And Karen Traviss. Hoo boy. If you thought I was mad over what they did with Ahsoka, get ready for a massive shit-bomb that I'm about to drop on Karen Traviss and her Mandalorians.
At first, Traviss inventing a language for the Mandalorians and expanding upon their culture was fine with me. Finally, we Star Wars fans now have an answer to those Trekkies barking at us in Klingon. But it's her views on the Mandalorians and the Jedi which really set off my rage-meter.
Traviss' views on the Jedi and the Mandalorians were, to be frank, complete and utter bullshit. She sees the Mandalorians as culturally, militarily, and morally superior to the Jedi Order, despite the fact that the history of Star Wars portrays the exact opposite. Traviss blames all the Republic's problems in the Clone Wars on the Jedi, and goes even further. The Sith and other Dark-Side Force-users are tearing up the galaxy? Sith were former Jedi, which means the Jedi were to blame. The Clone Army in the Clone Wars was a slave army used by the Republic, forced to fight and shot if they refused? The Jedi accepted the use of clones and agreed to lead them, they're to blame. The Clones are dying on the field? The Jedi suck at battle tactics since they're glorified cops with lightsticks who have no business leading battles and fighting wars. All the while, Traviss portrays the Mandalorians as the manly-men who were far superior to those Jedi pussies. The Mandos were the best warriors in the galaxy, they make Jedi and Sith look like pussies, they're the reason the Clone Army are badasses, and they live like the Celtic Tribes which Traviss saw as the moral superiors to the Roman Empire. Which of course, makes me keel over with uncontrollable laughter.
The Sith, and other Dark-Side villains in the series, weren't all former Jedi. In fact, aside from Dooku and Vader, the other three Sith mentioned in the films, Darth Maul, Darth Sidious, and Darth Plagueis, were never Jedi. Some of the most powerful Sith were never Jedi to begin with. Darth Nox, Darth Malgus, Emperor Vitiate, Marka Ragnos, Naga Sadow, Tulak Hord, the list goes on. In fact, before the Jedi came along to serve the Republic, we had the Rakatan Empire, who were powerful Force-users far worse than the Sith, and they sure as hell were never Jedi to begin with. Sure, Darth Nihilus, the guy who can destroy a planet, may have been a Jedi in the past, but Naga Sadow can blow up a star and Emperor Vitiate almost succeeded in destroying a galaxy, and they were never Jedi. So to blame the Jedi for all Dark-Side shenanigans would be false.
Karen Traviss and her fans accuse the Jedi of being slave-owners due to them using the Clone Army, but that shows massive ignorance of the facts. The Clone Army wasn't enslaved to the Jedi. They were enslaved to the Republic. They either grew up to be loyal to the Republic, or they don't grow up at all. To blame the Jedi for enslaving the clones is wrong when their slave-master was the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic and the Galactic Senate. The Jedi only led them into battle due to their traditional role as military figureheads during wartime, as their history has shown. We clearly see who the real slave masters of the Clone Army were when in Episode 3, the clones get the order to frag their Jedi commanders from an authority far higher than theirs, that of Chancellor Palpatine, and the clones obeyed. In fact, if anything, the Jedi should be commended for leading the Clone Army into battle, as many of them shared in the hardships of their men and even fought alongside them, acting as living meatshields while also providing tactical guidance and discipline. If the Jedi didn't accept the use of clones, the Republic would just assign other officers like Wulf Yularen or Wilhuff Tarkin to lead them, and given how many former Republic officers who later became Imperials were more than happy to commit war crimes and throw men into the grinder, the clones would have walked away with more PTSD over increased amounts of deaths and the horror of having committed war crimes fresh in their young, ten-year-old minds. If the Jedi were the slave owners of the Clone Army, they could have just issued Order 65 and ordered the Clones to arrest the Chancellor. Instead, the Chancellor issued Order 66 and ordered the Clones to kill the Jedi, which the Clones obeyed with deadly precision.
In fact, if anything, one can properly lay the blame on Mandalore Jango Fett and his Cul'vay'dar Mandalorians for the Clone Army growing up as slaves. Him and Count Dooku. The Clone Army was made by them in the first place, with the army being explicitly a slave army made for fighting. Sidious wanted an army that can kill Jedi to serve alongside the Jedi and kill them when the time comes to eradicate the Jedi. Dooku put a bounty on a Dark Jedi girl who was formerly his apprentice, Komari Vosa-and Jango killed her, marking him as the candidate for the Clone Army.
Dooku then offered Jango more money if he agreed to be cloned, and Dooku made no secret as to what the clones would be doing-in his words, they would be “programmed for absolute loyalty,” which of course, meant that these clones would be forced to put free will at the backseat in exchange for absolute obedience. Dooku only had to goad Jango’s ego and greed in order to get him to cooperate. “A chance at immortality,” the Count said, giving Jango “the chance to pass on your ways to an army crafted in your image. A great deal of money.” That was enough to get the great Mandalore Jango Fett to agree to create an army of slaves crafted in his image, out of his own genes. His only condition was to get the first clone unmodified so he can raise the clone as his son, whereas he couldn’t care less what happened to the rest of the clones made from his genetics. He had other Mandalorian mercs known as the Cul'vay'dar help train the clones. Jango and Dooku checked off on everything the Kaminoan cloners did with the men crafted from his genetics. Outside of the Kaminoans’ cold, brutal search for perfection, Dooku and Jango were to blame for the clones being slaves. How ironic-the Mandalorian fans who cry about the Jedi being responsible for a slave army ignore the fact that Mandalore himself had that particular slave army created out of his own genes, just because some nobleman poked his ego and promised a great deal of money. The Mandalorian fans project Jango’s utter apathy towards the clones onto the Jedi, which is completely hypocritical. And of course, other Mandalorians were just as responsible as well, since they helped Jango train the Clone Army and even imprint Mandalorian culture on these slave soldiers. Mandalore himself was responsible for the clones-and it was for mere money and ego did he agree to it.
But of course, Karen Traviss and her fans don't see that, they continue to posit that the Jedi could have refused command of the clones and gotten the Republic to not use clones, even though they had no power to do that, and the Senate voted to approve the use of clones for the Grand Army of the Republic, giving Palpatine emergency powers to repel the Separatists. And of course, Traviss herself accused the Jedi fans of being Nazis, which goes to show the level of her professional conduct.
Ironically enough, though, there was ONE time when the Jedi DID act like despots-the New Sith Wars. After losing most of the galaxy to the New Sith Empire, the Jedi consolidated their hold over Republic worlds and replaced democracy with theocracy, all the while the Sith tore each other apart. Every Supreme Chancellor from then on in was a Jedi, elections were suspended, and Jedi outside Republic jurisdiction even set up their own feudal states and assumed the title of Jedi Lords. This went on for a thousand years until the New Sith Wars ended and the Jedi voluntarily surrendered power to a non-Jedi civilian government. And guess what? During that 1000-year war, THE MANDALORIANS WERE ON THEIR SIDE! After some Jedi Master bribed the Mandalorians to side with the Republic against the Sith, the Mandalorians waged war on the Sith on behalf of the Jedi and the Republic. Not because of morality, or sympathy to the Republic, or because they saw the Jedi as correct, but because the Jedi bribed them! How's about that for contradictions? The Mandalorian fans who accuse the Jedi of being slave-owning Nazis forgot about the fact that the one era when the Jedi did genuinely act like fascist pricks, the Mandalorians were in bed with them.
As for Jedi being bad tacticians, outside of Traviss' books, the lore makes it clear that the Jedi were great at being military leaders. In other pieces of Star Wars lore like games such as the original Battlefront II and Galactic Battlegrounds, Jedi serving as war advisors were common, and Jedi generals were prized. In Galactic Battlegrounds, Qui-Gon Jinn taught Chewbacca's family how to fight-how to set up armies, build up military bases, provide resources for the troops, and that led to Chewie's family being able to kick out a Trade Federation force from Alaris Prime. Galactic Battlegrounds' expansion, Clone Campaigns, two Jedi generals served on the two sides of the Clone Wars, Sev'rance Tann for the Confederacy, and Echuu Shen-Jon for the Republic. Sev'rance was a Dark Jedi general who led the Confederacy to several stunning victories at the beginning of the Clone Wars, from decimating Republic forces in Tatooine and Eredenn Prime, to sacking Alaris Prime and taking the core world of Sarapin, which provided Coruscant with 80% of its power. Tann's tactics led the Confederacy's droid armies to multiple victories against Clone and Jedi forces, and it culminated with her BLACKING OUT CORUSCANT in the first month of the war. And how did the Republic stop such an accomplished Jedi General? By sending in another. Echuu Shen-Jon, a Jedi Master and former apprentice to Mace Windu, hunted down Sev'rance as she was also responsible for killing his Padawan in the First Battle of Geonosis. Echuu and his clone forces crushed Sev'rance Tann's army and Echuu himself was able to kill Sev'rance on the world of Krant.
And of course, the classic Battlefront II gave us this line about Jedi generals:
"It's been said that the 501st got the best of the war. We also got the worst. On Felucia, the Seps dug their metal heels into the muck of that alien hellhole and dared the Republic to come in after them. So we did, only to be met with month after month of flesh-eating diseases, shrieking nocturnal predators, and other sights that haunt me to this day. Cut off and for all we knew abandoned by our superiors, our only hope was Aayla Secura, our Jedi commander. Without her iron will, none of us would have come out of that mess with our sanity, or our lives. When her death came, I hope it was quick. She earned that much. When the 501st was finally rotated out of Felucia, Aayla Secura made a point of seeing us off personally, calling us the bravest soldiers she had ever seen. It's a good thing we were wearing helmets, because none of us could bear to look her in the eye."
-Anonymous 501st Legion soldier, Star Wars Battlefront II (2005) on the topic of Felucia and the Jedi General, Aayla Secura
When people who were preparing to kill Jedi actually complement a Jedi, it's because she led them through hell and back and got them out of there in one piece.
We also have this quote from the comics, which show the Jedi generals to be superior fighters-in the eyes of their own Clone Commanders:
"They're good. No words needed. Perfect sync. Like clones in a way. Better. They're the best. That's why they command." -Clone Commander Bly, Star Wars Republic, issue 68
So basically, when the Jedi generals' own clone commanders start talking about how the Jedi generals were the best of the best, well, that kind of goes to show that they were. In fact, the one time outside of the Traviss SW that a Jedi General started acting like a General Ripper was with Jedi Master Pong Krell, who was anything but a Jedi, but rather, a Sith sympathizer who wanted to tear down the Republic because he saw a vision of the Jedi falling:
“A Jedi? Hehehe…. I’m no longer naïve enough to be a Jedi. A new power is rising, I’ve foreseen it! The Jedi are going to lose this war, and the Republic will be ripped apart from the inside! In its place is going to rise a new order, and I will rule as part of it!”
-Pong Krell, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Season 04, Episode 10: Carnage of Krell
And as for the Mandalorians being superior fighters and tacticians when compared to the Jedi, history proves otherwise. Out of every major war the Mandalorians fight, the only ones they've won are ones where they fought alongside the Jedi. In every other conflict, the Mandalorians do good against local riffraff, but against the full might of the Jedi, they kept losing.
-War with the Krath: The Mandalorians under Mandalore the Indomitable attack the Krath cult in the Empress Teta System, which was under the protection of the Dark Jedi, Ulic Qel-Droma, and win a few minor victories against the Krath who used outdated weapons and technology. Even though his forces were technologically superior and he could have just conventionally won the war, Mandalore feels the need to prove his manhood by challenging Ulic to a duel, putting up his army as the stakes, in return for getting all of Krath space if he won. Needless to say, he gets his butt kicked and his army winds up being Ulic's army, and he only lives because Ulic wanted him as a servant.
-Exar Kun War: The Mandalorians fight under Ulic Qel-Droma and Exar Kun and were able to win battles against the Republic forces. But they lost every battle they had with the Jedi, and their warpath ended on Dxun, where Mandalore the Indomitable was shot down and he was mauled to death by animals on the jungle moon.
-Mandalorian Wars: The one war where the Mandalorians were at their height, where they nearly conquered the galaxy. After their defeat in the Exar Kun War, the Mandalorians, under Mandalore the Ultimate, raided systems outside the Republic, conquering worlds and building up for a big push against Republic space. When they invaded the Republic, they were winning against local planetary defense forces and Republic troops, even though some local resistance like the Cathars gave them trouble, so they genocided the Cathar on their homeworld. Despite the Mandalorians’ martial prowess, they still heavily relied on scorched-earth tactics like nuking entire worlds to win battles. Since the Jedi suffered heavy casualties during the previous war, they were not eager to jump into battle once again, giving the Mandos free reign as they tore through Republic defenses. Then the Jedi renegades under Revan showed up to aid the Republic, after which the Mandalorians lost one battle after another due to the Jedi’s tactics and strategies, until finally, over Malachor V, they were decimated by the Jedi forces which used a superweapon that destroyed most of the Mandalorian fleet. The Mandalorians became so scattered and broken that the Jedi Exile, Meetra Surik, had to help the next Mandalore, Mandalore the Preserver, in rebuilding the clans. In gratitude, Mandalore the Preserver helped Meetra fight against the Sith forces who were hunting her down, and he promised the Jedi that the Mandalorians will stand against the True Sith when the latter arrives.
-Great Galactic Wars: Breaking their promise to the Jedi who helped them rebuild, the Mandalorians joined the True Sith Empire as paid mercenaries. However, the Mandalorians only scored one major victory against the Jedi, whereas most of the fighting against the Republic was carried by the True Sith Empire. During the first Great War, the Mandalorians and the Sith had to resort to a surprise attack on Coruscant to cripple the Republic after proposing peace talks due to the fact that the Jedi and the Republic were slowly pushing them out of the Mid-Rim. Jedi heroes such as Master Corin Tok and Master Kellian Jarro slaughtered many Mandalorians during the fighting, with the former gaining the title of “Verda’Jedi” and the latter killing many Mandalorians with a single Force Push. During the second Great War, despite the fact that the True Sith paid the Mandalorians to help win the war against the Jedi and the Republic, near the war’s end, the Sith Empire was nearing collapse due to the Republic pushing them off the core worlds in the second Great War and almost killing their Emperor. The Mandalorians’ support for the Sith cause mattered little in the long run, as the Mandalorians were defeated on the field by the Jedi and the Galactic Republic’s spec-ops forces time and again. By the time Zakuul invaded both the Sith Empire and the Republic, the Mandalorians were no longer a force to be reckoned with.
-New Sith Wars: The one time the Mandalorians were allied to the Jedi and the Republic, and quite possibly, the only major war they’ve won prior to the Clone Wars. The Jedi made an alliance with the Mandalorians, and together, they brought a 1000-year-war to an end when they defeated the New Sith Empire and the Brotherhood of Darkness.
-Battle of Galidraan: The Mandalorians under Mandalore Jango Fett were slaughtering political dissidents on Galidraan, which attracted the attention of the Jedi. The Jedi showed up, under Master Dooku, and they annihilated the Mandalorian forces.
-Clone Wars: After the fragmentation of the Death Watch forces between Bo-Katan and Darth Maul, the Mandalorian Protectors under a rogue ARC trooper named Spar took over Mandalore and led the Mandalorians against the Republic. The Republic won the Clone Wars after disposing of the Jedi Order due to the latter’s attempted treason against Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, and afterwards, they locked down and enslaved the Mandalorian clans, forcing the clans to go into hiding and eventually support the Rebel Alliance under Mandalore Fenn Shysa.
Compare that to the Jedi’s track record of wars, where they won victory after victory. The Jedi-led Republic forces won the Great Hyperspace War against the Sith Empire. They defeated the combined might of the Krath and Mandalorian clans during the war with Exar Kun. Jedi crusaders led by Revan defeated the Mandalorians in the Mandalorian Wars. The Jedi defeated the Sith during the Jedi Civil War and were slowly winning the first Great Galactic War against the True Sith Empire had it not been for a surprise attack by the Empire that sacked Coruscant and crippled the Republic. The Jedi won the second Great War where they drove off the Empire's offensive into the Core Worlds and struck down the Sith Emperor, Darth Vitiate. Despite the fact that they lost most of the galaxy to the New Sith Empire during the New Sith Wars, they regrouped, rebuilt, and eventually retook most of the galaxy from the Sith. And when the Jedi were rebuilt under Luke Skywalker after the defeat of the Galactic Empire on Endor, they were able to win battles against armies of Dark Jedi, Sith cultists, Imperial remnants, and even the Yuuzhan Vong invasion. In the Legacy Era, the Galactic Empire was split in two between the Jedi and the Sith, and with help from Alliance remnants, the Jedi-controlled half of the Empire won the war.
So if anything, the Jedi seem to be much better at this "war" business than the Mandalorians ever were. They wipe the floor with the Mandalorians every time they fight each other, and the only great wars the Mandalorians win are those they fight alongside the Jedi Order. But you wouldn't hear of such talk from Karen Traviss and her fans, who continue to talk about how much the Jedi suck in tactics, how they suck at hand-to-hand combat, among other things. All the while ignoring things like the Jedi Order's long catalogue of military victories, or how Jedi train with melee combat from the start, or how the Jedi Exile Meetra Surik was able to defeat several Echani martial arts experts in Jedi Master Atris' fortress using martial arts, and how she defeated Mandalorians in Dxun in fair combat with fist and foot or simple dueling blades. By all accounts, Surik was taught how to fight in the Jedi Academy, by guys like Master Kavar. And yet she's able to hand the Echani and the Mandalorians their asses on a plate when it came to Bruce Lee-style martial arts fights.
Karen Traviss' Mando fetish came to a head during the Darth Caedus storyline, in Legacy of the Force: Revelation, where she makes Jaina Solo train with Boba Fett on how to defeat her evil Sith brother, Darth Caedus, formerly Jacen Solo. Apparently, Karen Traviss has a stunning lack of knowledge given the history of the Jedi Order after Order 66, since apparently, Boba Fett is now considered the one man who killed the most Jedi after Order 66. This despite the fact that in the post-Order 66 world, it was Darth Vader who was the king of the Jedi Hunters. Him, the Inquisitors, the Imperial Shadow Guard, and the other Dark Jedi goons of Palpatine were the ones running around killing Jedi remnants left and right. Vader even besieged the Jedi Temple himself and killed Jedi by the truckloads. Fett killed some Jedi here and there, but all the big ones, like Kazdan Paratus, Shaak Ti, An'ya Kuro, Kento Marek, Roan Shryne, Qu Rahn, Cin Drallig, Serra Keto, and OBI-WAN KENOBI, were all killed by Darth Vader or by his goons. Fett is not even at the top of the Jedi Killer totem pole. So why Jaina considered Fett to be the biggest Jedi killer out there when her grandfather has bigger Jedi-killing credentials is beyond me.
Plus, Jaina was preparing to face a Sith, not a Jedi. To have a seasoned Jedi like Jaina Solo, descended from Anakin Skywalker, asking a Mandalorian for training to fight a Sith is downright insulting to me as a Sith fan.
See, the Sith are MY speciality in the Star Wars universe. The Sith and the Empire were my favorite factions. And nothing that a Mandalorian can give you can prepare you against facing a Sith Lord in combat. Beskar alloy? A Sith Lord can crush your armor with the Force and crush your organs with it, choke you to death, or cook you inside your armor with Sith lightning. Mental fortitude? Sith don't bother with mind-rape most of the time, they'll just kill you themselves if you don't bend over and do as they say. Blasters, grenades, flamethrowers, missiles? All can be redirected by or pushed back by the Force, as we saw Darth Vader absorbing blaster bolts. Grenades and missiles can be redirected with telekinesis, and Force bubbles can protect one from flamethrowers. The Mandalorians boast about their melee combat prowess? The Dark Side pumping through one's body can empower a being physically to the point where they can flatten a Mando's face in a fistfight. Irregular tactics and strategies? Well that would be the case, if it wasn't for the fact that Mando tactics and strategies pale in comparison to Jedi/Sith tactics and strategies, as Canderous Ordo reminded us in KOTOR:
“Once the Jedi Revan had taken charge, things began to turn against us. The Republic fleets began to use more than just basic tactics. Feints, counterattacks, mass deceptions, Revan was a genius in the field. Revan abandoned worlds of their defenders so that others would be too fortified to strike, and he was willing to make sacrifices in order to advance goals. And in the end, Revan proved too much for us. It was by the actions of one person, the Jedi Revan, that the Republic prevailed. Revan’s strategies and tactics defeated the best of us. Even Mandalore himself was taken aback by the ferocity, the tenacity, and the subtlety of Revan’s plans. Revan fought us to a standstill and then began pushing us back. We really didn’t have a chance. Mandalore himself was killed at the hands of the Jedi Revan. The best of us could not defeat him!”
-Canderous Ordo, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 1, on the topic of the Jedi Revan
“We thought we would triumph easily over such ‘noble’ and ‘compassionate’ leaders. Those were weaknesses we easily exploited in the past. You turned a demoralized, defeated mess, into a coordinated army. You brought tactics, backbone, and above all else, victory to them.”
-Canderous Ordo, AKA Mandalore the Preserver, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2, to the Jedi Exile Meetra Surik, concerning how they changed the Republic war effort.
So no, there is absolutely NOTHING a Mandalorian can do to make you better at fighting the Sith. Fighting the Jedi, yes, a Mando can be well-suited for that, with mental fortitude blocking mind tricks, a jetpack giving you mobility, and beskar alloy protecting you from lightsabers. But all those strengths become weaknesses when fighting against a Sith. He can't mind-trick you? He won't even try. Your jetpack that gives you flight? He'll fry that with Sith lightning and send you sputtering around uncontrollably before the jetpack explodes and takes you with it. Your beskar alloy protects you from his lightsaber? He'll use the Force to crush you inside that armor. Holding him back with a vibroblade? Maybe, against rookie Sith, but against more seasoned Sith, or someone like JACEN SOLO, that would last all of 5 seconds.
All this time, Karen Traviss over-praises what amounts to an amoral mercenary cult. The "True Mandalorians" that she tries to portray as the greatest, most moral fighters out there are at their best day, people who get paid to shoot other people, and at their worst, they're willing to kill innocents for pay or even make and train a clone slave army for cash. And when it comes to fighting, at most, they can give local armies and the average soldier a run for their money, but they're nowhere near the Jedi-killers Traviss portrayed them as. Heck, the Mandalorians in the original canon were even enslaved by the Galactic Empire, which was why they needed the Rebel Alliance to help free them from the Imperials. The Mandalorians are, at most, elite frontline shocktroops, but they're nowhere near the caliber the Jedi are, especially when the Jedi could practically make a sport of how many times they're going to genocide the Mandalorians, and even novice Jedi like Komari Vosa could kill up to 20 Mandalorians with ease.
This is why I would rather prefer the Neo-Crusader Mandalorians. Aside from the fact that they were the Mandos at the height of their power, they didn't try to seize the moral high ground against the Jedi and were even more than honest about the fact that they kill innocent people in war. They're monsters, but at least they're honest about it. They also have a healthy respect for the people who beat them in war, hence why Canderous Ordo spoke with respect when it came to the Jedi who beat his people in battle. He didn't whine about the Jedi killing his kind like how Traviss fans whine about Galidraan all the time-Ordo respected the Jedi and revered Revan, the one Jedi responsible for the most Mandalorian deaths in Mandalorian history. If only the Mandalorian fans can have the same stance as Canderous has when it comes to Jedi defeating Mandalorians in war. I suppose that's my head-canon for Jango Fett and why he worked with Dooku-he respeced the one guy who defeated him on the field. Instead of whining about how evil the Jedi were for winning a fair fight like Galidraan (where there were only a couple dozen Jedi and 300 Mandalorians) Fett respects the man who handed him his ass in a fair battle.
All in all, this is why Dave Filoni and Karen Traviss rub me the wrong way. I like Ahsoka. I like the Mandalorians. But these two take their love of orange Jedi and Spartans in space, and take it too far, to the point where it doesn't make sense anymore.
Sorry for the long post, I had to get this off my chest.
