Although he’s been termed “Baby Yoda” by the Internet, the adorable Force user that has joined The Mandalorian’s titular bounty hunter on his adventures is called “the Child.” Based on the lack of merch, Disney clearly underestimated this character – but it didn’t underestimate the show as a whole. The Mouse House has confirmed that The Mandalorian will be returning for a second season, as the studio had so much faith in the series that season 2 had already been in production before season 1 premiered.
There are surely plenty more iconic moments involving this character to come in the show’s future, so here are The Child’s 10 Greatest Moments (So Far), Ranked.
“They said 50 years old.” (Chapter 1: The Mandalorian)
At the end of The Mandalorian’s first episode, Mando and IG-11 make it through legions of ex-Stormtroopers to reach “the asset.” However, they find that he’s a small baby. Confused, the Mandalorian says, “They said 50 years old.” The moment that introduced the world to the Child – or, “Baby Yoda” – also contained this interesting little nugget of exposition.
Mando’s target is a baby from Yoda’s species, and he’s 50 years old. IG-11, unencumbered by emotion, said that the Client wants “the asset” to be terminated, so he draws his blaster to shoot the baby dead. At the last second, the Mandalorian saves the Child and takes him under his wing.
Meeting actual “Baby Yoda” fans (Chapter 4: Sanctuary)
Disney executives may not have anticipated the success of “Baby Yoda,” but the show itself certainly did. Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni, the masterminds behind the series, always knew the effect that this character would have.
In the fourth episode, the Mandalorian and the Child arrive at a village that needs their help, and the latter is promptly swarmed by eager children who think he’s the most adorable thing in the world and just want to watch him do cute things. Sound familiar? In-universe, the Child is faced with the same kind of ravenous fans he faces in the real world.
Getting punched by, and later saved from, a Scout Trooper (Chapter 8: Redemption)
In the season 1 finale of The Mandalorian, the unthinkable happens: the Child is put in harm’s way. After Kuiil fails to protect him from the bad guys, he’s abducted by a couple of Scout Troopers on speeder bikes. When the Child makes a peep from the bag where the Scout Troopers are holding him, one of them punches him in the face.
He may be 50 years old, but he’s also the smallest, most delicate being in the galaxy. Fans have turned on We’re the Millers star Jason Sudeikis since it was revealed that he played the Scout Trooper who committed the heinous act.
Force-healing Greef Karga (Chapter 7: The Reckoning)
The concept of Force-healing became a widely known part of the Star Wars universe after it was used as a major plot point in The Rise of Skywalker. But this curious new ability actually became canon a few days before The Rise of Skywalker’s release, in the seventh episode of The Mandalorian.
Greef Karga suffers a fatal wound in battle, and the Child boldly steps forward to heal it completely with the Force. Eagle-eyed re-watchers will also notice that the Child tried to Force-heal the Mandalorian in an earlier episode, but he was put back in his floating crib before he could actually do it.
“Are you hiding from us?” (Chapter 5: The Gunslinger)
It was great to see Amy Sedaris in The Mandalorian’s fifth installment, buried under a bunch of prosthetics and makeup. She played Peli Motto, a ship mechanic who gave the Mandalorian a helping hand on Tatooine. Motto instantly took a liking to the Child, feeling a connection with him, and took every opportunity to pick him up and give him a cuddle.
In the episode’s final moments, the Child is almost abducted by a rival named Calican, but he manages to hide himself away just in time. Motto finds him amongst her tech and jokes, “Are you hiding from us?”
Eating soup and watching Mando fight Cara Dune (Chapter 4: Sanctuary)
When he and the Child arrive at an intergalactic soup restaurant in “Chapter 4: Sanctuary,” the Mandalorian is instantly suspicious of Cara Dune, who he sees sitting at a corner table. The next time he goes to check in on her, she’s gone.
As he follows her out into the back, Mando gets into a brutal fight with Cara. They’re not actually trying to kill each other, but rather trying to prove who’s the strongest mercenary. Before joining Mando’s trade, Cara fought for the Rebel Alliance in the Galactic Civil War. Midway through the fight, they find that the Child is eating soup and watching the skirmish intently.
Using the Force the stop a mudhorn in mid-air (Chapter 2: The Child)
Despite his small size, the Child is an incredibly powerful Force user. He first showed this off in the second episode of The Mandalorian. Mando heads into a cave where he is promptly attacked by a mudhorn, who sends him flying out of the cave. Although the Mandalorian has the gadgets to take down the mudhorn, the mudhorn keeps ravaging his armor and preventing him from using them.
At the peak of his one-sided fight with the mudhorn, the Child intervenes with the Force, holding the mudhorn in mid-air. This is similar to how Rey would stop a ship in mid-air a few weeks later in The Rise of Skywalker.
Getting confused by an arm-wrestling match and Force-choking Cara Dune (Chapter 7: The Reckoning)
In perhaps The Mandalorian’s darkest moment, the Child begins to Force-choke Cara Dune. She’s in the middle of an arm-wrestling match with Mando and the Child gets confused, thinking that Cara is attacking his newfound father figure. So, he stops her with the Force, choking her the same way that Darth Vader used to choke insubordinate Imperial officers during the reign of the Empire.
Mando jumps in and tells the Child that Cara is his friend and he’s not in any danger, and the Child lets her go. The heartbreaking thing is that the Child doesn’t really understand what he did wrong.
“Do the magic hand thing.” (Chapter 8: Redemption)
Set a few years after Return of the Jedi, The Mandalorian finds its characters in a post-war world, reeling from the long-time tyrannical rule of an evil empire. A couple of decades later, in The Force Awakens, young people like Rey and Finn consider the Force to be a mythical legend, not a reality.
If underworld figures like Greef Karga, living on the fringes of the galaxy outside the New Republic’s authority, can’t even identify the Force when they see it – instead calling it “the magic hand thing” – then it checks out that 30 years down the line, it would be an ancient legend.
Stealing the Mandalorian’s gearstick knob (Chapter 3: The Sin)
This is the moment that first endeared fans to the Child as a character. He was universally adored from the second he reared his little green head, but he didn’t truly become a character until he unscrewed the Mandalorian’s gearstick knob to play with.
It’s particularly powerful because it’s what ends up saving the Child’s life. Mando turns him in to the Client and then returns to his ship, but when he sees the knob missing, he remembers how much he’s come to care about his infant companion, so he reluctantly turns back to break the code and save his little friend.