Star Wars: Is The Mandalorian’s Armorer Actually Bo-Katan Kryze?

Star Wars has doing quite a bit of extra to make The Mandalorian season 2 an event worth seeing. If getting back with Mando and Baby Yoda wasn’t enough, The Mandalorian is bringing back Boba Fett; giving fans a live-action Ahsoka Tano; and will see The Clone Wars star Katee Sackhoff get to play her character Bo-Katan Kryze in live-action. It’s that latter casting reveal that has Star Wars fans buzzing, as Bo-Katan Kryze is major pivotal figure in Mandalorian culture. However, with the report that Bo-Katan is coming to The Mandalorian comes an obvious question: could Bo-Katan actually be The Mandalorian’s mysterious “Armorer” character?

Throughout season 1 of The Mandalorian, we got gradual brushstrokes of what has befallen Mandalorian culture, following the Great Purge. During the era of the Galactic Empire, Bo-Katan Kryze tried to lead an uprising against the Empire’s occupation of Mandalore, after Sabine Wren gave her the Darksaber as a mantle of leadership. Star Wars canon hasn’t addressed what happened to Bo-Katan during the Empire’s purge, but we know that Imperial commander Moff Gideon ended up with the saber, following the Great Purge and the Galactic Civil War.

Things have always seemed ominous when it comes to the fate of Bo-Katan Kryze, but her death is far from certain. And, without knowing anything about the women under the mask, there is a lot about “The Armorer” that fits Bo-Katan’s personality. First, the Armorer was a key figure in keeping “the Tribe” of surviving Mandalorians together on Planet Nevarro after the Great Purge, showing the kind of leadership that Bo-Katan Kryze always did. Bo-Katan was dedicated to the culture and traditions of Mandalore, just like the Armorer – and Bo-Katan would also be one of the obvious experts in forging beskar steel into Mandalorian armor and weaponry.

Of course, this possible connection between Bo-Katan and the Armorer is all dependent on the notion that the former survived the Great Purge at all. It also depends on how The Mandalorian is going to use the character: if it’s in flashbacks to events like The Great Purge, or if Bo-Katan will be featured in New Republic era where events of The Mandalorian take place. If it’s the latter scenario, then it would almost be harder for Star Wars to explain the Armorer and Bo-Katan as two separate characters, than it would to see the Armorer finally lift up her own helmet, and reveal that Katee Sackhoff’s Bo-Katan was under there the whole time.

I could be the case, as the actress playing The Armorer, Emily Swallow, hinted to Comicbook.com that she isn’t necessarily as involved in season 2: “The truth of it is, I know very, very, very little.”

Could that be a hint The Armorer had someone else besides a stunt double under the helmet in season 2?

The Mandalorian season 2 is set to arrive this fall on DIsney+.