Hello, and welcome to Blogging A to Z 2017! Thanks for stopping by. Fellow A to Z-ers, please make sure to leave a link to your blog in the comments.
My theme this month is 26 of the Best Characters in Fiction.
There aren’t many characters whose names start with “Y.” In fact, I could only come up with two: Yoda and Yorick. And though I’ve been known to throw out the quote, “Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him Horatio,” I don’t think being a skull in a soliloquy qualifies as a great character.
Luckily, I actually like Yoda and think he’s a legitimately great character. Full disclosure: I used to read Star Wars books when I was a teenager, but I don’t remember if Yoda was in them. So my saying that he’s a great character is based on the movies.
In science fiction and fantasy, there’s almost always a wise old sage to teach the main character how to be whatever they are. As a sage, Yoda is an unexpected one (at least I assume I was surprised the first time I saw the movie… it was a long time ago). Luke doesn’t even know who he is when they first meet because Yoda engages in silly and annoying antics to see what Luke is like.
When Yoda does get serious though, he’s quite good at what he does. He’s able to use and manipulate the force, showing Luke that it can be done. While I’m a fan of the original trilogy and have little use for I, II, and III, the lightsaber scene with Yoda against Count Dooku in Attack of the Clones is one of the best scenes in all the movies.
All these qualities: the ability to play dumb when it suits, throwing out lessons, being able to mop the floor with an opponent, are all qualities of good sages. One other quality that I think happens often (though not always) is the mentor reluctantly taking on the apprentice. Yoda just wasn’t sure of Luke in the beginning, and told Obi Wan that.
Even though he is pretty standard, Yoda is still one of my favorite mentors. Maybe it’s because of his small stature. I’m short, and everyone always underestimates me too. It just goes to show that size doesn’t really matter for much.
Doree Weller 
Yoda is one of the best characters of all time, in my opinion. And I can totally relate to people underestimating you because of your size thing…I’m only 4’9″ 🙂 I welcome the underestimating 😀
~Katie
TheCyborgMom
I do too! One of my favorite weapons is playing dumb as needed.
Love your analysis of Yoda. He is a great mentor with many different facets. Your Yorick comment made me laugh. I use that line, too. (And I actually think that although he’s just a skull, he has a pretty big impact on Hamlet’s character arc.)
Well, I can’t argue that. Maybe it would have made a good blog after all.
Love Yoda. My favorite quote: “Do or do not, there is no try.”
Yoda made my list of ten things of thankful that start with the letter Y. And again i am sorry i cannot link up in comments on wordpress blogs, i’ve tried for years.
All these qualities: the ability to play dumb when it suits,
throwing out lessons, being able to mop the floor with
an opponent, are all qualities of good sages
That’s wonderful Doree! Yoda is a likeable little fella. Still, he can be a good mentor and that says a lot. Thanks for visiting Ma’am!
Hank
I thought about doing Yoda today but my love for bread (yeast) won out. The light saber duel with Count Dooku is the only good scene from the prequels. I was sitting by a father with his two young sons for that movie, and you should’ve heard them cheer Yoda on! It was fantastic.
I tried to check out your blog, but when I click the link, it takes me to the sermon I commented on earlier. And when I check the archives, nothing shows up. I can’t find your A to Z blog!
My A-to-Z blog is at a different site: sratteberry.com. Huh, I thought that was one linked to my name. I’ll have to double check that. Sorry for the confusion.
No problem. And yes, that’s a different link than the one I see.
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