We all love Baby Yoda, nobody’s disputing that. The Mandalorian‘s a great show in its own right, but having Pedro Pascal’s titular bounty hunter carry around that adorable green toddler is definitely what lifts it into being one of the internet’s favorite series. Here’s the thing, though: the existence of The Child, to give him his official name, actually brings up a major plot hole when you consider the established lore about his species.
Reddit user u/nbrazelton has noticed that The Child’s middle-age, in human terms, versus his youthful appearance turns one of Yoda’s lines in The Empire Strikes Back into a bit of head-scratcher. Read his comment for yourself below:
The ‘Baby Yoda; in the Mandalorian is said to be 50 years old. Yoda was 900 when he died, and states in The Empire Strikes Back that he has been training Jedi for 800 years, which means he would have had to start training others when he was 100. If he looked the same as ‘Baby Yoda’ does when he was 50 years old, there’s no way he would have been old enough to teach by the time he was 100.”
Initially, Baby Yoda being an infant at 50 seemed to make a lot of sense considering the extreme lifespan of his species, as it revealed that they aged at a much decelerated rate to humanoids. However, that Empire line makes clear that the original intention was for Yoda’s species to mature in a much more typical sense. According to what The Child’s age teaches us, Yoda must have been a mere kid when he started training other Jedi. We knew he was good, but that seems a bit of a stretch, doesn’t it?
There are ways around this, though. For instance, another Reddit post has offered a breakdown of how the species ages, suggesting that their infancy period is prolonged but then they age to adulthood fairly quickly from 50-100. If this is the case, then this would be one possible explanation for how both Baby Yoda’s cuteness and Yoda’s long teaching career can add up.
In any case, we should learn more about Baby Yoda – maybe even his real name – when The Mandalorian returns to Disney Plus for its second season later this year.
