SWAG77 Editorial: REBEL OR RULE

There is a friendly company that is advertising Star Wars-based jewelry to fans on Instagram called Enso Rings. They have posted their advertisement campaign: REBEL OR RULE. Since SWAG77 is more interested in the Disney+ series: STAR WARS REBELS, an idea came up about SABINE WREN and her choice to REBEL OR RULE.

While most companies either organize their advertising campaigns or hire a professional Advertising/Marketing company to create their campaigns, social media sponsored posts are a different breed than commercials or print ads. Fortunately, there is more data and reach to a specific audience on social media than commercials or print ads. Therefore Enso Rings, however, designed their marketing campaign, organized their idea of REBEL OR RULE either by guidance by Disney Lucasfilm Limited and/or their interpretation of advertising campaigns from other companies. It is probably both entities.

But, REBEL OR RULE has one subtext in a movie, and then another subtext in STAR WARS REBELS related to the Mandalorian character SABINE WREN.

Enso Ring’s image of a woman with one braid across the crown of her head and ringlets falling on her face looks like PRINCESS LEIA. It seems their motif is to say that a leader like PRINCESS LEIA can choose REBEL OR RULE. She decided to REBEL.

So the idea is, what about STAR WARS REBELS as it applies to SABINE WREN?

Brief background about SABINE WREN: She was in the Emmy Award-winning show STAR WARS REBELS as a Mandalorian character and is a graffiti artist whose story is about leaving her family’s culture found life by rebelling against the Galactic Empire. A Mandalorian only fights for Mandalore. Any other form of government is either a choice or cause that believes but beneficial for one to fight. Mandalorians who fight for Mandalore fight together, but they wound up fractious and fight against each other to dominate all other families and clans. At the time, it appears SABINE abandoned that and the idea of being Mandalorian. She joined the REBELS and Rebel Alliance because she felt it was the right thing to do against the Empire, which she once was, and discovered how they killed and destroyed Mandalorians.

What is interesting about SABINE WREN is she comes from Mandalorian Royalty. Her mother is a Countess. The responsibility to rule as royalty is Sabine’s. She could surrender her royalty, but she will be a permanent outcast and unworthy of ever being called a Mandalorian. She could never wear her armor, and she could NEVER EVER come back into Mandalorian space. She knows this fact, and she thinks initially she is an outcast, but one day, she picked up a lightsaber that is the symbol of uniting the houses of Mandalore under one person with her ruling over them.

Without spoilers, but one, Sabine gave away this lightsaber to another Mandalorian to rule, Bo-Katan Kryze — who is unworthy to wield this sword. The sword came to Sabine, and she solidified her rights to it when she defeated the current IMPERIAL ruler of Mandalore, Viceroy Gar Saxon, in ritual combat. SABINE WREN DEFEATED a mighty Mandalorian Warrior who sides with the Empire, and in that act, became the “ruler” of Mandalore.

SO WHOSE RULE?

In the Enso Rings campaign, of course, for general Star Wars fans who only know the movies, the Galactic Empire rules the galaxy and is the villains.

In our case, with the Mandalorians, SABINE WREN fights for justice under Mandalorian writ and ancient warrior codes by ritual combat. She is the worthy owner of the lightsaber, called the Darksaber.

There are many reasons why she gave it away, and we have written about that in this blog and others. However, we think she knew that, and she was unwilling to rule over her people yet. She is a warrior by default, but she needs more training and diplomacy in the grand scheme of the galaxy. She also requires an army to solidify her rule, and at some point in the Star Wars story, there is a Mandalorian Purge, and many Mandalorians are dead.

So who can be in her army? An army of alliances? The Rebel Alliances?

PERHAPS…Some other race of people, perhaps?