THE MANDALORIAN

THE MANDALORIAN

Chapter 14: The Tragedy

BOBAAAA😫😫😫😫😫😫

Hello how are you doing?

I was wondering if you could tell us more about Boba Mand'alor or if you had some recommendations like comics or books about that? I'm sorry if it's been asked before I didn't find it

Thank you in advance!!

i'm doing well, thank you! better, now that i've received this ask :D mand'alor!boba is one of my fave bits of the expanded universe; honestly, i wish they'd done more with him! as it stands, the story arc is only really explored in the novella boba fett: a practical man and the legacy of the force series of novels, but it's still quite rich in terms of character exploration and development. lemme give y'all a break down:

to start, boba did not become mand'alor by choice. y'see, the mand'alor before boba was a mandalorian by the name of fenn shysa. though he was mand'alor, shysa was a staunch believer that the title should instead sit with an heir of jango fett. shysa knew that as the last mand'alor of the true mandalorians and a fearsome warrior who gave even the jedi a run for their money, jango could be a potent symbol to rally for the renewal of the mandalorian people—and thus, so could his heir.

unfortunately, jango's heir is none other than boba fett who, at that moment (post-OT) was [checks notes] hunting mand'alor fenn shysa at the behest of his former kaminoan baby sitter taun we, who wanted revenge on the mandalorians for an attack they'd carried out against kamino some years before.

details are a little bit sparse about the exact order of events when boba eventually found shysa, but suffice to say that things did not go as anyone expected. for one thing, boba didn't end up collecting the bounty on shysa—instead he and shysa somehow ended up on the same side against a rival mercenary group that threatened to overrun them. during the battle, shysa was critically wounded protecting boba from said mercenaries and, knowing that boba wouldn't be able to escape while dragging him along, urged boba to grant him a quick death and take up the mantle of mand'alor in his stead. boba was, to put it mildly, less than enthused about this proposition. however, he couldn't bear to leave shysa to be captured and likely tortured to death, and so granted him a coup de grace and honored his dying request.

so now we have the absolutely delicious juxtaposition of boba fett, a man whose connection to his mandalorian heritage is fraught at best, more-or-less forced into being the commander-in-chief of the mandalorian people. and it's as awkward as one would expect. it seems that most (though not all) mandalorians accepted boba's account that he hadn't purposefully deposed shysa (likely bc shysa wasn't exactly quiet about wanting boba on the throne) but the general reaction to him seemed to be, "you're not one of us. but you're a useful symbol, so we'll let you stay where you are."

boba himself likens it to being stranded in "no-mans-land—too Mando for the outsider but not Mando enough for some of the clans"

on the flip-side of the coin, you have mandalorians who tell him shit like, "well, thank the stars you finally came to your senses; this was always your purpose, you know that, right?" which actually makes him angrier and more uncomfortable than the former reaction, for reasons he himself doesn't fully understand.

something something don't imply to the clone-who-pretends-he's-not-a-clone that he was made with a purpose other than sonhood mkay

despite this tension, boba finds himself, to his own bewilderment, developing a sense of responsibility for the mandalorians he comes into contact with. he wants to look after and protect them. he starts thinking in terms of "we" and "us." and he becomes coldly, viciously enraged when they're threatened.

...which happens pretty dang quickly when the yuuzhan vong invade.

look, the yuuzhan vong are a whole other can of worms, but i'll sum up the best i can by saying that they're an extragalactic race of bio-engineered, self-mutilating torture-slavers who think the gffa deserves to be genocided for the crime of developing combustion engines. it's like fucking hellraiser invades the gffa, idk what else to say.

ANYWAY, these dudes are preparing to invade and, after learning that the mandalorians are the galaxy's ultimate mercenary assholes, invites boba (and his friend beviin) to a meeting to discuss, oh, you know, betraying the gffa to the vong in exchange for not torture-enslaving the mandalorians.

and the vong are like "oh, btw, here's some random prisoner we'll torture-enslave in front of you :) just to give you an illustration :) of how seriously you should take our offer of mercy :)"

and boba, knowing that they're lying, and inwardly seething at their veiled threats toward the mandalorians, calmly answers, "based on [your promise], we have a deal."

translation: "we're gonna fuck you up"

(boba has a thing about sticking to his word, so by phrasing his assent like that, he can justify backstabbing the vong. basically, "i am making a promise based on your promise, but bc your promise is bullshit, mine is too")

the mandalorians then spend a good chunk of the war playing the villains, pretending to be fighting for the vong while in reality, they're siphoning key intel back to the new republic to bring about the vong's defeat.

though the mandalorians' sabotage plays a key role in turning the tide of the war against the vong, it isn't without a cost. the vong, eventually realizing the mandalorians' betrayal, wreak terrible vengeance on mandalore, indiscrimimately bombing the planet and mass-poisoning the soil. one could think of this as a parallel to the glassing of mandalore in new canon. mandalore was already in bad shape due to imperial strip mining and the vong's retribution leaves the planet barely habitable.

also, in the aftermath of the war, mandalore doesn't receive any reconstruction aid from the new republic bc fuck them i guess

things are bleak for the mandalorians. they're short on credits and, unable to grow anything from the planet's poisoned soil, they're forced to rely on importing food to sustain themselves, further draining what little communal funds they have.

after talking things over with his fellow mandalorians (see: occasionally interjecting while they yell at each other in a crowded bar) boba decides on a few key policies going forward:

1) as a group, the mandalorians stay neutral in the new republic's ongoing wars. mandos are already an endangered species at this point and they don't need to invite any of that smoke back to mandalore itself.

2) any individual mandalorian is free to sell their services to whatever side they want, as long as they don't do it in the name of mandalore itself. times are tough and people need credits. boba won't begrudge them that.

3) any mandalorians living in diaspora, consider yourselves officially invited home. you show up, you get land, but you gotta pitch in to restore it.

4) until things are stable, those mandalorians with the means (see: boba and the chief of mandalmotors) use their own funds to keep importing food for folks until enough land is restored to make the planet once again self-sufficient

these policies are well-received and morale is significantly improved when said land restoration leads to the discovery of a huge motherlode of subsurface beskar, unearthed by the vong's indiscriminate bombing.

cue mandalmotors going balls-to-the-walls insane and making beskar starfighters. boba is, for once in his fucking life, absolutely delighted by this development.

no seriously, they offer him a chance to test-fly one and it's probably the only time i can recall in his adulthood that he actually grins.

anyway, the restoration of mandalore proceeds at pace under boba's leadership. most of the next book is dedicated to fett family drama with a side of jedi cultural exchange and the book after that sucks so bad that i don't acknowledge its existence. so here ends my hopefully interesting account of the reign of mand'alor boba!

i love when Jango disguises himself with the name Jaster as though it's not true that everyone who wants any info on him would know that one of his parents' names was Jaster

Kal Skirata, Jango, Orum Wa and the Nulls (by me, Nocturius)

Nocturius: Oh crap, I thought I've already shared that one here, but, hey, enjoy!

It's a piece I made on Krita last Winter. It feel aaaaaaaaaaaaages ago since do RC and TBB content (well... mostly memes tbh) on a regular basis.

It took me over 50h to do. 9 characters, Tipoca City and the work of light and storm. That was an hard one for sure! Still not 100% happy with the perspective, shading and composition but that's a ''me'' problem as an artist. I tried hard to respect the books description and also material from The Clones Wars and Attack of the Clones for the visual as reference pictures. I found some useful concept art online too. That was a very formative project. I think it was the first time I did piece directly on Krita instead of scanning a sketch. I was getting more confident with my stylet and wacom!

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Here some WIP, for the funzies.

Go well with that fine fan-made audiobook reading of that exact scene! (no need to have read the first book to enjoy ^^)

Kal Skirata summarized in one picture

And bonus because Bebe!Niner is a precious bean.