Star Wars: The Quarren Explained
Chapter 11 of The Mandalorian has come and gone, and it's probably safe to say that the Quarren are nobody's new favorite species. Sure, we've seen them around before, but the movies have generally used these betentacled cephalopods as set dressing. Mando and company actually offered us a look at their day-to-day activities: sipping porridge, feeding babies to sea monsters — that sort of thing. And while the episode definitely features some nods to Star Wars lore, it doesn't dig into the nitty gritty of that Quarren lifestyle, leaving viewers with unanswered questions like, "is a group of Quarrens referred to as being 'on the cob?'" and "is there a version of Dick Tracy in the Star Wars universe starring Quarren Beatty?" So much for world building.
Like so much of Star Wars, the ins and outs of the Quarren lifestyle have gotten murky over the last few years, with "Legends" status assigned to a lot of their previously established history. Still, a shocking amount of extended universe knowledge remains canon, according to Wookieepedia.
In the old canon, the Quarren were an amphibious species derogatorily referred to as "squid heads." They hailed from the oceanic planet of Mon Cala, home to both the trap-perceiving Mon Calamari and some of the most on-the-nose names in the galaxy far, far away.
The damp and despicable Quarren
Yes, in a rare development, Mon Cala managed to host the evolution of two separate sentient species, and while the Mon Calamari were viewed as a peaceful and virtuous people, the Quarren had a reputation for aggression and degeneracy. The push-and-pull dynamic between the two species led to some dramatic Clone Wars-era stories involving struggles over planetary control.
Counterintuitively, the Quarren managed to branch out to all sorts of worlds, despite their preference for aquatic environments. One Quarren ran a noodle shop on Coruscant during the Clone Wars, while another (the first ever to appear on screen) was seen in Return of the Jedi as part of Jabba the Hutt's entourage on Tatooine, presumably wearing a lot of moisturizer.
Here's a weird one: Paying homage to their real-world inspiration, the Quarren can shoot ink out of their mouths as a defense mechanism. Darth Maul #2 even features the eponymous Sith getting a face full of the stuff in one of his top 50 most embarrassing moments. Now, thanks to The Mandalorian, we know two new vital details about the Quarren people: They have within them the emotional fortitude to chuck a Baby Yoda into a shark tank, and, as pictured above, they apparently love cable knit sweaters.