#My idea for a rewrite of The Siege has her and Teva helming the b-plot

[corellianhounds]

Hello there!

Justo One thing...

Do ya think the character of Cara Dune was well achieved?

Personally, I think she's the second most empowered woman (after Leia) un SW.

I loved her in The first two seasons, and, in any moment I felt that she was a forced inclusion; her unique personality was what shone the most, and his companionship with Din was very enjoyable.

Honestly, I wish they'd given her more development (taking into account that she's from *mjm* Alderaan)

(Although, now that I think about it, that place could be Kleya's...)

Anyway, I just wanted to know your opinion :)

Have a great day!!

TL;DR: I like the role she played/could have played in Mando’s story but think it could have been done better with different writing and direction, and because of how they wrote the show there are a lot of missed opportunities past Season 1 I doubt they’d be able to salvage even if they did recast her.

(Uhhhh 3k words, sorry 😅)

SO. These are my opinions outside of what I think of Carano as a person

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I think Cara’s character and whatever they wanted to say with the writing around her could have been better. There’s not really a lot of episodes with her in them and she’s not one of the main characters so it makes sense that we’re not following her story. If she was going to have a larger part in the overall narrative (as the cancelled Rangers show suggests) I think she needed a better setup, integration, and effect on Mando’s story in order for her character to have any agency beyond being there to help Mando when needed. As it stands she doesn’t have any change or growth over the two seasons she’s in, and aside from what we hear from Gideon in episodes 7 and 8 in Season 1, there’s not as much specificity to her character that makes me think she’s the only one who could fulfill that role. As a narrative tool to support the main character, you could stick any physically strong gunman in and it doesn’t change the plot. How could she have been more specific in ways that make her the only character for the job?

For example, Han Solo is the only person who can the role he does in A New Hope because he’s a smuggler and an excellent pilot, someone who watches out for himself and only cares about getting paid and has bounty hunters after him because he dumped Jabba’s spice out the window and Jabba wants his pound of flesh. This means he’s the kind of person capable of getting the main characters where they need to go, who has a reason to leave Tatooine himself, who can travel very quickly and relatively undetected, who keeps his cool in a firefight because he’s done it before, and he’s someone willing to sneak into places he shouldn’t and kill stormtroopers without batting an eye because he’s already willing to kill people if it means saving his own hide and getting paid. You needed all of those details in order for the story to work because a good man wouldn’t have done any of those things and would have turned Kenobi and Luke down. You needed someone on the run, a little desperate, strapped for cash, initially selfish, and levelheaded and charming enough to get out of whatever scraps he gets into.

That being said I liked the role Cara fulfilled in Season 1! I thought it was a whole lot of fun to see a character like her who we haven’t seen before in Star Wars. She was jacked. She’s built like a brick house, she’s visually different than the other female characters we’ve gotten, and I actually believe she can both stand up against Mando in a fight and give him a run for his money, which makes her a capable threat to Mando and the kid if they don’t leave town.

I also think that if we’d gotten a little more depth in the script and direction of “Sanctuary,” we could have better set up Cara’s past as an Alderaanian by how she appeals to the farmers’ frustration at the prospect of losing their land and being forced away from their homes. She has a personal reason for caring and trying to persuade them instead of just telling them they have to uproot and move like Mando does (something that makes sense for a his character as a nomadic refugee whose people frequently have to leave at a moment’s notice), and it tells the audience that she’s showing this level of care not because she’s the female character there to coddle people’s feelings, but because she knows innately how they feel

However, because she was a soldier, she still bluntly presents them with the logic of what they’re up against because she DOES know what kind of fight is needed to take down the Walker. She’s capable of standing in front of a crowd unafraid of their mounting agitation, and she’s an effective drill sergeant following this.

That’s the kind of specificity I wanted from her (and every other) character, but we don’t get a whole lot of that from her other episodes, and there isn’t always a lasting effect on the story of things done to her when there should be (like the kid choking her but that never coming up in anybody’s discussions or actions again; if that was ever referenced again, Cara could have had another reason to be on the fence/resist helping Mando in Season 2 from “The Tragedy” onward, which for the story means we as the audience feel more tension and uncertainty about whether he’ll be able to rely on her and whether the crew will succeed in the end.)

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The Mandalorian was refreshing in that it had not just a wide range of characters, but a visually disparate range of them too. Design-wise, her character is believable as an actual fighter in the SW universe; the leading ladies in SW movies (which were the only live action SW media up until The Mandalorian) are all pretty… samesies. They can shoot and swing a sword and use the Force, sure, but for as much as I like for female characters to be capable of doing the same things male characters do, they really need to look like they can do the same things and are actually exerting some effort and taking a hit. To do that, you can’t just hire the same thin brunette starlets we’ve gotten in every single Star Wars movie and stage them to still look attractive in every scene. You can tell when they’re being doubled by stunt performers, and putting too much effort behind making sure female characters still look ~pretty~ in every action shot causes fights/ action scenes to lose their tension because action should take effort. (An easy visual example for these are the difference between how Claire is shot in Jurassic World vs how Amanda is shot in Jurassic Park III, or the difference between how Cassandra and the warrior women are portrayed in The Scorpion King)

Cara Dune is built like a prize fighter and she moves like one too. I do think she can hold her own in a close-quarters fight against a fully-armored and brutally efficient Mandalorian, and I do think she’s capable of carrying and using the equivalent of a machine gun and single-handedly hauling aforementioned Mandalorian forty feet to safety in the finale fight. Emilia Clarke and Felicity Jones don’t look like fighters so unfortunately sometimes their fight choreography doesn’t look convincing because (among other reasons) there’s no weight behind it. Carano hauling whichever of the guys it is in the suit up and over herself in “Sanctuary” and grappling with them on the ground is convincing. I believe that character used to be a soldier and I like the camaraderie she has with Mando because you get the impression she lets a lot roll off her back, no hard feelings.

Now unfortunately, I wasn’t always completely sold on the actor’s performance outside of the action. I don’t know whether to attribute that to Carano’s acting or the director’s direction or both, but I thought many of her lines could have been delivered better or maybe would have sounded better coming from somebody else, and/or the script itself just needed reworking, which is too bad because it takes me out of the moment and the character isn’t as effective as a result. (I’ve said it before, but you can’t act a bad script. People give Hayden Christensen’s performance in the prequels a lot of grief, but if you actually watch it beyond that, Ewan McGregor and Natalie Portman aren’t great either in a lot of scenes, and they were already known for being talented, accomplished actors.)

Anyway, Cara wasn’t the worst, some scenes are better than others, and all of that can be said about other characters throughout the first two seasons and TBoBF; I have complaints about Amy Sedaris in several episodes and Carl Weathers in “The Siege” and honestly some of Mando’s lines in a couple episodes, just to name a few. Carano stands out more though and I think her deliveries sounded rehearsed and ‘acted’, not like they were thoughts that character was having and saying in real time.

Now beyond Season 1, I didn’t like the direction they were taking her character and I think her becoming a cop was boring and not done well anyway (see: Missed opportunities for better characterizations between her and Carson Teva and my complaint about her scene at the end of “The Tragedy” not being compelling [scroll down for that bit]). Some of that is tied to the fact I just don’t care about the New Republic when this was a more boots-on-the-ground bounty hunter western show, and some of it is because trying to fill in lore gaps in SW canon is distracting and entirely unnecessary, especially when it’s not being done interestingly anyway and largely has nothing to do with the main character.

I think she would have been more interesting (and maybe they would have gone into it in the Rangers of the New Republic show she was likely supposed to helm) if she’d found out about the whole Operation Paperclip parallel they were going for with the Amnesty program: she was a soldier for the Rebellion and now Teva’s recruited her to be an officer, but then she finds out remnant Imperials— You know, the people who blew up her entire planet— are being given cushy jobs and housing there on Coruscant as long as they say they’re sorry and pinky-promise they won’t do it again? Are you actually hearing yourself right now??

After that I could see her going the rogue/vigilante route and she either starts killing Imperials on her own watch, or goes back to being a jaded drifter/merc who has no faith in the New Republic as a political force. That’s a compelling (and unfortunately relatable) story arc. We’ll never know and I don’t have any faith it would have been all that good, considering the direction the writing for The Mandalorian and TBoBF (and Ahsoka, so I’ve heard) went.

If they wanted her to be some kind of lawman, she could have just become a sheriff or enforcer for Karga and kept it at that. I’m not a fan of the whole “cleaning up Nevarro” thing they had Karga doing though, both because it doesn’t make sense and because it closes off a lot of opportunities for the show to continue with the same tone it had in the first season. It’s a bounty hunter/underworld/gritty western show, and the people of Nevarro should hate Karga for the whole fiasco with the Guild and the Mandalorian covert and the Imperials in Season 1. You’re telling me they’re all totally cool with the guy who was there in the middle of it and had direct involvement with the person to blame for it all just… running the town? He was a Guild broker, not a politician. Gideon calls him a disgraced magistrate; what did he do in his past to warrant being called that? What reason do they have to trust Karga? What’s a king to a mob etc. etc.

If you want Cara as Karga’s muscle on Nevarro and you want Karga in some position of leadership/control or power, the townsfolk have to give Karga an ultimatum post-Season 1: “We won’t run you out of town, provided you ban every Mandalorian from ever landing here again.”

That provides an obstacle for Mando to overcome any time he has to come back to Nevarro or needs help from either of them. (“A lot’s changed since you were last on Nevarro.”) The townsfolk can let Karga continue being Guild broker or something equivalent because as much as they may dislike the rough kind of crowd bounty hunters are, that port being an outpost brings in a lot of cash flow, so they’re at least good for business. Mandalorians and Imperials were not. 

Karga has to rebuild his reputation as somebody who can be trusted, so Cara’s the Texas ranger/sheriff/marshal equivalent keeping people in line. She’s physically capable enough to enforce that, and Karga being more judicious about his clientele keeps the town from breathing down their necks. It makes the town hostile terrain for the New Republic, so Carson Teva as the white-hat-cowboy sheriff type has to tread lightly if he’s there searching for information of any kind. Change his character to be a bit more weathered and worldly so he knows how to navigate these waters, have him come from Alderaan, and now when he appeals to Cara in Season 2 to consider at least brokering an allyship or measure of trust in him, he’s not just a veteran, but a fellow countryman, of which there are very few left, and one who also believes the rest of these war criminals he’s been tasked with tracking down should get the justice they deserve. He might not be as extreme as Cara, but he’s far enough towards that side that she’s listening to what he says. 

That gives Cara more complex relationships with established characters and settings, which lays the groundwork for how the rest of Season 2 and beyond goes.

Now.

If you want to know what I would do/intend to do in fanfic in addition to the above with those end goals in mind, I’d reveal at the end of Season 1 when Moff Gideon shows up with his monologue that Cara Dune was a former Ranger of the New Republic, and a traitor who killed her entire squad.

Ooooh because now there’s history and Gideon’s trying to fracture her allyship with Karga and Mando to make them easier to eliminate by using it against her: Gideon proved by revealing what he knew about Karga and Mando that he knows truths about all of them, so even if Cara says he’s lying, Karga and Mando have reason to doubt.

Carasynthia Dune, survivor of Alderaan and drop soldier for the Rebellion, became a Ranger post-war, until she found out about the Amnesty program and put up a huge fuss about and against it. Can you just imagine how angry she’d be, finding out these fascists are being given leniency? Was that what I was doing the whole time I was cleaning up after Endor? Sending them back to comfortable lodging and jobs, as long as they exchange what they know and what they did during the war? They’re not even being imprisoned?

The Deathstar was the culmination of the Empire’s top researchers, scientists, engineers, and weapons experts. What does the New Republic want with Imperial science and technology anyway?

Maybe she went rogue, killing Imperials outside of her Ranger duties, exacting what she believes is justice on behalf of all those who suffered under the Empire for decades, or maybe…

She didn’t go rogue but was sickened by the truth and getting ready to quit the Rangers and had no problem telling everybody within earshot that they’re not punishing Imperials for their crimes. Everyone knows the Empire destroyed an entire pacifist planet to send a message, and that includes the Imperials working for the Empire at the end of the war; is amnesty really what they deserve?

Say the Rangers or some not-so-reputable members of the New Republic (or Imperial spies who have managed to infiltrate the New Republic’s inner workings) are just like regular cops and politicians and decided she needed to keep her mouth shut. They can’t just kill or imprison her (especially as an Alderaanian), that would make them look suspicious/guilty and make her a martyr, and she’s already talked too much. They have to discredit her and they need a legitimate reason to lock her up for good.

The next time she and her squad go out to clear yet another Imperial outpost and bring the prisoners back to Coruscant, they frame her for a crime she didn’t commit by setting them up and killing her entire squad in an explosion that kills the Imperials too, putting a target on her back and making sure everybody who knows her by name will never believe her again.

They intended to have her arrested, of course, but she managed to escape, and from then on she’s been “a lot of things since then.” Her being a former Ranger is enough to justify how she could hack into the prison registry to find Mayfeld (which will loop Carson Teva back her way when it’s noticed). That scene with her and Mando at the end of “The Tragedy” would be more tense because in this changed Nevarro, she actually IS working and corralling criminals there in the jailhouse, and he’s not supposed to be on Nevarro anyway— There’s more at stake when it comes to helping Mando now, which makes her loyalty feel stronger when she’s willing to risk what she’s established in order to help him. There are more moments we could have gotten with Mayfeld, the walking reminder of Empire, and if you’d had Mayfeld there in the finale it adds even more tension to the already fractious crew Mando has to mediate between (as well as adding someone who was just established as knowing how to navigate Imperial territory and tech).

As soon as they manage to defeat Gideon and the troopers, Cara’s the one to make contact with Teva, him leading the pack of X-Wings there to pick up the Imperial prisoners, and it’s only because Teva promised her earlier in the season that if she handed any Imperials over to him they would be tried for their crimes and wouldn’t be considered for the Amnesty program. That keeps Bo-Katan from killing Gideon like she wants to, puts tension between Bo and Mando’s allies, and keeps Gideon as a potential option later in the series when he inevitably busts out and gets the band back together, and it sets up potential conflict for later if Teva wasn’t able to/couldn’t/didn’t hold up his end of the deal.

The thing is, all of those ^ changes wouldn’t have taken up any more space than she already has in canon. All of that could have been delivered in the same amount of action, dialogue, and episodes, just differently, and I think it better knits all of these characters together. Anywhere you can use some of your already established narrative pieces to thread cause and effect together is going to feel more cohesive and satisfying because it’s strengthening all of your characters and making for tighter storytelling.

Anyway 😅 I hope I answered that coherently, thanks for letting me rant lol