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Narrative Tension: Character Motivations, Emotional Stakes, and Physical Stakes

Part 1

Words: 2k

There’s a running joke in the fan community about how the Mandalorian makes friends easily; a lot of supporting characters become Mando’s allies through the enemies-to-friends-to-babysitters pipeline, and while I do think it’s kind of funny and it is an accurate assessment of those episodes, I think Mando sometimes makes friends too easily, and in doing so we lose a lot of narrative tension in episodes where the stakes should have felt higher. It leads to certain episodes and conflicts with characters feeling more like “side-quests” instead of genuine obstacles Mando has to overcome in order to get what he wants and in doing so comes out changed by the end of it in some way or another.

Those episodes don’t feel like there’s as much danger or meaningful weight to the secondary goals because what’s at stake only feels like the physical problem he faces, and we the audience know that he and the kid are going to make it out alive by the end of the day, especially when the seasons don’t have that many episodes— there needs to be more emotional weight put on their secondary goals since we know that’s where character development and worldbuilding come in.

When the episodes don’t have that sense of narrative suspense, relationships with other characters end up less complicated and it keeps those side characters from having more depth, conflict, and reason to return later. It feels like the job Mando does is too easy. Stories should generally continue making things difficult for the main character because narratives revolve around conflict— When you take that interpersonal conflict out too early it feels like the main character has already ‘won,’ in a sense, and audiences feel less compelled to continue watching if everything already feels like it’s going to turn out fine.

While I like most of the individual adventures in the episodic installments of The Mandalorian, there are times the emotional stakes are either resolved too early or aren’t tied to the physical stakes of that individual story. The audience doesn’t have to automatically like every character who will eventually become Mando’s ally— It’s more interesting for them to also have arcs and changes over the course of a story/episode because to them, Mando is the side character in their own lives. We should be seeing how all of these characters operate differently within the given circumstances and the conflict should include, affect, and be affected by all of them in tangible, significant ways. Change shows us the impact the conflict has! It makes those characters crucial to the story, crucial to Mando’s own narrative, and it makes the story less generic, meaning the themes and plot points covered are clearer, more specific, and dramatic.

The episodes I have these criticisms of aren’t necessarily even episodes I dislike, they’re just ones I think could have been better, and oftentimes it doesn’t take a lot of editing to make them stronger. The ones that immediately come to mind are “Sanctuary,” “The Marshal,” “The Passenger,” “The Heiress,” and “The Jedi.” Changing these would have made for a stronger Season 2 finale in my opinion, but that’s a separate post.

(Some of this will be spoilers for how I plan to rewrite several of the episodes in the future.)

Almost every good, effective story is going to have two climaxes, one physical and one emotional. The physical climax is the culmination of the action and biggest sequence of events in the finale of Act III, resolving the main plot. The emotional climax usually involves character relationships and development, as well as the end result of characters’ personal arcs and unspoken objectives. Ideally any main or supporting character connects to that main plot in some way.

In the case of “Sanctuary,” Mando wants to find somewhere safe for himself and the child to lay low. He finds a sparsely populated location in the middle of nowhere and plans to settle into a simple life for a few months, avoiding attention and keeping the child safe. The physical obstacle is that the place offering them food and lodging would be literally perfect, if he can resolve the village’s bandit problem. Once completed, he’ll be able to establish his temporary (?) home.

Sorgan represents everything Mando wants: in a perfect world, Din would be able to live somewhere comfortable away from prying eyes, a place not just safe for himself and the child he’s taken under his wing but for the people around them. He wants to be happily settled down and connected to a community that cares for everybody involved. He wants a simple life where he is free from the worry, strife, and danger that comes with being a persecuted ethnic minority and refugee of war, living life on the move doing a dangerous job that not only puts the kid at risk by association, but makes them dependent on an unsteady income and unpredictable life devoid of the comfort and routine small children generally need.

(Ideally he wants that life with other Mandalorians, but he knows his people are especially targeted when there are several of them concentrated in one area; the genocide enacted by the Empire wiped out thousands of their people. Most of them already live nomadic lives because of that, and it’s easier to hide when there aren’t as many of you drawing attention. Their secrecy is their survival and it’s why they’ve been able to continue their way of life.)

Everything Din wants from Sorgan is safety and stability, which means safety and stability for the village, but it’s not the story’s job to give the main character what they want, especially in an episodic media format.

In order to raise the stakes to the most dire it could be for all of the characters involved and tie the final fight to Din’s emotional desires, I think the fight had to have been brought into the village proper. Have the bandits break through the defensive line and have the main characters (Mando, Cara, and Omera) see them heading into the village with torches in hand—

— Where we cut to all of the children hiding together in one of the huts, defenseless.

Now Mando has to choose between breaking ranks with Cara, which would allow him to save his own child and possibly others, but would consequently allow the Walker to come through and lay waste to the rest of the village, or he has to stand his ground knowing he can defeat the Walker and save the greatest amount of people, but with his own child’s life possibly forfeit in the end.

A village can be rebuilt. Farms can be reseeded. The adults all chose to fight and knew what they were getting into and have a much better chance of withstanding or recovering from the present danger, but the kids have no choice in being there and because they are vulnerable and irreplaceable, they are the best representation of the emotional stakes at the center of the story. There needed to be more focus put on the bandits who break through with the intent of attacking what the adults actually hold the most dear, making the raiders an emotional threat, not just a physical one.

This ending parallels the cold open where Omera rushes through laserfire and explosions to save her own daughter and it would have provided a stronger conclusion for her story. Omera represents the locals and she’s the one we follow through Mando’s story as a liaison for the village. It’s her we see in the opening, it’s her showing hospitality to the people she hopes will help save them, and it’s her stepping up as a leader when they refuse to uproot and insist on staying to fight.

This episode should have been as much about her as it was about Mando and Cara, but as it stands in canon, we get no final focus or significant closure with Omera concerning the physical plot. She’s part of the emotional arc we see Mando take over the course of the episode, but without giving her a larger role than any of the other villagers in the final fight with the bandits, the raiders feel like they’re only a faceless physical threat without personal significance to the people. We don’t get to hear what Omera thinks as somebody who’s implied to be familiar with fighting and who is not originally from that village, or possibly even Sorgan at all.

The raiders and the Walker feel like they’re only obstacles in the way of Mando’s physical and emotional objectives. It makes Omera feel like she’s the reward the hero gets at the end of the story, which does her character a disservice (especially as a woman of color) when she was given a history and characteristics independent of him before he even arrived to face the conflict. The antagonists are her antagonists. The biggest physical threats are personal to her and her village. Mando and Cara can pick up and leave at any time, but she makes it clear they don’t have that option.

Omera knows this town like the back of her hand. She’s a capable marksman and it’s implied that she’s an experienced fighter. She takes initiative and she’s courageous and capable in the face of danger as she runs towards the bandits instead of away when her daughter is at risk. She’s smart, consistently observant, keeps a level head, and demonstrates a willing ability to lead, shouting for Caben and Stoke to hold their positions in the final fight.

The final sequence should have shown Cara, Mando, and Omera all seeing the bandits break through an opening in the defenses and head for the undefended homes in the village, and the three of them having to react in real time to the unforeseen complication and rely on each other as a response. What follows happens concurrently, the camera cutting between the two fights as it builds:

Mando and Omera, both parents/guardians of children now at risk, are both going to hone in on the threat to the kids in the village center. Omera makes the run back towards the bandits herself, rifle in hand. Mando watches her, needing to trust that she knows what she’s doing and can not only handle herself, but is capable of saving the kids too. He’s going to resist his natural impulse to go save the kids not just because he knows she can fight, but because she’s going to do it better than he could in the dark on terrain that is familiar and specific to her

Omera has to trust that Mando and Cara are going to have her and the village’s backs by not breaking ranks (even though Mando’s own kid is at risk) and will instead take down the Walker as promised since that is where their abilities lie.

Cara’s a soldier and her focus is going to remain on the AT-ST. She’s going to make the same run for the Walker with the rifle to keep it distracted and has to trust that Mando will stand his ground and have her back when the time comes for him to land the final blow with the thermal charge

Back in the village, we see Omera using her knowledge of the terrain and resources to her advantage, shooting and improvising weapons as she fights multiple raiders at once and succeeds. She narrowly stops the last one closest to the hut with the kids, and we see Omera and the others from Winta’s vantage point as Omera kills the raiders carrying torches and sends them into the ponds. Omera looks up to the window with Winta to affirm that the kids are safe, and then she rejoins the fight.

The focus of the episode is on community and relying on others, and it wouldn’t have added all that much more runtime to the episode if it had given those few short moments to Omera’s character, making the narrative stronger by strengthening her part in the story. Making the raiders more of a threat to the kids keeps the tension high all the way to the end.

Part 2 >

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