Baylan Skoll is a former Jedi who survived Order 66

One of the brand new villains who will be introduced in Ahsoka is Baylan Skoll, played by the late Ray Stevenson.

We caught several glimpses of him in the first trailer for the upcoming series, wielding an orangish-red lightsaber and facing Ahsoka Tano. We now know a bit more about him thanks to Empire Magazine’s coverage of the show, as they revealed that Skoll is a former Jedi who survived Order 66 and, in the wake of such tragedy, turned into a mercenary.

The fact that Skoll’s lightsaber isn’t purely red was noticed right away by fans, and showrunner Dave Filoni confirmed that was an intentional decision. That suggests to me that Skoll might not be the pure evil of a Darth Vader or Darth Sidious, but more of a dark side affiliated Force user for hire. He seems to be aligned – at least somewhat – with Grand Admiral Thrawn, and he has his own apprentice in Shin Hati.

They’ll face off against both Ahsoka Tano and Sabine Wren in the series, and now that we know Baylan is a former Jedi who survived the Purge it adds some more weight to his encounter with Ahsoka. It means that both of them are former Jedi who survived Order 66 and have had to chart a new course in a quickly-changing galaxy. But while Ahsoka remained true to the light, Baylan seemingly embraced the darkness. It’s a foil to Ahsoka’s character, showing what she could have easily become in the wake of such devastating loss.

Some fans might be disappointed to learn of yet another Order 66 survivor, but let’s be honest: it’s not like 10,000 Jedi Knights were all killed overnight. Plus, from a narrative standpoint, I’m really curious to see what avenues Filoni explores with this, since we’ll see two survivors who went in drastically different directions.