Izzy, Queen of all Microchips, First of Her Name on Nostr: So I have a Star Wars Adult friend. I find him somewhat infuriating, and I want to ...
So I have a Star Wars Adult friend. I find him somewhat infuriating, and I want to get this particular incident out of my head.
So this friend of mine. He's really into sci-fi and fantasy. I call him a "Star Wars Adult" because he can quote all manner of inane trivia about Star Wars to me, and yet can't tell me anything about the themes of any of it deeper than the surface level. Nonetheless, he's actually more into fantasy, or so he claims. I could go on about how it perplexes me that he loves these genres that are most available and varied in literature and yet Does Not Read ... but I might save that for later.
I am not a massive fan of Star Wars. The original movies are some dumb fun with a hopeful message, the Clone Wars explores some interesting things, but on the whole the series doesn't have a lot going for it beyond Spectacle. I was quite surprised to watch Andor and see something with an Actual Defined Message, even if a lot of the things it were saying was like, "colonialism bad" and "environmental destruction bad." Like, great, I agree, are you going to go further than that?
Anyway. It was actually approaching good, and figuring that given this friend had watched (presumably) the entire Star Wars canon I asked him what he thought about it.
"I didn't watch it, I don't like Cassian [Cassian Andor, the main character of Andor]."
This kind of threw me for a loop. You've watched all the other slop Disney has put out but not the one thing with something to say? So I encouraged him to watch it anyway and left it at that for ... a year?
With the new season coming out shortly, I figured I'd see if I could convince him to catch up so we could watch it "together" - that is, watch it separately and compare notes each week. Things friends do. So he's like "fiiiine I'll watch it."
A week or so later I get a message from him, "Man, Cassian is such a good main character, he just keeps blowing people away. I care for him just as much as Percy fucking Jackson." This message was unintentionally very funny to me, because my nephew has been reading Percy Jackson and like, it's a good series with compelling characters??? But I guess my friend must've watched the widely derided movie! Doesn't read and it shows. Anyway.
But this message rattled around in my head for weeks. I couldn't figure out what was so off about it. As a character, Cassian is just a guy. He's your everyman that wants to keep his head down, get what he can, and keep his people safe if he can. He's not a revolutionary. He's not a superhero. He's just a guy, and a major part of the story is how he gets radicalised from "just a guy" to "major rebel figure." At the start, he's not a bad guy, but he's not gonna go sticking his head out for other people.
There's another angle of like, he's no Jedi or other inane bit of Star Wars lore that generates large amounts of Spectacle. He's a guy with a gun, sometimes. The wins he gets are by avoiding direct confrontation, because he will lose. He's the actual underdog that people like to say stories are about.
But I stewed and I stewed and then, one day, it came to me. Cassian reflects you. Me. Us. My friend. The apathy and unwillingness to fight if it can be avoided. Seeing injustice and turning away for your own safety. Being aggressively ignorant and refusing to get involved, at least at the start. My friend dislikes Cassian because Cassian is him.
So this friend of mine. He's really into sci-fi and fantasy. I call him a "Star Wars Adult" because he can quote all manner of inane trivia about Star Wars to me, and yet can't tell me anything about the themes of any of it deeper than the surface level. Nonetheless, he's actually more into fantasy, or so he claims. I could go on about how it perplexes me that he loves these genres that are most available and varied in literature and yet Does Not Read ... but I might save that for later.
I am not a massive fan of Star Wars. The original movies are some dumb fun with a hopeful message, the Clone Wars explores some interesting things, but on the whole the series doesn't have a lot going for it beyond Spectacle. I was quite surprised to watch Andor and see something with an Actual Defined Message, even if a lot of the things it were saying was like, "colonialism bad" and "environmental destruction bad." Like, great, I agree, are you going to go further than that?
Anyway. It was actually approaching good, and figuring that given this friend had watched (presumably) the entire Star Wars canon I asked him what he thought about it.
"I didn't watch it, I don't like Cassian [Cassian Andor, the main character of Andor]."
This kind of threw me for a loop. You've watched all the other slop Disney has put out but not the one thing with something to say? So I encouraged him to watch it anyway and left it at that for ... a year?
With the new season coming out shortly, I figured I'd see if I could convince him to catch up so we could watch it "together" - that is, watch it separately and compare notes each week. Things friends do. So he's like "fiiiine I'll watch it."
A week or so later I get a message from him, "Man, Cassian is such a good main character, he just keeps blowing people away. I care for him just as much as Percy fucking Jackson." This message was unintentionally very funny to me, because my nephew has been reading Percy Jackson and like, it's a good series with compelling characters??? But I guess my friend must've watched the widely derided movie! Doesn't read and it shows. Anyway.
But this message rattled around in my head for weeks. I couldn't figure out what was so off about it. As a character, Cassian is just a guy. He's your everyman that wants to keep his head down, get what he can, and keep his people safe if he can. He's not a revolutionary. He's not a superhero. He's just a guy, and a major part of the story is how he gets radicalised from "just a guy" to "major rebel figure." At the start, he's not a bad guy, but he's not gonna go sticking his head out for other people.
There's another angle of like, he's no Jedi or other inane bit of Star Wars lore that generates large amounts of Spectacle. He's a guy with a gun, sometimes. The wins he gets are by avoiding direct confrontation, because he will lose. He's the actual underdog that people like to say stories are about.
But I stewed and I stewed and then, one day, it came to me. Cassian reflects you. Me. Us. My friend. The apathy and unwillingness to fight if it can be avoided. Seeing injustice and turning away for your own safety. Being aggressively ignorant and refusing to get involved, at least at the start. My friend dislikes Cassian because Cassian is him.