We are just a few days from the premier of season two of The Mandalorian. It should be an interesting ride to see where the story goes.
Now one big thing from the first season was that the Mandalorian did not remove his helmet in front of others, as was the way for all Mandalorians we saw in the series. This was clearly a very big rule for them, as it was mentioned many times throughout the series.
Now if one is into Star Wars and watches everything like we do in this house, you will find that in both cartoon series, 'Clone Wars' and Rebels', we see a lot of Mandalorians going around without their helmets for long periods of times, very openly in public, for all to see.
As all three of these are technically Star Wars canon, there pops up some obvious issues over this area of Mandalorian customs.
I've seen a few articles talking about the helmet mandate being part of the aftermath of the Empire decimating Mandalore in an attempt to wipe of the Mandalorians. There are a lot of references to this event in the series and some serious significance given to to it with the revelation that Moff Gideon has the Darksaber (A significant Mandalorian artifact from both of the previously mentioned cartoon series). The basic idea is that as they fled the need to embrace the identity of being a Mandalorian became a more significant and so it did not matter who you were under the armor, just that you were a Mandalorian. This also follows up with an established Expanded Universe concept about Mandalorians and how they adopt children of any species or culture into their ranks, which was also shown in the series. Their beliefs are it is not your birth that makes you a Mandalorian, but your loyalty and commitment to their ways and culture that matters.
I understand the reasoning given and see the logic there, but I believe it to be more complicated than that and can relate it to what we have seen in our own world.
As we all know, there is not one religion or culture that dominates our world and so by logic, even though we have seen too many sci-fi franchises not follow this reasoning, any other world out there would have a noticeable diversity to the beliefs of the major species that run things.
My thoughts are that for the longest time the group that was ruling Mandalore did not hold to old religious ideas about always wearing the helmet as they wanted to be a bigger part of intergalactic politics and to do so effectively, their faces needed to be seen and known. And while they were the ones in power, there were still groups of Mandalorians who found that to be blasphemous, embracing the old ways, even if they were a minority.
In the fall of Mandalore however, a minority group could easily find itself in a position to be listened to, especially if they had a more aggressive stance on going after their enemies and holding on to traditions. Just look at the middle east to see this exact manner of cultural swing having taken place. A society that has been greatly abused by other powers does seem to go backwards and allow strict religious ideas, that had almost fully been ignored for generations, to retake hold and dominate.
Basically with the fall of Mandalore, a small but strong religious sect of Mandalorians took control and reintroduced old beliefs as being 'The Way' for all to follow if they were true Mandalorians. This is a rational way to explain the discrepancies without any need to retcon or ignore established canon.
I cannot see the series going much farther without at least some manner of addressing this and if rumors are true about Boba Fett appearing in the new season, that would be a perfect chance to explore Mandalorian culture, as there is debate if Boba and Jango are really Mandalorians or just bounty hunters wearing Mandalorian armor. And of course if they explain how Gideon got the Darksaber, it would make sense to show how the ruling house of Mandalore fell, which would be another great time to explore these issues.
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