I don't wanna be wanky here but am I slightly perhaps just the tiniest bit put out that so many people are all "🤩I burn my life to make a sunrise that I know I'll never see😍" about Luthen when Cassian Andor's other tall sandy-haired spymaster came in for so much flack over (checks notes) ordering a hit on the lead engineer for THE DEATH STAR? Maybe so

What is Luthen Rael?

I can’t stop thinking about this episode, but seriously, who did Luthen lose??? Who and what is Luthen Rael? Saw remarked in Ep 8 that he never says what he is and what he ultimately stands for. Why is he a coward? Did he watch someone die, powerless to stop it?? 

Does he have survivor’s guilt?

“I share my dreams with ghosts.”

Who are these folks and are they people that he lost fifteen years ago? It would make sense given his other statements such as the one about the equation. 

“I wake up every day to an equation that I wrote fifteen years ago from which there’s only one conclusion, I’m damned for what I do.”

He speaks like a man who has lost and/or broken his Faith and is doomed to some sort of hell as a result. 

This is a man who wears or wore a kyber crystal around his neck, hidden underneath his clothes. I did not think before that Luthen was a former Jedi or force sensitive, but what if he is? if not it is sure looking like someone close to him was. Was he a temple guardian like Chirrut or something else similar? I also found it interesting how he chastised himself for being angry and violent like it went against his own personal code of conduct, apart from the sacrifices he’s had to make. He speaks of losing balance when he says: 

“I’ve given up all chance of inner peace.” 

and 

“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.”

He’s talking about falling to the Dark Side whether he’s force sensitive or not. Anyone can compromise themselves to the point of losing themselves which is really what the Dark Side is a metaphor for. The Force exists in and around everyone. Just the language that he is using is so particular, that it’s difficult to ignore. 

He urges others to fight, but he never gets involved himself. Is attacking against his belief system? The Evil attack, the Good defend is sort of a mainstay of many stories. He feels guilty because he propels other people to what some view as acts of terrorism, even if it is for the sake of saving all that is good. 

Will he retrench and get involved anyway, at Spellhaus or whatever is about to go down on Ferrix? We see him in his ship in the previews fighting so clearly he is not going to live in the shadows forever and whenever he emerges, I think it will be for the memory of whoever those ghosts are, those that he lost when the Empire came into power.

I believe that Luthen lives to S2 and that we are going to get some mentions of The Force though in a way consistent with Rogue One, subtle and in keeping with the narrative. 

I’ve always felt that “May the Force be with you.” was a bit of a Rebellion slogan. You see it in the original trilogy and throughout Rogue One, before battles especially. In a galaxy where the Jedi were destroyed and believing in the Force is heresy, where you can be arrested for being even mildly force-sensitive or for knowing someone who is, where an acknowledgement that all beings are connected which is antithetical to the Empire and the to the Dark is dangerous, saying that to someone, mentioning it, is an act of rebellion. 

Vel says to Mon Mothma, “We’re fighting against the dark.”

Perhaps Luthen Rael is the one thing you are not allowed to mention, something that never gets mentioned. 

“He is something that we shall never discuss.” 

Vel likely doesn’t know much about his background, but this line surely is there for a reason, for the audience to note. It could just be about his position as an axis for rebellious activity or it could have a double meaning. The question of his origin is highlighted again and again in this show. He says that his ego has no mirror. He is not strictly alone. He has Kleya and other human connections, such as they are. Or is he alone because there is no one like him?  Because he lost his family, the only ones who really understood him? 

I think that Luthen believed in what the Jedi stood for, was closely connected to them, or was one himself, and I am certain that if any of this comes to pass, this team of writers will do it justice and make it work in a way that is not going to steal anything from the narrative or the tone of the show or compromise their vision of what Andor is. Then again, I’ve always thought that the Force was a lot more fluid and varied and sophisticated than just, you can float rocks or not. It’s about every sentient being. It is life itself. (Also. I’ve always wanted to see regular people who are connected to the Force. You don’t choose it, it chooses you. You could be a Jedi or you could help your neighbors with their garden or warn the village of danger. But I digress.)

I certainly neither need these things to happen nor find them desirable or undesirable. I observe patterns and draw conclusions. But okay, ngl, that would be extremely compelling and building towards it for an entire season, layer upon layer, is totally their style. Certainly the nature of his sacrifice is very Jedi-like. He gives hope and light to others in dark times, but keeps none for himself. 

“So what do I sacrifice? Everything!” 

...just as the Jedi were sacrificed on the altar of the Empire.

The Force has been there hiding in the folds of this show the entire time. it doesn’t need to be name dropped to be real. And I LOVE that. 

I trust these writers. They waste nothing. Each line, every scene, every self-reference has a place, mirrors something else. Impeccably. 

seriously.

who the hell is luthen???? really????

like, where’d he get all those weapons from???

where’d he learn to fly like that???????

WHO ARE YOU?!

The Mandlorian decided that droids needed a bar, because every Star Wars writer has made the moral black pit of droid sentience and servitude ever more incoherent, absurd, and irreconcilable. (The short version is that droids in Star Wars can fundamentally not be sentient for the ironclad non-diegetic reason in that its moral framework cannot handle the weight that every organic character in Star Wars is at-best totally indifferent to slavery and has casually and comfortably bought slaves, sold slaves, murdered slaves, ripped bits out of some slaves to improve other slaves, left slaves to die, ordered slaves to their death to save their own skins, and watched other people murder slaves without any reaction either personally or within any kind of larger narrative awareness. Stupid writers keep dancing towards the issue because they think it adds 'depth' or some kind of 'edginess' but no, it just breaks Star Wars. Seriously, if droids are fully people Star Wars just... breaks. In a way that's really obnoxious, too, like that one asshole who corners you at a party to tell you that the Jedi are the REAL villains if you think about it. No, dipshit, they're not: even Andor understands that the moral line in Star Wars is really obvious and solid. Star Wars morality can encompass people doing bad things in pursuit of a noble goal, but it never goes 'fascists and anti-fascists are a mirror image' because that's authoritarian-friendly centrist bullshit.

[sidebar: Andor understands that's there's nuance to freedom fighting, that terror can be a tool to fight oppression but, equally, that an anti-fascist who turns to fascism to fight fascism is just a fascist. The tension in Andor is not that fighting fascism will turn you fascist, but that the choices you make might free others but leave you forever chained. You might bring your people to the promised land, but there's no guarantee you'll be able to join them because a moral person who holds themselves to their own moral standard values himself too much to live comfortably with what he's done. Luthen Rael doesn't think the things he are does are justified because of the greater good: he thinks that he couldn't see a better option and he will live every day until he dies questioning, re-litigating, and self-flagellating himself that he wasn't good enough to figure that better option out, and nothing or no-one will ever free him from that guilt and shame. A fascist and an anti-fascist can both do terrible things but its the fascist who can sleep well at night, and that's all the difference in the world. Andor's a pretty good show, y'all.] Thus, as the Empire is explicitly pro-slavery, you can't have the Good Guys also be pro-[droid] slavery as some kind of 'both sides' tu quoque rhetorical flourish. It doesn't work—not in Star Wars. Not even in mildly more amture, grown-up Star Wars/ Droids cannot be sentient in Star Wars because literally the entire moral underpinning that is the narrative raison d'etre of the entire series falls completely apart. (This is, incidentally, the non-mechanical reason I don't like droid PCs in my SW campaigns.) And yes, this is the short version of this argument. The long version involves me whacking you with a pool noodle while reading long passages of Uberto Eco and CLR James until you stop trying to make Star Wars 'edgy' like someone writing an 'evil Santa' movie.)

Andor

I wrote about Andor on DW. You can comment there or here.

I loved the original trilogy for its lived-in feeling and vastness, and the story of the little guy against the big guy. Andor takes the starting point of the original trilogy, and gives it weight and depth and takes the questions of rebellion and insurrection seriously in a way that as Abigail Nussbaum says, actually makes Andor the most Star Wars of all the Star Wars properties. It's about organizing and activism, it's a cri de coeur about the power of communities over individuals. It's sharply observed not only about the tenuous alliances between revolutionary groups, but the inevitable weaknesses of authoritarians. It's some of the best writing I've ever experienced in any medium. It tells a story of systems and movements that are bigger than people while showing human agency and allowing people to shine. * Andor is really a writing master class. I love how we're invited to laugh gently at Nemik's zealotry, and his manifesto. Even if we sympathize with it, we know he's going to be disillusioned or killed. And he is. But then when his manifesto is used again in the final episode, it's earned, because we met him early, and we saw Cassian Andor's progression to radicalization, and we, along with him, can hear and feel the truths of Nemik's manifesto in a way we were not capable of before. * The whole prison arc has been rightly hailed, and especially Andy Serkis's work as Kino Loy. Someone else pointed out that we are seeing organizing in those scenes. Good activists identify leaders and use them, and that's what Cassian does with Kino. At the end of that arc, when Cassian gets Kino to talk to the whole prison, and Kino uses his words, it shows that the notion of a singular hero is not what is needed here. This is not Cassian Andor's story, this is the story of the rebellion, of a fight with infinite fronts that can always be pushed upon, and need to be pushed upon by a collective. * Other people have also pointed out that whoever destroyed Kenari was before the rise of the empire, and we're forced to see the Republic as also a perpetrator of colonialization, economic and environmental destruction, and genocide. This is underlined by Mon Mothma and the explicit notion that her liberal trouble-making is ineffectual, it's only useful as a front for more radical fighting. And it's making me want to write fic! Which is weird for such a good show. Often well-written shows don't leave room for anything to be filled in, but Andor leaves a lot of space, while never feeling incomplete. I think perhaps this is because it is in the Star Wars universe, a universe we know is vast. But also, I just absolutely love Stellan Skarsgård as Luthen Rael, and I'm fascinated by the character and by and his relationship with Cassian. I need to read and write a million words about them, slashy and otherwise. I have always loved Stellan Skarsgård's work and always will. In this house we sexualize old dudes especially when they're Stellan Skarsgård, and it is fantastic to see him in a role like this. He's incredibly charismatic, uncompromising, and also portraying Luthen as deeply human. We can see that he hates some of the things he's had to do long before that incredible speech to Lonni, a speech that would have been well written no matter what, but pehaps that could only have been delivered by Skarsgård. I loved how little he has to do in Ferrix besides watch, perhaps, a glimmer of the sunrise he will not live to see. I love how we don't know if he's a hero or a villain, or if those terms can even apply to him—this is a show with many heroes but no one hero, and no one untarnished. I am not sure that what Luthen has done up to this point was necessary and that's part of the point—we'll never know, he'll never know, who had to die, and whose lives he wasted. He has set himself up as the mastermind of many revolutionary cells—will there come a time when he confuses power and self-preservation with the good of the rebellion? Has that time already come? He stands in excellent contrast to Saw Guerrera, and perhaps the best argument that he is necessary is when Saw says, "I am the only one with clarity of purpose." Because you can't have a rebel alliance where only one person is allowed to have clarity of purpose. The entire Andor show is about refuting that idea. Skeen says it best when he says "everyone has their own rebellion," while also proving that his rebellion has outlived its usefulness to The Rebellion. And I haven't even touched on his relationship with Cassian yet, which is different from his relationship with all of his other pawns and allies. But I gotta wrap this up for now. Please point me to your Andor meta, fic, and other people interested in this show! I think I have a new fandom!

WIP ask meme

many thanks to @notasapleasure for the tag! I was going to sit this one out because I don't have a lot to talk about, but realized it'd be an excellent opportunity to compel @ceruleanphoenix7 to share some of the nonsense we've come up with in recent weeks, so.

(also do I just... rattle off any WIPs I have stashed away? And invite follow-up/questions? Am mildly unclear on the procedure here. Anyway.)

The big one is Tether, which is 15 chapters deep on AO3 with another 10 or so (emphasis on "or so") planned. Broke my brain banging out the last few chapters last month, took a few creative detours, keep promising myself it's up next and keep getting distracted again. Anyway, it's the Bix&Melshi&Cassian, Bix/Melshi crack-treated-way-too-seriously, author-committed-way-too-hard-to-this-bit fic. Rebellion, Dantooine, Keef Girgo-adjacent identity porn, etc etc. Chs 16+ will pull us in the direction of Yavin and, well. The Inevitable.

I have vague handwritten notes for a fic duo in which Luthen molds Cassian into his perfect operative and then Draven has to contend with an agent who has no particular moral boundaries in his work. Because I am weak for Cassian and his dysfunctional relationships with his taciturn handlers. Though a lot of this muse energy might have been purged with my latest two additions to AO3, Floodgate (Cassian&Luthen with a hint of Cassian/Luthen) and Spectacle (Cassian & Draven spy/future handler meet-cute/job interview).

I have a one scene musing on Kleya meeting Cassian for the first time sparked by gaming out some Kleya/Cassian what-ifs with a friend I won't put on the spot. But I haven't figured out where that might want to go. It's certainly a compelling puzzle of a thought exercise LOL.

That... might be about it? Without getting into old fandoms, anyway, my brain has gotten more flexible in recent years on bouncing between fics but still stays pretty determinedly in one playground at a time.

Tagging @ceruleanphoenix7 who I know has lots of ideas bouncing around and entirely too many absurd ones we've mused on together.

And @jake-and-amy-are-married and @nessrealta if you want to talk about any lurking notes or ongoing projects or 2024 plans!

No but

Seriously

There's something so so so so HEALING and beautiful about the people of Ferrix welcoming Cassian back with open arms after Maarvas death like!! Yes they overreacted and thought that it was his fault that the Imps stayed at the beginning, but but but

Then they stayed under the Empire's oppressive rule and they realized MAN this SUCKS!!! Oh man this really sucks!!

And then they realized Maarva is sick and they try to take care of her, but they also knew rhat the only person she'd keep herself alive for is not there (AND while I have Many opinions about her but but)

And then she dies, and EVERYTHING stops!!

Everything!! Maarva's boy wants to come back home for the funeral. They make it happen.

They hug him so tight. They ask him what can they do to help. He says he's gonna take on an Imperial garrison by himself, and they say, okay, how can we help?

God this show!!!

bestie you are so right.

it's all about ✨community✨

if i could put a name on one aspect of andor that i truly loved it was how it really put the emphasis on the community over the individual.

the empire is individualistic. it is isolating. it severs one from their community so that they are left without support, without a safety net. they climb over each other, backstab and scheme to curry favor, to get recognition and glory and do not share it.

blevin tells dedra that when she falls she falls alone.

dedra is not saved by anyone in the empire when she's being kicked around and pulled apart by the crowd. it is syril -- someone on the outside that takes the risk to save her because he feels a connection to her.

syril is driven by his lack of community. he's hungry for it. he is consumed by need for it. he seeks it in all the wrong places and for much of the season we see him adrift. we see how little he cares about his mother but how can he when she constantly cuts him to the quick? we see his uninspiring speech to the men he is sending to their deaths because he refused to heed the warning about ferrix doing things their own way and so to feel big and in control he wields his petty authority against others which turns an entire community against him. it's part of why he latches onto dedra the way he does.

the prisoners of narkina 5 escape as a group of people acting as a whole. they are shown helping others climb up to freedom instead of over each other. kino tells them to help each other. on kenari we see the orphaned children had built a community that cared for each other and kassa was taken from that. years later cassian is still deeply hurt by this loss even if he finds another community. we see the people of ferrix rallying together. they warn each other of the pre-mor enforcement, the daughter's of ferrix care for maarva as she dies and ensure the traditional funerary rites are given to her.

brasso i would say is the character that is the biggest part of this theme. his care for cassian, bix, bee and maarva are his entire character. he is kind and compassionate. he saves wilmon from being killed during the riot. he is the one to carry maarva's brick in cassian's stead. this is a man who loves deep, hard and openly. he cares. the rebels are all about community. they are building a network. they reach out to others who feel the same as they do. they say you don't have to be alone in this fight. not to say the rebels do not sacrifice or it is without it's costs but we see it again and again that this is a group who cares about others outside of themselves.

mon mothma continues to try to help the ghorman despite her pleas falling on deaf ears. vel's rebel cell on aldhani takes advantage of a local custom of gathering as a community as cover to do the heist. a custom the empire shows nothing but contempt for whereas gorn and nemik show interest and knowledge of.

luthen's cover is an antique's dealer that sells off people's cultures. remember he tells that one woman she can just make up whatever that language said? his cover is the apathy and disregard the empire has for other cultures.

community is also vital to rogue one.

jyn is a character that is very alone at the start. she is lost in a lot of ways but she gains a community. she gains people. cassian says "welcome home" and even for the short time she has left she has a place amongst these people.

at the very end, on that beach on scarif -- cassian and jyn -- two people who lost everything over and over and over -- they had each other. they reached for each other and held on when the end came. the empire didn't win.

love thy neighbor as thyself and greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends

that is why the empire could never win. not with cassian and jyn, not with ezra bridger, and not with luke skywalker.

Can I nominate Luthen Rael's ship (the modified Fondor Haulcraft) for most unique? Sorry to go all spacecraft-nerd in a character poll, but that ship is seriously cool.

I applaud your creativity but I don’t think I can allow that. If we ever do who’s who for cars (ships) like we did at my high school, that’ll be your big day

I want more Cassian hurt/comfort in the show

i mean lol there's plenty of it on ao3

but in all seriousness i feel like cassian is gonna be so isolated that the only one doing the comforting will be himself. which is part of what has always made the connections and family he finds with rogue one so important. as much as im conflicted about the choices made in the show about his backstory, he is still so isolated and divorced from the people who are important to him - maarva is both his mother and the woman who tore him from his people and his sister, clem is his father and is dead, bix is his first love as well as a close friend but also is never going to trust him to stay for her because she thinks he's going to be more than what ferrix has to offer and what she has to offer. brasso is always going to be more about his community than cassian, even if he knows cassian should be part of the community - but the community doesn't necessarily agree.

cassian is searching for home, for family, for connection - hence the lovers and the scamming for money to find his sister - but home was stolen from him (by imperialism, by white saviorism) and he will have to find his own home.

comfort is hard for a person like cassian (and jyn lbr) to just accept from anyone. see how he sniffs at every drink he's offered? see how he mistrusts the aldhani team (skeen - lol for good reason i guess - and taramyn - because even if he didn't get that taramyn used to be a stormtrooper, he clearly had some sort of feeling about him that triggered cassian's anti-authority sensibility) when they invade his space without consent. he allows cinta to care for his wound imo because A) she's a woman he finds appealing and B) she is ordered to go into his space, she didn't do it on her own. I think when he finds out that cinta is unavailable he is even more inclined to flirt and engage with her because he's not emotionally available. I have been working on a gifset around this concept and I'll post it now that I am home and have time to work on it since lol covid </3 I also think cinta and cass are mirrors of each other (her last name is kaz, the 'she's his sister' stuff is eyerolly to hell but I don't think it's farfetched to think that she is intended to be a lot like him in rogue one).

we will see cassian making connections - a friendship with melshi, hopefully re-establishing some sort of truce with bix, probably vel and cinta, maybe even luthen - this season but I don't think we'll get anything like a deep friendship until s2 when he meets k2so. I mean cassian is a recruiter for the rebellion for a time, so I doubt he's going to be literally isolated - that's never been an impression I've gotten from him in the film; how quickly he is able to amass an army for jyn is telling.

but cassian isn't likely to take comfort from someone he isn't extremely close to, I just don't see it in him.

luthen, andor, and rogue one

The doom has finally come upon me, I care about a piece of Star Wars media (everyone who’s here for Stranger/SF, forgive me and avert your eyes from the spectacle that’s about to follow, unless you too share my obsession with the above topics)

We have to wait until 2024 apparently so please excuse me while I scream into the void about LUTHEN in the context of Rogue One - 

- or more specifically his ghost, how Cassian becomes for Jyn Erso what Luthen is right now for him, because I’m obsessed. (Forgive any minor inaccuracies as, as I say, I have never really paid attention to Star Wars much before now, other than when Rogue One initially came out.)

We know that by the end of Andor S2, everything will have to have gone to absolute hell for the Rebellion and specifically Mon Mothma, who is forced to go fully into hiding with the Rebellion, and Saw Gerrera, who is badly injured and breaks away from the mainline Rebellion. There are apparently canonical reasons for that that are way too far over my head right now, but what interests me is that Luthen Rael, “Axis,” the master of the Rebellion’s spy network, one of its key strategists and financiers, who brought in the man who helps to ultimately secure the Death Star plans and turn the tide of war, is gone by the time we make it to Rogue One/the end of Andor. I can only assume, based on the foreshadowing we’ve seen so far, that he’s dead (more on that later). 

Now enter Jyn in Rogue One. Like Cassian at the start of Andor S1, the Empire has separated her from her family. She too has been in the Empire’s prisons and what appear to be some kind of labor/mining camps. She’s been a child soldier, like Cassian in “the mud at Mimban.” She’s still hoping to be reunited with her father, just as Cassian is looking for his sister. She’s so beaten down that at this point, all she cares about survival, not rebellion. Sound familiar? And just as Luthen does for him in Andor S1, Cassian is the one who encourages her to take this war seriously, “to fight these bastards for real.” He becomes her handler, as Luthen is his, and works with her as she discovers her own reasons for wanting to fight the Empire. 

And Cassian, from the first moment we see him in Rogue One, is the one making all of the horrible, messy, secret choices and sacrifices necessary to keep the rebellion going - killing his injured comrade rather than letting him be captured, using Jyn to get him to her father so that he can (unbeknownst to her) take him out. The kind of vicious, tragic decisions that Luthen had to make, or felt he had to - his “I’m damned for what I do,” Cassian’s “We’ve all done things we’re not proud of in the name of this rebellion.” Cassian knows about and has some kind of precarious dealings with Saw Gerrera - who was Luthen’s contact, as well as Jyn’s guardian, and now Luthen is gone. And as many people have already pointed out, Cassian and Jyn end up dying in the very goddamn poetic sunrise Luthen said he burns his own life for, and will never see. ARGH

In closing, a few theories on what might have happened to Luthen based on what we’ve seen so far, because I live for the angst and GOD I NEED TO KNOW:

1) Mon Mothma betrays Luthen to the Empire for some reason in the name of the greater good of the Rebellion, cementing what we already saw at the end of S1 re: her daughter – she’s beginning to take initiative in making ugly sacrifices for the cause.

2) Luthen dies for Cassian in some way, whether that’s protecting him or allowing Cassian to kill him, cementing his growing sentimentalism/that he’s tired of hiding and sacrificing love and connection, and wants to be a more humane person – to make the Rebellion more humane.

3) Luthen dies in some kind of fallout with Saw Gerrera, cementing the tensions there and the break with the main Rebellion. (Also, if this is not the case – the fact that Saw outlives Luthen is so ironic given what we know about them so far, how isolated Saw is and how central and well-connected Luthen is, and I wonder if that influenced Saw’s decision to leave the Rebellion. That would especially be true if Mon Mothma or someone else sold out Luthen.)

4) I doubt it, but Luthen betrays the cause because he’s tired of sacrifice, and either disappears or gets taken out by Mon Mothma, Cinta, etc., or Cassian (also would cement Cassian’s growing coldness and allegiance to the cause that we see in Rogue One, when he kills his own injured operative).  

He could also just die in some tragic random way, which wouldn’t fulfill a narrative arc but would speak to the cost of war, and how even the greatest among the great can be brought down by chance, by a single cog in the machine, even by someone who’s just scared or following orders or unaware of what they’re doing. The show certainly has killed off a lot of its compelling characters quickly so far. There’s also potential for the arrestor cruiser incident to come back to bite him, because that was extraordinarily close and showy by Luthen’s standards, but that seems like too much of a stretch.

Anyways, I CAN’T BELIEVE I JUST WROTE 900 WORDS ON THIS and am so mad we won’t have closure until end of 2024, ow. 

As a small-time Stellan Skarsgard's Acting enjoyer and big-time Morally Compromised Old Man enjoyer I was inevitably going to fall down a Luthen Rael rabbit hole at least once so forgive me for being fully on my bullshit. But I can't explain my read on this guy without talking about That Speech, and I can't talk about that speech without dumping a bunch of thoughts about dialogue.

Because in my own writing the thing I get most obsessive about is character voice, and the thing about character voice is that not everyone is a poet. Sometimes the craft of writing is about euphony pure and simple. But sometimes (revealing my biases) I think the craft of writing is being able to ask yourself - sure it's good, but is it true? Can you find the poetry in the everyday? Can you express something sharp and compelling and resonant and stay faithful to the perspective of a character who isn't consciously honing their words in that way? All fictional dialogue is constructed. But there does come a point on the spectrum of naturalistic to constructed dialogue - it's partly a matter of taste - where you see more of the writer patting themselves on the back for writing a banger of a line than you see of the character, and personally I often find this off-putting.

Which doesn't mean you never get to let the poetry off the leash (God, that would be joyless). It just means there's a time and a place.

Andor's writers are dropping a lot of bangers and they absolutely know it but largely it works for me, because they're smart about the time and place. Cassian gets to be a guy who's resourceful with his words when the chips are down - that's a big part of his characterization. Maarva and Nemik get to break out the poetry when giving a speech or writing a political manifesto; those words are crafted in-universe as well as out. And Luthen - a performer, a salesman, a man with constructed identities - he gets to use a lot of constructed speech even when he isn't in full-throttle soliloquy mode. I've said before that a lot of stories about espionage are also stories about storytelling: people who create characters, fictions, who tell lies in an attempt to get at truths. In this story Luthen is that guy. Wouldn't you rather give it all at once to something real than carve off useless pieces till there's nothing left - it doesn't matter how constructed that sounds if it's a sales pitch he's rehearsed. It doesn't matter if you see a little bit of the author or the actor peek through when he says things like I know the outside; I imagine the rest, because it functions as characterization when in some sense he is both those things.

All of which is to say That Speech works for me because it tells you something about Luthen beyond the face value of what he says. It tells you this is something he's THOUGHT about, at length. If he hasn't delivered those lines to a mirror, he has absolutely worked through some version of them in his head more than once. And that tells you something just slightly to the left of who Luthen objectively is - it tells you how he constructs and sees himself. I fully believe that Luthen believes what he's saying there.

I also fully believe that this is a man who self-admittedly has an ego and a desire for recognition, who says he's given that up but evidently hasn't let go of some measure of resentment about it. That here's a guy who put on a billowing black cloak, pulled out all the spy theatrics for the express purpose of unsettling his informant, and then gave his best space King Lear audition. That here's a guy with a soliloquy about his sacrifices locked and loaded. On some level Luthen is a little bit into being a martyr for the cause. He's a little bit into the dark glamor of being a lone wolf operator pulling morally tarnished strings. He's a little bit into frightening and manipulating his informant! For all the cynicism of what he's saying, he's a little bit enamored with his own self-image as the sort of man who says it, in a way that suggests an inner romantic more than an inner pragmatist. He says he's damned for what he does but there's more furious pride underlying it than self-loathing; in the same breath he's admitting that a tiny piece of him wants a parade.

Which is fascinating and a little unflattering and way more interesting than just a badass character delivering a badass monologue. The characterization here is partly that Luthen is the kind of guy who monologues.

And to give him his due - I also fully believe that he's a very driven and committed man who has sacrificed a lot. Seen in that light, in fact, I think some of his character flaws come into focus in highly sympathetic ways. Ultimately this is a guy with a deep sense of urgency - "terrified the Empire's power will grow beyond the point where we can do anything to stop it," as he says. And sometimes there can be a lot of ego in urgency. It is a special kind of crazy-making to feel you are taking a problem far more seriously than almost everyone around you. It is a weight of responsibility to believe it's on you to fix that problem before it becomes too big to solve. Under those circumstances it's very understandable that Luthen has big responsible student leading the group project energy and a touch of main character syndrome (which is interesting and sort funny, contrasted with Cassian spending much of the story desperately trying to avoid becoming a main character). It takes a certain kind of drive and audacity-verging-on-arrogance to accomplish what Luthen has accomplished. But character flaws are often the flip side of character strengths, and I think a lot of his are tied up here. Sometimes he's a little enamored with his own isolation (he could choose to be more open with fellow rebel leaders like Saw imo). Sometimes he's awfully comfortable instrumentalizing others while insulating himself. He says Imperial arrogance is remarkable, but sometimes he's blind in similar ways - Luthen is almost as surprised as the Imperials by the funeral riot in the final episode. He's spent so much time stage-managing his would-be rebellion from Coruscant that an organic uprising startles him. In his self-appointed position as the lonely string-puller at the top, he maybe has a bit too much fondness for control and not quite enough regard for community (imo it's also kind of telling that there are no actual Aldhanis involved in the heist on Aldhani). As Clem says - sometimes people don't look down the way they should.

All of which are very interesting and human flaws for him to have! And which I do think the show subtly gestures at in the sort of contemplative way he reacts to that riot, and which I'd love to see come into focus more in S2.

Episode 9:

Mon: Seriously, Vel. What does he have you doing?

Vel: Who? You took a vow.  

Episode 11:

Vel: LuthenLuthenLuthenLuthen

Mon: Luthen?LuthenLuthen  *sips wine*  LuthenLuthenLuthen

Another great episode of Andor with Kino Loy as the star.

The series of emotions he went through throughout, from fear to denial to acceptance to radical resolve. To fear and hesitation again. He pushed through and climbed until he couldn’t. And his speech nearly brought me to tears. Seriously.

Kino has to fully accept this truth that no one gets out, while simultaneously reminding himself and others that there’s one way out.

The way Luthen recruited Cassian, Cassian has recruited Kino, but it’s for a mutual cause. And I love that the plan is already underway before he gets on board.

That fire spreads throughout the group. The floor listens to Kino. They believe his word. He rallies them, his tight ship banding together to act in the right moment.

But even when Kino offers to hold the line on the 5th level, Cassian pushes him forward. He gets to the comm room and barely knows what to say. A man who always spoke to structure and efficiency is at a loss. -But then, he inspires everyone to the exit. He encourages them to help each other. Not to leave anyone behind.

I’ve been assuming that in season 2 Luthen will become someone important and influential for Cassian on a personal level for a few reasons:

The Past/Present Suite scene presents a montage of Cassian’s scenes and relationships with Maarva, Luthen, and, metatextually, Jyn. This implies that Luthen is about as important to Cassian’s journey as a character as the other two, instead of just being there for the plot.

Losing a parent and immediately gaining a close mentor in one of a major Rebellion leaders would be another Jyn parallel, and the show loves those.

In Rogue One, Cassian has “done terrible things on behalf of the Rebellion” which is eating him from the inside, and takes orders from his Rebellion superiors very seriously. The former we see in Luthen, and the latter in the expected behavior of his followers.

But it just occurred to me, what if the influence goes the other way, too?

We know that Cassian is not a leader himself but instead convinces and inspires people around him without being the one to lead the charge or make the big speech. We’ve seen in in different ways with Vel and the Aldhani crew in general, Kino, Jyn. Well, there’s another character who is more defined by being a leader than any of the above characters are, and Cassian just agreed to work for him. Are we going to see Cassian influence Luthen’s decisions and worldview? Is Kleya going to have a problem with him for, even if unintentionally, usurping her position?

i just watched the disney adaption of the mysterious benedict society and even though it is kinda fun to watch i feel like the series just took away anything from the books that could be even slightly scary for kids (the waiting room, constance getting electrocuted, etc.) which made me come up with a very stupid headcanon for another book adaptation but DARK.

here's the cast list and some more stuff:

first of all, everything is filmed in blue lighting giving this uncertain aura.

mr benedict/mr curtain is played by stellan skarsgård and uses his dune voice for mr curtain whilst as mr benedict he sounds more like luthen in the shop

the kids could actually stay the same actors because the level of seriousness needed for this won't be reached by the average child actor (just a fact); still, kate should get blonde hair like in the books

rhonda is played by letitia wright (she's just awesome) and ming-na wen in her AoS aesthetic plays number two

david harbour with blonde hair plays milligan (we all know that would be fun) and we'd get actual footage of what happened to him when he tells his story to the kids. his two torturers are played by chris evans and ryan reynolds (obviously, for these twenty seconds they get payed more than the four children together)

i don't care who plays jackson and jillson, jillson just needs to be buff and have blonde hair while jackson has a disgusting smile

martina is played by adria arjona and keeps getting scenes of crying in the corner at night and then lets her anger out on the society at daytime

for the second book, captain noland, played by pierce brosnan does exactly what happens in the book because that fits the whole mentality, while joe shooter (ryan gosling) has one big change; he is killed by mr curtain when they ride away at the end. this makes kate so angry that she would've thrown the calculator if joe hadn't told her to stop in his last breath

i haven't come any further yet but david tennant is crawlings.

the happy main theme of the children that only rarely occurs is composed by john williams, the rest is adapted by either henry jackman or lorne balfe because of the booming but threatening way of their soundtracks.

Andor and the unease of evolution

A breakdown of the 6th episode of Andor

Spoilers ahead!

There is a certain sense of morose novelty -

That we get to spend this much amount of time with a person whom we know will die. 

A Greek tragedy.

The Fates have already written his story, and we can't pull or change the thread.

Cassian barely has any agency in this story. He is doomed to die in 5 years. Which means that he is doomed to survive all events before that. No matter if he wants to or not.

When I saw BBY 5 in the very first episode, I seriously got chills. But mainly because Cassian's whole path leads to the destruction of the Death Star and the Battle of Yavin. BBY 5 in this context says: This man has five years left to live. It's a countdown to his death and one of the greatest sacrifices the rebellion has ever seen. 

Before the Heist, we see a very specific and context-driven Cassian. He has already lost the lustre for the Rebellion. He is like Jyn when we meet her at the beginning of Rogue One.

For him, the lofty ideals and goals of Rebellion are basically like fairy tales - fake bullshit fed to kids to shut them up. Meeting Nemik, he is mostly amused by him (before Nemik proves him wrong and showcases just how smart, capable, and valuable he is to the mission). He thinks he can recognize the kind of ‘revolutionary’ Nemik is, and he is keen on proving Nemik wrong - the tiny group of 7 is no match for the might of the Empire, and it’s wrong for Nemik to think that he is of any value or thought to them.

For Cassian to come clean about his motivation to complete the Heist is another character-driven moment for him. When Karis Nemik was trying to accept and rationalize “not playing by the rules” and accepting a mercenary’s help at the beginning of the episode from an ideological standpoint.

:readmore:

Choice vs action -

For Cassian, it was never a choice. We see that in Rogue One itself. He was colonized when he was 6, (we don’t even know what happened to his parent figures). He has been in this fight without his autonomy. He was stolen from his homeworld, was propagandised to kill the wrong people, and finally deserted to survive. He did not have the luxury to choose when and where he cared about things - whether it be his survival or his hatred for the empire.

We don’t know much about Nemik’s background, but we can guess. Clearly, this is Karis’s first bit (and last bit) of actual action as a Rebel, at least on this scale. We knew that he had been collecting ways to take down the empire, we knew that he had been writing and thinking about Freedom, Liberty and Justice. To equate, he could have been a college-going armchair revolutionist, who finally decided to join the protests after one too many innocent people had gotten killed. 

He’s an intellectual who was finally radicalized, whereas Cassian had no choice but to be radical, and yet conservative in how to express and visualize his own distaste for the empire.

Cassian knows the value and even importance of anonymity. Like he said to Luthen, the very reason why he was so good at stealing from the empire was his ability to disappear, and of course, the Empire’s utter arrogance and ignorance. 

For him, staying anonymous is key for both his survival, and for his success in the future.

The importance of perspective -

One of the favourite things I liked about Karis and Cassian is that they allowed each other to be challenged by their own perspective - they both knew and acknowledged that the reasons behind why they believed what they believed was because of lived experience and circumstances.

For Karis to swallow his perspective of Cassian from ‘true believer’ to ‘gun-for-hire’, by spinning it as a ‘necessary step forward’ for the Rebellion, and for Cassian to admit to Karis that yes, idealism was important for the movement, is why Nemik insisting that Cassian got the manifesto is a key moment.

Karis is trying to accept and rationalize “not playing by the rules” and accepting a mercenary’s help at the beginning of the episode from an ideological standpoint. He’s trying to work backwards from a new conclusion: that allowing mercenaries to fight the Imperials is important for success. 

For Cassian to tell him the truth about the Empire - that they not only don’t care to learn about those who oppress, but they don’t even learn about those who stand against them - and for Nemik to genuinely listen and absorb this vital insight into who Cassian is (at this moment, a gun-toting merc), still insists that the Rebels must blow the horns and alert the Empire.

We know from trailer footage that Cassian eventually does go back to Ferris, and I think that’s where he’ll finally realize why it’s actually a good idea to show the Empire a face to attack - otherwise, innocents might get caught in the crossfire. Not only are his friends and family now under Imperial Rule, but so are the Dani people - already broken and struggling to fight in their own way. All these people got affected, but without their consent.

For Nemik to insist that Cassian get his manifesto is essentially his way of recruiting Cassian to the Cause - he sees and recognizes Cassian’s true identity - beyond who he has made himself to be to survive and skim away from the Empire. 

Idealism vs survialism -

To lose Nemik and to kill Skeen in the same episode is to show how Cassian is going to 

evolve from the nameless mercenary we see in the first episode to the Rebel Captain we see in Rogue One.

One showed him that idealism is good. Important. Different perspectives away from himself are key for his growth.

By killing Skeen, Cassian has finally evolved from the need to raise above by pulling others 

down. He recognizes the idea that he was the closest to Skeen in his actions; that’s why Skeen decided to try and rope him in before just simply killing him or even leaving him behind along with Vel.

By losing Nemik, he now has the responsibility to imbibe his idealism within himself. 

The Eye heist is a key experience for Cassian. For him to lose the idealist Nemik, who we might guess was someone who didn't really need to bother himself with ideas of Rebellion on such a large scale and to inherit his idealism with the manifesto.

And him so coldly and ruthlessly killing Skeen - the mercenary who thought the only way to lift yourself up is by standing on the heads of others. Cassian essentially killed that part of himself. The final crumb of calculated survivalism that he was holding on to. Because, as Luthen said in 1x4, he knew that if he loses that last bit of self-preservation, he is gone. He will die fighting the Empire.

Where are we flying next?

But, inheriting Nemik's manifesto, and thus inheriting Nemik's idealism, Cassian is now on the road to not dying fighting the Enemy, but dying fighting for the Rebellion. For hope.

The change is an internal one, not an external one. That is why we are going to spend so much time with him.

I am extremely invested to see how he is going to change further.

Onwards to the next arc!