IGN: Let’s talk about the owl – Well, I’m sure there’s a more interesting name than an owl, since this is Star Wars.
Filoni: Right, they’re actually called Convorees, named after Anne [Convery– Filoni’s wife], but that was back on Clone Wars when I named them that. They appeared first on the Wasskah arc when Ahsoka got kidnapped by the Trandoshans. So that’s where you would first see those types of birds, but I think birds – like many things in the galaxy – appear on different planets so you have different breeds of them. When they get to the Atollon moon, these creatures start appearing.
IGN: Right. Ezra sees one at the end of the previous episode, as he’s lying on the ground and there’s a bit of the Imperial March playing there. Which made me wonder… is this an avatar of the Dark Side? I’m a big Twin Peaks fan, so I’m like, “It’s the Black Lodge!”
Filoni: I love the idea of it being an avatar! I would tell you, though, that it is absolutely not an avatar of the Dark Side. Absolutely not. But, you know, we’ll have to see. You’re going down the rabbit hole now. You know me by now – it’s not accidental that this thing is flying around. It’s not accidental that it’s there, and it’s not accidental that it’s bizarrely on this completely different world at the end of that episode. It definitely has a meaning for me, as the storyteller. It’s a subtle thing that if you know what the owl represents, then it deepens the lore of the whole thing and you go, “Okay, there are things at work here that are beyond our reckoning.” In some ways, I could say that it’s a messenger, it’s an observer. It is definitely something. And I would suggest – I would rather have fans debate – but I would suggest to say that whatever that thing is an avatar of has actually appeared in the animated Star Wars universe before. So decrypt from there… Have a fun summer!