Baby Yoda’s Super Power
With the launch of Disney’s streaming service, Disney+, came The Mandalorian. The teeming masses of rabid Star Wars fans couldn’t wait for the promise of a series set in the Star Wars universe. For the main character to be akin to Boba Fett was the icing on the cake.
Or, so we thought…
Unbeknownst to any of us, there would soon be a creature that would capture our hearts and minds so much more than The Mandalorian‘s titular character. I refer, of course, to the diminutive character known in the show only as “the child”, but to the world at large as “Baby Yoda.” As soon as Baby Yoda hit the screen, the world went, “awww” in one singular voice. Now, the program has all but become the Baby Yoda show, and the internet finds itself under assault with a deluge of new memes all featuring the adorable alien.
We aren’t the only ones caught in its spell.
The show introduces the Mandalorian, or Mando, as a ruthless bounty hunter who lives by a code of honor forged within the lifestyle that is The Way. He can be cold and calculating, and he takes as many bounty jobs as he can all to help provide for himself and his brethren. Yet, despite this, he is taken by the child and feels compelled to prevent it from coming to harm. Mando launches an attack on Baby Yoda’s captors and secures the child’s safety.
The doctor who was expected to dissect the child even has a change of heart of his own. He earnestly makes his own attempt to keep the child from being in harms way.
In fact, it takes the combined efforts of the Mandalorian partnered with an assassin droid, IG-11, to fulfill the bounty on the child in the first place. The two of them have to defeat a massive number of opponents that have custody of the child. They fight valiantly to defend the child from an onslaught of various bounty hunters, but ultimately fall before the destructive efforts of our newfound partners.
In the episode where the Mandalorian hires the mechanic, Peli Motto on Tatooine, he goes off to make some money and leaves Baby Yoda on board his ship. Motto is a woman who is looking out for number one. She doesn’t even hire a crew, but rather uses droids as her helpers. Motto, ultimately, finds the baby on board and is driven to watch after him. She even cites that Mando will have to pay for her services.
In the latest episode, the Mandalorian joins a team of villains on a heist to spring one of their own who is trapped aboard a prison ship. The team is led by a mercenary called Mayfeld. During a scuffle on the Mandalorian’s ship, the child is discovered. Mayfeld declares that he’s never been good with pets, but would be willing to try again, after the mission, with Baby Yoda.
Baby Yoda is a mind ninja.
All these different characters from all these differing walks of life, yet they all feel compelled to protect this child. Coincidence? I think not.
What if that’s Baby Yoda’s superpower? The child convinces people to watch out for his best interest. It’s not a completely absurd notion. In humans, infants put out a pheromone, the “baby smell”, to make those around them be more protective of them. It’s just a self preservation tool. Once they get old enough to get around on their own, the smell goes away and everyone goes about their business. In the course of The Mandalorian, we learn that Baby Yoda is 50 years old. Fifty! Imagine that you are 50, yet strangers can just pick you up and go walking around. It might be useful to influence those people. Don’t you think?
You can’t win them all.
Not everyone, however, ensnared by the charms of the child. The clearest example of someone showing immunity to Baby Yoda’s spell is IG-11. As the Mandalorian and IG-11 first encounter the child, Mando expresses a doubt about fulfilling the mandate of his bounty. The droid is less inclined. Pragmatically, he sees the best course of action to be killing the child. Much to his dismay, Mando does not see things in such polarizing terms, hence, the dispatching of IG-11.
This makes perfect sense. If we accept that the child is influencing the behavior of those around him, then it seems it would be by way of the Jedi mind trick. As IG-11 is a droid, he would have no mind to trick.
Clever writing is clever.
Perhaps the best part of it all is that the story unfolds in such a way that all of this could be nonsense. Maybe the Mandalorian is just grateful for the way he was taken in when he himself had no family. Maybe he’s just paying it forward with the child. It’s still too soon to tell. The real fun comes in watching it all play out and trying to foresee the destination it leads to.
Thanks for checking out this theory about The Mandalorian and Baby Yoda. I know it isn’t a movie, per se, but it has still been fun to think about and talk about with friends. Do us a solid and put your best ideas about Baby Yoda in the comments. We’d love to hear from you. So far, this is the best thing we have going, but a close runner up is the idea that we might be looking at a Baby Yaddle, not a Baby Yoda. Sure, all the characters in the show say things like, “he” or “him” or “his” but the show itself only makes reference to “the child.” So, yeah. Maybe he’s a she.
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This is the way.