Characters In The Mandalorian With More Meaning Than You Realize

Disney+ is finally here, and with it comes its first live-action original Star Wars series, The Mandalorian. Set a few years after Return of the Jedi, the show feels like equal parts bleak western action adventure and samurai epic, all with the vast Star Wars universe as its backdrop. 

And the show's creators have done their homework. It takes more than a cursory knowledge of the Star Wars narrative to create what we've seen so far on The Mandalorian. Along with a bountiful basket of Easter eggs we meet characters — both minor players and those with a bit more narrative weight — who let us know just how deeply the show's creative team is willing to dive into the lore. From the show's very first scene, hardcore Star Wars fans can tell that when The Mandalorian creator Jon Favreau went to George Lucas for guidance, it wasn't just a PR move — he took Lucas' words seriously. 

Some of these characters are simply callbacks to early Star Wars movies, some answer questions to decades-old questions, and others just bring up more questions — maybe even more questions than The Mandalorian will have time to answer. But they're all characters in The Mandalorian with more meaning than you realize. 

Plot-wise, the masked, long-snouted character who calls the Mandalorian his ride early in Chapter 1 doesn't do all that much. He calls Mando a droid-driven speeder, Mando passes on the droid, and the alien calls him a speeder that's literally falling apart and driven by famous funny nerd Brian Posehn. But the goggled flutist has more meaning not only as far as Star Wars lore is concerned, but the ancient narrative roots The Mandalorian is tapping into.

More involved Star Wars fans will recognize the flutist as an alien called a Kubaz — it's a Kubaz in A New Hope who stalks the heroes around Mos Eisley and turns them in to the Imperial Storm Troopers. But he's more than just an Easter egg. When discussing the advice George Lucas gave him, Mandalorian creator Jon Favreau revealed that Lucas reminded him to think about ancient stories of heroism. Lucas was heavily influenced by the writing of Joseph Campbell, whose book The Hero with a Thousand Faces breaks down the commonalities among heroic tales in different cultures. In light of this, the flutist Kubaz seems like a clear reflection of Lucas' advice, as the scene is reminiscent of the myth of the River Styx. In ancient Greek myth, Styx was a river crossed by the newly dead by way of the ferryman Charon, but the passage cost a coin — like the one Mando tosses to the Kubaz. 

A Kubaz sniper later appears in Chapter 4, attempting to assassinate Baby Yoda. We don't know for sure whether or not this was the same character we met in the first episode, but it's certainly interesting to see The Mandalorian building upon what had once been a blink-and-you'll-miss-it masked alien.

There are a couple of interesting things going on with as "The Client," the cold Imperial who hires the Mandalorian to bring him "the asset," and who reacts with such a brimming undertone of threat when Mando dares to ask him what will happen to the asset once he has it. 

For starters, there's the surprising but perfect casting choice of Werner Herzog. While Herzog has acted before, he's best known as an acclaimed director of existential art films. He's made documentaries like 2005's Grizzly Man, 2010's Cave of Forgotten Dreams, and the 2018 biographical documentary about the Soviet Union's final head of state, Meeting Gorbachev. He's also known for more fictional fare like 2009's Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans and the 1972 cult classic Aguirre, the Wrath of God. 

Even setting aside the casting choice, the Client tells us a lot about the post-Imperial Star Wars world while at the same time leading to some interesting questions. The Client is presumably someone who wielded a good deal of power in the Empire before its fall. In spite of the Empire's defeat in Return of the Jedi, the Client has significant resources and influence — at least enough to operate without too much concern. He's managed to keep a loyal band of stormtroopers by his side, as well as some kind of intelligence network. Clearly, the Empire is not as dead as the Death Star. 

If nothing else, the explosive shoot-out ending of Chapter 1 answers a question some fans have probably been asking ever since 1980's Empire Strikes Back: exactly how would a droid perform as a bounty hunter? While he's not the same droid, physically IG-11 is very similar to IG-88, the droid who appears briefly in Episode V. While we don't get to see much of them beyond Boba Fett, the small group of bounty hunters Darth Vader sets on the heroes' trail made a strong enough impression on fans to keep their curiosities piqued over the years. The way IG-11 easily brushes aside the asset's guards (at least, at first), and how his droid body allows him to attack in multiple directions simultaneously while reacting to numerous assaults goes a long way to explain exactly what IG-88 was doing on Vader's ship all those years ago. 

Anyone worried we wouldn't get any more of Taika Waititi's voice work as IG-11 has a pleasant surprise waiting for them in Chapter 7. Early in the episode, we learn the Ugnaught farmer Kuiil went to the compound where Baby Yoda was being held after the firefight and retrieved IG-11. He revives the bounty hunter droid and trains him to perform more mundane tasks like feeding cattle and serving tea. 

After Kuiil is killed by storm troopers at the end of Chapter 7 and the Child is captured, IG-11 proves just how well Kuiil's reprogramming stuck. The droid avenges his fallen master by killing the troopers who murdered Kuiil, and retrieves the Child. He races into the town, tears through the Imperial forces, and reconnects with Mando and his allies. His arrival gives the heroes a fighting chance, and later in the episode the droid sacrifices himself to allow the Child and his protectors to escape the underground lava river.

In Chapter 3, we get a lot more Mandalorian than we bargained for. After turning Baby Yoda over to the Client, Mando earns a treasure trove of Beskar steel, which he brings to the mysterious Armorer seen in the first episode. This draws the attention of the other helmeted Mandalorians in what appears to be a hidden underground compound, and one of them isn't too happy with Mando acquiring the Beskar by working for remnants of the Empire. The Armorer helps to cool tempers, but this — along with the episode's final scene in which the Mandalorians emerge from hiding to help Mando and Baby Yoda escape — tells us a lot about this defeated people while still raising more questions. 

We learn from the brief melee between Mando and his brethren in Chapter 3 that the Mandalorians follow a strict warrior code. We hear them repeat the phrase "This is the way" a number of times, and when the Armorer suggests Mando's defeat of the Mudhorn means he's earned the beast as his signet, Mando refuses because it wasn't "a noble kill." The very fact that the other Mandalorians compromise their hideout to fight for Mando and his charge in spite of their earlier hostility towards him speaks volumes to a complex but unyielding sense of honor. 

In the first season finale, we learn most of the Mandalorian hunters who come to Mando and the Child's rescue in Chapter 3 were later hunted down and killed by Imperial forces. When Mando and his allies travel into the underground covert, they find a pile of broken and bloodied Mandalorian armor. The mysterious Armorer soon appears and tells the heroes what happened, though she and Mando express hope that at least a few hunters escaped off-planet.

Chapter 5 of The Mandalorian opens with our heroes in space, getting chased by another money-hungry bounty hunter. Mando eventually destroys his pursuer's ship, but not before his own ride, the Razorcrest, takes damage. He's forced to land at the nearest planet — the Star Wars mainstay, Tatooine. 

The Razorcrest's landing awakens a small squad of slapstick droids whose design you may remember from The Phantom Menace, in which we see our first pit droid in Watto's shop. While dormant, the droids almost look like metal turtles. When Jar Jar Binks unintentionally brings one to life, the young Anakin lets him know that pressing their prominent noses is what puts them back in their dormant stage. We see more of the comical pit droids in the podrace sequence, during which they act as clumsy, Three-Stooges-esque mechanics for the racers.

Mando insists the human mechanic Peli not allow any of her pit droids near the Razorcrest, and he's got a couple good reasons why. There are the obvious ones — he doesn't want any of them finding Baby Yoda, and he's shown a particular distaste for droids since Chapter 1 (super battle droids did seemingly kill his family, after all). But Mando's also probably aware of how remarkably bad the droids tend to be at their jobs. In Episode I's pod race, we see the droids do far more harm than good when their antics get one of the droids sucked into the pod engine of Ody Mandrell, scrapping the diminutive alien's chances at a win.

The eager, green bounty hunter Toro Calican eventually proves to be as much of a snake as his chosen profession would require him to be. At first seeming like he simply wants a hand in getting in the door of the Bounty Hunter's Guild, Toro eventually turns on Mando and dies for his troubles. It says a lot about exactly where Mando's state of mind is as of Chapter 5 is that he agrees to partner with the headstrong young bounty hunter. 

We still don't know a lot about Mando, but we do know he doesn't exactly overflow with trust toward strangers. It's almost unthinkable that he would give Toro the chance to pull the wool over his eyes. Once he knows the young bounty hunter wants to join the Guild — the same guild that is ruthlessly hunting him and Baby Yoda — the fact that he would agree to work with Toro and at one point even allow him to see Baby Yoda is kind of insane. Mando is clearly much more desperate than he wants to appear, otherwise he would've left Toro high and dry in the cantina. 

You can hardly blame him. He's being hunted by more bounty hunters than Han Solo in his prime, and with no guild membership he has no dependable way to make money. Things are probably going to get tougher for Mando before they get any better.

Ming-Na Wen appears in Chapter 5 as the vicious Fennec Shand, an assassin who we're told has been on the run ever since the New Republic imprisoned many of her old employers. We don't know exactly who those employers are, but Mando guesses they could've included the Hutts. That seems likely, considering she's in hiding on Tatooine, which we know from previous Star Wars tales has historically been under Hutt control.

The very fact that Shand is on the run, along with what little background we get from Toro and Mando, suggests that the Hutts may no longer be in charge. That's kind of surprising, even with the fall of the Empire. Sure, Jabba the Hutt died during the events of Return of the Jedi, but he was hardly the only Hutt. You would expect another would come in to fill the power vacuum left by the crime lord's death. The Hutts operated on Tatooine free from interference during the reign of the old Republic, so why would that change with the new one? Perhaps with Luke Skywalker's ties to Tatooine and his part in defeating the Empire, the New Republic gave the desert planet more attention than other Outer Rim worlds.  

Chapter 6, "The Prisoner," begins with Mando accepting a job from a seedy character named Ranzar "Ran" Malk. Like a lot of the dialogue in the episode between Mando and his colleagues, there are vague mentions of some kind of past conflict between Ran and the Mandalorian. Ran never specifies what happened, though he does tell Mando he was surprised to hear from the bounty hunter. 

When Mando and the others find Qin on the prison ship, there are references to Mando leaving Qin behind on another job. It could be this is what Ran is talking about, but we never get details. Considering the betrayal that unfolds by the end of the episode, and that Ran tries to have Mando killed even after he delivers Qin, whatever caused the schism it couldn't have been good. 

Fans of Sons of Anarchy should immediately recognize actor Mark Boone Junior, who played biker Bobby Elvis on the crime drama.

If Burg — the big horned guy on the crew tasked to break onto the prison ship — looks familiar, there are a couple of reasons for that. First, Burg is a Devaronian, and we got our first glimpse of his people in the very first Star Wars film. In Episode IV's classic cantina scene, a horned Devaronian is one of the many distinct aliens we see socializing in that "hive of scum and villainy." Burg gives us a chance to see what a Devaronian is like in action, and it's impressive. Despite having his head set on fire and two separate pairs of blast doors closed on him, Burg is alive and in the prison cell with the rest of the crew at the end of the episode. 

In case you don't recognize him under all the make-up, the actor playing Burg is Clancy Brown. Known for playing big and tough characters, Brown is perhaps best recognized for his role as the crooked prison guard Captain Hadley in the 1994 drama The Shawshank Redemption. You may also remember him playing a character even more unkillable than Burg — the sadistic Kurgan from the fantasy classic Highlander. 

The Mandalorian isn't Brown's first work in the Star Wars universe either. An actor with an impressive resume of voice work (he's been everyone from Spongebob's Mr. Krabs to Superman's Lex Luthor), he can be heard in the animated series Star Wars Rebels and The Clone Wars.

The sister/brother duo of Xi'an (Natalia Tena) and Qin (Ismael Cruz Cordova) aren't exactly the most sympathetic characters we meet in The Mandalorian. Xi'an acts like an adder about to strike long before she finally does, and you get the feeling she's the kind of killer who laughs as she tears her victims to pieces. Likewise, Qin betrays just about everyone in Chapter 6, including the crew sent to break him out and even his own sister. However, it does seem like the pair have good reasons to have turned cold and heartless. Xi'an and Qin are Twi'leks, a race known for — among other things — being targets for galactic slave traders. Female Twi'leks in particular are sought out because they're considered physically attractive to many different races, and it's likely you remember seeing female Twi'lek slaves in Jabba's Palace in Return of the Jedi or in Mos Espa in The Phantom Menace. 

Xi'an hints that she and Mando have been intimate in the past, and even implies she might have seen him without his helmet, but she also doesn't seem like a particularly reliable source. While Qin is seemingly dead by the end of Chapter 6, Xi'an is still alive on the prison ship, and it could be that we might learn somewhere down the road that she knows more about Mando than she lets on.

By the time Mando returns to the space station with Qin, he knows he's got nothing but more betrayal waiting for him. He takes the tracker that was triggered by the New Republic soldier before his death and plants it on Qin. Once Mando leaves that station, Ran orders a pilot to kill Mando, but the waiting gunship never gets a chance. Qin discovers the tracker and moments later, three X-Wing fighters appear and open fire on the hostile vessel. 

The three pilots who attack the space station are all used to working on the other side of the camera. They are (in order of appearance) Dave Filoni, Rick Famuyiwa, and Deborah Chow. All three have directed episodes of The Mandalorian — Famuyiwa is director for this very episode — and both Filoni and Famuyiwa have writing and producer credits on the series. 

Filoni has been with the Star Wars universe for a while. In fact, he oversees Lucasfilm's entire animation division. Before The Mandalorian, he worked as a developer and supervising director of The Clone Wars, Star Wars Resistance, and Star Wars Rebels. 

It may be a running joke that stormtroopers aren't very good at hitting their targets, but the kernels of truth that make those jokes funny don't apply to the Death Troopers. In Chapter 7 of The Mandalorian, the troopers in black armor who show up outside the Client's compound shortly before Moff Gideon are Death Troopers — elite Imperial soldiers specializing in stealth and trained to achieve maximum body counts. One of their main tasks was guarding high-ranking members of the Empire, so the fact that a squad of these deadly warriors precedes Moff Gideon's arrival on Navarro speaks to just how influential Gideon is.

If the Death Troopers look familiar, they should. The Death Troopers kept Orson Kennic company through most of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. They can be seen in the spin-off's opening sequence, when Krennic finds the Erso family in hiding, and they're with him on Scariff when the heroes arrive to get the Death Star plans. The deployment of the Death Troopers to the battlefield is one of the moments that turns the tide against the Rebels' surprise attack on the facility.

Even at the end of The Mandalorian's first season, we still don't know a lot about Greef Karga's past. We know he's a man of high rank in the bounty hunters' guild. From his dealings with Mando, we know Greef is a cunning, intelligent bounty hunter who will happily stab allies in the back if it suits his needs. He does show a spark of honor in Chapter 7, however, when he saves the Child and his protectors in return for Baby Yoda saving Greef's life earlier in the episode.

We do get one big hint about Karga's past in the season 1 finale. When Moff Gideon and his Imperial forces have the heroes cornered, he reveals that he knows very specific information about them all. Along with what he tells us about Mando and Cara, Gideon refers to Greef Karga as a "disgraced magistrate."

Knowing Greef is a disgraced magistrate doesn't give us a lot of information, but it does tell us that — unlike Mando and Cara, who seem born to the lives of warriors — Greef once presumably walked a much different path. We don't know what exactly Greef did to earn dishonor, though we do see him reaching for a bottle of liquor in his most desperate hour, which could be a hint about what exactly led him to the shame Moff Gideon speaks of.

In Chapter 8, our heroes escape the sewers on a ferry traversing a river of lava, though before they can reach the surface IG-11 is forced to sacrifice himself to kill the stormtroopers preparing an ambush. Before then, the gang meets a very interesting droid who is yet another call back to ancient myth. 

Just as with the flute-playing Kubaz in the series premiere, in Chapter 8 we are reminded once again of the ferryman Charon and the River Styx with the astromech ferry droid who pushes the craft down the river of lava. Not only does the droid seem to magically come to life despite being encased in hardened lava and initially seeming inoperative, but later the ferry keeps on its course even after Cara critically injures the droid. It all serves to remind us that no matter what these heroes do, death and destruction lie ahead.