What Did Baylan Skoll Mean by “We Are No Jedi?”

The latest trailer of ‘Ahsoka’ allowed us to see more of the villains that fans are excited to see. We are talking about Baylan Skoll and his apprentice, Shin Hati, as they are now stirring up something in the galaxy in preparation for the return of Grand Admiral Thrawn. But the most interesting part about Baylan in that trailer was that he admitted that he wasn’t a Jedi. So, what did Baylan Skoll mean by “We are no Jedi?”

Baylan Skoll said he wasn’t a Jedi because he was something else. He may have survived Order 66 but lost faith in the Jedi Order. As such, he and his apprentice are now possibly aligned with the dark side, even though they aren’t exactly Sith.

One of the things people were quick to notice about Baylan was that he wields an orange lightsaber. Dave Filoni also pointed out that this was indeed an orange lightsaber that he and his crew used on purpose. So, there’s a good chance that these orange lightsabers and their meaning hold the key to unlocking what Baylan and Shin are. That said, let’s talk more about Baylan and why he said that he wasn’t a Jedi.

Baylan and Shin are neither Jedi nor Sith

When it comes to Star Wars, we often think about things in extremes. Many fans only look at two sides: the light and the dark. But the thing is that there are a lot of different grey areas between light and dark. And that should be something that will be explored in the upcoming ‘Ahsoka’ series that will be released pretty soon.

The ‘Ahsoka’ series is set to debut two new villains that are going to be important in the storyline of this show and in Ahsoka’s own growth as a character. We know Baylan Skoll is a powerful Force wielder with an orange lightsaber. He also has an apprentice named Shin Hati, who is a much younger Force wielder and was quite possibly trained in the Force’s ways during the Empire’s reign.

In the trailer, Baylan and his apprentice attacked a group of New Republic soldiers while a background voice was saying that war was inevitable. And before killing a New Republic soldier, he said, “We are no Jedi.”

This basically means that neither Baylan nor Shin was ever Jedi Knights, as some fans initially believed that they were Jedi but formed their own Jedi Order after the fall of the old one.

Baylan himself admitted that neither he nor Shin was Jedi, which pretty much means that he knows that he is no longer following the ways of the Jedi despite the possibility that he used to be part of the Jedi Order.

Much later in the trailer, Baylan said Anakin often spoke highly of Ahsoka. This implies that he was part of the Jedi Order in the past before Anakin fell to the dark side. As such, he must have met Anakin during the time of the Clone Wars but only after Ahsoka had left the Jedi Order. And that means Baylan survived Order 66 but eventually realized he no longer wanted to be a Jedi.

Of course, Baylan isn’t a Sith as well. That’s because we know that the Sith Order follows the Rule of Two and that a master must take on an apprentice before the apprentice attempts to kill the master to take on an apprentice as well.

Since we know that the last master-and-apprentice Sith duo died in ‘Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi,’ it would have been impossible for Vader or Palpatine to have taken Baylan as an apprentice and christen him as a Sith Lord because there must only be two Sith Lords at a time.

As such, because both the Jedi Order and the Sith Order are now gone (Luke is still building the Jedi Order in this timeline), Baylan and Shin are neither Jedi nor Sith. This is where the grey area comes in, as they are possibly just Force wielders with their own philosophies.

Of course, we know they are allied with the Imperial remnants because they were hinted to have been searching for Thrawn in the trailer.

As such, Baylan and Shin aren’t exactly good people. But we can’t really say that they are evil for evil’s sake because Baylan seems to have a very good reason why he wants to usher in the return of Thrawn. And it is possible that he just wants to rebuild the order of things after realizing that the previous systems, the Republic and the Empire, failed, just like how both the Jedi Order and the Sith Order failed.

The orange lightsabers are clues

While we believe Baylan and Shin aren’t exactly good people, they aren’t exactly Sith. We aren’t even fully convinced that they are completely aligned with the dark side of the Force. Their orange lightsabers are clues. And Dave Filoni, in confirming that these were orange lightsabers instead of red, once said:

“That was very intentional. I didn’t make them like just a stark red. I remember as a kid that Vader’s lightsaber kind of fluctuated from visual effects to visual effects, being a little bit more orange. I didn’t want to go like straight up orange, but it’s identifying a little bit of something, maybe to kids, that they might not straight up be what you think they are in the beginning.”

Dave Filoni is much like George Lucas in that he doesn’t add details that don’t make sense. That means he added the orange lightsabers to ‘Ahsoka’ for a good reason. And this reason may be related to the alignment of Baylan and Shin.

As mentioned, Baylan recognizes that he is not a Jedi. But it is possible that he also recognizes that he isn’t allied with the Sith as well. Still, we cannot help but notice that he was willing to do evil acts to achieve his goal, which could mean that he dwells on the grey sides of the Force but is aligned closer to the dark side.

If you look at the orange lightsabers of Baylan and Shin, they give off a very reddish shade that made people think that they were wielding red lightsabers. But these orange lightsabers are just closer to red than the orange lightsaber that Cal Kestis can use in ‘Star Wars Jedi.’ So, that basically means that it is possible that Filoni used these reddish-orange lightsabers to symbolize that Baylan and Shin aren’t Sith but are already bordering the dark side of the Force.

We know that the only way for a lightsaber’s Kyber crystal to turn red is for the wielder to bleed it using the dark side of the Force. It is possible that Baylan did indeed try to bleed his lightsaber crystal, only for it to turn into this orange color because he was yet to completely fall to the dark side. As such, we just have to wait and see to learn more about what kind of Force wielders Baylan and Shin are.

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