#Sabine is the best one tho (at least before Ahsoka but I've had that rant already)

[kaxtwenty]

I think the thing I like the most about Mandalorians is how much it sucks to be one.

Like, the older I get the more I understand Satine. A society that revolves around fighting and conquest as much Mandalorian society tends to probably sucks to live in.

Pretty much every major Mando character has this moment where they’re just like, “Why are we like this?” And it feels real in a way that few bits of SW lore ever come close to.

To gloss over it a bit. Nearly every planet they’ve inhabited has been glassed 1-12 times. The foundling system, while cool, has its roots in slavery and forced assimilation (which can still be seen in some cases). Pretty much every major clan or house are the descendants of people who were forced to assimilate to Mandalorian society (not even that far back in Clan Wren’s case). They fought so much that the original Mandalorian race, the Taung, went extinct.

And to top it all off the literal inception of their entire culture was when they saw a planet full of Kaiju and one guy decided they should subjugate and hunt them to extinction. Which is to say nothing of all the civil wars their whole feudalistic house/clan system practically encourages; along with the ever lingering question of how often do Mandos who aren't soldiers get to have full citizenship?

Hell, there was one time a Mandalorian straight up became a Jedi, ruled as Mand’alor only to have his kids steal his saber from the Jedi Temple and use it as a symbol of violence and supremacy.

I’ve always liked to think of Mandalorians as the sort of “wildcard” faction of Star Wars. They can be either the heroes or the villains and vary wildly in how they fulfill those roles, you never quite know what you’re gonna get with them on an individual level. But just about every one of them has had to confront their history and how it affects them now. And their views are often informed their upbringing and different experiences.

There's this constant through line of characters trying to reinvent what it means to be Mandalorian, all of them coming to their own conclusions, usually with the help of a Jedi or two.

Idk, I wouldn't say I'm an expert on Mandalorians or anything (I'm much more of a Jedi guy), but I got a lot of thoughts about them and how their current culture is informed by their history of imperialistic warfare.

"I think... I think I need something more than killing and fighting in my life." - Canderous Ordo