<hand wave>“These are not the younglings you’re looking for.”
“Shit. Didn’t work.”
Yet, somehow, when Baby Yoda was first mentioned, it was known that he was an 80 year old infant from a long-lived race. If the species is meant to be so mysterious, they should have let the audience figure that fact out for themselves.
When Baby Yoda was first mentioned, all anyone on screen knew was that there was a contract out, and the contract didn’t have any identifying information except the target’s location and age. We didn’t learn that it was an infant until Mando found him at the end of the episode. Nobody knows that he’s from an exceptionally long lived race, except through inference of him being 80, and still an infant.
That said…
We’ve also never had a plot in a Star Wars show that revolved around needing to know an alien’s origin without being able to just ask him. There’s thousands and thousands of different sentient species in the SW universe, and nobody is going to know them all. Like, pretty much nobody in the galaxy knew what an Ewok was before the battle of Endor, but that’s not because Ewoks are mysterious, it’s just because it’s a big galaxy.
FWIW, in the old EU, Yoda’s species is explicitly mysterious. There’s a bit in the Zahn books where Luke mentions trying to find out what Yoda was by searching the New Republic’s archives, and there’s no mention of them.
80? I thought Grogu was 50.
I was going off the poster I was responding to, who said 80.
I remember it as 50. Still a long time to be a “child”.
Not if you live to be 900.
I totally misremember what happened in that episode. I thought Carl Weathers laid it all out for us. I probably conflated it with some online “what you need to know…” blog.
As for Luke continuing to further the Jedi lack of attachment bullshit…Luke, “This is why you fail.”
I’m surprised Ahsoka, who witnessed first-hand the bullshit of the Jedi Order, and what it did to both her and Anakin, is just like, “Anakin’s son wants to reboot the Jedi Order exactly the way it was back when I told those fucks to fuck off? Sounds good!”
My theory is that Grogu takes the mail shirt, and goes back to Mando. The twist will be that Ahsoka ultimately trains Grogu in the Force, but not as a Jedi. She understands the need for attachment, but also knows a shit-ton about the Force that she could pass on to Grogu. Grogu is too powerful in the Force for Ahsoka to just ignore. I also suspect Sabine plays a role in his training, with perhaps a smattering of Ezra.
And that would set up Grogu to end up being a fucking badass wielding the Darksaber as the head of Mandalore, instead of a corpse under the rubble at Luke’s Jedi Academy.
Luke’s approach to training Jedi has to match up with what we saw of it in the sequel trilogy. You can’t veer off into a different path now. Also he will be only doing what he thinks is right based on what little he has experienced of being trained himself, which is sweet FA. You can’t have him leap in and immediately say “I’ll do it differently and fix everything” especially since we know his method failed. If it failed, then he must have done some things wrong. Perhaps this is the thing he did that was wrong. Therefore we must show him doing the thing.
I understand that, I’m just surprised Ahsoka isn’t doing more to talk him out of it. She saw first-hand what went wrong; I’d think she’d be doing all she could to guide Luke a bit more so as not to repeat the mistakes that fucked everything up not 30 years earlier.
There’s no reason to think Ahsoka believed eliminating emotional attachment was a problem. Her issue that caused her to leave the Jedi Order was their hubris and arrogance.
In any case, Luke has to go through the established process before he can really know if he’s doing it the right way.
It’s all off-screen so far. You can tell she doesn’t approve of Grogu’s training.
I didn’t necessarily get that vibe, but I’ll admit I may have missed it through my tears of happiness and teenage-girl squeals.
ETA: I hope there’s an eventual falling-out between Luke and Ahsoka, which sends her as far as possible from Luke and the stories of the sequels, but straight into future stories of Mandalore and Grogu. The way you can save the sequel era is by having better stories being told that happened elsewhere in the galaxy, and perhaps ultimately having the two storylines meet up (Rey & Grogu, etc.)
Paraphrasing the show:
Luke: “Grogu doesn’t seem to actually want to do Jedi trainng.”
Ashoka: “Yeah he reminds me of your dad.”
Luke (thinking) “Ohshit.”
(later)
Luke: “So, Grogu, you don’t have to stick around if you don’t want to.”
My problem with Grogu wielding the Dark Saber and actually being the titular Mandalorian is…how do we get from point A to B without it being silly? At BEST, Yoda (With years of goodwill from us) worked mostly as a wise councilor and sorta worked in the lightsaber fights. More against Palpatine.
How the heck are going to get from a cute baby to someone who wields the dark saber (and remember Yoda had a short light saber) and can speak? It would take ages to get there without it being silly.
And Im sure this is just me but, My suspension of disbelief is straining enough as it is to accept a feeling of paternity towards Grogu from Din Djarin as opposed to…just wanting to do the right thing and willing to go pretty far to do it. Like I said, Im sure its just me.
Would I do everything that Din has done for Grogu? Sure. Would I feel a paternal bond and want to visit? mmmmmm…Like you would a PET you had to give away? See this is where im getting hung up. Does Din really feel like Grogu is his son?
Are we going to get some Mando flashbacks to show that some alien “Child of the Watch” raised Din and would take off his helmet for Din?
Mandalorians are big on foundlings. Notably in the clan he was raised, those are the “way.” Din is only a Mandalorian because he was found and adopted. I can buy that he would be this attached to a child that he found. It’s his culture.
He’s a 50-year-old baby who, what we know from the flashback, is probably already very skilled in the Force; he may just need to have his memory jogged. I can see a number of potential characters bringing out his badassery-- Ahsoka, Ezra, Luke, Sabine, Bo-Katan.
I wanted to see a new order of Force users arise in the sequels, and for the Jedi to go away. I’m cautiously optimistic that the D+ series can still deliver, what with Ahsoka and the Mandalorians and the Darksaber moving to the forefront.
And keep in mind - Ahsoka has her own shit to get done. She’s out to find Thrawn and presumably her missing friends. She doesn’t have time to stop and spend several years or decades training Grogu, but she realizes that someone has to do it, and Luke might not be perfect, but he’s the only living Jedi she knows of.
And then there’s something else I just thought of - Ahsoka became Anakin’s padawan right at the beginning of the Clone Wars, in 22 BBY, when she was 14 years old. It’s within the realm of possibility that she and Grogu knew each other as younglings in the Temple on Coruscant, which might be another reason she refused to train him - she herself could have an emotional attachment to him.
If it comes down to it, she can walk and chew gum at the same time, so I don’t think her plans to find Thrawn/Ezra would get in the way of training Grogu too. Kanan, who was a lot further behind in his Jedi training than Ahsoka was, was able to train both Ezra and Sabine while still getting shit done with the Ghost crew-- blind!
Sometimes the best training comes in the field.