If you had no idea who Yoda is and you saw him for the first time, you would think he was just a creepy, little gremlin. You might think he looks like a cute, old elf or a disturbing, green alien. It would be hard to imagine that his name is now synonymous with wisdom, and that he is the most revered Jedi Master in the Star Wars universe. Nerds quote Yoda across the galaxy (odd syntax and all). Children mimic his leaping style of lightsaber combat (though to be honest, kids these days ꦜprobably copy Rey and Kylo Ren more than Yoda). With such a long-lasting reputation, it makes sense that there would be some skeletons in Yoda's closet.
Not much is known about Yoda's past, and what little information is given to us we covet like the Ark of the Covenant. Yoda has appeared in six Star Wars fi💙lms, but we know so little ab🎃out him beyond what we can see with our own two eyes. When I was a kid, the mystery of Yoda plagued me like nobody's business. If I had found a compendium about all things Yoda, I would have saved up some allowance just to buy it.
As the years have passed, devoted Star Wars fans have gathered our collective brains and compiled all they know about Yoda. Many of Yoda's secrets still remain hidden, especially given the fact that he has such a long life span in which to hide them, but new things have come to light, especially since [SPOILER ALERT] he made the greatest appearance in The Last Jedi. Read on to discov🃏er more secrets you never knew about the mightiest Jedi in existence.
25 The Teaching Workloꩵad♓
Living as long as he has, and being as wise as he is, Yoda has had the opportunity to teach many Jedi. I mean, think about it. If you were at a Jedi Academy, wouldn't you want Yoda to be your teacher? I would fight for that honor. (And then I'd probably get dismissed because violence is not the Jedi way.) But the sheer amount of students Yoda has instructed in the ways of the Force is astounding. He trained around 20, 000 Jedi before his death! Think of all those hours of schooling. I'm wincing in🍌side at the thought of Yoda having to put up with 20,000 Padawans during all his long years at the Jedi Temple. When we see him in the prequel movies, he has been put in charge of teaching groups of younglings. I wonder if he prefers those toddlers to older, whinier adolescents.
24 🐼 🧸 Height Handicap
When Attack of the Clones was ending, and Count Dooku had just defeated Anakin and Obi-Wan, we held our bated breath as we heard the tap-tapping of Yod𝕴a's cane. Dooku turned around, and Yoda came limping closeℱr. Dooku pulled his curved-hilted lightsaber out, and then Yoda unclipped his from his belt, and we got to see Yoda engage in a lightsaber fight for the first time ever. He was all over the place, leaping from floor to wall to floor again. His small, green lightsaber was a whirlwind of color. Well, did you know that Yoda's lightsaber form is called Ataru? Ataru relies on acrobatics, and Yoda used it in order to make up for the fact that he was usually shorter than his opponents. That is why he was flipping all over the place.
23 ✱ A S🥂pecial Touch
Usually, you can tell as soon as you see a Jedi that they are a Jedi, and if you see a Sith, you know that it is a Sith. The Jedi wear their Jedi robes and wield lightsabers of blue and green (or purple). The Sith wear dark robes, and their lightsabers are corrupted and red. You typically hav🌱e no problem determining who is evil and who isn't. But what do you do when a Sith, someone who has fallen to the Dark Side is trying to disguise themselves as a Jedi? Well, Yoda has a handy trick for that. He can tell what alignment a Force user is merely by touching them. That is, if the Force user allows Yoda to get that close. I would poop my pants if I was trying to hide something from Yoda and he started approaching me with an outstretched hand.
22 ꦗ ♔ A Boat To Call Home
When Yoda first arrived on Dagobah, he came in a starship's lifeboat. As you probably observed when we visited Dagobah with Luke in The Empire Strikes Back, it's not a hub of civilization. It's a swampy wilderness. So when he landed on Dagobah, his lifeboat was Yoda's first home. It gave him shelter from the murky dampness of the swamp. But the swamp eventually wore down his lifeboat, so Yoda somehow had to construct his own hut. I don't know if Yoda ever built a ℱdomestic abode before this, but if he didn't, I congratulate him on a satisfactory first-time construction. It must have been quite sucky having the planet you're calling home destroy your first house.
21 ꧋ The Toe Mystery 🦹
Consistency is important when you're designing your alien puppets, and Yoda's puppet from The Phantom Menace proves that. When we were first introduced to Yoda in the swamps of Dagobah in The Empire Strikes Back, his puppet was designed with four toes. In the next Star Wars installment, The Return of the Jedi, he still had his four toes. When The Phantom Menace rolled out, imagine our surprise when Yoda's puppet only had three toes. But the next of the prequels, when Yoda made the change from puppet to CG, saw Yodౠa with💯 his four toes again. This led many fans to believe that Yoda's species had a proclivity to grow toes in their later years.
20 U🥃p With Your Friends, Down With Your Enemies
Another skill that Yoda has that is useful in battle situations is battle meditation. When Yoda meditates on the eve of battle, he has the ability to boost his compatriots' morale while simultaneously dampening his foes'. This doesn't work on a droid army though. When Yoda was in charge of clone troopers during the Clone Wars, he would use this technique to help his fellow combatants. I always like to think that Yoda helping out the clones with this move makes him like a support class in a video game. With him being so powerful, you imagine 🐭him to be a heavy-hitter, but it's nifty to see him take on support roles.
19 Mr. Yoda
Remember how I said that Yoda was shrouded in mystery? Well, he's so mysterious that even his own creators don't know much about him. Yoda is technically a last name. That's why it's Master Yoda, just like Obi-Wan is eventually called Master Kenobi. And guess what. No one knows Yoda's first name. George Lucas left it a secret even to himself. It's anyone's guess if a fellow member of the Jedi Order was close enough to Yoda to be privy to his first name, but the🀅y definitely don't say it out loud for the audience's benefit. This burns the curious person that I am. I mean, I would have felt better about the whole thing if I had learned that Yoda only had one name. But knowing that he has a🔥 first name and it's a mystery kills me.
18 Graduating So𓆉 Young
The ultimate level of Jedi rank you could attain in the Jedi Order was Jedi Master. That's why Anakin was such a poopy-head in Revenge of the Sith, when he kept complaining about the Council not making him a Master. Seriously, he had only been a Jedi for a few years. Yoda didn't become a Master𝓰 until he was 100 years old. Now that's what I call patience. Anakin can go whine to somebody else; I have no sympathy for him and his grievances. Yoda honed his skills and slowly worked his way to his rank. He didn't get petulant about it. While I did not know until I researched Yoda that he became a Master at 100, this is one secret that does not surprise me♛.
17 ꧒ ♕ The Skywalker Problem
Anakin Skywalker and Luke Skywalker are the two main characters of their respective trilogies. Anakin's story is told in the prequels, and Luke's is told in the original trilogy. But did you know that Yoda initially wanted neither of them to be trained. In the prequels, Yoda sensed fear in Anakin and cautioned both Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi against training him. In The Empire Strikes Back, Yoda argued with Force-ghost Obi-Wan against training Luke, saying he had no patience. I think i🅠t's worth noting that Yoda argued against both of the Skywalkers becoming Jedi. Maybe they both had a capacity for great darkness.
16 ꦛ The Name That Could Have Been 🌜
It may have been decided to keep Yoda's first name a mystery, but it was very nearly a catastrophe. When the idea of a first name for Yoda was bandied about, one of the options for him was "Minch." That's right. The greatest of all Jedi Masters was almost called Minch Yoda. I can't say that with a straight face. Minch. Minch Yoda. Say that name to yourself and tell me you don't shudder at the thought that Master Yod🍸a would have been called Minch. After hearing that his name was almost Minch, I don't mind the mystery of Yoda's first name as much anymore. Mystery is way more preferable than Minch Yoda. Anything would be preferable to Minch Yoda.