#and in the same way that Mandalore is Jewish

[greenflower21]

Númenor is so Jewish

[padawansuggest]

Why do you like Jango so much? I’m not trying to be rude or anything, I love your AUs, I just don’t understand how someone with very little screen time ends up with such a huge following. You’re a great writer by the way

How did I get absolutely obsessed with Jango Fett... well, to start off with, the biggest aspect of my personality is I ALWAYS get attached to a character with not enough screen time and a tragic backstory.

It started off with reading about Dooku one day I think? Anyways, I was reading about SOMETHING and the subject of Galidraan came up. I read all I could get on that Massive Fuckup (the Jedi’s two biggest faults that I think would change their entire order if they weren’t there, are a lifestyle of non-emotionalism, and too much senate oversight, leading to both slaughter of innocents, as well as the senate refusing to let Jedi help anyone not republic aligned) and I was shooketh to my very core. That was probably the biggest fuckup the Jedi had committed in like 1000 years. That was a literal massacre of a POC group of people who are, by definition, antifa mercenaries. I was shook and upset and I immediately needed to read up on every single person involved in this one.

Suddenly, Jango’s hatred of the Jedi made sense. He killed like 6-8 of them with his bare hands. He was then the sole survivor of a complete genocidal massacre, who was captured and immediately sold into slavery. We don’t even know what KIND of slavery he was sold into (at least I assume we don’t know cause I couldn’t find anything on it in my research) and so then you have the whump factor to play with too. This though, created an ABUNDANCE of anti-senate AUs where Jango instead, blamed the senate instead of the Jedi.

Then I started getting into Jango’s background itself (btw, he also had an older sister who was taken in by the Death Watch instead of the True Mandalorians, so in peaceful aus where nothing bad happens and Death Watch isn’t an issue, she should def be there, and in case it’s not clear, she’s in both my fem!Obitine AU as well as my Janwan Santa Clause AU) and saw that he was adopted (I’m not yet sure if this is a legal adoption or not, because Jaster Mereel WAS considered the leader of Concord Dawn, if not the entire Mandalorian sector, but admittedly, I just prefer AUs where he’s in charge of Concord Dawn and the Kryze fam is in charge of Mandalore because that leads to waaaaaaay less fighting and even room for allies, but I do know that Jango considered him a parent, whether or not he called him Dad) and then I started getting into Jaster’s backstory.

This is when I started stanning the ‘the True Mandalorians were right and the senate is evil and terrible and has too much control over the Jedi temple’ train and I ain’t about to jump off anytime soon.

Jaster’s an interesting character because his story arc was specifically about changing the TM so they were a self policing group. I can’t remember if this next part was my headcanon, actual canon, or speculation from another person, but I know it in my heart. A large part of self policing in groups of mercenaries means a code of conduct. Meaning: no rape, don’t steal from the poor, no torture is ever justified (torture for information is always going to get you the wrong information, and torture for the sake of revenge is more for the pleasure of the one doing the torture, than the one being tortured, if you really want revenge that bad, just kill them. One of them is a vigilante and the other is a serial killer.) and never harm an innocent.

It’s unclear to me if Jango kept to this code of conduct after he got out of slavery, but I know that before the massacre happened, he lead the TM in the same way that Jaster did.

Now, why am I so obsessed with Jango? Potential. I believe that the MAJORITY of fix it AUs start with Dooku and Jango and even Jaster (he died a while before Galidraan so you know what, in an AU where he’s still alive, that’s even better) and even Xanatos and Bruck. I believe that a large (massive) part of fix-it AU starts with Jango himself. His upbringing and the fact that he’s ONE OF the smartest men in the entire series.

The potential to play with characters for an AU (in case you have not noticed, I barely care about canon, my life is fanfiction and I only care about canon for fanfiction potential) where things aren’t the same, is amazing. And the potential for stopping the genocide of an entire group of POC people (btw, Death Watch was the one that ordered the massacre on Galidraan, so, they’re 100% not redeemable imo) is amazing. I can’t write a Star Trek fic where they destroy Vulcan because the extinction of an entire species based off Jewish people makes me want to die. It’s similar enough here that I give a massive amount of thought to whether or not I will let Galidraan happen in any AU I write (btw if someone has some ideas about that for the Animagus AU, I’m open to talk about it, cause like I just said, I never want that shit to happen, but I just don’t even know what’s happening with Jango in that AU at all) and that’s that on that.

It’s not so much Jango himself. It’s potential for a fix it, and it’s refusing to let an entire group of antifa POC people die, and it’s usually deciding to make an AU where the senate doesn’t have as much oversight over the Jedi, and it’s deciding to save Dooku from that specific incident that fractured the man so badly that it was never Qui-Gon’s death that made him fall, that was just the shove over the edge that he needed to get there.

I do love Jango as a character. He was interesting and he could have been absolutely amazing. I got attached to him for the fix-it potential, and now I’m attached because I wish he was more fleshed out, and I wish he was in my fics, and I’m absolutely delighted with every single fic he’s in where he’s a good person, and that’s that on that. I just like world building, fix it, and Jango Fett. Obi-Wan may be my main focal point in just about anything, but Jango Fett is absolutely amazing and full of potential.

Also, thank you for the compliment and the question both. I never realized how much I had to say about him.

[deprough]

So I have thoughts on this, and honestly, since I watched Clone Wars and saw other Mandalorians, I’ve suspected that Din’s group was an extreme militant sect of their people. They follow strict rules, they isolate their people from the world, they strip them of their identities, and they require support from their members to continue. We’ve seen all of this from the show. Bo-Katan named it best when she called the Children of the Watch a cult. The actions that the Children take are all marks of cult activity, especially isolation from others. 

The fact that Din believes that you’re not a true Mandalorian if you remove your helmet in front of anyone, even a member of the CotW, is a way to force members to assume a group identity, and to reject anyone who doesn’t follow that identity. So to Din, anyone who doesn’t follow his rules isn’t a true Mandalorian. The saddest part of this is that he was never given a chance to decide for himself what to believe; he’s been thoroughly indoctrinated from childhood by people who saved his life. I expect that exposure to Askoha and Bo-Katan over the next season or two will change his beliefs, but it will be hard and slow. And it should be. This is going to require Din to challenge the foundations of his psyche, the very building blocks of his personality. 

With respect to Cyare, I’m going to say that the sects of Mandalore is far more like our RW Jewish religion. Not exactly of course, but you have a group of people who share a common heritage and belief system, and have experienced a disporia when their planet was “cursed” or poisoned or whatever the Empire did to it.  That harkens back to the forced removal of the Jewish people from the Holy Land that occurred again and again. You can join the Jewish faith, and become part of their heritage, though being Jewish can be religious or genetic. Same with Mandalorians. They also have people who are very casually religious and then the more extreme sects, like Hasidic Jews.

All of that said... people are going to do what they’re going to do. There are some very loud people that have very narrow views about what they want their content to be. They’re always going to howl about stuff not being the way that they want. They can declare that Din isn’t a real Mandalorian all they want. But Din, and his final disposition belongs to Disney, and they’re going to follow the money and try to please as many fans as possible. The minority can’t support the franchise; even if they could, Disney can make more money by writing to the majority -- ie, the people that don’t scream on message boards but do log in every Friday to watch the show. That’s what Disney is looking toward, and on some level, those people know it. I feel a little sorry for them; they are upset that something isn’t living up to their expectations, but they can’t shrug and go consume fanfiction or fanart that meets their desires. They have to have their desires be canon, and that’s not going to happen. i get it, I’m still irritated that the last trilogy wasn’t Finn/Rey or Finn/Poe, or Finn/Rey/Poe. Any of thsoe would have made me happy, but Disney didn’t think the money was there, so they didn’t go there. It is what it is, and I have fanfiction for what I want.

It breaks my heart that people on this site turned on din as soon as they heard “you’re a child of the watch.” People say that he’s not a real mandalorian and I even saw someone say that if hiding your face is the idea of honor, then you have no honor. It’s insulting to dins character, the writers, and possibly even Pedro himself to belittle din just because of something he had no idea about. It just makes me sad

It’s just a sign of a lack of information and history, really. They’re still Mandalorians.

Think about it in terms of real religion. I’ll use Christianity as an example (as someone who practices it). There are many, many ways to practice Christianity. It can be as extreme as the Amish, who alienate themselves from modern society and still use technology like horse buggies, and it can be as casual as nondenominational Christians, many of whom don’t go to church regularly and focus more on the personal relationship with God than on the actual traditions and practices.

That’s how it is with the Mandalorians. Din’s just a part of a more extremist group—but he’s still a Mandalorian. He didn’t know this, he figured every Mandalorian was like this. He was lied to. He doesn’t deserve to be put down because he was lied to ever since the moment he left Aq Vetina.