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cienie-isengardu · 1 year

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A bit about The Mandalorian s03′s take on mandalorian culture

As much as I like the concept of Living Waters, I do not like how the third season of The Mandalorian presents Mandalorian culture overall. I wasn’t happy with the characterization in the previous two, but the current take is even worse. Major reason for my disdain stems from the too medieval climate - Bo’s castle, throne, the royal family and its subjects, the baptism-like ceremony, all of this is opposite to Legends!Mandalorian for whom personal skills stood above any blood-connection in regard to their rulers thus no aristocracy was ever needed. The New Mandalorians’ royalty was a good concept in The Clone Wars as it stood in clear contrast to Death Watch’s old warrior faith and added an interesting edge to the destruction of Mandalore and following Republic occupation (that may have never truly ended by the ~700 years). In The Clone Wars, Death Watch was Bo-Katan’s major tie, but since Rebels, the focus is put on her sisterhood with Satine and the royal family status and The Mandalorian season three expand this even more - she lived in castle, sit on throne, had ceremonial “baptism” as princess and so on. At this point I really miss the “barbarian” feeling of Death Watch even more since Bo’s own Mandalorian warriors were removed from the story, leaving us with one lone Bo-Katan, Boba Fett on Tatooine or whatever he is as I don’t follow his TV series and cult-ish Children of the Watch. Which is pretty irritating, I won’t lie, especially since later seasons of TCW, Rebels and now the TV series don’t bother to even mention Pre Vizsla or Bo’s criminal past - and mind you, this is no “Bo shouldn’t have her redemption arc” - which she arguable already had as freedom fighter against Empire and more complain that Disney/New Canon on purpose erase problematic or nuanced elements of its own worldbuilding. Like, mentioned Bo’s past and her part in the fall of Mandalore or how she was elected/accepted by clans because now Darksaber can be only passed through the fight? And why? Because Mandalorians can’t make a sensible choice about whom they should follow? Because they can’t stick to an ideological case that was important in the previous season but now Bo has no darksaber so her own clan abandoned her to be mercenary? Like, seriously? What happened to the Mandalorian loyalty to the family? Bo may have lost the status of Mandalore, yet Din did not make a claim to be new sole leader so why Koska - described in Character Encyclopedia as “loyal member of Bo’s Mandalorian gang” ditched her companion?

Seriously, at this point I admire Bo-Katan’s loyalty to Pre Vizsla as she threw away the ancient laws out of window the moment Maul killed her leader / friend and sure, she came with the no outsider is allowed to be Mandalore argument (something that from historical perspective is not true, as in ancient times Ulic Qel-Droma dueled with Mandalore and his success was accepted by warriors) but The Clone Wars made it pretty clear Pre’s death was an emotionally wrecking moment in her life. Arguably more than Satine’s death yet the newest animations and TV series mentions only her sister in passing but not a man that clearly meant something to her. Which is, again, an irritating aspect of Disney’s New Canon.

There is also no mention of Satine as pacifist / New Mandalorian leader, no mention of Pre Vizsla (who in contrast to Din was capable of using darksaber which is pretty hilarious side-effect of switching lore about this weapon from “ancient item passed in Clan Vizsla” to “well known Mandalorian attribute of power” ) or Death Watch in general. Instead we have this cult-ish Children of the Watch with the weird rule forbidding members to remove the helmet even in presence of their own family and who seem to care more about if the helmet was removed than about Creed itself as was seen with Bo accidentally joining this group. A rule that A) feels to be a rip-off from Sand People’s culture (except Tuskens are allowed to see the face of their spouse) B) has no sense because it is not the armor that makes anyone a Mandalorian but personal deeds. And sure, beskar’gam always played an important role in Mandalorian culture yet at this point I’m truly tired of putting so much focus on armor rather than the soul of a Mandalorian warrior. Armor can be destroyed and rebuilt after all but what counts are the people who wear it, not the other way.

For me, Children of the Watch worked in the previous season because we still had Bo’s clan and Boba Fett (loner) to somehow balance the overview of Mandalorian culture yet in the third season the different types of Mandalorians were removed from the story. Boba is out of the picture, Bo was abandoned by her own people and so there is only Din and Armorer’s tribe that is too frustrating for my taste. I like the religious aspect it brings to the show but it is hard to take seriously this group as representative of Mandalorian people with their silly rule about not removing helmets (how do they even take care of their personal hygiene then? How do they cut their hair? What about deaf members? How can they learn to read from lips or read anything from facial expression if other members can’t show their face? I know Din communicated with Tusken via hand signals but since children grew up around masked adults how does the communication work exactly? What about an intimate relationship? Or growing up and not having a clue how your mother’s face looks under the helmet? Or father, older sibling, other clan (family) members? What about providing medical assistance in the event of a head injury?). Not to mention the whole weird deal with Armorer who has such great knowledge about Mandalorian lore but doesn’t teach it unless the situation requires her to give a proper explanation? Mind you I did not rewatch the previous seasons so my memory may be a bit rusty but Din did not even know who the Jedi were even though they have special place in Mandalorian history (usually negative in the sense they are the enemy hard to defeat in fair fight) and it was pretty common thing for “normal” Mandalorian to teach their kids about the danger coming from force-sensitive people? And sure, Jedi were supposed to be dead but if Din was a bounty hunter how he has never heard about them with the Rebellion having this one special Jedi in their rank who also happened to be the most wanted man by the Empire?

The Mandalorian TV series creates a long list of question I have about its worldbuilding around Mandalorian culture that somehow switched from Legends “only the best can be Mandalore” and “Mandalorians believe in loyalty” to Disney’s “royal families” and “let’s ditch our leader and our cause just because someone’s else has darksaber yet makes no claim about leadership”. Or let's use a cool looking darksaber as a haunted item that for no real reason is also a symbol of leadership because the Jedi weapon is the most Mandalorian symbol of all possible choices apparently.

And you know what was great about Fenn Shysa and his protectors who fought against the Empire in the older source material? That the fight against imperial enslavement truly united Mandalorians to the point that even former Death Watchmen joined his group. As much as I like Bo-Katan’s comment about how Mandalorian fight against each other often for weird reasons, it truly saddens me that in Disney’s canon even the common enemy like Empire did not manage to unite Mandalorians. Because it is better drama when everyone bothers with some random mystic item than actually working together to take your freedom back and rebuild your world. But sure, whatever.

I seriously miss Legends Mandalorians because Disney’s take on them is so frustrating.

#star wars #the mandalorian #the mandalorian critical #mandalorians #mandalorian culture #bo katan kryze #at this point she is the most traditional mando for me #wish the show remember her past though but i guess ahsoka can't be friend with criminal so the show forget bo's ties to DW now #i won't lie the mandalorian tv show is so frustrating to me when it comes to mando culture #religious aspect is fine #the weird rule of no removing helmet and lack of loyalty to one clan is not #armorer looks cool but makes me frustrated at times #i'm done with the medieval feeling of disney mando #give me the barbarian styled mando #not the royal family stuff #sorry for my rant

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hqmillioncorn · 2 months

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Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

Poppette packed the very last things they needed into their bag and ran out the door to her room. Her dad was waiting to see her off at the front door. "Do you have everything?" He asked. There was a hint of nervousness to his voice. Poppette knew exactly why. It was probably because she was traveling so far away by herself There was probably the part where she was visiting the part of her family that had been purposely forgotten about because of the whole dragon blood thing. Regardless, Poppette assured him that everything would be fine and in turn her father agreed with her. "Besides dad I don't think the Warrior of Light has ever eaten anyone!"

Lalapril 4/2: Season i think its probably spring or something!

Cherrypit watched as a butterfly flew past and landed on a dandelion. It was a fairly windy day which threatened to blow the poor butterfly off the flower. Cherrypit crawled over to the flower and stared at the butterfly. “Hello! Butt fly!” He leaned in closer and stared.

The butterfly flapped its wings lightly.

Cherrypit waved his hand at it, “Go way’!” he urged the butterfly. The butterfly refused to relinquish its spot for a few seconds before finally giving in. Cherrypit watched as it flew away, getting smaller and smaller. “Bye-bye!” The butterfly had already flown out of view by the time Cherrypit finished waving at it.

Then Cherrypit sat in silence for a few seconds, staring at the flower.

“Is anywa gonna ea tis?” He pointed at the flower and echoed a question that he had heard many times during dinner. Right before plucking the dandelion from the ground and sticking it in his mouth.

“Yummyy! Yummyy!!” Cherrypit chewed the flower in his mouth and looked around. His sister and this other strange person were still busy looking at the water behind him.

Cherrypit would have happily joined them but the new person and Babycorn were talking about something that sounded kinda boring to him.

He would much rather run around and look at flowers and rocks and bugs and anything else that was fun to chase around. There was so much energy in him that had to go somewhere! He couldn’t just stand around talking! He had things to do!

Cherrypit finished eating his flower and crawled around the ground to look for any things that looked tasty. A Brina doll that had been following Cherrypit around since they had all arrived at their picnic spot walked carefully behind him. “Yip-yip-ho! Don’t wander off now!” She warned.

The danger of Cherrypit running off was almost non-existent but it didn’t hurt to remind him to stay close once in a while.

Cherrypit hunched over and sniffed a strange shaped looking rock. He lifted it up and revealed a wriggling worm that had been hiding away. “Womry!” Cherrypit yelled out and swiped at it. The worm burrowed itself underground to escape.

“Bye-bye wormry!” Cherrypit gave the dirt a patpat and pushed himself up onto his feet. His clothes were pretty much caked in dirt now but that was okay because he knew that they would get clean later when he got home!

Cherrypit decided he wanted to go and be with Babycorn again.

But found himself surprised to discover that there was no one there.

Before Cherrypit even had the chance to panic he heard the sound of splashing water. “Huah?” He ran over to get closer to the lake, with Brina trying her best to keep up with him. Once he reached the edge of the railing he knelt down to get a closer look at the water.

Cherrypit grabbed onto one of the railings columns and the Brina doll grabbed onto his coat, making extra sure he didn’t fall in. He looked down to see the person he didn’t know very well standing in the water.

“Oh! Hey Cherry!” She waved up at him. They were carrying Babycorn under one of their arms, just like someone would carry a popoto sack. Babycorn was soaked from head to toe. It was almost as if she had tripped and fallen straight into the lake.

“Your sister just tripped and fell into the water! But don’t worry she’s fine! Just a little wet!”

Babycorn crossed her arms and puffed her cheeks out. “I thought I saw something shiny in the water and I wanted to get a closer look!” She grabbed a wet leaf from her hair and dropped it back into the water. “Not my fault that some dumb fish jumped out of the water and pushed me in!”

What had really happened was that while a fish really did come out of the water it didn’t push Babycorn into the water. Instead it had smacked Babycorn right in the face, causing her to lose balance and fall straight down into the lake.

“Thanks for saving me Poppy!” Babycorn wiggled happily. She really was grateful. The lake was a scary place to be trapped in, especially because of all the different terrifying fish swimming around in it.

“Poppy?” Cherrypit didn’t recognize that name. He climbed up to the top of the railing and stood on it. The person he didn’t know was knee deep in the water, so they were really tall! Just like a lot of his other friends and if his tall friends were nice then maybe this person was nice too.

“Poppy? Poppy poppy poppy.” Cherrypit repeated to himself.

Poppy giggled, as she started her walk back onto dry land. “Cherry we already met, remember? It’s me Poppette!” The Elezen plopped Babycorn back onto the dock and struck a pose.

She grabbed the brim of her sun hat and did a twirl around and despite her hat (and entire outfit really) being drenched in lake water, she was looking just as stylish as she had been on land.

It was no surprise, since Poppette had made it herself.

Despite Poppette’s reassurance that they had met before, Cherrypit remained confused.

Poppette slouched, “ Aww…Do you really not remember me?” Their eyes started to water up. Had her first introduction really not made an impression on her new younger cousin? She had shown up early and everythiiing.

Up on the dock Babycorn gave Poppette a reassuring pat on the back. “Don’t worry! Cherry probably doesn’t remember you cause he fell asleep a little bit after we got to your house!!”

Both cousins distinctly remembered the problems that Babycorn had run into getting to Ishgard.

“I remember we had to help a knight with a monster attack. Then we had to help a little kid find a missing pair of earrings they lost. And then Cherrypit really wanted to make a snowman before we got there so we stopped and did that and then I ended up falling down into witchdrop again!” Babycorn laughed to herself. “It took me a long time to climb my way out of there!”

“Woah!” Poppette was amazed, starstruck and even at a loss for words despite having way too many to say about this. “You climbed your way out of witchdrop all by yourself?! And you survived the fall?!”

“Yeah! I’ve fallen in there lots of times!”

“That’s incredible! No wonder you’re one of the Warriors of Light!!”

Cherrypit laid down on the railing, since he was small enough to. Something about Babycorn’s story sounded familiar. Especially the part about making a snowman and falling into witchdrop. Except he didn’t remember the part about Babycorn climbing out by herself. Instead he remembered calling Lunya by linkshell and asking her very nicely to help fish an unconscious Babycorn out of her precarious situation.

He would have gladly gone down there himself but ever since they first re-visited Coerthas around seven years ago Babycorn had asked him to avoid using any of his powers there as much as he could.

After that he remembered being really sleepy, since it was almost night. This didn’t used to happen. Ever since he woke up in that Old Sharlayan place, things had been just a little bit different.

Cherrypit watched as Babycorn and Poppette ran back to where he was. Babycorn had shaken off most of the water off of her, though her clothes were still a little damp. It was a pretty hot day today so that was part of the reason Babycorn didn’t really mind all that much.

Except that whoever’s turn it was to do laundry at the mansion was probably not going to be very happy with her.

Babycorn walked up the Cherrypit and stretched her arms out. “Bebe!” Cherrypit jumped into Babycorn’s arms without even a moment's hesitation. “Can wa eat now?” He pointed at the picnic basket that had been carefully set near the patch of flowers.

“Yeah! Of course we can!” Babycorn declared. Falling into the water had really made her hungry. Well, most of everything made her hungry but that’s neither here nor there.

Poppette was so excited she skipped over to the basket ahead of Babycorn. She had made this lunch herself as a gift to the Starsinger siblings. In actuality it was a sort of apology gift to both of them for how her own family had treated them when they came to visit.

That night Babycorn and Cherrypit had been yelled at and blamed for pretty much all of her family's problems. While it was true that they had fallen on some hard times ever since the end of the Dragonsong war, Poppette was adamant that most of those problems were not Babycorn’s fault, let alone Cherrypit’s.

Poppette had herself, left the dinner in tears, running outside into the cold and convinced now more than ever that absolutely none of the heroes that she looked up to would ever want anything to do with her.

Poppette carefully knelt down and opened the flap of the picnic basket she took out the picnic blanket she had made especially for today. It was orange in color and had patterns of all different types of mandragoras on it, one of Poppette’s favorites.

In Poppette’s concentration and Babycorn staring absentmindedly at a dragonfly flying past her, neither of them noticed Cherrypit staring right at Poppette, his eyes starting to turn a slight shade of purple.

‘It was a cold scene. The wind was blowing colder than ever. The snow was almost up to Popette’s knees. A part of her blamed this all on Babycorn and Cherrypit. She knew she shouldn't but the snow was much too heavy. To blame all of this on them would make her no more right than her grandparents were.’

As Poppette began to unfold the picnic blanket she recalled more on what happened that night.

Just as Poppette had given up hope, she turned around to see Babycorn calling out to her. She was carrying a sleeping Cherrypit on top of her head. By the time she caught up she was almost completely out of breath.

Babycorn tried to crack a joke about what had just happened but fumbled it so hard that the joke looped back around to making Poppette laugh about it. Poppette could barely bring herself to apologize for what happened. Especially since it was her who had invited the siblings here in the first place.

Poppette was sort of glad that Cherrypit didn’t seem to remember a majority of that visit.

‘Why are you sorry!? You didn’t yell at me! Besides, I’m used to it! I’m just glad you and your dad are nice to us Poppy!’

Poppette decided then and there that maybe her visiting Babycorn would probably be the better move on both their parts and that was how this picnic plan came to fruition. Making sure to ask ahead of time what each sibling’s favorite food was a genius move on their part.

Poppette carefully knelt down, the phase of caring about her clothes was long past her, considering they were already covered in dirty lake water and mud anyway.

“Do ya need any help?” Babycorn sat down and plucked a flower from the ground and took a bite of it. “Mpghh I’m realph good at picnics you know?” It wasn’t too long ago that she had put together a feast much like this for her friends at her own home.

The only difference in this case was that Poppettes food was actually edible.

Poppette’s eyes lit up. “I would love your help!” She dug into the basket and pulled out some cutlery she swiped from the kitchen of her home. It was the extra fancy kind. “Here! You can set these up! It’s easy I think!”

Babycorn nodded, carefully taking the cutlery from Poppette’s hands. If there was anything in the hundreds of things she had learned over the years it was that plates tended to break very easily so you had to be careful. ‘Okay I got this!” Babycorn began to carefully walk her way over to the side. By taking the longest and slowest step known to man.

“You don’t really need to be that careful!”

“I really do!”

Lest she trip on another pebble and send an entire stack of plates careening towards the ground again just like last time she helped serve food at her friend's restaurant.

“Surely you’re jesting!”

“No, I'm serious!”

Cherrypit blinked, his eyes were purple.

‘The snow around Poppy began to melt as her father apparend next to her, assuring her that everything was going to be okay. The entire world felt just a little bit warmer. "That's right! If dad can change his mind then everyone else can too! I just have to believe!" Their family would be closer than ever after this!’

Suddenly Cherrypit’s concentration was broken by a familiar scent, the next time he blinked his eyes were back to their familiar white emptiness. “Woah!” He sniffed the air and recognized that smell immediately. “Choca!” There was no doubt about it! There was chocolate cake nearby!!

Cherrypit looked around. In front of him he could see Poppy with a plate in her hand and Babycorn lying flat on the ground. Clearly he had missed something because the chocolate cake he had sniffed out was now lying on the grass and surrounded by flowers.

“I’m s-sorry…” Babycorn managed to muster out. She had tripped on her own foot and in turn had fallen backwards into Poppette, which caused her to drop the cake and then bump Babycorn forwards to falling on her face.

“Nooo! I apologize!! Forgive meeeeeeee!”

Cherrypit didn’t know what was going on but he wasn’t wasting any time on eating his absolutely favorite food ever. “Choca! Choca!” He ran past Poppy and Babycorn with a high pitched squeal and used his tiny little hands to dig into the cake. He would have just bitten into it but he remembered Pancake telling him once that it was funner to eat using your hands.

Babycorn sprang up from lying on the ground with a gasp. “Cherryyyyy!” Babycorn whined very loudly, “Save some for me too!” She ran ahead on all fours and used her own hands to start eating the cake.

Poppette could do nothing but stare ahead at both siblings devouring the chocolate cake. “I’m pleased you’re enjoying it…?” She was happy they did but it was still a little surprising to see them eat it just like that. There was a warm breeze in the air and Poppette couldn’t help but giggle.

“...You both are so funny.”

Cherrypit heard Poppette laughing, turning to look at her he noticed the pretty hat on top of their head. He pointed his chocolate covered hat up at her and smiled, “Pre’yy haa! You have a pretty hat!!” Cherrypit moved his hands around his hair and imagined himself wearing a hat just like it.

Poppette adjusted their sun hat. “You like it? I can make one for you when I come visit again!”

Cherrypit smiled as wide as he physically could. “Yeah! Yeah!”

#lalapril #lalapril 2024 #Poppette #Babycorn #Cherrypit #poppettes unnamed dad i guess sorry dude #this takes place after endwalker :)#honorary lalafell of the day poppette even though this is cherry centric #poppette loves everyone in her family but shes just like hey can you be a little nicer :( pwease #shes younger than babycorn so she thinks babycorns so cool and really funny and looks up to her #pupusa voice Are you insane??????#scene i wanna write where pupusa goes into a dusty forgotten room and finds a bunch of forgotten stuff #including a version of a family portrait with babycorns grandma still in it and shes like GASP #because no one believed babycorn when she told them they were related #anyways i really had to fight the urge to title this after a trolls song dnawjkdndnkawj thanks spotify

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