#indulging my inner nerd today and presenting you all with more of my star wars nerdness

[superectojazzmage]

Still on my Star War streak, so I’m gonna write out a post that I’ve kinda written the sloppy bare bones of in tags. So, like, this Mando episode really highlights Bo Katan’s big character flaw. And it’s the denial that she could do anything wrong. Even at her biggest Depression Era, she never lets the blame fall on herself or her family.

In her head, it’s not the Kryzes and Deathwatch’s faults that Mandalore fell into civil war and decline, it was because of all the other factions, it was because all the stupid lowborn peasants and True Mandalorians wouldn’t shut up and do what the Kryzes or Deathwatch said, because they believed in something bigger then an earthly authority. It’s not her fault that every time she gains power everything crashes and burns, it’s because other people won’t bend the knee and fall in line. It’s not her fault that people don’t like her and don’t respect her as a leader, it’s because they’re obsessed with superstition and arbitrary rules that distract them from doing what she thinks needs to be done (which just so happens to be “listening to what Bo Katan says”) and it’s because people like Din keep “dividing” them from her.

And this extends to her treatment of and dismissal of the Resol’nare and the larger Mandalorian religion as just pageantry and superstition. Because that’s how both her family (self-hating Mandalorians who sold out to the Republic and served as colonial authorities in the name of power) and Deathwatch (brutal heretics who went hard in the opposite direction and wanted Mandalore to be nothing but glorified pirates and conquerors) saw and treated it. Neither of the groups she was a part of truly believed in the Mandalorian faith or its cultural identity. They just followed a shallow, materialistic mockery of it, performing and appropriating crude equivalents of the Creed because it made them look good, while secretly rejecting all of its actual tenets (“no outsider will rule Mandalore!” declares Bo Katan, supposed member of a culture that places huge emphasis on being open to outsiders and held up outsiders as some of its greatest rulers, despite the fact the Kryzes were almost certainly outsiders themselves).

At best, these groups see things like the Living Waters, the Mines, the Darksaber, the Mythosaurs, the Resol’nare, the Beskar, and the Mandalorian Pantheon as tools to placate and control the masses, even though both groups continually fail to use them that way. Because they don’t respect those things and don’t understand why most Mandos take them so seriously and refuse to acknowledge the mysticism and spirituality and religious power behind their civilization.

And Bo Katan specifically refuses to do so because if it is all true, if it really all is more then just words and children’s stories… that would mean Bo Katan isn’t a good Mandalorian, and certainly not a good person.

If any of the Mandalorian religion were true — and it most certainly is — and if any of the bad things that happened under her and her family’s watch were their own faults, that would mean that other people are right to reject Bo Katan, right to call her out as a traitor and hypocrite and bigot and failure. It would mean she and her family really were bad or at the very least severely misguided people who betrayed their culture in order to suck up to and emulate an uncaring, decadent Coreworld government. It would mean her and her precious Deathwatch really were just terrorists spitting on everything Mandalore stood for instead of “bringing back the old ways”. It would mean she really was a bad leader who led the Mandalorians into a slaughterhouse by leading open revolt against the Empire instead of operating in secret like the rest of the Rebel Alliance did. It would mean that she really was undeserving of the Darksaber and the title of Mand’alor and that she really was just totally inept at rallying her people in the aftermath of the Empire’s defeat.

It would mean that Bo Katan didn’t deserve the one thing I think that she always really wanted deep down; acceptance and love.

Bo Katan was the child of a colonial quisling family who looked down their nose at all the other Mandalorians for being a warrior culture. Of course she wouldn’t have been popular and well-regarded, not really, and certainly no amount of childhood “pageants” held as insulting concessions to the old guard would change that. So she left that life and went in the opposite direction of the pacifism that Clan Kryze and their “New” Mandalorian government preached. She went to the terrorists that said they were bringing back the old ways and hoped that would make her a hero of the people… only for them to instead just be terrorists who followed a warped, twisted version of the Mandalorian Way where they fought for its own sake and nothing more. That didn’t really earn her popularity points either — a small cadre of loyal followers, but certainly not widespread adulation, especially after she went running to the Republic again when the political winds shifted out of her favor and got installed as a Republic-friendly ruler yet again.

But then, salvation came; she was handed the Darksaber on a plate in exchange for helping fight the Republic Empire that she and her family had previously relied on for back up. She had all the power she could ever want with that sword and with that power would surely come the love she always wanted. People would cheer her on as Mand’alor and she would be beloved for all time. But that didn’t happen. And she led her people into the worst catastrophe in their history. But if she could just get the sword back, properly this time, and be the one to avenge the Night of a Thousand Tears by beating Gideon, then they would all love her right? Except she fails again; someone else defeats Gideon and gets the saber, and even if she had gotten it, it may not have been enough.

And, of course, through it all she just kept losing people. Whether to death (her dad, her sister, her lover) or to abandonment (her followers, her friends, her allies), she just lost friend and family at every turn until what few people were actually able to put up with her before were all gone, and it was very often her own fault, at least partially.

And along comes fucking Din Djarin. Everything Bo wishes she was. A Mandalorian beloved by his people and outsiders alike. Someone with friends and family and people who care about him. Someone who actually believes in and follows the true Way of the Mandalore and is very obviously happier for it. Someone who lucked into the title of Mand’alor that Bo had spent decades trying to attain in any way she could. Someone who stumbles into the magic and wonder of the Mandalorian Creed in ways that Bo Katan has never been able to, like finding a fucking Mythosaur by stepping off a ledge. Someone who is a walking reminder of every failure and mistake Bo Katan ever made and she could oh so easily have avoided them.

No wonder she has such blatant conflicted feelings about him.

I will also note that this is all really brilliant when you keep in mind the larger cultural influences behind Mandalorian culture and the worldbuilding and lore around them. The Mandalorians were generally fleshed out and designed with significant influence from Celtic (Irish, Scottish, Welsh, etc.) and Oceanic/Pacific Islander (Māori, Hawaiian, Polynesia in general, etc… the Māori connection is particularly prominent given two of the most notable Mandos — Jango and Boba — are played by a Māori actor) cultures… up to and including being victims of colonialism and repression of their native culture and faiths from Britain/the Core. This all, I feel, adds an extra layer of depth to Bo Katan’s story, as she’s functionally a child of two worlds, being more or less of both colonial and native descent. She’s divided between two cultures, between simultaneously wanting to downplay or dismiss or do away with her native heritage and beliefs for the sake of respect from/fitting in with the colonials and outsiders, yet paradoxically also wanting the approval of her native community and relatives and wanting to defend their way of life. It’s very fascinating and shows a complex character.