Hey guys. I read the wiki on Fandalorians at wookiepedia, and something confused me:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Fandalorians

Fandalorians are often criticized as being excessively zealous in defending Mandalorians. Critics portray the Fandalorian stance as an unjustified attempt to retcon Mandalorians as being more noble than they are portrayed in canon sources, and accuse the Fandalorian group of ignoring or attempting to contradict material that portrays negative elements of the Mandalorians. Fandalorians are also accused of reacting overaggressively to criticism and disdaining Jedi.

Self-identified Fandalorians take issue with many of these claims, pointing out that canon sources do portray Mandalorians in a positive manner; that the most objectionable Mandalorian behavior occurred thousands of years before the films; that only some Fandalorians disdain the Jedi;

A few things confuse/annoy me about this:

One of the reasons why I love the Mandalorians (both as Crusaders and later as mercs) is that they don't need to follow moral and ethical codes. They'll slaughter a whole city just to bring out the governor. That's what makes them unique - they're practical and efficient, which separates them from the Jedi because the latter are not as effective because they are curtailed by a code (of course that doesn't stop the fools from going to the Dark Side and being laughed at like a n00b). So what bothers me is that the Fandalorians mentioned here are listed as trying to retcon the Mandalorians to be "noble," which galls me to no end - they're ashamed of their own fandalorian status of loving a sometimes amoral people, and are ruining it for the rest of us. Anyone know about these particular fandalorians?

Yeah, I do know about them but none with which I had argued about Mandalorians directly. It really is a problem of a "minority within the category" and there ain't much any of us can do about that...

Except maybe raise a more respectable name for Mando's in general thanks to this community I'm not letting my hopes fly, though, cause I know we're just a bunch of Fandalorians to the "common Star Wars fan" out there (by common I mean those that don't claim to be anything yet claim to know every source of canon that ever existed). The fact is that you can't just have one type of fan, there will always be the hardcore and the less hardcore, and the newbie. Some hardcore fans hold out moderate opinions about things they're fond of and will recognize all the aspects of them, good and bad.

The newbie (or shallow) fans however, can be very aggressive about the stuff they just fell in love with. It's like your teenage daughter came home with a particularly sleazy type of gentleman and won't listen to your perspective at all. So what if the boy has badly tattooed arms, needle bruises and horrible hygiene? It's the love of her life, back off.

Not that Mandalorians are comparable to some homeless crackhead, and that's not my point. The key word in that wiki article is probably self-identified. While I admit there are many degrees of humor applied to self-identifying one's self as a Fandalorian, those that jump first on the title are the shallow fans. Or, those that use things they did not create to give themselves a personality/identity.

I will probably seem like a huge hypocrit for having said so.

I don't like the article - it stinks of prejudice. Haven't seen too many self-identified Fandalorians who go around overzelously defending the Mandalorians in the fictional universe and hating Jedi, the only thing I've seen remotely similar to that description are the clone fans who believe that the Mandalorians are new into the EU with Karen Traviss and that they're most on the same level as the Cuy'val Dar and specifically Kal Skirata, more noble than most.

The biggest problem with this article is that it seems as biased as the people on TheForceNet Forums. Even the slightest mention of mandalorians sends them in a frenzy, and when the fans try to defend mandalorians, a shit storm brews up.

After the dust settles, the only people that get banned are the mando fans.
Hence why I don't... go there anymore.

The article sure does look like a huge pile of crap. And by the way, why cannot one like both Mandalorians and Jedi at the same time? Same thing with the military history - when I say I'm interested in the German army of the IIWW, people start poking at me and cry "skinhead, nazi!". But I'm not! Moreover, I'm a patriot. I mean, what's wrong with being interested in the both sides of a conflict?!

I think it's more of a judgment thing, stemming from Karen Traviss' portrayal of Jedi in general. As you can probably tell from the RepCom series, her view on the Jedi can roughly be narrowed down to "Jedi are all hypocritical di'kute."

Understandably this gets the gung-ho Jedi followers all up in arms and outraged how-dare-she. It gets worse when other fans try to point out that the Jedi actually are arrogant hypocrites and in the decline towards the end of the Clone Wars, all stemming from the highest canon (movies/films).

It's like someone's insulting their collective parentage. With no real person to blame, they need to direct their rage somewhere. Where better than the Mandalorians, who are "totally bad always evil blah blah blah evil", and have been the enemy of the Jedi for several millennia? (Or, by connection, KT and all of her books because she seems to be one of the first EU authors to actually, directly, challenge the Jedi and their views with an ultimately negative conclusion?)

Not to mention that all these against-Mandos POVs are basically pigeonholing an entire society as evil based on one, singular, bounty hunter represented in the movies. (Or two, I guess)

What can I say? There are always some fanatic idiots who want to hate someone and shout at someody, just to feel better. But they are not true fans. A true Jedi (for example) fan acknowledges that the Jedi are hypicytical all right, but he still loves them as they are. As a true Mandalorian fan won't say that the Mandos are the most honorable and noble people of the Galaxy, because they are not. They are what they are and they are not perfect knights without reproach, and I personally like them for that.

It's a pity all the official resources of all the fandoms are infested with these jingoistic jerks. I'm registered on HyperSpace, but I've never posted anything there - and now I am not going to.

Traviss seems to address a different type of reader, I think. Most Star Wars EU readers seek certain characters (I'm looking at you, New Jedi Order fans. And Dark Nest fans, and...) with a lot of drama. The story has to revolve around characters like that otherwise a 10 year old wouldn't be able to keep up.

RepCom has no canon characters, it's all OC's and since the average SW fan requires more effort to learn to like a character he/she doesn't know, you can imagine that a lot of detail will slip through the narrow vision of a mind that only reasons in "good or bad". What were they fed with lately? The Vong Wars?

Another thing about Traviss: if her Sci Fi Wess'har series had been popular she would be accused of showing only the negatives sides of humanity in comparison to aliens. Her perspective on journalism and the media is very cynical and she doesn't go by detours to show the ugliness in everything. Religion doesn't get spared either. I can't begin to imagine how would a christian react to her writing in the Wess'har books but there are ways to handle a controversial Traviss. You have to look at the characters and not what they represent.

If I was a lazy reader, a lot would have escaped my attention and I might not be here at all.

I've always loved Star Wars -- the concept of it all -- the mythology behind it and the mysteries that were not fully explained in the Original Trilogy.

When Episode I came out, I couldn't wait to see the Jedi at their peak. I drooled over a young Obi-Wan and the lightsaber battles. When Episode II came out, I still loved the Jedi. By Episode III, I practically cried during Order 66 when the younglings were slaughtered.

Then, I read Republic Commando...

I was completely fascinated by the Clones now and I understood both sides of the conflict, coming to terms with Order 66 in a new respect.

I still love the Jedi and the ideals they represented (have a Jedi costume that's one of my favorites). But, I also fell in love with the Mandalorian culture that Traviss created. I understood Bardan on a new level and thought what he did was a wonderful transformation. I LIKED that he could weave the idealistic beliefs of the Jedi into the Mandalorian ways and become a bit of both.

I must be one of those rare fans who loves both Jedi and Mandalorians. But, then again what do I know? I also think Han and Chewie are great as a duo. (Stupid Vong War...don't even get me started on the post-Return of the Jedi books...rarely any of them are good...okay, the Rogue and Wraith Squadron books were great.) But I digress.

I don't understand why these fans have to bash the fictional Mandalorian culture anyway. Star Wars (regardless of which part of it you like) is an escape from reality...a place to wander when the bills outweigh the paycheck and you have a bad day at work.

So, I'll continue to like my Jedi and I'll continue to like my Mandalorians. I'm not biased.

Ep. II - Coruscant: We meet Jango talking clandestinely with Zam about the failed attempt to kill Padme. He gives the changelling a means to kill her more subtely and when he is about to be implicated by a certain whiney jedi's forcable Force persuassion use, dispatches her/it quickly....reminds me of the old spy films but instead of Wessell taking her own life, Jango has to save the operation by sacrificing his partner.

skip ahead

Camino: We discover Jango has a son, and is the donor for the GAR (Grand Army of the Republic for those not sure). We discover that maybe the reason Jango killed his accomplice wasn't to prevent the enemy from learning secrets, but to protect his child. He also tells a nosey Jedi that he personally garunties the clones will do what they're made for, and he delivers fantastically. We get some insight into thier family values and again thier honor. Jango was paid to make cloned soldiers and does so.

more skipping

Geonosis: Jango meets up with Dooku, who is also working for the person who employed Jango, and is either awaiting payment or trying to figure out what he needs to do next or whatever, when the jedi attack...after the people that were trespassing on the Geo's land and factories get caught and sent to the arena. I personally agree with the old saying: Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again. So after being provoked with a light stick to the throat, Jango takes it personally and goes after the guy who chumped him, gets trampled and after he's good and beat up from rattling around his armor, is beheaded, while his kid gets to watch.


What to take away from it all: We know that both 'in cannon' instance of mandalorian activity show us duty in that they never wavered from, honor in that if a word was given it was delivered, family values mean more than comeraderie, and efficiency. In Jango's case, Mace was the largest threat, to neutralize that would have turned the tide. In Fett's case, Luke was the only active threat at the time.



So basically noble? Not really so much as pragmatic. They do what needs to be done, hold family dearest, and when knocked around inside thier buyiice they're susceptible to attack.

That's a good point, Bastion. Good work on backing up the hard facts for us too.

Besides, coming back to Douglas' original question: wiping out an entire city for one hit is highly disproportional when you think of all the ordnance and resources necessary to actually do it. It just doesn't make sense unless the idea originated from a particularly cruel and sadistic nutcase.

I don't believe cruelty is part of any strategic procedure unless we're talking about "intelligence" and this is a whole other debate.



.... Hey, let's talk about this really sensitive debate anyway! How do you think a Mandalorian would extract information from someone?

Now this is why you leave the interrogator alone with the interrogatee, it's simply unbearable. Whether violence is used or not, and there ain't any laws and civil code restraining these "warriors" from getting what they want from who they happen to have in custody.

Plot bunny here, writers. Hinty hint-hint.