screenshot study 3h
Digital artwork
I made a previous post here on how I go about writing various SW characters, but I think Din warrants his own post because he’s pretty unique in a lot of ways that can be difficult to translate into writing sometimes. A lot of people have asked me how I approach writing Din, so I thought I would share my notes!
Now, this is just how I write him personally. This isn’t meant to be a definitive interpretation of his character, but it’s the way I approach him whenever I’m writing, and I hope people find it helpful.
This is a lot more in-depth than my other post, so this will be more like a DND-style character sheet for him lol. I’ll go into his general outlook/worldview, mannerisms & temperament, how he talks and thinks, etc, along with some other stuff like his dynamic with Grogu.
As always, this is all going under a cut ↴
Keep reading
this reminds me of chapter 8 when it’s revealed that all the mandalorians in din’s covert were forced to take off their helmets after saving din. the armorer, who in the show represents the ultimate moral authority on the creed, appears to approve of their decision because they were prioritizing one aspect of the creed over another (i.e. helping fellow mandalorians > keeping the helmet on). she considers it a tragedy but not a sin. this is evidenced by the fact that she says “we were forced to reveal ourselves” rather than morally separating herself from the others by using they/themselves.
I keep seeing people say that Din broke his Creed in Chapter 15 but I think that is a misread of the scene and the show overall. I think what happened was that Din re-ordered the collection of tenets his follows so that the child’s safety supersedes all else.
The two most important parts of the Creed (as represented in the show) are wearing armour and protecting foundlings. In Chapter 3, Din is faced with a moral problem - does he protect this foundling or reclaim his peoples’ armour? His chooses the latter, and then goes back on that decision to rescue the child. That episode is titled The Sin for this exact reason - he made the incorrect moral decision, but he was no less of a Mandalorian for it.
In Chapter 15, he is then presented with the exact same problem, but this time he chooses the child over the armour. This is why that episode is titled The Believer - Din is in the process of reorganising his religious priorities, not abandoning them. Just as he was a Mandalorian when he decided to forsake the child, so too does he remain a Mandalorian when protecting him.
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.
happy pride month! here's the aroace flag colorpicked from din djarin:
WAIT WAIT WAIT YOU’RE RIGHT
i’ve been hypothesizing since like the beginning of the show that baby yoda’s blood was used to create snoke and/or the resurrected palpatine. is this confirmation??? the conspiracy theorist in me is going WILD right now. idk how kylo ren fits in though unless his theme is just being used as a symbol of the first order in general, foreshadowing how baby yoda’s blood is being used to faciliate its rise.
Why isn’t anyone talking about how Snoke’s theme plays at the beginning of the song Experiment off the Mando season 2 soundtrack and then how it bleeds into Kylo Ren’s theme ?!?!? AND that’s the scene where they talk about Grogu and midichlorians too !!! I NEED ANSWERS
rating: g (word count 431)
https://archiveofourown.org/works/31179644
Mayfeld honestly doesn’t believe the guy’ll take off his Mando armor until he’s right there with a kriffing stormtrooper helmet screwed onto his shoulders.
The guy makes himself out to be some sorta moral big shot, y’know? All that this is the Way and you start to think a guy’s serious. Not, like, a strong possibility, but it’s a maybe. It’s out there. ’Cause most people in Mayfeld’s line of work are all talk and nothing to show for it, but then here comes this guy who’s no talk and a hundred percent wicked fighting machine, who can take out four New Republic security droids all by himself without breaking a sweat. Mando’s on a level of his own. Makes Mayfeld think, maybe somebody like that doesn’t have to make concessions.
’Cause the rest of them make concessions all the time. Mayfeld sure does. He’s got a backpack full of excuses and it never runs out.
But if anyone could do it, make it through the mercenary business without stretching their conscience, it’s Mando. Mayfeld didn’t expect to find himself still breathing after he felt a presence approaching him in the prison transport hallway, much less locked up with a still-very-alive Xi’an and Burg. He would’ve pulled the trigger in a heartbeat if their shoes had been swapped. But Mando didn’t.
From a practical standpoint, their lives probably weren’t worth the idealism. Not that Mayfeld wants to be dead, but once Burg and Xi’an get out of prison they’ll track Mando down and kill him. They’ll have to be taken out of the equation sooner or later.
Everybody starts out like Mando, convinced that you’re gonna be the good one when everyone else has failed. Eventually you reach a point when you’ve got to choose between being good and being dead. But a tiny part of Mayfeld has started to think the old buckethead is invincible, started to think that maybe idealism doesn’t have consequences if you’re a Mandalorian. There’s not much that could hurt or even slow down a guy like that.
Maybe it’s naive, but Mayfeld owes his life to Mando’s code. Can’t blame him for starting to believe in the man a little.
But no. Turns out Mandalorians have their weak spots just like the rest of ’em, and this one’s is a little green kid with big ears.
When Mando turns his brand-new stormtrooper face to look at Mayfeld, there’s a clear You happy now? written all over it.
Nah. Think what you want about Mayfeld, he’s not that cold. Doesn’t make him happy to be right.
psa to anyone who follows me: if i randomly drop out of a conversation/vanish from tumblr without warning, it's just social anxiety and i will be back
the mandalorian fandom is funny because everyone's horniness level is either zero or a hundred. like there's the x reader folks and then there's the noromo mando folks and there's no in between