You Know My Favorite Thing About Peli? She’s Basically The Only Person Who Treats Din The Same Way

Best of (worst in) me

twi | ins

WAIT WAIT WAIT YOU’RE RIGHT

i’ve been hypothesizing since like the beginning of the show that baby yoda’s blood was used to create snoke and/or the resurrected palpatine. is this confirmation??? the conspiracy theorist in me is going WILD right now. idk how kylo ren fits in though unless his theme is just being used as a symbol of the first order in general, foreshadowing how baby yoda’s blood is being used to faciliate its rise.

Why isn’t anyone talking about how Snoke’s theme plays at the beginning of the song Experiment off the Mando season 2 soundtrack and then how it bleeds into Kylo Ren’s theme ?!?!? AND that’s the scene where they talk about Grogu and midichlorians too !!! I NEED ANSWERS

I think both the show and Din himself associates removing his helmet with death. maybe not always literal death (in ch8 he would rather die with his helmet on than live and take it off), but there’s a sense that he would meet a permanent and irrevocable spiritual end of some kind, something he won’t be allowed to come back from. I think in his mind he pictures it as a singularly traumatic event where nothing that happens after will matter, because whether he lives or dies, he won’t be a Mandalorian any longer. This would be the bookend moment to losing his parents as a child, which is the day he STARTED being a Mandalorian. It’s a very cinematic, very easy way of thinking about his life.

But that doesn’t happen! IG-11 removes his helmet and he has to keep on living as a Mandalorian. That transgression is a bit easier to rationalise if he’s being incredibly literal about the Creed (IG isn’t technically “a living thing”, as he says), which I don’t think Din is normally prone to doing, but it’s enough to keep the panic about losing his identity under control. In ch15 though, he shows his face to a bunch of Imperials and then has to put his helmet back on and keep being a Mandalorian, which would normally be a plain and simple End Of My Life event. but in that moment he puts his helmet back on anyway and keeps fighting, because being a Mandalorian means protecting the kid more than it means hiding himself from other people.

The common interpretation I see of this sequence of events is that Din is learning there’s more than one way of being a Mando, reinforced by his contact with Bo and Boba. And I suppose you can make that case, but for me personally I think it’s much more interesting to understand it as Din having to confront a deep contradiction in his own beliefs, which is whether to prioritise his armour and his own self, or his duty to those he loves. Din’s ties to his mando-hood have always been based in his larger community, but in the show itself he’s framed as a perpetual loner, a singular individual unit in a vast galaxy that is unconcerned with his well-being or his beliefs. And Grogu is presented as the first time he has to confront the idea that he is more than himself and his responsibilities, that he has to take care of himself for other people, and that his principles need to accommodate for that shift in priorities. It doesn’t mean he suddenly has this moment of clarity where he thinks “oh god, I’ve been living by this set of rules my entire life and they don’t actually matter”; it’s moreso “I am finally in a place in my life where I have to make real compromises, and I would rather compromise my own personal safety and comfort than my relationship with my own son.”

Which is such a great arc for him to go through!!!! It isn’t a phoenix-rising-from-the-ashes moment, nor a ledge-i-can’t-come-back-from moment. It’s a continual and subtle shift in his beliefs that he has to consciously attend to and confront every single day. Din has to practice being a Mandalorian for Grogu, which is different from being a Mandalorian for himself or his covert.

the way obi-wan is the first to hold the children, the one who actually welcomes them into the world, it's the way he looks at baby luke with SUCH WONDER, HOPE, DEEPEST SORROW & LOVE

something something the way obi-wan & padme are each other's proxies which enables the transference of motherhood and how obi-wan is the one who gets 'cradling a new born child' close-up shot usually reserved for the mother instead.

*foaming at the mouth in utter derangment* isn't it....isn't it ironic how lucas said he needed vader as the father but needed a father figure so he created obi-wan for the OG trilogy, but the prequels accidentally (and unintentionally) place him in the narrative position of the mother.

by have him directly take over from padme; both LITERALLY and SYMBOLICALLY. their similarities in demeanour, personalities and their relation to anakin - as apologists, as devotees, as those who believe in him- makes their narrative roles transferrable.

how making padme die in childbirth and obi-wan be the first to hold the children to - figuratively- be the one who brings them into this world, keeps them safe and watches over them makes him a mother figure in exile, in direct opposition to anakin.

maiden -> mother -> crone

quotes from:

time of death by cavan scott

lone wolf by abel g. pena

i don’t think we should be quick to trust anything bo-katan says about the children of the watch.

the main thing i’m suspicious of is her claim that they’re a fringe group. maybe they were in the clone wars era, but they’re clearly the dominant mandalorian faction right now. we know this because literally everyone in the show, not just din, thinks all mandalorians never take off their helmets. that perception wouldn’t be so widespread if the helmet thing were only practiced by a small group of religious zealots. i mean, this is galaxy-wide common knowledge. it’s not just din being sheltered by a cult.

clearly something changed between clone wars and the fall of the empire. i’m guessing most of the mainstream mandalorians were wiped out after the great purge, leaving the children of the watch as the largest group. one reason for that may have been a cultural shift towards the ancient way because the anonymity aspect of it gave them a definite survival advantage. however, the main reason was probably the practice of adopting foundlings.

the mainstream mandalorian culture prior to the purge seemed to view itself as a race rather than a creed. this meant that when the ethnic mandalorians were killed off, the children of the watch kept growing because they adopted outsiders into their group. the armorer alludes to this when she says that “foundlings are the future.”

this is why din getting upset about boba and bo-katan wearing beskar armor doesn’t necessarily mean he’s being sheltered by a cult, as bo-katan claims. notice that he’s okay with them keeping their armor once he knows they’re mandalorian in heritage, if not in creed. he just didn’t consider that was a possibility because if you’re mandalorian and never swore the creed, you’re probably dead.

basically: i don’t think bo-katan is as representative of mandalorians as a whole as she makes herself out to be, and i don’t think din’s tribe is as cultish as she claims.

but anyway, that’s my take. thanks for reading my ramblings. i’ve only just started clone wars so like... let me know if i’m wildly missing the mark in my ignorance.

A persons fanfic tells you a lot about them, i , a fanfic writer, realize in terror

as the general of the 7th sky corps, obi-wan commands 16 legions, including the 501st. in fact, as the high general of a sector army (4 corps including the 7th sky corps), and the high general of the third systems army (4 sector armies), he is not one, not two, but three levels of command above anakin. the only person higher than obi-wan is palpatine

(to put into perspective: anakin commands 9,216 men. obi-wan commands 294,612)

so funny to me that in 7 seasons of clone wars it is literally never brought up that obi-wan is anakin's commanding officer

there’s been assumptions that din’s covert is an offshoot from death watch or the true mandalorians, and I currently believe that the tsad’ade actually predate both factions, and are descendents of a mandalorian diaspora that occurred after the dral’han. this would explain

their devotion to their armor and why removing it would mean you could no longer be mandalorian—it’s a reaction stemming specifically from the demilitarization of mandalore and installation of the pacifist, unarmored new mandalorians, several centuries removing from the specific context that prompted it

why the jedi are considered ancestral enemies of according to the tsad’ade—because this group was formed immediately after the jedi-led orbital bombardment of their home planet

why bo-katan dismisses them as a splinter group of religious zealots who want to return to the old ways—the tsad’ade predate death watch by many centuries, and were formed by people who prioritized maintaining their traditions over staying on their planet

why din is immediately skeptical of retaking mandalore—unlike the faithful (traditionalist mandalorians who prioritized their planet and practiced in secrecy) who believe it can be reclaimed, the tsad’ade are descended from people who left and likely never intended to return

why din knows next to nothing about recent mandalorian history—the tsad’ade consider themselves to be mandalorians, not the people who stayed on mandalore. what history he does know—like the purges—stems from times when the tsad’ade answered other mandalorians’ calls for aid, much like how bo-katan and her people answered din’s

why armored mandalorians are still recognized by the wider galaxy as great warriors despite (supposed) pacifists having ruled mandalore for the past seven centuries—tsad’ade continued maintaining that reputation prior to the relatively recent establishment of groups like death watch or the true mandalorians

repression

wikipedia article for self denial / return of the jedi (1983) / kathy acker / obi wan kenobi (2022) / wiki, cont. / kenobi (2022) / star wars: labyrinth of evil by james luceno / kenobi (2022) / camille rankine