatt calls. He's like, “Okay, I can do it.” And Ahsoka is like, “Okay, do it!” So she's dueling the pirates. They break the ship away, they open up the vacuum. All of the pirates are getting sucked out into space. Ahsoka is using the Force to fling pirates out into the galaxy.

Sam: She's finally standing there, having kicked Hondo Ohnaka back into his ship. She's closing the door and waiting for it to close. Zatt calls ahead from the cockpit and says, “What do we do?” And she says, “Go to hyperspace. We're good. We're free.”

Anna: And then a pirate comes from behind and bodies her.

Sam: Yeah, it's not on purpose. He's just flying through the atmosphere and he hits her and knocks them both into Hondo's ship.

Anna: And then Zatt hits hyperspace. They zoom off. And now Ahsoka is a prisoner.

Sam: Of Hondo Ohnaka, who needs to make a profit from this venture somehow, so he's going to take it out of her.

Anna: And I have crazy anxiety, and this is also so delightful. And that was the plot of our episodes. I'm dying to know: Arianna, Raphael, what did you guys think about these episodes?

Arianna: It was good.

Raphael: You like the new characters?

Arianna: Yeah.

Raphael: Let me guess, you like the girls, right?

Arianna: Yeah, of course I do!

Raphael: I like Gungi.

Arianna: Yeah. I didn't even know that...I never even thought that a Wookiee…

Sam: Could be a Jedi.

Raphael: Yeah, anybody could be a Jedi.

Sam: Like, “Unusual it is.” Master Huyang says that. He says, “I haven't seen a Wookiee Jedi in a long time.” But then he actually has the exact right wood from a tree from Kashyyyk to make Gungi's lightsaber, which is very cool.

Anna: It's actually such a beautiful moment. He says to Gungi, “You are rare. The Jedi must know that you're rare, and your people must be so proud of you.” And I was like, yes, everyone should be proud of this adorable baby Wookiee.

Raphael: There is a dark undertone, because we don't really see these characters in the future. We don't know what happens.

Anna: Yeah.

Raphael: You don't know something happened to them. I mean, Sam, you're more of an expert than I am. Do you know any of the extended universe stuff that talks about what happened to them?

Sam: No. These characters seem like they are one-offs, although that's an interesting point you bring up, because these episodes, all four of them, were first presented as one block on Star Wars Day, and they were supposed to be — the elements of them are taken from a pilot which failed to make a youngling show.

Anna: Yes. Like a spin-off series.

Raphael: I would have liked to see that.

Arianna: Yeah!

Sam: So if you've made a spin-off series…And we do know a lot of people who were padawans during this time period, or younglings even, who are alive 20–30 years later. It's not that many, though. And the ones who are close in with the Jedi Temple, like these ones presumably are maybe not…This also came up in the Wookiee Lost arc.

Anna: The Ahsoka Hunted arc, where we meet some other four sensitive younglings.

Sam: Yeah. So it's tough to think of being a youngling who, all of a sudden, you're in such a tough situation.

Anna: Yeah. I have so much empathy for these younglings, because we saw at the end of Season Three, the Ahsoka Hunted arc, where she's stranded on this deserted planet and being hunted down for sport. And we have these Force-sensitive younglings, Jinx and O-Mer. And I remember being a little frustrated with them, because they had given up and they weren't really using the Force to help their situation. But these younglings that we see in the Ahsoka and Younglings arc that we're discussing, they really seem so young. And I had a lot of empathy. They were literally doing their best, as these babies.

Raphael: Right. They're not really babies, though.

Arianna: Yeah.

Sam: They're more like your age.

Arianna: Yeah.

Anna: I think they are a little younger than Arianna, maybe.

Sam: Yeah. They're like eight, nine, 10.

Raphael: Well, Arianna is 10.

Anna: Yeah. You would be like the Katooni of this situation.

Raphael: Of course. Now, do you think they trained with Baby Yoda?

Sam: Good question. I have my own secret theory about Baby Yoda that I'm saving for 150 episodes from now, let me talk about that then.

Raphael: But in the meantime, that secret might come out.

Sam: Yeah, maybe. Well, so we know that Chewbacca is like, 200 years old. And so, how old is Gungi? I mean, maybe he's a young lad because he's still small, but maybe he's like…

Raphael: You're right.

Arianna: He could be like 50, like Grogu.

Sam: Yeah, exactly. So it doesn't make huge sense because a lot of creatures will grow over time. I'm actually thinking — this is a really weird aside — but Tyrannosaurus Rex is a full size. Tyrannosaurus Rex was like 35, 40 years old. And they actually filled all the different roles in their ecosystem as they went through different sizes because, like, a small predator, like a coyote or a fox, eats rodents and then, like, a wolf will eat deer and a bear will eat elk and moose. So moving through that is like a different life phase. Maybe that's Grogu. Or maybe that's a Wookiwe.

Raphael: Samuel, you’re always filled with so many good facts.

Anna: He is our resident facts machine.

Sam: Yeah. Facts machine, all right. I'll take it.

Anna: So, what I loved about these episodes was that whenever Star Wars kind of veers into this mystical territory, I'm so into it.

Raphael: I love seeing the Jedi, how they train and stuff like that.

Arianna: Yeah. That's like the cool part.

Raphael: Yeah. You don't get to see that in the live action and the movies so much.

Sam: Well, a little bit. There's elements of this type of thing. When Luke is on Dagoba. right. You enter a space.

Raphael: Yeah, the cave.

Sam: You enter a space and it reflects on you. And it seems like that's what a crystal would be.

Raphael: I kind of want to see how Anakin did this trial.

Sam: Yeah…

Anna: Okay. I was thinking that Anakin is so cavalier about just dropping his lightsaber and losing lightsabers. And I was like, if this is what you have to go through to make a new lightsaber? Like, I would beat him about the head and shoulders. This is a lot of work to remake a lightsaber.

Raphael: Yeah. I think we see a little bit of this in Rebels as well.

Sam: Yeah. Mhm. That's like a whole different story. So there's a bunch of different ways for a lightsaber to gain a crystal. But they all ended up doing one thing in common. Which is to focus on the Force. Once they all took like a meditative aspect, they learned.

Raphael: But we never actually saw Luke make his lightsaber.

Sam: We did not. That all happened off screen, except for that deleted scene.

Raphael: Which, I don't know if that counts.

Arianna: I don’t think that really does.

Raphael: Yeah.

Anna: So there was something really fun. I actually got to be on The Geeky Dad podcast with Arianna and with Raphael.

Arianna: Yes.

Anna: And I asked you, “If you had a lightsaber, what color lightsaber would you have?” And there was something so cool that we found out in these episodes, which is that the kyber crystals didn't really have a color until the younglings picked up their crystal, and then it turned a special color for them.

Raphael: Right. When we were watching this episode originally — because this is probably the second time we've seen it — when we saw that part where it's like, a little bit dark and Sith-like, I thought that maybe that character was going to turn to the Dark Side and we'd probably see that happen.

Anna: Yeah. Daddy thought that.

Raphael: Yeah, originally.

Arianna: I didn't think that, though. Daddy thought that.

Sam: What did you think, Arianna?

Anna: I thought it was just…

Raphael: Nobody else saw any evil things, though. I thought that was a little bit wonky.

Anna: Was this Byph, when he was trying to find his crystal?

Arianna: Yeah.

Anna: Oh, I thought that was such a beautiful story of confronting your fears, and even when you're alone, you have the strength within you. I saw, like, the Light Side version, right?

Sam: Right.

Raphael: So at this point, Master Yoda is how old?

Sam: So in Return of Jedi, he's like 900 years old, and this is like 25 years before that. So he's at least 850.

Anna: A cool 875.

Raphael: So Master Huyang is older than Yoda.

Sam: Yes.

Raphael: He probably helped create the lightsaber for Master Yoda, too.

Sam: Probably. So that means that he dates back to the High Republic era, which there's books and comic books out of right now, which is very cool.

Raphael: To the Old Republic?

Sam: Not that old. I actually just finished…So first of all, that's not canon, any of that that happens.

Raphael: I know, but I heard it might.

Sam: Yeah. Well, parts of it are. And in fact, the Ithorians, which is what Byph is, are from that video game originally. And it's funny that we've reached in this episode, and in the last episode with Hondo on Onderon, a whole bunch of things which are taken from Knights of the Old Republic and that shows how the way the expanded universe has turned into canon, right?

Raphael: Yeah. And some future episodes will go more into that as well.

Sam: Yeah. We're really getting to the exciting part of Season Five here. This is a lot of fun.

Raphael: Another thing is, for a droid — is this the first droid that doesn't have a number designation?

Sam: Let's see. In the Baby Boba and Mace Windu arc, when they're in the Underdark, there's Highsinger.

Anna: There's also, in the Holocron arc with Cad Bane, he has a droid, Todo…

Sam: Todo 360.

Anna: Oh, right, so that’s not exactly it.

Raphael: It's very rare to have a droid like that, right?

Sam: Yes. Although in the exact previous arc we had a droid, General Kalani. With a super spooky voice.

Anna: It does make them feel more like a real character though, when they don't have a designation.

Sam: Yeah.

Raphael: Another thing I know, there was an EU story about a droid having some kind of Force sensitivity.

Sam: Yeah, I've heard things about that. And I know in the Doctor Aphra stories there's some really weird…there's like Force ghost inhabiting things.

Raphael: So do you think that droid has some Force sensitivity to it?

Sam: Okay, here's my secret theory.

Anna: The Sam Nilsson secret theory.

Sam: Okay. This is not up to that quite level. Huyang, the droid, is voiced by David Tenant, the Tenth Doctor.

Anna: Wow.

Raphael: I got it right away.

Sam: Yeah. So I think it's actually Doctor Who turned into a Dalek and then was sent to the Star Wars universe.

Anna: There are varying levels of quality in the Sam Nilsson secret series, and I think this is of inferior quality.

Sam: This is down there with Darth R-2 and Darth Jar-Jar?

Raphael: Not Darth Jabba, though.

Sam: So because I'm on my second back-to-back playthrough of Knights of the Old Republic Two, you listen to all of your squad mates and hear their thoughts to gain your Force powers and to do things. And it's noted that you don't hear from your droids. That the droids do not have a Force presence. But what's interesting about that is something that's explored a little bit in, I believe, the sixth season and a little bit also with what Qui-Gonn talks about a lot in the Mortis Arc, is the difference between the Cosmic Force and the Living Force. So the Living Force inhabits all living things, and the Cosmic Force inhabits all things ever. So you can't pull information from — like, you can't be a Force ghost as part of the Living Force, but you can be a Force ghost as part of the Cosmic Force. You generally can't transfer between one of the other. But that would mean that a droid would be part of the Cosmic Force because they're made of things.

Anna: We got a lot of really interesting approachable lore in these arcs, and I think a lot of it was about the Force. There's something really beautiful that Master — Professor Huyang says…

Sam: Doctor Huyang?

Anna: …Doctor Huyang, when he's teaching them, like, Build-a-Lightsaber class, and he says, “What will make you strong in battle and humble in retreat? What connects you to your Force?” And I've never heard anyone talk about the Force like that. Like your personal pool of Force energy.

Sam: And that's what Yoda says about how the lightsaber works. It's a reflection of your inner Force.

Raphael: I kind of want to know, how did they decide to pick a droid to do this? Was it like originally a Jedi that started making this teaching?

Sam: I mean, that's a really interesting question. But if you imagine, if you want some sort of being which will keep architectural and engineering designs in memory for thousands of years, there's not many sentient creatures which will be able to do that. Even though Jabba, for example, is like 1200 years old — he probably knows all the grudges of people, but he probably doesn't have the mind for engineering behind it.

Anna: I'm curious, Arianna, if you picked up on the Ollivander's wand shop vibes when they're picking out lightsaber parts? From Harry Potter?

Raphael: Does it feel like Harry Potter? Like the wand shop?

Anna: Yeah. Kind of.

Raphael: Yeah. I would love to see a Jedi versus wizard battle.

Sam: Um.

Anna: Pretty scary. We do get someone — I think Petro does say, “That’s so wizard,” and I was like, “Hey, I know that line!”

Raphael: Yes. You caught that.

Arianna: Yes.

Raphael: Yeah, Mando.

Arianna: First, like, Anakin said it and then Petro said it and then Mando said it.

Raphael: Yeah.

Arianna: That's the three people who said it.

Raphael: That's a really old slang that's been sticking around in Star Wars, huh?

Sam: I mean, people have been saying things are “cool” since the 1920s.

Anna: Really?

Sam: Yeah.

Arianna: That’s from before you were born!

[laughing]

Anna: Just a little bit.

Sam: Yeah.

Raphael: She knows how to make me feel young.

[ad break]

Anna: So I was interested in, like, the “Jedi school” kind of nature of these arcs. Because Ahsoka, when she gets her crew of younglings, she says, “You're at the top of your class. It's time for the Gathering.” And I was like, “What happens if you're not at the top of your class?” Will they flunk you out of Jedi school?

Arianna: Yeah. It's like, weird.

Raphael: Did those become Inquisitors? Maybe.

Arianna: Seriously?

Sam: Well, we know in the High Republic books that there are people who drop out of being Jedi. We know Count Dooku was a Jedi for a long time and ceased being one.

Arianna: Right. I think you see it like in a movie.

Sam: Yeah. And then in some other works, there's people who are just like, not that strong in the Force. And if you're not that strong in the Force and you kind of like, work with the Jedi to be under some sort of parole where you're like, “I'm not going to cause any problems. I'm not going to learn how to do Force lightning. I just want to fly a space freighter in peace.” They'll probably let you.

Anna: It just seems crazy. Because they rip you away from your family when you're four years old, and then they're like, “Actually, I don't think you're going to cut it.” And then how do you, like, matriculate out of Jedi school?

Arianna: Yeah. Like, so sad, they just pull you away. It's like, weird.

Raphael: I think Obi-Wan was just like a couple of months old.

Sam: Yeah. They normally get them when they're under two.

Anna: Wow.

Raphael: How can a baby know anything, though? That's the thing.

Arianna: Rayaan thought…

Raphael: Rayaan, her baby brother, my son, who is just like under three…

Arianna: When he saw Yoda on the screen, he thought it was Grogu.

Anna: Oh my gosh.

Sam: That's funny.

Anna: Different generations of Star Wars, man.

Sam: Yeah. Everyone else went the opposite direction.

Anna: Oh, that's awesome. Wow. So, Arianna, you would be one of these younglings. If you were in Jedi school, this would be your journey.

Arianna: Yeah.

Raphael: I got you a lightsaber recently, too. Right?

Arianna: I mean, I got it for my birthday. It's like three lightsabers, one red, one green, and one blue.

Raphael: You got the green, right?

Arianna: Yes.

Anna: They didn't have hot pink, I guess.

Raphael: Right.

Arianna: And of course Raayan wanted blue. I would have took blue plus hot pink.

Raphael: But I'd be interested to see how does the Sith do their lightsabers. The same thing, but much more intense sword making?

Sam: What the Sith do…By default, the lightsabers are — if you just run the energy to the crystal, it's silver or white. And then when you put your Force energy into it as a Jedi, it gains a color. If you take that Force energy out of it, it becomes silver. And if you take the life energy of a Jedi through it, using the Force, it becomes red. So in order to make a red lightsaber, you have to take a Jedi, kill them, and bring their life energy through a lightsaber.

Raphael: I think that was in a recent Darth Vader comic book.

Anna: But do the Sith have to enter this crystal cave on Ilum?

Sam: No, they have to beat a Jedi in combat.

Anna: So this is like the one-stop-shop, the only place in the galaxy you can get kyber crystals for lightsabers?

Sam: It is not.

Arianna: I don't think so, no.

Sam: Well, we know in Rogue One that there's kyber crystals there on Jetta. And then Ilum has a bunch of them, and a few others. Interestingly, in the 2002 2-D Clone Wars, there's a scene on Ilum, which is the planet of lightsaber crystals, with Yoda and Padme. And Yoda has to run across the snow and beat up a bunch of droids.

Raphael: Wow.

Sam: It's a fun little one.

Anna: That is delightful. We never get to see Padme and Yoda together.

Raphael: Do you think Padme had, like, latent Jedi Force?

Sam: Well, I'm of the theory that everyone has — everyone in the Star Wars universe, and maybe everyone ever — has some connection to the Force. And some people have the Force connection such that they can use it to lift things up uh and use a lightsaber and shoot lightning out of their hands and go super-fast. And some people have the luck to get out of getting shot down and are exceptional pilots, like Poe. And then some people might have an absolutely steadfast moral compass and be able to be a strong person, like Padme.

Raphael: Right. I remember in Attack of the Clones, a lot of folks online thought that she had some kind of Force powers because remember there was a scene where she falls from the ship to the ground, and this gets up like nothing happens. Like, she lands perfectly fine.

Sam: Well, that's on sand dunes, though. And that's not so bad.

Raphael: She landed perfectly fine.

Arianna: Like a cat.

Raphael: Yeah, like a cat. Yeah.

Sam: What I want to know from you guys is, What thing do you think you'd have to overcome to find your crystal?

Arianna: I got a lot of things.

Raphael: Okay.

Arianna: I got heights.

Raphael: Oh, boy.

Arianna: Courage. Believing in myself.

Raphael: Bugs

Arianna: Patience. Bugs.

Raphael: Fire.

Arianna: Fire.

Sam: Yeah, some of those are like…being afraid of fire is just healthy.

Arianna: Wood.

Sam: Wood?

Raphael: Yes. She's scared she's going to get a splinter every time she touches wood.

Anna: That's valid.

Sam: So you're not borrowing Gungi's lightsaber?

Raphael: No, she said that, like, when she saw it, she said…

Arianna: “He’s going to get splinters from that thing!”

Sam: Yeah.

Anna: Metal splinters because it's the only wood that's as hard as metal. Yikes.

Raphael: Wow. Yeah.

Anna: Raphael, what would you have to overcome?

Raphael: The loss of my children.

Anna: That's a very quintessential…Like, we see this in Anakin's journey, but the loss of loved ones is his most powerful motivation.

Sam: Yeah. This is the origin story for Darth Geeky Dad, right?

Raphael: Yeah. Wow.

Sam: You got to be careful.

Raphael: I always tell my kids, “I am your father.”

Arianna: And then Raayan always says, “I’m Luke!” And then I have to be Leia, even though I'm not really his twin.

Anna: You could be Han Solo.

Raphael: I don't know about that.

Sam: You gotta wait till she gets the keys for the car.

Arianna: If you're Han Solo, then you get killed by your own son.

Raphael: Okay, that's a little too far. We're going too far now.

Anna: Dark.

Sam: How about you, Anna? What would you have to overcome?

Anna: I've literally been sitting here trying to think about it, and I don't know how you symbolize, like, a crushing sense of failure, so I don't know.

Sam: I think that's what…

Arianna: Failing!

Sam: Yeah, well, that's what Ganodi had to work through. Right? Because she was in a featureless room and she couldn't find her crystal, and she completely fell apart emotionally. Then she fell through the floor, landed in a different room, and she was spoiled for choice. There were crystals everywhere, but there wasn't a right one for her. And to me, that is that like, perfectionism, right. And that everything's either, like, terrible or there's too many choices, and you get paralyzed and you don't get anything done.

Anna: And it's also like, “Here I am surrounded by this wealth of choices, and I can't even pick one. Like, what's wrong with me? That I can't even decide one path to follow to perfection.” Being stuck in that liminal place is also scary. I'm going to have to think about it. Sam, what do you think yours would be?

Sam: I'm flawless.

Anna: He woke up like this.

Raphael: There's no absolutes.

Sam: Yeah. No, I think fear. I've been on a long journey in my life, and I have, like, a healthy relationship with fear because — fun little history from my resume here — my first job out of college, I was finding bombs for a living.

Raphael: Wow.

Sam: Yeah. And so they get, like, explosive bombs from a plane or from artillery shells or what have you.

Raphael: Landmines?

Sam: Yes. Although they were, according to the military, never deployed in the U.S. soil. But I definitely found some. I was doing this as part of remediation and cleanup. And the thing with fear for me like that, is that if you step on a 2000 pound bomb and it goes off, they send you home in an envelope. There's nothing to worry about. Your problems all instantaneously cease to exist.

Anna: Kind of like when Petro throws his janky lightsaber at you.

Sam: Yeah, right. Although that's actually scarier, is something that's like a small charge, like a 40 millimeter grenade on a new grenade launcher. Because that's not going to kill you. It's just going to blow your leg up.

Raphael: And you still got all your limbs, right?

Sam: Yes. Ten and ten. Good to go. But I wonder if perhaps fear of injury or fear of being crippled is something that comes to mind for me.

Raphael: Okay, I have that fear as well.

Sam: Yeah, but you can't let it overcome you. It is scary to think of getting, like, permanent damage.

Arianna: Yeah, right.

Sam: I wonder if my test would be something where I had to reach my hand through a jagged crystal cavern and just, like, tear my arm to shreds.

Anna: Yeah, like in Dune.

Sam: Yeah.

Anna: Fascinating. Oh, that's such a good one.

Arianna: Dune? You mean where…

Raphael: People have spice? And there's like, a desert planet?

Arianna: The Dune that you watched?

Raphael: Yeah. She hasn’t seen Dune.

Sam: It's long and scary.

Anna: Great soundtrack, though.

Sam: Great soundtrack.

Raphael: There was a scene like that in Flash Gordon, too, where he puts his hand inside…Did you see that one?

Sam: No. Is that before Dune or after? I'm interested.

Raphael: I think that was in the 80s.

Sam: Okay, so after. Because Dune’s from 1960.

Raphael: I believe it was a movie that was trying to capitalize on popularity. Sam, I’ve got to take a check off your geek card.

Anna: Whew! High stakes!

Sam: I'm still at the top of that youngling class.

Anna: He's a Zatt in this situation.

Sam: For real.

Anna: That reminds me. I think it's about time for Bae Watch. Is it time for Bae Watch?

Sam: Uh, it can be. I’ve got to give a quick shout-out to talk about Hondo as a pirate.

Anna: Oh, okay, let's talk about Hondo.

Sam: So I felt Hondo…

Raphael: I love Hondo.

Sam: I love him too, but he was a jerk in this one. And Ahsoka called him out on it. She's like, “Last time I saw you, you were giving me a crate of missiles. That was like, last week.”

Anna: “You were helping me finalize this revolution on Onderon.”

Sam: “We were friends. Why are we no longer friends?” He's like, It's just what you get.

Arianna: When he's in an episode…

Raphael: When you see Hondo, he's always smiling.

Arianna: And you can never trust him. You never know when he's going to double cross you.

Anna: Yeah, that's what he says. He's like, “My mood changes every day, and today I'm in the mood for profit.”

Sam: That is what he says.

Raphael: Yeah.

Arianna: He's been in the most shows that I’ve seen.

Raphael: She hasn't Rebels.

Sam: He's fun in Rebels. Well, okay. That's all I had to say. Now we're ready for Bae Watch.

Anna: It’s time for Bae Watch! It’s time for Bae Watch.

[Bae Watch stinger]

Anna: Okay, Ariana, who is your bae this episode?

Arianna: Well, uh it'd be Katooni.

Anna: Ooh, okay. Tell us why.

Arianna: Well, I just kind of feel like her.

Raphael: You feel like her?

Arianna: Kind of.

Raphael: Really?

Arianna: Yeah.

Sam: Fear of heights. When boys are acting out in front of you, you laugh at them because they're being silly.

Raphael: Definitely.

Anna: I also think Katooni was kind of the leader of the group, don't you think? Like, she was very gentle. She was team-oriented, but she was making sure that everyone got where they needed to be.

Arianna: Yeah, right.

Raphael: And she's a girl. That's why you picked her.

Arianna: Yeah!

Raphael: That’s exactly why.

Anna: We can never have enough amazing Star Wars girls. Like, there's not enough people in the galaxy to have enough amazing Star Wars women.

Raphael: One thing you guys forgot to mention, okay: Ahsoka’s winter clothes were back again.

Sam: All the kids had the coolest parkas.

Anna: Amazing.

Sam: I'm trying to get Anna into the youngling Jedi parka collection.

Anna: I'm into this. I'm willing.

Sam: I bought you one and you never wear it!

Raphael: Hey, you got a lot of snow there.

Sam: Yeah, for today. How about you, Raphael?

Raphael: Well, I like me a Wookiee, so I like Gungi, all right. I like Gungi. Anything with Gungi, I'm good.

Arianna: Oh yeah.

Raphael: I don't know what happened to Gungi. I hope he settled down, maybe got married, had some kids.

Arianna: Always it’s the happily-ever-after with you. Even with Boba Fett. He wanted him to marry Fennec Shand.

Raphael: Yeah, that's what I wanted.

Sam: Did you identify with Gungi's trial of patience?

Raphael: Yes, because I'm very impatient.

Arianna: Me, too.

Anna: It’s a family trait. I loved that moment when we see Gungi, and he has accepted — because he learned from Ganodi, Ganodi was like, you're just going to have to wait for the ice to freeze over, and then you're going to have to move really fast — and he does that thing that the Jedi do that I love, which is that he sat down and he meditated. You know how Qui-Gonn in The Phantom Menace is fighting Maul? And he gets separated from Maul by the laser shield, and he just sits and he meditates, like, in the middle of this sword fight. And I always think that is the absolute coolest thing that the Jedi do.

Raphael: Now, is Gungi technically the first naked Jedi?

Sam: No.

Anna: No?

Sam: I mean, there's been Wookiee Jedi before, in the High Republic books. And also, according to Huyang, there's been several. And I'm sure that there are other species that are just like, I don't need clothes.

Arianna: Yeah.

Raphael: We've never seen a Wookiee without hair, right?

Sam: Correct.

Anna: I don't think I want to see a Wookiee without hair.

Arianna: Yeah, I think it would be, like, weird.

Raphael: Well, I don't know.

Sam: I think it'd be weird.

Anna: This is something I don't need in my life.

Arianna: Yes.

Anna: Arianna, how do you put up with this guy?

Sam: That's how she learns patience.

Anna: Oh, and she loves him. Sam, who's your bae?

Sam: I'm thinking about it. It's got to be one of the younglings, because this is the only time we get to see them, and they're all really cool. And I'm going to go with Ganodi because Ganodi is the one who — she's walking with Katooni and looks up and says, “Oh, I don't see that crystal. I'm just going to go do my own thing. I'm going to go on my own. But good luck, and I totally trust you.” Ganodi is part of all of the little schemes, and she's the trustworthy one who sent with Zatt to go to the cockpit. I think Ganodi is the one who has the most relatable problems to me. That combination of perfectionism and choice paralysis that, for me, leads to this emotional whirlwind where I'm like, if only this, if only that, if only this, if only that, and then I'd be fine. And it's a circle. It's always a circle. And so if I had more money, I could quit my job. And if I had a better job, I would have more money. So it's like, how do these things work? And Ganodi is the one who had to learn that lesson, but was also able to help everyone else with their lessons. And that's something I identify with as well.

Anna: She was a very selfless person, and you are also a very selfless person.

Sam: Uh…it's funny. I've been going through a process in my life where I look deeply back on it and my relationships with others. And I have learned a lot about selflessness in the last five years or so. And Petro learned it in an afternoon, and I learned it in five years.

Anna: Petro has a little bit more work to be done.

Sam: He does. I don't think Petro is ending up on Baywatch.

Anna: No.

Sam: But Anna, there's still time.

Anna: No. I'm continuing the tradition. I have a different youngling who is my bae. My bae is Zatt.

Sam: Zatt's great.

Anna: Zatt is great. I so love that he started the first episode just with his head buried in his Game Boy, his technical device, and then he got frustrated, and that could have really ruined things for him. But instead, he chose to look beyond this fit of frustration that he had and realized that everything that he needed was right there. And I think that's a lesson from my life, is that when I get frustrated, if I can just take the time to look around, everything I need is right there, if I just have the wherewithal to grab it. And he was the one that Ahsoka picked to go with Ganodi and take over the cockpit, which is what allowed them to get away from Hondo Ohnaka's pirates. So he is also trustworthy.

Sam: Also Zatt’s Short and probably needs boxes to reach the pedals of the starship.

Anna: Also, Zatt is going to grow up and be just as handsome as Kit Fisto. And I love that for him.

Sam: Um, Kit Fisto spends 25 to 30 hours a day in the gym to get that bod.

Anna: I have faith. I think that could do it.

Raphael: He does a lot of swimming. Good cardio.

Sam: Yeah.

Anna: Wow. Okay, so everyone gets a Bae Watch except for Petro, which I think is fair.

Sam: We missed Byph!

Anna: Oh, we did miss Byph. I love him so much.

Raphael: I would have picked Huyang, but, yeah.

Sam: That line. “I've lived on this ship for 1000 years and never once lost a fight. I'm not going to start today.” And that is punctuated with a period. He's not, like, exclaiming that. It's not his battle cry. He's just like, “Not today.”

Raphael: Any time I get David Tenant is fine.

Sam: Yes, he is fantastic at everything he's ever done.

Anna: How about that other amazing Huyang line, which is like, “Oh, do you know how to awaken the Force and create this lightsaber? No? Okay, well, then how about you be quiet until you ask me a question that I can't answer for you?” And I'm like, “Yes, Huyang!!”

Raphael: I wonder, what do you think happened to Huyang in the future?

Sam: We'll find out at the end of this episode, or this arc, what happens to him in the near term. I'd imagine that moving forward, he would be viewed as a significant artifact of the Jedi Temple, which means that unfortunately, he's probably going to end up in a certain somebody's collection.

Anna: He's kind of like Jocasta Nu, an archivist.

Sam: Yeah.

Raphael: Right. Do you think they built more than one droid to do this? Because there's like thousands of Jedi, you can’t train everybody with one droid…

Sam: Depends on how long this process takes. Like if it's a two-week process, in and out, moving six a head, you can do quite a few per year.

Anna: Yeah.

Sam: And it depends on how many Jedi you think there are and also how long they live. So Yoda only had to do this once 800 years ago.

Anna: Ahsoka, I guess, had to do it twice, because she has a shoto blade.

Raphael: They never showed how she got it, right?

Anna: Right.

Sam: Yeah. But perhaps after the first time, when you've learned how to identify and resonate with a crystal and you know how to make a lightsaber because you already have a lightsaber, that might be an easier part of it. Maybe you pick up a crystal from a friend who fell in battle or something and honor it.

Raphael: Right. Yeah. What does happen, when a Jedi dies, with his lightsaber? Do they bury it with him?

Sam: I mean, obviously it depends on the circumstances, but who knows? Maybe it's loot for the next person.

Raphael: What do they do with Qui-Gonn’s lightsaber?

Anna: I don't think fire could destroy the crystals, so I don't think they cremate or bury Jedi with their lightsaber. So I think they turn into heirloom or they get passed down to the next Jedi who needs one. Kind of like how Maz Kanata has a lightsaber to pass on to Rey, probably.

Sam: Or they send it to General Grievous.

[music break]

Sam: Well, we want to give you guys time to talk about The Geeky Dad. So tell us all about it, and the Multiverse Kids.

Raphael: For the folks who are listening to the show, Anna was on our show, and it was a fun time. We talked about Clone Wars. And it was one of our pretty popular episodes.

Arianna: Yeah. It was my birthday episode.

Raphael: Right.

Sam: That's important.

Raphael: Me and my daughter and my son, we talk about a new geeky item and we have fun. And sometimes we have a guest.

Arianna: Yeah, sometimes. But not like all the time.

Raphael: Yeah. And Anna was one of our favorite guests on the show.

Anna: It was so fun. So what topics have you covered recently?

Raphael: Well, we are going to do the Chip and Dale movie.

Arianna: Yes.

Raphael: And of course, we're going to cover Obi-Wan. You guys are probably too young to watch Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers, right?

Sam: Actually, no, I'm not. But that's due to weird circumstances.

Anna: I am too young. That is before my time.

Raphael: It's a pretty funny movie.

Arianna: Yeah, it was funny. We understood it because we liked the TV show.

Raphael: I let them watch all the old cartoons. All of the old devils, and the new devils, and some of the old Star Wars shows like Droids and Ewoks. I haven't let you see Caravan of Courage yet.

Sam: That's pretty scary.

Raphael: Yeah. Soon.

Arianna: Someday.

Anna: I feel like you guys also do a lot of Marvel content. So you just did Moon Night.

Raphael: Yeah, we did Moon Night.

Arianna: Yeah. The last episode of Moon Knight we did for the Mother's Day episode on the show. Our mom, se talked about like, Egyptian stuff.

Raphael: Yeah. Because she was an anthropology major. She's into Egyptian stuff. She was our expert.

Arianna: Yes, she was our guest, even though we live with her.

Raphael: Technically, Anna was our very first female guest on the show.

Anna: That is an honor. And that makes a lot of sense, because we literally did gush about Star Wars women for like an hour and a half. So that’s perfect.

Raphael: So you have that honor right there.

Anna: And then Raphael, you also have the Geeky Dad After Dark, for some of our more discerning audiences.

Raphael: Right. Well, the kids don't know about that. Don't tell them.

Anna: We're going to close that chapter, okay.

Raphael: Well, we talk about the movies that we can't watch with the kids on that. And there's a lot of content out there. So a lot of times the kids can’t watch everything.

Arianna: Yeah. After we go before bedtime, they probably watch the, like, rated R movies. They go into the Multiverse Chamber.

Raphael: Yeah, that's what we do.

Arianna: Yeah! I got it absolutely correct.

Sam: That's the story of my childhood, too. My parents used to go to the grocery store and rent two video tapes, and one of them would be for us kids, and one of them would be for the adults. And as we got older, we would get to be upgraded to watching the adult movie, but only on the second night, because we'd rent them for two nights. Once you were grown up, you could watch it.

Raphael: For some reason, kids in the 80s were different. I know so many people, including myself, we all watch R-rated movies with our parents.

Arianna: Yeah, I learned about that when we were watching the when we were talking about the 80s episode.

Raphael: I watched RoboCop when I was like, I think it was six or seven years old.

Sam: Oh my God.

Raphael: That’s pretty R-rated.

Sam: That's very R-rated.

Raphael: And I think that I saw all the Friday the 13th movies growing up.

Sam: Gosh.

Anna: Wow. I saw Jurassic Park when I was like, nine, and it scarred me for life.

Sam: My first R-rated movie was True Lies, and it's still great.

Anna: You never forget your first.

Sam: Well, this was super fun. And we're going to take us out. Next episode, we're watching, finishing this arc, which is “Bound for Rescue” and “A Necessary Bond.”

Anna: So that is The Clone Wars Season Five, episodes eight through nine. We're going to finish up the Ahsoka and Younglings arc. It will be part two. I am very excited to get some relief from this cliffhanger that is still giving me heart palpitations.

Sam: We might watch it tonight. Check out the Geeky Dad wherever you get your podcasts. And send this to someone who is learning a lesson about lightsaber making.

Anna: That is a very specific audience. Send this to someone who has recently overcome something that was really hard for them. And as always, you can find us on growingupskywalker.com, you can find us on social media at Growing Up Skywalker, and if you want more Skywalker, you can become one of our patrons, because we are on Patreon Growing Up Skywalker. And we’ll see you next Tuesday!

Raphael: Bye.

Arianna: Bye!