What Is Baylan Skoll's Endgame?
Image Source: CultuteSlate
Ray Stevenson's Baylan Skoll was one of the highlights of the first season of Ahsoka. Both a new character and the actor who portrays him rarely receive such nearly unanimous praise from the fandom. And despite his limited screen time, our understanding of Baylan's intentions and motivation changed fundamentally throughout the eight episodes. While Skoll and his apprentice, Shin Hati, seemed nothing more than just hired guns, an army of two tasked with freeing the Nightsister Morgan Elsbeth from New Republic imprisonment, it quickly turned out that the former Jedi had bigger things on his mind than to earn a few quick credits.
When Hati questioned her master about what he hoped to gain once they found Grand Admiral Thrawn, he replied, "Power. Such as you have never dreamed.” This still sounds like your typical villain, leading to the assumption that Baylan planned to become Thawn's right-hand man and prime enforcer once the Chiss returned to the main galaxy and consolidated the fractured remnants of the Empire. But it soon turned out that his main motivation was getting to Peridae, a planet in another galaxy, a place of "dreams and madness”.
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When Thrawn sent out Skoll and Hati to hunt down Sabine Wren and Ezra Bridger, the young apprentice asked her master why he was so keen to stay on Peridae, while both Thrawn and the Nightsisters seemingly could not wait to get away, "Perhaps they flee a power greater than their own. Something calls to me. Can't you hear it? Something stirs here. Can't you see it?"
Source: Lucasfilm Ltd.
There was a lot of speculation about what this "greater power" could be. Some thought that it would be the Bendu, the ancient and mystical creature that was introduced in Star Wars Rebels (and had a confrontation with Thrawn there) and represented the middle ground between the Light and the Dark Side. Another prominent theory was that the being that Skoll was looking for was Kujet, an ancient Force-sensitive sage of the Zeffo, an alien race that was introduced in the video game Jedi: Fallen Order. This assumption was backed by the words "Glory to Kujet, ruler of all, may his reign be everlasting." engraved in the walls of the Nightsister temple on Peridae.
Finally, some believed that Skoll was looking for Abeloth. In the former expanded universe, Abeloth was a human servant to the Mortis Gods, the Father, the Son, and the Daughter, who controlled the Light Side (Daughter) and the Dark Side (Son) as well as the balance between them (Father). When Abeloth drank from the Font of Power and bathed in the Pool of Knowledge, she became immortal and turned evil. Ultimately, Luke Skywalker defeated her. And though Abeloth didn't appear in Ahsoka, the end of the eighth episode shows Baylan Skoll standing on the stretched-out arm of a monumental statue of the Father, looking out to a beacon of light in the far distance.
The season's finale still leaves Baylan's true intentions vague, but one of his quotes from the episode "Far, far away" might shed some light on them: "As you get older, look at history, you realize it's all inevitable. The fall of the Jedi, rise of the Empire. It repeats again and again and again."
Yes, Baylan might seek power, but not necessarily just for his own sake. He seeks power to be able to reset everything and to end the perpetual cycle of good and evil. At the end of the Mortis Trilogy, a story arc from season three of The Clone Wars, the Father, the Son, and the Daughter were all dead, with the life essence of the Daughter transferred into Ahsoka. Initially, the Father sought out Anakin to become his successor and keep his fighting children (and thus the Force itself) in balance. With the Gods gone, it could be Baylan's intention to enter the realm of Mortis and become the new embodiment of the three deities all in one person. As such, he would truly wield a power, "such as you have never dreamed" and he could stop the ever-turning tide of the rise and fall of good and evil.
Source: Lucasfilm Ltd
In the Mortis Trilogy, the residence of the Mortils Gods was on top of a high mountain with a beacon of light streaming out of it, so if the Father, the Son, and the Daughter did originate from Peridae, the beacon that Baylan spots in the distance could be the entrance to this realm.
Dave Filoni clearly had plans for Baylan Skoll, either in a possible season two of Ahsoka or in an upcoming feature film, and sadly, Ray Stevenson didn't live to continue the story of the character he so convincingly embodied. It remains to be seen if Lucasfilm decides to recast Baylan or if they use digital technology to recreate Stevenson's likeness. Unless the company introduces the concept of the Multiverse into Star Wars (which is unlikely), the rise of the First Order proves that Baylan Skoll's plan of ending the circle ultimately fails. This doesn't mean that he could not at least temporarily put the Force and its balance to rest.
Until the Force awakens.
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