The Mandalorian is a deep well of great little characters and very weird guys. There’s the family that saves and reunites Mando in the second episode of the second season, there’s Nick Nolte’s Kuiil, and there’s even Grogu himself.
The first episode of Season 3 added to this deep bank of lunatics with the huge Gorian Shard, a space pirate who looks like what would happen if Treebeard and Davy Jones had a kid. He may only be a few seconds into the episode, but there’s plenty we can glean from his brief appearance, including the fact that we’d like to see him lose to Din Djarin a lot more often.
(Ed. remark: This story contains spoilers for The Mandalorian season 3, episode 1.)
Gorian Shard is a newly created character for The Mandalorian and therefore a character we know next to nothing about – a relative rarity in the increasingly familiar Star Wars galaxy. Gorian is apparently a space pirate of some notoriety, as everyone seems happy to share his name as a status symbol, and we know he commands a crew of hundreds, if not thousands, thanks to the fleet of fighters and the massive starship under his control .
But what do we really know about Gorian? We know that Gorian is loyal to his crew, even to the really stupid people who perish over disagreements over where they can and can’t drink the newly refurbished Nevarro. That is the mark of a truly great leader. We also know that he is a committed investor in community spaces, such as the saloon he apparently loaned Greef Karga money to open, which Karga later unfairly turned into a school.
While none of these really justify the quality of the person he seems to keep employed, or make him seem particularly smart or competent (in a good way), they do give us a little insight into this very silly-looking new character.
Image: Lucasfilm
Speaking of stupidity, one thing we don’t know about Gorian is what exactly he is. There’s no indication of what planet he’s from, or what race he’s from, but he kind of looks like a sentient Christmas tree, which doesn’t clarify much.
Perhaps most importantly, despite all these facts, it seems that Gorian Shard may also just be a loser. When he briefly threatens Mando and Grogu, the pair simply whiz past him and straight into hyperspace, encountering a few purrgil along the way. If there’s any justice in the universe, Gorian will find a new way to appear in a few more episodes of the show, failing to fully capture or fight Mando each time.
Everyone loves a big mean buffoon. From Boris and Natasha Rocky and Bullwinkle into Wile E. Coyote Looney Tuneswatching someone fail catastrophically at every attempt to trap our heroes is a staple of the fun of the Saturday morning adventure show that The Mandalorian is so good at capturing. So it’s only fitting that Mando now has his own version of that in Gorian Shard.
