The Mandalorian Fennec Shand (Spoilers)

Visually, the Tusken massacre doesn't resemble the work of Fennec. We see how she operates. A sharpshooting sniper who uses the high ground to her advantage. Her dangerous reputation comes from the fact she can slip away from your grasp like a fox. If the series was implying that Fennec was the culprit, the Tusken camp would have been relatively intact with only dead bodies being the evidence of carnage, the sign of a sniper.

Also, note that Boba Fett says that the Nikto Gang simply do not have the numbers to beat the Tuskens. That tells you that whoever killed the Tuskens, it had to be a larger party. If the Kintan Striders are considered too small to wipe out the Tusken tribe, then you need to think larger as the show nudges you. The Pykes are portrayed as the larger crime syndicate, even larger than the Hutts themselves

 

The camp on fire doesn't resemble Fennec's work because she was told to do her best to put the blame on the Nikto bikers.

 

The problem with this is what does a reveal that it was the Pykes accomplish from a storytelling perspective? It would be redundant as the catalyst for conflict between the Pykes and Boba, because that's already coming regardless simply because the Pykes want his territory. It adds a little more motivation for Boba, but if that's all it is, why keep it a secret for this long? Why have the bait and switch with the speeder bikers at all?

 

The show made it clear that the Nikto bikers are not meant to be considered those who are responsible for the massacre. It does it both in Fennec's own words and by showing Boba easily kicking their butt when he goes to steal their bikes.

So, given that all hints suggest that it wasn't done by them, who remains ?
Virtually nobody. The writers haven't made us get familiar with any warrior/assassin other than Fennec.

It would be rather weird to find out that the real guilty are people we have never seen before, wouldn't it ?

 

I remember that train of thought before. And it led to many dead ends because it wasn't the case. Whether it be Barriss Offee being the Seventh Sister... or Rey being Luke's daughter. I'm just gonna lay out what it means for Boba to learn of the Pykes' responsibility. It means he wouldn't be content with driving them out of Tatooine. He would instead make his next move planning the syndicate's destruction as the new crime lord. After all, Boba doesn't seem to be interested in engaging war against the Hutts if they do best to leave him and Tatooine alone. After all, it's not good business to go to war with another crime syndicate... but that doesn't stop a crime war from beginning if given the right push.

Heck, it could be foreshadowed by Fennec's words of getting permission of killing the Hutts. Killing family members of the Hutt Clans would start a syndicate war in the criminal underworld. And geez, Boba lost his adopted family to a crime syndicate that dishonored the initial deal. What do you think will happen soon?

We have the prime suspect. The Pykes themselves. We are told that they are feared by the locals and we have seen what they're capable of with that armored train.

 

I'm talking about the people actually committing the massacre, not those who paid the assassins. The mere fact of the Pykes being responsible would be a weak twist because they already are the main enemy -so it would add nothing to the current character dynamics- unless they were responsible by sending Fennec.

 

You do realize how Boba treated Black Krrsantan? The Wookie tried to kill him, yet he lets him go. No hard feelings because the assassination attempt was just a job. The same thing with the Night Wind Assassin. Boba isn't seeking vengeance on the actual assassin. He wants vengeance on the person who sent the assassin. That's how he operates. It doesn't matter to him if Fennec killed the Tuskens because being hired by the Pykes was just a job. He understands that. She was paid for it.

The Kintan Striders, on the other hand, Boba has every reason to believe they did it on their own initiative given how they operate in their off days. Thus, any twist involving the Pykes and the Tuskens leads to the same end: Boba will blame the Pykes for killing the Tuskens because only they had the resources and the motive to order the genocide.

 

@Shadao
Usually, when you have a twist in which the guilty of a crime is found, the person who turns out to be guilty is one of those you'd least expect. You won't see very often that the guilty is already the enemy just because even though the protagonist already hated them, after the twist he will hate them even more. That's not how stories are usually told... The guilty is usually someone who received a fair amount of screen time and whom the audience would not immediately suspect.
Only Fennec being guilty would provide the right dramatic impact. She's a mercenary, so she might have been sent by the Pykes, possibly, but that's of secondary importance.

 

And sometimes, it's just not there. I've seen this dance before, and it ended the same way as always. An illusion conjured up by a desire to see a story potential that will not pay off.

The problem with the Fennec-Tusken Massacre theory is that it assumes that Boba Fett would have turn on Fennec for emotional reasons despite the fact that Fennec has no motive to kill Tuskens beyond a pay day. And keep in mind, Fennec has no reason to believe the tribe would have any importance before meeting Boba. The Pykes, on the other hand, do. They knew Boba even if they didn't know it's Boba. They knew it that man who led the Tuskens to humiliate them. And it was that man whom they double-crossed regarding payment. What the Pykes knew vs what Fennec knew matters to how Boba Fett reacts. Boba isn't interested in killing henchmen. He's interested in killing the ringleader.

Also, Boba also gave Fennec a chance to leave since her debt is paid. Fennec could just leave from the planet and never return if she was responsible for the massacre and would likely piece together the two to two together. Why risk staying with Boba Fett if she had just seen what he could do?

Honestly, people are just mistaking Fennec's comments about the Tuskens for something it's not. Speed Bikers just sounds too small to wipe a Tusken tribe. But an army of Pykes? That's a different story.

 

Or the bikers swooped in after Fennec did her work.

 

There is no doubt that the Nikto are not the main responsible. This is the one thing we can be sure about. All the rest is fairly open to speculation, but I'm yet to find an alternative that works equally well from a narrative point of view.

 

My question is if Fennec killed the Tuskens why would she tell Boba that she doubts the Nikto took them out? In other words if she's the guilty party and she could've blamed the Nikto for the massacre why would she shift blame away from them?

 

@The Regular Mustache
This is a good point, and I thought about that. Remember that the script is not really great. I think that line was the best way for the writers to get the message through that the massacre is still an unresolved case. Ideally, another person other than Fennec (or Boba, of course) should have said it, but there's only the two of them in most scenes.

 

Possibly but as much as I like the theory that Fennec killed the Tuskens I wouldn't be surprised if that line is supposed to foreshadow that it was the Pykes or Crimson Dawn that killed them and that Fennec isn't involved at all.

This might be a situation where the fan theory is better than what we end up with.

 

Guilty conscience... ?

 

This is my fear. Essentially that @A Chorus of Disapproval is a better writer than Jon Favreau.

 

Honestly, the thread that unravels the whole theory is really how Boba Fett assigns blame, which is consistent through the show. He never blames the assassins, only their bosses. He spares the Night Wind Assassin just to deliver him to the Mayor as a means of intimidation, that he knows what the Mayor has been up to (the Mayor covers his tracks by killing the assassin then subtly assigning blame on the Hutts). He spares Krrsantan and lets him go despite the Wookie trying to kill him, since he was clearly sent by the Hutts on a payroll. When discussing about his decision to leave the life of a Bounty Hunter, he blames Jabba for his near-death experience, not Luke or Han.

Because Boba never blames underlings or mooks for atrocities, just their leaders. It's why he reserves a special death for the Kintan Strider leader and later, Bib Fortuna. Fennec being the one to kill the Tuskens doesn't change anything if she was hired by the Pykes. The Pykes were the mastermind and at best, Boba would be more contemptuous of Fennec but wouldn't kill her or make enemies since he knows the likely situation at hand (Fennec was paid like any Bounty Hunter and more importantly, she would have no reason to believe that Boba had connections with the Tuskens) and that it would be stupid to deprive himself of one of the best assassins. It would only be a problem for Boba if she was still working for the Pykes (which again makes no sense since she was a known freelancer and had to defend herself alone).

The rabbit hole of justifying Fennec as the killer takes several leaps of assumptions, like Fennec being able to turn the Tusken camp into something that the Kintan Striders would do, the Kintan Striders swooping in the aftermath to make themselves look like the culprit (which makes no sense that it would incriminate themselves for a crime they didn't do, especially if the Pykes want to eliminate them), and the mere fact that the Pykes would actually spend money hiring an expensive Master Assassin (given that she's more competent than the expensive Night Wind assassins and has a bounty on her head) when they could simply have the Kintan Striders and Tuskens kill each other... or just do it themselves then blame the Kintan Striders for a cheaper price.

 

@Shadao
We are not saying that the bikers marked the territory themselves, but that the assassins did it in order for the bikers to be blamed

 

I beg to differ. And this is why I have to be in the opposition of this Fennec theory.

 

Why are you asking me to answer for what other posters say? Are you taking this as a sort of, I dunno, debate challenge or something ?

 

All this debate about Fennec killing the Tuskens when it's actually Cad Bane...

 

NO! IT WAS BOSSK!!!