Is This The Way? 'The Mandalorian' Questions Religious Tradition
Photo courtesy of Lucasfilm.
(REVIEW) Every reason “The Mandalorian” is worth the $6.99 a month Disney+ subscription can be summed up in a short moment at the beginning of “The Siege,” an episode in the show’s second season.
The Mandalorian sits on his ship with his little green companion — who can be called “Baby Yoda,” “The Child” or “Grogu” depending on preference. They drink broth from small, metal cups. As Mando lifts his helmet just enough so he can bring the cup to his mouth, Grogu cranes forward and peers with emoji-like eyes to see if he can get a glimpse of the man underneath the helmet.
In that moment is a copious amount of Baby Yoda cuteness, complete with human baby-sounding coos and hums, which has made the show extraordinarily popular among fans. It also addresses one of the show's running conflicts: What’s under that helmet? And why won’t Mando take it off?
Mandalorians are a clan of warriors best known in the “Star Wars” canon for their roles as bounty hunters and enemies of the Jedi (Boba Fett, who’s featured in the original trilogy and now in the second season, has been both). Mandalorians wear Iron Man-style armor made of Beskar steel. And they are religious about maintaining that armor and certain practices with the armor. Mando was orphaned as a child and rescued by Mandalorians, who raised him to follow their traditions. He is a bounty hunter himself and adheres strictly to the Mandalorian way of life — meaning, for Mando, he never takes his helmet off.
Many people he meets on his many quests ask him to take off his helmet or suggest it might make things easier, but he never shows his face. As he says of the Mandalorian creed, “This is the way.” When he obtains small slabs of Beskar steel, he brings it to an underground forge that resembles a temple and where a Mandalorian priestess metallurgist called “The Armorer” forges the steel into custom armor and weapons that would make James Bond jealous. She treats the metal and Mandalorians as sacred and makes sure they don’t take off their helmets.
It’s something many audience members expect won’t last, maybe in part because religious face coverings in the Western world are uncommon or prohibited. Think laws like France’s “burqa ban” on traditional Muslim garb, the modern disdain for the headgear in the Handmaid’s Tale (“Under His Eye”) or try to bring to mind a Southern Baptist who chose to wear a face covering for modesty purposes. It’s also hard to sustain long-term interest in a character who has a gruff voice and no facial expressions available.
Sure enough, in the conclusion of the first season, Mando’s face is revealed: with fatal wounds, he removes his helmet to allow a droid to heal him.
He doesn’t technically violate his creed, since the droid that sees him isn’t a living thing, but he may as well have. The entire audience has seen his face.
‘Feels better when it’s off’
Mando’s helmet has served as a primary conflict of the second season — along with a mission to reunite Grogu with the Jedi, which comes as his Force abilities develop and Imperial survivors carry out a plan to capture him.
On a mission, Mando encounters Bo-Katan Kryze and two other Mandalorians who take their helmets off after battle without a second thought. When Mando expresses his distaste, she tells him he’s the strange one for not removing his helmet. In fact, she continues, he was raised in a religious cult called “the Watch” that hopes to re-establish the ancient way.
Unless you’re read up on your “Star Wars” lore, that news sparked questions. The answers are out there on “Star Wars” wiki sites, in spin-off shows and video games. But it hasn’t been addressed in “The Mandalorian” yet.
What does happen is another helmet removal — one with much greater consequences for Mando’s way.
In “The Believer,” Mando carries out a mission to infiltrate an Imperial base to find the location of Moff Gideon’s cruiser, where Imperial soldiers hold Grogu hostage. He’s changed from his armor to that of a stormtrooper, something his temporary companion Mayfeld teases him relentlessly about. He removes his own helmet for the drive and says it “feels better when it’s off” with a pointed glance and grin.
The effort resembles an atheist trying to reason someone out of faith or a pluralist arguing for a fundamentalist to loosen up. The same logic and rhetoric is used to induce a devout person to abandon principles of abstinence, whether applied to sex, drugs, gambling or any other kind of vice.
Mayfeld proceeds to get a little more philosophical:
“You said you couldn’t take your helmet off, and now you got a stormtrooper one on, 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. Look, I’m just sayin’, we’re all the same. Everybody’s got their lines they don’t cross until things get messy. As far as I’m concerned, if you can make it through your day and still sleep at night, you’re doing better than most.”
Things get messy fast.
Mando takes his helmet off just a few short scenes later, when a face scan is the only way he’ll be able to receive the coordinates. Mayfeld and several Imperial officers see his face — though Mayfeld tells him “You did what you had to do. I didn’t see your face” — and it shatters one of the most important parts of his creed.
Could it be because he’s thought about the truth of what Bo-Katan told him? It’s likely. And maybe he’ll ultimately decide he wants to abandon the ways of the Mandalorian as he was taught and become a more “low church” practitioner of the creed.
But what it comes down to is this: In the moment, he can either lose his creed or lose his adopted little green son. He chooses to save his Emoji-eyed son.
There’s a brief moment, as an Imperial officer demands Mando turn to face him, that he realizes he won’t be able to leave the base with his creed intact. Shame wells up in his eyes, he blinks to stomach the pain and finally turns around to face another living thing laid bare. The consequences of this decision for Mando’s identity and religion going forward have yet to be seen, but the sacrifice isn’t something to be taken lightly.
An unbreakable bond?
The Jedi, a spiritual order of their own right, have always required a strict devotion to the Order. Such devotion requires essentially a removal from all feelings because of the likelihood of negative emotions like anger and hatred. It was Anakin’s downfall and Luke’s struggle. Now, it becomes the stumbling block of the child, who’s barely begun to use the Force at all.
One of the earlier quests to find the Jedi leads Mando and Grogu to pseudo-Jedi Ahsoka Tano — once Anakin Skywalker’s padawan — who will be able to train the child in the ways of the Force.
And she certainly tries, but she can’t get him to use his powers on command. Instead, it’s Mando and a coveted silver ball from the ship that Grogu floats through the air with ease.
That Mando would become a father figure in this way is really no surprise; it’s embedded in the show’s narrative, a “gruff and hardened bounty hunting man becomes soft and parental when confronted with cute, innocent child.” This trope could be a cliche if it wasn’t executed so well.
But this season has elevated the father-child bond to dangerous levels.
“His attachment to you makes him vulnerable to his fears,” Ashoka tells Mando, and she ultimately refuses to train Grogu in the Force because of it.
And as Master Yoda himself once said, “Fear is the path to the Dark Side.”
Is Grogu’s attachment to his Mandalorian dad going to prevent him from becoming the great Jedi he could be? Maybe. After he’s captured on the Imperial ship, he drags stormtroopers across the floor with all the vitriol of Darth Vader.
What father and child would do to be reunited spells great personal sacrifice for each of their ways of life, involving ancient religious traditions and a great deal of spiritual devotion.
The last episode of the season, “The Rescue,” features that reunion — plus the answer to several questions, the return of iconic characters and more, complex questions about Mando’s future.
Most paramount is the appearance of the Jedi who will be able to train Grogu in the ways of the Force, requiring a more permanent separation between father and child. Both reluctant to separate, Grogu asks for permission to go, and Mando must make a choice. Will he choose his family? Or will he choose to honor the tradition of the Jedi and his child’s pursuit of his own creed?
He chooses to let go — but not before taking his helmet off a final time to say goodbye. All Grogu has to do is reach out a tiny, green hand to touch the mask before Mando pulls it off and sets it aside. In doing so, Mando reveals his face to two other living things. In the moment, it’s no longer about the pain or sacrifice of breaking his creed. It’s about the bond he shares with his child, and the significance of having that little hand touch his face.
It doesn’t mark the end of Mando’s credal conflict. In fact, it feels like it’s just beginning. But whether or not he chooses to follow the traditions he was raised in or become more liberal with his removal of the helmet, he hasn’t abandoned the Way.
Mando’s permission and sacrifice of family for the sake of creed shows, ultimately, that he values spiritual tradition higher than his goals and the politics of his people — even when he doesn’t trust the terms of his own anymore.
“The Mandalorian” is available to stream on Disney+.
Jillian Cheney is a Poynter-Koch fellow for Religion Unplugged who loves consuming good culture and writing about it. She also reports on American Protestantism and evangelical Christianity. You can find her on Twitter @_jilliancheney.