"The Off The Derech Remix." (Star Wars) G
Title: The Off The Derech Remix. (On Archive Of Our Own)
Author:
lannamichaels
Fandom: Star Wars
Rating: G
A/N: Glossary at the end! Thanks to
marina for the post that made me watch this show specifically so I could write this fic.
Summary: Din's relationship with his religion wasn't complicated until it was.
1.
Din Djarin was born on Yom Kippur -- "hinei yom ha-din," his mother had joked. His bris was on Succos, and if he hadn't had a bris, he'd have been named Hadass. His parents died when he was eight and the Mandalorian community took him in and helped him, the way they took in and helped so many other orphans. He learned Yonah for his bar mitzvah and couldn't relate to someone who knew what he was supposed to do and didn't want to do it. Din would do anything for his community.
But one day, Din took off his helmet.
2.
Pikuach nefesh excused a lot. Removing his helmet for medical treatment did not remove the yoke of Torah or the yoke of Derech Eretz from upon him. He was still Mandalorian and he still walked the path.
Removing his helmet for an Imperial scan was harder to justify.
There were other ways he could have found Moff Gideon. It was what they had warned him about so many times: his reasons had degraded. The first time had been to save his life. The second time had been an easy way out. And that was why a Mandalorian could never remove his helmet. It could become too easy to find justifications to break from the Way. This was why the helmet, once off, could not go back on again. Din could not stray and still remain the Mandalorian who had earned the armor. A Mandalorian worthy of this armor would never bend halacha to suit his wants. He would never do it because it was easier than not. He would not allow himself to be put into a situation where he seemed desperate, where it seemed the only way forward. It hadn't been the only way. But he had put himself into a situation where he would feel that way.
He should never have done that. If he walked the path, then he always walked it. Or else reasons would feed on each other until he would find himself taking off his helmet at any provocation, in front of any audience, for any reason. He knew that. He knew better.
Why had he removed his helmet?
Why had he brought himself to a place where he had to, where it was the only way, where he needed to do it to save Grogu-- why had he backed himself into that corner? Had something in him broken when that droid had removed his helmet to heal him? Should Din have died there instead? Would Grogu have survived if Din hadn't? Or was it just that, having removed the helmet once, having suffered no consequences for it, that he had stopped believing that his helmet could never be removed for any reason? One good reason, one terrible reason. What would the next one be? What reason would he invent the next time he wanted to remove his helmet?
Or was it worse? Had he stopped thinking the helmet was important? Was it so unimportant that he could remove it and then don it again, despite everything he knew to be true? Did it mean nothing to him?
Din should not have put his helmet back on. He should have accepted that he had broken from the correct path. He should have accepted that he could not continue to call himself Mandalorian. Removing a helmet removed everything that came with it. His armor did not belong to him; it had been given to him in trust. He wasn't worthy of it anymore if he broke halacha like this. It wasn't his anymore.
But he was on a quest. He had to save Grogu. Grogu was a foundling in his protection. To save Grogu, Din had to be the Mandalorian everyone knew him to be. He had to continue onward. Only once he had returned Grogu to his people could Din accept that he had abandoned his own.
But it was exactly as he had been warned. Once you stumbled off the Way, you weren't ever the same again. The Mandalorian who took the helmet off was never the Mandalorian who put it back on again.
Because the only thing that changed when he put it back on again was himself.
3.
His helmet fit exactly as it always had. It shouldn't have. It should have choked him on his chutzpah. What kind of Mandalorian was he, to break the laws and still act like he hadn't? He should leave his armor behind. He should find someone to pass it on to. He should never call himself Mandalorian again.
He had removed his helmet again. Again.
It helped that he had his break-down in front of Mandalorians.
No, it didn't, and they weren't Mandalorians.
They weren't Mandalorians in the same way he wasn't a Mandalorian either.
No. No, that wasn't true.
It helped that Din had decades of experience in swallowing his emotions. It helped that Din knew how to be a Mandalorian. He didn't know how to be anything but a Mandalorian.
It was one thing to tip his helmet backward to eat in the presence of others of his clan. It was one thing to pass another Mandalorian needed supplies while the other was in distress. It was one thing to act appropriately within the bounds of what was right. To have these others, who called themselves Mandalorians, who wore Mandalorian armor and talked of rebuilding Mandalore, see him, dismiss his difficulties, tell him that he was wrong, tell him that everything he had been taught was wrong, not understand how wrong everything about him was.
To have those who weren't Mandalorian in the slightest barely be able to tell that there was anything different between him and Bo-Katan. To Cara Dune, what did it matter if he never took off his helmet or only sometimes took off his helmet?
What made a Mandalorian? Was it the armor? Was it holding fast to the Way?
How much could you let that go and still be Mandalorian? How much could you lose? How far could you wander?
He should never have put the helmet back on, but he did. And it was going to get easier every time to take it off.
First for pikuach nefesh. Second for a chance to find Grogu. And third, for what? Why? Grogu knew him. Grogu had no need to see his face. But Din had wanted Grogu to see his face. He had made his decision and he had done it and Grogu, his foundling, had seen his face. Din had made his decision and Luke Skywalker, a stranger, had seen his face.
How could he have done it? How could he excuse it? Why had he done it?
Why couldn't he stop?
Why didn't he want to stop?
Did every Mandalorian who removed their helmet have a good reason every single time? Or did they stop having reasons? Bo-Katan didn't have a reason to take her helmet off. Was he going to become like her?
He had to find real Mandalorians. He had to talk to them. He had to know. Was there any way back from this? Was there any teshuva he could do?
Did he even want to?
4.
Bo-Katan was like him in ways Din didn't like. She fought as a warrior did. When they dueled for the darksaber so she could win it off of him, he knew her fighting style as his own. When it was over, she shuckled as he did as they both bent to repair their armor. She kept her armor in good condition. She complimented his clan signet and asked for the story of it. He asked for the story of hers.
All of these made Mandalorians.
But she took off her helmet in front of strangers and that was not Mandalorian, not part of the creed, against everything Din knew, but he had started doing it, too. Not in front of strangers, no, not after that first time. He knew that was wrong. He knew he shouldn't have done that. But what was the harm in a friend seeing his face? He found he liked it. He kept doing it. And the more he did it, the more things changed. But still the only thing that changed was him.
They arrived at Mandalore.
Din found his own people.
He didn't know if they would reject him for what he had done. He wanted them to. He wanted to know that everything he'd known to be true was still true. He wanted to be thrown out. He wanted his life to follow the path that it should. He had removed his helmet and had continued to do so, even for the flimsiest of reasons, even for no reason at all. They should strip his armor from him and throw him out. They should give his armor to a foundling. And if they did that, then everything would still make sense. If they did that, then everything would be okay. Din had completed his quest. He had reunited Grogu with his people. Din had removed his helmet and must suffer the consequences. Because if he didn't, what was there for him? Because if he didn't, then he didn't know what Mandalorian meant.
To do teshuva, you had to be sorry. Din examined himself. He didn't feel sorry. He felt incompetent. All his life, he had never had any difficulty with this, but now he did. Even now, he didn't have any problems performing any other self-discipline. He kept to the Mandalorian Way in all other aspects except for this one, this most vital one. Was it that he no longer believed it was necessary for Mandalorians to keep their faces covered? Or was it only himself that he exempted?
He had always known why Mandalorians wore helmets. He could recite all the reasons and he believed them. But he had never thought too much about them before, about how true they were, about how they affected his own life. For the first time, he had realized that wearing his helmet was a choice. It had been a choice that was so easy for him to make until, suddenly, it wasn't easy at all. Now he was thinking about it. The helmet embodied the oaths he had taken to his people; it symbolized everything he had taken upon himself. And it held him apart even from his own family. To everyone else, a helmet was protection. To Mandalorians, a helmet said who he was. Faces changed over the years; a helmet was more enduring. Din's helmet was the face that he had had when he promised to uphold the Way. It could be destroyed, but it could always be remade to its original specifications. It would always show the same face to the universe, the face of a Mandalorian. The face of the Mandalorian that was Din Djarin.
They weren't stormtroopers, designed to be indistinguishable in their uniforms. A Mandalorian helmet was unique. A Mandalorian helmet was distinct. A Mandalorian helmet was a statement. It said, in a voice impossible to ignore, that this was a Mandalorian. This was someone who chose this path to walk on. This was a warrior. It was a sign to other Mandalorians and it was a sign to outsiders. And it was important.
Din had always known that outsiders didn't see all the nuances that a Mandalorian would. That hadn't mattered. But now he wondered.
Did other Mandalorians need to see him with his helmet at all times? Did he really need that outward sign to them, to those who knew him? They knew who he really was and so did he. Who was he reminding? Himself? He couldn't forget the planetary core that formed his existence. He didn't need a reminder. Mandalorians had no need to wear a helmet when alone.
But other Mandalorians were like him. They shouldn't need the reminder. And Din's outsider friends? They didn't even know what a Mandalorian was. They didn't know what a helmet represented. If he wanted to remove it, they wouldn't know the depths of his offense. But that didn't mean it didn't matter.
Din had always chosen to wear his helmet. And now he realized he had a choice not to. And, with that choice, he was choosing to take his helmet off. He was choosing to show his face. He was choosing to believe that the sign of a Mandalorian was on the heart, not on the helmet, which, as he was finding out, could so easily be removed. Taking off his helmet didn't mean he wasn't a Mandalorian anymore, not to him.
He had to find someone to talk to. He had to find someone to help. He had to find someone to tell him what kind of Mandalorian he was. He had taken his helmet off. But he had put it back on again. What did that mean?
He wanted things to be too easy, his old armorer told him when they were reunited. Didn't he know that to be Mandalorian was to fight?
Din knew how to fight. He had spent his life fighting. That was the Way. It was the reason that his covert had come to his aid in battle without being asked, had risked everything to save him. They could not do otherwise and remain Mandalorian. To be a Mandalorian was to fight, for themselves and for each other.
Din had helped Bo-Katan, but never for nothing. They had negotiated for it like they were strangers and not Mandalorians. Was that his future with his people? No trust between them? Trust took time to grow and no time at all to destroy. But he had met Bo-Katan after he had removed his helmet for the first time. Had he no longer been Mandalorian even then?
"Who am I fighting?" Din asked the armorer.
"Your expectations," she told him. She picked his helmet up and brushed over the steel before handing it back to him. "This is yours."
Din stared at it, not knowing what showed on his bare face. He couldn't accept it. He couldn't put it back on. He wasn't Mandalorian if he was Mandalorian like Bo-Katan was.
"Stubborn," the armorer told him. "Good. Hold fast to that. You're going to need it."
She told him of a job he had to do. She told him of a group of foundlings he needed to move between planets ahead of their enemies. She told him of Mandalorians who would accompany him. She told him Mandalorians still needed him.
She did not tell him to keep his helmet on.
But she should not have had to.
5.
One day, Din will reunite with Grogu. He will visit Skywalker's training center with another two foundlings who both showed Force powers. One day, Din will bring Grogu back to Mandalore to visit. Skywalker will accompany them with his other students. They will call it a learning expedition. The Jedi will help with rebuilding. They will stay for several months.
Din will eat most meals with Grogu. All of the Jedi will see his face.
Yom Kippur will come. Din will stand in the back, but he will come forward to leyn Yonah. He will stand there without armor, in his stocking feet, his face covered in a mask to match his kittel. He will speak the story of a man who knew what he was commanded to do but did not want to do it. He will speak of internal resistance to outward pressure, to knowing what was right and desperate refusal to do it. He will speak of doubt. He will speak of despair. He will speak of returning. He will speak of choices.
Din will be used to fasting. He will have gone longer without eating. Din will not be used to introspection. Din will not be used to this kind of fight. He will have never struggled with himself before. He will have always known how to be Mandalorian. He will not be settled until he has that knowledge again.
One day, he will sit under a young sapling and take his helmet off to eat its fruit. He will drink waters from a spring in a desert. And then he will stand and continue on his way, a Mandalorian.
Even if he will not always know what that means.
Glossary:
Bris: bris milah, time of circumcision and baby naming
Chutzpah: audacious, rude, disrespectful behavior. Despite the common American usage, chutzpah is a bad thing.
Derech eretz: proper behavior
Halacha: Jewish law
Hinei yom ha-din: "here is the Day of the Law [Din]" is my attempt at an illustrative translation for these purposes. Generally translated as "here is the day of judgment".
Kittel: a white robe worn on Yom Kippur and other occasions
Leyn: read aloud with the cantillation
Pikuach nefesh: you can do nearly anything if it's needed to save a life
Off the derech: when someone leaves Orthodox Judaism or switches to a version of Judaism considered less observant, they go off the derech. It is fully possible to translate the derech as The Way.
Shuckling: rhythmic swaying
Teshuva: repentance
This entry was originally posted at https://lannamichaels.dreamwidth.org/1182694.html.