The Strange Case of Origami Yoda

“It’s not that we don’t want to [dance]. In fact, we spend most of each Fun Night debating whether we should and wishing a girl would just come up and ask us instead.”

Tommy touches on one of the chief problems of growing up: How to connect socially with others. The novel shows how rejection is a huge issue for kids, made even worse by the social penalties for getting rejected in public and The Awkwardness of Middle School. The self-doubting kids, who’d like nothing better than to connect with the people they’re interested in, find themselves unwilling to risk themselves by asking for a dance. Instead, they sit and hope that the other person will take the risk for them.

“After all these times of just standing there watching, just the idea of finally asking a girl to dance made me start to get all freaky—even if it wasn’t Sara, it was still a girl and it would still be dancing. (Thank goodness the PTA Fun Night never has any slow dances where you touch each other!) My hands were shaking and my stomach was excited like the time my dad accidentally drove into a fire hydrant.”

The stakes are high in middle school, where asking someone to dance can lead to brutal public humiliation. Tommy expresses one of his greatest desires, to connect socially with girls, and especially with Sara. This is the kind of major issue that Yoda will help solve later. Yoda’s advice will have to be superb or the kids won’t dare listen to it.

The above quote uses a simile, where something is compared to something else using “like” or “as.” In this case, Tommy’s anxiety is likened to “the time [his] dad accidentally drove into a fire hydrant.”

“All I’ve ever wanted was just to hit the doggone ball, man. But it was always strikeout, strikeout, strikeout […] I may as well admit how I would cry afterward, because everybody in school already knows that anyway. But there’s a difference between ‘boo-hoo’ tears and the tears I get, which are because I’m so angry. At least, I think there’s a difference. Nobody else seems to think so.”

Mike Coley tries too hard to prove himself, and, in failing, he makes it worse by crying. Tears are, traditionally, to be avoided in sports, especially in middle school, where toughness is valued and crying is considered a terrible “weakness.” Mike clarifies how his tears are from anger—they’re not the abject cries of a toddler—but that’s cold comfort when any tears symbolize failure. Mike’s frustration thus builds on itself: The harder he tries, the more it hurts to fail, and the worse his tears get.

“Yes, I realized, Yoda was right. Guys like Tater Tot really are better than me. At softball, that is. So why hate him? And why cry about it?”

Origami Yoda helps Mike—not to take action, but to see himself differently. The puppet’s simple wisdom helps him and the other kids feel better about themselves.

Yoda’s advice is the kind that children would squirm about if they received it from parents; they’d especially reject it if it came directly from Yoda’s owner, Dwight Tharp. Somehow, the much-admired Star Wars character Yoda has sway over young people in a way that real-life humans can’t match. Many of the kids even begin to wonder if Yoda’s thoughts really come from the fictional Force of the film series. Mike listens to Yoda’s advice, takes it seriously, and discovers an inner peace that helps him to stop crying and even get on base now and then.

“So this one time, the guys were fussing at Dwight about Origami Yoda. Dwight was loving it. He loves to play dumb, but he’s got this sly smirk on his face. He’s my nextdoor neighbor, so l’ve been seeing that sly smirk for about ten years. Have I told you before about the holes he digs in his backyard? Just digs them and then sits in them and then fills them back up. He may not be dumb, but he is definitely weird.”

Sara is smart and observant, and she’s not fooled by Dwight’s “dumb-guy” act. She’s one of the few students who can see that Dwight’s eccentricity isn’t reflective of low intelligence. Dwight is playing a long game: He’s content to have the smart kids conclude that, if not intelligent, he must be “strange” This gives him an advantage when working his Yoda puppet: He lets his eccentricity distract everyone while he notices or manipulates a situation and then conjures future predictions about it apparently out of nowhere.

“[…] to figure out Origami Yoda, I’ve also got to figure out Dwight.”

Like Sara, Tommy is smart—it’s part of why they’re drawn to each other. He understands that, somehow, Dwight’s mind is connected to Yoda’s pronouncements. Tommy hasn’t always been nice to Dwight: More than once, he’s publicly rejected him. His worry about whether Yoda is real reflects his fear that Dwight may use Yoda to manipulate him into making a fool of himself in front of Sara.

“Why did I vote to dump Dwight? Well, Harvey does have a point about him. In fact, he has a lot of points. Believe it or not, walking around with a paper puppet on his finger all day is not the weirdest thing Dwight does. Not by far.”

In finding ways to blame Dwight, Tommy makes excuses for his own bad behavior toward the boy. Tommy fears that he himself is a “loser” and needs ways to distance himself from that idea; therefore, he rejects Dwight publicly, which he hopes will improve his own standing. Tommy knows, deep inside, that Dwight is merely eccentric and not a bad or incapable person. Still, Tommy’s fear of being an outcast like Dwight overwhelms his better judgment and motivates him to humiliate a boy who doesn’t deserve it.

“Sometimes when we decide to be nice to him, he acts like a jerk and just says, ‘Tycho Brahe has a wax nose,’ or something weird like that.”

Tycho Brahe, one of the great astronomers, lost much of his nose during a duel; thereafter he wore a prosthetic nose made of brass. Dwight’s wounds are deeper. His inability to accept kindness—perhaps for fear of spoiling the gesture—make him as awkward, and he manages to alienate the very people he hopes will be nice to him.

“Mr. Snider was in the teachers’ lounge, and most of the other kids were in the library, where they hang out every day before school. I tried to do that, but if you don’t have anybody in particular to hang out with, there’s nothing to do. And I don’t have anybody in particular. I just started school here in January and I haven’t found anybody I like to hang around with yet.”

Here, Angleberger highlights The Awkwardness of Middle School. Cassie writes in Tommy’s case study, which a lot of students will see. She describes the day she broke Mr. Snider’s bust of Shakespeare. She’s a fairly new student, but after several months still has no friends. Rather than risk the other kids’ mockery by admitting her loneliness, she insists she simply hasn’t yet found anyone who pleases her. The broken bust is an accident, but she blames fate, which she says chose her for the deed instead of one of the “goofball” boys. Cassie is better at deflection than she is at friendship. Though she tries to hide her pain, it leaks out onto the page.

“It’s not just the fact that Origami Yoda was wrong. The question is WHY was he wrong. I wonder if he was really wrong or whether this was a Jedi Mind Trick. Think about it: Dwight tells Marcie that Yoda will give her an answer the next day. Instead of saying thank you, she calls him fartface. Now, maybe Origami Yoda could have figured out the real winning word. We’ll never know. But the question is, why would Dwight want to help a girl who had just called him fartface? Maybe it was Dwight or maybe it was Yoda, but I think one of them purposefully gave her the wrong word to make her lose!”

Tommy realizes that Dwight or Yoda acted cleverly and in retaliation for Marcie’s meanness. Harvey Cunningham disbelieves Origami Yoda largely because he hates Dwight, and focuses on whether the puppet is channeling an amazing Force that can predict things. Tommy, in contrast, intuits that something else may be going on—that the real source of Yoda’s power arises, not from magic, but from a form of genius in Dwight. The source of that genius is something Tommy and the other kids haven’t yet wrapped their minds around. Tommy also recognizes that Yoda can be mean to people who are mean to Dwight: He thus can’t fully trust Yoda’s answers to his own questions, since he’s been cruel in the past to Dwight.

“‘Cheetos for everyone you must buy’, said Dwight in his Yoda voice. And then he put his hand over his OWN MOUTH! But he kept on trying to talk! ‘Assembly during tomorrow will be,’ he mumbled through his hand. ‘Then the Cheetos give you must. Big bags must they be!’ ‘But I can’t bring Cheetos to an assembly! You know the rule about no food in the gym! I’ll get in huge trouble!’ ‘Better even!’ squawked Yoda. ‘Trouble better is!’”

Yet again, Yoda displays a knack for knowing exactly the right way to solve a social dilemma. The drama of his solution will help to ensure its success. Offering snacks to everyone who felt offended by Quavondo Phan’s selfishness at the zoo snack machine will go a long way toward improving the boy’s reputation at school. That he’ll get in trouble for doing so will add to his reputation and make him a hero.

“‘Zack’s always doing stuff like this, and I want Yoda to tell me how I can stop him.’ That was a tough one, even for Origami Yoda, who sat there on Dwight’s finger apparently thinking it over for a while. Then Origami Yoda whispered in Dwight’s ear. Dwight actually whispered something to himself! Finally Dwight turned to Caroline and said, ‘I’ll take care of it.’’’

For the first time, Dwight gets advice from Yoda, or so it seems. On one hand, it’s an opportunity to convince the other students that Yoda, and not Dwight, is the one handing out pearls of wisdom. More importantly, Zack was thoughtlessly cruel; this is Dwight’s chance to help out Caroline Broome, the girl he’s interested in.

“I mean, maybe Dwight has spent so much time sitting in holes and being WEIRD that he’s learned ESP or something. Or maybe Dwight’s not as weird as I thought. Or maybe it’s a good kind of weird. I don’t know.”

Sara tries to understand Yoda’s remarkable record of accurate advice—Yoda knew about a pop quiz before even the teacher knew he’d administer one. Sara’s thoughts home in on Dwight the puppeteer. He’s been eccentric for years, but whether that inspires his insight or the other way around, she still can’t say. One thing Dwight is good at is creating a sense of mystery, which he cultivated long before Origami Yoda appeared. It’s been easy for him to generate perplexity in others, as nearly all the kids have written him off as unworthy of their notice. Yoda’s rapidly growing list of remarkable predictions simply adds to the intrigue. Dwight definitely has people paying attention now. Here, the language is typically informal and conversational, the way a middle-schooler would speak, with all-caps and causal phrases such as “I mean.”

“‘Go ahead and ask him, he’s amazing,’ said Kellen. Kellen and Dwight AND Yoda were all looking at me, and I realized I didn’t have a question. ‘C’mon,’ said Kellen. So I just said, ‘Why is Kellen bugging me all the time?’ And Yoda said, ‘Likes you he does. Kissing you he wants.’ And Kellen was like, ‘Shut up, dude!’ and shoved Dwight.”

Kellen Campbell likes Rhondella Carrasquilla, but he wants her to take the initiative of asking Yoda about the two of them. This backfires, and the resulting scuttlebutt centers on why Yoda would say something so uncool and obvious. It’s the first time Yoda has given a direct answer to such a question. The storm of controversy that blows up around it merely serves Dwight’s agenda by informing the other kids that Yoda’s judgments about people’s preferences are accurate. It’s the beginning of a swarm of requests for dating advice from Yoda. Once again, Dwight’s puppet act is smarter than it looks.

“There are two kinds of kids who get a name like Tater Tot: total losers and total perfect guys that all the girls love. This Tater Tot is the second kind of Tater Tot. (If I was a Tater Tot, I have a bad feeling that I would be the first kind of Tater Tot.).”

The above lines provide information about Tommy’s rival while characterizing Tommy as insecure.

For Tommy, the entire purpose of his case study on Origami Yoda is to figure out if Yoda will give him good advice about asking Sara on a date. Tater Tot, one of the cool kids, talks a lot to Sara, who lately doesn’t talk to Tommy. Tommy believes he’s not one of the cool kids. He’s probably right, but Sara is smart enough to see beyond the middle-school ratings game and appreciate him for his smarts and good character. Still, she might not be interested in Tommy, and that’s where Yoda comes in.

“Purple.”

Dwight utters this when he doesn’t want to answer someone’s question, but doesn’t wish to ignore them completely. He claims he does so to be funny, but instead it merely irritates the other person. A shy boy with eccentric habits, Dwight finds in Yoda a way to express himself socially, but he’s not yet willing to participate with others, or express himself, in a typical manner; his use of the word “Purple” serves as a space filler. As such, it’s a halting, incomplete move toward becoming more engaged socially.

“‘Man, you are a pain in my butt. Let me ask Yoda another question.’ ‘No,’ said Dwight, finishing his last roll and getting up to dump his tray. ‘Hold on. Why not?’ ‘Uh, because you said I was a pain in your butt, maybe? Why should I let Origami Yoda help you if you’re going to be mean? I’m sick of you guys always being mean to me except when you need to talk to Origami Yoda.’”

Dwight’s Yoda project is an attempt to make friends and participate more in the social world at school. The fact that his so-called friends still treat him like dirt frustrates his efforts. However, Dwight is now brave enough to confront Tommy; this shows that the Yoda adventure has made him more assertive and willing to stand up for himself.

“‘I’m sorry, man,’ I said, ‘but if you wouldn’t say stuff like ‘purple’ over and over and over again, maybe we would be nicer.’ ‘I thought it was funny.’ ‘Ask Origami Yoda if it’s funny.’ He asked. ‘Funny it is not,’ said Yoda.”

Despite the importance of the Yoda project to Dwight, he manages to retain a sense of humor. For him, Yoda, like so many of his activities, is an experiment, and he’s as much surprised and amused by it as is everyone else. Even if some of the results are painful, Dwight still has a twinkle in his eye and a mischievous way about him. Here, he differentiates himself from Yoda by having Yoda disagree with him.

“‘Yoda, why can’t you stop Dwight from being such a loser?’ I felt bad as soon as I said it. Dwight wouldn’t let me apologize. ‘You want me to stop being a loser? I guess I better get rid of this, then.’ And he rips Origami Yoda off his finger and balls him up. ‘What are you doing?’ I shouted. ‘Can’t be a loser anymore. Gotta be normal,’ said Dwight. ‘Better throw away this litter.’ ‘C’mon, Dwight,’ said Kellen, ‘just relax a minute.’ But Dwight went over to the trash can and threw Origami Yoda away. Then he came back and sat down again and kept eating his lunch.”

During this pivotal moment, Dwight understands that his efforts to make his eccentricity acceptable, through the wisdom of Yoda, have failed; in a rage he destroys the puppet. Though his inventive bit of performance art has captured the other students’ imaginations, they still think he’s a dork. He confronts the awful realization that, no matter how wonderful his contributions are, people may still judge him by other standards. Like Mike, who learned he doesn’t need to be as good as other boys at softball, Dwight must discover that he needn’t be as smooth socially as others to be acceptable—not just to them, but to himself.

“And frankly, I’ve had about enough of Harvey criticizing everything and everybody all the time. Yeah, I know I’ve been doing that a lot, too. Like calling Dwight a weirdo and a loser. But it has gotten old. Real old. But just because Harvey’s gotten annoying doesn’t mean he’s not right. In fact, he probably is right. Basically all he’s saying is that a really cute girl doesn’t want to dance with me. That’s normally a pretty safe bet.”

If Tommy asks Sara to dance and she says yes, Dwight and Yoda will be vindicated, and Harvey will be the “loser.” Tommy wants to do the right thing, and taking Harvey down a peg for treating others so arrogantly would go a long way toward repairing his own casually cruel behavior. Holding Dwight at a distance and pretending he merely tolerates the boy hasn’t made Tommy any more popular. His character journey is to choose his friends because he likes them, not because others approve of them. In doing so, he’ll have to risk himself by effectively saying out loud to Sara that he likes her.

“But that takes me right back to the beginning again: Is Origami Yoda JUST a finger puppet, or is there something bigger going on here? The Force, maybe? When I read all these cases it sure seems like he’s for real, but what if I’m wrong? I want to believe in Origami Yoda. But the penalty will be so bad if he’s fake. I know I said this has gotten bigger than just asking a girl to dance, but when you get down to it, that’s what it really is about and that’s something I’ve never done.”

Tommy realizes that his confusion about Yoda is the same as his uncertainty about asking Sara to dance. The great mystery isn’t whether Yoda is real but whether Tommy is courageous. It’s a question only Tommy can answer. The genius of Dwight’s Yoda project is that it forces the other kids to confront their fears of failure and take risks to move forward. For that matter, Yoda is Dwight’s attempt to take those same risks.

“It’s one thing when Origami Yoda tells you NOT to ask a girl to dance at the PTA Fun Night, so you just sit there and don’t do anything and you can see if he was right or not. But it’s another thing when Yoda says you SHOULD ask a girl to dance and you actually have to go do it. That’s not so easy.”

It’s Tommy’s moment of truth. All the Yoda advice in the world can’t save him from the one thing he must do alone: ask Sara to dance with him. No longer can he lean on Yoda or use his uncertainty about the source of Yoda’s wisdom as an excuse to avoid facing reality: He must risk himself or never achieve what he wants.

“‘Origami Yoda knew that if Dwight got beat up fighting Zack Martin in Caroline’s honor that she would fall in love with him! Dwight must have taken Origami Yoda’s advice for once.’ ‘That was his advice? To get beat up by a gorilla? Great advice,’ said Harvey. ‘But it worked,’ said Kellen. Man, this was blowing my mind. Whose idea was it to have Dwight fight Zack? Yoda’s or Dwight’s? Or were they the same?”

The pieces begin to fall into place: Yoda is Dwight’s way of connecting with other kids at school. His willingness to risk himself to show Caroline how much she means to him proves that he trusts Yoda’s advice. This shows that he’s begun to trust himself, since Yoda’s wisdom comes from him. All along, Dwight’s been telling everyone the simple truths that he sees in each of them. His advice may seem to come from Yoda, but Yoda ultimately comes from him. Lots of kids have benefitted from Yoda’s wisdom; in doing so, they’ve been befriended by Dwight.