Why Does No One Remember the Jedi in The Mandalorian?

In the original Star Wars trilogy, the Jedi are an all but forgotten phenomenon. Han Solo aptly summed up the average scoundrel's stance on the Force with his iconic line, "Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid." Judging from the new trailer for The Mandalorian: Season 2, the Jedi are still obscure historical relics even five years after Return of the Jedi. How can Mando track down The Child's rightful family if he doesn't even know what a Jedi Knight is? But perhaps a better question is this - why does no one seem to remember the Jedi when the Order was active as recently as two decades before A New Hope? Why has the galaxy seemingly suffered a collective memory wipe on all things Jedi? Let's explore what we know about the wider galaxy's knowledge of the Jedi, and why those details don't entirely add up. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/09/15/the-mandalorian-season-2-trailer"]

The Jedi Purge

There's roughly 20 years of time separating the events of Episodes III and IV, and another nine years between Episode IV and The Mandalorian. That means plenty of people in the galaxy should still remember the Clone Wars in this Disney+ series. Din Djarin himself was orphaned as a result of the war, and he's surely far from the only person who was directly affected by that prolonged, devastating conflict. One would think plenty of people would vividly remember a war fought between faceless droid armies on one side and laser sword-wielding space wizards on the other. The explanation for this discrepancy has always been that the newly minted Emperor Palpatine went out of his way to bury all traces of the Jedi. He didn't just task Darth Vader and the Sith Inquisitorious with wiping out all surviving Jedi Knights; he used his unstoppable military to destroy temples and erase all tangible trace of the Jedi. And like any good fascist tyrant, Palpatine rewrote history to make the Jedi the villains of the Clone Wars. Whenever his subjects do think of the Jedi, they picture them as would-be usurpers of the Republic, not benevolent defenders of democracy. The harsh moon of Jedha as seen in Rogue One shows the fruits of Palpatine's anti-Jedi labors. A once-thriving Jedi temple has been razed, leaving enormous statues to crumble and vanish in the desert. The temple itself is being strip-mined for its precious Kyber crystals. Only hermits like Ben Kenobi and members of the Guardians of the Whills like Chirrut Îmwe and Baze Malbus carry the torch for the Jedi Order of old. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=every-actor-and-character-confirmed-for-the-mandalorian&captions=true"]

Were the Jedi Celebrities?

While the Emperor's machinations certainly help explain why the exploits of the Jedi have been forgotten, it's still difficult to reconcile the fact that there's such a relative lack of time separating the original trilogy and the prequels. How can the Jedi become so utterly forgotten in two short decades? The simplest answer is probably that George Lucas - despite his occasional claims that he had the entire Skywalker Saga mapped out from the beginning - didn't really have the prequels in mind when he was writing A New Hope. At that point, Lucas may have envisioned the Clone Wars as a much older and more distant conflict. Part of the problem here is that the movies never really give us a good sense of how the wider galaxy perceives the Jedi. The Skywalker Saga is laser-focused on one family and a handful of planets. Was it common knowledge the Jedi had access to supernatural powers? Did Jedi ever make public appearances or give speeches that were broadcast throughout the Republic? Or were they viewed simply as antisocial recluses who stayed locked up inside their temples practicing a strange religion? Interestingly, author Matthew Stover's novelization of Revenge of the Sith suggests some of the Jedi (including Anakin and Obi-Wan) became intergalactic celebrities during the Clone Wars, with their exploits and victories being broadcast on countless worlds. While that novelization shouldn't necessarily be considered part of the official Disney canon, Lucasfilm certainly signed off on Stover's interpretation at the time. This makes it even more difficult to believe so many people have forgotten the Jedi and their superhuman feats after a few measly decades. Not to mention it highlights how bizarre it was that Owen and Beru Lars never bothered to change their nephew's last name to help hide his existence. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/01/03/the-mandalorian-season-1-review"]

The Ignorance of Han Solo

Han's dismissal of the Jedi in A New Hope is all the more strange now given what we know about his backstory. Han is older than both Luke and Leia, meaning he would remember the Clone Wars. In fact, at one point Lucas considered including a cameo of a young Han in Episode III, depicting Han as a ragged orphan on Kashyyyk. Had that cameo stayed in the script, Han may well have directly witnessed Yoda leading the Wookiees in battle. Han is also a veteran of the Imperial navy. As we saw in Solo: A Star Wars Story, he spent several years fighting as a grunt before defecting and seeking his fortune with Tobias Beckett's crew. Are we really to believe Han would have had no exposure to the Jedi in all that time? Surely he's seen enough of the galaxy and the dark truth of the Empire to know the Jedi are more than just a bunch of crazed cultists practicing a "hokey religion." Given that so much of Han's personality is a cocky facade designed to mask his true, more earnest self (even his last name is fake), it's possible he was being coy about his real thoughts about the Jedi. Still, it's clear he's meant to represent the average person's view of these lost mystics, and it's a view that never entirely makes sense. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2014/05/17/9-things-you-probably-didnt-know-about-han-solo"]

The Mandalorians and the Jedi

Even if we accept that most residents of the Star Wars universe have become totally ignorant of the Jedi in the course of a few decades, it's hard to understand why Din Djarin and his fellow Mandalorians seem to know so little about these characters. The Mandalorians have a rivalry with the Jedi dating back thousands of years. They once waged a war against the Jedi - a war the Armorer references when she sends Din on his mission to reunite The Child with his family in the Season 1 finale. But even she seems to know very little about the Jedi, referring to them as "sorcerers" rather than their proper name. Granted, thousands of years is far longer than a few decades, but if there's anything we learned about Mandalorian culture in Season 1, it's that they're very big on tradition and following established customs. Why wouldn't they pass down stories of the valiant warriors who battled the Jedi and established Mandalore as one of the fiercest worlds in the galaxy? Why don't they at least know the name "Jedi?" [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=the-strangest-lightsabers-in-the-star-wars-universe&captions=true"] Even stranger is the fact that the Mandalorians cherish an ancient Jedi artifact above all others. The Darksaber is the ultimate artifact in Mandalorian culture. It was built by the first Mandalorian who joined the Jedi Order, and whoever wields it is the rightful ruler of Mandalore. If Mandalorians revere a lightsaber so much, why don't they know more about its heritage and origins? The Mandalorians seen in The Clone Wars certainly had plenty of encounters with Jedi like Obi-Wan and Ahsoka Tano. Why is this younger generation so Jedi-ignorant by comparison? This isn't the only discrepancy between The Clone Wars and The Mandalorian. We still don't really know why Din is so averse to removing his helmet when the Mandalorians of The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels have no problem showing their faces. In both cases, there may be a story-based explanation (and we have our own theories about the helmet question). All we can do is wait for The Mandalorian: Season 2 to drop and hopefully shed more light on why the Jedi are all but forgotten. For more on all things Mando, check out our guide to every character in The Mandalorian Seasons 1 and 2, and refresh your memory on Ahsoka Tano's story leading up to The Mandalorian. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.