#but also hey look! i'm back at writing sw metas!

[cienie-isengardu]

Star Wars Fact Files about Tor Vizsla

Fact Files in general are a pretty interesting source of knowledge about star wars lore however those are far from perfect, objective description. What is best seen with characters designed as villains, such as Tor Vizsla. For example, his entry is set out to present Vizsla as a man who “took excessive pleasure in the suffering of others” and was “prone to extreme cruelty”

And sure, Vizsla was not above solving his problems with brutal force, but adding the bold claim about him taking pleasure from hurting others to this particular picture is either the author's unfortunate choice born from ignorance or done on purpose ignoring the original source and in the result, a premeditated action to give the readers an misleading impression. Because you see, the picture above comes from the first issue of Jango Fett: Open Seasons in which Tor’s violence was very limited and original authors clearly did not go with the typical villain approach.

Lemme explain. 

When Death Watch managed to scatter True Mandalorians during battle, Tor Vizsla promised to running away Jaster Mereel that he will burn all his hiding places to the ground and execute anyone who helps him.

When Death Watch found little Jango working in the field, Vizsla got the needed information that the boy's father was helping someone wearing “soldier boots”, and that is why Death Watch came to Jango’s home. 

The next scene shows us Tor Vizsla interrogating Jango’s father by himself and this is the thing - all the beating was focused on the only one person confirmed to help Jaster Mereel. Little Jango was kept behind by one of Death Watch’s soldiers (as seen in the background),

but in the final scene, Tor did not threaten Fett Senior with killing his son(1) for not betraying Jaster’s location but that the boy will be forced to witness his death.

Tor: Answer me, or your kid will be wearing your brains.

One way or another, this was traumatic for Jango, but the point is, the original authors of the comics made a choice to not go with the typical villain route with Vizsla. If he took pleasure from others' suffering or was so prone to violence, hurting Jango was the best option to break Fett Senior, as a father would be more likely to betray his former associate(?) for his child’s sake than to spare himself the physical pain. What is even more, as the next frames showed, Jango’s mother and sister (later named Arla Fett) for some reason were allowed to stay in the house in relative safety and shoot down one of Death Watch soldiers that started the final shooting in which Jango's parents died.

The comics does not provide any information, did the women hide from Death Watch and thus attacked out of surprise when the situation looked dire or did Tor and his men know about them but ignored their presence(2), as only the Fett Senior was confirmed to help Jaster?

But again, if Death Watch knew and Tor was such a madman and psychopath as Fact Files claims, there was little Jango, an adult woman and teenage girl that could be hurt, both physically and sexually, to break down the man that refused to give away Jaster’s location. Death Watch could force Fett Senior to watch his young son or wife or daughter beaten to death, raped or tortured in any other way and yet Vizsla’s violence was limited to the man. Limited only to person confirmed to help True Mandalorians. A person Vizsla promised to execute at the beginning of the story(3).

Which gives an interesting nuance to the villain of Jango Fett’s story, something that original creators decided to include by adding this detail to the story when they could go with the typical “do as I said or I will kill your loved ones” threat. And this is something that greatly annoys me. Not just because of slander against one of my main favorite Mandalorians, but how the article was published in Fact Files- as the name suggests, a series dedicated to “facts” from lore, and yet presumably on purpose denigrates this certain character. 

This is the lesson that one should always be critical when engaging with widely understood source material and if there is a chance, to actually get familiar with the original source instead of just blindly relying on data books and other people's interpretation of characters and events.

SIDENOTES

(1) I even made a joke about that scene.

(2) If Death Watch knew about the wife and daughter hiding/staying in the house, it does not mean the women would be spared. As Tor said after Jango's parents died, they don't leave witnesses and thus Arla was presumably killed. One may though wonder, what would happen if Jango's father gave Death Watch Jaster's location? Would they left the family in peace or not?

(3) Tor also promised to burn down all Jaster Mereel's hiding places and in fact he keep that part of promise too.