Star Wars’ Bo-Katan has the Darksaber. Why aren’t we talking about it?

We’re about halfway through this latest season of MandalorianThe Sci-Fi Action-Adventure series, featuring Pedro Pascal (Last of Us) as the eponymous bounty hunter Din Djarin, and so far it’s been, uh… well, it’s been pretty odd. So far we’ve seen Din taking part in what my colleague Joshua Rivera so succinctly 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 center on a story with some questionable takeaways as it relates to the politics and governance of the New Republic.

Compared to the previous two episodes, the season’s fourth episode, “The Foundling,” is a relatively straightforward one. 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 enlisted to rescue a Mandalorian foundling from a Reptavian nest and a brief flashback to Grogu’s escape from the Jedi Temple on Coruscant following the Order 66 massacre of the Jedi.

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

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Although the rules and legends surrounding the Darksaber were unclear when the weapon was first introduced in the series, it is fair to say that they have been in flux since then. Mandalorian’s first season. In the Star Wars Extended Universe, the Darksaber is a black-bladed lightsaber that was 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 Bo-Katan rescued in this season’s fourth episode and a member of the Children of the Watch).

The Darksaber was subsequently passed down through the generations of Vizsla’s family and used to unite the warring factions of Mandalore under one banner. The rightful heir of Mandalore’s throne is the one who wields the Darksaber. However, to obtain the weapon you must either kill or convince the former wielder to give up. Which is why Bo-Katan, the leader of the Nite Owls and whose family ruled over Mandalore prior to the Imperial siege and destruction of the planet’s surface, wanted so desperately to fight Moff Gideon in Mandalorian’s second season — somehow, by either theft or trial by combat, Gideon came into possession of the Darksaber, and in order to reassert her claim to the throne of Mandalore, Bo-Katan must best him in mortal combat.

Her well-planned plans get thrown out the window when Din Djarin beats Moff Gidon in the final of season 2. He is now the Darksaber’s new owner. This causes a rift between Bo-Katan, Din and Moff Gideon, and her quest for the throne is once more thwarted by one of hers. Since then, Din has taken to swinging around the Darksaber while bounty hunting across the galaxy — though admittedly, he’s not very good at it. His ability to even speak is very limited. LiftThe damn thing.

Photo: Francois Duhamel/Lucasfilm

Din Djarin doesn’t seem to be the kind of man who likes his genitals sore. This is the second episode. Mandalorian’s third season, “The Mines of Mandalore,” however, he comes close to getting his ass whooped not once, not twice, but ThreeMultiple times within a single episode. Din is first attacked by Alamite barbarians. They then proceed to molewhack the hell out of Din while he struggles yet again to make ends meet. LiftDarksaber: The second when Din is Please try again ambushed by what can only be described as a Phil Tippett-ass-lookin’ monster piloting an arachnid-like cyborg body; and the third time being when Din is dragged under the Living Waters and rendered unconscious by a Mythosaur residing at the bottom of an underground cavern. Din had sent Grogu before his defeat by the robot claws of second to request her assistance in saving him. That’s what she does. She rescues Din from that spider-like creature.

Since then, we haven’t seen either Bo-Katan OderDin uses the Darksaber. Who exactly now possesses — or even has a right to — the fabled weapon. The specifics as to the exact nature of transitive properties of the Darksaber’s ownership are a little sketchy at this point, but given what has been revealed through the series so far, Bo-Katan Should — by virtue of having defeated the creature that itself defeated Din — be the wielder of the Darksaber.

Lucasfilm

Bo-Katan in all its forms Really feels about joining the Children of the Watch, it’s theoretically second to her ultimate aim: reclaiming the throne of Mandalore. Lore-wise, the Darksaber plays a significant role in that. Whether she plans to do that by returning to Mandalore and reasserting her claim to the throne by merit of taming the Mythosaur that dwells beneath the mines of the planet — a tremendous feat for which the first ruler of Mandalore, known simply as “Mandalore the Great,” was legendary for — still remains to be seen. In any case, it raises the question of what exactly, if anything, this season is hoping to accomplish by hinging what is likely to become a major moment of this season’s finale on a development that should already be apparent to any viewer already paying close enough attention.