JCC Embrace The FU - Formerly the STAR WARS IS BAD thread

Syril is not really the sharpest knife in the drawer. He thought they were just infiltrating into a rebellious organization. He did not expect that the actual plan was to wipe out the whole population for the sole purpose of controlling the planet's mineral resources.

 

Yeah, he didn't expect a genocide or what will prove to be the destruction of a planet through strip mining. He was expecting to remove dissidents and keep the peace.

He also didn't expect his significant other to be one of the people leading the charge to remove Ghorman from the galactic map.

 

To be fair, that wasn't always the plan.
That was the last resort.
Relocation was discussed in the meeting with Krennec, as was finding alternatives so they didn't have to do something so destructive it would effectively destroy the planet.

But once force was the last resort, it had to be seen as justified.

 

@SithLordDarthRichie
What is it that confuses you about Syril's behavior precisely?

 

Come on Richie. This is not The Acolyte. There's no need to second-guess the consistency of a character's actions here. You can only wonder about the intended motivations, like Guy and Fatburt and Ezzy. Because this is supremely written and executed stuff.

 

I'm just slightly unsure what he was angry about exactly. He was saying "I never meant any harm" to the people who he was sent to infiltrate for the ISB knowing full well they were going to be got rid of. Does he really think the Empire doesn't kill people?
Is he mad about the killing of civilians, or is it more about the fact he wasn't told about the overall plan? Does he expect to be informed of high level ISB operations when he's not a member of that organisation?
I don't know why he went into the crowd, what was he planning to do? Join the uprising? Help the people he spent so long helping the ISB get rid of? In the end he ends up trying to kill Cassian, a guy who is exactly the same as those he was spying on for the ISB.

 

The show is implying that he actually did not know that, at all.
He is not a very intelligent person. He saw his role as the role of someone who is genuinely bringing order and security to the people in the galaxy. And then he realized that he was just being used in order to implement a cynical plan involving a genocide.

 

And then he almost turned, and then he saw Andor, and then he didn't.
And in his final moments he saved Dedra's life while unaware of it.

Hemingway can't touch this.

 

I'm pretty sure she'll commit suicide at some point

 

I wonder if Bix will return in the show, or she'll just disappear and we never see what happens.

 

For sale: a pair of star baby shoes, never worn

 

All Dedra needs to do is calibrate herself.

 

I'm expecting something like that or a failed attempt at a noble sacrifice.

 

I still expect her and/or Partagaz to be on the Death Star by the end of the series.

 

I have so many emotions and thoughts on the arc that came out Tuesday, especially Episodes 8-9. Maybe I'll repost here, but I wrote in the Andor thread in the Literature forum:
https://boards.theforce.net/threads...-ago-andor-its-happening-now.50050524/page-54


Is anyone else expecting a time card for each episode in the last arc, as a countdown of sorts? Something like:

Episode 10: 1 year BBY

Episode 11: 1 month BBY

Episode 12: 1 week BBY

 

Spoiler

 

If you want to see what happens "immediately" after the 9th episode of Andor regarding certain characters, watch Rebels S3: E18 Secret Cargo.

 

But that would mean watching Rebels. Why would anyone choose to do that?

 

Rebels was fairly enjoyable. I mean, if I had other important or more enjoyable things to do I might choose otherwise, but Rebels was no Book of Boba Fett.

 

Dedra hated the idea from the very beginning. In all of her conversations with her supervisor, she showed how much she didn't like it.

She knows it is wrong.

But the key is: she still did it.

Because she follows orders, as she was probably indoctrinated to do at this Imperial orphanage/boot-camp. And it will help her career rise, so can then better do what she wants to do.

She's also a coward. She has panic attacks and freezes in terror when she's physically in situations, as we saw even in season one.



Dedra did care about Syril, and Syril cared about her.

How did Syril get started in all this? He thought Andor had murdered two people. He really thought he was going after a murderer. When his supervisor wanted to let it go, he refused to, because he thought it was a murder case. Syril is a Boy Scout. But he didn't have information on what really happened, how could he have?

And because of his Boy Scout persistence and integrity, he stayed on this, it's not like he has anything else in his personal life. That put him on a path that he went on in Season 1. He really did think the Empire was trying to keep the peace, and that the rebels were overreactive terrorists.

Dedra put him in this position on Ghorman, and it's made clear many times that he was not to be told. I wouldn't say he was dumb... Syril still knew more than probably all other Imperials on the planet until Dedra arrived.

He really didn't think the Empire killed people, he wasn't a witness to any of its Season 1 atrocities. He's appalled at the civilians being killed, and he realizes the Ghorman Resistance were the good guys after all.

He HAS already turned, when he jumps into the plaza. He wants his fate to be the same as theirs. Him attacking Cassian has NOTHING to do with Empire/Rebellion. He seems Cassian as the cause that put him on this path, probably still thinks he's a murderer, and he just snaps. He has that "temporary insanity" mental breakdown. He thinks Cassian is why he was put on a path where he was made into a tool of genocide... and technically, that's correct.

Syril does recover his senses, at the very end. Realizing that Cassian doesn't even recognize him, that he was less than a footnote for him. But the words themselves... it's what he's been asking himself. It brings him back into sanity. I'm not as sure on this, but I don't think he was thinking "I'm inconsequential," I think he's thinking "we aren't mortal enemies, he doesn't know my story and I don't know his story, maybe he's like the Ghorman resistance too."

I really wonder what would have happened if he wasn't shot then, but I don't think he would have killed Andor. I'm not sure if they would have had a conversation or not, and there's still a massacre happening. I don't think Syril would have gone to Andor, that's for sure, but I think he would have either stayed on Ghorman to double-down and help those not killed, even if he's no longer welcome at the official resistance inner-circle (if they even reform). Or he would have tried to escape and get the truth out.

 

Chorus had an interesting take on Syril's behavior in the tv forums.

Roughly, the argument is that Syril was genuine in his belief that he has a moral duty to bring order to chaos. And Andor, from his perspective, is the personification of everything that he would deem as chaotic. So, when the world around him collapses, and he sees that the Empire, and Dedra, were not the instrument to achieve his goal, he feels hopeless, since he does not have the strength to handle it. But then he sees Andor. He is just a single man. So, Andor becomes a manageable surrogate of the chaos by which he is surrounded. He cannot go back from his blunder with the Ghorman, but at least he can handle Andor, and in his misery he can get a minor sense of accomplishment if he can get rid of him.
That's why he attacked him even after his apparent epiphany.

(Btw, absolutely brilliant that Andor didn't even recognize him.)

 

Syril was on Ferrix during the riot, he must have seen the Empire killing people there.

I think Syril had a desire to be relevant and important, mainly because his mother kept putting him down and saying he's a nobody. The whole obsession with Andor is because he wants to get credit for solving something and be a somebody so he can stick it to his mother for doubting him.
Dedra offered him a chance to aid her in her job, where he could do important work for the Empire and meet high ranking officials like Partagaz. That makes him somebody, he's getting recognition for doing a great job.

 

I got the impression that Syril had become smitten with one of the French gals.

 

That final broadcast at the end of the middle episode has made me cry twice now. I watched it again just to see if it was just the emotion of seeing it for the first time, and it got me again, which caught me off guard.

The sheer desperation in the voice of the actress. The fear. The plea for deliverance. The sense of the overwhelming power being brought to bear upon a defenceless people, and that it won’t end with this massacre, but only their complete destruction. Worse, we know no one is coming to help. The Death Star gets built. The Ghorman lose everything.

I really like how the show ties the Death Star even more closely to the Empire’s destruction, turning Leia’s quip about tightening their grip into an overarching thematic thread. It’s in their effort to create ultimate order that they unravel the Empire: they need a scientist, so they take away his family and imprison him, which leads him to build in weaknesses in his evil creation; they need more labour to build the components, so they cause revolts in their penal system, the escapees then joining the Rebellion; they need the rocks beneath Ghorman, so they do a massacre that causes galactic outrage bringing more people to the Rebellion; they need the kyber crystals for the laser, which causes revolt in the Holy City, which leads to them destroying it and spurring the Rebellion to declare all out war. Every step towards further oppression has the effective of galvanising the revolt against it.