Miscellaneous Boba Fett Characterization Details From The EU/legends

miscellaneous boba fett characterization details from the EU/legends

hey y’all! i had a rough day today, which means it’s time for me to share a bunch of various boba fett characterization details from the expanded universe! though i recognize that none of these are officially canon any longer, i figure they still might provide some inspiration to fic writers and others who want to know more about boba’s original characterization :D

without further ado and in no particular order:

when interacting genuinely with another person, boba tends to quite wry and self-deprecating. this is particularly evident as he gets older and becomes a little humbler. his quip of “i was aiming for the other one” in the mandalorian is a great example of this demeanor carrying over into new canon.

boba’s companionship is described by his close friend as swinging unpredictably between “scrupulous detachment” and acts of what seem like “pure sentimentality.” these acts of “sentimentality” usually manifest as unexpected gifts and favors, or outbursts of sudden concern for the friend in question. 

this dichotomy seems consistent with boba’s own self-description as developing an “on/off switch” for his emotions after his father’s death. when the switch is “on,” he feels everything at “full intensity,” particularly more negative emotions, and when it’s off, he feels only “cold logic.” he himself claims that one day he just couldn’t “switch on” again but lol, nah bud. you’re clearly still feeling shit. you just have the emotional awareness of a tablespoon

boba fett, having an emotional breakdown: “this is fine and i am entirely unaffected and emotionless currently, as we speak”

boba is not a touchy person. he flat-out admits that he wouldn’t know what to do if someone hugged him. that said, he is not as completely averse to physical contact as one might expect. forms of positive physical contact he seems comfortable accepting include a playful nudge or a reassuring hand against his back.

as for positive physical contact he himself initiates, boba doesn’t do PDA so much as he does “public displays of extreme distress or concern.” these are usually rather intense and the two examples we see are: 1) him grabbing a loved one by the shoulders looking for all the world like he’s about to start shaking them and 2) gripping someone’s hand so hard it feels like he’s going to break their fingers. you know. like someone incapable of emotion would do.

if boba cares about a person A LOT, like A LOT A LOT, they can unlock a secret third form of “public display of extreme distress or concern” which is very, very gently touching a person’s hair/face. we only ever see him do this with family and only in response to seeing them wounded.

boba is not a fan of loud noises. curiously, this is something depicted both in the kids’ series and in the legacy of the force. when briefly housed on a republic orphanage ship as a child, boba’s first reaction to the cacophony of other orphans crying/laughing/screaming/rough-housing all around him is terror, followed by sheer misery, to the point where he spends the first day in his bunk with a pillow wrapped around his head. as an adult, he is similarly unhappy having to put up with loud noises unhelmeted, to the point where he internally remarks that he’d rather spend another round in the sarlacc than have to sit through dinner with beviin’s very loud  and demonstrative family. 

he snaps “volume,” at another mando for shouting over comms, lol

(this is sensible when one considers his upbringing on kamino–due to the secrecy with which he and his father lived, it’s unlikely that boba regularly found himself in the company of more than a couple of people at a time. naturally, loud multi-party conversations would not be something he would’ve become accustomed to)

possesses at least some curiosity about music. following one mission, he ends up with multiple info-chips full of various music suppressed during the empire’s rule. he is particularly transfixed by one piece that is described as vaguely orchestral and featuring a singer of indeterminate gender singing in a language he doesn’t understand

can be a troll, at times. one notable example includes him hiding a timer on a rival bounty hunter’s ship… just a timer. the other bounty hunter hears the ticking, assumes it’s a bomb, and subsequently tears his ship apart looking for it. he finds the timer just in time to see it count down to zero and… nothing. boba could have planted a real bomb but decided to mess with the poor guy instead lmao