Episode 2 of The Mandalorian season 3 saw Mando travel to the legendary planet of Mandalore but what he found was a world in ruins after the Empire destroyed much of the Mandalorian home world.
*WARNING: Spoilers ahead for The Mandalorian season 3*
Since The Mandalorian first started airing on Disney+, we’ve slowly learned more about the fabled planet of Mandalore and how it was almost entirely destroyed in an event known as the Great Purge.
Episode 2 of season 3 showcased the scale of the destruction as Mando traveled to the planet in the hopes of redeeming himself after previously removing his helmet.
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What happened to Mandalore?
Mandalore and its people were almost entirely destroyed by the Empire in a cataclysmic event known as the Great Purge.
As the Armorer explained to Mando in The Book Of Boba Fett’s Mandalorian-focused episodes, the Empire laid waste to the planet and its cities on the Night of a Thousand Tears.
This infamous night saw the Empire unleash a cascade of fusion bombs upon Mandalore which flattened its cities and scorched much of the planet’s surface so that it turned to glass.
As well as destroying much of the planet, the Empire also stole much of Mandalore’s Beskar supplies, as referenced when Werner Herzog’s Client paid Mando in Beskar ingots for retrieving Grogu back in season 1.
Following the Great Purge, Mandalore was said to be cursed and completely uninhabitable as the atmosphere had been poisoned.
But as Mando discovered in season 3, the atmosphere was in fact breathable, perhaps showing that the Empire overestimated the scale of their destruction for propaganda purposes.
Why did the Empire destroy Mandalore?
The Empire destroyed Mandalore as they knew that they could never tame the warrior-focused Mandalorian society and viewed them as a threat as dangerous as the Jedi.
In Star Wars Rebels, we saw Bo-Katan take possession of the Darksaber and reunite many of the Mandalorian clans, which allowed her to retake control of the planet from the Empire for a time.
However, this led to the Empire’s destructive retaliation in the form of the Great Purge.
After the Purge, the few surviving Mandalorians were left scattered across the galaxy, preventing them from reuniting and fighting back against the Empire.
What was the planet like before the Purge?
Prior to The Mandalorian, the last time we saw Mandalore in Star Wars media was in the Clone Wars series.
By that point in the planet’s history, it had been ravaged by centuries of war, whether that was infighting between the various Mandalorian clans or external conflicts with the Jedi.
Much of the planet’s surface was left a desolate desert, with the population having to shelter in domed cities such as the capital of Sundari.
However, before the planet faced years of destruction, it was once a very hospitable and grassy planet, which Mando explained to Grogu as they prepared to descend to the planet’s surface in episode 2.
Season 3 of The Mandalorian is available to stream now Disney+ after releasing on Wednesday, March 1, 2023.
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