#i get where favroni are sort of coming from

[antianakin]

Do you think you’d like Mandos if they were more like Vikings? I think I heard from somewhere that’s what they were based off of. If they were anything like the TV show Vikings I would be behind them 100%. Imagine if they made Boba more like Ragnar instead of the Feloni version.

I can't quite tell if you're asking me if I'd like Mandalorians if they were written to be more like actual real life vikings or if they were writing more like the way the characters are written in the fictional TV show Vikings, but my answer is going to be similar either way. I don't know enough about either regular viking culture or the way the show Vikings chose to depict them to really be able to answer either way.

The thing I think you're remembering is that I believe it's been said that Lucas chose to bring in Mandalorians as a concept into TCW but changed them up to be more like "pacifist Vikings" (which is why they look the way they do in TCW) because he found that an intriguing concept despite how little it had to do with the way Mandalorians had been depicted in Legends up until then. And that concept mostly seems to come across as like "a group of people who were known for being very violent and doing a lot of pillaging and raiding and fighting in their past but it got to the point where they were so violent that they nearly destroyed themselves and their new leader has enforced a pacifist lifestyle in an effort to keep them from going completely extinct." I don't know that it necessarily took a lot from actual viking culture or traditions beyond that.

The reason I dislike the Mandos is more about the way they're written and the way fans tend to interpret them (especially in relation to the Jedi) than anything else. There's also the issue of like... the contradictions between Legends Mandos, Lucas's Mandos, and Disney/Favroni canon Mandos. People have tried REALLY REALLY HARD to fit in Legends Mando stuff with Lucas's canon Mandos, which leads to this idea that while Lucas shows Mandos as like... very black and white with Death Watch being the more traditional violent version and Satine being the modern pacifist version, there is actually some sort-of in-between that can exist. This is where you get the "True Mandalorians" and characters like Jaster and Jango and even newer characters like Din and, to some degree, Bo-Katan. There's this idea that you can be a violent person who works in something like bounty hunting and still be a good honorable person. Din is someone who does not CARE who he kills so long as he gets paid to do it when we first meet him (his whole catchphrase is "I can bring you in warm or I can bring you in cold" which tells his marks that he doesn't care if he has to kill them to get the job done), he's even initially fine with child trafficking being a part of his job description and BARELY ends up turning around to rescue Grogu after he's already been paid. And while I understand that this can make for some interesting character work and that a lot of people really enjoy the more morally ambiguous nature of this kind of character, these flaws and nastier choices often get brushed under the rug by their fans to try to portray them as better people than they are.

And of course, this often also ends up leading people to represent these characters, these "True Mandos" as the epitome of what a person should be. That these are people who truly understand honor and love and family, often as a direct contrast to the Jedi specifically. Even though these are people who hunt and kill others FOR A LIVING and are still choosing their leaders based on who can fight well enough to acquire one specific weapon. This is still a culture based primarily around violence, towards each other and towards the rest of the world. This doesn't mean these characters cant' be INTERESTING or ENJOYABLE, but too many people sit there and act like Mandos, especially "True" Mandos, are some sort-of mystical better than everyone else beings instead of the IMMENSELY flawed people that they are who would honestly be much better off if they were more like the Jedi.

This is one of the reasons I initially liked Sabine so much in Rebels, because we see how she has to learn a LOT of Jedi lessons about patience and mercy and sacrifice from Kanan that she's able to then apply to her Mandalorian heritage so that she can recognize which parts of their traditions are worth holding on to (the armor that's been passed down for generations and holds a lot of spiritual meaning regarding connections to their ancestors) and which are not (killing your enemies instead of showing mercy, being forced to be a leader just because she happens to be wielding this one specific weapon even though she's not ready or interested in the position). Notice that the things worth keeping about her culture are the things that are specifically NOT VIOLENT IN NATURE.

I think people also regularly overestimate how important and competent Mandos even are, True, New, or otherwise. We ROUTINELY see Mandos get their asses handed to them, by Jedi, by the Empire, by Rebels. There seems to be this pervasive idea that Mandos could change the course of the galaxy, that Mandos are the BEST fighters in the galaxy and if only they were around to help, they would be able to beat everyone else, and it just. Isn't true. They're good at BEING VIOLENT, sure, but this doesn't actually equate to being a better fighter than anyone else. They're so good at being violent that they keep just... exterminating their own people out of sheer stupidity to the point that they're not a real threat to ANYBODY. They destroy their own planet to the point that it's practically uninhabitable, they refuse to have a civil discussion with a group that is clearly outgunning them and then act surprised when this ends up with all of them fucking dead, they make themselves neutral in a galactic civil war and then act surprised when that means trade dries up, they lead two Sith lords and FOUR crime organizations onto their planet and then act surprised when they end up ousted out of their own leadership and instead accidentally end up with a Sith lord as a leader because he beheaded the Mando guy. Mandos IN GENERAL are just reckless, irresponsible, arrogant assholes, no matter which flavor they come in. They can't even help THEMSELVES let alone the rest of the galaxy.

And to some degree, I think that's part of the point of the Mandos in Lucas's canon, that they're just... total flops most of the time. They're an intentional foil to the Jedi in that they are a culture that RELIES on violence as a cornerstone of their behavior and worldview and never see peace as an option whereas the Jedi relies on peace always being an option and violence is just a last resort as a recognition that many other people don't share their desire for peace. The whole point of Mandos in Lucas's canon and even in Rebels to some degree is that their way of life is BAD and not one that SHOULD be preserved the way that it is. If the Mandos don't figure out how to change, they ARE going to just die out, not because anyone sees them as a threat and wants them eliminated, but because their own arrogance and stupidity is just inevitably going to cause their own end. The Mandos are a CAUTIONARY TALE more than anything else.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that that isn't true about the vikings in the Vikings show. You're clearly rooting for them, so I have to assume that you don't view these characters and the culture they're representing as a cautionary tale about what NOT to do or be like. And that's fine, that show is clearly doing something very different with its story and the themes and messages it's sending than Lucas was doing with Star Wars. And I think shows like The Mandalorian are trying to do something similar by making their sort-of violently morally ambiguous character and his culture something you root for rather than a cautionary tale. Which... fine, in the vacuum of the story we had within the first two seasons of the show, that worked out okay. But as it's expanded outward into the greater Star Wars saga, this has become more and more of an issue because the Mandos AREN'T characters you root for in regular Star Wars. They just aren't, especially the variety that Din and Bo-Katan tend to represent. They're usually villains or antagonists for the more genuinely heroic characters, there to either be an obstacle or to represent the consequence of selfish choices. But Filoni and Favreau are SO insistent on making the Mandos the heroes AND on making them like the Legends Mandos they grew up on that these messages are getting flattened and lost entirely.

So I guess my answer to this question is that no, I don't necessarily think that the Mandos would be more enjoyable if they were more like the vikings, either the real ones or the fictional ones, because they just straight up aren't the heroes of this story and their entire culture as per Lucas's canon, the one based around violence as a first answer to everything, is intended to be a cautionary tale rather than something we root for. I think that the Mando culture as we know it isn't something that can be glorified and romanticized and still feel like it remains within the themes of Star Wars.