vvilld

The thing is, the show was written and mostly filmed before the current phase of the Gaza war started. The Hamas attack which sparked the current phase of the war was October 7, 2023. The show began filming (meaning the scripts were all written before) in November 2022, nearly a full year before the October 7 attack. Filming paused due to the WGA and SAG/AFTRA strikes, so it didn't finish until February 2024, but everything we see with Ghorman was written years before the current phase of the Palestinian Genocide began.

And Tony Gilroy has been very clear to say this wasn't prescience on his part. He didn't even model Ghorman after the genocide of the Palestinians (which has been ongoing since 1948). It's just that this isn't a new story. The same major story points has happened over and over and over again throughout history. In an interview, Gilroy referenced multiple events which were inspiration for the Ghorman Massacre: the Reichstag Fire, the Gulf of Tonkin incident, the sinking of the Lusitania, the sinking of the USS Maine, and more.

The sad reality is, this is just a common thing that's happened in human history.

I love this show but it kind of bothers me that it's technically made by a capitalist corporation. It feels as if stories of real struggles are being used as just entertainment.

Yeah, but this has literally always been the case. Radical media that challenges the status quo has always been produced using the system that it's challenging. You think the Communist Manifesto was never published by capitalists? You think Bakunin or Proudhon never used presses owned by monarchists or capitalists? Of course they did. You use the tools available to you.

The fact Andor was made by people working for Disney doesn't make it any less radical or challenging to the status quo.

“It is an energy field made of all living things. It surrounds us, penetrates us, binds the galaxy together.” —Obi-wan Kenobi, A New Hope

That's why I think this is more of a reversion of the lore than a change or expansion. In the OT, there's never any suggestion that only Force sensitive people can use the Force. People, including Luke and Anakin, are described as being "strong with the Force," but that implies that others are weak with the Force.

It was the Legends EU which really created the idea that only certain people born with an innate connection had the ability to use the Force at all. Within this framing, the vast majority of people in the galaxy are simply not Force-sensitive and will never have the ability to use the Force. Among those who are Force-sensitive, the degree to which one can use the Force depends on your innately born connection to it. So someone like Luke or Anakin had very little (if any) upper limit to what they could do with the Force because they had a very strong connection. While others (like Tionne, one of Luke's earliest students in Legends) had a very weak connection to the Force, but were still Force-sensitive in a way someone like Han Solo or Lando Calrissian never could be.

I don't believe this is the lore that Lucas ever intended for the Force. I believe his intention was what I described above: anyone can use it with proper training, but some have a better natural inclination.

I think this is more getting at the expansion (reversion?) of the lore we saw in Ahsoka with regards to Sabine Wren. Its not that there only certain select people are capable of using the Force. Everyone is connected to the Force. Everyone has the potential to use it, but you have to have the right mindset/focus to do so. For some, those we call Force-sensitive, that just naturally comes more easily to them. For others, they have to train and work at it.

I think of it like making music or drawing. Everyone has the potential to make music, but some people are just naturally more inclined towards it. Some people can just pick up an instrument for the first time and play it well without practice or training. Others can still learn to make very good music, but they have to train and practice a lot. An elite music school could train anyone, but they're going to seek out more naturally gifted people.

I'm guessing this Force healer (like Sabine) is in that latter camp. She doesn't have a natural aptitude for the Force like Luke or Obi-Wan. But she learned how to tap into a certain aspect of it to help heal.

But it’s a side of the force we haven’t really seen much of.

I think we've seen hints of it. Chirrut Îmwe in Rogue One is in the same vein. Clearly force sensitive, but untrained. The lesbian cult in Acolyte has more training and focus, but clearly not Jedi or Sith. We also see the little kid at the end of TLJ who uses the Force to levitate something, but isn't trained.

I think seeing Andor was rage and lashing out at the man who set him on the path to losing his religion, as it were.

It's partially that, but it's also a little spark of hope in Syril after having his whole world ripped away.

Remember, he believed he was sent to Ghorman to root out outside agitators. He thought his ISB believed people like Andor were active with the Ghorman Front, and that his mission was to hunt down and expose them. Then he had the realization that was a lie the whole time. That, really, he, Syril, was the outside agitator. That he had been played by both the ISB and his own girlfriend into astro-turfing the Ghorman Front into something militant enough to enable the genocide of Ghorman. He has his entire world shattered.

Then he saw Andor in the crowd. That was a sign that his whole mission hadn't been a front. There really were outside Rebel agitators. Not only that, but it was the very guy Syril had been so dogmatically chasing and hunting for so long. Like you said, Andor was the man that set Syril on the path that inevitably let him to Ghorman. Now it turns out (as Syril is suddenly believing) that Andor was also the person he was hunting on Ghorman this whole time. In Syril's mind, he's now realizing that Andor has been at the center of everything important (in Syril's mind) he's ever done in his life. That's why the "who are you?" line is such a gut-punch. He's obsessing over Andor. He built his whole ideology and world-view around the myth of Andor (and people like Andor) Syril kept in his head. Only to learn this guy doesn't even remember him?

I think Syril's rage and attack on Andor was Syril trying to redeem himself in some way. Like, if I can just bring in proof that this outside Rebel agitator really was here, that the Ghorman Front really always was the militant force the Empire is now making them out to be, that Syril could convince at least himself that he wasn't so directly responsible in their genocide.

Am I the only one for whom the Force healer bit didn't really work well? I'm just rubbed the wrong way by some Force-connected character talking about Cassian having some pre-ordained purpose. I prefer Cassian to be some regular guy who stood up to fight than the Special Boy selected by Space Magic.

Otherwise, this was amazing. The Ghorman massacre was so well done. My adrenaline was pumping the entire in the lead up to, during, and the escape from Mon Mothma's speech. The hotel clerk delivering the "Rebellions are built on hope line" was perfect, and Cassian giving that line to Jyn in Rogue One now has so much more impact. Also, the line in Rogue One about the Senate being told Jeddha was a mining disaster has so much more significance after seeing Ghorman.

Syril's death was the most satisfying fascist death since Inglorious Bastards. He had EVERYTHING ripped away from him. He realized that he WAS the outside agitator he thought he was trying to hunt the whole time. He learned his girlfriend knew they were setting up a genocide the entire time and was just using him. He learned the Empire is exactly as evil as he had always denied it was. He was a True Believer in the Empire in every sense of the words and had that true belief ripped away from him. HE personally played one of the largest roles in making the genocide happen. Then he finally found Andor, who he had been obsessing about for YEARS. Then the "who are you?" gut punch right before that fascist fuck got got. Chef's Kiss Couldn't have happened to a worse fellow.

I hope we get more Saw in the final arc.

No, and based on reading your incredibly rude response to people trying to answer your question in an Ask community, you clearly don't understand what "proto-" means.

This isn't really abnormal. He's accused of murder, and a pretty high profile one at that. It's not uncommon in the slightest for people accused of high profile crimes and people accused of murder to be held in custody pending trial.

I enjoy it when the subjects/actors have the ability to be in on the bit. The kid in s1 was pretty fucked up. That kid genuinely believed Nathan had become his new dad. I felt so bad for him.

I agree. I think if Sullenberger had agreed to be on it would have been at the end of episode 3. I'm just wondering if they tried to get him and he declined, if they asked his permission at all, or if Sullenberger was totally in the dark about the whole thing until it aired.

That episode was so wild. I was trying to explain it to my wife and she was like, "so he lied to these people to get them to audition?" At first I was about to agree, but like, he didn't lie? His only promise was that the winner would get to perform a public domain song on national television on an exact recreation of the Houston airport. And, like, he can deliver that quite easily at this point. He just created an entire reality TV show for a bit on a single episode.