The Mandalorian’s Hero’s Quest, Part 3

Here is the third and final part of my attempt to run The Mandalorian through the Hero's Quest/Journey/Monomyth. I say final, but I should say final for now. Until the series concludes, we won't have a final III. Return. However, the same can be said for all of this quest. Until we see the totality of Mando's story, we can only work with the quests within the larger story arc.

D. Ritual Death of Dismemberment

i. This is a critical component of the hero’s evolution. It symbolically, and perhaps literally, shows the hero conquer death (at least temporarily). The hero loses some element of him or herself that was the final fetter holding them back from achieving the ultimate boon.

ii. Star Wars is famous for its dismemberments. Off-hand examples are Anakin and Luke (see what I did there?).

iii. Does Din die or get dismembered? He almost dies in “Chapter 8: Redemption” and he is unmasked by IG-11, so this could qualify. Does he loses something significant here? Not living being has seen his face yet.

iv. Perhaps a more symbolic but more impactful “dismemberment” is Din removing his helmet in “Chapter 15: The Believer”. Din tries to keep his face hidden, even when forced to wear a stormtrooper helmet, but must make the major sacrifice of revealing his whole face to living beings in order to locate Grogu via the computer terminal. This was arguably the most “holy” tenant of his sect of the Mandalorians. Migs Mayfeld challenges this tenant during their ride to the Imperial base, asking “so what’s the rule? Is it that you can’t take off your Mando helmet, or you can’t show your face? Cause there is a difference […] everybody’s got their lines they don’t cross until things get messy […] if you can make it through your day and still sleep at night, you’re doing better than most.” That last part speaks to morality over dogma. Mayfeld earlier claims that Din changes the rules when the latter is desperate, but a better way to understand this is as Din’s evolution; his spiritual strengthening progresses until he is able to face the test for the Ultimate Boon. For Din, its breaking free of dogma that would restrain him from doing the right thing, in part.

E. Atonement with the Father

i. The “father quest” is often a motivation for a hero because he or she must either set wrong an evil done by the father, continue the father’s unfinished quest, or reconcile with the father.

ii. We do get glimpses of Din’s biological father and mother. We could say that Din has a sort of atonement with them by paying forward how they saved him. His quest to secure Grogu’s safety honors this.

iii. His adoptive “parents’, his sect of the Mandalorians, also saved Din and adopted him into the tribe as a founding, whom the raised and trained. Din’s quest to save Grogu, his own foundling, honors this tradition while at the same time forcing Din to confront the restrictive elements of his upbringing. I find this the most compelling thing personally. We all try to understand our upbringing. If we had happy childhoods, we tend to try to make our parents proud. However, since we do not live in our parents’ time, we cannot do things 100% the way they did. We must adapt the rules and interpret them to achieve the heart of parental values. It is following the spirit of the law instead of the letter of the law.

iv. The real "father's quest" may involve Grogu showing back up for Din.

F. Apotheosis

i. The challenges of the Initiation create a powerful hero who can be idealized.

ii. In some cases, the hero literally attains the rank of a god.

iii. Din’s no god and I don’t think we’ve seen his final form yet. However, Din does achieve a level of heroism that not only seeks to protect Grogu, but is also able to let him go for the child’s own benefit. Both of these things are necessary, unless the heroism is turned to villainy.

iv. The spiritual strengthening is usually the most important aspect of the hero’s development. The successful completion of the Ultimate Boon doesn’t depend on the talisman or the other equipment the hero brings along. While Din’s Mandalorian armor is certainly a force to be reckoned with during the series, what leads to his final success in getting Grogu to a Jedi is his strength of character. His spiritual journey took him from a path of rigid dogma (his sect of the Mandalorians) and strict ethical code (bounty hunters) to one where he makes moral choices for the sake of love and through a willingness to self-sacrifice. That last part is key, lest Din end up like Anakin. While Anakin let his attachments (arguably love for Padme) lead him to the dark side, his choices for “love” are selfish and possessive. Din Djarin, on the other hand, is able to let go of his loved one for Grogu’s own benefit. He’ll accept the pain of loss if it helps Grogu to be safe and properly trained.

G. The Ultimate Boon/Magic Elixir

v. This is the goal of the entire quest, the solution to the problem, and what the hero was supposed to be looking for at the start of the quest. It is the end goal.

vi. Ultimate Boon is the final and most important good thing to happen. The idea of the magic elixir, or potion, symbolizes this. This is the Holy Grail of a particular hero’s quest.

vii. For Din, he achieves the Ultimate Boon when he is able to safely and lovingly give Grogu to Luke Skywalker.

viii. However, as this is a serialized story that has not reached its conclusion, a new or hidden Ultimate Boon may (will) emerge to give Din something to keep moving toward. Perhaps this will be the re-establishment of the Mandalorians on their home world.

v. The Return
The third key phase of the Hero’s Quest is the Return stage. We haven’t seen this yet for Din, though “returning” Grogu to the Jedi is a form of it for this point in The Mandalorian’s plot. Essentially, the hero must return to the home world to apply the Magic Elixir. This can be seen as a symbol for bringing knowledge from the outer world home to help the ailing home society. This is why I think Din’s next step might be entwined with Bo-Katan’s quest to restore Mandalore. We’ve sort of seen a part of the Return, the refusal, when Din was willing to just give up the dark saber to Bo-Katan. It should be noted that not all returning heroes are accepting by their societies. Sometimes, they are too different from the folks at home and are not afforded a freedom to live.

Other Mythic Elements
Two Worlds:
As previously shown, the hero has a known “home” world or village. While this place might not be entirely safe, the hero is familiar with the dangers and can navigate them mostly successfully. The second world is the world of the quest, the place where the Ultimate Boon lies. It is more dangerous and unknown. Din’s old world was that of the Mandalores living in the culvert and that of the bounty hunter guild. His outer world took him beyond both and had him facing greater dangers, like the Imperial remnant and Jedi.

The Mentor:
Sometimes the guide from I. The Departure, sometimes someone else. The mentor trains the hero in the ways of heroism. Din has many encounters that shape him during his quest, but not a true mentor…yet.

The Prophecy and the Oracle:

Anakin was destined to bring balance to the Force. That was the prophecy surrounding him. It didn’t really play out the way the Jedi expected, though, did it? That’s the problem with prophecies and the oracles who give them: they are necessarily cloudy and amorphous and never a step-by-step guide to achieving heroism. The Oracle is the person giving the hero information about the Prophecy. The closest we have to this for The Mandalorian so far is a combination of Ahsoka Tano telling Din about the Jedi and Grogu place with them, and Bo-Katan expanding Din’s understanding of Mandalore.

Failed Hero:
Someone tried the quest before and was turned aside. Does Ahsoka count here? (Don’t hate me, I’m just asking!)

Wearing the Enemy’s Skin:
This sounds like something from Hannibal Lecter, but it’s not nearly as gruesome. The hero will don a disguise to look like the enemy. This allows the hero to infiltrate the enemy’s ranks and learn how the enemy operates. Clearly, Din wearing the gray Stormtrooper armor allowed him and Migs Mayfeld to get inside the Imperial base. Not only did this achieve their goal of using the computer to locate Moff Gideon and Grogu, but during their sit-down with the Imperial officer, they learned more about the Imperial’s value system.

Shapeshifters: we have a number of them.
Greef Karga’s own name indicates that he’s going to cause some trouble, or grief, for Mando. Initially Mando’s boss as the leader of the bounty hunter guild on Nevarro, that relationship sours when Mando violates guild code by rescuing Grogu. Later, however, the relationship changes again to an allied one, after Grogu’s healing touch reaches Greef’s compassionate side.

Toro Calican appears in “Chapter 5: The Gunslinger” to be a young and untested hunter that Din could mentor. However, he is immoral and ultimately untrustworthy.

The Imperial-employed Dr. Pershing seems to have some humanity to him, claiming to keep the child alive during Grogu’s initial capture. Later, he helps Din Djarin during the Season 2 climax “The Rescue”. It should be noted that Pershing was a captive then, and may have had little choice, though he did volunteer information to help the rescue team when he didn’t have to.

The entire crew in “Chapter 6: The Prisoner” cannot be trusted. Perhaps they are not so much shapeshifters as a whole, though we see some redemption in “Chapter 15: The Believer” of Migs Mayfeld, the former Imperial sharpshooter.

My novels


Works Cited

“Bounty Hunter Code.” Wookieepedia, Fandom. starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Bounty_Hunte....

Bucher, John. “The Mandalorian and Dangerous Origins.” Joseph Campbell Foundation: a Network of Information—a Community of Individuals. https://www.jcf.org/the-mandalorian-a...

Favreau, Jon, creator. The Mandalorian. Disney+, 2019-2020.