Vanth was an actual character who was being used in service of the story being told and who was played by an actual performer. This is obvious in how the episode treats Luke Skywalker.
It is deeply frustrating and adds to the sense that The Book of Boba Fett is a show about watching its creators play with action figures while afraid of scuffing the paint work.
A TALE IN THE DESERT 7 FULL
The show will eagerly kill off entire tribes or bars full of anonymous characters in the hopes of provoking an audience reaction, but it hesitates to kill off any individual character who might be marketable outside of the show itself. Then again, this is how stakes work in The Book of Boba Fett. The climax then tries to escalate the stakes when the Pykes bomb the bar owned by Garsa Fwip (Jennifer Beals), but it all feels curiously passive. Instead, Bane brutally and repeatedly shoots Vanth’s deputy dead, killing a minor character who lacks Vanth’s popularity and Olyphant’s star power. Bane shoots Vanth in the shoulder, but the scene makes it clear that the wound is not fatal. However, as with “ The Streets of Mos Espa,” there’s a curious lack of stakes to The Book of Boba Fett. Without Boba Fett’s armor, Vanth is a less marketable action figure, so perhaps he is more expendable than other characters.
Vanth is a familiar face and Olyphant is a great actor, so killing off Vanth would help create audience investment. This is the penultimate episode of the season it is important to establish stakes. Vanth is used so effectively in “From the Desert Comes a Stranger” that it seems possible that the show might kill him off during his showdown with Cad Bane (Corey Burton). That might be a fair criticism in a more character-driven show, but Vanth doesn’t seem any less developed than any of the other major cast members in “From the Desert Comes a Stranger.” It helps that he is played by Timothy Olyphant, one of modern Hollywood’s few remaining cowboy actors and a compelling screen presence. This description of Vanth’s role in the episode might make the character seem like a prop, a pawn moved around the board with little agency or dynamism. Vanth is then attacked to send a message to Fett. He next appears when Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) travels into the desert to ask an old ally for a favor. The opening scene finds Vanth engaged in a stand-off with the Pyke Syndicate, establishing their reach on Tatooine. He can have his own arc and characterization, but his role in this narrative exists in the orbit of the more significant players. It helps that “From the Desert Comes a Stranger” understands that this isn’t Vanth’s show. However, in an episode with so much lore, it’s striking that Vanth stands out.
Vanth previously appeared in “ The Marshal,” the first episode of the second season of The Mandalorian and also the episode that marked the return of Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison) to the Star Wars universe. Interestingly for an episode that marks the return of Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) and Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson), the most compelling reappearing character is Cobb Vanth (Timothy Olyphant). Still, it is instructive to compare the way that “From the Desert Comes a Stranger” treats its various returning characters. Like “ Return of the Mandalorian” before it, “From the Desert Comes a Stranger” is more “40-odd minutes of Star Wars stuff” than it is an episode of The Book of Boba Fett. Do not scroll down if you don’t want spoilers. This discussion and review contains massive spoilers for The Book of Boba Fett episode 6, “From the Desert Comes a Stranger,” including in its images.
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