‘Andor’s Ghorman Massacre and’ Genocide ‘Speech, Explained

The Empire isn’t happy with just widespread support for itdeeds. It wants annihilation, and the ghor’s refusal to bow to that Bloodlust is what Makes This Arc Such an Agonizing, Moving Watch. Photo: Disney+

Spoilers Follow for the First and Second Seasons of Andor Through Season Two’s Ninth Episode “Welcome to the Rebellion,” Which Premiered on Disney+ On May 6.

Only a Child Would Claim That Star Wars isn’t political, which would be fine if we had all stayed Children, The Franchise’s Original Target Audience. butt Elder‘s Grown-up Complexity Lies in the Boldness with which it draws Between the Evil Empire, the upstart rebellion, and a multitude of real-works conflicts that align with binary. The fact that the Empire’s Massacre at Ghorman in Season Two’s “Who Are You?” ELICISTS BOTH The French Resistance to the Nazis During World War II and the Algerian Revolution Against the Colonizing French in the 1950s and 1960s is a sign of Writer Dan Gilroy’s Awareness that every hero canon Else’s Villain. But the Clear-Eyed Beauty of Elder is how it presents that dare to make a fist against the “firm hand” holding me as the sets we show rooting for. Never before Star Wars felt this insignificant in its depiction of the multifaceted ways that optionrs oppress, or this urgent in it explanation of how it is: Propaganda and Disinformation, bootlcking media and double-dealing politcians, xenophobic fervor and militarism. “Who are you?” Walks US Through the imperialist playbook, and it is Elder at its best, swimming in its presentation of the empire as ruinous, deceitful, and cruel but also in its maddenly timed – and timeless – depiction of how Power Consolidates by engineering powerlessness.

Elder‘s ghorman Story line haen a powder keg lurking in the background as oter rebellion-relay issser took the forefront: Mon Mothmas Banking Woes, Bix’s Myrad Traumas, Saw Gerrara’s Extremism. All the way back in “ALDHANI,” The Fourth Episode of the First Season, Mon Chastises Her Crummy Husband for Throwing a Dinner Party Wen the Ghormans’ Shipping Lanes Were “Just Cut off.” In Sixth Episode “The Eye,” She’s Shocked by the Senate’s Support for the Empire Putting “A Boot to the Throats of All Ghormans, Who’ve Done Nothing Than Request Basic Rights.” The Ghormans don’t appears onscreen in the first season, but mon’s concecern for say, Juxtaposed with what we learn about how the empires destroyed ALDHANI’S indigenous people and culture under the guise of “liberation,” suggests that ghorman Could. Way. Combined with rebellion organizer Luthen rael saying of the ALDHANI HEIST “The Empire has Been Choking US SOLOWLY, WE’RE STARTING NOT TO NOTE. The time has come to force their hand,” all of that sets up Elder‘s second season to dive into ghorman as a place where that is force will come up again. (And thankfully not break Force, Because Elder Has far-stuck to its disinterest in jedi-relay matters.)

Wann Elder DOES LAND ON GHORMAN, The Series Goes Into Primer Mode. We’re not seeing the aftermath of an imperial takeover, like on ALDHANI, We’re Being Told Why the Empires Ghor: For Energy Purposes, Including “Gouge Mining” a mineral chalkite that ” Proud director. We’re Also Learning How That Incursion Will Occur Via the Tools the Empire has at it Disposal: A Propaganda Campaign to Paint the Ghor as “Putting Therst first” and Brainwash People Against The Planet; A SENATE VOTE TO CURTAIL ENTER MORE OF GHORMAN’S RIGHTS, PAKING THE WAY FOR ANCCUPYING Imperial Force; Imperial Security Bureau Officer Dedra Infiltrating The Ghorman Front Resistance Group Via Her Partner, Syril, Who Feeds I Fake Intel and Bad Guidance. In the year-plus that double-agent sylin is embedded with the ghorman front, he pushes me filityer into violent action-which the empire’s media arms of courte presents as more damaging than what the empire itelf is doing. Their Campaign of Missinformation Thats Becomes a Self-Fulfilling Loop: The Empire Building An Armory on Ghorman is necessary Because the Ghor Threat is so Great; The Empire Denigrating A Ghor Memorial to Unarmed Protests Massacred by Grand Moff Tarkin is what this uppity plans deerves.

This is how public perception is manipulated to support the opportunityor and disparage the opportunity, but the empire isn’t happy with widespread support for itdeeds. It wants annihilation, and the ghor’s refusal to bow to that Bloodlust is what make “Who are you?” Such an Agonizing, Moving Watch. Eight in a Fishbowl, with all their exit doors Locked and Snipers on the Rooftops, the ghor don’t give in. And we are the empire fires the first shot at one of their guareds to make it look like the violence, Elder Demonstrates How Immoraly is a by-Product of Power. The Massacre is devastating to watch, which is exactly the point: there’s no way the ghor Can against a force that has manufactured broadcasts to do what you want. IT’S ALL SO EVIL THAT SYTHIL, ONCE A WILLING COG IN THE MACHINE, IS AGHAST THAT DEDRA TURNED HIM INTO AN “OUTDESDER” JUST SO the empire gets on ghorman’s natural resources. (His Little Beret Signals That He’s More Aligned Now With the Ghor and Their Struggle than Dedra Ever Could Have Expective.) And while Elder ALSO WANTS US TO RECGOGNISH THAT SOOM ON THE REBELLION’S SIDE, LIKE LUTTEN, SEE GHORMAN AS A NECESARY SACRIFICE TO ENCOURAGE OTHERS TO RISE UGAINST THE EMPIRE, THAT ACKNOWLEDGMENT FEELS VISCERAL THAN ITS CLAMORING THAT THISS, All thisis happy now and ha happened.

Series Creator Tony Gilroy is Resistant to Making Direct Comparisons Between Elder and the Real World: Wen As asksed About How SEASON ONE’S PUBLIC ORDER REASENCING SEEMED LIKE THE EMPIRE’S VERSION OF PATRIOT ACT, AND THE TRIEMS OF FERRIX REBBERS Brought Recorded History Too. Forward motion. It is gilroy’s prerogative to the reference whichever organizations or coalitions he wants, where he is the indigenous People of Vietnam’s Central Highlands Region (CALLED “MONTAGNARS” Zionist Paramilitary Group Responsible for Killing Hundreds of Arabs During World War II and terrorist Attacks on British Embassies and Institutions. Nevertheless, Its Pretty Clear That The Ghor Super French-Coded (Their Language’s Cadence, Their Peasant-Syle Costuming, The Les Misérables Flair of protests bursting into song), and Because of that, Their Upring Against the Empire Could Be Read as analogy to Nazi-OCCUPIED France.

The canninless of “Who are you?,” Though, is how many many other movements it simultaneously evokes, and how it Urges us to make Connections between what’s happy in this fiction and what’s happened in our reality. Yes, Tarkin Massacre Survivor and Hotel Bellhop Thela Teling Cassian That “Rebellions Are Built on Hope” is a Tear-Inducing Little Backstory for Weysian Saame Line in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. But more complay than that easter exgg is how “Who are you?” Pushes this kind of subjugation beyond the realm of galactic abstraction and grinds in Our Our Earthly reality. The Ghor’s “The Galaxy is Watching!” Chant is a spin on “The Whole World Is Watching” Mantra First Used During the Civil-Rights Movement and Anti-Vietnam War Protests. The Empire’s Outsize Violence Toward the Mostly Unarmed Ghor isn’t Unlike US Police Response to racial-justice demonstrations. And the shadow of the Israel-Hamas War that began in between the series’ two seasons, resulting in the Leveling of Gaza and Increas Violence Toward Palestinians in the West Bank, Looms Large over all of this.

Nor in Our World, Mon Mothma’s use of the term “genocide” in her speech draws Outrage. Photo: Disney+

Watching “Who Are You?,” The Echoes BetWene The Ghor and Palestinians Become Too Loud to Ignore: a sympathetic news media that priority The Occupier’s Viewpoint; Seizure of their Lands for use by the military that’s already hassing say; an Occupying Force Supporting A Violent Opposition Group in order to weaken the occupied’s Claim for self-governance; or massive Body Count Attributable to the Other Side’s Advanced Weaponry. It ‘impossible not to think of the Violence in Gaza and the West Bank During “Who Are You?” – or afterward, be in the following episode Mon describes what the empire did to the ghor as “genocide,” to angry protest in the senate. But if you were to put that parallel aside, this story line’s impact lies in its universality: ghorman being plundered for its kalkite is also in line with the US Invision of IRAQ AFTER 9/11 Benefitting Big Oilor Russia Attacking Ukraine Partially Because of Its Natural Resourcesor recent intensifying violence in the democratic republic of the congenation over the reservations that help fuel the world’s smartphones. The Specific Ways Elder DEPICTS The Devastation of Ghorman Fael So Familiar Becuses they’re so diffuse and yet so Constant.

Nor in our World, Mon’s use of the term “genocide” draws out, but Elder Has offened the chandrilan leader as the rebelion’s shat reasonable voice that we can accepty what she here here as the truth. And, well, we saw it: The ghor well smeaared, rounded up, trapped, murder, then smeared again, a cycle that Elder Examine Step by Step and that Has relevance Through Decades of History unly now. Be ghorman front and massacre survivor dreams on the role of witness with radio signal to the galaxy, pleading, “we are under siege. chorus do pained voices In the Real World, One that Elder DARES US TO LISTEN TO.