Whether Mando and Baby Yoda Have the Same Essence? Olivia Prevost
O
bjection 1: Baby Yoda and the Mando do not have the same essence because they differ in form and designated matter. According to Thomas Aquinas, the essence of rational yet material beings consists of form and undesignated matter. Baby Yoda’s alien form is of a different kind than the Mando’s human form. Baby Yoda is short with stubby legs and only three fingers, while the Mando is tall and muscular and possesses the average human’s number of fingers. Likewise, Baby Yoda’s green flesh differs materially from the Mando’s human flesh. Because they share neither form nor matter, Baby Yoda and the Mando have different essences. Objection 2: Moreover, Baby Yoda and the Mando do not have the same essence because they have different powers. Baby Yoda can use the Force to affect the world around him telekinetically, while the Mando cannot. Baby Yoda can also digest a wide variety of things that the Mando would find inedible, like space spiders and frogs as large as Baby Yoda’s head. As St. Thomas writes, “Every substance exists for the sake of its operation.”1 This can be taken to refer to a substance’s powers. Since the operations of Baby Yoda differ from the operations of the Mando, Baby Yoda and the Mando cannot have the same substance. Essence is the way that the substance exists, so without the same substance, Baby Yoda cannot have the same essence as the Mandalorian. On the contrary: St. Thomas Aquinas says, “the word essence in the case of complex substances signifies what is composed of matter and form.”2 W. Norris Clarke, S.J., Person and Being (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1993), 8. Thomas Aquinas, Thomas Aquinas: Selected Writings, ed. R. McInerny (London: Penguin Books, 1998), 33. 1 2
