Star Wars: What Happened To Yaddle After Phantom Menace? (Prepare To Cry)
Though Yoda (Frank Oz) and Grogu are the most well-known of their species — whatever it's called — they're not the only ones in the "Star Wars" canon. Yaddle (Bryce Dallas Howard) serves on the Jedi Council for a time alongside Yoda, training such Jedi as Oppo Rancisis and Jaro Tapal. She can be spotted in "Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace," though she doesn't get much of anything to do in the story. Eagle-eyed fans will notice that she's absent from the "Star Wars" film franchise beyond this installment, but why?
The answer is revealed on the Disney+ animated series "Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi." Just after the events of "The Phantom Menace," she grows suspicious of her fellow Jedi, Count Dooku (Corey Burton) after he declines to attend his former Padawan Qui Gon-Jinn's (Liam Neeson) funeral. This leads her to conduct an off-the-books espionage mission; she follows Dooku to an unknown building on Coruscant, where she witnesses his meeting with the Sith Lord Darth Sidious (Ian McDiarmid). Upon learning of her presence, Dooku engages her in a lightsaber duel and kills her, thus embracing the dark side of the Force and ending Yaddle's canon story.
The Jedi Master's clash with Dooku is emotional, to say the least, seeing as the two had been colleagues for some time and Dooku had recently lost his former student. However, some feel that the fight and Yaddle's subsequent death could've easily been prevented.
Some Star Wars fans have little sympathy for Yaddle
Despite the emotion surrounding Yaddle's death, some "Star Wars" fans can't help but feel she brought her downfall on herself. One such fan is u/Kevy96 on Reddit, who made a thread about how her and Dooku's duel and her demise were avoidable. "She legitimately made the 1 billion IQ move to start fighting Dooku and Sidious, instead of running back to her ship for a minute, and getting every single Jedi master in the galaxy for backup in like 5 minutes," they wrote, positing that she could've easily gotten reinforcements, saved her life, and potentially stopped the two Sith.
In the comments, several folks agreed with u/Kevy96, writing that Yaddle made a huge mistake in handling the situation the way she did. At the same time, some felt they could understand why Yaddle didn't make the right call. For instance, a now-deleted Redditor posited, "Perhaps her relationship with Dooku blinded her. She thought she could bring him back from the dark side and turn on Sidious." Meanwhile, u/Backpack78 also brought up the point that like so many other Jedi, Yaddle likely underestimated Sidious and the pull of the dark side, much to her detriment.
Regardless of the circumstances surrounding her death, the fact remains that Yaddle's time in the "Star Wars" spotlight was cut short by Count Dooku, whose killing of her took him from a disillusioned Jedi to a full-on Sith.