#like he was the perfect jedi for grogu to learn that lesson from and the perfect person to show him kindness and understanding and compassio

[terriblygrimm]

friendly reminder that this exists

“i don't think luke is presenting an argument either way. because i think luke also, of any jedi in the galaxy, understands what it would be like to be with the person you care about most -- to be with your father figure”

[burnwater13]

Concept art by Brian Matyas of Ahsoka Tano fighting an unknown assailant. Image from The Mandalorian, Season 2, Episode 5, The Jedi. Calendar by DateWorks.

This story was originally published on June 29, 2024.

What could Grogu say about Ahsoka Tano that he hadn’t already said? Amazing Force worker. Snappy dresser. Fascinating person. Not a Jedi? Well, she had said that herself, but Grogu had his doubts about that. Just because you leave the Jedi doesn't mean the Jedi leaves you. He should know. He was and wasn’t a Jedi. It was complicated.

In his case it was complicated because he’d only been Master Beq’s padawan for a very short period of time. And most of the lessons they learned together were about avoiding the Inquisitors, the Sith, and the Imps. He’d never searched for a kyber crystal on Ilum, let alone built his own lightsaber. His hair wasn’t long enough to make a padawan braid. And he didn’t have a belt to give some style and flair to his coverall. You couldn’t really be a Jedi without going through that right of passage. 

On the other hand, he knew everything there was to know about the Force. He had absorbed every lesson he’d ever managed to sit all the way through. No one was better at meditating than he was. He had practiced and practiced and practiced until he could simply think of what he wanted and then floated silently, smoothy, effortlessly up into the air to collect the cookie container from the highest shelves anyone ever put it on to keep it from him. That was how Jedi did things. They were focused. Resolved. Relentless. 

Maybe that was the problem that Asoka Tano was dealing with now? She hadn’t been relentless. And she’d been distracted. Resolved? Nope. Can’t do that when you’re distracted. He didn’t blame her for that. How could he? You find out that your master, the person who trained you, taught you, shaped and molded your every thought related to the Force, the Jedi, and the galaxy at large, turns out to be some Sith’s apprentice! That’s gotta leave a mark! 

Grogu was amazed that she was even able to recognize another Force worker, let alone wield two light sabers and try to keep his dad from being, you know, his dad. Maybe that was the problem too. 

A Jedi wasn’t supposed to attack first and ask questions later. Just the opposite really. Ahsoka must have thought that Din Djarin was the enemy, but why think that? She had met Mandalorians before. She had to have. Bo-Katan Kryze, who was definitely a Mandalorian, had told them where to find Ahsoka Tano. If they knew each other than Ahsoka couldn’t be suffering from ‘all Mandalorians are bad’ syndrome, like so many other Jedi had suffered and had made Mandalorians suffer. That was a strong point in favor of her judgment being compromised because of that whole Jedi Master/Sith Apprentice thing.

Now, why did any of that matter? Why care that Ahsoka Tano wasn’t quite in the perfect headspace to work with him and his dad? It was a good question and Grogu wasn’t sure that he had a good answer. 

He’d spent a lot of time without anyone in his life who had known anything about the Jedi Temple, the other Jedi masters, the other Jedi knights, the whole process of going from youngling to padawan to knight. He missed a lot of people and wished that he had been able to do more to help prevent the disaster that had befallen them all. It was deep in his past, but the pain was easy to access and that was a big problem.  Meeting someone who had to have felt that same pain so closely, and yet, had been so far away when it all happened, was just a new twist in the story. A twist that Grogu didn’t need, want, or desire and he certainly hadn’t been prepared for any of it. 

Now there they were. In the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, having a perfectly middle of the road discussion about him. Who was he? Why was he with a Mandalorian? Did he know who he looked like? Blah, blah, blah. What he really wanted from this former member of the Jedi was a hug and an apology. In that order. To just be held by someone who had once looked at Master Kenobi, who had taken lessons from Master Yoda, who had cringed when Master Windu raised his voice… that was a set of connections that could never be duplicated by anyone who hadn’t been at the temple at that time. That is what connected him to Ahsoka Tano, whether she realized that or not. 

He wondered what she wanted from him. Did she want a hug? He’d be happy to give her one. Did she want an apology for all the things that had happened to her that no one had recognized other than Grogu, but he hadn’t been listened to or even noticed? He’d be happy to do that as well. Did she just need a friend who remembered the same people she remembered the same way she remembered them? Well, there’s the rub. He didn’t remember much about Anakin Skywalker and the little he did remember wasn’t really all that pleasant and he wasn’t even talking about the whole Sith Apprentice thing. 

Nope. He and Anakin were the same age. But he was a human, more or less, and Grogu was not. The differences between them couldn't have been more startling. One of them just floats around the Jedi temple like dust particle getting blown around by the ventilation system and the other runs everywhere, all the time. One is tall and able to reach the jar of cookies on the top shelf of the kitchen storage room and the other one has to climb it all like a mountain because he’s been forbidden to use the Force to help. One of them broke everyone’s heart and the other couldn’t heal them fast enough to make a difference. 

He supposed that he and Ahsoka Tano would just have to agree to disagree. Neither of them were Jedi, even though they had both been raised by them. Neither of them were masters, but they had taught other people many lessons. One of them thought attachments were problematic because of the one she had for a person who was problematic. The other one, well he had a Mandalorian father now and there was no problem there. Mandalorians revered their duties as parents and protected their younglings no matter what. Grogu wasn’t going to leave his dad anymore than Ahsoka Tano was going to leave the galaxy. That’s just the way things were and Grogu was glad of that. 

He just had to hope that the Force was with him. It was. Of course it was. Why wouldn’t it be?

[c-m-li]

Ahsoka is one those characters that everyone seems to like a lot more than I do personally. I'm not saying she's awful or anything like that - she's a quality star wars character and Jedi - but it's like the whole fandom goes feral over her when I'm just like eh, she's okay.

In my opinion, she's a great character mainly bc her character arc and development was so linear and a clear progression.

My problem is when people say she's a perfect Jedi, the epitome of balance, and the distillation of the Jedi Order's teachings when she isn't any of those.

(I would concede that she's a grey Jedi but that's a whole other argument)

Ahsoka isn't a perfect Jedi and she's never achieved complete balance and a lot of it is bc of Anakin. She's too attached to Anakin in Rebels to accept Anakin's actions and that he's not within her power to help. Even into The Mandalorian, she's letting her fear from Anakin's actions prevent her from training Grogu. It's completely understandable considering she's a survivor of genocide, but she's allowing that to dictate her actions that could be harmful to the people in front of her.

And all this in mind that Ahsoka was sixteen years old (?) when she left the Order. This is not to blame her for her choices, but bc the Order was wiped out shortly afterwards, she never finished her training. Everything she knows is what she learned as a Padawan during a war where certain lessons were likely skipped over in favor of more practical teachings.

I honestly don't actually hate Ahsoka, but the way people prop her up but look down on Obi-Wan irritates me. Bc Obi-Wan is a Jedi who did everything right and it still all fell apart, but he still managed to hold onto himself and his religion up to helping to train the next hope for the Jedi. It wouldn't surprise me if Obi-Wan had been terrified at the thought of training Luke with the knowledge that he had trained and somehow "failed" Anakin.

Fandom: Ahsoka is the most normal about Anakin of the people who love him, Obi-Wan is so obsessed with him and attached to him.

Canon Ahsoka:

Canon Obi-Wan:

[ariainstars]

Congratulations, We Fell for Another Love Bombing or Thank You, Disney, You Did It Again

Sigh. Luke Skywalker is back. And Din Djarin and his child had to say goodbye. I never thought I would curse and say “Oh no!” when Luke appeared in that fateful corridor. 

I wonder why the Disney studios are doing this - trying to "make up” for the oh-so criticized sequels, I suppose?

The Jedi have made their time. It was shown and proven over and over again that their attitude is wrong and needs to change, and Luke was the last of the old school Jedi. Again, a Force-sensitive child is all but kidnapped by a Jedi: he obviously did not like to go. Mando is no longer the hero of the story, he was stripped of his agency and all of his personal choices were questioned and valued for null and void. But the Dark Saber is in his hands now, so he’s the heir to the throne of Mandalore I guess. Like he ever wanted that.

This show, which grew to be so well-beloved in only a few episodes, now is not “The Mandalorian” any more. Its new title is “Luke’s Skywalker’s Comeback”. Hardcore fans may be out of their minds with joy, but for us, who admired Mando both as a badass hero and as a father figure and loved the dynamics between him and Grogu, the whole purpose of the show is destroyed. And here I naively had thought The Rise of Skywalker was bad enough to teach the studios not to repeat its mistakes.

~~~ more under the cut ~~~

Star Wars ought to be a fairy tale. It is and always was one. I can understand that the prequels had to end in a tragedy, we all knew that from the start, but why the sequels? And now, why must this generally acclaimed and beloved tv show again appease hardcore fans of old with Luke coming to save the day, cancelling in a matter of minutes what the story had built up within two entire seasons - the relationship of the two protagonists, heart and core of the narrative, as it had been with Rey and Ben Solo? And when both of them had their relationship just getting started - Rey and Ben kissing, Din calling Grogu by his name and the latter seeing him and touching his face? Why make Rey a queen without her king, and Din a father without a son? 

Again, a Force-user is denied having a home: „Jedi training” matters more. By Luke of all people, the guy who never was trained in the first place (only very briefly), who except for a few lessons with Obi-Wan and Yoda was self-taught in the Force, and never understood that his strength lay with his compassion and his connection with other people, not with his alleged „superpowers”.

Think back to how Anakin, Luke and Rey were before they met the Jedi: unaware of their powers, compassionate, idealistic, brave. The Jedi mindset tainted their characters and lives, making them believing that they are (or have to be) untouchable and invincible, compelling them to live for duty instead of love, condemning them to a lifetime of loneliness. Will the Jedi never learn?

Though I practically grew up with the classic movies, I loved The Last Jedi; I can accept that Luke failed, and also that Han and Leia did. Nobody is perfect, and the Jedi mindset as well as the universally accepted idea that „Jedi” is a synonym for infallible saint-like hero was wrong in the first place, else the Empire never would have risen. Making Luke not the cavalry who came to save the day - until the battle on Crait, that is - but a man who failed and picked himself up again was much more meaningful, and I know not a few fans who felt inspired by this. Luke had saved his father choosing love over power, not the contrary. Some fans just never get it. To appease them, why not simply give him a new storyline of his own, instead of making him intrude in other Star Wars related shows? Why stop the new stories in their tracks just to bring him back?

Instead of seeing Luke as the grand kickass hero in a tv show that never had anything to do with him until now, it would have been more to the purpose to finally shed light on the thirty years between his father’s and his nephew’s death, to explain us where the Jedi and the Skywalker-Organa-Solo family failed to make such an outcome possible - the granddaughter of Palpatine taking over with their own blessing. There must have been a huge build-up between the end of the original saga and the fateful night at the temple when Luke briefly panicked looking into his nephew’s mind. Many fans still are convinced that „Kylo Ren just chose to be bad” because we hardly know how the relationship between these two was in the first place. (A very easy plot twist would e.g. have been Snoke warning Ben that his uncle sooner or later would turn on him, frightened by his power. The fulfilment of that prophecy would have made the night at the temple much more impactful.) 

I understand that the studios want to tease us, to make us watch the other shows, too. But honestly, I’m getting tired of feeling duped. Tired of getting attached to new heroes to have their purpose smashed just so the Star Wars dudebro fans can sleep quietly at night because „some Jedi will take care of it”. First the characters from the sequels, now the ones from The Mandalorian. You get to love the new characters, you root for them to find happiness or at least some closure, and then, at the last moment, poof!, the hero of old comes back and the story development stops right there. 

It is not right and it never was for the Jedi to take Force-sensitive children away from home, to enforce „you have to become a Jedi, like it or not” on them, to teach them not to have attachments, to make them focus on the Light Side thereby bringing the Force out of its much-needed balance. While Ahsoka saw that Grogu has formed a strong attachment to Din Djarin, Luke obviously did not, or he did not care. The irony is that he always wanted a father, and knows the pain of losing a father you’ve just found.

The Mandalorian felt like a consolation after Episode IX, a blessing for the fans for whom heart and soul are more interesting than nostalgia and „Jedi superheroes”. Now it’s just another kick in the guts. It’s painful and embarrassing to get to love characters so much, to get invested in their story so deeply, and then to realize again that they seem to mean nothing in the shade of the heroes of old. Ben Solo died young and miserable and Din Djarin and Grogu can now, I suppose, be miserable too. Can someone please explain to me why after the classics, no Star Wars film or show had an uplifting ending any more? With the possible exception of Solo, which was a nice filler but not a really important storyline. (I do not count Episodes I and II, they officially had a happy ending but it was tainted by the knowledge of what was to come.) 

Fans are not blind. We saw the parallels between Darth Vader and Din Djarin as well as the differences - both being cool and tough but the latter not disdaining to be a caring father at the same time. The entire show lived from the dynamics between the gruff but kind bounty hunter and the innocent-looking powerful child, ever from the first episode. Two years of build-up for nothing, as it was with the four years of the sequels. Mando has to relinquish Grogu, Rey loses Ben. What was all that for? Both Mando and Rey are fighters, they have done nothing else their entire lives. What is to become of them now that they have nothing to fight for any more, nor anyone to live for? Except staying on a planet that is foreign to them and, for all they know, inhabitable or at least inhospitable? 

With Rey and Ben Solo, the situation was different: she had proven good intentions but bad attitude (arrogance, violence, judgement) over and over, unable to deny her heritage, and even impaled her „antagonist” once while he was only defending himself. He had been the head of a criminal organization for years, and had committed patricide. Of course there are nuances to these characters and I still believe that they would have deserved another chance; I understand however that would have been unfitting to let the sequels end giving them a happy ending.

But in the case of Din Djarin, a man of honor, who has made friends and brought peace wherever he went throughout the galaxy? Grogu, the last surviving padawan of the old Jedi temple, who saved both his and Greef Karga’s life despite the danger for himself? What did they do to deserve being ripped apart like that? 

So, all I can say: thank you, you did it again. And, once more, just before Christmas. I wish at least these depressing endings would be released at some other time. 

I would dearly want to see a galaxy that finally learned from its faults, where family and attachments and Balance and free choice are not contrary to being a Jedi. I am in my late forties and I’m beginning to give up hope that I will live to see it. By now I am wondering whether George Lucas himself will live to see it. 

I always loved Luke. He is one of my favorite heroes. But now he’s become an insensitive know-it-all who suffered from his own daddy issues to the point that he almost died crying out to his father for help, yet did not learn not to separate fathers from children and vice versa and, on the contrary, is doing it over and over again. He did not even tell Mando his name, or where he could reach him. We don’t have a clue as to if, when and how the Clan of Two will meet again. 

I get it that since this show is set five years Return of the Jedi, it would have been difficult to ignore Luke’s existence altogether. And of course, we can rest assured that Luke will do his best for Grogu. But still: he has made his time. I wanted to see the new heroes going their own way, not hanging on the sleeves of the former generation. Mando is a man of honor, he had promised to bring Grogu to his own kind and he relinquished him despite his own wishes. (Not to mention that technically, since he identifies as a Mandalorian, by being a Jedi Luke is his enemy.) Why did Luke have to take the child away? His greatest strength always was that he was first and foremost himself and only in the second place a Jedi. What became of his trademark compassion? 

Before The Mandalorian, we have never seen a healthy and working father-son relationship in the saga. It was incredibly refreshing and heart-warming to see these two traveling through the galaxy and living through adventures together; also, contrarily to Yoda, Grogu saw a lot of the bad things happening in the galaxy with his own eyes, which certainly was good for his character development.

But in the end, both he and his „father” did not go anywhere. Like Rey in Episode IX, they found a) power and b) a surrogate place, but neither got what was actually his heart’s wish - a home. I can’t understand why. Deliberate cruelty? We never knew whether Han and Leia and Ben felt how painful it was to break up their little family for the sake of „Jedi training”. You bet Din and Grogu did feel that pain and loss.

Both as a person with a heart and a brain and an almost lifelong Star Wars fan I am sickened by the readiness of the studios to end all that this well-made show had built up, for the appeasement of Jedi worshippers who just don’t want to see that the Jedi mindset needs urgently to change. It can’t be that difficult to renew them for the better; there is no necessity to erase the Jedi completely and there is nothing bad with making them grow wiser and stronger by finally understanding and accepting the importance of attachments and family ties. Yes, I realize that being a father also means learning how to let go; but here we are speaking of a literal child, not of a young adult who chose his own way in life.

I thought that George Lucas knew why he sold his franchise to the Disney studios, given their tradition in telling stories about family and friendship. This development is not a triumph, it is unworthy both of the studios and of the entire Star Wars saga. I’m tired of producers bowing down before fans who see every shred of the saga through „Jedi are always right”-tinted glasses respectively who value coolness over compassion even though it always was the saga’s central message. 

Whatever happens in Season 3, countless fans will only be watching it asking, „Where’s Luke?” If Grogu should choose to join Mando again, everybody will be like, „But how can he want to leave Luke Skywalker of all people?” Some already see Grogu die prematurely, killed by the oh-so-bad guy Kylo Ren, for no other reason than to just to further prove how evil he is. In which case both Ben Solo and Grogu will have lived and died for nothing except for leaving a lot of heartbreak behind. 

There must be another and better way to honor the legacy of both Luke Skywalker and the original trilogy than to think up new heroes and then destroy their purpose for the sake of old times’ glory. Lucas himself had said that Star Wars is basically for twelve-year-olds. It seems not: it’s for the fans who were twelve years old forty years ago, when the first movies hit theatres. 

There are enough voices crying out for the sequels to be erased from canon. Who knows? This may be the next step into the past instead of the future. The sequels were hinting at a better future (Balance), Grogu was, too (family). But the grand past is so reassuring. The sequels tried to tell the audience to grow up and learn to do without their heroes, to see that even they were flawed and that the new heroes could grow beyond them. Fie on them, said the hardcore fans. Now it’s the turn of the younger generation, who got to know and love the saga with the sequels or The Mandalorian, to be like „WTF”. 

Rogue One also had been a huge disappointment to me. Not that I found it badly made, but I went into a depressive mood for three days for the same reason: I did not like that I had grown so attached to all of these characters only to see all of them die. The infamous Darth Vader scenes and the design with the huge hints at the classic movies were no consolation. Nostalgia does not make me happy. Heart does. Rogue One, the sequels and The Mandalorian were all, in the end, deprived of all human feeling except loss and regret and many, many thoughts about what might have been. 

The Mandalorian was an excellent story on its own. It did not need Luke Skywalker. It is and ought to be Din Djarin’s story, who lost or gave up everything because he was afraid to lose the child: and now he did. It’s not comforting that he lost him to the alleged Good Guy. Luke of course won’t turn a hair on Grogu’s head, but he can’t offer him a home, we already know that. Ahsoka saw the attachment between the two and she knows the dangers of it; Luke does not know what drove his father to his terrible fate. If the sequels remain canon, then we already know that Luke will not allow his pupils having and keeping healthy attachments. And that does not promise well for the child’s future.

Unless the studios commit the madness of officially erasing the sequels and starting the saga anew, we can only hope that the child will not stay with Luke for long since it’s a good five years before he will start his own Jedi temple. Maybe he will die of a broken heart, poor little guy. And Din Djarin might become the new ruler of Mandalore, though sad and alone. But who cares: Luke is back. Please: I did not subscribe to Disney+ wanting to see Schwarzenegger movies. The lonesome hero can ride into the sunset for all I care, out of sight and of mind. Star Wars’ greatest strength always was its heart. 

My own take was that Grogu is meant to be a healer, and since Luke is not, there is no way he can teach him this particular skill in the Force. Anakin was a pilot and a mechanic, Luke and Ben also were pilots. None of them were Jedi by choice. Grogu is older than Luke and he was already trained at the old Jedi temple: he’s more likely to be a teacher to Luke than the other way around. Grogu as the first Force-user who values attachment and family over power and Jedi training, that would indeed have been a new hope. This backpedaling is shallow and useless. Even if Luke sends Grogu back to Din Djarin, this won’t teach him not to take a child away from its home, since only a few years later he will do the same thing to his nephew. (Although it would admittedly be an interesting plot point to see a small Ben Solo interacting with Grogu for a while.) 

Please give us back The Mandalorian the way it was, with its characters and dynamics. The themes and messages of The Last Jedi already were almost all aborted in The Rise of Skywalker; we didn’t sign up on Disney+ to see the exact same thing happen with The Mandalorian. I for my part am fed up with this kind of love bombing followed by a quick and coldblooded let-down. Star Wars may be a cult, but it need not be the kind of cult where you get hooked and then unwittingly follow a carrot hanging before your eyes. I thought the exaggerated Jedi cult was mostly made by the fans: the studios did not need to jump on this ship. This is not the Way. 

Now everything I feared is flaring up again - fans jubilating because “the Jedi are taking matters in hand” instead of accepting the failure of the Jedi mindset at last; and even insisting that since things are going so well, all Disney needs to do is to cancel the sequels from canon and everybody can be happy again. 

Please, please, give this tormented galaxy a chance to heal at last. We don’t need Luke Skywalker to save the day by killing all the bad guys. We don’t need the oh-so-powerful and perfect Jedi. We need faith in the Force. We need a home. Don’t take it away from us again. Thank you.

 P.S. If we see Luke again in Season 3, at least give the role to a live actor. That digital “rejuvenation” made him look wooden. Luke’s best trait, apart from his compassion, always was his smile.

P.P.S. What’s with Boba Fett claiming Jabba’s throne? I thought Jabba had a son. What in the galaxy happened to him?

P.P.P.S. I don’t mind kickass women, but honestly, I’m getting somehow tired of them. What became of the ladies of Star Wars, the diplomats, the good queens, the loving mothers, the accurate librarians, who contribute to the galaxy without killing (or hurting) anyone? I’m feeling kind of underrepresented here...

[wazafam]

When Episode 7 of The Mandalorian was released early, savvy fans sensed a disturbance in the Force, as though it had something to do with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker hitting theaters. Grogu debuted a unique Force power that would later be seen in the Skywalker saga's capstone movie, inextricably tying the two epic pieces of the Star Wars franchise together forever.

RELATED: Stars Wars: 10 Things That Led To The Rise Of Skywalker  

Just how much else of the Disney+ flagship series has made it into the movie so far? It turns out there are bits and pieces everywhere, because Jon Favreau, David Filoni, and the rest of the Lucasfilm Story Group have been hard at work connecting it to every aspect of the Star Wars Universe, including the Sequel Trilogy. By being set decades before The Rise of Skywalker, The Mandalorian has been able to lay a steady stream of breadcrumbs that lead up to its exciting finale.

10 Force Healing

One of the most significant Force abilities Grogu has shown in The Mandalorian is to help heal others, such as when he applied it to Greef Karga's wound and saved his life. Its streaming debut coincided with the release of The Rise of Skywalker, not only making it canon but giving the series and the movie a strong connection.

While Force healing has existed for some time in Star Wars Legends, it's a power that's only been seen so far in media produced for the Star Wars Universe by Disney. The characters who can perform it so far have been Grogu, Rey, and Ben Solo.

9 Red Five

Star Wars fans rejoiced when they saw a familiar X-wing appear in the Season 2 finale of The Mandalorian. There was only one person flying Red Five at that time, and he happened to have a green lightsaber, a black gloved hand, and a boyish haircut. That's right - franchise veteran and hero Luke Skywalker had come to save the day and train Grogu.

RELATED: Star Wars: 10 Things You Never Knew About X-Wings

His famous starfighter would make another appearance decades later in The Rise of Skywalker, when just like in the swamps of Dagobah, Luke's X-wing was at the bottom of the sea off Ahch-To. This time, he could lift it out himself, which he did in order to provide Rey a means to travel to Exegol and defeat the Emperor once and for all.

8 Using Force Sensitive Individuals For Palpatine's Regeneration

In the very beginning of the series, The Client seeks out Grogu for his Force sensitivity, looking to extract part of his DNA to use in some mysterious experiment. Moff Gideon's aim is very much the same, and in Season 2 he succeeds where the Imperial loyalist failed, acquiring some of Grogu's DNA for some nefarious ends, which some fans believe may be to help in Emperor Palpatine's regeneration.

The Sequel Trilogy already showed the First Order -itself an evolution of the Imperial Remnant- abducting Force sensitive individuals (like Finn) to fill its ranks. Finn leads a ground assault against a Star Destroyer because he has a "feeling", and his Force sensitivity helps him strike a decisive blow against the Final Order fleet.

7 Snoke And Palpatine's Transference of Consciousness

In exchange for repairs on Nevarro, Mando agrees to infiltrate an Imperial facility with Cara Dune and Greef Karga, but what's supposed to be an old outpost is secretly a science facility. What they encounter makes it no stretch of the imagination to think the experiments at the facility tie into the events of The Rise of Skywalker. 

They come across a recording of Dr. Pershing, who mentions requiring a blood donor who has a "high M count," a reference to midichlorians, the microscopic life forms existing in all living cells that help facilitate communication with the Force. That reference, when combined with the sight of several cloning-like vats, indicate this could be where bodies were grown for Palpatine to inhabit or control, like Supreme Leader Snoke.

6 Genetic Engineering And Cloning

When first interacting with Kuiil, Mando learns the Ugnaught had something to do with genetic engineering when he uses the word "strandcast" to describe Grogu. The way Kuiil explains it, Grogu is "too ugly" to be a strandcast, but the use of the new term in the Star Wars franchise does point towards the Imperials' continued use of cloning going all the way back to the days of the Clone Wars.

RELATED: The Mandalorian: 10 Best Background and Secondary Characters, Ranked

In The Rise of Skywalker, Palpatine has returned through an inventive use of cloning, though not for his own body per se. He's created various vessels for his consciousness to inhabit. Fans are specifically made aware Snoke was a clone because of the amount of unused Snoke clones bobbing in vats on Exegol.

5 Yellow Blaster Bolts

There have been a variety of blaster bolts used in the franchise, with the most common colors being red and green, their hue giving the ability to distinguish friend from foe. In the second season of The Mandalorian while on the planet Trask, Bo-Katan and Koska Reeves and her crew use yellow bolts, which seem to be both unique and rare.

While seeking the Sith wayfinder on Mustafar, Kylo Ren fights through throngs of pilgrims protecting Darth Vader's castle, and the First Order infantry behind him fires yellow blaster bolts, perhaps indicating that 30 years after The Mandalorian such a hue is plentiful.

4 Blue Butterflies And Ben Solo

When Grogu and Din Djarin head to Tython, it's with the hope the tiny Force user will be able to use the seeing stone to send a signal to any remaining Jedi in the galaxy. While Grogu sits on the stone and appears to go into a trance-like state of meditation, blue butterflies begin to encircle him. It's possible he's being reached out to by a very important Force adept.

The Rise of Skyualker introduces fans to Ben Solo after Kylo Ren casts off his Sith identity and embraces the light side. The movie may be the only time Ben appears on screen, but in a special episode of Star Wars Roll Out for the official Star Wars Kids Youtube Channel, Ben Solo is surrounded by blue butterflies. It's possible that at 4 or 5 years old, Ben Solo was communicating with Grogu across space and time, much like he did with Rey.

3 Galactic Laws And Droid Reprogramming

During Mando's time with Kuiil, the inventive scavenger is busy rewiring IG-11, a dangerous assassin droid he feels will make a perfect domestic, capable of keeping Grogu safe. He's able to reprogram IG-11's basic functions "under the charter of the New Republic," implying the new governing body needed to rewrite some of the galactic laws after the fall of the Empire.

RELATED: The Mandalorian: 10 Droids Seen Throughout The Series

There was already precedent for governments dictating droid programming. In The Rise of Skywalker, C-3PO's memory has to be given a reset in order to get him to be able to speak the language of the Sith. When the Empire was first created, Palpatine mandated no droids would be allowed to speak the ancient tongue, and their programming was changed accordingly.

2  Rey's Hairstyle

In the Season 2 episode "The Siege", which finds Mando an Grogu reuniting with their old friends Greef Karga and Cara Dune on Nevarro, Grogu is sent to spend time with some children at a school while Mando takes a side job in exchange for repairs to his ship.

As Grogu settles into the lesson, the humans around him react in various levels of maturity to the newest and greenest addition to their class. One little girl who's sitting behind him wears her hair in the same three-bun updo Rey sports for The Rise of Skywalker, a look she hadn't worn since The Force Awakens. 

1 Mandalorian Ships To The Rescue

Though fans might have to wait until Season 3 to see the Mandalorian's homeworld, they've been getting pieces of Mandalorian history from various characters in the series, such as the Armorer, Bo-Katan, Moff Gideon, and of course, Din Djarin himself.

Though the Mandalorians and the Republic/Jedi have a history of bloodshed between them, when Lando Calrissian has to drum up Resistance allies to battle the Final Order, Mandalorians answer the call. As can be seen in several shots, a Mandalorian Fang Fighter is among the thousands of ships that come to the aid of Poe Dameron and the Resistance fleet.

NEXT: The Rise Of Skywalker: Ways To Interpret "Rey Skywalker" (& Possible Meanings Of The Gold Lightsaber)

The Mandalorian: 10 Connections Between The Disney+ Series And The Rise Of Skywalker from https://ift.tt/3r4YbCk

[burnwater13]

“The kid’s coming with me.”

Grogu remembered his dad saying that. It was a statement of fact and of bravado. Greef Karga was the head of the bounty hunters guild an Nevarro and he intended on using every asset under his control to do the Client’s bidding.  It had been a pretty risky statement, all things considered. 

That is, until the other Mandalorians came out of the covert to help them out. Grogu had been surprised and gratified to see that happen. He knew they weren’t doing that for him. Not directly. They were helping Din Djarin out because he was one of them. It seemed to be part of their Creed. 

Also part of their Creed was saying ‘The kid’s coming with me’ when Din wanted to shop for armor polish, when he wanted to wash the N-1 because even a spec of dirt required a wash, wax, and polish, and when he wanted to pick up rations at the Bounty Hunters-R-Us near Nevarro, same sector, one system trailing. Grogu did not get the same warm fuzzy feeling then. It’s not that he didn’t like going places with his dad. He did! He loved it! Really.

He just wanted Din Djarin to reach out a little and find other places to take him and, let’s be clear about this, the school on Nevarro did not count, even with the cookies and the lessons on how to be a smuggler. Nope. Grogu wanted to go places like named ‘Frogs R-Us’ where you could find everything you might possibly need to start up a colony of frogs and had hundreds if not thousands of species to choose from so you could avoid the smart ones and only raise the tasty ones. 

Or the ‘Everything but Chocolate’, a candy shop that has every imaginable kind and flavor of sweets, but none of them taste like chocolate. It’s not that chocolate wasn’t tasty. It was that Grogu didn’t like chocolate. At all. Ever. So an ideal candy shop would have an environment that actively prevented the Mandalorian, who had a real sweet tooth for chocolate, from only buying chocolate flavored sweets. Then maybe, just maybe, Grogu would be able to score a little tin of sweet berry lozenges. 

Or how about taking Grogu to the next Diggle and Daggle film festival, ‘Fishing for the Fish who fish’? Grogu knew the Mandalorian liked watching their vids. It was hard not to. They were both fun loving and cheerful, traveled the galaxy to bring you knowledge about fishing conditions literally everywhere (don’t bother with the lava eels of Mustafar, too big and too hot), and knew everything about lures, bait, rods, reels, creels, and well everything that had to do with fishing, including preparing them for meals. Watching them was pure joy and inspiration and Grogu thought the Mandalorian could use some more of that in his life. Grogu sure could. 

Or how about taking Grogu to Concordia so he could meet the Mandos who helped train Din Djarin? That could be pretty interesting, if they were still there. Grogu could show them all the stuff that he’d learned from his Mandalorian. Grogu was sure that they would be proud of Din Djarin. They’d like his shiny armor. They’d laugh about the Darksaber together. Maybe they’d even teach him a new song or something like that. That was a lot better than shopping for the perfect armor polish, although, come to think of it, these were probably the people who had taught the Mandalorian to be so fussy over that stuff to begin with… 

Okay, so they didn’t need to go to Concordia. What about Aq Vetina? Grogu knew it might be hard for his dad to go back to his home planet. He might miss everyone even more if he did that, but Grogu really wanted to see what it was like. Was it green and lush? Was it a dry, dusty desert? Was the town still there or had the separatists destroyed it completely? And if they had, did anyone go back and rebuild it? 

If the ‘kid’ was going to go some place with his dad, he didn’t just want to go places that meant something to the Jedi or the Imps, or even other Mandos. He wanted to go some place that was meaning for to his dad. He wanted to build a new memory there that they could both enjoy. After all, Din Djarin had been doing that since he met Grogu on Arvala-7, although they hadn’t made a trip to Coruscant yet.

Okay. Maybe that was the place the Mandalorian needed to take the ‘kid’. Coruscant. They could visit the Jedi temple, what little remained of it. See the life tree.Visit the library because no one would dare pinch his cheeks with a Mandalorian in full armor by his side. Spit in the Emperor’s throne room. Yes, Grogu was pretty bitter about how that went down, but nothing like a little water to start washing away the dirt and stains of the past. Then they could plant a seed in the old arboretum and hope something good would grow there that they could visit from time to time. 

Then one day Grogu would tell his dad, “The kid’s coming with me. Do you want to join us?” 

[cherryblossomshadow]

uwusul Breaking the cycle of intergenerational Jedi trauma so you can start a new, worse cycle

yenfers I feel like we don't talk enough about the fact that Luke should be allowed to make a mistake on that one. Imagine having the inheritance of a whole lost "religion" on your shoulders. Ofc he's gonna embrace some of the stuff he was personally not okay with because he does not feel entitled to change THE WHOLE THING for the sake of himself. Reminder that Luke is supposed to fail at restoring the Jedi Order yknow... It's clear that Grogu contradicts the original Jedi beliefs (just like Anakin and Luke and... literally everyone with feelings) and we can see that Luke is struggling between what SHOULD be and what IS. Experiencing it yourself is one thing, perpetuating it as a new way even tho it's been done and written a certain way for centuries is kinda harder... Sadly, evolution takes time

jackhawksmoor Ok but consider this: second season of the mandalorian reversed: now Luke has to find the Mandalorian so he can return Grogu

angelbenisharkbait-bite I’m so mad. They were the perfect duo to start a new Jedi order with healthy personal attachments fuuuuuuckkkk

trashiest-of-cans Attachment is supposed to equate to possessiveness I guess to the Jedi. Hence, Anakin’s attachment to Padme leading to him disregarding her own well-being and agency to make her join him. It’s seeing something/one as wholly yours, that’s terrible. But both Luke and Ahsoka have “broken” the attachment rule already. Like, Luke’s lack of faith of his friends made him fall into Vader’s hands in Bespin. But he ALREADY learned his lesson by Endor, trusting that the Alliance can destroy Death Star 2 on their own. Not to mention the whole, redeeming his father thing, but idk. The point is, Luke isn’t about meddling in other’s affairs because he seeks it fit. He’s defo not that possessive. Ultimately, I’m just sad that Disney writers want to make Republic Jedi Order Redux with the sequels. There was a legitimate opportunity to make a new reformed Jedi Order, and I’m sure audiences would love to see that. But, unfortunately the writers have to build to the ST where we learn that no one learns from their mistakes.

Great points!

Luke and Ahsoka who both already broke the attachment rule and made their own way as a Jedi: Lol fuck you Grogu, its either being a space wizard or your Dad

[burnwater13]

Concept art by Brian Matyas, depicting the meeting of Ahsoka Tano and Grogu on Corvus with the Mandalorian looking on the side. Image from The Mandalorian, Season 2, Episode 5, The Jedi.

What could Grogu say about Ahsoka Tano that he hadn’t already said? Amazing Force worker. Snappy dresser. Fascinating person. Not a Jedi? Well, she had said that herself, but Grogu had his doubts about that. Just because you leave the Jedi doesn't mean the Jedi leaves you. He should know. He was and wasn’t a Jedi. It was complicated.

In his case it was complicated because he’d only been Master Beq’s padawan for a very short period of time. And most of the lessons they learned together were about avoiding the Inquisitors, the Sith, and the Imps. He’d never searched for a kyber crystal on Ilum, let alone built his own lightsaber. His hair wasn’t long enough to make a padawan braid. And he didn’t have a belt to give some style and flair to his coverall. You couldn’t really be a Jedi without going through that right of passage. 

On the other hand, he knew everything there was to know about the Force. He had absorbed every lesson he’d ever managed to sit all the way through. No one was better at meditating than he was. He had practiced and practiced and practiced until he could simply think of what he wanted and then floated silently, smoothy, effortlessly up into the air to collect the cookie container from the highest shelves anyone ever put it on to keep it from him. That was how Jedi did things. They were focused. Resolved. Relentless. 

Maybe that was the problem that Asoka Tano was dealing with now? She hadn’t been relentless. And she’d been distracted. Resolved? Nope. Can’t do that when you’re distracted. He didn’t blame her for that. How could he? You find out that your master, the person who trained you, taught you, shaped and molded your every thought related to the Force, the Jedi, and the galaxy at large, turns out to be some Sith’s apprentice! That’s gotta leave a mark! 

Grogu was amazed that she was even able to recognize another Force worker, let alone wield two light sabers and try to keep his dad from being, you know, his dad. Maybe that was the problem too. 

A Jedi wasn’t supposed to attack first and ask questions later. Just the opposite really. Ahsoka must have thought that Din Djarin was the enemy, but why think that? She had met Mandalorians before. She had to have. Bo-Katan Kryze, who was definitely a Mandalorian, had told them where to find Ahsoka Tano. If they knew each other than Ahsoka couldn’t be suffering from ‘all Mandalorians are bad’ syndrome, like so many other Jedi had suffered and had made Mandalorians suffer. That was a strong point in favor of her judgment being compromised because of that whole Jedi Master/Sith Apprentice thing.

Now, why did any of that matter? Why care that Ahsoka Tano wasn’t quite in the perfect headspace to work with him and his dad? It was a good question and Grogu wasn’t sure that he had a good answer. 

He’d spent a lot of time without anyone in his life who had known anything about the Jedi Temple, the other Jedi masters, the other Jedi knights, the whole process of going from youngling to padawan to knight. He missed a lot of people and wished that he had been able to do more to help prevent the disaster that had befallen them all. It was deep in his past, but the pain was easy to access and that was a big problem.  Meeting someone who had to have felt that same pain so closely, and yet, had been so far away when it all happened, was just a new twist in the story. A twist that Grogu didn’t need, want, or desire and he certainly hadn’t been prepared for any of it. 

Now there they were. In the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, having a perfectly middle of the road discussion about him. Who was he? Why was he with a Mandalorian? Did he know who he looked like? Blah, blah, blah. What he really wanted from this former member of the Jedi was a hug and an apology. In that order. To just be held by someone who had once looked at Master Kenobi, who had taken lessons from Master Yoda, who had cringed when Master Windu raised his voice… that was a set of connections that could never be duplicated by anyone who hadn’t been at the temple at that time. That is what connected him to Ahsoka Tano, whether she realized that or not. 

He wondered what she wanted from him. Did she want a hug? He’d be happy to give her one. Did she want an apology for all the things that had happened to her that no one had recognized other than Grogu, but he hadn’t been listened to or even noticed? He’d be happy to do that as well. Did she just need a friend who remembered the same people she remembered the same way she remembered them? Well, there’s the rub. He didn’t remember much about Anakin Skywalker and the little he did remember wasn’t really all that pleasant and he wasn’t even talking about the whole Sith Apprentice thing. 

Nope. He and Anakin were the same age. But he was a human, more or less, and Grogu was not. The differences between them couldn't have been more startling. One of them just floats around the Jedi temple like dust particle getting blown around by the ventilation system and the other runs everywhere, all the time. One is tall and able to reach the jar of cookies on the top shelf of the kitchen storage room and the other one has to climb it all like a mountain because he’s been forbidden to use the Force to help. One of them broke everyone’s heart and the other couldn’t heal them fast enough to make a difference. 

He supposed that he and Ahsoka Tano would just have to agree to disagree. Neither of them were Jedi, even though they had both been raised by them. Neither of them were masters, but they had taught other people many lessons. One of them thought attachments were problematic because of the one she had for a person who was problematic. The other one, well he had a Mandalorian father now and there was no problem there. Mandalorians revered their duties as parents and protected their younglings no matter what. Grogu wasn’t going to leave his dad anymore than Ahsoka Tano was going to leave the galaxy. That’s just the way things were and Grogu was glad of that. 

He just had to hope that the Force was with him. It was. Of course it was. Why wouldn’t it be?

[burnwater13]

From The Mandalorian A Day Calendar 2023

Din Djarin holding Grogu, while Ahsoka Tano holds Grogu's hand. Depicted as occurring on the ramp of the Razor Crest.

Grogu wondered if Ahsoka Tano ever regretted not agreeing to be his master? Did she realize what she was giving up? Or did she just understand, all too well, what she was and wasn’t capable of doing? If he had been a betting person, he would have bet on that last part. 

It was so easy to know what you couldn’t do. You didn’t have a skill, or knowledge, or experience and that pretty much instructed you. Grogu couldn’t cook. He knew he couldn’t cook. He didn’t understand the process. He’d never tried to do it. He’d never asked anyone, including the Mandalorian, to show him how to do it. Therefore, he wasn’t surprised that he couldn’t cook. Easy peasy, right?

But not knowing how to do something you’ve never done and had no knowledge of how to do wasn’t the same as not being capable of doing something. Grogu knew that he was capable of learning how to cook. He was really very incentivized to learn. He loved food and his dad didn’t like cooking. 

Was that why Ahsoka said no? No, not that she also didn’t like cooking, although that was a pretty big draw back. No. That she didn’t like being a master. A Jedi master. Grogu knew that being a master wasn’t all fun and games. He and the other younglings had given the masters at the Jedi Temple a lot to learn over the years that he had been there. 

Ian had taught them all that patience was a virtue that was hard to come by when he’d found out that there was an ancient Sith Temple in the bowls of the facility on Coruscant and he began digging a tunnel to find it. It took them weeks to figure out where all that dirt and all those pebbles were coming from.

Grogu had taught them to be mindful of their words and actions because he was so small compared to the other younglings that they often didn’t notice him sitting someplace quietly meditating when they sat down and almost squashed him or began complaining that the food in the dinning hall had changed and not for the better. 

Master Drallig had commented more than once that he could not train Grogu on the finer techniques of lightsaber use because he didn’t have beskar shin guards. And Master Windu had expressed, rather colorfully, that Ian was the last youngling he would have ever selected for training as a padawan. It wasn’t that Ian wasn’t capable, but Master Windu was not amused that he had to start every lesson with the younglings by demanding that Ian return his lightsaber and the kyber crystal from it. 

After a while of that happening, Master Windu had told Master Yoda that he wasn’t going to train the younglings until either he or Ian left the Order. Master Yoda had told him to be careful saying things like that because the Force was always listening. But it hadn’t been the Force. It had been Grogu. 

Ian had laughed when Grogu reported that exchange and said he was definitely leaving the Temple before Master Windu, but he wasn’t leaving until he had a full complement of kyber crystals. Grogu didn’t ask him what he was going to do with them. He didn’t really want to know.

And that was really his point. Not knowing a thing was the perfect reason to not do it. Ahsoka didn’t know how to train to a Jedi. That was fine. Grogu had already been trained by a phalanx of Jedi. He didn’t need that either. What he had needed was a friend and a companion and someone who found it funny when he burped. The Mandalorian got top marks for all of that.

But what if she really just didn’t want to learn how to train a youngling? The Jedi Order didn’t exist anymore. There weren’t any temples. There weren’t any other Jedi, at least that Grogu knew of. There weren’t any masters left, unless you counted the holocrons and since Grogu had no idea where any of them were, he doubted that they would be of much help to Ahsoka in any case. Was she afraid that she couldn’t figure it out? Or was she afraid that she’d mess it up?

Grogu had worried about not doing things perfectly the first time he tried something because of Master Yoda and all that ‘Do or do not, there is no try’ nonsense. But Master Beq had explained to him that what Master Yoda had really meant was that one should be focused on the work at hand and do it to the best of the ability that they had at that moment. They wouldn’t know what that ability was until they tested themselves and tests were not failures, they were tests. 

So Grogu tested the Force a lot as a youngling. Sure, sometimes the fish bowl was dropped before he could get the fish out, but that test had an unexpected variable of the librarian complaining at him that there was no eating in the library. He got better at those tests and then accepted that he had developed the skill of lifting a critter up and out of almost any type of container they were held in, regardless of size. That had come in very handy over the years. Just ask the Mandalorian.

It had struck Grogu that someone like Ahsoka Tano had probably tested the Force a lot when she was a youngling. She must have worked out that it took time and effort and focus to learn a new a thing. A lot of time had passed since the fall of the Jedi Order. What had she been doing? Hiding like he had? Fighting with the rebels? Or something else?

Considering how obsessed she was about the Magistrate and some guy named Thrawn, Grogu supposed that what she had learned was very different from what he had learned in that time. Grogu had learned that having a family made all the difference. It gave his life purpose. He wondered what gave her life purpose? He was pretty sure it wasn’t cooking…

Image from The Mandalorian, Season 2, Episode 5, The Jedi

Din Djarin holds Grogu on Corvus while Ahsoka Tano holds Grogu's hand.

Caption reads: You will find the ancient ruins of a temple