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THE MANDALORIAN QUESTION

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THE MANDALORIAN QUESTION

Who are they, why are they popular, and their place in the Star Wars fandom debates…….

To those who are unfamiliar with the general fandom for Star Wars, Mandalorians are a warrior-race who are characterized by wearing armor suits with helmets that have T-visors on them. Many of them add jetpacks and wrist-blasters onto their armor suits and employ grenades and missiles along with blasters and flamethrowers. Others use blades along with blasters. The Mandalorians are well-known as powerful warriors and are considered some of the best mercenaries and soldiers in the Star Wars galaxy, with Mandalorian mercenaries and soldiers being valuable commodities for any faction or army.

Even back then, during the Original Trilogy days, George Lucas envisioned Mandalorians as a people of war, when Boba Fett was placed among the Bounty Hunters as an example of the Mandalorians’ obsession with war. The man was dressed with a green Mandalorian armor cuirass and helmet, with a jetpack and weapons in his wrist gauntlets outside of his blaster rifle, and aside from Vader and the Emperor, he gave the heroes a harder fight more than any enemy they met in the battlefield. That is, before he was unceremoniously stabbed in the back by a blind man and sent tumbling down into a pit full of teeth and tentacles. But the Mandalorians’ story did not end there. In the Prequels, when the two evil Sith Lords, Darth Tyranus and Darth Sidious looked for a guy to clone for their Stormtrooper-esque army that will one day knock off the Jedi, they chose Boba Fett’s adoptive father, Jango Fett, the man who raised Boba as a warrior, forever linking the Mandalorians to the origins of the Empire’s dreaded Stormtrooper corps. Jango wasn’t born from the Mandalorian clans, as Lucas said, but according to the lore, he was adopted into the clans by a Mandalorian soldier and wore the armor ever since-until he was decapitated by Jedi Master Mace Windu in the free-for-all that was the Battle of Geonosis. Hey, at least that’s more dignified than getting stabbed by a blind man, eh?

This, of course, made the Mandalorians popular in the Star Wars Expanded Universe. Boba Fett was salvaged from his defeat at Tatooine in Star Wars Episode VI by the comic series Dark Empire, and even in the early Marvel Star Wars comics, Mandalorians made an early presence where they helped the budding Rebel Alliance against the Empire. When Dark Horse took over the Star Wars comics, the Mandalorians made appearances in many Dark Horse comics, from the Dark Empire story that brought back Boba Fett, to the Legacy comics that take place 130 years after the original movies, to even the Tales of the Jedi and the Knights of the Old Republic comics that take place 4000 years before the original movies, Mandalorians were a constant factor in galactic politics. Mandalorians made appearances in Star Wars video games like Knights of the Old Republic and Empire at War, where Mandalorians were powerful enemies to be hunted by both light-sided and dark-sided players and factions. Games such as Republic Commando and Bounty Hunter even had a Mandalorian cultural tint, as they either starred Mandalorians like Jango Fett, or Mando-influenced clones like Delta Squad. Many novels by acclaimed author Karen Traviss expanded on their role in the Clone Wars, although they had the cost of being divisive-alienating fans of the Jedi and making non-Mando fans among the Star Wars community feel somewhat slighted when Traviss seems to tilt the moral high ground to the Mandalorians at the expense of everyone else, especially when other works displayed the Mandalorians as war-hungry blood knights always eager for a “new crusade” to fight.

Nevertheless, Mandalorians are as much a central part of the Star Wars culture, just as the Jedi and Sith are. Boba Fett was one of the characters that gets the most cosplays. Mandalorian culture is very much present in the greater lore of Star Wars, from the novels, to the comics, to the games, and it’s quite obvious that it comes from the appeal of the Mandalorian culture and way of life, as well as their badass fighting skills and cool-looking armor.

But with such an influence comes…….problems.

Remember when I said that Karen Traviss’ novels were divisive? Yeah, that divisive-ness is prevalent amongst the Star Wars fandom. Very rarely does anyone from the fandom have a neutral opinion on the Traviss books and the Mandalorians that they portray. One side of the fandom loves it, to the point of personally embracing the Mandalorian culture Traviss created, as if they were real-life Mandalorians. The other side, being those who are fans of Jedi, Sith, the Empire, the Republic, or anyone else outside the Mandalorians, feel that Traviss made the Mandalorians way too much of a Mary Sue.

The biggest example of this was when one of Han Solo’s sons, Jacen, turned into a Sith named Darth Caedus. In the books, Karen Traviss, who was writing the story, made Han’s daughter Jaina seek out Boba Fett’s help to take him down, even though Fett had experience hunting Jedi, not Sith, and nothing the Mandalorians have can resist the power of the Dark Side-they had nothing to combat the lightning blasts and telekinetic chokes the Sith usually throw at the enemy. It would have made more sense if Jaina sought out some ancient Jedi holocron teaching a technique for blocking Dark Side powers or if she sought the aid of other Jedi like Kyle Katarn, Luke Skywalker, or Jaden Korr, all experienced fighters when it came to fighting Sith. (Heck, Jaden even fought Marka Ragnos, an ancient Sith Lord from the original Sith Empire’s golden age) But Traviss even makes Jaina beg in front of her father’s old nemesis for help, even submitting to him beating her around, instead of turning to avenues of help that would have been more conventional, less humiliating, and more useful against a dark-sided brother of hers.

From the Mando-Traviss fans’ point of view, it was a point of pride-the good guys needed THEIR favorite characters’ help to win against the big bad Darth Caedus. It was a validation of their favorite characters now that even the Solos seek their help to sort out a family problem of galactic proportions. From the point of view of fans like me, who leaned more towards the Sith/Empire side, it was ridiculous. Powerful Sith could easily slaughter Mandalorians as if they were a joke. The Sith were MY specialty in the Star Wars fanbase, and to me, no Mandalorian would be of use against a Sith outside of cannon fodder to distract them. None of that armor or gadgets or jetpacks can withstand the power of the Dark Side, and my memories of facing down Mandalorians in Star Wars games using Sith characters informed my opinions on the matter.

I remember my fully-Sith character from Knights of the Old Republic blasting away Mandalorians with telekinetic Force waves, as if they were nothing more but ninepins in a bowling alley, then using the Force to strangle those who survived getting tossed about. Even without the Force, my other Sith character in KOTOR II bested Mandalorians in their “Battle Circle” duels, making them realize that a Sith can beat them, even in their game. I remember the Sith Lord Starkiller in the Force Unleashed Tatooine DLC easily besting Boba Fett, blasting him with lightning and watching him fly around uncontrollably as his jetpack short-circuits thanks to Starkiller blasting it with lightning. I remember Vader being able to wipe out Mandalorians just as easily as he wipes out armies of Rebel insurgents in Empire at War, using his powers and lightsaber to slaughter scores of them.

It also worked the other way: When I played as Mandalore Jango Fett in the Bounty Hunter video game against a Sith APPRENTICE, the fight was a boss fight because of how easy Komari Vosa could kill the player, and if it hadn’t been for an obvious opening when she charges the player, she would be near-impossible to beat. Canderous Ordo in KOTOR can handle a few Sith if his melee stats are boosted and he’s given a powerful-enough melee weapon, but when he faces Sith in force, he has little defense against Sith using the Force to choke him, to put him in a Force whirlwind, to blast him with lightning, etcetera. Unless he has a Jedi party member or a load of health packs, even the mighty Canderous is going to have problems fighting the Sith.

And it makes sense lore-wise: most of the defenses the Mandalorians have were against Jedi-their Beskar-plated lightsaber-proof armor, their mental resilience, magnetic boots, all were aimed against Jedi who used the Force to push and pull, to control minds, and to swing lightsabers. Not against Sith who strangled people with telekinesis or lit them up like Christmas trees with lightning. We even see this in the Clone Wars TV show: when Darth Maul fought Pre Vizsla in a one-on-one duel, even with Maul fighting at a handicap of only using his blade, he triumphed over Vizsla, even though the latter used grenades, flamethrowers, shuriken-launchers, and blasters along with his own lightsaber, going to show how even the strength afforded by the hatred and anger engendered by the Dark Side can help a man overpower an armed and armored Mandalorian with nothing more but bladework and hand-to-hand combat.

So the idea that one of Darth Vader’s grand-children would lower herself to begging Fett for help against Jacen baffles me, especially when she probably has next to nothing to gain in terms of advantage against Sith by bringing Fett and his Mandalorians. It was obviously a fanservice moment to stroke the Mandalorian fans’ ego. It would have been better off if Boba Fett approached Han Solo and his daughter to offer his aid pro-bono: from the surface, it’d be an act of charity. But his more ruthless reason could be that he wants a man-to-man showdown with Han Solo one day, and letting him die at the hands of his Sith son could prevent that from becoming a possibility. That would add more nuance to Fett, making him look charitable and ruthless at the same time, which would give him more depth and make the character even more likeable than if he just beat up Jaina Solo when she begs him for help.

And that’s not even the worst of it. I mentioned that Traviss’ books alienated Jedi fans. Why do they alienate Jedi fans? Well, it’s because Traviss portrays them in the least flattering picture she can possibly get away with. During the Clone Wars era, the Jedi led the Republic army that was comprised of Jango Fett clones into battle. But Traviss tried to make it look like the Jedi were both uncaring and moronic in terms of military command, getting clones killed due to sloppy strategies, treating the clones like expendable meat for the war, little better than Battle Droids. Such behaviors would justify Order 66, where the Clones finally turned their guns on their Jedi slave-masters and blew their brains out.

Now, as I mentioned, I am mostly a Sith/Empire fan. Some of my private fan stories of Jedi have them getting captured or corrupted into the Dark Side either by necessity or by a life-changing event, or both. When I watched the Original Trilogy, I identified more with the Empire, with Vader, Tarkin, and Palpatine, their Stormtroopers, along with that badass Imperial Navy and those immensely powerful Death Stars. And when I became an Expanded Universe fan, that trend continued, as I learned about the Ancient Sith and their multiple Empires. Even with the prequels, I marveled at the elegance of the Sith Grand Plan, how they kept the Jedi in the dark until the very last moment, along with seeing badasses like Dooku and Maul fight against the Jedi. I enjoyed finally seeing Palpatine in his full glory and hamminess, along with a furious Anakin falling to the Dark Side, slaughtering the remnants of the Separatists in cold blood and fighting Kenobi in a hellhole filled with fire and brimstone. But part of being a Sith/Empire fan is also knowing about the opposition: knowing about the Jedi. In the many iterations of the Expanded Universe, the Jedi have shown compassion for their charges, those who serve under them and with them-and that was a weakness the Sith characters I liked usually exploited. Their self-destructive code of compassion and self-sacrifice usually ends with them sacrificing themselves for the greater good, which is the opposite of the Sith, which is about self-preservation. The Jedi want to protect the freedoms of the many species under the Republic, which contrasts with the Sith and the Imperials wanting to keep most of these species under the order of an Empire with little patience for their whining about “rights” and “freedoms”, opting for stability and peace through the barrel of a gun instead.

So Traviss’ portrayal of the Jedi have left me rather puzzled at best. The Jedi, at least to me, were either too good or too stupid to be evil. And they’re not morons when it came to battle tactics, hence why the Sith and their goons have to press hard to win victories against the Jedi, often having forces like that of the Sith-backed Confederacy of Independent Systems secure victory with their battledroids marching through the bodies of their wrecked and mangled brethren. So portraying the Jedi as unsympathetic to the suffering of their Clone Army while employing idiot tactics that get them killed all the time is, well, not in line with how the Jedi are portrayed elsewhere. In other Clone Wars works and other Star Wars media, the Jedi are at least, worthy enemies of the Sith; flawed but wise, and the one obvious weakness that they do have is compassion for those who serve under them.

Yes, we do have the Original Trilogy Jedi who were a tad bit too detached, telling Luke Skywalker that he should let his friends die and lying to him about his old man, but even those cold bastards had at least a strain of wisdom with them-they wanted to keep Luke in training until he was ready to fight, and they thought he wasn’t ready for the truth about Vader and Anakin being the same person. I don’t agree with their moves, but I at least see why they did it.

And the funny thing is, Traviss is trying to compare these “heartless” and “idiotic” Jedi with Jango Fett and his Cul’Vay’Dar-Mandalorians who accepted money from the Sith to build the very same Clone Army that the Mando-Traviss fans see as being used as slaves of the Jedi. And the only reason that Fett and his men agreed to this, outside of possibly revenge against the Jedi, was MONEY. That’s right, the honorable Mandalore Jango Fett, the follower of the Mandalorian Supercommando Codex, purposefully allowed himself to be cloned, to create what amounts to a slave army, in order to settle a vendetta against the Jedi and get paid. So, every single dead Clone Trooper’s blood is on Jango’s hands. He agreed to this plan of the Sith, not for a higher goal of peace, not for an altruistic motive to protect the Republic against a future threat, but to get rich. To get Count Dooku’s sweet moolah. Yes, Jango and his Cul’Vay’Dar can express guilt all they like, but you know what actually helps these clones? Having someone lead them in battle and bleed alongside them-which those oh-so-evil Jedi do all the time. The Jedi fight, bleed, and die alongside these clone troopers. They share the same battlefield hardships. They try to lead the clones to victory with the least amount of casualties as possible. They don’t always succeed, but they at the very least did their best. And they try to keep the clone troopers alive in the mess that was the Clone Wars. And why do the Jedi do that? Because they believe they’re fighting to protect civilization. To keep it from falling into chaos. To keep the Republic from falling into the hands of one of their fallen brethren who was revealed to be a deceiver and a warmonger.

And what’s even worse is that some Mandalorians FOUGHT against this army of Mandalorian clone-slaves. The Mandalorian Protectors in the old Legends canon were formed by a rogue Arc Trooper who used his similarity to Jango Fett to raise an army of Mandalorians against the Republic on behalf of Dooku. That’s far worse: now these Mandalorians are KILLING the clone soldiers of the Republic. The same clones that came from Jango Fett’s DNA and were trained by the Cul’Vay’Dar. At least the Jedi have the decency to stick and fight alongside their “clone slaves” while these “true Mandalorians” shot these “slaves” like target practice.

Heck, even the Sith had higher motives: Palpatine saw that the Republic will always be in chaos, so he and his buddy Dooku created this whole fake war to turn the Republic into a centralized Empire and get rid of the Jedi, not for a mere idea of revenge, but to bring the galaxy to peace. They believed that an Empire led by a Sith is the only way to have peace, and the Jedi were in the way of said peace, so the deaths of billions to benefit trillions was an exchange they were willing to make. It was a twisted peace, but at least even Palpatine and Dooku had the general desire to benefit the galaxy-they were not motivated by petty ideas like revenge and the quest for more wealth. In fact, since these Sith were practitioners of the Rule of Two, they couldn’t care less about the Sith Order vanquished by the Jedi in the past, because according to the Rule of Two, having a Sith Order with thousands of Sith was a mistake, and the galaxy was better off without them. So it obviously wasn’t about avenging themselves on the Jedi for the destruction of the Sith Order of old that had thousands of Sith Lords.

Also, Mandalorians seeking revenge against the Jedi is quite a contradiction against past Mandalorian depictions. The Mandalorians of the KOTOR era, for example, are nearly extinct thanks to the Jedi Revan nearly wiping them all out during the Mandalorian Wars, just as the Jedi Order nearly wiped out Jango Fett’s Mandalorians in the battle of Galidraan. But what did the Mandalorians of Revan’s day do concerning the Jedi in general and Revan in particular? They showed him respect and reverence. Mandalorians such as Canderous Ordo in the first KOTOR game grew to admire Revan’s prowess in battle, and congratulated the fallen Jedi in defeating the Mandalore clans in the war. When Canderous discovered Revan’s presence, he was greatly respectful of the former Sith Lord, even claiming that had Revan been born Mandalorian, the Mandalorians would have been unstoppable. This despite the fact that Revan did more damage to Mandalorians as a whole than any Jedi in history. They once had a mighty Empire, but from then on, after Revan, they would be nothing more but a faction of mercenaries that gets hired out to fight wars now and then.

Canderous shows the same respect to the Jedi Exile in the second KOTOR game, even though she too was responsible for so many Mandalorian deaths. The final battle of the Mandalorian Wars, Malachor V, led to the final destruction of the Mandalorian army and the scattering of the Mandalorian peoples across the stars. The Exile was the commanding general for the Jedi and Republic forces at that battle. And yet when she walked into the Mandalorian camp in KOTOR II, outside of a few naysayers, she has their respect. She was a Jedi who, like Revan, practically bathed themselves in Mandalorian blood. And yet neither Canderous nor the Mandalorians hate them. Some even admire them for their strength in battle. Three hundred years after the KOTOR games, in Star Wars the Old Republic, Mandalorians join cults devoted to Revan, showing how even after the passage of time, that Mandalorian devotion to Revan remained alive. He entered their pantheon as some kind of warrior-god who was honored for his strength in battle, even though his most pivotal interaction with them was practically genociding them and rendering them nearly extinct.

And that is the complete opposite of how the Clone Wars Mandalorians from Traviss’ works act. They whine and moan about how the Jedi nearly wiped them out in Galidraan, even though the Mandalorians there were killing civilians and the Jedi simply responded by killing them. That’s the same story as the Mandalorian Wars, only on a smaller scale. So had Canderous or the KOTOR Mandalorians met these Mandalorians who whined and moaned about the Jedi, they’d slap these moaners around and tell them to suck it up and respect the guys who vanquished them in battle. They’d even slap around those who think the Jedi are using clones as slaves, because at least the Jedi fight, bleed and die alongside their “slaves”-a mark of honor in Mandalorian eyes, at least in the KOTOR era. Another reason why the Mandalorians there respected Revan was because he and his Jedi led the Republic army to victory, despite its previous losses and demoralized state.

At least when the Death Watch faction from the Clone Wars hates on Jedi, they’re not trying to claim the moral high ground. They just hate the Jedi for getting in their way when it came to establishing a Mandalorian Empire, and their hate at least had that honest feel of them not trying to seek any moral validation, but just the desire to kill their foes. They hate Jedi in the same way they hated Duchess Satine, Count Dooku, or anyone that got in their way. They’re not trying to insinuate that the Jedi use their clones as slaves or try to make themselves look better than the Jedi: the Death Watch are killers, and they’re honest about being bloodthirsty killers. They’re even proud of it, in fact. Their leader, Pre Vizsla, was proud that he and his family have a tradition of killing Jedi using a lightsaber they stole. One can love them for their battle prowess while hating them for their barbarism. It’s that kind of nuance that was missing in Traviss’ portrayal of Mandalorians, where she tried to make them look like principled fighters far better than the Jedi or the Sith while trying to make the Jedi look uncaring and even evil, to a certain extent. And as a Sith fan who loves characters that kill Jedi on a routine basis, I can easily state that the Jedi are either too good or too stupid to be evil. The worst they’ve done is dip into areas of grey, but outside of the Jedi Council that sat out the Mandalorian Wars, most Jedi were too good or naive to be the evil that Karen Traviss tried to show them to be.

Speaking of the Death Watch, let’s talk about their portrayal in the Clone Wars cartoon. Many Mandalorian fans hate the portrayal for obvious reasons-the most glaring of which is their complete ignorance of Traviss’ works and the introduction of a Pacifist Mandalorian faction ruling over the planet. Not to mention the reversal of the warrior Mandalorians into the Death Watch faction, which are portrayed as trigger-happy revolutionaries at best, and terrorist butchers at worst. But perhaps the reason for this transformation was due to the other, non-Mando fans who were already sick to death of Traviss’ proselytizing about how the Mandalorians were these perfect angels who were victims of the Jedi. Instead, they created two factions that completely ignore the Supercommando Codex Mandalorians-one is a faction of peace-lovers who want to focus on economic development and rebuilding civilization after a Mandalorian Civil War, and the other faction are warmongers with a bad disposition and an itchy trigger finger.

And it kind of makes sense. Outside the Cul’Vay’Dar and a handful of Mandalorians, most Mandos died in Galidraan, making Jango Fett an almost subject-less Mandalore. The Death Watch practiced their strategy of concealment while the Pacifist Mandalorians tried to rebuild society, most notably the economy. And outside their suicidal commitment to pacifism, the New Mandalorians creating a metropolis and what appears to be a wealthy civilization was far better than the Supercommando Codex Mandalorians who whore themselves out to random rulers, one of whom got them all killed in Galidraan when he ordered them to kill political dissidents, and we all know where that led to. Whereareas the Death Watch are at least reverted back to the standard war-loving Mandalorians minus the Revan worship. (Guess they finally forgot about him after thousands of years.)  The Death Watch are similar to the Mandalorian Empire’s Mandalorians during the Mandalorian Wars, only on a smaller scale since there’s not that many of them. They love war, and they want to revive the Mandalorian Empire and rekindle the love of war that their people once had. No aiming for the moral high ground, no pretending that they’re anything else but bloodthirsty warriors. They’re bastards, but at least they’re honest about it.

And to me, it wasn’t much of a problem. The “New Mandalorians” and their dedication to pacifism and building a civilization made more sense than the Supercommando Codex Mandalorians hiring themselves out to be someone else’s private guns. The pacifists’ dedication to civilization shows in their city of Sundari, where, in the middle of a radioactive desert, they have this domed city that for all intents and purposes, looks like a futuristic paradise. Instead of living hand-to-mouth like nomads, they have a wonderful civilization that is on par with Coruscant and Corellia in terms of greatness. And they’re not all defenseless-the Duchess obviously has soldiers and honor guards running about, keeping order in Mandalore. They just didn’t have a large army that could be a threat to the Separatists and the Republic, which of course, bites them in the ass when powerful and wealthy crime families target them on the orders of Darth Maul and his Death Watch allies near the end of the fifth season of the Clone Wars show.

But their new approach to civilization, as well as their great works of city-building, were unique in Mandalorian history, where they mostly lived as nomads living off of someone else’s dime being paid to be fighters. It was a nice shake-up to see what Mandalorians are capable of if they weren’t just guns for hire all the time. It was interesting enough to the point where the famed science fiction critic SF Debris actually voiced approval of it in the conclusion of his review of the first three Mandalorian-themed episodes in the Clone Wars show:

“And I reiterate, I like the way they’ve gone with the Mandalorian culture here. It feels like real growth and has already lent itself to some interesting story possibilities here. Plus, it’s always nice to see the non-warriors in a warrior-dominated culture finally stand up and say ‘Hey! Enough is enough, assholes! We’re tired of making things for you to break! We’re taking over now!’”

My only gripe with them is the fact that they didn’t have an army. Just because they love peace doesn’t mean they had to go full-pacifist and turn their backs on war. The Jedi are peace-lovers who meditate in peace, but they have no problems chopping off heads with their lightsabers when push comes to shove. Heck, considering the New Mandalorians and their Duchess Satine Kryze have 2000 neutral systems under their influence, that’s a justification FOR building a massive Mandalorian army and fleet to keep Separatist and Republic forces out of the neutral systems’ business. They can use Mandalore’s newfound economic prowess to afford building a large fleet and army. But as I said, if they did try that, they’d be seen as a threat by both the Separatists or the Republic. Considering that the Separatists have already shown to have aided the Death Watch temporarily, sending Battle Droids to reinforce an agent of theirs on a diplomatic cruiser, I’d use that to justify Mandalore going to war with the Separatists with Republic support, although that would probably draw the ire of the neutral systems and cause them to walk out, which is something Satine obviously doesn’t want.

But of course, the Traviss fans, being oblivious to the fact that other parts of the fandom had grown tired of them, screamed “betrayal” at this portrayal of Mandalorians in the show, even though their star author tried to make Lucas’ preferred heroes, the Jedi, look evil. The JEDI. Lucas’ heroes of goodness and light. If that wasn’t a betrayal of Star Wars, I don’t know what is. The most Lucas did to give them flaws is make them detached in the OT and blind to the Sith’s machinations in the Prequels. They weren’t evil, and they certainly cared for those under them, and they weren’t military imbeciles. You can only go for so long vilifying the Jedi Order, the heart and soul of Star Wars, before other authors take note and decide to strike back. Traviss’ hate for the Jedi is perhaps one of the things that caused the show-writers in the Clone Wars to strike at her, the other being her Mandalorian Mary-Sues being near-perfect in portrayal when compared to the evil and corrupt Jedi Order. Most of the “evils” of the Jedi that Traviss talked about were things Traviss made and wrote-while other works in the Expanded Universe emphasized how the Jedi held sacrifice and compassion in high regard, to the point of martyrdom and self-destruction. Perhaps that’s why the show, with Lucas’ blessing, turned against Traviss’ portrayal of Mandalorians, and many fans of the show and other parts of the Star Wars fandom had no problems going along with it.

In conclusion, the Mandalorians have had a storied history in both Star Wars lore and fandom. But the efforts of authors like Traviss to make the Jedi look evil and the Mandalorians look perfect obviously ruffled some feathers in the Star Wars fandom, and her portrayal of Mandalorians obviously made some non-Mando fans in the SW fandom get more than a tad bit annoyed at them, which of course, caused the Clone Wars show writers to write in a portrayal of Mandalore that was, in effect, one big, fat, middle finger to Traviss’ portrayals of them, giving two flawed, but nuanced factions the time of day. This, of course, angered the fans who liked Karen Traviss’ portrayal of the Mandalorians, leading to fan wars between lovers of the Karen Traviss works and lovers of the Clone Wars TV show. I suppose that’s a result of some authors favoring one side over the other and annoying other fans who don’t agree with their views. It’s similar to the phenomenon of some Gundam authors agreeing with the pro-Zeon fanboys and their arguments about “Spacenoid Independence”, writing works that agree with that standpoint, which then anger the Gundam fans who see the Zeon faction as a bunch of monsters thanks to their portrayal in the tv show and other pieces of Gundam media, who then see these pro-Zeon authors as Zeon fanboys trying to legitimize a bunch of fascist warmongers. I suppose this is what happens when a franchise goes long enough to have different viewpoints within the same fanbase. And like with Gundam, Star Wars is such a franchise, and having such different viewpoints and fandoms within the fanbase can have their ups and downs.
Today I tackle one of the holy cows of the Star Wars franchise, the Mandalorians. Here I offer my views on their portrayal of the Mandalorians, and their history, both within the universe and among the fandom, as well as my view on the dilemmas concerning Karen Traviss and the Clone Wars show. 
© 2017 - 2024 Vader999
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Xim-the-Despot's avatar
I know I'm very late to this but I'd to throw my 2 cents. I'm not as fond of TCW as I used, partly because I'm no longer an adolescent and partly because of the lore changes it introduced.

I'm not a Traviss die hard fan like most of the anti-TCW camp, I've only ever heard a fan audiobook of her first RC book. It was okay, but not as good as any of the Michael Reeves books imo. However, the lore changes aren't isolated to the Mandalorians as many other major parts of the CWMMP were retconned by Filoni, including the character of several Jedi (like Baress going from a more pacifistic idealist in the MedStar books to being a terrorist and Quinlan Voss going from a tough as nails bad cop in the Republic comics to basically the Dude from the Big Lebowski).