Things I'm Noticing From The Old Republic, or, Filoni's Up To Something. Spoilers below.
You know what did it? What set me down a rabbit hole? The name of a day.
Benduday would have been a great little in-joke for the Rebels watchers among viewers, but Taungsday immediately caught my ear. Taung. The Shadow Warriors - Dha Werda Verda. The precursors to the Mandalorians as a culture. Yeah, okay, relevant but minor.
But obviously, the Mythosaur. That's big, and not just literally. Supposed to be extinct. Supposed to be a myth.
In the previous ep, Bo-Katan commented (more than once, IIRC) on the first Manda'lor, Mandalore the Great. In prior seasons, the Armourer had spoken of Mandalore the Great, even referencing their historical conflict with the Jedi. That's a little... Inaccurate - Mandalore the First was the first Taung to lead the people that came to be known as Mandalorians, but they were the Manda'lor involved in the Mandalorian Crusades - a 3000 year sporadic 'crusade' of Mandalorian glory, before being ended by a Jedi-Turned-Sith, Ulic Qel-Droma, a decisive battle that saw the last of the Taung take the helmet and become the last Taung Manda'lor. There's a bit of 'oral traditions losing rigorous details and records as the people scatter and separate' situation here, but it still checks out.
Bo-Katan commenting on how (despite them being Death Watch descendants) the Covert of the Children of the Watch 'still follow the old Ways' - coming from a woman that was alive and 'thriving' when Mandalore was at its most recent prime (as a, y'know, a society on a planet), nevermind that she had a direct hand in why it fell in the first place.
All of these, I would have passed over as fun references, even though Taungsday jumped out at me.
But the fucking mountain pinnacle on Coruscant. The only piece of the actual planet (generally) visible in the City.
Coruscant, formerly the planet Notron, whose native inhabitants were (and some might argue still are) the Zhell - suspected precursors of Humans - and...
The Taung.
Even the whole schtick of 'not removing one's helmet to remain Mandalorian' came from the original manner in which the title of Manda'lor was passed from leader to leader - by passing down, finding, or taking by force, the Helmet of Manda'lor. Which was made of... Mythosaur sternum. And it became important that outsiders not take the helmet when a different Jedi-Turned-Sith did exactly that, and upended their society by removing their leader. This is obviously going to change since the introduction of Tarre Vizla and the Darksaber, but it all still works, generally.
They're tip-toeing SO CLOSE to the point of no return, and my excitement grows by the episode. There is truly only so much that can be referenced or said of Mandalorian history pre-fall of the Republic in this context before the Jedi and Sith Civil Wars come up, as they happened concurrently to the Mandalorian Wars (the wars following the Mandalorian Crusades), and are the most historically impactful events in Mandalorian history.
And then they'll have to acknowledge it.
Someone will say the word 'Revan' in current-canon Star Wars, and I will leap through the ceiling in sheer excitement.
Filoni's up to something, and I'm so fucking keen.
