Season 2 of The Mandalorian may have just set up an incredibly dark future for Baby Yoda in chapter 13, “The Jedi”. The episode looked into the Child’s past, establishing his real name and the harrowing backstory details of the impact of his past trauma and that he survived the Jedi cull of Order 66 thanks to someone hiding him. There are still significant questions on that front, but the newly-named Grogu’s mid-term future may also have been addressed thanks to Ahsoka Tano’s tip for Din Djarin’s next mission.
“The Jedi” brought the Jedi Order into The Mandalorian in the most tangible way yet with the debut of Rosario Dawson’s Ahsoka Tano who connected with the Child telepathically, discovering the previously unrevealed details about his past. And while Ahsoka turned down the opportunity to train Grogu, partly because of how his experiences had twisted him towards the path of fear and anger, she did offer Din a pathway to him being trained properly. Given Ahsoka’s own focus will take her on another path – towards conflict with Rebels villain Grand Admiral Thrawn, specifically – her removal from the Child’s story makes sense, and possibly passing him on to another Jedi opens up further opportunities for The Mandalorian to close to gap on established Star Wars stories.
Unfortunately, when Ahsoka tells Din about the “seeing stone” situated on Tython that can potentially lead Grogu to a more suitable Jedi teacher (should he choose that path himself), she may be setting the Child up for a deadly encounter. As Ahsoka sagely says, the Jedi are few and far between and Baby Yoda’s call through the Force can only be answered by a limited number of people. Given the fact that Luke Skywalker is assumed to be hunting Jedi relics and potential recruits during The Mandalorian, it would be plausible that he could be the one to answer. And in that case, Baby Yoda’s story would end in tragedy as part of Ben Solo’s transition into Kylo Ren and the destruction of Luke’s Jedi temple.
The decision to send Din Djarin and the Child to Tython – the speculated site of the very first Jedi temple – feels particularly loaded given the timeline. At this stage in the wider Star Wars timeline, Luke is on a path to rebuild the Jedi and is a few years short of recruiting his nephew Ben Solo as the arrowhead of his new generation of Jedi apprentices. His obsessive hunt for those relics would reasonably take in temple sites and the Martyrium of Frozen Tears (presumably the “seeing stone” mentioned) has to be on his list. But even if Luke doesn’t make it to Tython himself, Baby Yoda communicating through the Force would presumably set off some sort of alarm for a Jedi seeking to build something positive out of the embers of the Empire. And Luke would be more likely to take on the challenge of Baby Yoda’s teaching, especially given the parallel between Grogu’s traumatic past and his own.
Unfortunately, the idea of Baby Yoda’s future being tragic is a difficult one to shake. While The Mandalorian has just explained Grogu’s absence around the time of Order 66 and in its aftermath as a conscious attempt to hide him and keep him safe, the character’s whereabouts into the time of the sequels is unknown again. That can’t simply be a case of him being in hiding again, because it’s too convenient a repetition and while it’s possible Baby Yoda turns his back on the Force entirely, a tragic end is almost more fitting. Even if it doesn’t happen, the key point is that The Mandalorian is positioning its story to make the Child’s death in the Jedi temple fire a legitimate possibility.
Originally from https://screenrant.com/mandalorian-baby-yoda-future-dark-jedi-kylo-ren/