So I stopped by the JC Forums today - I only do at most weekly nowadays (all the threads I'm interested in have turned into Mandalorians suck/rule wars and I hate that, so I just stay out the of Lit forum in order not to get pissed off *rolleyes*) - and I saw a big long thread about the short story 'Odds', the mini-sequel to Republic Commando: Triple Zero. I am dying to read that story, but I don't have Insider yet. And probably won't for at least a couple more weeks. And while I don't care too much about spoilers, the thread is likely just to be another war and I don't want that to be the way I find out key plot elements. So no, Amy, you must not look in. Ever. *ties hands together* So tempting, but no. Forget that forum even exists, k? There, now it's all better.

Anyways, the real reason I'm writing this is because I noticed some cool continuity things with Mandalorians. So in Kotor, there's this one part on Dantooine where this guy tells you that Mandalorians killed his daughter and asks you to kill them for him. Now if you have Canderous (a Mando merc) in your party at the time, he says something like, "you should have protected her; and you call yourself her father" when he finds out about the dead girl. And you know what? That makes SO much sense when you take into consideration all the Mando culture stuff that's being told via Triple Zero and other sources lately about how Mandalorians view family.

I was even looking through the Mando'a word list the other day and I came across the word ver'gebuir, which means "bodyguard". But if you look at the word literally, it seems to be from 3 words: the verb verborir which means "to hire, buy, or contract", the word ge which means "almost", and the word buir which means "father" (or "mother"). So the word for bodyguard is literally translated as "hired almost-father". That says a LOT about the role of parents in Mando society. The person you hire to protect you is like your father, almost your father... clearly, it's a key thing for Mando parents to protect their children personally. All Mandalorians should know how to fight and protect their families; they don't expect certain elements of society to, like we do with police officers and soldiers.

That's why Canderous wasn't very sympathetic. The man whose daughter was killed wasn't a soldier or trained in combat. He was just a normal guy. Yet to a Mando, if you're capable of fighting physically, you must learn how to and be equipped to defend your family. Combine that with the way Mandos teach their children combat at a very young age (normally 8 years old) and how the most important thing Jango wanted Boba to be was self-sufficient (from the Boba Fett books). The Mandalorians obviously take parenting very seriously, and it's a personal family thing to defend your children until they can defend themselves. To do any less shows you're not cut out to be a parent. "And you call yourself her father," Canderous accused.

Anyways, I just thought it was neat how those completely separate aspects of the Star Wars EU mesh so incredibly well. I can't wait till I can replay Kotor II and see how the Mandalorians in that game act. (In fact, it was those Mandos that made me first start liking them! They were the beginning because they were just so incredibly cool. And I love Kelborn. )