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Se despidió y se fue.

Se despidió y se fue.
He said goodbye and left.
From Lesson 264:Pronominal meaning changes (dormirse, irse)·Spanish (Latin America)

Questions & Answers about Se despidió y se fue.

Wait, I thought despedir meant to fire someone. Why does it mean said goodbye here?
This is a perfect example of a verb changing its meaning when used pronominally. By itself, despedir means to fire or to dismiss someone from a job. But when you add the pronoun to make it despedirse, the meaning changes completely to to say goodbye.
What is the difference between fue and se fue?
Fue comes from ir (to go), which focuses on the destination. Se fue comes from the pronominal verb irse (to leave or to go away), which focuses on the starting point or the act of departing. Here, he didn't just go somewhere; he left.
Why do we need the pronoun se twice in this sentence?
You need se before both verbs because they are two separate actions that both require a pronoun to get the intended meaning. Without the second se, fue would just mean went (or was), leaving the sentence feeling incomplete, like He said goodbye and went...
Why is it despidió with an i instead of an e?
Despedirse is an -ir verb with a stem change. As a quick refresher, in the preterite (simple past) tense, -ir verbs that have a stem change in the present tense will also change e to i or o to u in the third-person forms (él, ella, usted, ellos, ellas, ustedes). So, the e in despedir changes to an i in despidió.

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