The Mandalorian’s Children Of The Watch Explained
The Mandalorians are extremely devoted to their culture, and the people of Mandalore have a very rich, intense history. However, there came a time when a group of Mandalorians wanted to progress and turn to pacifism. In contrast, the others wanted to reestablish traditional Mandalorian values, leading to division. So, in all that, who were the Children of the Watch?
The Children of the Watch are an off-shoot tribe/group of Mandalorians who inherited the beliefs carried by the Death Watch after the Mandalorian Civil War. They wanted to reintroduce the traditional Way of the Mandalore, with war and battle in the middle of Mandalorian culture.
New Mandalorians, opposingly, believed that those values and beliefs are what led to so many unnecessary wars and the eventual downfall of Mandalore. Therefore, they turned to a more pacifistic way of living. After the Death Watch lost, they were exiled. So, where does Din Djarin fit in here? How did the Children of the Watch come to be? Here’s all you need to know.
Who Were The Children Of The Watch?
To give you the best perception of who or what the Children of the Watch is, let me take you through the first moments that we’ve heard about them in The Mandalorian TV series.
In Season 2, Episode 3 of the show, Din Djarin meets three Mandalorian warriors – Bo-Katan Kryze (the group leader), Axe Woves, and Koska Reeves. We know through Mando that Mandalorian warriors never take their helmets off in front of other living beings – they always keep their faces covered.
Well, the three warriors took off their helmets almost immediately, which shocked Din Djarin deeply. He told them “they aren’t Mandalorians” because real Mandalorians would never take off their helmets in front of others.
They look at him like he’s some kind of a crazy fanatic because, as it turns out, Din Djarin was raised by the Children of the Watch – an extremist group of the Mandalorians, trying to re-establish the traditional ways. Their beliefs lie in the Way of the Mandalore.
Traditional, old Mandalorians were known as conquerors. They were highly trained warriors, expanding their territory to extensive lengths, and having war, combat, and conquest at the very center of their culture and upbringing.
When the Mandalorian people started to divide between those who wanted pacifism and a modern way of thinking (New Mandalorians) and those who wanted to turn back to traditions and customs of old (Death Watch), a Civil War broke, where the traditionalists lost and were banished from Mandalore to the moon of Concordia. I’ll expand on that later.
Now, Din Djarin was a kid living on a quiet planet called Aq Vetina when members of the Death Watch and B2 Super Battle Droids attacked his village, slaughtering everybody before them. Din was then rescued by one of the Mandalorian extremists and eventually raised under the strict traditional Mandalorian culture.
He became a member of the Tribe who lived on Nevarra that followed the Way of the Mandalore. That included the helmet thing, as well as rigorous training and many other almost religious-like stances when it comes to Mandalorian culture.
So, when Din Djarin meets Bo-Katan and her team, he’s completely taken aback when they tell him about Mandalore, the Civil War, and the fact that he was raised by the Children of the Watch – an off-shoot of an extremist, traditional group of Mandalorians.
Din never met Mandalorians outside of that culture. When he sits down to talk to Bo-Katan, he explains all the ridiculous things his Tribe told him. Like, convincing him that the planet, Mandalore, is cursed so that anyone who steps foot on it would die.
Bo-Katan explains how blatantly false that is – she was there all the way through the Clone Wars and the Fall of the Empire, fighting for the freedom and liberation of the planet. Today, it’s such a devastating place that it’s not a nice place to live in, but it’s definitely not cursed.
Djarin just never had the chance to meet anybody outside of his cult-like group because Mandalorians haven’t been united in years, and there are only a fraction of Mandalorians left. They are scattered across the galaxy in smaller groups, tribes, or clans, each following its own rules. The Mandalorian core values still exist but differ from clan to clan.
How Did The Children Of The Watch Form?
After the New Mandalorians took the reigns on Mandalore, they wanted to change things. They found the old ways of war and conquest to be the main reason why Mandalore perished. All the unnecessary warfare ought to be replaced with a pacifistic approach and turn into Mandalorian culture. However, that led to a big Civil War.
As I mentioned, traditionalists, known as the Death Watch, opposed the abandonment of the old ways. However, when they were defeated, the New Mandalorians banished them from Mandalore, and the Death Watch settled on the moon of Concordia and continued following the Way of the Mandalore from there.
Over the years, they too have separated into smaller clans and groups, living on different planets, which is reasonable, considering their “war and conquest” philosophy.
The Children of the Watch formed as one of the off-shoots of the Death Watch, which continued to follow the Way of the Mandalore and the old, traditional, war-oriented culture. That included the rigorous rules, like never taking off the helmet, etc.
Bo-Katan opened Din Djarin’s eyes and made him realize that his Mandalorian culture is actually viewed as extreme, and not all Mandalorians adhere to it.
