El is still at the exact same point as she was at the beginning of this season, just with her power back, codependent of Mike, still not her own person even with Brenner’s dead.

Will is still hiding who he is and who he loves from everybody.

Jonathan and Nancy are still not telling each other the truth.

Steve still can’t let go of Nancy that he saw as is one true chance of happiness.

That season was about them losing and Vecna was right he may be hurt but he had already won. he knows exactly what he is and what he wants.

Hi! I thought it worked well, given the context of the episode that we were given. If it had just been a choice between two harmless items, yeah, then it would have been a jerk choice, but I never saw it as “a Jedi can never have Mandalorian things and a Mandalorian can never have Jedi things”, but instead that it was specifically about what we’re told of Grogu in the episode–that his heart isn’t really in the path that he’s trying to walk.  And why that is so important. You absolutely have to have your heart in it if you’re going to be a Jedi, and I really like the way a recent High Republic comic put it:

“The Force can send your mind across the galaxy–to the past, to the future. Connect you with others.  Let you talk to beasts.  Make you the best warrior anyone’s ever seen.  And much more.  It’s the greatest power in the universe. Do you think learn to use it should be easy?” Further, it’s also a connection to the foundation of what it means to be a Jedi and why it’s so important.  Yoda is a character that is all over this episode, not just because Grogu is from the same species or because Grogu was from the same Jedi Temple that Yoda was, but because Yoda was Luke’s first teacher, Yoda was the one who showed Luke truly what the Force was and how Jedi interact with it.

And now that Luke is teaching Grogu, he must pass on what he’s learned. So what did Luke learn?  This is the very basic building block of what it means to commit to the life of being a Jedi, because as Elzar points out above–those abilities a Jedi is granted through this life, they’re serious.  They shouldn’t be a trivial, easy thing to learn. You’re connecting to so much life, you’re going to have physical and mental power over other beings, you absolutely do need to take this seriously.  This is something all Jedi taught (you can see it in both the High Republic and the prequels Jedi), that you can’t just half-ass your training as a Jedi, because you’ll hurt yourself and others. Being a Jedi takes discipline, something that is really hard to do and requires a lifetime of it.  The dark side is a powerful, seductive thing and there’s a reason we see nearly every Jedi struggle with it at the mid-point of their training.  We see Obi-Wan struggle with the dark side against Maul on Naboo.  We see Anakin struggle with the dark side when his mother dies on Tatooine and he murders the Tusken men, women, and children.  We see Dooku and Sifo-Dyas struggle with it repeatedly in Dooku: Jedi Lost, like six different instances.  We see Ezra struggle with it in season three of Rebels.  We see Luke struggle with it on Dagobah and again on the second Death Star.  We see Rey struggle with it all throughout The Rise of Skywalker. Jedi are taught this from an early age:      Qui-Gon whispered, “The dark side?” He knew it was a thing all beings carried within them, a part of himself he would learn to guard against—the crèche masters had taught him all that. –Master & Apprentice The dark side is something that’s always there and the only way to rise above it is:      “Only way to overcome the dark side is through discipline.” –George Lucas, The Clone Wars writers’ meeting That’s why Yoda says this, one of the first and most true things we know about Jedi, that this isn’t just a part-time thing, that it requires a lot more than that, from The Empire Strikes Back:

“A Jedi must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind. This one a long time have I watched. All his life has he looked away…to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing.” That’s exactly what Grogu is doing! He’s looking to the horizon, because he misses Din, because he can’t stop thinking about him, can’t stop missing him:

Luke and Ahsoka both comment on this in the episode–Ahsoka tells Din that Grogu is having a difficult time letting go of his attachment to Din, that if he sees Din, it’ll only make it more difficult for him.  Luke says to Ahsoka that he’s not sure Grogu’s heart is really in this.  Which is important because of the transitional nature of all of what Grogu’s going through, something vital for a Jedi to understand and accept:      “The core of Anakin’s problem is that Jedi are raised from birth so they learn to let go of everything. They’re trained more than anything else to understand the transitional nature of life, that things are constantly changing and you can’t hold on to anything. You can love things but you can’t be attached to them. You must be willing to let the flow of life and the flow of the Force move through your life, move through you. So that you can be compassionate and loving and caring, but not possessive and grabbing and holding on to things and trying to keep things the way they are. Letting go is a central theme of the film.” –George Lucas, Star Wars Archives 1999-2005 The entire scene of Din wanting to see Grogu in that episode–which Luke is aware of, he sensed the Mandalorian on the planet and likely felt his motivations, because Jedi are psychic empaths–is a reflection of that and another foundational quote from George Lucas:

     “[Jedi Knights] do not grow attachments, because attachment is a path to the dark side. You can love people, but you can’t want to possess them. They’re not yours. Accept that they have a fate. Even those you love most are going to die. You can’t do anything about that. Protect them with your lightsaber, but if they die they were going to die. there’s nothing you can do. All you can do is accept that fact.     “In mythology, if you go to Hades to get them back you’re not doing it for them, you’re doing it for yourself. You’re doing it because you don’t want to give them up. You’re afraid to be without them. The key to the dark side is fear. You must be clean of fear, and fear of loss is the greatest fear. If you’re set up for fear of loss, you will do anything to keep that loss from happening, and you’re going to end up in the dark side. That’s the basic premise of Star Wars and the Jedi, and how it works.     "That’s why they’re taken at a young age to be trained. They cannot get themselves killed trying to save their best buddy when it’s a hopeless exercise.” — George Lucas, Star Wars Archives 1999-2005 This is why Luke asks Grogu to choose between these two paths.  It’s not that he can never have anything that reminds him of Din, we have seen a ton of Jedi with connections to their birth worlds and it’s fine, it’s not attachment.  We see Barriss and Luminara with headdresses and facial tattoos and even Barriss’ prayer statue.  We see Shaak and Ahsoka with Togruta headdresses.  We see Anakin with a room stuffed full of things from Naboo or a poster from the podrace he won on Tatooine.  Etc. Luke asking Grogu to choose isn’t about the item itself, but about the tear in Grogu’s heart.  That he’s not actually serious about this in his heart, that this isn’t what he really wants, and he needs to make the choice that’s actually best for him.  Both paths are worthwhile and good paths!  There’s joy in either road Grogu can walk! But Anakin Skywalker also refused to choose, George Lucas repeatedly said that Anakin fell because of his attachments (the inability to let go when it’s time, the fearful desire to hold onto someone or something because it soothes you, not because you want that person to be happy, because you can’t accept that things come and go, that life is transitory), and of all people Luke Skywalker and Ahsoka Tano are very familiar with what it means when you haven’t actually chosen your path in your heart.  They know very well what happened to Anakin Skywalker. So, yes, Luke asks Grogu to choose.  And it’s not because a Jedi can’t have things that are important to them or connections to other people, but it’s because Grogu himself is at a point where he’s struggling to let go and, if he’s going to be a Jedi, the kind of abilities that it will give him access to (including using the Force, which relies on your emotions and mindset–look at how Grogu choked Cara Dune because he thought she was hurting Din), he would need to make the kind of serious commitment it means to have that shit under control, so he doesn’t lash out and really hurt people.

-Leia trying desperately to rebuild the Republic

-Chewbacca freeing Wookiee slaves across the universe

-Han being the single worst father the universe has even seen

-Luke training Grogu and Ben Solo while trying to rebuild an extinct religion he knows barely anything about

-Lando is helping Luke find some (inquisitor???) Ochi

-Ochi is such a thundering dumbass he falls into quicksand 10 feet away from his ship and fucking dies.

-Ashoka and Sabine desperately searching the universe for the long lost Thrawn and Ezra

-Palpatine building his clone body and hundreds of Death Star Destroyers WHILE also hiring Ochi to hunt and find his clone son/granddaughter

-Boba Fett building his crime empire by being really respectful

-Bo Katan and the Mandalorian attempting to retake Mandalore, while Din has to learn to take responsibility as ruler of his people and Bo has to let go of her wish to rule

-Snoke is giving Kylo nightmares and building Star Killer base

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In case you don’t know, Disney Execs overstocked on Isabela merch as they expected her to be the breakout star of the film, except it’s not selling as well as they hoped. What is selling is Luisa merch– a lot of Luisa merch, actually, they keep selling out! (After this and the Namaari stuff I hope the execs get it through their skulls that buff women are good.) There’s a ton of funny memes about this but a few of the ones I’m seeing are kinda coming off as sexist– “we want the masculine girl and not the feminine one” vibes, ignoring the fact that Luisa is actually pretty feminine in characterization– as well as the fact that people are looking for merch of other feminine characters, such as Dolores and Pepa.

Cause the thing is, it’s not that people don’t want merch of Isabela, it’s that Disney overstocked on the wrong Isabela merch.

We find out in the movie that Isabela doesn’t like being reduced to the pretty one, the flowery one, the perfect one. With how quickly she stains her dress during her song, she doesn’t seem to like the color much either. Isabela is happy when making weird plants– cacti and sundew and “strangling figs,” giant trees and colorful, asymmetrical leaves. This is shown both overtly with her song and implicitly– before her revelation, she’s in a purpleish-pink, while the rest of her side of the family is blue. The more redder shade is likely to imitate Abuela Alma, who is color-coded in red. But after Isabela’s revelation, she first dresses in a splatter-paint dress that seems mainly black, and at the end of the film she excitedly changes into a dark blue dress, now matching her sisters and parents. This visually shows her change, and how she’s shed the image of someone she’s not in order to become herself.

It’s not unusual for Disney not to market spoilery outfits when the movie first drops. If you think back to 2019-2020, those Snow Queen Elsa and Queen Anna outfits didn’t drop for several months. So I’m not saying that the fact she’s in pink in the merch is complete proof that the execs didn’t get the message. The proof, though, is that all of her merch completely relies on the pink and the flowers.

Here’s some stuff I’ve seen everywhere in the last couple months (apparently not selling):

ID: Three images of Isabela merch. The first is a “Isabela Garden Room Playset,” which is colored in nothing but bright pinks and purples, with lots of petals. The next image is a pink t-shirt showing a silhouette of Isabela, with purple flowers overlaid and a cursive spelling of her name underneath her. The shirt is titled “Beautiful Isabela.” The next image is of a white-tshirt of Isabela smiling and holding a purple flower as more flowers surround her, with the text “Magical and Fantastical.” End ID.

See, that’s the thing, it’s not that Isabela is feminine– again, Aurora and Rapunzel are decked out in pink and purple and they still make Disney big bucks. It’s that Isabela, in-canon, does not like being viewed as the beautiful flower princess.

So here’s the thing with people who’ve seen the movie and want to get merch. Kids who like Isabela aren’t going to want her in the flowery appearance because that was when she wasn’t happy– or, if they’re not really old enough to process character stuff, they’ll think of it as “when she was mean.” Adult collectors aren’t going to want her flowery appearance because that was when she was unhappy and constrained, so they’re going to wait for the merch to drop of her in the black or blue dress.

Disney Execs, however, were fully convinced that she was going to sell because she was the pretty pink flower princess. So that’s what’s in all her merch, and that’s why it’s not selling, because that’s not who Isabela is. And then at the same time, they thought nobody would want Luisa merch bc ew girl with muscles… except she’s one of the most popular characters bc she’s a good character. The cousins they aren’t marketing are super popular as well because, oh yeah, this is a good movie with good characters and we like them for that reason and not just because of their appearance.

The best analogy I can come up with for this is: imagine if, in Frozen, we also didn’t know Elsa had ice powers and anxiety until the coronation. After the movie drops, Disney only sells Elsa in her coronation dress, overstocks on that, and ignores every other character. Yeah that’s what they’re doin rn