#the new mandalorians and death watch and the cultural genocide and the actual genocide and Jaster Mereel

[zeb-z]

I am absolutely positively losing it at how Bo Katan drops the ball so hard. I was prepared for her to be more of an obstacle in the face of Din having the Darksaber, for her to be petty and reluctant to give up any form of leadership she has having gathered the Mandalorians - but she really sat on that throne and gave us nothing.

It’s so Bo Katan to be such a disappointment. To go against what she claims her morals to be. If she really wanted the Mandalorian people to be reunited, for Mandalore to be reclaimed, she wouldn’t have just given up upon not getting the Darksaber. She wouldn’t be turning away anyone who still wants to join the cause of reclaiming their planet. She wouldn’t have given up at such a roadblock if she had really cared for her people and her culture.

Bo tells Din to retake Mandalore and lead them himself, as if there’s no greater joke. Wave that thing around, they’ll do whatever you say. And when he asks if she’s given up, she lashes out. Sits there and says his people gave up long before the purge, how his cult fractured their people, how his beliefs are a joke. How he’s a fool to go to a planet that’s so destroyed it’s hopeless, and he calls her out. I thought you said the curse was a lie, make up your mind.

She only uses ‘our’ when she says ‘our people’ to continue to insult him, accuse him of what she’s done before, what she’s doing now - failing their people. Scattering the Mandalorians. She picks and chooses what traditions and cultures of her people to take to heart based on convenience. She’s not loyal to her people but to her own ideals and power.

This is why Din Djarin has always been and always will be a better leader and representation of the Mandalorians. The way he follows has always been about protecting his clan and himself, but when his tradition is put against saving his child, he saves his child and would do so over and over again. Yet he still wants to atone because the respect of his people is important to him. Versus Bo Katan, who does not care enough about her people to even consider trying to bring them together without being the ruler of them all, to try and keep her people alive even if it means rethinking tradition.

To her, ruling has never been about the people of Mandalore. It has never been about reuniting their people who survived a cultural and a literal genocide. Ever since her days in Death Watch, it has never been about truly leading her people into something better. It has always been about her pride. It has always been about being right.

[artemisdesari-blog]

The trouble with writing a long AU is sometimes it sparks ideas for others based off narrative choices. In this case; what would have happened if the deal between Dooku and Fett in Careless To Let It Fall had been allowed to happen.

After killing Komari, Fett encounters Dooku who offers him the job of being the progenitor and trainer of an army of clones. So good, so canon. In Careless this is expanded on as a deal where two hundred thousand men are grown and trained purely for the purpose of overthrowing the Republic Senate who are responsible for, among many things, supporting the New Mandalorian's take over of Mandalore (leading to something of a cultural genocide) and the mission to Galidraan where Dooku was given all the wrong information as part of a Death Watch trap, but Jango shot first. Obviously there are more issues than that, and Jango is in full on revenge and not thinking clearly mode, but that's the base of it. As Jango’s payment for helping the Jedi effectively overthrow the Senate (cesspool of corruption that it is) Jango will be given fifty thousand of those men to use to wipe out any Death Watch in hiding and take back Mandalore. Obviously, neither Dooku nor Jango mean to keep their end of the deal. Dooku knows Palpatine has bigger plans and will work on Jango as much as possible to make a larger army and Jango intends to just abscond with every clone when the time comes and wipe out any Jedi who come for them.

This where Careless and whatever this AU is would diverge. In Careless Qui-Gon Jinn lives, Obi-Wan goes off to do his own thing, and Fett gets aggressively mind wiped and controlled by Dooku and Sidious so that he truly becomes the major asshole we all love. There's other stuff, but that hasn't been revealed yet even though I'm at chapter 100.

In this universe, Qui-Gon would die and the Trade Federation, humiliated by how Sidious used them, would find a way to off the Chancellor of the Republic as a final fuck you. Maybe Palpatine’s death is just an accident. Either way, Sidious is out of the picture but the clones are already in production and the Senate is still a total cesspool of corruption and arrogance and greed. Without Sidious to help facilitate the plan of playing one side of a conflict against the other, Dooku has to rethink and do it fast. He rejoins the order (or stays, some agree he left before Qui-Gon died and just stopped by to visit, others think it was what caused him to leave and I am too tired and lazy to check which is correct), forms a relationship with Obi-Wan even though he doesn’t bring him into the plan because he can tell Obi doesn't have time due to Anakin’s everything, because I am trash for Grandpa Dooku stuff, and begins to quietly convince younger and more idealistic Jedi that the Senate needs an overhaul, usually approaching them after missions gone wrong, while periodically checking in on Jango and the clones.

All on Kamino appears to be going according to the revised plan, except its actually going according to Jango’s plan. Jango pulls in the trainers and spends a couple of years weeding out the ones he can't actually trust as much as he hoped while quietly adopting a few dozen clones, including many fan faves. Other trainers adopt other clones, those clones adopt brothers, they basically become a group of clans with Jango as their Mand'alor. Dooku’s Jedi come for their one hundred and fifty thousand soldiers who will help them overturn the Senate and the clones turn on the Jedi, capture them, and head off to Mandalore to take what Jango has promised them with Fett as their leader and Cody as his right hand. Predictably, Obi-Wan is sent to Mandalore to deal with the fall out while the rest of the Jedi Council try to work out what the actual fuck happened and how Dooku managed it.

In all likelihood this would result in the Jedi leaving the Republic because the fact that Dooku managed to draw a good number of them into the mess would catch attention and make things very difficult. We would probably end up with some Codywan (because this is me) but that would probably only be implied at the end rather than the focus.

But, yes, the danger of long form AUs and the ideas that narrative choices spark. Another one for the maybe some day pile.

[phoenixyfriend]

SW Masterlist: Discourse

Navigation Post

Fun fact, tumblr allows 250 links on the old editor and 100 in the new. So. Network of masterlists

This one is organized as:

Mandalore - Traditional Mandalorians - New Mandalorians

Anidala and the Tuskens Massacre

Jedi

Other

Have some maps, btw.

MANDALORE

Traditional Mandos (True and Death Watch)

Timeline/Explanation of the True Mandalorians

True Mando Discourse/True Mandos did shoot first (etc.) - Jango gave the order to do so - The American Militia comparison

Are the True Mandalorians canon again since Jaster was name-dropped in The Mandalorian? (Short answer: no.)

Traditional Mandalore and the American Far Right - Why gun control? - The Doylist racism - More about the racism

The whitewashing that affected the clones and all of New Mandalore was also applied to the True Mandalorians, and to judge New Mandalore for their wholly white presentation without judging the True Mandalorians is a problem (with screenshots)

Traditional Mandalorians through the lens of the devsirme

Jango did a genocide (and the only way to make him unaware is to strip him of the Legends backstory that has him as former Mand’alor)

Quick checklist of diversity of True Mandos (as shown in Open Seasons) vs New Mandos (as shown in TCW)

The canonicity of anti-slavery trad mandos is... questionable

When fic takes “Mandalorians are good with children” to unreasonable degrees.

Mandalorian Empire through the lens of Ancient Rome

Don’t Make Me Tap The Sign meme

New Mandos

Satine’s handling of Mando’a (Death Watch Propaganda)

Maybe Satine had a Point

Padme and Satine - Just Satine

Satine is the equivalent of a 70s anti-Vietnam-War protestor (

This war could have been an email

Satine’s policies (and attitude towards child-rearing) as influenced by her traumas

What did Satine even do in canon that could be considered cultural genocide as claimed by fanon? - This one has more iterations - Mandalore’s Bernie Sanders (edit by @personontheswing) - Why Mandalore fell

“Obi-Wan is better at Mandalorian stuff than Satine” mmmm no

Satine is the sitcom mom of Mandalorian politics - Follow-up

Why “Satine should have been a villain” really gets my goat. (stats) - Other version

Hot Take: Satine Kryze should have been a woman of color - All of New Mandalore should have been more diverse

The Britain comparison

TFW Satine and Obi-Wan’s approach to parting at the end of their year together is reversed solely to make Satine seem less suited to Obi-Wan

The MandalMotors accusation

Canon Satine vs Fanon Satine

Satine and Tarre?

Best alt name for Duke Kryze (because of the cultural appropriation) poll

Retconning the domestic bliss for Anidala vs retconning the New Mandalorians as cultural genocide

Stop flipping and worsening the Obitine dynamic just so you can pretend your preferred shipmate for him is better than Satine because they ‘understand’ him better.

Why did Satine need to “learn” to compromise, exactly?

Reasons and ways we disregard canon

You know she doesn’t have to be an Evil Bitch Ex, right? She can just be dead.

ANIDALA and TUSKENS MASSACRE

The acceptable amount of baby murder is None

Padme’s not actually the most rational person here

And yeah she’s kinda racist

And that racism parallels history

Who was she supposed to tell? (Obi-Wan. She was supposed to tell Obi-Wan) - The absolute coldest take

“The Jedi wouldn’t understand.”

Anakin’s Slippery Slope to Baby Murder (Take One) Alt title for this post is: Anakin grabbed a sled to the slippery slope

Torture had something to do with it

Padme is a train wreck and that’s what makes her fun, fight me

“Padme deserves better” is wrong because as far as Padme is concerned, ‘better’ does not exist. Anakin got full marks, it’s just that Padme’s rubric is different from basically anyone else’s. “Better” is just an Anakin who didn’t help overthrow democracy.

A rant on my hate for “Anakin mindcontrolled Padme into loving him”

A touch on Padme Characterization

Writing Nuance

All said, Anakin/Consequences is actually a red flag - And I hate It

JEDI

What are the Jedi bringing balance to

Not enough Jedi for the whole galaxy - And held up to unrealistic standards - Prioritizing Shmi could have been justified without favoritism (but doesn’t really matter)

Why did Qui-Gon bring Anakin to Naboo?

The Jedi lost their way

Jedi crit cannot exist in a vacuum

How are you defining this word that is central to the argument?

Ruusan Reformation

The question of finance

Jedi don’t do excommunication in any but the absolute most extreme cases (and if someone is going full Sith Lord, like Tyranus or Vader, they’ve usually already left voluntarily)

Hot take: Qui-Gon’s survival would have contributed to keeping Anakin stable and not prone to attachment.

The Amatonormativity of fandom

“Why didn’t the Jedi help Shmi?” Why didn’t Padme. - Addendum

This isn’t discourse I just really love Ahsoka

How old is Quinlan, anyway?

The question of writing Barriss

I need a visual timeline of the Jedi Council

Why I don’t post Jedi Crit, even if I sometimes think it

Where did the "Obi-Wan's parents tried to drown him in a river" headcanon even come from?

Why is Star Wars fandom not telling us that the reason Qui-Gon didn’t go back for Obi-Wan on Melida/Daan was that Xanatos was trying to kill green grandpa?

How real-world traumas wrt immigration inform our interactions with the idea of Jedi being asked ‘but where are you from?’ - Contribution from another

Trying to figure out where I got Those Assumptions about the Traviss TCW novel from

Other

Flavors of Discourse

I think the GAR being only three million clones actually does make sense, even for space.

Boba’s (almost) war crime

What even is a war crime - We don’t care

Filoni only knows how to tell one kind of story

Why do people write Rex not liking Anakin as a person?

Cliegg/Shmi can be viewed as a frontier marriage

The best flavor of “Anakin gets left on Tatooine”

Devaronian girls deserve horns too

Cloneshipping - Yes, that size kink can be racist

In Defense of Clonecest

TCW and portrayal of the Separatists

Ship Tomato

All Age Difference Codywan comes back to me (this isn’t true but it is related to a plagiarism scandal, don’t worry about it)

Stewjon as Space Scotland

Shipping got in the way of my plan

Retraction of an assumption I had about a scene with Kitster and Anakin

Why is it admirable for the twins to treat R2 like a real person and recognize his apparent sentience, but Anakin doing the same is him “not valuing the lives of clones”

That one plagiarism situation

(I wasn’t thinking of it as one because I wanted to give the benefit of the doubt but I shared to a friend who is usually good about giving me reality checks and was informed that “No they fully plagiarized your ass.” So. There’s that.)

My original au post

The first time someone told me about the fic it (allegedly) inspired - I do know one person (just one) went in and left a comment to ask, but never got an answer

I recced one of their other fics, which I had enjoyed a lot, and an anon asked me if I was reccing someone that had used one of my fic concepts without permission.

Finding out they have a tumblr, from someone who had put them on a do-not-read list because they found the situation too sketchy

All Age Diff Codywan Leads Back to Nixy (AKA I sent an ask to test the waters, dug a bit, and was thus informed that I did inspire the fic, though it was a different post, but that ‘modern au codywan is so common that it’s not like credit is needed. I reblogged with a meme in hopes that it would be a polite, lighthearted way to indicate they should still maybe add a credit link in an A/N)

About two months after that, I found that they had deleted their tumblr, added the fic to a hidden collection so it could no longer be accessed, and blocked me on AO3.

So who knows what the situation even is anymore, but that is the process. Mostly it’s just been very frustrating and a little baffling because. It could have all been resolved with a single sentence. Just one “this fic was inspired by these posts on tumblr” in an A/N, and nobody would have cared.

[ravenalla]

Alright episodes finished, thoughts under the cut

Overall, best episode of the season I’d say just in terms of technical aspects. It looked a lot more cinematic and less cheap, the choreography is still awakened as hell sometimes for the fight scenes but it was at least entertaining.

I’ve known about the IG-11 thing months before the season started because of leaks and was dreading it. It’s such a silly idea to give Grogu an iron man suit, and the fact that it’s this basically made out of this character who had an emotional death in season 1 really rubbed me the wrong way. Seeing it now it definitely isn’t as bad as I thought it was going to look, but it still feels kinda lame to do that. Like they just wanted some reason Grogu would even be on this mission besides Din.

However, speaking of that WE FINALLY GOT SOME MORE DAD! DIN DJARIN CRUMBS YESS!!!! Grogu being a insistent little toddler who wants his way while Din just is so done was so fucking adorable. Also guys I don’t know if Pedro was in the suit for that season or he just had an extra boost of motivation while recording seeing it was finally a scene where he got to show some of that prior personality Din had, but he didn’t sound the same monotone he has all season, he sounded so lively again with inflictions in his voice like in season 1! It was like an oasis in the desert I loved it.

As for the elephant in the room..urgh yeah let’s talk about that scene with Din and Bo-Katan. I know the shippers are going to go crazy over it, but I refuse to believe this confirms some love story. Din has always been shown to be respectful and loyal. As he said, honor is his way. To me that is all that was, Din once again showing he’s a dependable person when he is helping people and knows how to let those around them truly see themselves. Am I happy that after reducing his character to be nothing but Bo’s sidekick he has a like proclaiming his service to her? Fuck no, but at the very least I can say this doesn’t seem out of character for me if we just accept that Bo-Karan’s past is never going to be properly addressed and she just is a good person now Din would trust.

Which like, istg you had a scene with her admitting her past failures to the other mandalorian and there was nothing about her ACTUALLY BEING DEATH WATCH??? SHE WAS A TERRORIST!!! And yet that’s not brought up at all, it’s just more “oh don’t feel bad you tried your best 🥺” God even when she is saying how she failed everyone it’s a new situation they wrote where she was clearly in the right for trying to save her people, why tf did they write her in Clone Wars to be this complicated messy individual if Dave just wanted to basically erase all that and do the shes simply misunderstood thing. That’s so fucking frustrating, if you want to have your character grow then actually acknowledge their past flaws.

On a more brighter note, Moff Gideon will never not be entertaining, even if it makes the season 2 finale worthless in another way THANK YOU FOR SOME ACTUAL COMPELLING CONFLICT FINALLY. Him with the Mando helmet and suit looked fucking sick (in a villain way of course I mean this is clearly cultural appropriation and genocide we are dealing with here). I know people are gonna be freaking out from the Thrawn mention and whatever else sequel triology related stuff they said but I don’t care I’m just happy Moff Gideon got to come back and antagonize once more for my entertainment lmao.

Sigh. Paz. You were just starting to get a bit more fleshed out and they killed you off. Don’t get me wrong its an honorable death at least, but god see this is what I mean when I saw Bo-Katan has taken over everything, Din’s known him practically his whole life and we didn’t even maybe get to see a shot of him seeing him killed as he was dragged away, it’s just a moment between Bo and him because she is the protagonist at this point. Maybe if they had had a conversation about their personal different upbringings or something, but as is it just feels like a random moment between them. Oh well, still made me sad because I like Paz and at least it meant something saving both factions of Mandalorians I GUESS? That also has been handled pretty poorly imo, since this show doesn’t let people actually talk to one another hardly (unless it’s assuring Bo she’s a great person yada yada). I have one thing that really bothered me about that confrontation scene where Grogu stepped in, but I’m gonna make another separate post for that.

Finally, let’s talk about our main man himself. Din getting kidnapped at the end is slightly insulting after having to be saved by Bo constantly all season, however on it’s own I do love the vulnerable spot he is in and this creates a cool cliffhanger that makes me actually excited for next week! (first time all season lmao). I really thought they were going to take his helmet off in front of everybody right there, which idk I think that would have been a cool way to just further insult the mines and Din after he (albeit pretty easily and cheaply) redeemed himself, especially in front of Paz. But we didn’t get that so eh, maybe next episode is where we get our helmetless Din Djarin sequence who knows. I am so hoping for him to finally get the spotlight next episode and get a personal scene between him and Moff Gideon, it’s not going to feel as satisfying as it would be if Din had the proper development this season he deserved but still it would be better than nothing.

So overall, best episode of the season in my my opinion, but that still doesn’t mean there isn’t the same problems the whole season has had concerning Din and I wouldn’t say it’s the best of the series by a long shot. I do actually want to see the ending though, but apparently it’s going to be very controversial. I don’t know what they’re gonna pull up their sleeves but as long as Din and Bo aren’t confirmed to kiss at the end like a Disney princess tale or some shit, I will be cautiously waiting.

[crispyjenkins]

hi! i am just very confused about one of ur posts with the mandalorians and cultural genocide and was wondering if maybe you can explain more? i thought mandalorian culture was about like family and arts with the colors and stuff? is it really just about war? i know a lot of people headcanon that the clones are mandalorian but now i feel uncomfy about putting a warrior culture on characters played by a maori actor, whose people still struggle with martial race stereotypes today :(

hello!! i am absolutely not an authority on this topic, so i’ve compiled a bunch of posts that explain it better than me, but short answer is: mandalorian culture is not all about war. there is a ton of intention put into mandalorians (specifcially not death watch, who literally fought in the civil war because the true mandalorians were like “maybe stop pillaging and killing people for no reason” and they didn’t want to stop; or the new mandalorians who threw out every god and myth important to the true mandalorians, as well as its language, cultural importance/sacredness of armor, religious customs, etc, because Satine interpreted true mandalorian culture as nothing but war, but that is extremely extremely not the point of the resol’nare or the codex) and how they draw on Māori culture and customs, because temuera morrison played jango fett in the prequels.

your concern is so so valid and absolutely something to keep in mind when interpreting “canon” and “legends canon”, but satine’s take on true mandalorians is inherently false.

links under the cut with a lil explanation for each! (edit: this is long as fuck, i’m so sorry 🥲)

we’ll start with this one which is from star wars insider issue 86, because it covers a lot of the basics of how eu and legends wrote mandalorians. HOWEVER, also keep in mind this groundwork was all laid by karen traviss who is a racist, sexist, classist, homophobic dirtbag, like i don’t even know where to begin with her, but her early work for jango fett in the republic commando novels is still important to understanding mandalorian culture in current continuities. (i also believe this issue was from before clone wars began airing)

this one goes more in depth than the post i recently reblogged which i think you’re referring to, about the imperialism of the new mandalorians and their cultural genocide of true mandalorians more or less based on satine kryze’s experience with death watch, a splinter cult off of the true mandalorians (i’m using cult intentionally here, btw) who literally just didn’t want their murdering and stealing to be regulated.

this post is about mental illness in true mandalorian society, which is intrinsically tied to the root of true mandalorian and early mandalorian religion and daily culture, and the concept of fighting stagnation and destruction/war against the things that are choking you and stopping self growth, it’s not about conquering people or planets, it’s about bettering oneself constantly, based on the mandalorian creation myth ( @izzyovercoffee goes more in depth with this in the post). death watch, and many fans, interpret this ideology as the right to violence and the destruction for destruction’s sake, which isn’t what it’s about at all.

alright this one is directly related to the concepts of the last one, and surmises a lot of the points, and is maybe the easiest post in my list for a quick understanding of mandalorian philosophy?

here’s a shorter post that gives a little more insight/reiterates new vs true mandalorian ideology, because lord knows my autism brain likes more than one way of explaining something.

this one is an interpretation of canon and new mandalorian imperialism, which is technically headcanon, but boy howdy does canon not disagree with it, and forms the basis of my own interpretation of mandalorians as a whole

here’s a cool post going into the language mando’a and how it cannot be separated from culture, which i think is incredibly important to keep in mind when looking at new mandalorians and how they don’t use mando’a.

more explanation and interpretation of new manadlorians and their portrayal in the clone wars, and why it’s important against all the canon content we got before clone wars aired

this one is from before boba’s return to “canon” material in season two of the mandalorian where he and jango were reconfirmed as mandalorians, but is still super, super, super important in relation to mandalorian diaspora, and the way writers cannot separate mandalorians from their roots in māori culture, when it was created because temuera morrison played jango fett and his clones. also goes into how important “family without blood” is as the basis of mandalorian family and cultural structure, which explains a lot about the show the mandalorian!

this one’s just a cool take on the parallels between mandalorians and jedi, who are also rather disgustingly misinterpreted by fans (interestingly as the opposite, as complacent and too bureaucratic vs the violent and imperialist take most have on mandalorians).

here’s a post going into how din djarin’s tribe/sect in the mandalorian tv isn’t a cult, and how that relates to bo-katan kryze, her position with death watch, and her connection to the new mandalorians because of it.

okie the next few are about how māori customs, things of cultural significance, etc are intentional in the portrayal of (true) mandalorians

this one is about the keldabe kiss or the kov’nyn, forehead-kiss, headbutt 

this one is a video of boba fighting set to te reo māori thrash metal, and a short explanation of the importance of the battle its about, which i think is important in remembering that while the māori people today do suffer from awful marital stereotyping, you cannot divorce them from their own form of warrior culture without erasing that history or importance; there isn’t anything inherently wrong in warrior cultures, just how white people interpreted and appropriated it.

THIS ONE I LOVE and is mr morrison himself bringing the traditional māori dance the haka into boba’s fighting style in the mandalorian tv, as well as the use of māori-style weapons 

which also relates to this post by @catboydindjarin

and sums up my feelings on associating mandalorians and the māori people, how important jango and boba fett have been to people like temuera morrison and daniel logan (who played lil boba in atoc) and bodie taylor (who played the mid-20s clones). as a white person, it’s incredibly important for me to remember the stereotyping and violence still being done to indigenous and first nations people, and to be aware of and respectful of how i use and take pieces of the those cultures in anything, but especially fictional aliens. but to pretend forms of battle, pretend weapons and songs and philosophies that do involve violence were not and are not still culturally important to those peoples is erasure, and is what satine kryze chose to do when faced with a completely different people’s violence.  to separate (true) mandalorians from the māori people is to erase them from the narrative completely.

so!! on a lighter note, here’s a post with bodie taylor and captain typho’s actor jay laga’aia performing haka with mr morrison during an aotc press event

here’s an excerpt from one of the repcom novels about jango being a Dad and how important children are to the true mandalorians 

it won’t let me upload gifs at the moment so here’s a post of several delightful gifs of mr morrison on set for aotc with a rainbow umbrella

here’s one that touches on the importance of armor color as you mentioned in your ask

this wonderfully funny textpost from @letitrainathousandflames that illustrates more of the mandalorian parental instinct (which is shown time and again in extended/legends canon to be more important than “war” or battle)

here’s some highlights from the eu about boba reconnecting with his mandalorian heritage after jango’s death

this one is a short post by @jester-mereel about what jango chooses to be jaster’s legacy, which is vital because jaster mereel the one who created the super commando codex and the true mandalorians, is the one who looked at how people like tor vizsla were using their heritage and thought “we can do and be better than this”

here’s the wookieepedia article on jaster mereel (all wookieepedia stuff should be taken with a grain of salt, of course, especially in regards to the jedi order but that’s another matter)

here’s the wookieepedia article on the supercommandos, which is what earlier material referred to the true mandalorians as, basically the commandos that followed jaster and the supercommando codex

here’s the one on the codex if you want to jump to that specifically

this is an actual copy of the basics of the codex as well as the resol’nare or six tenants, which existed far before jaster, but what jaster used as the ethical basis of the codex (the site is written from the point of view of a supercommando, just a heads up if that’s confusing)

here’s the wookiee article on death watch, i trust you to keep an open mind and don’t take anything said by the vizslas or bo-katan at face value, because, again, they splintered from the supercommandos because they wanted to keep stealing and killing people just because, and used the “savage warrior past” of mandalorians to excuse it

here’s the mando’a dictionary that’s most accessible, also remembering that translations are interpretations (specifically the discourse about “k’atini” comes to mind) and is constantly being revised

and then some of my favorite excerpts from it, in relation to what mandalorians actually find important:

“Ni kyr'tayl gai sa'ad” | adoption vow - lit. “I know your name as my child.��� (meaning adoption is no less important than blood heritage, and in some interpretations is actually more important)

mandokar | the *right stuff*, the epitome of Mando virtue - a blend of aggression, tenacity, loyalty and a lust for life (and aggression does not always mean violence)

“Gar taldin ni jaonyc; gar sa buir, ori'wadaas'la.” | “Nobody cares who your father was, only the father you'll be.” (Lit: Bloodline is not important, but you as a father are the most valuable thing.) Mando saying emphasising the importance of a father's role, and that a man is judged more by that than his lineage. (this dictionary chooses to gender things unnecessarily, when words like “buir” are gender neutral, but you get the gist: parenthood is very important to mandalorians, which is of course the entire basis for the mandalorian tv plot) 

demagolka | someone who commits atrocties, a real-life monster, a war criminal - from the notorious Mandalorian scientist of the Old Republic, Demagol, known for his experiments on children, and a figure of hate and dread in the Mando psyche (again, children being more important than violence)

bajur | education, the raising and nurturing of children - a wider meaning than just school work, includes preparation for life and survival Aliit ori'shya tal'din | Family is more than blood.

shereshoy | lust for life and much more - uniquely Mandalorian word, meaning the enjoyment of each day and the determination to seek and grab every possible experience, as well as surviving to see the next day - hanging onto life and relishing it. An understandable state of mind/ emotion for a warrior people. Closely related to the words for live, hunt and stay safe - and, of course *oya*. All from the same root.

and since you mentioned color, this post is so feckin cool as it talks about white =/= purity, and goes into quite a bit about the “destruction” in mandalorian culture being about the rebirth, not the violence

and then here’s a few links to content in the mandalorian tv

“the poc experience of keeping ur mouth shut bc ur too tired to argue w/ a white person“ about boba downplaying his mandalorian-ness to bo-katan, a known violent xenophobe 

more on din’s sect the children of the watch not being a cult vs death watch

some cool thoughts on the differences in how boba and bo-katan interacted with din during season 2 which i think is important in terms of illustrating the differences between death watch and true mandalorians, again

a cool dialogue on din and removing his helmet in season 2 and his religious/cultural views in relation to being mandalorian

i spent like three hours on this and i definitely only meant to give you like. five links. but uhhh i hope this helps!! feel free to shoot me further questions, but just keeping in mind i am not māori and cannot speak to the māori experience in fandom or in regards to jango fett and the clones.

i hope you’re safe and well!! 🌻

[vashti-lives]

*insert obligatory quip about how that was a terrible episode of book of boba but a great* episode of the etc etc*

(my only real complaint is that this episode SHOULD have been a breather episode about fennec shand having fairly lighthearted shenanigans around tatooine and the outer rim as she finds muscle while boba fett learns to ride his rancor and attempts to corral his rowdy cyborg youths. there should have been a running joke where she can’t get a hold of din and then the episode ends basically where the actual episode did. then we go into the two part ending with the war with the pykes. as much as i liked actual episode 5 it should have been in the actual mandalorian where it belongs.)

but ok the absolute most important take away from this episode is that the next season of the mandalorian at least starts with din’s quest to find the sacred mandalorian skinny dipping spot. excellent.

god the whole first half with the armorer was really just full of strict mom with her favorite son back home after he flunked out of college vibes. like... i’m NOT happy but also... yes don’t worry you can fix it. anyway here’s the VERY expensive present i spent hours making for my new grandson tell him i say hi on your way to the sacred skinny dipping springs.

honestly my actual read on that situation is that she absolutely knew something was up from the minute he walked in injured in a fucking stupid way by his own weapon and correctly read that he was so weighted down by his own guilt and so afraid of disappointing what was left of his family and so angry at himself for dishonoring his religion and culture that it would mean his death to ignore it and be meaningless to just say he’s forgiven. so she lets paz fight him as proof he’s meant to wield the dark saber and sends him on a quest that’s very difficult but explicitly non-murder oriented so that he can eventually be a politically viable ruler.

i know a lot of fandom paints the children of the watch as a horrible extremist cult but like i actually don’t think anything in the show supports this? the whole helmet thing might seem extreme but uh... they’re fucking survivors of a major genocide??? din arguably survived TWO GENOCIDES???? honestly i’m gonna make the argument here that she has been consistently shown to be a kind hearted pragmatist in a way that does not suggest she’s an irrational foaming at the mouth fundamentalist. anyway i love the armorer and also poor paz. you know after din left paz was just like... REALLY? HIM?? *sigh* and then she pats him on the head and sends him off to make money and rescue some orphans.

*i actually think you could make an argument that by modern tv standards it wasn’t even a great episode of the mandalorian because god there was a lot of what right now feels like wasted time??? don’t get me wrong i love that he spends like half of it with peli working on a ship he has no business buying (PELI THE RAZOR CREST WAS HIS HOUSE!!!) but that whole sequence probably could have been cut at least in half... i actually wish more tv was willing to let their characters breath like that but its absolutely wild choice for a show with 8 episode seasons LET ALONE a show that’s actually about a completely different set of characters and problems and only has 7 episodes.  anyway i obviously loved it. 10/10 please include confirmation that luke was peli’s assistant when he was teen.

[agoddamn]

Oh, it's that little Bonteri shit again. Wonder if we're at any time gonna talk about his mom's support for Care Bear genocide or the hilarity of her whining about her husband killed by clones (people with no rights)?

Star Wars is doing that funny thing again where we are TECHNICALLY portraying a democracy but it populates it with characters that run on dynastic inheritance; this Bonteri brat is LITERALLY just Some Fuckin Kid to a bunch of politicians. His mom being a politician is completely irrelevant to his qualifications to be here. But, y'know, The Drama

"We can't just let them take him! He'll be killed!" well maybe if you didn't let RANDOM FUCKING CHILDREN into critical negotiations...

Hang on, why did the droids drag him away anyway? This is being hosted on Mandalore BECAUSE it's neutral. That means that Mandalore's security is supposed to be enforcing the rules.

Am I gonna have to put up with comphet again?

Wait, he ACTUALLY has the title of senator? Even though he's like fourteen? How--ah, what the fuck ever

I do like how Ahsoka has these consistent little...gremlin animations

The backs of these purple senate guards are identical to clone trooper backs (rectangular pack with two lines and a circle on it, cylinder in small of back) because mold reuse is the true king of design

This is legit How You Can Tell how much a series's sense of design leans towards the toyetic; characters designed around being able to share the same mold for major body parts. You also see this a lot in Kamen Rider and Super Sentai, where goons will tend to have a copied chestpiece with unique helmet.

Is this sword logo on the chairs Mandalore's? This ship doesn't look all that art deco, and it was being run by R2, and the senate guards were outside it

This kid is not very smart huh

"There is another option" is it terrorism?

"Like [the Republic] helped my mother?!" you do remember that your mother was not part of the Republic and killed by DOOKU without any chance for the Republic to do anything, right...?

Like, this is a perfectly normal way to process grief but I'd appreciate it if someone pointed out how irrational it is

"a group who are noble and allied with my cause" ah yes, terrorism

How much longer til this little shit dies

[fake shock] Oh my goodness, terrorists!

Ahsoka's winter hood with the montral pockets and little puffballs is really fucking cute

There's often an implication/outright statement in fic that Mandalorian armor is androgynous but that is definitely not the case with what I'm looking at

There's not a whole lotta consistency with Mandalorian names, is there? "Satine" and "Bo-Katan" don't sound like they came from the same planet

Why do I have to deal with a fake relationship plot with Ahsoka and some walking, talking spoiled milk rather than literally anyone fucking else

.............so Bo-Katan's a lesbian

>Mandalorians are bullying droids and this is supposed to be ominous regardless of the fact that our heroes bully droids 24/7

WHATEVER

Death Watch doesn't recognize Ahsoka? Wasn't she pretty publicly involved in ruining their plans?

"Tell your woman to leave us" oh these guys sound VERY egalitarian and not sexist at ALL

Love how these guys are bragging about having Dooku's location as if that information isn't several hours outdated by now and Dooku isn't a guy who moves around a lot

"We are battle droids no longer. Now we are slaves." NOW? Oh, whatever

These guys look vaguely Mongolian? The girl's facial decos made me think Mirialan for a second, but I think they're new. In a very weird cultural appropriation boomerang, this dude's hat looks like Amidala's

"You have taken our women" ...oh, I was not expecting the rape implications to be that, uh, not-implied

So traditionalist Mandos are DEFINITELY pretty fucking misogynist

>there's not even an animation of Ahsoka taking her coat off, it just vanishes between frames

Goddamn, this really does drag when everything that's going to happen is so blatantly choreographed

I'm tired of Deus Ex Artoo

What kind of shitty terrorists don't even bother to take a ship that was parked on their front lawn?

"You know I can't go with you" LITERALLY why??? He hasn't committed any crimes by Republic standards. He's got valuable info on a terrorist group. He has similar goals to Ahsoka and he's just proven himself quite fucking incompetent on his own.

"We could try to change things from the inside" LITERALLY WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?? Dooku is a SITH, there is no "changing from the inside" with that shit!

"We make a pretty good team, don't we?" No

"We'll see each other again" FUCK

[gffa]

THE MANDALORIAN - A TIMELINE Assumptions this post will make: - It’s possible that they’ll throw out canon/contradict something that’s been established up to this point (I’m hoping not, as Dave Filoni is one of the main people who oversaw the creation of that canon, but it’s still a possibility!), especially as Favreau has mentioned that he wants to recanonize some Legends stuff, but for now we’re assuming canon is canon and they’re going to work with that.  This is a post that is focused on what canon and creators of canon have said! - Din Djarin is ~44 years old, as a reflection of Pedro Pascal’s age. - Out-of-universe, Star Wars’ timeline is referred to by BBY / ABY (Before the Battle of Yavin / After the Battle of Yavin) because that’s when the Death Star was blown up/the Rebellion battled the Empire over Yavin IV, which was because A New Hope was the central compass point as the very first SW movie.  However, this timeline will focus on The Mandalorian season 1 as Year 0, as I think that’ll make it clearer how everything relates to this show. THE TIMELINE SO FAR: 50 Years Ago - The Child (Baby Yoda) was born, Anakin Skywalker was born in the same year 41 Years Ago - The Phantom Menace ?? Years Ago - The Mandalorian Civil War.  There was an insurgency against Satine Kryze’s rule of Mandalore, which eventually required the intervention of the Republic, by sending two Jedi (Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi) to protect her, causing them to go on the run for a year.       Obi-Wan later describes this as, "An extended mission when I was younger. Master Qui-Gon and I spent a year on Mandalore protecting the Duchess from insurgents who had threatened her world. They sent bounty hunters after us. We were always on the run, living hand-to-mouth, never sure what the next day would bring. A civil war killed most of Satine's people, hence her aversion to violence. When she returned, she took rebuilding her world alone."  Whether he means that the people loyal to Satine were killed or nearly all of Mandalore was killed, it’s hard to say.  (Presumably the latter?)

31 Years Ago - Attack of the Clones, the Clone Wars begin, Kamino’s clone army is discovered, they become part of the Republic, which may tie into Dr. Pershing’s arm patch symbol likely being the Kamino emblem.

~31-28 Years Ago - The flashbacks we see in The Mandalorian are likely to take place during the Clone Wars, that the people were attacked by Separatists (hence the Super Battle Droids we see being used) and were rescued by Mandalorians, adopting Din Djarin as a Foundling, raising him in the Fighting Corps.   Din would have likely been around 10+ years old?        At least one of the Mandalorians in the flashback was wearing a Death Watch symbol, but it’s unclear how the politics of this were going, since they’re fighting Separatists in the flashback and it’s unclear precisely when Pre Vizsla joined with Dooku and the Separatists.  (Separatist alliances shifted all the time, so this isn’t hard to work with!)

~31-28 Years Ago - Death Watch, a Mandalorian splinter group, publicly arises as a protest against Satine’s pacifist ways and determination that Mandalore leave behind its warrior past.  They bomb targets in the city of Sundari and work with the Separatists to try to kill Duchess Kryze and put their own leader into place on Mandalore proper.       Pre Vizsla of Clan Vizsla is the governor of Concordia (a moon of Mandalore), voiced by Jon Favreau, secretly leads the Death Watch and reveals that he has the darksaber when he fights against Obi-Wan Kenobi after its revealed that Pre is part of Death Watch.  (Clan Vizsla is one of the most central Clans of Mandalore.)       They are not successful in their plot (to have the Republic Senate forcefully invade Mandalore under the threat of Death Watch/the rumor of Mandalore joining the Separatists) and remain neutral in the Clone Wars.       It’s also later revealed (a few months later/a season later) that Bo-Katan Kryze, Satine’s sister, is a lieutenant in Death Watch.

28 Years Ago - Darth Maul creates his own Shadow Collective (an alliance of various criminal organizations) by allying with Death Watch and taking over Mandalore.  Duchess Satine Kryze is murdered by Maul as part of his takeover of Mandalore/his revenge against Obi-Wan Kenobi, as well as Pre Vizsla is killed by Maul when they disagree over the direction/who is leading Mandalore.  Maul takes the darksaber. 28 Years Ago - Fenn Rau, as part of Skull Squadron of the Protectors (a group of Mandalorian royal guards), assisted the Jedi in the Clone Wars, including helping out in a fight with Jedi Master Depa Billaba and Padawan Caleb Dume (Kanan Jarrus). 28 Years Ago - The Clone Wars are nearing the end, the Siege of Mandalore happens at the same time as ROTS/Order 66, this is referenced as “The Night of a Thousand Tears” by Moff Gideon, “when gunships outfitted with similar ordnance (to the e-web cannon) laid waste to fields of Mandalorian recruits in the Night of a Thousand Tears”.  He doesn’t say who the gunships belonged to, if they were Republic gunships or Maul’s Shadow Collective gunships or something else.

     The Siege of Mandalore is basically:  Darth Maul has set himself up as leader of Mandalore, so Ahsoka Tano and a battalion of clones (including Captain Rex) lead a mission to retake the planet.  While they’re in the middle of this mission, Order 66 happens, where the clones’ inhibitor chips have them turning on the Jedi, including Ahsoka though she is no longer officially a Jedi. During/after this huge shitshow, Bo-Katan Kryze is appointed Regent of Mandalore. 28 Years Ago - Revenge of the Sith, the Republic fell, the Empire rose, the Jedi Order was genocided basically out of existence. 11 Years Ago - The Ghost crew discover Maul hiding out, who still has the darksaber, and they retrieve it.  Sabine Wren (of Clan Wren) briefly trains with it, but struggles to decide how to proceed with it and her contentious relationship with her family.     Fenn Rau (governor of Concord Dawn, as appointed by the Empire) explains the history behind the darksaber to Kanan Jarrus, that a thousand years ago (give or take) the first Mandalorian Jedi was named Tarre Vizsla who created it as his weapon, that it stayed with the Jedi until a few decades ago, Clan Vizsla stole into the Jedi Temple and took it back, as it was a symbol of House Vizsla and had the power to unite the Clans/Houses in the right hands.

10 Years Ago - Sabine Wren rallies her family into deciding to fight back against the Empire’s occupation of Mandalore and gives the darksaber to an initially reluctant Bo-Katan Kryze.  Leaders of several clans of Mandalore swear allegiance to her and they vow to fight the Empire, after many years of living under Imperial rule.

9 Years Ago - A New Hope, Alderaan was destroyed, the Death Star was destroyed, also the events of Rogue One happened. 6 Years Ago - The Empire Strikes Back 5 Years Ago - Return of the Jedi, the Second Death Star destroyed, Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader died, Yoda died, formation of the New Republic 4 Years Ago - The Battle of Jakku, which is the final giant battle between the New Republic and the Empire, where they officially lost (see: Star Wars Battlefront II for the story) 0 Years Ago - The Mandalorian, season 1 THINGS I’M NOT SURE WHERE TO PLACE ON THE TIMELINE: - Din and the other Mandalorians have cultural differences from the Mandalorians we’ve seen up to this point.  The tradition of being unable to take their helmet off, lest they cannot put it back on, doesn’t match up with what we see of Pre Vizsla in The Clone Wars, who was the leader of Death Watch, rather than Satine’s New Mandalorians who were pacifists.  This also strongly contrasts what we see of Bo-Katan Kryze (who was affiliated with Death Watch) and Sabine Wren (along with her family, who all took off/put on their helmets).  Is this a splinter group?  Is it different for people who were born Mandalorian vs Foundlings who must prove themselves? Something else? - Satine says that Jango Fett was not Mandalorian, but a regular bounty hunter and she didn’t know how he acquired the armor.  Out of universe, Pablo Hidalgo has supported this, but that was years ago and canon evolves over time.  Dave Filoni has also talked about how, as far back as Attack of the Clones, George Lucas intended for Jango to not actually be Mandalorian. THE BIG QUESTION MARKS: - Paz Vizla’s name is spelled without the “s” in the credits, is this a reference to the different spelling as used in SWTOR?  Or is it a typo?  Favreau has been re-canonizing some Legends things, but also the credits for Chapter 5 have “Tuskan Raider”, which is a typo of “Tusken”, so typos are a thing in the credits. - The Great Purge isn’t clearly set within the timeline yet.  It does not seem to be the same thing as the Siege of Mandalore or Order 66, because it’s too significantly tied to the Empire.  

      While the Empire was being created during those moments and it’s possible that Paz Vizla was referring to something that happened in the aftermath of the Siege of Mandalore, something big enough to referred to separately, it might also very well refer to something that happened after Bo-Katan Kryze received the darksaber and united Mandalore against the Empire, as we don’t know how that fight happened, and may little comments in The Mandalorian indicate that seeing Mandalorians is very rare these days.  Last we saw them, when Sabine talks about the Imperial Academy on Mandalore or when we see House Wren’s interaction with the other Clans, they don’t seem to be that rare.        Paz Vizla says, “Our strength was once in our numbers. Now we live in the shadows and only come above ground one at a time. Our world was shattered by the Empire, with whom this coward shares tables.”  and “These were cast in an Imperial smelter.  These are the spoils of the Great Purge.  The reason that we live hidden like sand rats.“   Unless they are a splinter group, Mandalorians didn’t live hidden away 10 years ago in the events of Rebels.

[nibeul]

Out of curiosity, have you ever read the Jango Fett: Open Seasons comics? They're technically Legends now, but they were part of canon when the Mandalore arcs in TCW were written. They explain the downfall of Mandalore, and how the Death Watch slaughtered the majority of the True Mandalorians (who Jango was briefly the leader of.) The True Mandalorians made up most of the population and followed the traditional Mandalorian beliefs. I'm not sure your intense hatred of the New Mandalorians is justified, when it was the Death Watch who actually committed the genocide against the majority of the other Mandalorians and their culture. The New Mandalorians were a pretty mediocre government, yeah, but banishing a group of people who slaughtered most of their population isn't all that bad of a thing to do.

consider this anon: both groups did bad things and I have more than enough hate in my heart to detest two things at once.

[inqorporeal]

hi! i just read through your mandalore theory, and it's FASCINATING, i love it! any thoughts on Satine herself?

(The Mandalore Theory)

I have a LOT of thoughts about Satine, both meta and in-universe. If she were a real person, I can pretty much guarantee we would never be friends, but as a character she’s fascinatingly complex. I’mma put this under a cut, cus it’s going to be long.

Satine is a wealthy, privileged member of Kalevalan nobility, born and raised on Kalevala and educated on Coruscant. Her father, then-Duke of Mandalore, was likely rarely home when she and her siblings were younger, since he would have had to be resident in Sundari; the rest of the family remained on Kalevala for their safety, because the Mandalorian clan wars kicked off in 60 BBY when a number of Mandalorian clans rejected then-Mand’alor Jaster Mereel’s proposed social reformations and formed the Death Watch (the Wookieepedia says the clan wars started about 44 BBY, but if we examine the larger series of events, it’s pretty clear that things started much, much earlier). Satine hadn’t even been born at that time; due to the growing conflict, it’s understandable that the Duke’s family would have been housed elsewhere for their safety.

Satine’s mother and older sibling (the canonical parent of Korkie) are both unnamed but they’re also both presumed dead, likely victims of the Clan Wars. Eventually the Duke was also killed, prompting Satine’s involvement under the guard of Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi.

At this point, Satine is a complete outsider to Mandalore. Kalevala effectively owns Mandalore -- it has its own king/queen, and provides political support to the New Mandalorian faction (it can be debated as to whether Kalevala originated as a Mandalorian settlement which eventually severed ties, or if it began as its own sovereign world and later adopted some Mandalorian social structures such as the clan system). Satine is not from Mandalore, has never lived on Mandalore, was not educated on Mandalore, and has only the barest, most watered-down connection to Mandalorian culture. Canon and Legends offer slightly different stories, but the important part is that the Republic backed the New Mandalorian faction and helped them to win the Clan Wars. Satine then effectively outlawed traditional Mandalorian society within the parts of Mandalore controlled by the New Mandalorians.

There’s something to be said for the way people react to childhood trauma, the way they deal with healing, and how it affects their relationship with the world as adults. Satine was a child when she lost two members of her family, and a teenager when she lost her father to the same, seemingly unending conflict. Her family has been caught up in this war since before she was born, and it’s entirely understandable that she would have a vested interest in ending the conflict for good, preferably forever.

But as a result, her policies are authoritarian, albeit with the blessing of the people who consider her their leader. The people who stay in New Mandalorian-held territory approve of her work -- everyone is probably sick to death from nearly 20 years of fighting by that point. It’s notable that, during TCW, the only New Mandalorians who actively fight back against Death Watch are the Sundari guard: New Mandalorian civilians never give any indication of owning weapons, armour, or the means for self-defense, and without the Republic’s support -- which Satine refused! -- are utterly steam-rolled by Death Watch over the course of the Clone Wars. Traditional Mandalorian culture has been completely wiped out of their society, and whether this was the ultimate goal of the New Mandalorian faction or if Satine’s own policies led to this point, the fact of the matter is that she was the nominated leader of the movement and approved if not encouraged the sundering of Mandalorian martial tradition. The factions that wanted to continue the conflict -- who refused to surrender their culture -- were banished to what are effectively penal colonies: if they wouldn’t follow the New Mandalorian way of life, they would lose their ancestral homes.

These are not the policies of a leader who seeks reconciliation and social progress; these are the policies of a colonizing force. This is the quintessence of cultural genocide, and Satine is depicted at the forefront of the movement.

On the meta end of things, the fact that a kids’ TV show tries to prop this up as an ideal is more than a little shocking. There was so much space to have an exploration of morality and cultural preservation in TCW’s depiction of Mandalore and Satine as its controlling authority, but they completely dropped the ball and instead went with a very two-dimensional depiction with zero critical discussion. And then showed New Mandalorian pacifism failing Satine’s people repeatedly anyway; good job, Filoni.

Satine has her reasons for her policies and her treatment towards a significant population who should, in theory, also be her subjects. But it’s important to recognise the distinction between having a reason for one’s behaviour, and having a responsibility to address that behaviour when it’s hurting others (or oneself). When one is in a position of holding power over others -- whether in a management position, leadership role, parent or teacher -- it’s even more crucial.

My thoughts on Satine are that she’s a terrible person, secure in her perceived moral superiority, who never shows any indication of ever questioning whether her personal morality is actually what’s best for the hundreds of thousands -- if not millions -- of lives she’s responsible for. She places personal morals above necessary diplomatic compromise; and blames the resulting conflict on the people whose lives she effectively spearheaded the ruination of. If everyone would just do things her way, everything would be better! Whilst she deplores physical violence, her noncombative policies still enact violence against people who hold different values, and in this way she is as uncompromising as her opponent, Pre Vizsla; they both lead cults of personality by sheer force of will.

(A side issue for me with regards to Satine -- which is a far more personal issue than anything objective -- is her treatment of Obi-Wan Kenobi. She displays an incredible lack of respect for his culture -- which is consistent for her established characterisation -- and the way she constantly negs him reminds me of the way my asshole ex could never say anything positive about me. They’re set up to be an ideal for how Jedi should handle attachments and love, as a contrast to Anakin and Padme’s relationship, but I can’t see anything romantic in it.)

But you know what? As a character in a piece of media, I like her. Media desperately needs more complex characters like Satine, particularly female-presenting characters, who are frequently given only two dimensions and one of them is “pretty”. She had a role in TCW that could have been very nuanced with the room to explore a very controversial topic, had the writing been up to the task.

And then the showrunners killed her off for the sake of another character’s manpain. The New Mandalorians -- her cult of personality -- doesn’t even fall apart without her in charge, the way cults of personality are wont to do in real life! The manner of her death serves no real purpose at all in the larger plotline; she could have been killed by anyone else at any other point and it would have had the same effect on Mandalore. Nothing changes there in the year -- a full year! -- between Satine’s death and the Siege of Mandalore at the end of the Clone Wars. Satine could have been kept alive in captivity; she could have gone into exile; the results would have been the same, or possibly even more interesting.

I think Satine is an awful person. I also think that -- as a complicated, contentious, controversial character -- she was underused and underdeveloped, and deserved a hell of a lot better from the storyline than how it treated her.

[one-real-imonkey]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Star Wars - All Media Types Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Jango Fett/Obi-Wan Kenobi Characters: Jango Fett, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jaster Mereel, Myles the Mandalorian (Star Wars), Satine Kryze, Ursa Wren, Bo-Katan Kryze, Boba Fett, Silas the Mandalorian (Star Wars) Additional Tags: War, Genocide, Fluff and Angst, Dark, Cultural genocide, Weddings, Planet Melida | Daan (Star Wars), Planet Mandalore (Star Wars), Dark Satine Kryze, dark new mandalorians, Refugees, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Child Death, Soft Jango Fett, Protective Jango Fett, BAMF Obi-Wan Kenobi, Obi-Wan Kenobi Needs a Hug, Mandalorian Obi-Wan Kenobi, Hurt Obi-Wan Kenobi, Obi-Wan Kenobi Gets a Hug, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, No actual Rape/Non-con, Execution, Slavery, Romance, Jaster Mereel Lives, Mand'alor Jaster Mereel, Happy Ending, Angst with a Happy Ending, Kissing, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, space racism, New Mandalorians (Star Wars), new mandalorians are evil, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence Series: Part 7 of Jangobi Week 2021 Summary:

Day 7- happy Ending. The True Mandalorians were so busy with Death Watch, the sudden turn by Satine Kryze and her New Mandalorians nearly destroyed everything. Obi-Wan had been a Mandalorian since MeliDaan had left the Republic and joined Mandalore. He was happy to fight by Jango's side, but while Jango was the Mandalorian he loved, Jango wasn't the only Mandalorian enamoured with him.

[transcendencism]

anyway while im swinging bats at hornets nests this evening i uhmmm saw a post about this from a mutual i think but i cant remember where it is or which mutual but im starting to get really irritated by the canon vs. non-canon stuff, especially in star wars.

like ... when we’re trying to have conversations analyzing the text and the implications of the text, like for ex. i saw someone saying that satine actually didn’t commit genocide because all the stuff about jango and boba being mandalorians is not canon, and all the white, blonde, blue-eyed new mandalorians was just an animator oversight issue, and all this other nonsense about “people woobifying the mandalorians and acting like they’re all good and innocent!”

like... when you come at that issue with a “canon is more important than non-canon”, you completely miss the fact that george lucas saw jango and boba (whose actors are Maori) were being written as mandalorians and was like “hey! i don’t like that!” and retconned him to be just a common bounty hunter with stolen armor and made the new mandalorians (the death watch included) white. sure, a lot of the material with jango and boba has since been made not canon, but this doesn’t change the fact that they were once considered mandalorian and george lucas, for whatever reason, retconned that in favor of a homogeneous group of white people who are the real mandalorians. (also they literally say in the show that the mandalorians that opposed satine were exiled to concordia and died out. that’s genocide. thats literally genocide. they say that IN THE SHOW.)

also, reducing the mandalorians down to warmongering monsters ignores a) the real-world cultures george lucas (and later dave filoni) pulled from (such as the Maori people). like yes, ESPECIALLY in TOR, the mandalorians were responsible for at least one genocide + worked closely with the sith empire, and took pride in conquering other worlds and species. ofc, a lot of that is no longer canon, but that doesn’t mean that can’t inform my reading of newer mandalorian media. also, the aforementioned features of the mandalorians, imo, makes me question why the writers chose to frame them that way, rather than looking at the mandalorians themselves (sorry if that doesnt make sense idk how to word what im thinking lol)

like... considering new star wars media lately has either been making legends/EU stuff canon again or pulling inspiration from legends/EU stuff, like .. why CAN’T i use non-canon media to inform my reading of the canon stuff? the canon’s ALREADY taking elements from the EU.

ANYWAY sorry if this is incoherent im getting really sleepy but i had thoughts

[phoenixyfriend]

... ah shit, Satine is the equivalent of a 70s anti-Vietnam-War protestor who actually got what she wanted.

Just. A war, people get drafted, a lot of innocents die, and the popular consciousness demonizes the people who say "war is bad and we should stop." She grew up in this culture, her family has been Mando for a long-ass time, and she suffered for the rampant violence it engenders.

Except instead of a Reagan type (so... Death Watch) showing up with the "marijuana association and criminalization" ploy, Satine and her anti-war faction actually won the argument and gained power.

She's a Vietnam anti-war protester who got put in a position to say "this is fucked up and we need to stop."

Hell, the argument could also be made that her scaling back Mando traditions is also a form of scaling back dangerous forms of nationalism, because Mandalore IS historically an imperial power. Her having things like armor and violent individuals removed is comparable to, say, a Japanese individual saying "hey, we can't use the rising sun symbol anymore, people will assume we support Those connotations" or a Buddhist saying "the manji symbol has a lot of historical significance, but my community refuses to use it anymore because of the Swastika, and we ask that anyone in our area refrains from doing so as well."

Satine still speaks Mando'a, more than ANYONE ELSE in TCW. She has Mandalorian architecture and symbology, she just refuses to allow armor because she doesn't want what is, in her mind, the Mando equivalent of a military nationalist in riot gear.

(That said, New Mandalore has some SKETCHY visuals that I don't think the animation team thought through, especially since they were applying alt-right visuals and themes to Death Watch instead.)

(Satine is likely wrong about many things, and arguably an extremist, but I take significant issue with the idea that it's Cultural Genocide because she's NOT an outsider and Mandalore was historically the group most likely to COMMIT cultural genocide against other groups.)

(Anyway, Satine is the Mando equivalent of a far-left anti-war protestor who claims that when the American flag makes minorities feel unsafe, and usage of it is a signal to the members of the alt-right that someone is also at least right of centrist, then maybe usage of the flag should be restricted due to its recent use as a hate symbol, and also that gun control needs to be way way stronger.)

[the-delusion-of-a-dreamer]

Ok thats it. Salty rant time. Be warned this is gonna get long so its probably gonna go under a read more. Lets start with some quick misconceptions I see about Satine. Ima break this down bit by bit because I Am Tired. Satine’s government is not about not allowing anyone to be in touch with their culture. It’s about building a culture of violence only in the name of defense. Lets start with the easiest stuff to tackle and i’ll get to the deeper stuff as we go. (warning: i get real salty)

1. “Inaction is never ok. Satine’s pacifist ideals are naive and stupid. You can’t just choose not to act.”

Firstly, ideas like this imply Satine is not aware of the fact that neutrality is a conscious decision (rush loving hell brain “if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice) Satine knows this. She has decided not to get involved for a reason. 

And you know what that reason is? Her planet is practically dead, forests are nearly gone, the air quality is terrible, and most of her people are dead. Mandalore can literally not sustain another war. It is falling apart. That alone is a good enough reason for neutrality. Mandalore would literally be destroyed if they joined the war effort, so lets get that straight right here and now.

“Well pacifism is still stupid and Satine was naive for believing it would ever work.”

Firstly, don’t you think you would be a little turned off violence too if you saw most of your people and your family slaughtered? yeah? thats what i thought. (look i know that was salty but seriously come on)

Not to mention Satine has never advocated pacifism to the point of not defending ones self. She advocates for always trying to use ones words first, but she has blatantly said just because she is a pacifist does not mean she won’t defend herself. She carries a deactivator pistol, and her guards all have electrostaffs.

And before anybody is like ‘oh so she can be armed but her people can’t?’ that is literally never even implied y’all like. the REACHING- ahem. We see in her first episode the concordian has a gun, and presumably if no one was allowed weapons there would be a check for someone coming to the capital of mandalore, the capital CITY even. But assuming somehow he just. managed to smuggle weapons in, it is also later said that offworlders are not allowed their weapons, thus also implying mandalorians are allowed their weapons.

I’m quite sure theres more I’m missing but the point is: she has never denied anyone the right to defend themselves.

2. “In rebels all of the exiled mandalorians were poc. satine is racist.”

Ok, this one is gonna be a hard one for me to tackle especially being white. I don’t want to sound like I’m not taking this concern seriously but. That is literally not what Filoni was trying to establish at all. I’m not going to deny there is definitely racism going on there, but it can all be traced back to Filoni (who has said this) not wanting to make more character designs. Mandalorians are known for their diversity and he said he did not want to work on different designs so he basically just made a women and a men model and copy and pasted. 

Was it wrong? Definitely. Was it stupid? Oh boy was it ever. Was it ever meant to be a statement showing us how racist satine is? no.

The exiles we see are from REBELS and there are considerable fewer models and they probably realized they had to make up for what they pulled in tcw. 

Anyone else notice how the Kryze clan did not take off their helmets? Thats very likely because they did not want to contradict what we saw in tcw but nor did they want to get into a bunch more trouble for showing the kryze clan as blonde hair and blue eyed. (full disclaimer thats just a theory on my part though.)

3. the final and big one “Satine was a dictator who was committing cultural genocide because she exiled death watch. She didn’t allow people to practice their warrior ways. Thats what mandalorians are, satine is bad blah blah”

Ok you know what I can kind of understand that some people must have missed some pieces of the episodes or something but like. Frankly there is some real clownery in this. Mainly because:

“Our warriors were exiled to Concordia, they died out years ago.”

Ok lets tackle this one part out of time. Firstly, although yes i get why people find it upsetting that they were exiled, this would have been right after the war. The new mandalorians won, a larger portion of mandalorians wanted peace rather than their warrior ways of the past. And really, can you blame them? As established earlier, the constant war has been destroying the planet. Not to mention the wars killed most of Satine’s people, so whatever warriors that were sent there? There weren’t many.

And secondly? ‘they died out years ago’ if they have already died out, this implies they were exiled long before Satine would have assumed the throne. Given, her father, the duke may very well have been who exiled them, but she was not directly responsible. Is that an excuse? No not entirely, maybe when she took on the throne after her fathers death she should have done something, but we can’t even know if the warriors were alive by then.

(Also if it had been the other way around, and the true mandalorians had won, I have doubts the new mandalorians would have simply been exiled and not killed. But thats merely speculation on my part.)

“But kassie! what about the mandalorian civil war! Satine was around for that!”

Yes, and that was the new mandalorians fighting each other. That was not the true mandos, that was what we now know as death watch. They wanted to return to what their culture was before, but as I previously established this was not sustainable for mandalore.

Death watch was the very worst of what the mandalorians of old were, they were simply war hungry extremists. They were not the true mandalorians people seem to think they were, they were a totally different group of people. The true mandalorians had mostly (if not completely) died out by this point.

Satine ended the war, not through strongarming anyone or being a dictator and going ‘well i have the power here listen to me’ no she approached the clan leaders and all of them were tired of the war. They all agreed to end it, and THEN death watch was banished to Concordia by Satine.

Given, Satine did seem to naively believe death watch had given up its fight, but that’s it. 

Satine then worked to restructure Mandalore’s government into a more democratic one (theres a reason she is a duchess and not a manda’lor guys come on) she wanted to ensure a Mandalore that was united, which is also why Bo dedicates her rule to her sister for the record, because she does what Satine was trying to do, which was unite everyone.

Lets look at the definition of dictator shall we? 

Dictator:  a ruler with total power over a country, typically one who has obtained control by force.

This is. Literally not Satine. Not only did she not obtain it by force, she is not the sole ruler (which is what manda’lor literally translates to by the way) she has advisors and senators, she has a council she must confer with, which we all see in show. Also the simple fact that she is the duchess and not a manda’lor implies less power.

So in conclusion: Satine is someone who has lost so freaking much, and she saw suffering and she tried to stop the suffering, she tried to keep more people from suffering the fate she did. She was trying to keep Mandalore from literally collapsing on itself. 

Did she always go about it in a perfect way? No that is not what I am saying at all! But she gets a lot more flack than she strictly should considering all she did was do everything she could for her people. She tried really hard to be a responsible leader, she tried so hard to keep everyone together. She wanted nothing more than peace, and maybe thats naive, but I think its a future worth fighting for, even if your way of fighting is with your words rather than a blaster.

I mean after all, by keeping out of the war she was also one of the few people not playing directly into Palpatine’s hands. In fact, she tends to throw a wrench in his gears. But that’s another essay for another time.

Thanks if you made it through this rant but I had to get it off my chest. I’m really tired of all these misconceptions. If you have any further questions feel free to pop into my inbox and ask! I’ll answer as best as I can, considering there’s actually very little canon material on this haha.

[lothalsector]

Also, I feel like the simplest explanation for the Clone Wars Mandalore Problem (Everyone Is So Blonde) is just that Mandalore is a bit insular. Sure, they have a lot of groups on the planet, and it’s moons and satellites, but once you’re in a group you stay in a group. The same five clans have been marrying each other for multiple generations because of alliances made generations ago. If I were doing an analysis of Mandalorian cultural practices, intermarriage and long term symbiotic relationships between clans and houses would be my top predictions for them. It’s a natural extension of a heavy emphasis on family and a high level of gender equality. You want to be able to trust the people you’re bringing into your house. They’re not just new blood, they have to become family. It’s much easier if they’re very distant family already. (Actually this is probably another reason they’re so into adoption. New genes! Switch. It. Up.)

So the main Vizslas and the Kryzes held most of the desert and Sundari and could pass for siblings, and the Rooks and the Wrens have been trading brides and grooms from their neighboring moons for years. You get large swathes of Mandalore with very homogeneous phenotypes And in Satine’s case in particular, most of her support probably came from her own clan, her own people since the gospel she’s preaching is so wild. Sure, Mandalore is diverse, but the diversity was either halfway across the globe or on scattered moons and colonies. A lot of them were disjointed or decimated after the Civil War and not looking for a fight. And unlike the Protectors or Death Watch, Satine wasn’t the sort of personality who was bringing together disparate peoples. She had a core of supporters in her own house and clan, some from the Vizslas and other surrounding groups who were mostly like her, who were Kryze oriented historically, and then she never bothered to reach out to anyone else. Most of her creepily homogeneous capital city was that same demographic, people who didn’t mind her much because she was a local girl, the heir to the hometown clan, even if she was making some weird choices. I mean, look at the Mandalore episodes. You can’t swing a cat in Sundari without hitting her actual nephew. It’s family loyalty all the way down. 

Then Pre Vizsa slowly eats away at that support (because he’s just as much of a local as she is- he and Bo-Katan’s interactions suggests some long running family ties) and brings in people from other places in Mandalore, who aren’t happy with suddenly being locked out of power in favor of Satine’s five people she’s known since she was 19 and trusts (who betray her anyway). Then all of a sudden other people feel comfortable coming to Sundari again (there’s not a weird peace cult in power anymore), there are a lot more faces and voices in politics. It’s not so much a case of genocide as “one person with a very slim base of power comes to the throne on a world where you can sometimes pick out people’s clan association by facial features, Hapsburg style”. Yeah, everyone looks alike. That naturally happens when everyone who isn’t directly invested in the monarch’s success (for house Kryze! for not dying again in a bloody unending conflict!) is avoiding the capital like hell and waiting for someone to assassinate her. 

[desmothene]

I find this dynamic with the fandom particularly interesting, especially given how the respective modes of being brought into Mandalorian or Jedi culture play out, canonically, for individuals not originally of those cultures.

As far as canon goes for Mandalorians, individuals adopted from non-Mandalorian cultures by Mandalorians appear to either be not allowed or discouraged from maintaining links to their original culture. The most egregious case of this from my recollection is Kal Skirata, who isn't even allowed to keep his own name (Falin). But if you want to avoid Legends (and Traviss), then Din Djarin is right there: he shows no connections to his birth culture beyond a scrap of red cloth. We don't know if Din is his name. His one time breaking his Creed - for the sake of a child - he's disowned by his adopted Mandalorian parent. Mandalorians of all stripes (New, True, Death Watch, and the Children of the Watch) are constantly disavowing one another and their own members for not being a Real Mandalorian (TM), so clearly there isn't a lot of room for an adoptee to feel safe about incorporating parts of their original culture. Uniformly, Mandalorians appear to adopt children during times of crisis, where there is no consenting adult to ask permission (not inherently negative but... interesting especially in context of Skirata's non-Mandalorian spouse divorcing him in order to prevent him from taking their kids into battle at the age of 8).

In today's day and age, preventing an adopted child from reconnecting with their birth culture is generally frowned upon. In some contexts, it even constitutes an attempt at cultural genocide (like the removal of Native children from their culture and disproportionate placement with white families). To be fair, some people don't have the resources to enable that connection; many do and don't make the effort.

In contrast, individuals brought into Jedi culture from outside of it appear to be given every available opportunity to reconnect with it, within the power of the Jedi. Mirialians wear their culture's traditional headscarves and tattoos and are generally apprenticed by fellow Mirialians (Luminara, Bariss); Kiffars receive their culture's tattoos (Quinlan Vos); Togruta wear cultural headdress (Shaak Ti, Ahsoka); Plo Koon studied with Kel Dorian Baran Do sages; Depa Billaba appears to carry Chalactan cultural markings of some kind. Finally, while some children are brought to the Temple under crisis, the majority are not; the Jedi a canonically shown to ask if the parents wish to consider allowing the Jedi to adopt their child, and those wishes are respected.

I find both Mandalorian and Jedi culture fascinating (i really wish Mando'a was a full conlang!), but I struggle with the intense misrepresentation that parts of the fandom seems take on both groups. Maybe it's a bit unkind, but from a distance Mandalorian adoption seems more like forced cultural assimilation. I actually think this read builds logically on what we know of Mandalorian warrior culture and their ongoing civil war - it makes a lot of sense in context and it provides more nuance and depth to Din Djarin's own choices in relation to Grogu, imo! (also guys, c'mon, we all love angsty background stories - we don't have to wipe mandos clean of all their messy dirty laundry in order to have a fun time with them as characters).

In comparison the Jedi are out here doing their level best to welcome and include their members' birth cultures within the framework of the Jedi. They aren't always successful, and those cultural aspects have to be balanced against the Jedi culture itself and their calling. That wealth of diverse cultural background broadens the knowledge of all the Jedi, and grants them practice in navigating between diverse groups as their vocation calls for.

Anyways they're both Neat. Yeah?

Mandalorians: adopt kids and teach them their ways

Fandom: so precious 💜 so pure 💜 perfect and unproblematic 💜💜

Jedi: do the exact same thing

Fandom: EVIL FUCKING BABYSNATCHERS THEY DESERVE TO DIE GRAFHFSHH4G