Does The Mandalorian just want us to forget Bo-Katan has the Darksaber now?

We’re about halfway through this final season of The Mandalorianthe sci-fi action adventure series starring Pedro Pascal (The last of us) as the eponymous bounty hunter Din Djarin, and so far it’s, uh…well, it’s been pretty weird. So far, we’ve seen Din participate in what my colleague Joshua Rivera so pitifully described as a “weird baptism” to redeem himself in the eyes of his Mandalorian brethren, while the third episode, “The Convert,” abruptly shifted focus to the middle of a story with some questionable takeaways related to the politics and governance of the New Republic.

Compared to the previous two episodes, the fourth episode of the season, “The Foundling,” is relatively easy. After proving that he has in fact “bathed in the living waters beneath the mines of Mandalore”, Din has redeemed himself in the eyes of the Children of the Watch and is thus welcomed back into the fold, with his foundling ward Grogu and former Nite Owl leader Bo-Katan Kryze in tow. All in all, it’s a serviceable episode, with Din and Bo-Katan being called in to rescue a Mandalorian foundling from a Reptavian nest and a brief flashback to Grogu’s escape from the Jedi Temple on Coruscant after the Order 66 massacre of the Jedi.

That said, there’s one big development of this season so far that both this week’s and last week’s episode haven’t touched, one that only becomes more glaring as the show goes on without addressing it: Bo- Katan is now technically, probably the bearer of the Darksaber. That’s kind of a big deal, so why isn’t anyone talking about it?

To be fair, the lore and rules surrounding the Darksaber have been questionable since the weapon was introduced into the series in a post-credits scene at the end of The Mandalorian‘s first season. In the Star Wars Extended Universe, the Darksaber is a black-bladed lightsaber created and wielded by Tarre Vizsla, the first Mandalorian ever inducted into the Jedi Order (and an apparent ancestor of Paz Vizsla, the father of the Mandalorian foundling Din and rescued Bo-Katan in the fourth episode of this season and a member of the Children of the Watch).

The Darksaber was then passed down through the generations of Vizsla’s family and was used to unite the warring factions of Mandalore under one banner. Whoever wields the Darksaber is considered the rightful heir to the throne of Mandalore, but to obtain the weapon one must defeat the previous user by killing them or otherwise convincing them to surrender. That is why Bo-Katan, the leader of the Nite Owls and whose family ruled Mandalore prior to the Imperial siege and destruction of the planet’s surface, was so desperate to fight Moff Gideon in The Mandalorian‘s second season – somehow, through theft or through combat, Gideon came into possession of the Darksaber, and to reassert her claim to the throne of Mandalore, Bo-Katan had to defeat him in a deadly conflict.

Unfortunately, her well-thought-out plans are turned upside down when Din Djarin defeats Moff Gideon in the second-season finale, making him the new bearer of the Darksaber. Naturally, this creates a palpable rift of resentment between Bo-Katan and Din, with her campaign for the throne once again thwarted, albeit unintentionally this time by one of her own. Since then, Din has been swinging around the Darksaber as he goes bounty hunting across the galaxy – although, admittedly, he’s not very good at it. He can barely lifting the damn thing.

Photo: François Duhamel/Lucasfilm

Din Djarin isn’t exactly the type of guy known for his ass. In the second episode of The MandalorianHowever, in the third season, “The Mines of Mandalore,” he comes close to getting his ass fucked, not once, not twice, but three times in the span of a single episode. First by a group of Alamite barbarians who ambush Din and take turns pranking him as he once again struggles for revenge. lifting the Darksword; the second when Din is again ambushed by what can only be described as a Phil Tippett-ass-lookin’ monster piloting a spider-like cyborg body; and the third time is when Din is dragged under the Living Waters and rendered unconscious by a Mythosaurus residing at the bottom of an underground cavern. Before his defeat at the second’s mechanized clutches, Din sent Grogu to Bo-Katan to ask for her help in rescuing him. And she does so by rescuing Din from the clutches of that creepy spider creature by killing it with the Darksaber, which the monster accidentally dropped during his battle with Bo-Katan.

We haven’t seen Bo-Katan since or Din wielding the Darksaber leaves open the question of just WHO owns exactly – or is even entitled to – the legendary weapon. The details regarding the exact nature of transitive properties of the Darksaber’s property are a bit sketchy at this point, but given what’s been revealed in the series so far, Bo-Katan should – because you defeated the creature that defeated Din itself – be the bearer of the Darksaber.

Image: Lucasfilm

Any Bo-Katan Real feels to join the Children of the Watch, it is theoretically second only to her ultimate goal of reclaiming the throne of Mandalore. The Darksaber is a big part of that, in the lore. Whether she intends to do so by returning to Mandalore and reasserting her claim to the throne through the merit of taming the Mythosaurus that dwells beneath the planet’s mines – a great feat for which Mandalore’s first ruler , known simply as “Mandalore the Great”, was legendary for – remains to be seen. In any case, it begs the question of just what, if anything, this season is hoping to accomplish by aligning what’s presumably going to be a major defining moment of the season finale with a development that should already be apparent to any viewer paying close enough . attention.