What does the phrase "down in the mud" mean here?

Question

It would be a great help if you could make the meaning of the phrase "down in the mud" clear to me in the following text:

Right, he’s got a long way to go. He’s a bounty hunter, so he’s down there in the mud. Much like westerns and samurai films, the show is about characters who are surviving while surrounded by people who aren’t necessarily the nicest – and dealing with situations that threaten to compromise their integrity. Watching them grow is baked into the western tradition.

The text is from the description of the show The Mandalorian, which is the first-ever Star Wars live-action TV series.

Thank you for your time.

Answer 1

Imagine someone who wrestles pigs or alligators or pythons for a living, having to pin them down in the mud of their habitat. That's literally "down in the mud", where the worker gets all dirty doing their work.
Imagine someone who has to deal with criminals, as a bounty hunter must. He probably gets dirty in another sense. That's figuratively "down in the mud".

Now for contrast, imagine a quiet office, where people come in to work in the morning, work peacefully all day, and go home at night having spent a day with no bad things happening. That's not "down in the mud".