Din Djarin/Bo-Katan Kryze

Pairing
Pairing:	Din Djarin x Bo-Katan Kryze
Alternative name(s):	DinBo, BoDin
Gender category:	Het
Fandom:	The Mandalorian
Canonical?:	No
Prevalence:
Archives:
Other:
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Din/Bo-Katan, also called Dinbo or Bodin, is the pairing of Din Djarin and Bo-Katan Kryze from The Mandalorian.

Ship name

The ship name refers to how Bo-Katan calls him "Din," while most characters call him Mando. Inversely, Din first calls her "Bo" in episode 3.03, the only person since her sister Satine Kryze to call her that.

The names DinBo and BoDin were both batted around, with a preference for DinBo. People liked how DinBo sounds like Himbo. There was concern BoDin would be mixed up with BobaDin. Nonetheless, the phrase "BoDin for the win" helped BoDin persist.

Background

While shipping is never universally agreed upon, their partnership in a more general sense is pretty widely agreed to be essential to uniting the Mandalorian people. Bo-Katan is a very secular, modern Mandalorian, while Din is a very faithful traditionalist. Their ability to work together, learn from each other, and respect and tolerate the points where they disagree is basically a microcosm of what ideally the entire Mandalorian diaspora would do.

[Allen Xie, Mar 10, 2023]
Din Djarin, he's almost the opposite of Bo-Katan. His strengths are her weaknesses, and her strengths are his weaknesses ... I would say that these two make a perfect couple. Not a romantic couple — unless, y'know, there's a little flap in the armor or something — but more like a political couple.

[Star Wars Corner, Mar 8, 2023]
The theme that comes through in this episode is a contrast of her shattered faith next to his unwavering faith. Bo-Katan needs Din for her faith in the Mandalorian Way to be restored. Now, she's not going to have a faith like the Children of the Watch, but she does need to have hope for the future of her people, and I think Din Djarin is key to helping her get there.

Interviews

After season 3, there was an interview with Bo-Katan's actor Katee Sackhoff where she said that there were discussions on set about the ship, and that she and Brendan Wayne (Din's body double) joked about it.

Interviewer: [A fan] was shipping Din and Bo, and so a lot of people were. Was that ever a conversation, or never a conversation?

Katee Sackhoff: It was a conversation, for sure. There's a scene of Brendan actually grabbing Bo's face and kissing me, in like an off-take. It was so funny because it was like right there the entire time. We were joking about it the whole time. And then I was like, "Could you imagine having sex?" And he's like, "I can't take my helmet off."

[...]

Interviewer: There was actually a conversation about it? Like how serious was it?

Katee Sackhoff: I think the conversation literally was as much as like, "Well, like, how do we do this?" Then we have to get in the entire conversation of like what do they wear. Are they in their uniforms? What are they in? And I think it just like went away.

Katee Sackhoff interview, April 2023

The interview contains a silly segment where they joke about various ways Din and Bo could have sex while accommodating Din's helmet requirements. Proposed scenarios include Bo staring at herself in reflection off Din's helmet, Bo keeping her eyes closed, a BDSM style blindfold, a trip be rebaptized afterwards, and having sex in the sacred waters themselves.

Fandom

Din and Bo-Katan first meet in the second season, and the ship was born as a rarepair.

In the third season Bo-Katan becomes a main character and the relationship between the two becomes increasingly central, and shippers began flooding in.

[giveamadeuschohisownmovie, March 26, 2023]
There’s something so hilarious about how people were speculating that Mando season 3 was going to be “Din vs. Bo-Katan”, but the actual season turned out to be “Din + Bo-Katan”. […] It’s like Favreau and Filoni saw all the speculation and said to themselves, “Yeah, we see that, but, like…what if they were friends? And parents to Grogu. And…I don’t know, what if they kiss…just throwing that out there.”

Themes and tropes in fanworks

The Helmet

Fanworks are constantly negotiating Din's helmet Creed interacts with intimacy. Common answers include:

• Din simply breaking the Creed for Bo.
• Postulating that the Creed has an caveat allowing Children of the Watch to remove their helmets in front of their spouses (extrapolated from real-life niqabi rules).
• Bo agreeing to have her vision obstructed, by way of a blindfold, turning off the lights, or simply promising to keep her eyes closed.

Parenting

The pair co-parenting Din's son Grogu is central to many fanworks.

Sometimes Din and Bo have a second kid, either adopted or biological. Typically this one is a human child, who will grow up within their lifetime. It has been suggested that such a kid could become Grogu's caretaker when their parents die and Grogu is still not an adult.

Bo's family

Parallels have been drawn to Obi-Wan Kenobi/Satine Kryze (the Kryze sisters: seducing devout men away from their austere religious vows since the Clone Wars). There are some Everybody Lives AUs where Din gets to meet them.

Din tells Bo, "Your father sounds like an interesting man. I would've liked to have known him." Bo tells Grogu, "Don't worry. My dad was the same way. He's just proud of you."

[krissology, Mar 24, 2023]
Very interesting of Bo Katan to be consistently equating Din’s qualities to her father who she loves and respects greatly 🤔

Others

• Arranged or political marriage to unite the Mandalorians
• Keldabe kiss

Controversies

• Age: Some have pointed to Bo-Katan's age in Star Wars: The Clone Wars and said that by the time of The Mandalorian she is in her 50s, and that she is too old for Din who is thought to be around 40. Proponents have said that Din and Bo-Katan appear to be close in age (Katee Sackhoff being 43 and Pedro Pascal 48) and that this age thing is just detractors grasping at straws to find a concrete reason to legitimatize their amorphous dislike. And that — if they are to take that criticism seriously — objecting to this age difference is sexist, considering that Han/Leia have an age gap of about a decade and it's widely considered fine there. Complicating this is the matter that neither Din nor Bo-Katan's birth year is canonically stated, so their age gap can either be estimated up or down depending on the ulterior motives of the person doing the calculation.

Fanworks

Fanart

Them in their helmets sharing a Keldabe kiss (a gesture of affection where two Mandalorians resting their foreheads against each other) is a very popular motif.

• 

  by @rainybearstudio

• 

  *Bonk* by sayilovedragonage

• 

  Ni kar'tayl gar darasuum by eithniel

• 

  by patu3595

• 

  Grogu and his mommy and daddy by @artlordkarina

• 

  by callmevexx

There is also other art topics.

• 

  Did I really want to be Mand'alor, or did I want him? by @rainybearstudio

• 

  by eurydia

• 

  Grogu drawing his family by @kryze_andy

Manips

• 

  by Pog Soup

• 

  by Pog Soup

Fancomics

• 

  Din is a cuddler by @Mandorizz

Fanvids

• "Call it what you want" by Jexendo 2000

Resources

• Archive of Our Own tag: Din Djarin/Bo-Katan Kryze
• Discord group: dinbo stan gathering
• Tumblr tag: dinbo