Hi there. We've briefly crossed paths before, but I see you're the resident Mando, so I have a question. I'm wondering how Mandalorian culture deals with mental illness, depression in particular. Would they write somebody off like 'haha you're weak, later loser' or would they be understanding of a person's struggles with their own mind and lend support to the fight, or something else entirely? Obviously not everyone would react the same, but as a culture on the whole, what are your thoughts?
There’s a short answer and a long answer. The short answer is that centrally to mandalorian cultural foundations, mental illness should be understood and not stigmatized, and the community supportive of the individual suffering. A community focused culture like those of the mandalorians is one of support, assistance, and understanding. The fact is, Mandalorian cultural foundations literally view struggle of all kinds as important to spiritual growth, as well as the physical and mental. The foundations explicitly venerate coming together as a community to support one another. It is, literally, in the Resol’nare.
While mandalorians are not all warriors, it’s no secret that a large percentage of their population work on battlefields or in war zones—enough for that to be a stereotyped profession. A society like this must learn to deal with all of the mental and physical disabilities that stem from such professions. Negative stigma is unsustainable—there is no way mandalorians, as a people, would have survived for so long as they did, and do, if they literally treated mental illness, such as depression, with the attitude of “haha, you’re weak.”
It’s just not realistic. It’s ignorant.
The long answer is that because of ignorance and an obsession with harmful ideas of strength and weakness, and a complete misunderstanding of “warrior culture” on the whole in order to defend and prop up toxic ideas of strength and masculinity, the fandom pushes the idea that mandalorians would be intolerant of mental illness—when what we know about mandalorians blatantly expresses otherwise, if you know where to look.
Struggle versus Stagnation
The mandalorian creation myth, Akaanati'kar'oya, tells us of an eternal struggle between Kad Ha’rangir, the Destroyer, and the sloth-god Arasuum, Stagnation. During the time of the Neo-Crusaders, the creation myth was regarded not as just a story but a telling of factual events.
At the time, devotion to Kad Ha’rangir was expressed through ritual warfare — and it was said that a person is not a mandalorian if they give in to stagnation.
But, fandom often misses, overlooks, or outright ignores a major component of Kad Ha’rangir. They are not a destroyer god, They are a chaos god of change.
Kad Ha’rangir is not a Destroyer to destroy — They are a destroyer to clear out the things that would choke and trap you. Sometimes destruction is necessary for growth. Sometimes you have to cut out the parts of you, or your community, that is holding you down or preventing you from accepting change, from pursuing change, from growing and reaching your full potential.
Sometimes you have to clear the dead and the decay, violently, to allow life to flourish when it could not before.
“They served the god Kad Ha'rangir, whose tests and trials forced change and growth upon the clans he chose to be his people.”
— Vilnau Teupt, The Essential Guide to Warfare
Kad Ha’rangir was never about destruction for destruction’s sake. They were never about conquering. Huge chunks of mandalorian fandom can’t seem to wrap their fucking minds around that fact. They obsess over this misconception of “Proud Warrior Race,” completely misunderstanding Kad Ha’rangir and pushing a stereotype that just doesn’t fit.
And all this? Was explicit in the creation myth itself.
For those who would say they’re “outdated” and that mandalorians wouldn’t know about them … well, that’s not true either. The creation myth, Kad Ha’rangir and the original pantheon, was still known and discussed by Mandalorian academics as late as 24 ABY. So claiming ignorance won’t work.
This creation myth, among other myths and legends, are the very foundations and building blocks upon which the entire culture was born, they are integral to mandalorian cultural identity.
The parts of fandom who see the word “destruction” fixate on the aggressive violence inherent in the word, and that’s just … such a small, narrow view. It’s completely missing the point, usually in order to chest thump.
How is this relevant, you might ask. Isn’t depression (to use your example) idleness and stagnation?
Well, yes, actually, depending on how you might look at it. But that’s the point.
Anyone who understands depression from a place of education and not ignorance understands that depression is a sickness(and, lmao, mandalorians value education, so idk why the toxic parts of fandom are incapable of educating themselves and discarding misconceptions about mental health, but that’s an entirely different discussion). It can be treated, can be managed, can maybe even be cured in some cases, but it is literally a battle fought day in and day out against an invisible enemy.
And these kinds of battles are some of the most difficult to survive. How do you fight, and overcome, and survive, something you cannot see? How do you survive when it is your body that you are fighting?
Dealing with depression, fighting depression, surviving depression, is, in a way, the spiritual struggle against arasuum taken from an external form and brought internally—and there is no way that mandalorians, on the whole, wouldn’t be able to see its relevance or make that connection, ESPECIALLY considering the symptoms of depression.
And this isn’t even touching on other forms of mental illnesses—like PTSD, which is also heavily stigmatized in our society and carries that stigma into mandalorian “fans,” despite so many mandalorians being subject to violence and the potential of developing the disorder.
A disorder which is so often co-morbid with depression.
For something that so many soldiers are at high risks of developing, and mandalorian fandom supposedly being drawn to the mandalorians due to their militaristic culture, it is mind boggling how the fandom treats depression, PTSD, and other mental health disorders / illnesses on the whole.
As I’ve said before: shabla mirsh'kyramude.
Add onto this the fact that mandalorians, in general, heavily practice adoption along the requirements of whether or not someone is mandokarla, or has the right stuff. What is often considered the right stuff?
surviving the impossible (often extreme violence or abuses)
displaying the potential for the incredible, often in a warlike setting
proving one’s self through extreme events
extreme devotion to family and personal code
I would be surprised if literally everyone adopted into the culture was perfectly stable and healthy. In fact, I’ll go out on a limb right now and say that anyone who says that, deserves a smack. In Legends, nearly every single goddamn example of adoption has been of someone who has been severely impacted by extreme circumstances and still survives—but is still clearly damaged by it, and struggles with it in whatever way they can.
And that struggle is venerated. Instead of stigmatized, they’re viewed through a lens of bravery, of courage, of atinla—a stubbornness to be admired and imitated, not a reason to be ridiculed and abandoned.
Ultimately this all falls back into the toxic ideology that surrounds “strength,” which is unsustainable, and the stigma against appearing weak, which is, again, incongruent with actual mandalorian philosophy and cultural foundation.
Accessibility / Accommodations / Impact
Not solely mental health, but still relevant and still applies:
Parja reached up and patted [Fi’s] helmet. She’d painted it with the Mandalorian letters M and S for mir’shupur — brain injury — just like a battlefield medic might do for triage purposes. On Mandalore, the symbol functioned as a blend of a general warning to give the wearer a break, and a medal for combat service.
— Republic Commando: Order 66, pp 39
Now, the Republic Commando series holds a kind of … contentious position in fandom, as I’m sure you’ve probably noticed. However, this is one of the things it does get right, as far as mental illness and disability is concerned. Yes, Fi Skirata suffered a traumatic brain injury in the line of duty, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is still just as much a mental health issue as it is a physical one. Fi experiences disorientation. He forgets things he feels he shouldn’t, struggles with words and speaking, and so on.
The sigil painted on his helmet is a clear, public, visible way to alert everyone around him, explicitly, what to expect so that everyone in the community can accommodate and assist him.
What people don’t understand when reading this scene, is that this is not something done if anyone suspects he would be at risk of being taken advantage of. He is in a predominantly mandalorian community, populated by mostly if not only mandalorians, with the expectation that the community will assist him as a rule, not an exception.
You don’t paint a goddamn sign that says BRAIN INJURY on someone’s helmet in a society that stigmatizes disability or weakness of any kind.
This sets a precedence, whether knowingly or unknowingly: mandalorians, as a community, will assist another mandalorian with a disability. If there was any risk at all, Parja would never have allowed Fi to wander around a busy town alone, much less paint a sigil on his helmet that would make him an obvious target otherwise.
Another thing: it is specifically a sigil written in the mandalorian alphabet, not arubesh, and it’s implied to be understood to mandalorians only, and not aruettise (unless they’re familiar with mandalorian cultural practices, and alphabet).
It is because it is the biggest, clearest, loudest example we have that mandalorians display both badges as well as warnings through art and sigils on their armor. They give signals that this person is suffering x disability as a warning and a request for patience, assistance, and accessibility. That assistance and accessibility is expected of the community, not something done out of kindness or saintliness or good samaritan whatever the hell.
It is the rule, not the exception. It is the rule.
I’m repeating myself, but I’m trying to drill in this point because fandom fails to recognize something so little as so important, and it is important.
It is so small and easy to miss, but it completely decimates any foundation to the argument that mental illness is a weakness and that the sufferer should be abandoned.
Putting aside however briefly the fact that negatively stigmatizing mental illness is harmful and puts real people at risk of real harm and danger, propping up the idea that mandalorians don’t deal with or address disability or illness of any kind in the face of the above is just … ignoring all of the creative potential for telling interesting stories—creating art, sigils, and armor.
Consider: art or sigils indicating:
What is the point of writing a people who are as community focused as mandalorians, who have a huge population who deals with war as an industry, who has a huge population of refugees and forced migration, and then never having the courage to sensitively deal with the repercussions of these terrible things? Never having the thought to even consider what it means to carry a sigil of depression as both an indicator of needing assistance as well as a badge of honor for fighting what could be an invisible battle for years?
What is the actual point of maintaining a status quo of demonizing mental illness when mandalorians, as a society, have firmly flipped the bird at status quo time and time again in order to come together and support all members of their community — even fighting each other to do so?
The toxic parts of mandalorian fandom is lazy. Do not accept that laziness, that inadvertent worship of arasuum, as fact.
To put it crudely, they don’t know shit about shit.
Mandalorians venerate, give respect, give honor, to struggle. All forms of struggle. Even surviving, just surviving, is a struggle.
No real mandalorian would abandon another to arasuum.
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