MOVIE NEWS – Star Wars has revealed new details about Yoda’s early life that make Grogu’s survival after Order 66 more heartbreaking than ever. Warning! This article contains SPOILERS for Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures season 1, episode 1.
Star Wars has made Grogu’s survival after Order 66 more heartbreaking by revealing more about Yoda’s life. While The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett have shown Grogu’s trauma through exposition and flashbacks, this new information recontextualizes his development after Order 66. It also adds more weight to Grogu’s training with Luke Skywalker and his decision to return to Din Djarin. What makes this reveal especially shocking is that it comes from the most unlikely place, showing that Grogu’s early life was likely the opposite of Yoda’s.
The nature of Grogu’s past has always been a mystery in The Mandalorian, especially as a member of Yoda’s species. Grogu was 50 years old in The Mandalorian season 1, but Yoda said that he had been training Jedi since he was about 100 years old. This makes it confusing why Grogu was still so childlike at that age of his debut, and much of his time between Order 66 and The Mandalorian has yet to be explored. However, the latest revelation about Yoda’s early life provides a potential answer to these questions and makes Grogu’s survival after Order 66 more heartbreaking than ever.
Yoda’s Experience Suggests Grogu Should Be A Lot More Developed
The series premiere of Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures suggests that Grogu should be significantly further along in his development by the time of The Mandalorian. After Kai Brightstar loses his lightsaber on a mission, he is given Yoda’s first lightsaber as a replacement, who tells Kai that he used it when he was his age. This is surprising because it means Yoda was using a lightsaber when he was under 12, which is in striking contrast to Grogu. It initially seemed that Grogu’s long life span simply meant that his early development took longer, but this reveal about Yoda’s life implies that isn’t the case.
Related: It’s possible that Yoda meant he was biologically equivalent to Kai’s age, but even this explanation is a stretch. Grogu was approximately 22 years old at the time of Order 66, so given how old Yoda was when he got a lightsaber, Grogu should have had his own for at least 10 years by then. This makes it especially curious why Grogu still acts like a child in The Mandalorian, unable to speak and struggling to relearn the ways of the Jedi. On the other hand, there are a few possible explanations for Grogu’s lack of development despite his age.
Grogu’s Trauma Likely Explains Why He Is Still So Childlike
The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett made perfectly clear how traumatized Grogu was by Order 66, and this is the most likely explanation for why he is still so childlike. The Mandalorian season 2 revealed that Grogu hid his powers after Order 66 to avoid the Empire’s attention. This means that Grogu didn’t use his abilities for decades, which hindered his development and communication. Moreover, Grogu suffered a lot under the Empire’s experiments, which aimed to extract the Force from him. These traumas likely made it hard for him to trust others and himself.
The Book of Boba Fett gave us even more insight into Grogu’s past when Din Djarin and Boba Fett visited the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. Here Grogu met an old acquaintance: Jedi Master Kelleran Beq (Ahmed Best), who saved him during Order 66. Beq told Djarin and Fett that Grogu was one of the most talented padawans in the temple, but when Order 66 broke out, he had to hide him in a secret refuge. Beq also revealed that Grogu wasn’t the only surviving padawan: others also escaped or hid from the Empire.
These information shed new light on Grogu’s early life and why the concept of family is so important to him. Grogu lost his masters and friends during Order 66, and lived alone in a hideout for years. When he met Djarin, he again experienced the protection and love he missed so much. That’s why he decided to return to Djarin at the end of The Mandalorian season 2, after training with Luke Skywalker. For Grogu, Djarin is his true family.
When Yoda Was Still a Youngling
Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures is a new series that shows Yoda’s early life when he was a young Jedi. The series’ first episode shows Yoda telling Kai Brightstar how he got his first lightsaber when he was only 12 years old. This means that Yoda was much more advanced than Grogu at that age, which makes Grogu’s story more heartbreaking.
Another interesting thing about the series is that it introduces Yoda’s masters and friends who helped him on his Jedi path. Among them is another member of Yoda’s species, who could have been Grogu’s uncle. He is Yaddle, who was a female Jedi master who served on the Jedi council before the Clone Wars. Yaddle and Yoda had a very strong bond and learned a lot from each other. However, Yaddle disappeared during the Clone Wars and no one knows what happened to her.
This raises the question of whether Grogu knows Yaddle or any other member of his species. In The Mandalorian series, we didn’t see Grogu’s reaction when he met Luke Skywalker, who looked like Yoda. Maybe Grogu remembered them, or maybe not. Maybe there are more secrets hidden in Grogu’s past that we haven’t discovered yet.
Grogu is one of the most interesting and beloved characters in the Star Wars universe, but we still don’t know a lot about him. Hopefully, The Mandalorian season 3 and The Book of Boba Fett will reveal more about Grogu’s origin and destiny. Until then, let’s enjoy Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures series, which gives us a new insight into Yoda’s life and Grogu’s story.
Source: Screen Rant
