Star Wars Andor Season 2: A Masterpiece Under Pressure (ESSAY SCRIPT)
Added 2025-05-22 14:00:12 +0000 UTCI earnestly think this is some of my best essay
Comments
Jessie this is fucking brilliant ... just take my time reading it to prolong the joy
Jeni
2025-06-02 00:48:37 +0000 UTCYour review of Andor is wonderful—thank you for sharing it! I can’t wait to see the video. I have a slightly different view of Dedra, though that doesn’t excuse her actions in the slightest. As a mother, I feel pity for her. She was taken from her family at an age when she couldn’t possibly have had the judgment to resist Imperial indoctrination. She was taught to despise and hate her parents, whom she now calls traitors. And I imagine that in the Imperial nurseries, she was constantly shamed for her lineage. She had to atone for their “sins.” I suppose every child raised in those structures had to prove they were the best little products the Empire could produce. Most likely, they were pitted against one another. To survive, they had to crush the others. It’s hard for me to believe that solidarity, friendship, or compassion were values the Empire would promote in its orphanages. Deedra received no affection. She formed no bonds with anyone. She has no idea how to do so. To me, she was broken by the very system her parents likely rebelled against. The very actions that allowed her to rise through the ranks of the ISB are the ones that damned her—and led her to end up in prison. I believe that even in the end, she doesn’t understand her fall from grace or grasp the true impact of her crimes. She wanted to be the perfect student in a system that exploited her, then discarded her as soon as she became “defective.” Maybe it’s possible to become a good person even when raised in the worst conditions. But maybe those who manage to do so are the exception rather than the rule. Dedra is not one of them. I don’t feel sympathy for her. She has no redeeming qualities. But I do feel pity.
Pufpuf
2025-06-01 16:31:48 +0000 UTCOhh, may I cite you and add some of this to the script?
Jessie Earl
2025-05-22 22:46:00 +0000 UTCThis was a wonderful script and I only have one real comment and that is that I think you undersell Mon Mothma’s role. Every successful revolution that has made the world somewhat better—the American revolution of 1776, the French revolutions of 1830 & 1848 (1789 is more complex, but I’m still mostly a fan), the Haitian revolution, the second Amweocan Revolution aka the American Civil War (a damn good revolution indeed the crushing of the antebellum economic and political order!), the Mexican Revolution of 1910, & the Portuguese Carnation Revolution to give the examples I am most familiar with—has involved some elite buy-in. Successful revolutions need money and/or legal influence and/or charismatic leaders who attempt to shape public opinion. Francisco Madero in Mexico & the Count of Mirabeau in France & Thaddeus Stevens weren’t merely working within the systems until they gave up, they believed in showing the people that working within the system could not bring the change that was needed and they used their money, education, & family name to help shape public opinion, influence more radical figures to demand more & funded more radical figures. Successful revolutions in world history—both good ones like the above mentioned and evil ones—are always cross class ALLIANCES. This is one of the things Andor demonstrates so brilliantly via Mon Mothma. To my mind the closest analogue to her today is Governor JB Pritzker (AOC & Elizabeth Warren are good analogues in terms of their outspoken criticisms of issues that need to be addressed, but Pritzker has the money Mothma does and has spent lots of it on referenda across the country and supporting Democratic candidates; will Pritzker become a Mothma in always aka a true revolutionary? Perhaps. Perhaps not, but he’s more who I would expect given my knowledge of history). This point aside, beautiful script and I cannot wait to hear & watch your video.
Conrad
2025-05-22 22:14:51 +0000 UTC
