In Chapter 18 of The Mandalorian, Din took a dive into the living waters beneath the Mines of Mandalore and re-took his oath to follow the Way of the Mand’alor. What does this mean for Din’s future? We’ve already seen him removing his helmet 3 times. The first time, he had it removed by IG-11 because of severe injury to his brain. However, he removed it twice in Season 2, and both times of his own will, for Grogu. One thing that has been established from Season 1 all the way to Season 3 is that Din is willing to do anything for Grogu. The creed, the guild, nothing stands a chance in front of his love for his child.
So where does that leave Din Djarin? He wants to be a Mandalorian. He wants to rejoin his clan, the Children of the Watch, but he is also a full time father now with a child that has become the very center of his world. If by any chance Grogu is in danger yet again and it’s another situation requiring Din to remove his helmet, then what? This is a question Din Djarin needs to ask himself. What means more to him now at this point in his life, the rigid definition of what it means to be a Mandalorian, or his child?
Keep in mind, before meeting Grogu, Din was just a bounty hunter dressed as a Mandalorian. The person he is now only began to emerge after he took on the duties of a parent. Din Djarin only emerged from underneath the impenetrable armor that covers almost his entire body once Grogu began to change his life and his heart. Din softened him, and undoubtedly his life began to change for the better. Would he have been where he is now, without Grogu? It seems unlikely. He’d still have been traveling through dangerous regions of the Outer Rim in hunt of one target or another and trying to make a living.
Of course now after meeting Grogu, his life has a clear purpose, and his loneliness has completely vanished. He’s become friendlier and more talkative. Now he’s known as Din as opposed to “Mando”, a character with a lot of sass and personality. Will Din continue to follow rigid helmet rules or will Din choose Grogu over everything and realize that keeping your helmet on is ultimately not the way, and you can be a worthy Mandalorian warrior even without your helmet on. The goal should be to help your planet and its people rebuild themselves, and that can be done without the helmet too.
Hopefully, Din will soon realize that Grogu deserves to look at his face, and if one day, Grogu also becomes a Mandalorian warrior, that it’s possible he’ll end up following his father’s footsteps and never show his face again. Is that a prospect that Din sees fitting for Grogu? Will Din be able to accept his child taking an oath to wear a helmet for hundreds of years of his life? The rest of Season 3 needs to find a way to make the helmet issue come to the surface again, but this time, Din needs to see that he never required redemption, and that the helmet is not what makes a great Mandalorian.