Star Wars: The Force Awakens Theory Keeping Me Up At Night

Pondering Star Wars factoids is a hobby my husband I share. They sometimes end in my boiling with rage at his lack of faith in The Clone Wars; they sometimes end with me screaming "THAT'S OLD CANON!," but for the most part, we have fun and discuss ridiculous things.

What kind of ointment would a twi'lek put on her split ends?

What does a bantha eat to make its milk so blue? (Assuming that Luke's milk is indeed bantha milk.)

Is that silver thing on Grievous' belt WD-40?

But while watching The Force Awakens trailer 2 at Celebration 2015 (on my knees in the aisle so I could see, crying, and making small squee noises), a thought started burning in my head that didn't leave me alone all weekend. Here it is, for anyone to watch repeatedly until they start thinking like me...

Fifty one seconds in, I saw this...

Everyone (including me at first) thought one of two things:

1. OMG! That's Leia's hand getting a lightsaber!

2. OMG! That's Luke's lightsaber he lost on Bespin!

But after I got over those two things, I added a third OMG:

OMG! THAT OTHER HAND IS ORANGE! 

 

Theforce.net is a wealth of information and people to speculate with, but I found that the only guesses I got for my orange-handed friend were that she was a very short alien and that she was probably the cast member we have code named "Rose." This had me SO disappointed.

 Most everyone agrees that this must be "Rose," but few have bothered to speculate (a) who Rose really is, and (b) why Rose is being kept such a big secret. Obviously, they have no problem sharing the names of new characters whom we have never met, so maybe this "Rose" is someone we know and they don't want to add her name to the cast because it will ruin some plot detail.

So, I watched it a hundred more times -- and a few more times frame by frame --

The orange hand belongs to Ahsoka Tano. 

Or at least, I can ARGUE that my favorite not-so-Jedi is going to be in The Force Awakens.

Before you call bullshit, here are my points:

1. A waist. The general consensus has been that the alien handing Leia the lightsaber is really short. I disagree. The waist would be much lower and the arm much shorter if the person was actually just short. Ahsoka is kneeling. A waist, belted with a thick belt and large buckle, can be seen around the figure. This is at the height of the elbow, which also signifies that the person is proportionally larger than their height in the shot suggests. Also, this explains the material of the drape not as "fur" (as I saw in one post and almost cried), but a lapel of a beaten navy blue shirt.

Who else is into really wide belts?

Granted, costume changes after 30 years are probably a given, but her style is still her style. 

2. Her head tails are showing. Again, the alien is expected to be short and therefore looking up at Leia, but given that (in my little world) Ahsoka is kneeling, she is probably presenting the lightsaber to Leia, and it would make sense that she has her head bowed. In this freeze frame, you can see a round forehead and something white and blue striped. The white markings on her forehead may be hard to see or faded over the years, but the contrast between orange skin and white/blue above the forehead is hard to dispute. 

 

Watch it over and over. It gets easier to see when it isn't grainy and stopped. 

Then there are the facts:

3. Ahsoka was not a Jedi at the time of Order 66, which would explain how she got out of that predicament. We can assume from her appearance in Rebels that she will find out about the fate of her old master (and friend), which could lead her to investigate further. Follow him around a bit maybe? 

4. If she were following Vader, it would be reasonable for her to follow him to Bespin, where the lightsaber in the trailer was lost. "Hmmm. My master's old lightsaber? Falling through the clouds? Noink." We do not know the fate of this weapon, but Ahsoka would be one person who would know it well enough to hold onto it all these years, and know it well enough to have found it in the first place. (Think about Vader's ability to find his meditation chamber by tracking the Force within on abject he owns, as discussed at length in Tarkin.)

* Also, now that I think about it, that would be a big factoid to need to know about going into The Force Awakens, and therefore would explain some of why we needed a book about it before the movie releases...hmmmm...

5. Math. Ahsoka was born 36 years prior to the Battle of Yavin, making her about 40 during the events of Return of the Jedi. This would put her at about 70 during the events of The Force Awakens. A reasonable age to be looking a bit thin (Lupita Nyong'o thin?).

6. Ahsoka has not been killed off yet. There are many people who think she is doomed in Rebels. I don't agree. With a huge death sequence, like they one they are hoping for, many people will be disappointed. The channel this shows airs on his Disney XD. I don't foresee any dramatic deaths like we saw on Clone Wars, which aired on Cartoon Network.I think our Ahsoka is (at least relatively) safe.

7. This is a stretch. But I even looked into the bangles on her wrist. Many Togruta people made jewelry out of stones, shells, and metals found on Shili.It would not be unheard of for her to be wearing this type of jewelry, especially if she's no longer wearing battle armor all the time. 

PLEASE discuss this with me! I want so badly to talk about this to someone other than my husband, who seems to assert that they wouldn't put Ahsoka in this movie, simply because of the time span between her story and this one. I want so badly to see my precious Snips again, I am firmly rooted in this theory, and believe it more very time I watch the trailer.