‘The Mandalorian’: Is Baby Yoda a Boy, Girl, or Genderless?
So many questions about Baby Yoda are starting to pile up that it’s driving fans wild few are being answered in the first season of The Mandalorian. Chances are good most to all of them may not be answered by the final episode of this season either.
Of course, it’s all by design to keep the mystery of who Baby Yoda is — the character is officially called The Child — sustained presumably into next holiday season. Beyond learning whether The Child is directly related to Yoda or Yaddle — or just a clone — fans want to know the basics like what its gender is.
If there’s already been tongue-in-cheek looks at whether the baby wears diapers or not, knowing whether it’s a boy, girl, or non-gender would make a big difference in connecting more plot dots.
There may be an indication we won’t learn anything about Baby Yoda immediately
Numerous media outlets continue to analyze who Baby Yoda is and ask questions most fans have already asked ad infinitum. Beyond the ones mentioned above, everyone wants to know where the child is from. Since this would probably give away everything, viewers should scratch that question from being answered — not this season anyway.
Even the question about what the child’s name is likely won’t be given right away. There’s all possibility the child doesn’t have a name yet, despite not making sense if the baby is already 50 years old. Should Baby Yoda say its first words before the first season ends, maybe it’ll say its name, giving a deeper clue to gender.
Above all, fans want to know if Baby Yoda is the only one of its species still living at this point. Considering Yaddle was only seen in the prequels, and Yoda died five years earlier in this timeline, the child may be very rare indeed.
It’s kind of obvious why the fallen Empire wants the child because it’s possibly the only one of its kind left in the known universe, not including apparently possessing Midi-chlorians. For those uninitiated, the latter are the microscopic forms of life that give life to the Force.
One quick clue that Baby Yoda is maybe male
Some might automatically assume Baby Yoda is male based on exhibiting typical baby male characteristics, as in picking up things it shouldn’t while in Dyn Jarren’s ship. One key scene later did seem to suggest the child is male.
Remember when Dyn stormed the hideout of Werner Herzog’s mysterious character and took the child from Dr. Pershing? In the chaotic moment, Pershing said he was only trying to protect “him.” Sharp-eyed and eared fans note this as an official confirmation the child is a boy.
Then again, Dyn Jarren has often called Baby Yoda “it.” The only time he did this was asking Pershing “What did you do to it?” Maybe Dyn has no idea what the child’s gender is, assuming he didn’t look.
With this species, maybe there isn’t a specific way to tell by looking, which digresses back into the minutiae of whether the child wears diapers.
Get ready to wait until ‘The Mandalorian’ season 2 or beyond
One thing everyone knows for sure about Baby Yoda is it’s cute and ripe for mass merchandising, something Disney had to wait on to keep the creature a secret. While some merch will be out this spring, the real flood of Baby Yoda toys won’t come until the holiday season of 2020.
The timing is almost predictable the second season will start around the same time frame, perhaps the only time any questions will be answered about Baby Yoda. Unless The Rise of Skywalker happens to provide some sideline answers on December 20, bringing the slyest franchise to reveal in movie history.
If the film does do this, it may bring more questions than real concrete answers. All of the simplest answers about Baby Yoda probably won’t be known until a year from now. Until then, let’s assume he’s a boy, something that could be revealed further if males in the Yoda line exhibit similar characteristics to human males.
