Rosario Dawson as Ahsoka Tano in The Mandalorian
White is an interesting colour. So far we know one notable white lightsaber wielder: Ahsoka Tano.
In the current canon, white is not a natural colour. How Ahsoka’s lightsabers came to be was explained in the E.K. Johnston’s novel of the same name. Following her disillusionment with the Jedi and their involvement in the war, Ahsoka left her original (green) lightsabers behind. Later, she would similarly get rid of the new lightsabers Anakin presented her for the Siege of Mandalore.
The lightsabers she used ever afterwards, the white ones, originally belonged to the Sixth Brother. This Inquisitor had been tasked with hunting down the survivors of Order 66. His lightsaber was double-bladed and used two red crystals.
What Ahsoka did was that after defeating the Inquisitor, she purified the red crystals through the Force, draining their “evil” colour away. This did not revert the crystals to their original, pre-red colour; it only “bleached” them – hence the final white colour.
What Does White Mean?
Because of the process of its creation, white lightsaber is unique. Ahsoka’s lightsaber reflects very closely her own path. Ahsoka left the Jedi and their colours behind, but she did not become a Sith. She purified herself of all excessive residue. She found her own path that remained independent of major ideologies.
White may traditionally be associated with the ideas of purity and good, and therefore one would imagine it to be the “most good” and therefore “most Jedi” colour of all. As we can see, that is not exactly the case.
As I have mentioned elsewhere, the “most good”, orthodox Jedi colour would be blue. Given how it came to be, white would be perhaps better referred to as “colourless”.
In the positive sense, white/colourless can be interpreted as being devoid of any ideology. A white lightsaber wielder can be, in the best case, the conduct of pure will of the Force, one that is free of all constraints, a vessel that can do good to the Galaxy always in the here and now. In that way white slightly resembles green (perhaps that is why Ahsoka, originally a green-wielder, later adopted white), but goes a step further. If we once again use the traditional roleplaying alignment chart, if green was “neutral good”, white can shift from there more towards true neutral.
In the worst scenario, a white lightsaber wielder could become so detached from everything, so void, that they would become nothing but an empty vessel. They might work on preserving the balance, but this pull towards neutrality may make their actions hard to understand for their simple “good” friends who desire to do good systematically.
Orthodox blue or green-sabered Jedi may misunderstand the white and accuse them of passivity when it seems that they should act and take up the responsibility, or on the other hand, perceive their actions that have their effect here and now as impractical for some long-term ideological plan. The same way some have asked why would Ahsoka not train a new generation of Jedi, or lead the Rebels from the front lines – surely her prowess in the Force would have made a big difference? But for her, that was not the right way to go about it. Hers was the way not everyone would understand.
More on lightsaber colours:
Lightsaber Colour Symbolism: Green
Lightsaber Colour Symbolism: Blue
