The Mandalorian Where should the show go next?

[Spider-Fan83]

next he'll find a Baby Hutt... and have to bring it home lol

 

[Breogan]

next he'll find a Baby Hutt... and have to bring it home lol
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LOL^ there was also a baby Ithorian, who could easily steal this show, I think he's done championing lost Babies though. Next one he comes across he is hopefully just turning in for the reward and walking away.

Season 3 set up is he's now got several "lost" Clans, and their entire Planet to contend with, for his next Quest.

He breaks the sabre for all time.
I could see it play out like that.

Yeah, given that Din was ready and willing to turn over leadership of Mandalore to a fellow Mando who takes her helmet off all the time AND was willing to disregard the sacred tradition of “winning” the sabre AND took his helmet off for both Grogu and to infiltrate that imperial base indicates to me that he’s seriously questioning ALL of the Mandalorian beliefs. I could see him breaking the darksaber as a way of tearing down the veil and doing away with the old ways. Star Wars has always had an element of that trope with the way the Jedi storyline has played out.

I anticipate an unfortunate betrayal for control of the Darksaber , and maybe a revisit of this somewhat classic trope, not hanging off a cliff or anything, but where clinging to the Darksaber (and everything it "offers" ) ultimately brings death, and Mando is like; time to let it go!
Bo is going to be in a rough spot, if she can't.

Its worth noting that Din didn't seem to really care about the Darksaber or its legend even from the getgo. I can't remember if he displayed complete ignorance of it or not, but clearly the Children of the Watch don't place much credence in it. Which makes sense, their attitude on Mandalore the homeworld is "the place is cursed, its where people go to die".

This^, his whole quest has been to belong to something bigger than himself, yet surviving, and completing his quest, has simultaneously also been chipping away at all his armor and the rules and "beliefs" that suposedly go with it.
As well as encountering various "Mandos" who claim from the most dogmatic, to those who invent (looking at you Fett) their own rules/rights to the armor.
From the first - You need to drop your rifle, - I'm Mandalorian, weapons are part of my religion- then you are not getting your parts back. To the helmet off in front of a droid, then face scanned to save Grogu, then finally to just show him his human face. It's all slowly chipped away.
So yeah, who will be left standing there in the end, by what definition if not his own, is he a Mandalorian.

 

[TheVileOne]

I think there's a lot they can do and explore. The show can go in a whole new direction now that the Grogu story is resolved.

All the stuff seeded in S1&2 about Mandalore can get fleshed out.

 

[Sithborg]

I desperately need to see Din's reaction to the New Mandalorians.

 

[TheVileOne]

I desperately need to see Din's reaction to the New Mandalorians.

I bet it was something his covert also "neglected" to educate him about during his brainwash---er---I mean...TRAINING.

 

[godisawesome]

Here’s a bunch of baseless speculation and story structure practice; I have enough faith in this show that having none of this be even remotely accurate wouldn’t frustrate me at all. F&F seem to have a better balance of measuring audience expectations and actual storytelling enough to not be worried about empty, meaningless jukes before a pretentious waste of time.

(Also, these sections don’t really go together neccessarily- especially the last two sections.)

Stuff I would do in the first part of the Season:

• Din slowly gets actualized and motivated to value the uniting of the Mandalorians and resettling Mandalore.
• Din accepts Bo’s offer to join her cause form the S2 finale, and they try to make a workable situation of the darksaber; Din becomes Bo’s “champion,” using the darksaber to beat challengers and make them submit to Bo.
• The first few antagonists are snobby Great House champions, who may snobbishly reject Din as a Mando, to make Bo’s support of him heartwarming.
• The Children of the Watch appear, we possibly see Paz vs Din end with Din successfully getting the Armorer to pledge loyalty tot he cause... but she does so to him, not Bo, and his submission to Bo is all that holds the Watch to her, ratcheting up both tension but also evidence of Din’s loyalty to Bo.

Stuff I would do to tie the season into the eventual Thrawn arc:

• Esposito returns for an episode where Gideo is either broken out of New Republic custody, killed to keep his silence, or executed by the New Republic for good this time...
• ...but regardless, he reveals he has spies and agents among the Mandalorians, with that being a paranoia-rising subplot for the season.

Stuff I could do for an Imperial Super Commando Arc:

• Imperial Super Commandos/House Saxon Remnants appear as the new antagonists , but not as clear cut as you’d think; Hark and others tried to defect after Tiber revealed his true colors, but were declared Dar’Manda for using the Duchess, so they weren’t involved in the Purge on either side.
• Hark wants the darksaber so, at minimum, he and his men can reintegrate into Mandalorian society, even though he knows he’ll likely be killed by a different challenger afterwards.
• Din begins to have more nuanced and critical thoughts about Bo-Katan and The Watch, as he can tell that the Dar’Manda ISC aren’t too different from The Watch or Nite Owls without the Saxon brothers making them worse, so when he beats them , he pities them.
• Someone in the ISC let’s Din in on a dark secret about the Watch; it’s likely they provoked the CIS attack on his village, so even though they rescued and raised him, they also are somewhat responsible for his parents being killed. This builds into Din being more disenchanted with the Watch.

Stuff I would do with a New Mandalorian arc.

• The New Mandos represent the largest civilian segment of Mandalore’s refugee population, but are rejected entirely by the Watch, and are fully committed to the New Republic.
• The Protectors, with Kevin McKidd as Fenn Rau, gave reformed to protect the New Mandos in a compromise over pacifism and defense. Din is sent to challenge Rau, who regardless of the outcome, reveals that he personally prefers Sabine as a candidate for the throne, and that she has a claim on the darksaber as well.
• Din clearly isn’t comfortable with the New Mandalorians at all, but he understands the desire to protect them, and their meeting triggers his greatest internal crisis over his identity and what makes a Mandalorian.

Stuff I could do with Sabine, the Armorer, and Bo-Katan.

• All three women are basically authority figures pulling Din different ways, with the Armorer and Bo-Katan pushing Din to clarify the darksaber’s ownership by challenging Sabine.
• Sabine doesn’t want to fight Din both because she has no reason to and because she doesn’t want the darksaber or leadership role, and tries to get him to think of the larger Galaxy and where the New Mandos may be right.
• Bo is selling Din on how she’s the “only” one who can unite everybody if they clarify that Din’s the rightful wielder and serves her, but is also making it clear she refuses to “repeat her mistake” of accepting New Republic or other outside help.
• The Armorer wants Din to seize the thrown for himself, and damn the Dar’Manda she sees everywhere, but backs Bo in encouraging Din to fight Sabine to at least unify the claims of the darksaber.
• Din and Sabine either have an outright duel, or spar, or whatever, and while Din retains the saber, it plays out like a spiritual sequel to the Trials of the Darksaber episode, with Sabine helping Din realize his own goals and motivations, and Din takes the side of the New Mandos and Protectors with the New Republic
• This results in a blowup between Din and Bo. Its possible Bo wins, with Din suffering a defeat but surviving for a comeback plot next, or he wins, but the Great Houses don’t accept a foundling of the Watch, or Bo yields, but the Watch refuse to accept the New Mandos and becomes the Death Watch again.

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

Here’s a bunch of baseless speculation and story structure practice; I have enough faith in this show that having none of this be even remotely accurate wouldn’t frustrate me at all. F&F seem to have a better balance of measuring audience expectations and actual storytelling enough to not be worried about empty, meaningless jukes before a pretentious waste of time.

(Also, these sections don’t really go together neccessarily- especially the last two sections.)

Stuff I would do in the first part of the Season:

• Din slowly gets actualized and motivated to value the uniting of the Mandalorians and resettling Mandalore.
• Din accepts Bo’s offer to join her cause form the S2 finale, and they try to make a workable situation of the darksaber; Din becomes Bo’s “champion,” using the darksaber to beat challengers and make them submit to Bo.
• The first few antagonists are snobby Great House champions, who may snobbishly reject Din as a Mando, to make Bo’s support of him heartwarming.
• The Children of the Watch appear, we possibly see Paz vs Din end with Din successfully getting the Armorer to pledge loyalty tot he cause... but she does so to him, not Bo, and his submission to Bo is all that holds the Watch to her, ratcheting up both tension but also evidence of Din’s loyalty to Bo.

Stuff I would do to tie the season into the eventual Thrawn arc:

• Esposito returns for an episode where Gideo is either broken out of New Republic custody, killed to keep his silence, or executed by the New Republic for good this time...
• ...but regardless, he reveals he has spies and agents among the Mandalorians, with that being a paranoia-rising subplot for the season.

Stuff I could do for an Imperial Super Commando Arc:

• Imperial Super Commandos/House Saxon Remnants appear as the new antagonists , but not as clear cut as you’d think; Hark and others tried to defect after Tiber revealed his true colors, but were declared Dar’Manda for using the Duchess, so they weren’t involved in the Purge on either side.
• Hark wants the darksaber so, at minimum, he and his men can reintegrate into Mandalorian society, even though he knows he’ll likely be killed by a different challenger afterwards.
• Din begins to have more nuanced and critical thoughts about Bo-Katan and The Watch, as he can tell that the Dar’Manda ISC aren’t too different from The Watch or Nite Owls without the Saxon brothers making them worse, so when he beats them , he pities them.
• Someone in the ISC let’s Din in on a dark secret about the Watch; it’s likely they provoked the CIS attack on his village, so even though they rescued and raised him, they also are somewhat responsible for his parents being killed. This builds into Din being more disenchanted with the Watch.

Stuff I would do with a New Mandalorian arc.

• The New Mandos represent the largest civilian segment of Mandalore’s refugee population, but are rejected entirely by the Watch, and are fully committed to the New Republic.
• The Protectors, with Kevin McKidd as Fenn Rau, gave reformed to protect the New Mandos in a compromise over pacifism and defense. Din is sent to challenge Rau, who regardless of the outcome, reveals that he personally prefers Sabine as a candidate for the throne, and that she has a claim on the darksaber as well.
• Din clearly isn’t comfortable with the New Mandalorians at all, but he understands the desire to protect them, and their meeting triggers his greatest internal crisis over his identity and what makes a Mandalorian.

Stuff I could do with Sabine, the Armorer, and Bo-Katan.

• All three women are basically authority figures pulling Din different ways, with the Armorer and Bo-Katan pushing Din to clarify the darksaber’s ownership by challenging Sabine.
• Sabine doesn’t want to fight Din both because she has no reason to and because she doesn’t want the darksaber or leadership role, and tries to get him to think of the larger Galaxy and where the New Mandos may be right.
• Bo is selling Din on how she’s the “only” one who can unite everybody if they clarify that Din’s the rightful wielder and serves her, but is also making it clear she refuses to “repeat her mistake” of accepting New Republic or other outside help.
• The Armorer wants Din to seize the thrown for himself, and damn the Dar’Manda she sees everywhere, but backs Bo in encouraging Din to fight Sabine to at least unify the claims of the darksaber.
• Din and Sabine either have an outright duel, or spar, or whatever, and while Din retains the sabre, it plays out like a spiritual sequel to the Trials of the Darksaber episode, with Sabine helping Din realize his own goals and motivations, and Din takes the side of the New Mandos and Protectors with the New Republic
• This results in a blowup between Din and Bo. Its possible Bo wins, with Din suffering a defeat but surviving for a comeback plot next, or he wins, but the Great Houses don’t accept a foundling of the Watch, or Bo yields, but the Watch refuse to accept the New Mandos and becomes the Death Watch again.

 

[metaphysician]

Aside from what seems a continued persistant confusion of Death Watch and Children of the Watch, sure, it sounds like good stuff. Though again, note, from the actions and choices we've seen of the Children of the Watch so far, there is a certain floor to how morally dubious they can be. "You have this orphan, from an enemy people, you now have to either care for them for the rest of your life or find their home to return them" does not fit very well with "Screw everyone who doesn't follow our code".

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

Aside from what seems a continued persistant confusion of Death Watch and Children of the Watch, sure, it sounds like good stuff. Though again, note, from the actions and choices we've seen of the Children of the Watch so far, there is a certain floor to how morally dubious they can be. "You have this orphan, from an enemy people, you now have to either care for them for the rest of your life or find their home to return them" does not fit very well with "Screw everyone who doesn't follow our code".

This is exactly why Swallows' Armorer character needs to come back.

I will always think well of her until such time the character is explicitly shown to be "villainous " because of how she as an authority figure in the culture Mando was raised went out of her way to use the tenets of "the faith" to ensure the most just outcome for an innocent.

There could be more going on sure but I don't know...

I really think the character along with the rest of the covert have to come back into play.

 

[Sithborg]

On the other hand, definitely sided with Maul in the Clone Wars...

 

[godisawesome]

On the other hand, definitely sided with Maul in the Clone Wars...

That’s why I presume there is a connection between the two Watches.

I also just have this desire to see the series end up doing some dramatic critical analysis of the warrior culture ethos, which for me is at some point going to have to point out the flaws in both the Armorer and Bo-Katan’s beliefs.

Both of them clearly have a very martially-focused dedication to their types of nationalism or religion, and what we know of any “Traditonal” Mandalorian beliefs in either way is that they’r exclusionary and worshipful of violence. It’s not a coincidence that we seem to be able to assign both “unquestioningly participated in terrorist crimes against civilians foreign and domestic” and “willingly followed vile and murderous despot” to each of them.

I’ll be blunt and say I want the show to end up acknowledging on some level that the Jedi had superior moral high ground to the traditional Mandos they fought, even as flawed as they can be.

 

[Sithborg]

I’ll be blunt and say I want the show to end up acknowledging on some level that the Jedi had superior moral high ground to the traditional Mandos they fought, even as flawed as they can be.

God, Traviss and her fandalorians would go nuclear. Love it.

I mean, they should deal with the fact that Mandalore, while the Empire may have killed it dead dead, they didn't exactly have much left to finish off, due to the Mando's own favorite pastime, civil war.

I do assume there is a connection. We just need a little more Mando history.

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

On the other hand, definitely sided with Maul in the Clone Wars...

That's from the helm/crests etc. no?

Was she THERE during the Clone Wars and Maul's attempts to unite the Mandos under him? If the Armorer is the same age as Swallows is, then at this point she'd have been... a pre-teen maybe during that period. I'm not sure she'd have had much choice in anything.

And that's a possiblity no? That like Din she was raised by the Children Of The Watch in their version of Mandalorian culture and is now starting to question it.

I mean... She goes on about how important "secrecy" is to Din and yet later is like "You know what would be a good idea? If you went on a quest through the galaxy to find a Jedi."


Again... She could be scum with ulterior motives but what IS known right now is that she looks for ways to bend the Mando creed she was raised in for the explicit purpose of helping a child from an "enemy" out group.

There's more there to explore.

 

[Sithborg]

I mean, Mando says it himself. Mandalorians are a creed, not a race. By the Children of the Watch's own logic, Maul would be the rightful ruler. There is a reason Bo-Katan's buddies weren't happy about Din being one.

My current theory is that the Children of the Watch have been in hiding since the pre TPM civil war. Which, assuming a broad Open Seasons recanonization, was Death Watch vs the Protectors. It would help explain why Death Watch was able to mobilize such a large army without the New Mando's knowing. With the New Mandos exiling the few remaining warriors that they think exist, due to the covert system.

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

I mean, Mando says it himself. Mandalorians are a creed, not a race. By the Children of the Watch's own logic, Maul would be the rightful ruler. There is a reason Bo-Katan's buddies weren't happy about Din being one.

My current theory is that the Children of the Watch have been in hiding since the pre TPM civil war. Which, assuming a broad Open Seasons recanonization, was Death Watch vs the Protectors. It would help explain why Death Watch was able to mobilize such a large army without the New Mando's knowing. With the New Mandos exiling the few remaining warriors that they think exist, due to the covert system.

My question is... Who or what is at the top of the hierarchy of the Children Of The Watch at the time of the Mandalorian? Have they degenerated to this fringe ideology without any actual focus beyond continuing to hold to their ways and occasionally recruit some foundlings into the fold? Or is there someone or a group of someones that for sure, five years after the fall of Palpatine, are prepping for some kind of move in terms of Mando society?

 

[TheVileOne]

Bo Katan was trying to recruit Din in the finale. She said, "If you should manage to finish your quest, I would have you reconsider joining our efforts." Din basically agreed by saying "Fair enough." So he'd basically have to work for her now, even though she's unhappy about him having the Darksaber.

My question is... Who or what is at the top of the hierarchy of the Children Of The Watch at the time of the Mandalorian? Have they degenerated to this fringe ideology without any actual focus beyond continuing to hold to their ways and occasionally recruit some foundlings into the fold? Or is there someone or a group of someones that for sure, five years after the fall of Palpatine, are prepping for some kind of move in terms of Mando society?

Hard to say. I think this is one of those ideas the show can explore. Even though Bo Katan was part of Death Watch, she doesn't seem to have much in the way of affiliation with them anymore. It also seems they set up rules Death Watch wasn't even following.

Like is The Armorer the leader of The Watch now? Or is she just one of the leaders among many coverts.

 

[metaphysician]

*cough* I think the keystone here is this confusion: the Children of the Watch and the Deathwatch are *not* related in any way. Its a coincidence of name. Thus why all the attempts to explain their connection founder on contradictions, because their is no connection intended.

 

[TheVileOne]

*cough* I think the keystone here is this confusion: the Children of the Watch and the Deathwatch are *not* related in any way. Its a coincidence of name. Thus why all the attempts to explain their connection founder on contradictions, because their is no connection intended.

OK, valid point here. However, we know for a fact, the commandoes who saved Din Djarin on Aq Vetina were Death Watch. They wore the symbol of Death Watch. That's why I think it has to be more than a coincidence. Maybe Death Watch itself splintered. I think they have to be related in some way. Otherwise, how did Din Djarin get saved by them? He never indicated he got passed to a different group?

Also, Mandalorians on Concord Dawn viewed Death Watch as traitors during the time of Rebels. So maybe that meant Death Watch and Pre Viszla supporters went deeper underground to rebrand themselves. I mean someone who shares the name Viszla was part of the covert on Navarro. Paz Viszla, same voice as Pre Piszla as well. That stands to reason there's some sort of relation there.

 

[Sithborg]

I mean, we know Death Watch splintered during the Clone Wars when Maul killed Vizsla.

Din would have to have been passed somewhere. I assume coverts were already in effect before Clone Wars, so Children of the Watch could have sent any children taken to coverts after a battle. Though again, he clearly was on Mandalore before the purge, to be in the ISB's database.

As for the Protectors, they could have been alligned with Satine, thus of course Death Watch was a traitor. Which would also go along with Filoni's desire to recanonize Open Season.

 

[TheVileOne]

Right but Din doesn't even have a concept of Mandalorians who take off their helmets until he meets the Nite Owls. So all that's a little strange.

So his rescuers, Death Watch or whoever, essentially set up re-education camps for "Foundlings." And they sheltered and brainwashed them through the rest of the Clone Wars and most of the Galactic Civil War.

 

[Holy Slapper]

How good of a source is Pirates and Princesses? Seen someone posting that according to them RDJ would be in the running to play Thrawn. But WGTC is also running that so...

 

[Roose Bolton]

It’s likely BS.

 

[GREEN =w= DAY]

I like RDJ but I just can’t see him as Thrawn

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

I like RDJ but I just can’t see him as Thrawn

I still say...

Have RDJ appear as another armorer incognito. His lines can all be allusions to Stark and Iron Man.

Then end of season... "Guys, that was Robert the whole time."

Crowd goes wild.

 

[Schlosser85]

Lars Mikkelsen should be Thrawn. And RDJ doesn’t fit that at all.