I'm seeing a lot of people arguing over the Helmet Mandate in #TheMandalorian and calling canon Mando characters who don't wear helmets "fake Mandalorians."

So let's go through what we know.

Din Djarin tells Omera that he's been wearing a helmet since he was a child.

Din is probably somewhere in his 30s. Let's assume he's 35 (Pedro Pascal is 45). The show starts in 9 ABY, which means he would have been born in about 26 BBY. This is about 5 years before the start of the Clone Wars, which lasted between 21 and 19 BBY.

Judging by the age of the young Din Djarin we see, he is found sometime around the end of the Clone Wars.

He is found by members of the group known as Death Watch.

This is what other Death Watch Mandalorians looked like in 19 BBY, the last year of the Clone Wars. No helmets.

That means that the Helmet Mandate came around the end of the Clone Wars as well. Since Din started wearing one as a child, but Death Watch previously had been free to take the helmets off.

In The Star Wars Book (the new reference book that came out several weeks ago), it says that Din "receives an orthodox Mandalorian upbringing so he believes that he cannot take his helmet off in the company of another living being, lest he lose claim to his Mandalorian heritage."

"Believes" is a key word. He has been told by Death Watch, who must have started adhering to more orthodox/traditional warrior Mando practices shortly after the Clone Wars. But this is not what all Mandalorians believe or practice.

In Rebels S4, which takes place only ten years before The Mandalorian, we see many Mandalorians from a variety of clans -- Kryze, Wren, Rook, Eldar, and the Protectors -- none of whom wear helmets 100% of the time.

Din is wearing his helmet by this point & has been for a decade.

Not only does this mean that the Helmet Mandate is something that is practiced by only some Mandalorians, we can also definitely say that it has nothing to do with the Great Purge, when the Imperials killed/scattered the Mandalorians, since we know this happens after S4 of Rebels

It is likely that Season 2 will see Din continually confronted with the idea of what it means to be a Mandalorian. We've already seen this in Chapter 9, where he encounters Cobb Vanth, a non-Mandalorian who wears Mandalorian armor.

This will continue, as Din will almost certainly come into contact with Mando outside of his own covert; Mandos who don't enforce the Helmet Mandate. This could be Sabine, Bo-Katan or some character we don't know, but he will discover that Mando think differently on this issue.

This is not a discrepancy. This never has been a discrepancy. It's just that what Din was raised to believe (& what the audience was told) doesn't encompass the full situation.

Remember, this show was created by Pre Vizsla himself, Jon Favreau, assisted by Dave Filoni, who helped re-create the Mandalorians for The Clone Wars. It's not like either of them have forgotten what they set up in TCW, and it's not going to be a discrepancy now.

If you're interested in hearing more about what we know about the Helmet Mandate and The Great Purge, I explored them in my podcast episode where I talked about speculations for The Mandalorian Season 2.

https://anchor.fm/darksaberlight/episodes/Introduction--The-Mandalorian-Season-2-Speculation-ellv1h/a-a3m1qsi https://open.spotify.com/episode/6E1VDvsiK6lkdJoSiV5zhM?si=snnKNLBkQp2uE9AdwySG0w