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ariainstars · 1 year

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The Mandalorian Season 3 Isn’t That Bad

Yes, sigh, I know, this Season was not what we Mando fans were expecting. The pacing is slow for an action show and there are too many fillers; also, most of us were expecting Din (or Djarin, now we have learned it’s actually his first name) to become the new Mand’alor and we were let down. But thinking back about it, the Season is actually quite acceptable considering the direction the characters take.

Let me elaborate.

From the very first, Mando is always shown as someone fiercely loyal, both to his covert and to Grogu but mostly to his fellow Mandalorians. He would do anything for them, including killing on his bounty hunting to earn money for their survival: the first words we hear him say literally are “I can bring you in warm or I can bring you in cold.”

Mando has adhered to the code „This is the Way“ his entire teenage and adult life. Everything he does is by order of the Armorer, whose judgement and decisions are never remotely questioned neither by him nor by the other Mandalorians. At the end of Season 1 he accepts the role of the adopted father for Grogu and the search for “one of his kind” (a Jedi) because she tells him to do so. The first thing he does in Season 3 is to seek for atonement for his „sin“ of removing the helmet. He hardly shows a personal agenda, it is all for “the Way”; and he is not the one who decides what the Way is.

After his redemption he steps back, gets sidelined, gives Bo-Katan the Darksaber and swears loyalty to her. Why? Because he already was an apostate once. Until then he never would have dared to do anything that opposes the Armorer, even less so now that he is redeemed and after he almost drowned while seeking redemption.

The Armorer is not the most dependable narrator or leader. She does not question why Mando he removed his helmet (which was fully justified since he did it to save his foundling), but later on she says that „Bo-Katan walks both Ways“ after having known her for two weeks. Bo-Katan has blackmailed Mando twice since he met her, and knowing her past, she already proved that she is not a good leader. Mando would have every right to shout “This is not fair”, and many fans are doing it for him. But he doesn’t: he accepts everything the Armorer tells him in good faith, never questioning it. He would never do anything to challenge her and risk becoming an apostate again. (At least, not yet.)

As viewers, we immediately saw that the father-son dynamic between Mando and Grogu is heart and soul of the story and that they are meant to be together. It is different for Djarin: this fact is only slowly sinking in. In Season 1 he bonded with Grogu after their adventure with the mudhorn, which is why he rescued him instead of leaving him with the Client; and all the adventures they lived through during the first two seasons only brought them closer together. It is only at the penultimate episode of Season 2 that he removes his helmet in front of others to save the child and this is the first time ever that we see how Grogu matters more to him than the Way.

Season 3 culminates with Mando finally making a choice of his own, by adopting Grogu and living with him on his own. This time, it was his own and not the Armorer’s decision, although she did give them her blessing.

The destruction of the Darksaber, also much criticized, fits to this development. Mandalorians were until now ready to follow blindly the person who owned it: that it no longer exists could mean that the time of conflict for the planet Mandalore is over, since the object they were arguing about does no longer exist. In future, hopefully the ruler of Mandalore will be who is most worthy, not who happens to possess a particular weapon, whether it was given to them or they won it in combat.

As viewers, this development may be difficult to stomach; but we are not in Djarin’s shoes. We were not raised from childhood in an absolutist cult that would leave us to die on our own for an understandable transgression. Let’s face it: “This is the Way” is brainwashing. Rules are good and well but when you realize that you can never question or break them, even if by all logic you have good reason to do so, something is wrong. But if your very survival depends on your belonging to the sect that raised you and taught you everything you know, you will not dare to think outside of the box.

I am not happy with Bo-Katan governing Mandalore instead of Djarin: the way we got to know him I daresay he would be an excellent leader. He puts foundlings first, he is fiercely loyal, he is selfless, he is protective, he is a good negotiator. Bo-Katan is way less mature and strong than he is. On the other hand, she already did wrong to her people, which we also learn in this Season: she dealt with Gideon believing he would spare her people, which was naïve at best. I don’t dislike the idea that she gets a chance to amend for what she did and maybe to grow and mature into a better ruler.

I agree that much about this season was disappointing and that the plot could probably have been told in half the time, but I disagree that it makes no sense. Not only Grogu is growing and maturing, so is his father. I don’t know where they mean to lead this to, but I think it’s interesting to watch.

Besides, I was very happy to see Ahmed Best again and to see him play the Jedi who had rescued Grogu from the Jedi temple, all of those years earlier.

#the mandalorian #star wars #sw #mando #bo katan kryze #grogu #mandalore #darksaber #this is the way #ahmed best

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vaguely-concerned · 3 years

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The Mandalorian Chapter 14 rewatch thoughts, in which there is much ado about Looking

let’s get the most Look heavy out of the way first lol

- the scene of din holding the silver ball is shot from below, like we often get when we’re in baby’s POV because grogu’s almost always gazing up at him. so the camera/audience is looking at him through the child’s eyes still, in a way, just to emphasize the connection even more. h e l p m e

that firmly established ‘din looks down, baby looks up’ rhythm paying for itself yet again 😭😭😭 also I love the effect that because of the smoke it looks like he’s standing in a serious thunderstorm, while the sky is actually really bright and lit up with only light cloud cover from other angles. it plays into this thing that... this is basically the end of the world for him, and barely anyone else knows or cares. he or the baby never appear in the sequels, din doesn’t have a huge ~*destiny*~ within the Force, his world is so much smaller than what we’re used to in star wars -- his grief at having it come crashing down around him is only a black cloud around him, it doesn’t block out the sun on a galactic scale ala anakin skywalker. he’s not Important. except actually he’s the MOST IMPORTANT, perhaps exactly because of that. (he certainly is to me) y’know? well I wouldn’t blame you if you don’t, I’m not sure I know. but my heart is so full.

- for a good portion of the scene where din is picking through the ashes of the razor crest (;_____________; still not over it) boba is actually looking at fennec looking at din

more precisely he seems to be looking at her while din is looking at the silver ball, and is looking at din and having some kind of Emotion while din finds the beskar spear

hm. I am now exTREMELY curious to know what boba and fennec’s relationship is actually like in more detail. strictly canonically I’m pretty sure there shouldn’t be enough of an age difference that he could sort of be a father figure, but... there’s something here, some parallells being drawn

the shots of them right before din finds the ball is interesting too -- you have fennec looking at din with a pained flinching sort of sympathy

and then she looks down and glances half towards boba like she’s checking in with him out of the corner of her eyes, but she’s not seeking gaze contact at all, she’s not asking him about anything or even initiating contact (it comes across better in motion but this was the best I could do to show it)

presumably they’ve already decided they’re going to help din, from the matter of fact way they inform him about it right afterwards, but there’s something complicated going on here within fennec at least, I think, it makes me want to know more about her backstory. (boba does look at her when he says they’ll help, and he’s trying to meet her eyes even if she doesn’t reciprocate)

and then at the very end of that scene boba is looking at fennec again, and she’s finally meeting his eyes and they both seem pretty satisfied and pleased (I guess doing the right thing has not necessarily figured hugely in either of their careers lol)

sideline but boba has so many excellent Stances in this episode, it’s wonderful. he looks so steady and grounded

- also boba and fennec are close enough that the smoke actually affects their point of view for now and darkens their world too. how’s that for a metaphor for empathy hahaha

- it’s actually quite sweet of boba to take the time to explain his own state of mandalorian-ness to din, like he’s at least eliminating the one source of uncertainty and tension that it’s in his power to remove haha

(I wonder if he’s also gauging din’s reaction to the concept of foundlings? I’ve seen some people theorize that it might not be a recognized tradition across all of mandalorian space (then again... what even is, the only true mandalorian trait is accusing someone else of not being mandalorian right) and that it was one of the apples of cultural discord in the civil wars)

- the whole journey boba’s face goes on as he watches din with the spear... I do not understand what it is exactly but I am OBSESSED with it, his eyes are doing some things and it makes my heart feel funny

he pretty quickly glances away with a sharp inhale of breath that’s some shade of ‘well. fuck.’, but I can’t quite tell you exactly what’s going on there haha

- okay so honestly -- maybe we find a force user to train the baby and maybe we don’t, but not having din be an active part of that training either way would be a fucking CRIME. din clearly just has so much fun being able to engage with him like that, as does the baby, and it gets results. if someone shows up to help with this I hope they have the insight and flexibility to understand that. (listen to baby’s excited squeal and din’s breath of laughter before he encourages ‘come on, you can do it’! it’s consistently the most engaged and happy we see din and baby obviously feels safe doing this with him when he doesn’t with anyone else, come ON)

- the soft soft mando and baby music kicking in when din gives grogu the silver ball back and tells him he’s special T_______T oh my actual god

- I love the way boba’s just... studying din all the way through their first meeting, it’s such a look of cold, dispassionate but not necessarily unkind evaluation. that’s the gaze of a bird of prey or something, it’s perfect (his eyes have softened significantly when looking at din towards the end of the episode, I guess that whole father son situation hit a tender spot huh lol)

- din’s shoulders rise up immediately when fennec starts talking about the bounty on grogu :’)

it also seems he’s a little 😬 about being in such a hurry back in chapter 5 that he missed that she wasn’t actually, y’know, dead haha, he slumps a bit uncomfortably and there’s also the “I owe you one” later on

- oh to have the utter yet unwarranted confidence of this storm trooper behind a minigun, still blasting away as the boulder crushes me

- I want to say something to gideon about what sorts of things a man must be compensating for to take the time to gleefully gloat at AN ACTUAL BABY, but thankfully I’m way too classy for that

- fennec shand using her entire strong but slender sniper’s frame to push that boulder off the cliff... poetry

I love that one pose she does jumping backwards off the stones at one point too, it’s so graceful, she looks like a dancer

- this entire scene of boba fett fucking eliminating storm trooper after storm trooper is doing some stuff to me, I can’t lie

it’s so AWESOME to see a mando interact with their armour in the same natural and expert way as din -- bo katan & co didn’t really have that many surprises and tricks to theirs, it’s more sleekly functional, boba and din’s have a different feeling to them, more personal to them and lived in, in a way (probably because they work alone much more often and need some tricks up their sleeves)

bo katan’s armour is for War and has been for generations, theirs is more just to Live as themselves? does that make any sense?

- I wonder what it feels like for din to try to push through the force barrier - he’s making sounds not just of exertion but with a little bit of pain to it?

- I really like that when boba says “I was aiming for the other one” fennec clearly knows he’s not joking, she doesn’t smile or anything. it makes it feel like they actually know each other quite well at this point

- grogu makes small sleeping baby noises when he’s passed out on top of the stone Y____________Y

- genuinely touched by how much better boba’s armour looks in the next episode, after him having it back for like a week max. LOVE what this show does with the relationship between a mandalorian and their armour and how it’s almost a living thing when it’s with them, and dead when it’s taken away

- the way boba leans forward a little in his seat when he spots the big ship *chef kiss* it so instinctively reads as him watching something dangerous, and after seeing the way he went through all those troopers like a hot knife through butter you fucking KNOW that if he’s unsettled you’re damn well unsettled too haha

#star wars #the mandalorian #the mandalorian spoilers #the mandalorian meta #this is one of those where I'm trying to explain things to myself more than anything haha #anyway boba fett Hot

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