I've found this funny post on the original board of this discussion, but I can't post my response there, so I'll do it here.
The REAL Mandarin, Killian, was a great man of science, who showed desire to control the world's greatest powers, hence the line 'I'll have the two biggest weapons in each hand and own the War On Terror'(or something like that).
Not really. Let’s just make it clear for a second: Aldrich Killian by all means was not the comic book accurate Mandarin, in both literal and conceptual sense. The main differences between why Mandarin was haunting the world domination and desire for control and why Killian did that, is that Mandarin was haunting purely philosophical and theological desires while Killian was simply a greedy businessman with materialist agenda. Mandarin truly believed that world is broken and that it needed a radical fixing. Killian was haunting purely materialistic goals. He was a greedy profiteer trying to make money out of the scientific invention that he has made.
The reason why Mandarin wanted to cause the complete collapse of political environmentalism and authoritative control is due to his desire to re-conceptualize the world under his individual paradigm. The reason why Killian wanted to cause War on Terror is so he can continue profiteering. There is no grand ideal behind his actions, thus it already hugely contradicts everything for what Mandarin stood in comics.
Man of science shtick is nothing more than an archetypal aspect that is often used with other villains, thus it's not an argument that proves that Killain was a faithful rendition of Mandarin.
We see at the beginning of the film he was a nobody, but through his knowledge (and probably his powers), he built himself up.
Except, the contrast between Mandarin's origin and Aldrich Killian's is quite strong. While the origin and the motivation of Aldrich Killian seems like something straight out of Schumacher's Batman film, the origin of the Mandarin is a complex, well-written tale about legacy, betrayal, and national pride.
I clearly remember Stan Lee's origin of the Mandarin, and it was vastly different from Killian's. Mandarin was raised by a misanthropic and selfish aunt that inserted cynicism and antagonism into him. She raised him with a believe that he is entitled to subjugate ascendancy from everyone, thus becoming the only true ruler of all. Then he was oppressed by the ignorant government of his homeland and was deprived from his patrimony and legacy. So that's what led to his strong anti-governmental attitude, which will become a definitive motivation for his character for years.
One of the most important things that some people seems to miss about Mandarin's origin, simply because they only see an origin about spaceship and power rings, is that it's an emblematic reflection of the political environment of the Chinese Communist Revolution. After China was taken by the ideology of communism, many noble and highborn figures were oppressed by the communist government. You can see that parallel in Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Emperor, about Henry Pu Yi, the last emperor of Qing dynasty. Last Emperor is probably the closet origin of the Mandarin that we'll ever see on film. Same premise, though, it's a biographical film. A highborn man that was raised socially isolated, is inserted with a believe that he is entitled for great deeds, but when political environment of his homeland changes, he gets oppressed by the government. All his wealth and legacy is taken, and now he's just a vagrant with no nobility and legacy. After he had to mentally and physically escalate himself and reconfigure his goals and ideals, but the core of personage was always about him believing that he is entitled to become a great man who'll change the faith of the world.
Aldrich Killian was nothing more than some random weirdo-looking imbecile who got snubbed by Tony Stark on a party, thus it motivated him into a becoming a bad guy. There's nothing more to him than that unauthentic, poorly written origin. Aldrich became a bad guy simply because of such trivial thing. It was all random. If he wouldn't be snubbed by Stark, he would probably never became a bad guy.
Mandarin's origin is more depthful and emblematic, it has more layers and thought in it, while Killian's origin is superbly corny and one-sided.
Also, should I mention that the Mandarin has favoritism towards ancient Chinese history, while Aldrich Killian has none, since he isn't even Chinese? Mandarin constantly dresses in feudal robes, and in some incarnations even wears Hanfu (headdress of Chinese emperors), in order to authentically represent his attitude towards modern-day policy of China and its corrupt government. None of those traits are random. They were thought-out and intentionally incorporated into a character to give him more authentic look. Aldrich Killian was a random character with random personification who was called "Mandarin" in the last minute of the film just for the sake of it.
Mandarin's attitude towards feudal system is another bond to his fascination with the ancient Chinese history and old traditions, since feudal system was a prominent model of society in China during Zhou and Qin dynasty. His desire to deprive the world from autonomy and industrialization in Hands of the Mandarin was inspired by his twisted philosophy. There is also parts of Fengjian ideology inserted into Mandarin's world outlook. He took an inspiration from every social system and ideology that ever existed. And Mandarin's feudalistic agenda also represents through those flagrant outfits that he wears, which obviously are inspired by the feudalistic times. Flagrant robes and Hanfu were a traditional set of clothing of the important Chinese men. These hallmarks only delineate the importance of Mandarin's ethnicity and his cultural environment, since it's logically explains everything about him and gives substructure to his ideology and to methodology. Again, one of the main reasons why Aldrich is not the Mandarin is because you can't logically incorporated any of those definitive traits into his character without changing his ethnicity, because it wouldn't make a goddamn sense to why some imbecilic white guy is obsessed with Chinese culture and its traditions.
He showed great hand-to-hand combat talents. Notice the other Extremis soldiers were not nearly as good at hand to hand combat, so he must have some training. Now the COMIC Mandarin, was born in a rich family who spent all their wealth teaching him science and training him in the martial arts. By the time he was an adult, he was dirt poor, but extremely brilliant, like Killian at the beginning of Iron Man 3.
Not true. Mandarin's knowledge of martial is another superficial aspect that does not personifies everything about the character. Pretty much, vast majority of comic book villains have fighting skills of some sort. Such a thing is nothing more than a pattern. It doesn't say anything about the character other than he is able to fight. It doesn't make Aldrich a faithful representation of the Mandarin.
The origin of both is completely different.
Mandarin's origin is similar to the life of Henry Pu Yi, the last emperor of Qing dynasty. Both Mandarin and Pu Yi were highborn men with dignity who lost all their patrimony and legacy after formation of the communist government. In case with the Mandarin, that situation led him into him forming a distrust for the governments and authorities, thus he began to believe that no one other than him is entitled to control the state of this world, thus he became very anti-governmental and he began fighting against governments and politics.
Killian's origin had none of those definitive aspects. Killian was just a random guy with no dignity and no patrimony, who simply got snubbed like a looser, thus it made him evil.
Also like Killian, The Mandarin's strength is his knowledge of SCIENCE. This is what enabled him to study Axon-Karr and tap into the powers of the ten rings. He used his powers and knowledge to build himself up and desired world domination, often using Countries own weapons against them, like Killian's plan with Extremis, Iron Patriot and Iron Man. The Mandarin also is extremely talented in martial arts and hand-to-hand combat.
The most important thin that you missed in your interesting fanfic that has nothing to do with the comics, is the fact that the Mandarin is driven by purely philosophical and theological interests. He truly wants to destroy every sign of political environmentalism and governmental control.
Aldrich Killian's goals were purely materialistic and narcissistic. He wanted to make profit out of the Extremis, and that is his whole motivation. Which strongly contradicts Mandarin's interests and motives from the comics, since it was all based on his twisted philosophy and world outlook.
The key difference between the actual Mandarin and Aldrich Killian, is that The Mandarin only used his business ties to facilitate his grander agendas, and he still deep down had the mind of a conqueror who felt he was entitled to rule and shape the world as he saw fit given his lineage as he always has been, while Killian was in contrast solely a profiteer trying to make money out of Extremis.
Mandarin wanted to sabotage all the nations, thus causing world conflict, because he wanted to re-conceptualize this world under his personal outlook and principles. Very much like the Apocalypse. It's all about unapologetic anarchism and individual supremacy. Killian's desire to profiteer on war and terror had nothing to do with his ideals or philosophy, since he had none. He wanted to cause the conflict in order to continue profiteering on the conflict without actually changing anything.
Mandarin is all about ideals and sophisticated Epistemology, Aldrich is all about generic greed.
The Killian and Stark don't share same contrast. Killian is simply another generic profiteer who's corrupted by greed, and that's it. There no clever emblematic connotation behind their conflict.
Killian as The Mandarin is very much a Nolan villain interpretation. Similar to how Joker isn't permawhite and Bane isn't a venom-out wrestler, Killian isn't a Chinese ruler with powerful rings. However, similar to how Ledger's Joker and Hardy's Bane represent all the major aspects of the characters themselves, Killian has just about everything from a characterization stand point that The Mandarin has and is. If Killian returned in a sequel with 10 Rings, he'd be a damn near perfect live adaption interpretation of the character.
Except, not really. If we compare the twist from Iron Man 3 to the twist, let's say, from Batman Begins with Ra's Al Ghul, we'll see that those are two very different plot-options that were executed very differently.
It was not like the Ra’s Al Ghul twist from “Batman Begins” where the big reveal was a true a-ha moment where you realize everything you had seen before that scene had actually been indicating it from the beginning. Such as his relationship with Bruce, where he showed great respect for him and like comic Ra’s wanted Bruce to become his ally and fight by his side. Another is when he revealed to Bruce during his time training with him that his main motivation for fighting injustice was because of the murder of his wife (like the comic Ra’s, and also like the character from the comics it was revealed that her death was caused by a corrupt ruler). Then there’s his whole ideology about saving the world, in that he feels everything he sees as evil must be fully stamped out with no reservations. Then there’s of course the fact that he was affiliated with the League of Shadows, and the fact that he was a master combatant and seemed to have a particular favoritism towards the blade. Nothing was slapped on at the last second to try to create a technicality for the character to count as an adaptation of Ra’s Al Ghul. Those traits were integrated and fleshed out throughout the film and not last minute add ones.
Ra's Al Ghul reveal made sense, since he had all the classic character traits of the comic book Ra's, while Aldrich Killian reveal was completely different, since he has nothing in common with the comic book character. In Batman Begins, Ducard was a spurious frontage for Ra's Al Ghul's persona. The real Ra's Al Ghul was always Liam Neeson's character. Ducard was the facade, not Ken Watanabee. Aldrich Killian, on the other hand, was the real bad guy all along, and the name of the Mandarin was slapped on him in the last minute. It wasn't thought-out. If it would be similar to Batman Begins, then Aldrich Killian would be a facade for the real Mandarin instead of what we got.
Also, all Batman villains from Nolan films were true to their comic book counterparts. They were somehow grounded in reality, but their essential aspects were present in their characters. Ra's Al Ghul was a philosophical terrorist-Ubermensch who got corrupted by his desire to eradicate the world from evil. Scarecrow was using his fear gas to insert fear in others. Joker was a twisted psychopath who didn't follow rules of logic or reason. Bane was an intelligent anarchist who broke the Batman and spread anarchy in Gotham. All those characters are faithful to their comic counterparts.
1. Killain isn't consistent with anything revolving the Mandarin, since, as was said, his agenda isn't idealogical nor theological, which is the prominent substructure of the Mandarin's character, because he's always been the one who follows more ideological desires rather than the materialistic ones, which was clearly illustrated in multiple storylines.
2. Killain's master-plan revolved around only two things: his trivial greed, and his personal little gripe against Tony Stark, who ignored him in a past, thus it gave to him his imbecilic motivation as a villain. Mandarin's attitude in comics was acquisitive to such things as honor and philosophy. His attitude had superlative schemes and profound ideology. He wanted at first to re-govern the China back into its pre-communist state, since he had strong national pride towards China, to which he referred as his homeland, and because he had adamant anti-governmental attitude towards communism and political environmentalism. Killian had no national pride, no ideology, no philosophy, no abstruse world outlook. He was an imbecilic evil-degenerate with pity agendas and trivial motivation.
To put it short, Killian is an imbecilic, hysterical child while Mandarin is a calculative, subtle, perspicacious ringleader with grand ideals and profound philosophy.
The twist wasn't just a plot twist, and it wouldn't work for every villain.
To be fair, it didn't work with this villain either.
It was used with The Mandarin for a reason and it was to acknowledge the character's past in the comics and to critique the original, racist stereotype that the original character was. IM3 showed us the VISUAL aspects of The Mandarin character and turned it into a joke because thats what it is, a racist, stupid joke of a character. However, the character himself, which is a great villain, they showed respect to and made him the primary villain with Killian.
Oh, and, of course, when you're talking about the Mandarin, you always have to mention "MANDARIN IS A RACIST A** STUPID FU MANCHU CARICATURE EGG FU MR. YUNIOSHI YELLOW PERIL CHINESE DEVIL"
...I think you've confused such thing as being created as racial stereotype, more specifically, cultural stereotype (since Mandarin was based on a cultural stereotypes of Chinese nobleman during communist revolution), and overall being a racial stereotype, which is not the case with the Mandarin, who began to escape his racial roots after Goerge Tuska redesigned him into a refined, subtle business-saboteur who still had a mentality of an oriental insurrectionist.
Not to mention, Mandarin was no bigger stereotype than Luke Cage, the Uncle Tom of superheroes, who, I think, was even worse racial stereotype than Mandarin ever was. Some of the Luke Cage's character traits are borderline caricatures about black people. Nevertheless, I'm pretty sure, you and many others can't wait for Luke Cage TV-show.
And I guess you miss the fundamental point from the comics about the Mandarin that make your fun "theory" fall in deaf ears... Mandarin, despite being a man of specific ethnicity, never was a personification of xenophobia or enmity towards other nations. Mandarin was an emblematic exemplification of ideology of rational individuality and individual supremacy.
He has purely cerebral needs that have nothing to do with greed or avarice, which elaborately illustrates the fact that Mandarin wants to destroy every existing social, governmental, national, no matter which layer out there, because his whole attitude revolves around his philosophy to sequestrate all the authorities and legislatures in order to reorganize himself into the only prevailing authority of the world, whose goal is to re-govern and re-conceptualize the world as it is. His character was never about inserting fears about orientals. He is all about accumulation of power and authority and about pure ideals and sophisticated Epistemology of life.
Mandarin is all about dignity, honor, respect, and sophisticated philosophy of life. Mandarin was based of Chinese cultural stereotypes, and China has the most influential philosophers in the world. He is driven by the philosophical outlooks of abstract and literal concepts. Mandarin doesn't care about materialistic agendas, at all. Aldrich Killian is white businessman with greed, who follows his materialistic agendas.
In short, in comics, Mandarin was a sophisticated character with grand ideals and clear motives. In this mediocre movie, he's a spurious, faceless frontage for someone else's agendas. Those are the differences.
Mandarin a great villain overall, not just as a concept, and always was. He's a great character with all his classic trademarks, such as his race, visual presence, attitude, personality. All those traits make him who he is. Aldrich Killian was just a bland, poorly written villain with imbecilic motivation, so stop pretending as if he is an actual representation of the comic book Mandarin, because he's not.
Eradicating every essential aspects from the character, leaving him, basically, with nothing, is not making a good adaptation of that character.
Also, this COMIC BOOK Mandarin looks almost exactly like Mandarin/Killian in the climax of Iron Man 3:
I think you should either read more comics or check your vision, since you see similarities in things which have nothing in common.
Comic Book Mandarin:
Aldrich, I'm a lame bad guy, Killian: 
t:
