‘The Mandalorian’ Might Change Your View of ‘Revenge of the Sith’ After Baby Yoda’s Reveal

The Mandalorian finally shared Baby Yoda’s true origin and his real name; it was different than what a lot of fans thought. On top of that, the fact that he was born the same year as Anakin Skywalker actually came in to play a little bit more too. Basically, Baby Yoda’s experience a few decades earlier might change the way you view Revenge of the Sith, kind of how the newest season of The Clone Wars did. [Spoiler alert: Spoilers for The Mandalorian Episode 5 “Chapter 13: The Jedi” ahead]. 

‘The Mandalorian’ finally revealed Baby Yoda’s real name and backstory 

The major part of this most recent episode of The Mandalorian was the introduction of Ahsoka Tano in live-action form. However, that was expected. Something that was a major bombshell-of-a-drop was the fact that audiences learned The Child’s real name and his origin story. 

After Mando stops Ahsoka from attacking him, since she just thinks he’s there to kill her, she notices Baby Yoda, and talks to him. The scene jumps to the two communicating without words, but rather through the Force or through some other plane of conversation. Ahsoka then tells Din Djarin that the “kid” is actually called Grogu. And Grogu was training to be a Jedi Knight at the same Jedi Temple she trained at during the Clone Wars. 

Back in the time between Star Wars — Episode II: Attack of the Clones and Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, the series The Clones Wars took place and showed the years that the Jedi fought in the civil war between the Republic and the Separatists. Anakin was Ahsoka’s master and Obi-Wan and he were generals, while Ahsoka was a Commander in said war. 

Grogu, Ahsoka tells Din, was trained by a few different masters at the Temple, but it seems like he was too young to actually go into the field or become a Padawan outside in the real world. Because even though he’s the same age as Anakin Skywalker, he’s the developmental age of a baby or toddler since he ages slowly. This would also mean that Grogu was a youngling at the Jedi Temple during Order 66. 

Grogu was in the Jedi Temple around the time that Anakin killed the younglings 

If that still doesn’t ring a bell for you, that means that when Anakin swore his allegiance to Darth Sidious after sending Master Windu to the depths of Coruscant, and he was sent to kill all remaining Jedi at the Temple, Grogu was there. And in Anakin’s now-infamous scene in the Temple with the younglings, Grogu could have been one of those unlucky kids. 

However, he obviously wasn’t, and as Ahsoka said, someone — Grogu isn’t sure who — saved him and took him away during the Jedi Purge. This is when his memory fades, and he doesn’t remember much until the start of The Mandalorian it seems. So poor Grogu doesn’t have memories for decades. 

Regardless, without Grogu’s memories, and with Ahsoka on Mandalore at the time, fans won’t know what happened that night. But the events of Revenge of the Sith are altered slightly, again, with this new information. Because it means that, not only was Grogu at the Temple the whole time, but it means he could have been there during Order 66. Was it a known Jedi that took him away from the Temple? It obviously wasn’t with Yoda or Obi-Wan’s knowledge because they would have taken that into account while they were on Polis Massa as Padmé gave birth. 

There are still many years that fans don’t know of Baby Yoda’s life 

Again, there is so much that fans don’t know about Grogu’s life. Baby Yoda — as many will continue to call him since it just feels right — can’t remember how he got into the Empire’s hands, how he survived the Jedi Purge, nor why the Empire didn’t kill him. 

Some fans on Reddit speculated that Grogu was taken by the Empire because Palpatine was already planning his cloning scheme back then. It must have been common knowledge that the Jedi had a powerful student from Master Yoda’s species who was only a baby. That would have been the easiest target for Palpatine when choosing his test subject for the experiment to take midi-chlorian cells from for his clones.

If that is the case, could Anakin have taken Grogu out of the Temple on Palpatine’s orders? Anything’s possible, and with Baby Yoda’s memory faded, that can be filled in later on. It is really interesting that Grogu is just this figure that Ahsoka recognized not because he looks like Master Yoda, but because they studied at the same Temple during the Clone Wars. He wasn’t a clone this whole time but is just a pawn being used by the Empire to create clones. Which, as we’ve seen, is connected to Snoke. 

The Mandalorian is doing a lot of heavy lifting in connecting so many corners of Star Wars together, but it is working pretty well so far.