First off, yes, I know his name is Grogu and not Baby Yoda, but hear me out. Recently ‘The Mandalorian’ showrunner Jon Favreau has come out and said it’s OK to call him Baby Yoda. You may argue with me but you should never question Jon Favreau, the man arguably responsible for saving Star Wars (alongside Dave Filoni, of course).
Secondly, before you read any further, you should be aware that there are HUGE SPOILERS ahead for the ‘The Mandalorian’ season 2, like, MASSIVE spoilers. So, if you haven’t finished it yet you should probably leave now. Everybody still here? OK great, lets move on.
1. When is ‘The Mandalorian’ set?
The events of ‘The Mandalorian’ take place about 5 years after ‘Return of the Jedi’ (Episode VI) but approximately 25 years before ‘The Force Awakens’ (Episode VII). This means that Darth Vader has been dead for about 5 years and that Luke is now busy learning about the old Jedi Order while also putting together the building blocks for his Jedi academy. This is why we see Luke make an appearance in the season Finale of ‘The Mandalorian’. He is there to recruit Grogu to this academy. This is key.
So where does Kylo Ren ruthlessly murdering a baby come into all of this I hear you say? In the sequel trilogy we see numerous flashbacks of Ben Solo’s time in this academy before he goes a bit crazy and decides to burn it all down and kill everyone in it. Given that the last time we see Grogu he is off to join said academy, things certainly don’t look too good for the little green guy. Even so, just because the timeline and plot line up precisely, lets examine some options of why this might NOT have happened.
2. Grogu may have left the academy by this time
Given that Grogu is a huge money maker for Disney, I can’t imagine we will see Din Djarin and his little cuddly sidekick be separated for too long. We know that there are more seasons of ‘The Mandalorian’ to come so the likelihood that Din and Grogu will be reunited at some point during season 3 is highly likely. Maybe Grogu decides the Jedi life is not for him or maybe he decides to become an honorary Mandalorian? Maybe Mando decides that being a bounty hunter just isn’t that fun anymore without his pal. Either way, both options are better than the alternative.
3. Kylo Ren is not all bad
When Luke’s academy is burning down, Kylo makes an attempt to save some of the students before he is knocked back by a bolt of lightning. At this point Ben Solo still has some goodness left in him. He does go on to kill the three Jedi survivors that chase after him but he doesn’t look too happy with himself after he does it. Maybe I am clutching at straws here hoping that if Grogu is still at the academy at this point that Ben would choose to ignore what would still be an infant (given the species lifespan) at this point in time. I think this is the least likely option as it would have implications for Kylo Ren’s character arc in the sequels but it’s still a possibility.
Hopefully we will get a definitive answer in the upcoming seasons of ‘The Mandalorian’ which we now will not see again until 2022. The only thing we can be certain of is that we will for sure be seeing more of Disney’s little green money making machine, at least for the mean time.
