The Untold Truth Of Star Wars: Rebels' Jacen Syndulla
In the third episode of "Ahsoka," many "Star Wars" fans were introduced to a brand new character for the first time — Hera Syndulla's (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) son Jacen (Evan Whitten). Diehard fans who have been following this particular "Star Wars" story since the beginning will remember him being introduced at the tail end of "Star Wars: Rebels." Even without this outside knowledge, "Ahsoka" gives enough context to fans who are only dedicated to the live-action entries in the series. As it turns out, there is actually a ton more to dig into regarding this character and his fate.
Jacen Syndulla is a green-haired boy who apparently has quite a strong connection to the Force. But why is he so special? That's a question that plenty of "Rebels" fans are happy to answer for us, but in due time it will reveal itself. If you want a crash course on Jacen Syndulla you are in the right place. Below is everything we know about Jacen Syndulla and the ways he may become important to the greater "Star Wars" universe.
Who are Jacen Syndulla's parents?
Jacen Syndulla is born towards the end of "Star Wars: Rebels." His parents are Kanan Jarrus aka Caleb Dume (voiced by Freddie Prinze Jr.) and Hera Syndulla (voiced by Vanessa Marshall), who are a couple throughout the show up until Kanan's death in the final season. Hera is a Twi'lek pilot who flew for the Rebels before joining the Republic after its formation. As revealed in the series finale of "Rebels," sometime before his death, Kanan and Hera conceived a child and Jacen was born months later.
Kanan was a Jedi known as Caleb Dume before Order 66. After the rise of the Empire, he went into hiding, changed his name, and eventually met Hera. Although he was raised in the Jedi Temple under the mantra of not having any attachments, he never let anything get in the way of his love for Hera. Eventually, it led him to sacrifice himself in order to save Hera, Ezra Bridger (Taylor Gray), and Sabine Wren (Tiya Sircar). Kanan had a powerful connection with the Force, which explains why Jacen is sensitive to its call at a young age.
How old is Jacen Syndulla in Ahsoka?
The events of "Rebels" go pretty much right up until the start of "Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope." This means that Jacen Syndulla was born not too long before the Battle of Yavin which divides the "Star Wars" timeline. "Ahsoka" is set after "The Mandalorian" and "The Book of Boba Fett" placing it around 10 ABY, maybe closer to 12 ABY. This would make Jacen between 10 and 12 years old.
Since we don't have an exact year for the events of "Ahsoka," Jacen's prospective age actually helps us put the other pieces together. In the live-action series, he definitely looks older than 10, which is maybe a clue as to when "Ahsoka" takes place. Since he looks closer to 12 or 13 than 10, we can presume that is also about how many years after "A New Hope" the miniseries takes place.
Who plays Jacen in Ahsoka?
The pre-teen Jacen in "Ashoka" is played by Canadian actor Evan Whitten. He appears in Parts Three, Four, and Five of the eight-part miniseries, but after helping his mom find Ahsoka Tano he isn't seen for the rest of the series — and just when things were getting interesting. It's unconfirmed whether we will see more of Whitten as Jacen in the future of "Star Wars," but we wouldn't be surprised if he shows up in whatever Dave Filoni is doing next.
Before landing a role in the "Star Wars" universe, Whitten was best known for playing a younger version of Elliot, Rami Malek's character, in "Mr. Robot." In the final season of the drama, Whitten appears in flashbacks as a young Elliot. More recently, Whitten has been in episodes of "I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson" and "Penny Dreadful: City of Angels."
Jacen's name is a reference to Legends canon
It's no coincidence that Hera Syndulla's son is named Jacen, especially when it's spelled in such an unusual way. All the pieces of the puzzle begin to come into focus when you start to connect the dots between the "Star Wars" canon and the Legends canon. Any expanded universe fan will know that Jacen is named after a very important character in the "Star Wars" Legends canon.
The original Jacen was Jacen Solo. If that name sounds familiar, it is because he was the original son of Han Solo and Leia Organa, back before he was de-canonized and replaced by Ben — which, in Legends, was actually the name of Luke's son. Jacen Solo was born along with his twin Jaina in "The Last Command," the 1993 conclusion to the original Thrawn trilogy written by Timothy Zahn.
Jacen Solo became a Jedi and, eventually, a Sith lord. His rise to Jedi status was chronicled in the "New Jedi Order" series and his fall to the Dark Side led him to become the antagonist of the "Legacy of the Force" series of books.
Jacen has a rare and magical Force ability
In Part Five of "Ahsoka," we get a first glimpse at Jacen Syndulla's Force powers and they are greater than we ever imagined. As it turns out, Jacen isn't only powerful in the Force, he can tap into a rare ability that not even his father Kanan possessed.
When Hera fails to locate Ahsoka (Rosario Dawson), Jacen asks her if she can hear what he hears, but she can't. What Jacen can hear is Ahsoka speaking to Anakin (Hayden Christensen) in the World Between Worlds. As he focuses on the sounds of the waves, he can hear more and is able to essentially echolocate Ahsoka. In the Legends canon, this type of Force-enhanced listening skill has a name – Theran Force-listening. Named after a Force-sensitive race, the ability allows those who have it to hear words from a distance and even understand languages they do not know.
In the Legends canon, one notable character had this ability. You might have guessed it if you've been paying attention. That's right, it's Jacen Solo. This is just another thread that ties Jacen Syndulla into his namesake.
Is Jacen Syndulla going to be a Jedi?
This one is a difficult question to answer at this point in time. While "Ahsoka" certainly sets Jacen's Force powers up to be a significant source of mystery and theory crafting going forward, this doesn't guarantee he will turn out to be a Jedi. Ahsoka, for example, isn't a Jedi — a fact that the series begins to complicate with the apprenticeship of Sabine (Natasha Liu Bordizzo).
However, it is likely that Hera would see the potential in her son and want him to follow in his father's footsteps. Having once loved a Jedi, it would be hard to see her putting up a fight against her son becoming one in the long run, although she is understandably cautious in "Ahsoka."
All things coming full circle as they do, it would only make sense for Ezra to be the Jedi to take Jacen in as his Padawan. And since they are currently back in the same galaxy — and with Ahsoka stuck far, far away — we might not have to wait long to see if our predictions come true.
Does Jacen have a dark fate?
Given the information and context we have, there is an unfortunately high chance that things don't end up going too well for Jacen in the long run. There are a couple of fan theories as to why this could be.
The first theory stems from the aforementioned Jacen Solo connection. In the Legends canon, Jacen eventually turned to the Dark Side of the Force after being trained as a Jedi. His fate was sealed when he became the Sith lord Darth Caedus. His arc closely resembles Kylo Ren (Adam Driver).
Speaking of Kylo Ren and the sequels, there is also one other tragic fate that may await Jacen Syndulla. Thanks to his Force sensitivity, Jacen may end up being trained as a Jedi in the era when Luke was operating a Jedi Academy and training young ones. Also training at this time would be Ben Solo, who would soon come to be known as Kylo Ren. When Ren went on to destroy the temple and kill most of its inhabitants, who is to say Jacen Syndulla wasn't in that unfortunate group?
There is certainly a chance Jacen dies at the hands of Kylo Ren some years after the events of "Ahsoka," but we will admit that fate does seem a bit cruel.
Jacen's design was changed for live action
When Jacen was introduced in "Rebels," he was a much smaller kid than he is in "Ahsoka." The young Jacen appeared sporting the green hair he does now, blue eyes, and oversized ears glowing a radioactive green. Two of those three characteristics changed for "Ahsoka."
In the live-action show, Jacen has long, mop-like hair that covers his ears. This seems like it was done intentionally to mask a choice that worked fine in animation but could have made production more cumbersome and expensive. So we never get to see the tops of his ears, and perhaps never will.
The other change was his eye color. Actor Evan Whitten's eyes are naturally brown, and "Ahsoka" decided to roll with that instead of meddling. It would have been easy to give Whitten contacts to make his eyes blue — like the show did with most of its primary cast — but perhaps they didn't want to put a child through that just for a handful of scenes.
So ... why the green hair?
After all that, one big question still lingers. Why is Jacen a human child with green hair? Is that supposed to indicate that he got some kind of green gene from Hera, but it only turned his hair that color? More questions spiral out from the first until we wind up pondering why no human or Twi'lek of any gender looks like Jacen. Well, there is an answer ... sort of.
In an interview with CinemaBlend with the "Star Wars: Rebels" showrunners, Dave Filoni revealed why Jacen's visual design looks the way it does but he doesn't fully explain the hair situation. Filoni wanted Jacen to resemble both of his parents equally. If you look at the eyebrows of Jacen's original "Rebels" design you will see they are identical to the ones Kanan had. Speaking to "Rebels" art director Kilian Plunkett, Filoni suggested to him to picture what their kid would look like. "I think he was suggesting that he was perhaps a little green-shaded," Filoni said of Plunkett's original idea, "I said that's fine as long as he doesn't look like he's sick flying in the ship."
So according to Filoni, Jacen is also supposed to have green-tinged skin as well, though this doesn't come through much in "Ahsoka." Perhaps, like with the ears, this is another aspect of the character Disney has decided to walk back or tone down.