#mandalorian cultures

[snawleyy]

late night study

[jedi-starbird]

Rex: So General Kenobi, how come you speak mando'a?

Obi-Wan: I've always been interested in the culture and I spent a year on Mandalore for a mission in my youth :)

Rex: I see, what about you, General Skywalker?

Anakin: Huh? Oh Obi-Wan used to drop me off in mando daycare when he went to get laid in little Keldabe, fun times, they taught me how to headbutt someone.

[radiosummons]

I'm literally on my knees, begging and sobbing for the Mandalorians to have a normal fucking government. The sequel here

[roseaesynstylae]

Some Notes for Star Wars Writers

The dark side is not freedom, it’s not pleasure, it’s not happiness. It’s a hell and a slavery you get so deeply enmeshed in that you don’t even see the torment or the chains.

The balance of the Force is not the dark side and the light side being equal, it’s the balance between the Living Force and the Cosmic Force.

The Jedi do not need to be reformed or changed. While individual members can be flawed, the goals and beliefs of the whole are good and right.

Historically, the Mandalorians were assholes who were responsible for multiple genocides. This is important to remember when writing their interactions with the Jedi.

The Jedi did not attack first at Galidraan, nor did they intentionally set out to kill the True Mandalorians. They were manipulated by the governor and Tor Vizla. Jango didn’t exactly try to calm things down, either.

THE JEDI ARE NOT BABY-STEALERS.

ATTACHMENT IS NOT LOVE.

[now-you-sound-like-a-jedi]

In essence, the argument that Satine Kryze destroyed Mandalorian culture boils down to an overly simplistic perspective which reduces Mandalorian culture to violence and warmongering. The vitriol directed at Satine for “destroying” this stems from the fact that what she actually destroyed was the romanticised macho warrior fantasy which may be said to form the basis of many Star Wars fans’ obsession with Mandalorians. This fantasy is symptomatic of a wider obsession in Western media with romanticised representations of warrior societies, such as Japanese samurai, ancient Greek Spartans, mediaeval knights, and Roman legionaries. However, these representations are themselves oversimplified, and gloss over the real impact of the violence these groups participated in and perpetuated in favour of focusing on arbitrary ideals like honour and glory, much like how the impact of the violence in Mandalore’s history is frequently glossed over in attempts to make Satine into the bad guy. In this essay, I will-

[viscanpikamine]

THEYRE DONE!! young jango got his brand new beskar'gam, ready to fight for his new buir

alt caption "hey guys look at this stray i found lol i'm gonna adopt him, he can shoot"

[cirr0stratus]

“There was a time when we weren't enemies. Perhaps that time has come again.”

[panther-os]

The 212th colors are endlessly fascinating to me, because it's clearly orange, but the fact that Obi-Wan is likely aware of Mandalorian color symbolism and the idea that he chose it and chose to call it gold? Like? What happened?

Palpatine: Master Kenobi, why are you so insistent on this color?

Obi-Wan, sweating: It's gold, it stands for vengeance in Mandalorian culture.

Palpatine: It's orange, though?

Obi-Wan, hoping Jango Fett's ghost doesn't slit his throat in his sleep for this: Mandalorians see color differently.

Palpatine, known racist old white man: Ah, I see, carry on.

Obi-Wan, to his troops fifteen minutes later: Listen, idk your relationship with Mandalorian culture, but this color? Orange means freedom. By death or in life, you will take your freedom eventually.

The 212th, who just fucking met him: ????

Obi-Wan: But if anyone asks it's gold and means vengeance and Mandalorian humans don't see color the same as other humans because of their Taung ancestry or something like that. This is very important because I just lied to the Supreme Chancellor's face about it lmao

[furious-blueberry0]

Ok but what if having short hair is actually a symbolic aspect of Mandalorian culture?

Maybe it's something that just started out of necessity (keeping hair under the helmet) and then over time it acquired more and more meaning.

Maybe for mandos having short hair is like having some hidden knives, not something that you 100% need to be mandalorian, but certainly something to have just to be safe.

[kaxtwenty]

Y’know, considering all the mass-adoption and assimilation Mandalore has done, Mando’a probably has some of the craziest differences between regional dialects.

You will NEVER be able to convince me that clan Wren and clan Vizsla speak the same Mando’a. They probably have an easier time communicating with each other in Basic than their native language.

Just an absolute clusterfuck of a language, the Romans would pity them.

[ranahan]

Here’s a wild fan theory:

You see these blue triangles on Din’s gauntlets?

And these two little triangles on Boba’s (Jango’s) helmet?

And kind of here on Jaster’s cuirass?

I’ve pondered the significance (there was a post that made the connection between the triangles on the armour of various Mandalorians and clones, but I can’t find it anymore) and here’s my wild little theory.

You know what’s significant in Mandalorian culture and associated with the number three? The three Mandalorian gods Kad Ha’rangir, Arasuum and Hod Ha’ran.

So maybe for the Taung the triangle was a symbol of the three gods, the cosmic battle between growth and stagnation, and the Mandalorian faith as a whole. I like the idea of the triangle standing on one of its corners (“upside down”) ▽: the two upper corners are growth and stagnation, the bottom corner represents the fickle nature of fortune which may at any point tip the scales this or that way. The arrangement of the corners is also reminiscent of the iconic T-visor, and in that way, the T could be another representation of the idea of these teetering scales of cosmic battle.

After the Mandalorian Wars, the Mandalorians reinterpreted their old faith, came to view the gods as metaphors, and moved towards the belief in the Manda, the collective oversoul. And perhaps they also reused and reinterpreted a lot of the old iconography.

So for the modern Mandalorians, one triangle is symbolic of the Manda, the collective oversoul and shared identity. And two triangles… well, what’s significant in Mandalorian culture and associated with the number six? The Resol’nare, or the six actions. Or in Din’s case (his gauntlets are of course a pair, so 6 corners in total), The Way of the Mandalore.

And I like to think that the placement might also be significant. Perhaps Din’s are on his hands to signify honour: “the Way guides my actions.” Boba’s over his view plate might signify vision. Jaster’s around his kar’ta, perhaps justice or faith. Near the mouth parts, truth. On the back of the helmet or on the back plate, it might be a protective cantrip: “watch my back.” And on the shins or feet, a wish for the Manda to guide one’s steps.

[mandalorianhistorian]

[mearchy]

I’ve almost no understanding of linguistics. But this post and also @thefoundationproject ‘s fics, which include bits about how the Journeyman Protector dialect might be related to Standard Mando’a, have me trying to hypothesize Mandalorian language trees. based on what we know about Mandalorian history.

I KNOW some of you are language nerds and I also did this in fifteen minutes please yell at me about your own headcanons and also about everything I got wrong/missed/forgot. It would be cool to turn it into a real graph to reference eventually (:

[frownyalfred]

the thing I love so much about writing a Mandalorian Batfamily is that in Mando culture, the forehead tap they do (Keldabe) can be very sweet and gentle and also the most passionate thing ever where you’re basically head butting your brother and might actually hurt yourself if only one of you is wearing a helmet but it doesn’t matter, that’s how much you love them and that simply describes the Batfamily to a T. Just slamming your heads together in love and relief so hard one of you bleeds.

[limnsaber]

“One does not speak unless one knows” Mandalorians really said “shut the fuck up”

[zambomarti]

I love reading dinluke fanfic but sometimes I am bitter about the disparity in treatment between Jedi and Mandalorian culture.

There is definitely a widespread anti-jedi attitude and for someone like me who loves dinluke and the jedi order it is a bit annoying😕