Should have killed Andor [redacted]? Let us discuss

Andor is a series built on a tragedy. From the first episode of the show we knew exactly how the journey of our hero would end: on the beach of a planet on the edge, to be equipped by the Death Star, content in the knowledge that he has completed his mission.

[Ed. note: This post discusses events in episode 6 of Andor season 2.]

But only because Andor Is full of tragedies does not mean that they are all created the same. In the last moments of the sixth episode of the second season, Cinta Kaz (Varada Sethu) is killed, while it helps the residents of Ghorman to deduct an attack from Empire weapons – one that Cassian expressly warns that the planet's resistance cell is not entirely willing or disciplined. Cinta's death himself comes out of friendly fire, who apparently proves Cassian on the right and can watch her partner in a horror in both life and in the revolution, Vel Sartha (Faye Marsay).

There is no doubt that the moment is one of them Andor'S Sowddest so far, but two of our authors here at Polygon came on the details on different sides. After all, death does not only come after a warning note from Cassian, it comes to Vel and Cinta, Finally kissed on the screen. For some of us, it felt like classic nonsense “bury your gays”; For others, it felt like the poor use of the series itself. We sat down to deal with our reactions and consider how the show approached the couple, death and his revolutions.

Zosha: Let's start with how these things meet us. For me I had the feeling that this was the show that did what she always said: to show the high cost of freedom. I had already become the majority of this bow A Loss in this run.

Susana: I have to admit that it really brought me to a pen! The relationship between VEL and Cinta was so easy in season 1 that it never felt like it was escaping from the controversial realm of something that could be published from a publication in other markets-I literally saw Meme screenshots on Tumblr. Are you You know… plausibly denikbar?

Finally to get a kiss on the screen of them, not to mention a love and intention for their future, felt like an exhaling, like the show, compensating for the previous defects. Cinta, who died in a fluke accident about 15 minutes later Andor.

Zosha: I have the feeling that this is probably the place where the division will come down for us: it definitely felt big and weighty for me. But in this case it was defined against the intelligently written and well -considered scope of Andor As a spy thriller and pretty much everyone who does not appear elsewhere in the Star Wars universe, seems to be cautiously marked for death. (And even then sometimes!)

Susana: I think you are right Andor Do not throw Cinta's death as if it were nothing. Vels speech in front of the Ghorman Rebel, who kills her, for example, is really good, both when writing and in the performance of Faye Marsay. But honestly … the condition of the queer representation in Star Wars on the screen is just so incredibly bleak. There is one ironic meme over it!

But Andor Is the show closest to Star Wars, and that gave me the hope that I was sure to expect a happy ending for Cinta and VEel. I saw the fact that you were nowhere else seen as an open canvas in the Star Wars universe to do it.

Zosha: That's totally fair. Cinta is killed does Feel particularly difficult for me because the show is so well written, especially within the Star Wars universe that even the fleeting insights into your relationship are more important to me than the majority of other Star Wars romances. But it doesn't feel worth it for me Andor Just because it's a political show. As much as it wears my poor, strange heart, I don't think the show owes these characters a happy ending just because they are the only ones who are ready to actually put them on the screen in the front and in the middle.

This does what does this in a strange way Andor Killing Cinta feels as different from something like something like something like The 100: Both shows make a meal “What is the responsibility of power? What is the responsibility of freedom?” And “How do they fight with an organized society?” But Andor manages to turn this into a guy “look what we could have had”, and not on lexa The 100Present That felt more like shocking. The latter felt gross due to his proximity to the summit of the same -sex love story.

But Andor shows only as a love story among the many who are doomed to failure, which feels me as they are as they are Part the greater history instead of existing beyond the means as a representation ™. Cinta and Vel are part of a wall carpet in otherwise happy life and do not love that it is not about the crushed grip of the empire on the galaxy. They – such as Andor and Bix or even Aldhani and its colonization – are involved in a fight that is larger than themselves. This is in its own tragic way, Andor take them seriously.

Susana: Yes, it's complicated! As it is basically every angle on the idea of ​​the marginalized “representation” in corporate media. Apart from that: I do not want to dismiss the efforts of many creators in the area of ​​the Star Wars comics and novels, which have undertaken undeniable progress in the introduction of a clear queer and trans figures. So that only means: Skywalker ascent Sucked and also strange kiss for two seconds.

If I will blame someone how Cinta's death cut me, it would be modern Star Wars on the screen as a whole building, not the grim hopeful spy rama that tries to depict deadly revolutionary movements of real revolutionary movements on Star Wars Canon. I mean, I have just opened another tab in which I created a piece about how the core topic of Andor is that every character in the resistance has metaphorically accepted that they are already dead.

As much as I didn't like this bar, the reasons why I didn't like it are outside of AndorControl. It shouldn't rest on the shoulders of AndorThe show at which the point is that everyone has lost the relatives through the struggle to go through the lack of queer representation, what to solve, almost a decade of modern Star Wars films and TV series?

With reflection this is the real thing that brings me about Cinta's death. In a better world I could enjoy what it is, isolated: as you said, Andor express his message eloquently.

Zosha: Yes, and none of it makes it really less tragic! I think it's just a little easier for me to swallow because it feels like I feel CareThis is something that Star Wars TV has not achieved in a minute. These don't just feel like action machines. They are real decisions, with real weight and considerations to them. That they work For me it is almost irrelevant – it's just nice to feel that it is important!

For this purpose: it cannot be said enough shit Skywalker ascent.