A few weeks back, I joked in my initial writeup on Andor that the show’s realistic depictions of evil were going to require realistic resolutions — probably “involving someone making a heroic sacrifice to rescue the repentant and redeem the sins of the galaxy.” Now that the first season has finished, I’ll give myself two pats on the back for not being too far off. It turns out, in a galaxy far far away, opposition to a great evil is going to require vicarious sacrifice to defeat it. Revolutions and rebellions are not easy.
If you want the spoiler free exploration of why Andor is a fantastic show deserving a theological writeup, here’s the link. Now that the first season has concluded, here’s a spoiler heavy exploration of why Andor is one of the first Star Wars properties that traffics in gospel themes.
The Power of the [Real] People
The first of many reasons why Andor is theologically rich is the down-to-earth scope of the show. It’s the first Star Wars property to ditch the Force, lightsabers, Jedi, and Sith. Instead, we get to explore the side of the galaxy that doesn’t involve feuding space wizards. The cast of the show are blue-collar factory workers, chop shop spaceship mechanics, prisoners, religious pilgrims, and unpopular politicians. In a universe of mythic heroes, Andor focuses on regular people, which makes the show stronger. The evil of the show is realistic and recognizable, but so are the reactions and responses from the heroes.
The result is a different kind of show, an anti-Marvel kind of story where nobody has superpowers and the playing field is level. We might have enjoyed the original Star Wars as kids because we imagined ourselves flying spaceships and wielding lightsabers, but as adults, that kind of personal identification doesn’t hold sway. The tension of a spy mission, the anxiety of a parent, the horror of a sci-fi prison, these are all tangible in Andor because the consequences are easy to imagine. Many viewers reported such extreme tension at points in the show that they were squirming in their seats and pausing the show to catch their breath. (Editor’s Note: Bryan was one of them.)
Andor allows the drama to be ratcheted up because the stakes are personal in scope, not galactic. Showrunner Tony Gilroy approached the Star Wars universe as if it was a big sandbox that allowed him to tell compelling stories of love, loss, and ordinary heroes. Perhaps there’s no better example of this than Nemik’s manifesto, which ends in a plea for people to simply “try” to fight back against the Empire. Long time Star Wars fans will remember Yoda’s famous admonition to Luke in The Empire Strikes Back — “do or do not, there is no try.” Well, not everyone is a Jedi, and it turns out that merely trying to resist the Empire’s reign is exactly the thing that will destroy it.
The Nazareth Principle
Nemik’s manifesto articulates that it’s these small individual acts of rebellion that will build into the tidal wave that breaks the Empire’s hold on the galaxy. The Empire will never see it coming. A flashback reveals a telling interaction between Cassian and his adopted father Clem. The father is showing his son how to clean off a rusty spaceship part, a part which will fetch plenty of money on the resale market. Clem takes the moment to impart a life lesson: “people don’t look down the way they should. They don’t look down. They don’t look past the rust. Not us, eh? Eyes open, possibilities everywhere.” If Cassian can learn to look “under the rust” in life, finding value in the small and overlooked, he’ll find real value that the rest of the universe has missed.
Compare this to the Empire, whose sleek black and white world has little space for rust. The series goes out of its way to show the Empire’s contempt for the worlds it occupies. Religious pilgrims on Aldhani are ignorant fools. The ecosystem of Narkina 5 is not worth the trouble to maintain. Funeral customs and the women’s auxiliary on Ferrix are eye-rolling exasperations. Blue collar workers are there to exploit and control. Prisoners exist solely for their labor.
One might wonder, as Nathaniel did, what good thing could possibly come out of Ferrix, or for that matter, Nazareth? It turns out the people written off by the Empire become the very people who bring about its downfall. Each overlooked and undervalued creature in the series plays a small role in the rise of the rebellion, the destruction of the Death Star, and the defeat of the Emperor. The same could be said of the Roman Empire — its cultural and spiritual hegemony across the ancient world was defeated by religious adherents of an itinerant pacifist rabbi out of the backwater province of Judea. Crucify them, feed them to lions, fire them from their jobs, kick them out of the family, but these Christians would change the world in their image without a sword or a spear in response.
Motherly Love
Back in 2016, I wrote that a key theme in Rogue One was the power of a father’s love. Alongside Andor’s insistence that quiet, boring, normal people matter and can take down the Empire, the show complements its predecessor by exploring the power of a mother’s love. Three of the show’s plotlines overlap in their consideration for how the love of a mother, or the lack thereof, can make or break a person.
Maarva adopted Cassian as a young boy, but was distraught at the man he was becoming. No mother wants to see their child become the town scoundrel, constantly in debt, comfortable with crime, and begging for help from anyone who offers the slightest bit of concern. Still, in the season finale, Maarva offers Cassian a word of unconditional love and grace from beyond the grave. “Tell him I love him more than anything he could ever do wrong.” (note: that’ll preach!). Cassian had hoped to share with his mother the good news of his prison break from Narkina 5, how he helped release thousands of prisoners from the Empire’s grasp. Perhaps, he thinks, that will gain my mother’s approval. Instead, he discovers he is loved regardless of his philandering.
Contrast that to the young authoritarian Syril Karn, a foil to Cassian’s early philandering. After being bested by Cassian and fired from his job in the first arc of the series, Syril Karn is forced to retreat home to his emasculating mother. There is no love in this house, only humiliation. When the door to her apartment opens and she finds her son standing before her, his mother’s first action is to viciously slap her son across the face before embracing him with a hug. We soon discover she is only a voice of condemnation, reminding him of all the ways he falls short. The audience is left with little wonder as to why Syril behaves as he does: he craves approval from female authority (which his mother controllingly withholds) and will even resort to stalking and physical restraint to get it.
This is why, of course, Mon Monthma’s story in the series is so compelling. Fearing that her financial support of the rebellion will be discovered, she is presented with a great temptation. Will she give her willing daughter away in marriage to a dubious Chandrillan financier who can hide her financial history? We’ll have to wait until season two to discover whether Mon Mothma can continue to lead the rebellion without having to sacrifice her daughter to the cause.
Counting the Cost
This is, of course, the key theme of the show: what will the rebels have to give up to bless the world ahead. Mon Mothma has already given up on her marriage — will she give up on her daughter as well? Cassian was living a life of self preservation until his incarceration in a sci-fil jail from hell. Not even the payroll heist on Aldahni took his mind off of the money question. Would he lay down his life for others to help them rebel? It’s not until the very end of the series that we discover the answer.
Spouses, lovers, children, parents, home, freedom, peace — what all does someone need to sacrifice to keep the rebellion alive? One of the show’s highlights is actor Stellan Skarsgard’s Shakespearian delivery of Luthan’s monologue in episode 10. One of Luthan’s rebel spy assets works in the Empire’s equivalent of the CIA, but now he wants out. He has a daughter and can’t risk getting caught sending rebels information anymore. When Luthan rejects his request, the asset responds with indignation: what have you sacrificed to this cause, oh mysterious rebel spymaster? To which Luthen replies:
“Calm. Kindness. Kinship. Love. I’ve given up all chance at inner peace. I’ve made my mind a sunless space. I share my dreams with ghosts. I wake up every day to an equation I wrote 15 years ago from which there’s only one conclusion, I’m damned for what I do. My anger, my ego, my unwillingness to yield, my eagerness to fight, they’ve set me on a path from which there is no escape. I yearned to be a savior against injustice without contemplating the cost and by the time I looked down there was no longer any ground beneath my feet.
What is my sacrifice? I’m condemned to use the tools of my enemy to defeat them. I burn my decency for someone else’s future. I burn my life to make a sunrise that I know I’ll never see. And the ego that started this fight will never have a mirror or an audience or the light of gratitude. So what do I sacrifice? Everything!”
As Luthen speaks in the low light, his cape billows behind him, a visual metaphor that he is not unlike those great cartoony villains like Vader and The Emperor. Truly, the Rebel spymaster has given up everything to oppose the Empire, a sacrifice that will neither be remembered nor appreciated. It’s not a stretch to say that he becomes sin so that others become righteous. He pays the price so that others will be freed from slavery. He becomes guilty so that others may live as innocents. That’s the vicarious sacrifice that the Rebels are embracing.
If Andor teaches this Star Wars fan anything, it’s that real life problems are rooted in real evil — not misunderstandings or misguided ideal. According to Jesus, solutions to such evil arise from vicarious sacrifices for others, transformations sparked by unconditional love, and imputations of righteousness to the unrighteous. Those are the solutions available to the Rebellion in Andor, and they are solutions the Rebellion must use to defeat evil. I can’t wait to see how things play out in season 2.
Strays:
- The Narkina 5 storyline was the moment I fell in love with the series. A sci-fi prison of horror, Andy Serkis’s Emmy worthy acting, the blood pumping escape sequence — episode 10 of the series may be some of the most compelling television I’ve ever seen.
- The sound and music in this show are outstanding. There’s the droning pot-and-pan clanging code on Ferrix, the Aldhani’s ritual singing, the prisoner’s escape chant, and the rag tag not-quite-in-tune marching band at Maarva’s funeral. The Niamos! dance mix has a cult internet following. Contrast this with the alien torture sound Dedra uses, and you realize that the Rebellion has much better music.
- Andor may be the most “woke” of any Star Wars property to date. The lead actor is Hispanic, the universe is populated by non-white characters, and there’s a key storyline featuring gay characters. The themes addressed in the show are undeniably progressive in nature: police brutality, stop-and-frisk policies, torture, fascism, prison abuse, class and ethno-nationalist oppression. But this isn’t to say that the show is exclusively “woke” in its themes (or perhaps the show avoids knowingly token “wokeness”?). The writers do a fantastic job pulling the rug from under viewers in their treatment of Dedra Meero. At the beginning of the series, we see Dedra as a talented woman in an Empire dominated by men, a feminist figure breaking sexist glass ceilings in the ISB. We are set up by the writers to view her character with sympathy. But when we finally witness her doing her job, horrifically torturing Bix Caleen for information on the rebels, we are doubly horrified. Were we really just cheering for a fascist space Nazi because she was a woman?
- I wrote about toxic fandom a few weeks back, and some of the comments on that post expressed frustration that legitimate criticisms of shows were being written off as racist or sexist. I think the success of Andor validates some of that pushback. Given the “woke” themes of the show and the near universal appreciation of Andor from the die-hard fans, I think it validates some of the criticism leveled at other Star Wars properties.
- This show is so darn subtle. I’m on my third watch through and I’m picking up pieces I missed in my first and second viewings. Did I miss anything? Tell me about it in the comments!
COMMENTS
3 responses to “How to Fight Evil According to Andor (and Jesus)”
Leave a Reply
That Luthien monolog also struck me as being one of thr more memorable and poignant moments in the series. Your analysis here is very thorough and apt.
This article is great. Reading this did make me wonder if Syril Karn is going to end up having a Saint Paul type conversion in season two & end up joining the Rebels.
[…] Andor — Bryan Jarrell deemed this “the best Star Wars property to come along since The Empire Strikes Back,” which would be hyperbole if it wasn’t true. Check out his two-part series, “The Scariest Part of Andor” and “How to Fight Evil According to Andor (and Jesus).” […]