Greef Karga

High Magistrate Greef Karga is a fictional character in the Star Wars franchise who appears in the Disney+ television series The Mandalorian. A former leader of the Bounty Hunters' Guild, he provides the show's title character with the bounty that leads him to meet Grogu, an alien infant also known as "The Child" and "Baby Yoda" by fans. Greef serves as both an ally and adversary to the Mandalorian at different points in the first season, and returns as an ally in the second and third seasons.

Greef Karga was created by Jon Favreau, the creator and showrunner of The Mandalorian. The character was originally planned only to appear in a handful of episodes, but Favreau and the writers liked the character so much that the role was expanded. Greef is portrayed by Carl Weathers, whom Favreau knew through the Directors Guild of America. Weathers accepted the part under the condition that he could direct future episodes of The Mandalorian; Weathers directed the episodes "Chapter 12: The Siege", which was Greef's only appearance in the show's second season, and the season three episode "Chapter 20: The Foundling".

Elements of the character's background have deliberately been kept mysterious, though it was revealed in the first-season finale that he was previously a disgraced government official, and Weathers said his backstory would be further developed in the second season. Weathers performed his stunts for The Mandalorian. He has described the role as "one of the greatest things that's happened in all of the years that I've been in entertainment". Greef has received generally positive feedback from fans and reviewers. For his performance in the second season, Weathers was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series.

Greef Karga is a leader of the Bounty Hunters' Guild, an organization that regulates the activities of bounty hunters, assigns bounties to specific individuals, and ensures its members follow the guild's rules. Little of Greef's backstory has been revealed as of the end of the first season, but in the first-season finale, it is revealed he was previously a government official with the title "magistrate" before losing the position in disgrace. Carl Weathers, the actor who portrays Greef, has said additional backstory details will be provided in the show's second season.

Greef first appears in the series premiere, "Chapter 1: The Mandalorian", where he operates out of a bar on the planet Nevarro. He is first seen when the Mandalorian collects payment from him for several bounties he collected. Greef then informs the Mandalorian about a lucrative job from a mysterious man known only as "The Client", who insists on meeting with the Mandalorian face to face. This job turns out to be a bounty against Grogu, aka "The Child", a young alien of the same unnamed species as Yoda.

Greef next appears in "Chapter 3: The Sin", during which he informs the Mandalorian to bring the captured Grogu directly to the Client. The Mandalorian does so, only to later rescue Grogu back from the Client, who is an agent of the Galactic Empire. This is a violation of the Bounty Hunters' Guild code, so Greef organizes a group of bounty hunters to confront the Mandalorian and get Grogu back. A massive gunfight ensues, in which most of Greef's bounty hunters are killed when the Mandalorian receives assistance from a group of fellow Mandalorian warriors. Greef himself escapes and confronts the Mandalorian at his ship, the Razor Crest, but the Mandalorian shoots him off his boarding ramp before flying away. Greef only survives because he had two ingots of beskar, a rare steel that the Client provided as payment for the Grogu's bounty, inside his vest pocket where he was shot.

The season's penultimate episode, "Chapter 7: The Reckoning", opens with the Mandalorian receiving a message from Greef, who proposes that if the Mandalorian helps eliminate the Imperial presence on Nevarro, Greef will ensure the Bounty Hunters' Guild no longer seeks out the Mandalorian or Grogu. The offer is a trap, and Greef plans to ambush and kill the Mandalorian and return Grogu to the Client. Nevertheless, the Mandalorian accepts Greef's offer, bringing along with him Cara Dune, Kuiil, and IG-11 to assist in the mission. During their voyage, the party is attacked by pterodactyl-like creatures, and Greef receives a poisonous slash that would have been fatal, but Grogu uses the Force to heal him. Greef is so moved that he has a change of heart and informs the others about the trap. They devise a new plan in which they leave Grogu behind, bring the Mandalorian to the Imperials as if he is a prisoner, and then attempt to eliminate them.

The plan goes wrong, resulting in the trio becoming pinned down inside a bar by Imperial officer Moff Gideon and his stormtroopers. At the start of the first-season finale "Chapter 8: Redemption", the group engages in a brief gunfight with the stormtroopers after the IG-11 arrives with Grogu to provide assistance. The group escapes the building via the sewer system, where they travel to a hidden Mandalorian covert and find most of the warriors there have already been killed by the Empire. The Mandalorian initially blames Greef for this, believing the Bounty Hunters' Guild responsible, until a fellow Mandalorian leader known as the Armorer persuades him otherwise. The group then flees on a droid-controlled floating barge on a river of lava. Greef is present when IG-11 sacrifices himself to eliminate a large number of stormtroopers to ensure the group's escape, and he survives an attack by Moff Gideon in a TIE fighter, which the Mandalorian repels. Afterward, Greef decides to stay behind on Nevarro and rebuild the Bounty Hunters' Guild, and he invites Cara Dune to work as his enforcer, which she accepts.