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January Meme: More thoughts on Andor
Due to having a frightfully busy week, I'm late again, but here we go. More thoughts on Andor, asked for by ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
scintilla10.
1.) A recurring refrain I've seen in posts about the show is how Andor manages to create a very convincing and appealing community and culture on the planet Ferrix. You could add the Aldhani, who while coming across as idealized Scots still are used to make a good point about colonialism. Something which both of these communities share, and which even the involuntary community of prisoners on Narkina 5 does eventually, is that the members are shown to have developed genuine emotional bonds and solidarity with each other along with customs, speech patterns etc., and that this actually caring what happens to the perrson next to you, not just to yourself, is instrumental to sparking all the mass acts of resistance that we see. (Well that, and having nothing to lose anymore in the case of the prisoners.) What I think might add to the emotional appeal for much of the audience is that the culture on Ferrix is depicted as inclusive, not exclusive; Cassian is seen as one of their own, and so is Maarva, despite neither of them having been born on Ferrix. In an era (for us, not the characters) where the concepts "community" and "culture" are often used in a divisive way, where when you say society has become more and more tribal, you don't mean it as a compliment but tend to speak about how, say, a Republican voter would never vote Democrat or work politically with a Democrat, not even on the smallest issue, where we're full speed backwards in terms of rising fundamentalism in just about every lager religion, and where "celebrating one's community" seems to go more and more hand in hand with "because they're better than all those others", the Star Wars community world building in this shades of grey show is unabashedly optimistic. Sneering attitudes about barbaric customs are only given to the villains, and no one's customs are depicted as damaging and excluding. With the arguable exception of the arranged marriage system of Chandrila, though here I think it's significant that the Chandrilans we see - Mon Mothma, her husband and daughter, her niece Vel and Davo Sculdun - are all rich, every privileged people, whereas the people on Ferrix, the Aldhani and the prisoners are poor. Still, Vel and Mon Mothma are the only sympathetic characters who do not want to live in the traditional way of their people, and see the abandoning of old customs as progress. (Leida's insterest in old fashioned Chandrilan customs comes across as partly teenage rebellion - which is certainly how Mon sees it - and partly resulting from not having actually lived this way on Coruscant.) But Chandrilan arranged marriage customs are as close as the show ever gets to showing the potential darker aspects of living in a tradition-and-customs-cherishing community. Otherwise, it's the sterile bureaucratic monoculture of the Empire, erasing everyone's individuality, that's coded as negative.
2.) Luthen as the morally shady, ruthless Le Carré character of the show, determined to beat Palpatine at his own game by using his methods and aware that makes him unfit for the kind of free society he wants to create, is the embodiment of a trope that when done effectively fascinates me, but which can go easily wrong. If the later is the case, you get Jack Bauer of 24 fame, i.e. the narrative celebrates the character as the (only?) one willing to get his hands dirty, his methods are shown as always or nearly always effective (especially when using torture), while the characters insisting there has to be a line, no matter how good your cause, and that some methods should never be used either learn better or are depicted as just plain wrong in their naivete. Their methods don't work, they usually need to be rescued by the ruthless, getting-my-hands-dirty character. So far, Andor has avoided this trap by showing us that Luthen's "everyone is expendable for the cause" policy doesn't always achive the aims he hopes for, can be misguided and if pursued relentlessly can lead to damage, not victory for the rebellion (i.e. his initial decision to deal with the "loose end" that is Cassian by killing him), while showing compassion and solidarity repeatedly works in the budding rebellion's favor as well as Luthen's methods. We'll see whether the show can keep this ambiguity up.
The other days
scintilla10. 1.) A recurring refrain I've seen in posts about the show is how Andor manages to create a very convincing and appealing community and culture on the planet Ferrix. You could add the Aldhani, who while coming across as idealized Scots still are used to make a good point about colonialism. Something which both of these communities share, and which even the involuntary community of prisoners on Narkina 5 does eventually, is that the members are shown to have developed genuine emotional bonds and solidarity with each other along with customs, speech patterns etc., and that this actually caring what happens to the perrson next to you, not just to yourself, is instrumental to sparking all the mass acts of resistance that we see. (Well that, and having nothing to lose anymore in the case of the prisoners.) What I think might add to the emotional appeal for much of the audience is that the culture on Ferrix is depicted as inclusive, not exclusive; Cassian is seen as one of their own, and so is Maarva, despite neither of them having been born on Ferrix. In an era (for us, not the characters) where the concepts "community" and "culture" are often used in a divisive way, where when you say society has become more and more tribal, you don't mean it as a compliment but tend to speak about how, say, a Republican voter would never vote Democrat or work politically with a Democrat, not even on the smallest issue, where we're full speed backwards in terms of rising fundamentalism in just about every lager religion, and where "celebrating one's community" seems to go more and more hand in hand with "because they're better than all those others", the Star Wars community world building in this shades of grey show is unabashedly optimistic. Sneering attitudes about barbaric customs are only given to the villains, and no one's customs are depicted as damaging and excluding. With the arguable exception of the arranged marriage system of Chandrila, though here I think it's significant that the Chandrilans we see - Mon Mothma, her husband and daughter, her niece Vel and Davo Sculdun - are all rich, every privileged people, whereas the people on Ferrix, the Aldhani and the prisoners are poor. Still, Vel and Mon Mothma are the only sympathetic characters who do not want to live in the traditional way of their people, and see the abandoning of old customs as progress. (Leida's insterest in old fashioned Chandrilan customs comes across as partly teenage rebellion - which is certainly how Mon sees it - and partly resulting from not having actually lived this way on Coruscant.) But Chandrilan arranged marriage customs are as close as the show ever gets to showing the potential darker aspects of living in a tradition-and-customs-cherishing community. Otherwise, it's the sterile bureaucratic monoculture of the Empire, erasing everyone's individuality, that's coded as negative.
2.) Luthen as the morally shady, ruthless Le Carré character of the show, determined to beat Palpatine at his own game by using his methods and aware that makes him unfit for the kind of free society he wants to create, is the embodiment of a trope that when done effectively fascinates me, but which can go easily wrong. If the later is the case, you get Jack Bauer of 24 fame, i.e. the narrative celebrates the character as the (only?) one willing to get his hands dirty, his methods are shown as always or nearly always effective (especially when using torture), while the characters insisting there has to be a line, no matter how good your cause, and that some methods should never be used either learn better or are depicted as just plain wrong in their naivete. Their methods don't work, they usually need to be rescued by the ruthless, getting-my-hands-dirty character. So far, Andor has avoided this trap by showing us that Luthen's "everyone is expendable for the cause" policy doesn't always achive the aims he hopes for, can be misguided and if pursued relentlessly can lead to damage, not victory for the rebellion (i.e. his initial decision to deal with the "loose end" that is Cassian by killing him), while showing compassion and solidarity repeatedly works in the budding rebellion's favor as well as Luthen's methods. We'll see whether the show can keep this ambiguity up.
The other days
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(And Cassian is of course a manipulator who adjusts himself to various people and situations too, which I loved.)
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That's certainly true. But I also think the narrative wants us to be sure that whatever the truth about him, Luthen isn't out for power for himself, i.e. he doesn't want to engineer the rebellion in order to end up as the next Palpatine. That's not his endgame. Of course, that's easy for us to say because we know how the rebellion will turn out. I'd be curious to how a hypothetical viewer who has seen the prequels but NOT the OT or the sequels would react to Luthen, whether they'd suspect him for playing the long game in order to emerge on top, especially given that Luthen occasionally is made up to physically resemble Ian McDiarmid as Palpatine in the prequel era.
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Yessss!!!!
(Leida's insterest in old fashioned Chandrilan customs comes across as partly teenage rebellion - which is certainly how Mon sees it - and partly resulting from not having actually lived this way on Coruscant.)
Yeah, I thought this plotline was extremely well done.
So far, Andor has avoided this trap by showing us that Luthen's "everyone is expendable for the cause" policy doesn't always achive the aims he hopes for, can be misguided and if pursued relentlessly can lead to damage, not victory for the rebellion (i.e. his initial decision to deal with the "loose end" that is Cassian by killing him), while showing compassion and solidarity repeatedly works in the budding rebellion's favor as well as Luthen's methods. We'll see whether the show can keep this ambiguity up.
Indeed!
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Edited to add: I don't think we know whether or not Maarva is originally from Ferrix, but she was there when she was young. She talks about touching a funerary stone for the first time at age 6.
Back to Luthen - I think one of his poorly-executed moments was when he met with Lonni. His whole speech about being alone rings a bit hollow when we remember that Kleya is his touchstone. Who does Lonni have? It's an awesome monologue, and I think that emphasizing that Lonni truly must stay in his position is an essential part of that meeting, but I'm not sure it was the best way to handle an important asset like Lonni.
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Luthen as a morally shady, flawed character whose actions aren't always right really works for me too!