What happened to Bo-Katan and Mandalorians? Mandalore history, explained

Where? Mandalorian season 3 premiere “The Apostate” ends, Bo-Katan Kryze (Katee Sackhoff, both in the Clone Wars There are animated series. Mandalorian) is in a rough spot, having forfeited her mission to restore Mandalore — for now. Bo-Katan has no claim to Mandalorian leadership because Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal), is the proper bearer of Darksaber’s blade. She has been abandoned by her many supporters.

She sits on her throne and mocks the Mandalorian who is looking into the fate of poisoned Mandalore. Din is puzzled at her abandoning her cause.

But Bo-Katan’s background — a royal one, as she says in episode 2, complete with a sisterly rivalry — illuminates the dark past and pressures that lead her to this state.

[Ed. note: This post contains spoilers for Bo-Katan’s and Satine Kryze’s arcs in The Clone Wars.]

Bo-Katan: Who are you?

Season 4: Introduced The Clone WarsBo-Katan Kryze was the original lieutenant of Pre Vizsla in animated series. (voiced by MandalorianJon Favreau (showrunner), who is the head of Mandalorian extremist organization Death Watch. The New Mandalorian movement was at power, pushing for peace, but Death Watch was an outlier group looking to revive Mandalorian warrior culture, including the way of wars and honor-bound duel, weapons and beskar armor. Just to describe Death Watch’s own ethics: Bo-Katan partook in Vizsla’s enslavement and murder of a village and a long-term ploy to overthrow Duchess Satine Kryze (Anna Graves), Bo-Katan’s own sister, from Mandalore’s throne.

Bo-Katan held a great suspicion of outsiders interfering in Mandalorian politics, so she was skeptical of Vizsla’s alliance with Maul, a Zabrak and fallen Sith with connections to crime syndicates. Although she was still involved in staging attacks on Mandalore’s, eventually her suspicions were confirmed when Vizsla was killed during an honor-bound duel of the Darksaber. In season 5, episode 15, Vizsla lost the Mandalorian title to the Zabrak. The Clone Wars (“Shades of Reason”). Thus began Bo-Katan’s mission to reclaim Mandalore along with her fellow Nite Owl dissenters.

Lucasfilm Photo

During the Empire’s dominion of Mandalore in Star Wars Rebels (season 4, episode 2, “Heroes of Mandalore”), it appeared like a good idea for Bo-Katan to accept the Darksaber from Sabine Wren (Tiya Sircar), a Mandalorian (and daughter of one of Katan’s Nite Owls) who recovered it from Maul’s Dathomir lair. Bo-Katan was able to unite Mandalorian warrior tribes even without the usual duel over Darksaber ownership. Her reputation suffered when the Imperial Great Purge on Mandalore saw her accept the Darksaber but not in a proper duel. Despite Bo-Katan’s plan in Mandalorian season 2 to retrieve it through a duel that could legitimize her leadership once and for all, the Darksaber landed in Din Djarin’s grasp.

As of now, MandalorianBo-Katan is not afflicted and has not had to challenge Din Djarin for a duel for her blade. Bo-Katan is yet to decide whether she will abandon her Kalevala throne in order to once more pursue her ambitions. However, the blade and ashes continue her Sisyphean pursuit of sustainable Mandalore leadership. The ghost of Satine also follows her.

Satine Kryze: Who are you?

This brings us to Duchess Satine Kryze, a foil to her sister’s warrior ways. Satine, a designated regent for 1,500 systems believed that neutrality and peace were the way of the future. Having lived through the Mandalorian Civil War, the loss of many lives, and scorched forests, she devoted herself to eradicating Mandalore’s warrior past, the beskar armor included. (Note that Satine’s fashion sense is closer to the sensibilities of Padmé Amidala’s than the traditional beskar armor.)

The duchess’s staunch neutrality especially placed her at odds with both the Republic and Death Watch extremists. For one, the Republic’s Chancellor Palpatine (secretly Darth Sidious) pushed for Republic military invention to “save” (occupy) Mandalore from rising threats. In Satine’s words, such occupation would “[trample] our right to self-determination.”

Ultimately, though Bo-Katan tried to liberate Satine from Maul’s grip, the two never got a chance to work out their differences. True to her “coincidental” namesake of Ewan McGregor’s doomed love interest in Moulin RougeSatine was killed by Maul’s Darksaber.

Posthumously, Satine ended up inspiring some of Bo-Katan’s later ambivalence about violence. “My sister tried that [being that new kind of Mandalore leader]. I never understood her idealism,” she lamented in season 7, episode 11 of The Clone Wars. Still a hotheaded Mando, Bo-Katan hasn’t conceded to her sister’s pacifism but mourned the unity that could have been.

Was Mandalore ever abandoned?

After Satine’s assassination, Bo-Katan teamed up with the Republic to finally depose Maul from Mandalore — an unprecedented military alliance that violated 100-year-old treaties. Bo-Katan hoped the Republic’s presence would be temporary, but the Republic occupation would later morph into the Empire occupation, and the planet’s eventual “poisoning” in the Great Purge, as referenced in Mandalorian season 2 and “The Apostate.” So Bo-Katan’s fight for Mandalore’s liberation never ended, but the planet’s alleged inhabitable state made matters difficult.

Are we supposed to be concerned about our nephews?

In “Chapter 11: The Heiress,” Bo-Katan claims she’s the last of her line. Star Wars is a great movie. Television has not yet addressed a “loose end” (branch). In the family tree is Korkie Kryze (Whit Harford), who is the nephew of Satine, Bo-Katan and Bo. He’s the son of unspecified Kryze relatives — that is, if you’re not one of many conspiracists who theorizes that Korkie is the secret love child of Satine and Obi-Wan Kenobi (oh, the scandal of a Jedi and Mandalorian noblewoman having relations). Korkie was a cadet and idolized Satine. He spent his entire life studying Mandalorian politics. He was last seen unsuccessfully breaking out Satine from Maul’s prison — with Bo-Katan’s assistance.

As far as we know, Korkie is still MIA from the Star Wars Franchise. There has been no confirmation that he was actually dead. Korkie might be another dispute in succession, depending on Mandalorian rules. Maybe Korkie has become just as important as Derol. Glas Onion Mysterious — which is to say, not important.