The Mandalorian didn’t have to make Bo-Katan look like such a chump

polygon.com:

There’s a version of The Mandalorian season 3 where the titular Mandalorian is not Din Djarin, but Bo-Katan Kryze. Katee Sackhoff’s deposed warrior princess bears the season’s clearest arc, going from one of many exiled Mandalorians to the leader of a reborn Mandalore, leading her once-divided people in a united campaign to restore their homeworld. Trouble is, The Mandalorian kept undermining her every step of the way — making her a leader, sure, but an extremely uninspiring one.

When we’re first reunited with Bo-Katan in “The Apostate,” the third-season premiere of The Mandalorian, Bo-Katan is in a position best described as embarrassing. She’s taken up bitter residence in an abandoned castle, where Din Djarin learns that her crew of (secular) Mandalorian followers has abandoned her to work as bounty hunters after they learned that she did not defeat Moff Gideon in combat, and that Din wields the Darksaber.

This adds insult to injury, as previously, Bo-Katan was infamous for surrendering to Moff Gideon after the Night of a Thousand Tears, when the Empire moved to wipe out Mandalore and Gideon made her give up the Darksaber, offering mercy in return. (He lied.) This only gets worse when you consider the character’s Clone Wars history, where she and fellow Mandalorian Pre Vizsla get absolutely worked by Darth Maul, who used them to temporarily seize the throne of Mandalore, and the Darksaber.

That pesky blade continues to haunt Bo-Katan. After she challenges her former colleague Axe Woves for leadership of her old clan and wins, he undermines her by saying she cannot truly be leader without the Darksaber, which she refuses to take from Din. So Din awards it to her on a technicality, since she saved Din from a monster