The Myth and Meaning Behind the Mandalorian Symbol

What even is a Mandalorian, anyway? Is this that sort of fancy monopoly money car that gets driven around by the chauffeur of J. Reginald Smythe, the tophat-and-monocle-wearing oil baron that you’ve never heard of? In my opinion, dear reader, you need to stop worrying about Mandalorians and start worrying about building a robust stock portfolio! Diversify! Buy an NFT! Say things like “fiscal year” and “quarterly earnings”! With naught but a small loan from your parents and a trust fund in a Swiss bank you’ll go to financial galaxies far, far away!

You’re still here.

Fine, I’ll tell you the story of the Mandalorians and their symbol. But only if you PROMISE to build a time machine to invest in Coca-Cola back in 18-aught-whatever.

So what is that little Mandalorian symbol supposed to be?

Is it some sort of intergalactic currency designation? Does the Trade Federation know? Who’s making money off of the trademark? I’ll tell you who: dinosaurs!

Yes, dinosaurs. See, looooooong ago, on planet Mandalore (where all the Mandalorians are from and where I assume their flagship car factory is) there once roamed a great, titanic beast who was more formidable than even J.D. Rockefeller in his prime! The beast was a creature of MYTH! And so the ancient Mandalorians named it the MYTHOSAUR!

But how did they find this mythosaur? Well, like good little space capitalists, they decided to pull their backwater planet up by its own bootstraps and start MINING. For what? Why, Beskar, of course! The black gold of the Star Wars Galaxy! If only J.D. Rockefeller could have gotten his hands on THAT. We’d all be in space by now, sipping old fashioneds and talking about market shares of Pluto or whatever! So when they started digging up said Beskar, they found the mythosaur hiding in the mines. Like a Balrog of Middle Earth!

But did the Mandalorians turn tail and run like those silly communist dwarfs? NO THEY DID NOT. THEY USED GOOD OLD FASHIONED GRIT AND TAMED THE MIGHT MYTHOSAUR TO RIDE IT INTO BATTLE! Yes, indeedy! The greatest of all Mandalorians, Mandalore the Great, actually managed to subdue one of the creatures and use it to do his bidding! And then he set out to devour the very stars! Or hopefully at least make money off of them!

But then, everything got ruined by those pesky Jedi.

The Jedi warred with the ancient Mandalorians and defeated them, leaving their once lush planet a barren wasteland. After that, the Mandalorians rebranded themselves as the NEW Mandalorians. However, they wanted to honor their ancestors and so they adopted the mythosaur skull as their symbol, in remembrance of the mighty Mandalorians of old! Plus, they probably realized they could make a KILLING selling Mandalorian merch to nerds like you and me. And so they did.

(featured image: Disney+)