In an interview with Deadline, Katee Sackhoff (Battlestar Galactica, Another Life) discusses her character, Bo-Katan, in The Mandalorian. This article may contain spoilers for season three of the Disney+ series.
Episode two of the fourteen-time Emmy winning series, titled “The Mines of Mandalore,” featured Bo-Katan handling the Darksaber she has been seeking since season two — and giving it to Pedro Pascal’s (Game of Thrones, The Last of Us) Din.
Fans of the series were shocked to see her voluntarily give the Darksaber. Sackhoff had this to say of Bo-Katan’s decision: “We have to go back to see why she’s doing what she’s doing. This is a person who has fought, fought against her own people. She’s fought forever and she realizes that doesn’t work. You can’t continue to fight amongst yourselves. I think with Din — I don’t know if I’ll go as far as to say that she respects and trusts him — but she doesn’t not. He’s done nothing. If [he] didn’t have the Darksaber, he’s done nothing that would make him her enemy. I think that is her problem is that she realizes that she’s not going to fight her people anymore. She’s not going to fight someone who she doesn’t have a reason to fight. Every single possibility, every place that she’s at right now, every direction she’s done before didn’t work before. That’s what she’s trying to figure out.”
When asked about the shift in her character’s mindset from the first episode of the season to the latest episode, Sackhoff said, “If you go by the timeline that Jon [Favreau] and Dave [Filoni] are acting on, in that it’s been a few years. She has had time to lose all her people. They’re not following her anymore, which means she’s not a leader without the Darksaber, but she doesn’t know how to go about getting the Darksaber in such a way that’s going to result in her not losing her people. That means she’s not going to — we have six episodes left. It’s just that at this impasse right here that we’re at in this first episode. She cannot see a path that she hasn’t taken already that hasn’t failed her.”
Additionally, Sackhoff is asked about Bo-Katan’s group of female warriors, the Nite Owls: “She says that they abandoned as soon as she returned without the Darksaber. I think these are people who thought Bo would do anything to lead, that Bo would fight anyone to lead, and that’s what she wanted and that’s why they were following her. And when they saw something in her that they didn’t respect, they left. She lost her people, her home, she lost her family, she lost everything. She says that they’re making their way across the galaxy as bounty hunters, as mercenaries. They’re off making money, doing what Mandalorians stereotypically do.”
Bo-Katan’s situation is somewhat similar to when she was first introduced in the second season. Sackhoff makes a key distinction between the two seasons, however: “She was and she wasn’t. At that point, she was trying to get the Darksaber from an enemy. It’s easier to fight an enemy for something than it is to fight somebody you actually have respect for or has done nothing to upset you. That’s where she’s at. We have to go back to the responsibility and the guilt that she feels for the death of Satine [Bo-Katan’s sister]. That is weighing on her as well. There is a part of Bo in a way trying to right the wrong, atone for that guilt.”
Sackhoff also comments on Bo’s feelings toward Pascal’s Din: “She [has a profound amount of respect for him] and also respects what the darksaber stands for. She doesn’t necessarily think he’s old school as much as she thinks he’s a religious fanatic.”
On a final note, Sackhoff is asked about upcoming Mandalorian spinoff Ahsoka and if Bo will make any appearances on the show: “I can’t reveal anything. But, no, as of right now I’m not in Ahsoka.”
Seasons one, two, and three of The Mandalorian are streaming exclusively on Disney+.