Spoilers Star Wars: Andor season 2

[pukunui]

I mean the rebellion got pretty lucky. If one star destroyer gunner would have shot that escape pod then we would be looking at a whole diffrent galaxy.

Yeah, it's the Lawful Evil nature of the Empire that saved the Chaotic Good Rebellion.

According to "The Sith of Datawork", one of the canon short stories in the From a Certain Point of View anthology, Gunnery Captain Bolvan told his subordinate not to shoot because firing on an empty escape pod would have had a negative impact on his prospects for promotion (due to recent Imperial bureaucracy tying promotion to kill ratios as a response to Rebel propaganda about the poor accuracy of Imperial gunners).

 

[Zardnaar]

Yeah, it's the Lawful Evil nature of the Empire that saved the Chaotic Good Rebellion.

According to "The Sith of Datawork", one of the canon short stories in the From a Certain Point of View anthology, Gunnery Captain Bolvan told his subordinate not to shoot because firing on an empty escape pod would have had a negative impact on his prospects for promotion (due to recent Imperial bureaucracy tying promotion to kill ratios as a response to Rebel propaganda about the poor accuracy of Imperial gunners).

It's nit that unrealistic. Military types don't generally fore their guns just because.

Military types in authoritarian regimes generally lack initiative. Loyalty is most valued asset.

 

[Older Beholder]

 

[Older Beholder]

It was weird they went with blaster proof in the series, because Jyn Erso blows a hole clean through one with a hand held blaster in Rogue One.

Maybe the shipment of weapons that the Empire allowed the Ghorman rebels to steal were inferior/duds.

(not my theory, but I don't mind it)

 

[chuckdee]

I'm actually content with that origin. One thing I really enjoyed about the Andor stories is the relative lack of Jedi and Jedi legacy. It's about "normal" people or at least more normal people than the force users who dominate too much of the Star Wars movie landscape.

And I think that's the point. It's that rebellions are made up of normal people that just decide that enough is enough.

 

[pukunui]

And I think that's the point. It's that rebellions are made up of normal people that just decide that enough is enough.

Yeah, I get that. Perhaps I and others were (deliberately?) misled by the various clues from season 1. The kyber crystal Luthen used as collateral for Cassian to do the Aldhani job. The walking stick that suspiciously looked like it incorporated a lightsaber hilt. The tricked-out starship with the red lightsaber-like beams. His monologue to Lonni.

He may not have been a Jedi, but he was certainly a man of mystery. Having him be "just" a disillusioned soldier somehow doesn't quite fit. Why did he choose the antiquities trade as cover, and how did he build up the collateral and connections to set up shop in a wealthy section of Coruscant? Was he interested in history and antiquities before becoming a soldier? Was he from a wealthy family?

So many questions!

Maybe the shipment of weapons that the Empire allowed the Ghorman rebels to steal were inferior/duds.

(not my theory, but I don't mind it)

I'm sure Disney will give us some canonical justification for the discrepancy at some point! Probably in a future visual dictionary or something.

 

[billd91]

I'm sure Disney will give us some canonical justification for the discrepancy at some point! Probably in a future visual dictionary or something.

I'm not entirely sure it's a discrepancy, per se. We know they hijacked some armaments - but we don't know fully what they were. Moreover, not all of them may have been suitable to take to the protest in the plaza because those would have needed to be concealable. And smaller and concealable means they're probably less powerful than the typical stormtrooper blaster.

 

[Celebrim]

One of my takeaways from having just watched Rogue One again is that Cassian was so traumatized by the Imperial slave labour camp that he felt compelled to lie about having been imprisoned before when they were in Saw's cells.

Cassian also was in a juvenile prison much of his early life. So now it just seems like, "Cassian feels compelled to lie about everything."

 

[Voadam]

Cassian also was in a juvenile prison much of his early life. So now it just seems like, "Cassian feels compelled to lie about everything."

Was he?

He was on the planet of children survivors, then with Marva.

Were we shown anything else?

 

[Celebrim]

Yeah, I get that. Perhaps I and others were (deliberately?) misled by the various clues from season 1. The kyber crystal Luthen used as collateral for Cassian to do the Aldhani job. The walking stick that suspiciously looked like it incorporated a lightsaber hilt. The tricked-out starship with the red lightsaber-like beams. His monologue to Lonni.

There were lots of things that suggested Luthen was a Jedi of some sort, most importantly his monologue to Lonni which now after he's been given a backstory so doesn't fit the character that the most logical explanation is that it was all an act to keep Lonni on board. The truth is, Luthen had given up nothing to become what he was. He'd already lost everything before he started fighting the Empire. He was already a broken man before the rise of the Empire back when the Empire's only atrocities were just cleaning up and suppressing separatist holdouts brutally. The reality given his backstory is that becoming a resistance leader gave his life purpose and meaning that it had lost. He was suicidal before that point, it's not like he had to give up anything to do the job. So he made up something that Lonni would believe in just as a trick to keep Lonni trusting him. Only that makes him despicable and not heroic. It turns him from an anti-hero to an anti-villian - someone who just happens to hate the Empire, not someone who actually loves good.

Luthen's reveals ended up completely undermining who I thought he was as a character. I suddenly became very sympathetic to the Alliance leadership that wanted little to do with him. Murdering Lonni and then turning out to be just a broken disillusioned NCO who embarked on a life of vengeance to somehow redeem himself for his role in the Empire's genocides seemed as you say to not quite fit. The only way to make it fit was make it an act or else to leave out all the really important aspects of his life which is just bad story telling.

Why did a sky kyber crystal have special meaning to him? Why the walking stick he never really uses if it's handle just contains an ornate blade? The red lightsaber like beams aren't really to me a big clue, because we know that Republic gunships use similar lances as anti-personal weapons so they don't have to be Jedi tech. But why is he one of the foremost archaeologists in the Galaxy, if he's just an NCO for crying out loud? People from wealthy scholarly backgrounds rarely end up as enlisted men. How was he able to emulate the elaborate mannerisms of an inner sphere courtier? The background fit so little into what they had shown that it felt to me like it was wrong.

I'm fairly sure the reality is that he was meant to be a Jedi in season 1 just as originally Lyra Erso was meant to be a Jedi in Rogue One, and in both cases Tony Gilroy backed out of that because they wanted to highlight the role of "normal people". And sure, you can do that, but I think you need a better back story as to how this guy was one of the foremost archaeologists and antiquitarians in the entire galaxy than he was just some NCO with PTSD.