Hello, Today I’m Here To Talk About The Effect That Obi-wan Has On People, Like There Is Something

on the one hand i think bobf should remain boba's show and a din appearance would detract from that

on the other hand the dopamine from seeing that man onscreen again will keep me going for a solid two weeks

abbey - mitski

Anakin's Second Mother

family tree, ethel cain // obi wan kenobi episode three, dir. deborah chow // as consciousness is harnessed to flesh, susan sontag

rescue gone wrong

the debtor

rating: g (word count 598)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/32755144

The Mandalorian watches her do the dishes sometimes. Omera isn’t sure why; she wonders for a while if he’s just lonely, but he never speaks or announces his presence. She figures it out when he joins her at the washbasin one day and picks up a bowl.

“Have you been trying to learn how to wash dishes this whole time?” she asks with a smile, handing him a soapy rag.

He tenses.

“I’m not making fun of you,” she clarifies. “It’s—” Sweet. “Appreciated.”

“I don’t have dishes on the Razor Crest,” the Mandalorian says after a moment. “Mostly I eat ration bars.”

“You must be sick of them by now.” Ration bars have all of the nutrients and none of the taste of real food; Omera can’t imagine eating them on a regular basis.

“They suit my purposes.”

He really doesn’t like empathy, does he. She hands him a wet plate and starts scrubbing at the next one. They work in silence for a while, scrubbing the dishes with soap and then setting them aside to rinse later. Eventually, the stack of dirty dishes she’s already run water over dries up, so they rinse off the soapy dishes and set them aside to dry in the sun before getting the dirty ones wet again. Omera picks up her scrub brush and starts on a cup.

“You’ve been very kind to me,” the Mandalorian says, breaking the silence.

She inclines her head. It’s hard to keep a smile from her face, hearing the way this hardened warrior shyly shapes politeness. “You’re my guest.”

“I know my presence is—hard for you. I take up space. And I frighten the children.”

“You don’t,” Omera says, though she’s not sure which part she’s responding to, taking up space or frightening the children. He doesn’t really do either. Only Winta was ever afraid of him, and that faded quickly. The Mandalorian is stiff around children, like he’s afraid he’ll break them if he makes the slightest move, but he is always gentle. No one in the village fears him anymore. And he takes up little space, so little that sometimes she wishes he’d take up more.

“I owe you.”

Is that why you learned how to wash dishes? “You don’t,” she repeats. “Besides, this is your payment for helping us with the raiders, remember? You asked for lodging.”

The Mandalorian’s head tilts toward her before turning back to the washbasin. “You’ve given me more than lodging.”

Not much, she thinks. Just extra bedding and warm food and an ear to listen on occasion. She wonders what his life has been like, that such basic kindness is a luxury. “Hasn’t anyone ever done something for you just to be nice? Without expecting anything in return?”

The Mandalorian’s head scythes towards her, his chest rising and falling sharply. Omera meets his gaze. The question hangs between them: too forward, probably, but she can’t take it back now. She doesn’t bother disguising the mingled nervousness and curiosity on her face, though she does hide the sympathy. She knows he wouldn’t appreciate it.

“Once,” he says.

She hesitates, wondering if he wants her to ask further questions. He doesn’t seem like the sort of person who likes to talk about his past, but sometimes—

“It’s why I swore the Creed,” he says before she can work out a response. His head slants away from her, staring at the last plate in his hands. “I will never be able to repay that debt.”

The Mandalorian sets the plate out to dry and ducks out of the hut.

armorer: *gives din a jetpack* when you have healed, you will begin your drills. until you know it, it will not listen to your commands

din: i understand

also din: *uses the jetpack like ten minutes later to singlehandedly blow up a spaceship while on a head injury*

oh absolutely. i’d say it’s a near-certainty. we know bo-katan is planning a revolution and she’s a pretty polarizing figure. i’m sure there are lots of mandalorians out there who Will Not Like That. there also seems to be some sort of (possibly one-sided) preexisting rivalry between bo-katan’s political faction and din’s religious faction which i’m sure is going to come up later.

a civil war would basically be the culmination of the recurring question of what makes a mandalorian (do they have to wear the helmet? be ethnically mandalorian? is it a religous, political, or racial group or a combination?) because any contender for mand’alor has to prove to the others that they’re truly mandalorian. which makes din as a (reluctant) contender quite interesting because not only is he a foundling, now that he’s taken off his helmet he probably doesn’t consider himself mandalorian anymore.

this is pure speculation but they could POTENTIALLY be gearing up for another mando civil war with bobf and mando s3, because we now have A) a claim to the throne by Din that is definitely going to be contested by a lot of people, himself included, B) a historically very politically powerful and ambitious leader who represents a “scorned” faction of Mandalorians in Bo-Katan, and C) Boba Fett, who presumably now controls Hutt Space (? or is it just outer rim territory? I can’t remember) and will probably be roped into the conflict purely based on the fact that he has resources, people, and territory at his disposal regardless of how he feels about Mandalore itself. Add all of that onto the fact that afaik Mandalore has no current ruler now that the Empire is gone and a huge diaspora that is probably eager to return home now that they’re not under the thumb of imperial rule. This would also follow the eternal cycle of “it’s like poetry, it rhymes” Star Wars is obsessed with following, so a capstone civil war is probably gonna happen soon-ish. also lends itself to lots of entertaining action scenes, rule of cool, etc

I think both the show and Din himself associates removing his helmet with death. maybe not always literal death (in ch8 he would rather die with his helmet on than live and take it off), but there’s a sense that he would meet a permanent and irrevocable spiritual end of some kind, something he won’t be allowed to come back from. I think in his mind he pictures it as a singularly traumatic event where nothing that happens after will matter, because whether he lives or dies, he won’t be a Mandalorian any longer. This would be the bookend moment to losing his parents as a child, which is the day he STARTED being a Mandalorian. It’s a very cinematic, very easy way of thinking about his life.

But that doesn’t happen! IG-11 removes his helmet and he has to keep on living as a Mandalorian. That transgression is a bit easier to rationalise if he’s being incredibly literal about the Creed (IG isn’t technically “a living thing”, as he says), which I don’t think Din is normally prone to doing, but it’s enough to keep the panic about losing his identity under control. In ch15 though, he shows his face to a bunch of Imperials and then has to put his helmet back on and keep being a Mandalorian, which would normally be a plain and simple End Of My Life event. but in that moment he puts his helmet back on anyway and keeps fighting, because being a Mandalorian means protecting the kid more than it means hiding himself from other people.

The common interpretation I see of this sequence of events is that Din is learning there’s more than one way of being a Mando, reinforced by his contact with Bo and Boba. And I suppose you can make that case, but for me personally I think it’s much more interesting to understand it as Din having to confront a deep contradiction in his own beliefs, which is whether to prioritise his armour and his own self, or his duty to those he loves. Din’s ties to his mando-hood have always been based in his larger community, but in the show itself he’s framed as a perpetual loner, a singular individual unit in a vast galaxy that is unconcerned with his well-being or his beliefs. And Grogu is presented as the first time he has to confront the idea that he is more than himself and his responsibilities, that he has to take care of himself for other people, and that his principles need to accommodate for that shift in priorities. It doesn’t mean he suddenly has this moment of clarity where he thinks “oh god, I’ve been living by this set of rules my entire life and they don’t actually matter”; it’s moreso “I am finally in a place in my life where I have to make real compromises, and I would rather compromise my own personal safety and comfort than my relationship with my own son.”

Which is such a great arc for him to go through!!!! It isn’t a phoenix-rising-from-the-ashes moment, nor a ledge-i-can’t-come-back-from moment. It’s a continual and subtle shift in his beliefs that he has to consciously attend to and confront every single day. Din has to practice being a Mandalorian for Grogu, which is different from being a Mandalorian for himself or his covert.

DO YOU KNOW THIS CHARACTER?

one thing i want from season 3 is an acknowledgement of what losing the razor crest means for din. that ship is literally his only safe space. it’s the one constant in his unpredictable life, and the one place where he isn’t perpetually under attack. the difference in his body language between when he’s planetside and when he’s flying is huge - it’s the most relaxed we ever see him. in addition, without the razor crest din will be forced to be dependent on other people. he seems to be living paycheck-to-paycheck and i don’t think he can afford a new ship. he has much, much less control over his own life without one, and it’s not like he ever had much control to start out with. i cannot emphasize this enough: losing the razor crest is absolutely devastating for din. i don’t want it to be too overshadowed by grogu.