A little theology with your pop culture?

What do contemporary Americans regard as a satisfactory resolution for a young man’s spiritual quest? What do we want our heroes to learn and to become? That’s the question I began to ask over the past few weeks, as I (like a lot of other Americans) watched the second season of The Mandalorian.  

I got intrigued about The Mandalorian when my friend Susan, who teaches out West, told me about a letter sent by her dean to his faculty. Praising them for accommodating the ups and downs of this weirdest of all teaching years, he compared his faculty members to the Mandalorian, protecting their Baby Yoda students—who were small but mighty.  

Okay, I thought. Maybe I need to see it.

In many ways, The Mandalorian is exactly what you’d expect: a space Western, with a brilliant young sharpshooter, lots of shoot-‘em-up stuff, and very obvious plot patterns. A few women run repair shops, make armor, or assassinate people for hire, but the norm is male—and mostly with swagger. (It feels a little regressive after the recent Star Wars movies.) Like much contemporary pop culture, the series lets its audience simultaneously mock and enjoy the tropes of its genre: the lone and laconic gun-slinger who always gets his man, the half-comic sidekick, the last-minute rescues, the vulnerable innocents who need to be protected, the kind and lovely woman who has to be left behind…. Yet, like the early Star Wars movies, it’s also funny enough and sweet enough in places to keep me interested. (The second episode has a sequence of Mando riding across the desert to the whistling music of every Western, awkwardly riding a creature that looks like a big fish on four legs. Hilarious.)

It’s fluff, for sure. But sometimes I need fluff. In crises like a Covid winter, I can sink so deeply into fluff that only my nose is visible, poking out for air. And I’m not alone. I have friends who insist that they can barely manage anything these days but upbeat novels with adventures that seize and hold their attention. Luckily, fluff can reward analysis: it’s effective precisely because it plays on readily accessible emotions and ideals. Which of those are we seeing in The Mandorian?

A couple of week ago, an essay in the New York Times discussed the theology emerging in the second season. At that point, I had barely finished the first season, but already I could see the issues that would arise. For those who don’t know the situation in The Mandalorian, here’s a summary. Mandalorians–hunted rebels against the (mostly disintegrated) Empire–now hide out in the sewers or work as bounty hunters. Feared and admired for their military prowess, they swear to a strict code of life. They rescue and care for foundlings (clearly a Good Thing), and they never take off their helmets in front of living creatures. (Useful for a mercenary but problematic on the intimacy front. No wonder they have to adopt foundlings.). Their oft-repeated mantra, “This is the Way,” sounds vaguely Anglo-Saxon—proud yet dirge-like. A grad school professor of mine labeled this phenomenon in Italian Renaissance romance “the dream of the ever-erect phallus.” (See? Grad school was more fun that you’d think.) In plain speech, the Mandalorian Way celebrates honor, weapons, eternal vigilance, and death.

Anyone who has good instincts about narrative figures out quickly that the Way will eventually have to come into question and the helmet will eventually have to come off. 

Not surprisingly, Season One of The Mandalorian tells the story of the lone hero who starts growing up. After a wild adolescence, Mando discovers a heart/conscience (Grogu, the baby Yoda) and, for reasons rooted in his own history as a foundling, keeps doggedly guarding The Child against predators. By the end of the season, he has protected something other than himself, for reasons more noble than professional honor and ambition. We see his real face. We hear his real name.

Next, he needs to move towards self-knowledge. In the tradition of chivalric romance, that means a quest.

So in the second season, as Mando seeks a home for baby Yoda, his external challenges trigger internal challenges—emotional challenges, spiritual challenges. He faces some of his own flaws, past mistakes, and limitations of knowledge. And not only his—also the limitations of his culture and traditions. (Of course he encounters other Mandalorians, who follow The Way differently than he’s been taught. Of course he gets angry and confused. Of course he takes off in a huff.)

How will this quest end? In other words, what do we Americans want these days as the outcome of a young warrior’s spiritual journey?  

The writer of the New York Times piece—I can’t find it, or I’d supply the name and date—wrote about the path he hoped our hero would take. He feared that Mando would follow a familiar American path: shed his narrow beliefs and wind up believing in some vaguely Unitarian-sounding mush. Instead, the writer hoped that Mando would grow to acknowledge other people’s traditions as right for them while also maintaining his commitment to the creed he was raised in.

It’s a postmodern vision of adult faith—tolerant but rooted in a tradition. I know people who live this way, and I respect them. But I don’t think it’s quite right for this story or this creed. I don’t doubt our protagonist will continue to be a warrior: the ideal of the hero as Unselfish Protector is very deeply engrained in us. But that helmet does eventually have to come off.

And not just for plot reasons. The helmet protects Mando, but it also isolates him. With the helmet on, he can have allies but no real friends. He can have desires but no lover or child. In future seasons, he could go the vaguely Buddhist way of Luke Skywalker. That might happen if he fell in love and she died. Then, having once taken the helmet off, he might put it back on and re-commit to the lonely Way he was taught. If the show is aimed primarily at eleven-year-old boys and wants to avoid the messiness of adult love, that could happen.

But I’m rooting for a different outcome. To me, the helmet not only obstructs face-to-face connection with other human beings, it also symbolizes an internal split. It keeps Mando a kind of machine, with his head kept apart from his body. Behind his impenetrable armor, he can hide out from vulnerability and humanity. In my version, he would slowly discover and integrate his head, body, and heart. That might involve a partner (Bo-Katan is dangling out there as a princess to be won, though she may be too ambitious and become a threat). But it would definitely involve good work—gaining the freedom of his adopted people, protecting foundlings—and good friends. I’m voting for a more generous, fully human vision of warriors and their armor. Let’s envision warriors who don their helmets for battle and doff them to eat with their friends. Maybe we’ll be lucky enough to see a warrior who’s willing to evaluate what causes are actually worth fighting for.

If we’re really really lucky, our earnest young hero may even crack a joke someday. It’s probably too much to hope for, but hey, it would sure would be a fun surprise.