This Star Wars article contains spoilers for The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett.
The Mandalorian season 3 isn’t just bringing purrgil and giant space alligators to live-action. “The Mines of Mandalore” expands the show’s bestiary even more by introducing us to what looks like our very first live mythosaur, slumbering deep within the living waters of the planet. We only get a brief glimpse at this kaiju-sized creature’s eye, as it watches Bo-Katan pull a drowning Din back to the surface, but it’s enough to leave a non-believer like Bo-Katan speechless. And while this may just seem like a fun easter egg to the casual viewer, the arrival of the mythosaur to The Mandalorian has huge implications for the future of Mandalore and the Star Wars galaxy.
First, what is a mythosaur? It’s a gigantic creature that was said to roam the lands of ancient Mandalore. As we’ve learned throughout the series, legend tells of a time when Mandalorian warriors tamed these beasts and rode them around the planet. By the time of Din Djarin and Bo-Katan, five years after Return of the Jedi and even longer after the Great Purge that left Mandalore a glassy wasteland, the mythosaur skull remained an important symbol for this warrior culture.
But as Bo-Katan explains while reading the inscription on the monument commemorating the mythosaur and the great Mandalorian warriors of old, this ancient creature has long been considered extinct, having disappeared thousands of years before Din ever even set foot on Mandalore. So to see one alive and thriving under the surface of her home planet is absolutely shocking to Bo-Katan, who until this very moment believed the legends surrounding the mythosaur to be superstitious Mandalorian hokum spouted by religious zealots. This revelation not only challenges her own personal beliefs about Mandalorian traditions but also her opinion of Din’s own clan of extremists and the rituals and prophecies they live by.
In other words, seeing the mythosaur in the flesh is a moment that reinforces Din’s faith in the Way of the Mand’alor (his specific religion), including his holy quest to redeem himself by bathing in the living waters, while shattering Bo-Katan’s much more “modern” interpretation of Mandalorian tradition. But beyond how the return of the mythosaur affects these characters on a personal level, there’s now something even bigger afoot, and it goes back to a Mandalorian prophecy that predicts a revival for Mandalore and its people.
“The songs of eons past foretold of the mythosaur rising up to herald a new age of Mandalore,” the Armorer tells Din in episode of The Book of Boba Fett. “Sadly, it only exists in legends.”
Even the Armorer herself, the religious leader of Din’s tribe, doesn’t seem to entirely believe this prophecy for the simple reason that mythosaurs are supposed to be extinct. This “new age” can never come to pass because there’s no mythosaur to rise up and herald it.
When that episode of Boba Fett aired, some fans were quick to theorize that the prophecy wasn’t referring to the mythosaur in a literal sense but the symbol worn on a certain Mandalorian’s armor. Was Boba Fett, whose armor is emblazoned with the skull of the mythosaur, destined to unite the Mandalorian clans and lead them back to their home world? In the now non-canon Legends continuity, Boba did eventually become the new leader of his people years after Return of the Jedi, but that seems less likely in the canon “Mandoverse” where his main ambition is to rule Mos Espa as its daimyo.
But now that it looks like at least one of these legendary creatures is still alive on Mandalore, a new future seems to finally be on the horizon for the scattered Mandalorian clans after years of hiding. That said, even if the mythosaur does “rise up to herald a new age of Mandalore,” who’s going to lead the Mandalorian people into the next era?
At the moment, the series seems to be setting up Din as the new Mand’alor. Not only is he the rightful wielder of the Darksaber, which allows him to claim the throne of Mandalore according to warrior tradition, but he’s also found the mythosaur that was foretold. (Din achieved both of these things completely by accident, by the way, which is why we love him.) We’d say the job is his to lose at this point. But as the return of the mythosaur proves, nothing is ever really what it seems when it comes to these Mandalorians.
The Mandalorian season 3 streams Wednesdays on Disney+.