Lit Differences between Canon Mandalorians and Mandalorians in legends

With the ongoing Mandalorian shows going right now I thought it would be cool to start a thread about any differences/similarities between how the canon Mandalorian culture is being developed in comparison to to it's legends counterpart. And since we are getting brand new developments now on a regular basis probably best I put it in spoiler tags for now.

Spoiler

Since TCW is considered be to be part of both continuities probably no need to bring it up. So far canon Mandalorian culture seems to be very similar to how legends developed Mandalorian culture.

The main difference I guess at this point is in canon we had a Mandalore the Great. A person who didn't technically exist in legends but I'd say there is a good chance the idea for this individual came from one of the legends characters and when/if they get around to developing the character their story will be very similar to someone like Mandalore the Ultimate.

In the latest episode it was said that Mandalorians have been around for 10,000 years. Not completely sure but I think that timeline is similar to legends (at least in terms of when Mandalorians become recognizable for what we know them to be.

 

@AvarandElzarsittininatree

Right now I guess outside of Darth Maul and Count Dooku, they don't talk a lot of Mandalroian's and their relationship to the Sith.

 

That's right. We know there were still wars between Mandalorians and the Jedi but we don't know yet if those wars were them fighting the Jedi on their own or if they were them fighting the Jedi as allies of the Sith. Which was the case in legends.

 

I wonder if they'll keep that in Canon or not. I mean granted we've seen Bad Mandalorians with Death Watch and the Mauldalorians and Saxon so obviously there have been Manado's who side with the Sith.

But i wonder if they'll say during ever Jedi/Sith War the Mando's sided with the Sith or they'll just say..."Eh Some did, Some Didn't"

 

It will be interesting to see what they do with Jaster Mereel and the Fetts in Canon. The “True Mandalorians” haven’t been canonized so far.

 

I believe the legends Mandalorians are preferable insofar as they are an intriguing culture. They started out as an inter-species culture, but they are strong enough to face Jedi, just as the Sith are. Due to their secular nature, that is intriguing. However, I would contend that some Mandalorians, particularly the strongest among them, such as their leaders, probably had low Force powers that helped them in their skills. This is certainly true of their greatest warriors, such as the two Fetts. I would argue that, as a student of the Force, quite a few of the greatest hunters and warriors in their culture probably had latent Force potentiality. Even so, I believe the culture deserves the respect it has in the fanbase strictly due to how remarkable and resilient their culture was. Does that mean I agree with all aspects of their culture. Not particularly. I believe there should have been more non-cis male Mandalores in their history. The men tended to lead. But that's just my real worldview slipping through. Regardless, I believe that the depiction of the culture is amongst the most realistic in all of the old Expanded Universe.

As for the canon version of Mandalorians, I believe they are lacking. I do think the writing behind them is superior to that of the Sequel Trilogy per se. Granted, I still prefer Legends due to the better writing. The Mandalorians in canon tend to be a tad more morally grey than the ones in Legends. Having said all that, I just call it Legends due to the title. For me, the EU is the EU. And as far as I prefer, canon is the actual apocrypha.

 

Can anyone give a detailed in-depth difference between Canon and Legends Mando.

My podcast might make this the next subject and I need bullet points.

 

You could skim through these threads:

Oya manda!: The Mandalorian/Republic Commando Fan Club (started 2005)

Aliit ori'shya tal'din: The Mandalorian Fanclub

The Unbiased Mandalorian discussion thread (started 2006)

Where can I read about mandalorian lore pre-TCW cartoon?

The Official Karen Traviss Discussion Thread (you may be able to find some interesting Karen Traviss quotes in here, she posts for the first 40-ish pages)

I'm sure there's thousands of other (and probably better) pages of discussion on this site alone.

 

Thank you, that will be helpful.

 

The Resol'nare were a big part of Legends Mandalorian culture from 2006 to the end of Legends. Though they haven't been mentioned in Canon, the culture seems to still follow the same tenets.

The one (mostly) missing aspect, Mando'a, seems to be making a comeback now.

 

Which of the Legend verions of the mandos are we talking about?

 

Legends in general...All of it.

 

The Mandalorians were more evil in Legends at least old Mandalorians they caused a war and wanted to conquest the Galaxy they allied with the Sith many times and everybody can be a Mandalorian in Legends dont matter if you are human or not

 

Regarding the Madalorians in the Legens: the Legends were not one big functioning continuity but lots of robots, retcon, decitions that the things from the previous rebot was still canon and attempts to make everything fit, later authors ignoring the guys trying to make everything fit, more retcons, and so on, including Lucas doing his own stuff with TCW while the EU people tried to make what TCW did fit into what was established in the then EU. It's a mess. It's a interesting and often fun mess but still a mess.

We have had at least five versions of the Mandos in the old EU I think, with one of them created by people trying to fit the lore of three previus verions togheter. Some of the old mando-stuff takes place around 4000 years ago from the movies, other stuff is just before the PT, and other stuff is at the same time as the movies. They have been presented as having some very different cultures throughout the years.

It's not just one thing, there have been attempts to make it just one thing but I would say they worked so-so, others will disagree.

 

What are the main Legends stories involving Mandalorians?

Off the top of my head I can think of:
- Jango Fett: Open Seasons
- Tales of the Jedi
- Knights of the Old Republic (I, II, and the comics)
- The Republic Commando novels and Karen Traviss' Legacy of the Force books

 

well I have to treat like one thing for a hour long show.

so cliff note version would be nice

 

I'd add the Marvel Star Wars comics (with Fenn Shysa) to the list. Fenn (and mercenary Mandalorians) are in Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor as well, but less prominently.

 

If it's for your podcast perhaps you should do the research.

 

@Jid123Sheeve

I'd personally get a free trial or one month of Marvel Unlimited, and read Open Seasons, the relevant Tales of the Jedi arcs, the original Marvel comics issues Fenn Shysa appears in, and any other relevant KotOR, Legacy, etc. issues you can find, then cancel the subscription. Beyond that, I'd watch YouTube videos of Canderous Ordo's dialogue and scenes from the KotOR games, and read summaries of the Karen Traviss novels, any interviews she's done, plus some of the online discussion about them (which there's no shortage of).

 

I feel like, in the case of the Legends Mandalorians, the planet Mandalore and it's role in the TCW-related stories was but a footnote on their history moving forward (and backwards), because of the fact that there was (due to retcons) more than one type of goverment on Mandalore and that the Mandalorians were much more loose, closer to their nomad roots, unlike in Canon, where Mandalore, the planet, all of the elements related to it (the Darksaber, the matter of who rules it, the ancient Mandalorian Jedi) and it's loss, is central to their history and why they got so divided, in Legends they were already heavily divided before they lost the planet.

The Canon Mandos are all "branching off" from what we saw in TCW narratively speaking, while in Legends it's the other way around, the TCW potrayal is but a branch in a larger tree.

 

Any discussion of Legends Mandalorians, particularly of the effort @Gamiel mentions to create a unified narrative of the prior disparate depictions of the culture, is incomplete without looking at Abel G. Pena's seminal 2005 article "The History of the Mandalorians" from Star Wars Insider #80. (The article engendered quite a discussion here back in the day, including my first ever post on these boards.)

 

I'm pretty sure the original concept for the Mandalorians was that they were a group (not a race), of evil warriors, who fought the Jedi during the clone wars.

 

Up until shortly before AOTC (though I don't remember how shortly), I believe they were the favorite candidates for "who were the Jedi/Republic fighting during the Clone Wars?"

 

Lucas said that Boba Fett was originally just a stormtrooper, who broke away from the other stormtroopers. This suggests that he was simply wearing early stormtrooper armor, and there was nothing particularly special about him. I assume that after the clone wars he was demobilized, along with hundreds of thousands of other stormtroopers. Needing to earn a living, he put the skills he learned during the war to good use, and became a bounty hunter. It's actually a much more realistic backstory for the character.

 

This is good stuff. Much of what we find with the new canon's Mandalorians is okay. But I can see why an anthropologist would prefer the Expanded Universe's Mandalorians, since there is more to explore. But as I say, the new canon comes off more like an apocrypha to me, since its disparate writers want to fashion things to be flashy and showy rather than substantive. Like, I don't agree with a certain values of the old-style Mandalorians, but I still enjoy reading the original material because I like to see how they interact with the Jedi and the Sith.