Star Wars: The Mandalorian (Spoilers)

Seconded. Names are based in language and culture. Contrary to what we routinely see in Trek, there's no particular reason why a species (or even for that matter, a culture) is confined to a naming style.

Yes, but reality and fiction are two different things. When you're trying to build a fictional world, you want the reader/viewer to buy into it, and an engineered consistency helps.

Yes, there could be Vulcans named Fred and Klingons named Rapunzel for whatever reason you can imagine, but it helps the fictional race seem more real if they're called Spraan and Kreeg.

Which means that the race seems more realistic if it has less realistic features. Of course, the opposite would be true if we'd just admit we'r talking about culture, not race, and what more obvious place to find the difference than in a foundling or orphan?

Yes. Perhaps paradoxical, but yes. Consistency of names better ensures acceptance in the audience's minds. Fiction--even that based in true events--inevitably involves simplifications that facilitate the audience's understanding.

Unless you *want* the audience to wonder, it's better to name Lorg's brother Barg than Aloisius Vanderbilt XVI. That's not to say you can't do that, but it immediately raises a question in the minds of the viewers if you do.

You could find it there, but unless the writers plan on exploring and developing an explanatory backstory, it's better to give the child a name that sounds like it could come from the same culture as Yoda.

Which is what they did.

To put it another way, if you were writing a drama about an Indian family, it's better to name Prahid's father Suresh, rather than Jean-Baptiste...unless you plan on explaining how that came about.

Not at all paradoxical. Race isn't real; culture is. A dragon pretty much has to have scales and wings and breathe fire if we are to recognize it immediately. Real things can vary.

My favorite piece of fiction over the last decade or so has been Game Of Thrones. In that show, it took place over 2 continents and several different cultures.. and it was brilliant. We had people with names like Tyrion Lannister and Rob Stark as well as Xaro Xon Doxus (sp?) and Salidor Saan (sp?). It made it feel more real to me. I know this was a different type of fiction with only 1 world but it would be great if we could get that type of detail from a work of fiction again.

I don't mind that The Child is to known as Grogu from now on, but there's a part of me that appreciated the mystery around him and his origins. There's still alot we don't know, so there's that.

Depends on your definition of race. I'd say where it comes to aliens, they are most definitely a different race. And while a race may have many cultures, it's a bad idea for the writer to complicate the story with that idea unless it's important to the story.

EXACTLY. To recognize a creature as a dragon, we need certain CONVENTIONAL attributes. One could write about a hairy, wingless, non-fire-breathing dragon--why can't such exist in a fictional world?--but then it's no longer going to "read" as a dragon unless the story explains it.

Again, not talking about reality. I'm talking about conventions that facilitate audience acceptance of an idea.

In the hypothetical Indian family I mentioned above, the father can be named Jean-Baptiste--that's certainly not an impossibility--but unless that somehow figures into the story, the writer would be unwise to do that. It invites the reader to ask a question that's irrelevant and that never gets answered. It's a violation of Chekhov's Gun rule, only with names.

Star Wars has always had some weird names. Especially in the prequel era. General Grievous and Count Dooku still sound dumb.

Grogu is probably one of the better sounding ones. It reminds me of Gurgi from the Prydain Chronicles.

Anyway that was a badass episode. Rosario Dawson portrayed Ahsoka perfectly IMO.

Her movements weren’t quite as fluid but you can’t compare live action choreography with the insane stuff they were doing in animation. Like the time when Ahsoka jumped up, spun around with sabers and decapitated multiple people in a single stroke.

But she was still cutting people and objects left and right and in very creative ways this episode. I liked how she basically became invisible when she powered down her sabers.

This episode reminded me that Grogu might actually be older or the same age as Mando, although of course not in maturity. He was a youngling at the temple... maybe a relative of Yoda? Couldn’t be a son since that would require Yoda to break the Jedi Code. Would have been hypocritical of him to have a son and then tell Anakin to let go of attachment.

It sounds like we might eventually meet Grand Admiral Thrawn live action which would be awesome and something fans have wanted since 1991. I was hoping Ahsoka would stick around for at least another episode and accompany them to the Jedi Temple but maybe that would take the focus of the show away from Mando.

Was Boba Fett just a quick cameo? I don’t see how or why he would figure into the larger story at this point. Seems like he pretty much gave up the bounty hunter life for a more nomadic existence. I’m honestly not interested in a show about Boba Fett, the character was never all that interesting apart from his suit and we’ve got that plenty covered with Mandalorian.

I'd love for him to pop up in this show, but I have a funny feeling they're saving him for the Ahsoka spinoff.

I've only seen a bit of GoT, but those last two names immediately strike me as "foreign" compared to the Anglo(ish) "Lannister" and "Stark" Which is exactly what I'm talking about.

Yes, although the writers can really only tease us with mysteries for so long if the story is to progress. Since the series is in large part about the origins and fate of the child, we need to be steadily fed information to keep things moving.

Obviously, the Jedi Temple was attacked decades before the events of The Mandalorian. Could be that his species matures much more slowly than the human ones.

But Grogu doesn't seem very old and remembers a long darkness. Maybe he was frozen in carbonite?

Actually, nope. The Order did allow Jedi to have offspring in some circumstances - if the Jedi was of a species that was biologically compelled to mate or die, for example. Ki-Adi-Mundi (the Cerean Jedi Master AKA the bloke with the white goatee and domed head) was allowed a polygamous marriage because of his species' critically low birthrates. Yoda's species might be similarly rare and need all members to "do their bit", by which I mean "each other".

Yoda/Yaddle parody on pornhub?

Yeah, the Jedi code specifically forbids romance or strong personal attachments or whatever, right? Fertilizing some eggs or donating some sperm probably wouldn't qualify as breaking the code.

so long as they get Jason Isaacs.

GRAND ADMIRAL THRAWN, ERMAGHERD.

We know from S1 that Grogu is 50.

So if my sense of the Star Wars Universe chronology is correct, which it admittedly may not be since it depends just on having watched the films and this, the events of Revenge of the Sith take place about 20ish years before A New Hope and the rest of the Original Trilogy (time enough for Luke and Leia to mature from infants at the end of Revenge to young adults), and the events of the Mandalorian take place about 5-10 years after Return of the Jedi.

Looks like my intuitive sense of chronology is not far off from this fan one:

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Timeline_of_galactic_history#cite_note-Mando_date-583

Grogu would therefore have been alive, and in the area of 20-25ish, at the time that Anakin massacred the younglings in Revenge, and he could have even been one of them but somehow escaped.

it would seem clear that either his species matures more slowly or he is suffering from some sort of PTSD that has regressed him.

Ahsoka update if anyone missed Rebels:

Yoda was 900 when he died, and he was referred to as having trained other Jedi for 800 years.

I always thought it was funny that the Star Wars literature uses the Battle of Yavin as a reference point. Wouldn't the Battle of Endor be a better basis?

So the thing the Sand People guy attacked Luke with in A New Hope was actually a Bantha's toothbrush?

But even under the notion of one race having one culture, we only get a snapshot of what that culture is. In most cases, not enough to say with any meaningful sense why X is or isn't part of the culture unless explicitly stated. It's certainly implied that the Empire is human supremacist in live-action canon, in that there are no depictions of aliens anywhere in the Empire's ranks that I can recall. That doesn't mean that it is a fact.

Krayt. Dragon.

It doesn't have wings. Doesn't breathe fire. (as far as we've seen). It is still by definition a "dragon" within the SW universe. The creators of a universe can make dragons similar to what has been seen in other universes, or completely different. That we as the audience as a whole or segments of an audience might have different expectations is largely irrrelevant.

One key difference is there are literally millions of examples of Indians and we can reasonably assume few of them have French-sounding names because France was not a major influencer on India. If the father were named "Paul" or "Fred," we would not think very much of it, because those are common English-sounding names and it could be easily assumed that either he was named that at birth or he took on the name to mainstream. If the Indian family were in a setting with a lot of French influence, it probably would not be a distracting mystery along similar lines. In short, we know enough about Indian culture and French culture to register a Jean-Baptiste Agarwal or whatever as in conflict.

By contrast, we know almost nothing about Yoda and Grogu's culture. We don't even know what race they are, what planet they are from. Pretty much nothing is known about them beyond they are green, short and are strong with the Force. (And that's just extrapolating from the two of them. Either or both could be unusual for their species. For all we know, most of their species are orange giants and speak conventionally from the age of 4).

In short, there's not really a basis to be like "Grogu works as a name" versus Thomas Swampswimmer versus P2Q9 vesus whatever.

Perhaps. But the Battle of Yavin was a major turning point. And besides, we know the war wasn't over until the Battle of Jakku. Wouldn't THAT be a better reference point?

Agreed, but, unless you're going to go into depths about that species, a snapshot is all you really have time for in a story.

My key words: "unless the story explains it." Yes, if you take the time to introduce the viewers to the idea, you can have some dragon(ish) creature that doesn't conform to our traditional notions of dragons. But you have to take that time.

But it's not impossible, right? Perhaps the grandfather's life was saved by a Frenchman once upon a time, and the grandfather named his son in the Frenchman's honor. Or whatever.

But you make my point: you would question it because it flies in the face of your earlier experience and knowledge.

If you--AS A WRITER--introduce something that prompts a question in the viewer's mind, you should really answer that question. Grogu could've been called Aloisius Vanderbilt XVI, sure, but that's going to provoke the viewer to wonder just how the character came by that name. Whereas Grogu conforms to the standard (admittedly, from only one example) for names of his species. Grogu and Yoda sound, to my ear at least, that they could come from the same culture.

Any of that could be the case. But unless that's significant to the plot, it would be unwise to suggest that were the case, or make the viewer suspect that is the case.

Well, agree to disagree, I guess.

Which of these names are likely Klingon males? Which are Vulcan females? Which are Ferengi?
Bep, Klorg, Lozz, T'Jin, Kreesh, T'Vaal, Krellak, Mot.

Now you can be a smart-ass and say there's no way of knowing and, while that's technically true, it would fly in the face of established convention if T'Jin were a Klingon male or Klorg was a Vulcan female.

Different things are going to need different levels of explanation to different viewers.

I didn't say "Hey wait a minute, that thing neither has wings or spits fire. Why are they calling it a dragon?" I'm assuming most viewers did not either. That's what the locals call it, so it's a Krayt Dragon. What we might expect, or that they could have just as easily called it a Krayt Wurm or a Krayt Lizard or a Krayt, doesn't really matter. We got no explanation why it's a Krayt Dragon. We moved on.

Certain people are going to have ridiculous nits to pick on the one end of the spectrum, and are going to overlook clearly glaring plotholes on the other. There's only so much you can do.

It's not really being a smart ass. It's saying that there is some amount of pattern recognition based on there having been multiple named Klingons, Vulcans and Ferengi in Star Trek.

Based on the existence of T'Pel, T'Pau, T'Pol and T'Pring, one can reach the conclusion that "T'Pxxx" or "T'vxxx" is likely to be a Vulcan female's name.

Based on names with random apostrophes in them, they just as easily could be Klingon names.

Based on there being a bunch of Klingon names starting with K like Kang, Kor, Koloth, Kreesh and Krellak could be Klingon. But they could just as easily be Ferengi.

There's not really a meaningful difference between a Bep, Lozz and Mot and Worf or Mogh, IMO.

But even granting that it is easy to pick out "this one sounds like the others" because there have been dozens of examples of those species in ST, the fact remains that there is just one point of comparision in Star Wars for a name that sounds like Yoda. That is no real basis to say that Worf, Mott, Topau, or whatever other name you might come up with sounds fitting or not fitting.

Well, technically, there's also Yaddle, but I don't believe that name is ever actually used in the films (have no idea about the novels or animated stuff).

Again, we just have to agree to disagree. I go with the principle of mediocrity. We have one sample of Yoda's species (well, maybe two, see above) and Yoda's name could be an extreme outlier, but is most likely, on that principle, to be average.

My position is that the name Grogu fits with my expectations for Yoda's culture given what little we know. It's a two syllable name, both syllables end in vowels, the stressed syllable's vowel is a long 'o.' Similar. I'm arguing this against people who think the name isn't good or appropriate. If you're against my position, you must be against theirs for the same reason, yes?

It's sufficient for my position that you can't show that the name is inconsistent with anything established about Yoda's culture.

And, again, what I think keeps getting lost here: there is no real culture involved here. The existence of Yoda's culture is entirely speculative, and subject to what the writers come up with. No one has a corner on the truth, because there's no truth to be had. It's just opinions. And my opinion is based on the name having similar structure and phonetics to Yoda's, and a belief that the writers are probably telling us names of this pattern are not unusual for this species.

I remember once upon a time that it was conventional for all vulcan male names to start with S and female to start with T, so not sure that's a good example as it's an intentional cultural feature-might even be an implication that the Vulcan language doesn't have none name words using either of those sounds?

Klingons, YMMV as they've had monosyllabic names and names with "a click" (Worf, Kor, but also B'Elanna or L'Rell) as well as could be anything names like Shenara, Martok, or Azetbur.

Or maybe there's a structure there. The fragment 'S' means "son," and 'T'' "daughter." So, S + pock would means something, like "son of foreign female," or T' + pring means "promiscuous daughter" or somesuch.

The female names definitely follow no recognizable pattern. I think this is simply because TOS didn't establish one; IIRC, we only get one example: Mara (Kang's wife in "Day of the Dove").

Klingon males generally have harsh-sounding one or two syllable names, and often start with a 'k' sound.

Lursa
Sirella
Azetbur
Grilka


Named Klingons over the years... (with spellings)

yeah, a lot of K's... but even splitting hairs over the apostrophizing could imply geographic subcultures

Just gotta feel bad for Tuvok knowing that his parents really wanted a daughter