Accepting Change
In “Legacy” (Rebels 2.10), Ezra Bridger has a vision of how beautiful and peaceful his home planet Lothal was before the Empire arrived. As he looks out at the twin moons in the nighttime sky, he sees a sunlit city and his dead parents, Ephraim and Mira Bridger. Briefly returned to the past, Ezra tells his parents, “I don’t want things to change” – but his mother gently reminds him, “They already have, Ezra.”
The line “I don’t want things to change” draws a direct line from this scene to Anakin Skywalker’s departure from his home planet Tatooine in The Phantom Menace. Anakin also tells his mother, “I don’t want things to change” – and his mother also gently encourages him to accept change, telling him, “But you can’t stop the change, any more than you can stop the suns from setting.”
In these scenes, both Anakin and Ezra are caught between the family home they must leave in the past and the Jedi Master who is guiding them into the future. Anakin leaves Tatooine to train as a Jedi under Qui-Gon Jinn; when Ezra’s vision ends, he is back in the present with his Jedi teacher Kanan Jarrus. Both Anakin and Ezra have parents who die in unjust captivity – Anakin's mother is abducted and murdered by Tusken Raiders, while Ezra's parents are killed trying to escape an Imperial prison – but Kanan offers Ezra comfort that no Jedi offers Anakin, and thus Ezra is able to grieve his loss and heal from it in a way that Anakin does not.
Shmi tells Anakin that he can’t stop the change “any more than [he] can stop the suns from setting.” When Ezra’s vision of a sunlit past ends and he is back in the present at night, Kanan observes, “Moons are setting.” In both scenes, the natural change from day to night is an image of the change that the young hero must learn to accept as a natural part of life.
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Characters: Anakin Skywalker / Ephraim Bridger / Ezra Bridger / Kanan Jarrus / Mira Bridger / Shmi Skywalker
Shows: Rebels
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Concepts: change / dreams, prophecies, and visions / family / grief and loss / home / mothers / suns, moons, and stars / teachers and students
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