So I watched the Mandalorian pilot and really liked it but I'll never get over how every single Star Wars story outside of the original trilogy is completely tonally different because their protagonists aren't The Heroes Who Win In The End Due To Paradigmatic Fantasy Tropes -R

The universe of Star Wars, like many fantasy and sci-fi environments, is extremely gritty and dark for Joe Everyman. But the original trilogy is about a chosen one farm boy with magical powers, a princess, and a good-hearted smuggler vs an evil emperor. Of COURSE they win! -R

But no other story plays to the archetype like that. It's about all the background characters, the aged mentors and random pilots and scruffy street kids and bounty hunters. Only the original trilogy had PCs - everything else has been about the NPCs. I just think that's neat! -R

More broadly, the archetypical fantasy story always gives us a hero like Luke who is only vaguely aware of his world's injustices until they affect him directly. He learns his place in the story at the same time we do. Obviously none of the sequels need a character like that! -R

A lot of fantasy/sci-fi purposefully exempts its heroes from its own internal logic, hence the term "Plot Armor". Their importance to the story protects them. Star Wars manages to avoid this in almost every spinoff - this story already HAS heroes, and they're not here today. -R

I just noticed #TheMandalorian is trending with three different spellings, two of them clearly incorrect. that's gotta be confusing the execs -R