Spoilers below
: https://www.reddit.com/r/andor/comments/1jwdgwg/is_andor_a_leftist_show/mmi1lui/
Reddit comment text (spoilers)
I keep seeing leftists/progressives/Marxists/whatever praise this show while being unable to to engage in the ruthless, pragmatic sacrifices that Andor shows are necessary to fight fascism.
Part of the show is the importance of throwing people under the bus for the greater good. The first thing we ever see Cassian do is shoot a fellow Rebel. The people who see every compromise as a betrayal and every inability to respond to global crisis as a genocide would never be able to do this. They’re willing to support the revolution when they picture themselves as Cassian but are they willing to picture themselves as Kreegyr?
Furthermore, all the people on “Team Luthen” seem deliberately designed to be “problematic.” Maarva kidnapped an indigenous-coded kid, gave him new name, and assimilated him to her culture. Luthen sells the cultural artifacts from the victims of the Empire. Gorn and Kino are repentant fascists or fascist collaborators. Tay Kolma is a banker. Davo Sculdun is a mobster.
Saw Gerrera is so paralyzed by ideological purity that he just sits around in his cave, underfunded, not really accomplishing anything. Team Luthen, on the other hand, welcomes anyone who hates the Empire regardless of their ideologies or motivations so they actually get things done.
The ultimate theme of Andor is that if you want to fight fascism, don’t expect to remain morally pure. Don’t get picky about who you work with or where you get your money from. And don’t expect to save everyone.
I won’t exaggerate the leftist content of Andor. It’s not an explicitly Marxist show. But there are many themes which line up excellently with Marxist themes and historical events; for example, the writer Tony Gilroy confirming that young Stalin inspired certain events and characters.
I’m excited to recommend this show to my non-leftist family to expose them to some less liberal thought with a focus on anti-imperialism. But some comments in the thread remind me how easily liberalism accommodates, and subordinates, other ways of thought into the liberal world view without being undermined.
The fact that revolution is messy doesn’t knock revolutionaries down to the same level as fascists. There can be no comparison between imperial violence and anti imperial violence, nor between privilege and oppression.
The loss of Kreegyr was a tragedy because it was predictable yet unavoidable, like a slow moving train wreck. It’s not because revolutionaries are inherently bloodthirsty and callous by nature. Luthen himself may be, but he is also correct in identifying the necessity of the action within the context of war.
Moreover Saw Guerrera was correct to refuse alliance with liberals and centrists. Mere ideological purity was not his concern. He said it himself: those organizations lacked “clarity of purpose.” They refused or were unable to formulate a theory of the struggle and were therefore unreliable, if not dangerous, as allies. History shows this to be the correct stance to take with respect to social democracy and left liberalism.
Furthermore, all the people on “Team Luthen” seem deliberately designed to be “problematic.” Maarva kidnapped an indigenous-coded kid, gave him new name, and assimilated him to her culture. Luthen sells the cultural artifacts from the victims of the Empire. Gorn and Kino are repentant fascists or fascist collaborators. Tay Kolma is a banker. Davo Sculdun is a mobster.
Saving a indigenous kid from genocide and hiding him from the empire is kidnapping?
Luthen is probably a Jedi hiding in plain sight seemly profiting from the Empire while funding the resistance.
Tay Kolma and Davo are not “Team Luthen” what the fuck this guy is talking about.
Saw Gerrera is so paralyzed by ideological purity that he just sits around in his cave, underfunded, not really accomplishing anything.
His doing the heavy lifting during the war, not only in Andor but every place he shows it’s him fighting. Luthen doesn’t go to him to have a nice chat, Luthen beg him to move his troops.
His doing the heavy lifting during the war, not only in Andor but every place he shows it’s him fighting. Luthen doesn’t go to him to have a nice chat, Luthen beg him to move his troops.
Well said. The guy got Saw completely backwards. Although I’m not on the anarcho side of things, I think the relationship between Saw and Luthen is a good portrayal of the productive alliance between anarchists and communists. Both camps have that “clarity of purpose” which, although the theory is a bit different, is enough to orient them both in the correct direction. The “correct” philosophy will be proven in the course of time and real history
and without saw, the death star plans would be sitting around pretty near that science guy with his family. #outnerded
One thing to say about Saw is that he never EVER was on the “side of the empire”. Most of the rebellion leaders were once inside the senate and were de jure employed by the empire. Saw was the first to fight.
yeah, I saw an r/196 post about Andor, and comments were mocking how bernie bros would’ve criticized and refused to vote for her because she didn’t have the right stance on Gaza (this is before her genocide speech, i guess they were too stupid to see what was being set up on Ghorman). it’s such a brainworm take that andor suggests for a moment that voting for more democrat Senators is a route to taking down Palpatine. Do most planets even elect senators by popular vote? They also forget all the times in Season 1 that Mothma says explicitly that her position as opposition senator is completely symbollic and only tolerated because all her initiatives are futile and inconsequential.
https://www.reddit.com/r/196/comments/1k9j6no/we_need_more_mon_mothmas_rule/
Mon Mothma was already sponsoring a rebellion long before the ghorman genocide. She wasnt vice-president and never said that she would continue palps policies if she was named empress. They should read mask of fear, where mass amedda basically says “yeah palpatine knows you are committing treason and working against him, but he doesnt care” into mon’s face and have her sign a paper where she promises she wont actually do anything to harm the empire.
To think Kamala is the same as Mon Mothma is like not understanding what is being shown on screen. I could accept if libs compare her to AOC or Bernie, fine. But Kamala is like Tarkin lol
Yeah I feel like the best comparison is “What if AOC was secretly funding Maoist guerillas in Appalachia”
We’d all have to eat some humble pie or something
i’d worship her if that was the case.
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Maarva kidnapped an indigenous-coded kid, gave him new name, and assimilated him to her culture.
I do have to give them credit for consistency here. If you’re going to take issue (and I assume this person does) with Russia relocating orphans out of a war zone into safety (and even call it a “genocide”), then I suppose you should also condemn Maarva for taking Cassian out of a situation where he was going to be killed.
I suppose saving children instead of leaving them in front of moving steamrollers violates the NAP
smh at the rebels for not working with the faction in the senate that is rhetorically 20 % less for the genocide of the Space French while still materially supporting it
Ahhhh, the Space French :orson-welles-shining:
those organizations lacked “clarity of purpose.” They refused or were unable to formulate a theory of the struggle and were therefore unreliable, if not dangerous, as allies
Failure to heed this leads to Tay Kolma situations. Tay died because Mothma failed to guarantee Tay’s clarity of purpose
The first thing we ever see Cassian do is shoot a fellow Rebel.
this dumb motherfucker, what? he shoots a corrupt corporate rent a cop. Rebel? What?
yeah I also didn’t get this. it’s one of the Pre-Mor corpo security guys that he merks, right?
doesn’t he shoot a rebel in Rogue One though?
oh idk I wasn’t thinking about Rogue One, maybe, it’s been a while since I’ve seen it
but yeah it was a Pre More Rentacop trying to shake him down for a bribe (iirc on the motivation, but def a pre mor guy)
Yeah, I was wracking my brain trying to figure that one out.
Probably the guy in rogue one
deleted by creator
This is basically the ‘do you condemn HAMAS?’ Lib
of a large portion of the Andor fandom.Hopefully they will be forced to confront their lib proclivities by the final 3 episodes, but I doubt even if the show tries to do that, they will just not internalize it as is the lib way. They love to both sides things even when literally fighting fascism.
That was the promise of Andor going in, showing the complexity involved in actually taking the fight to the fascists in a consequential way. Of course libs are going to bristle about the lack of idealism in certain moments. Many characters even try to show this to a degree via the psychological trauma of becoming a tool of rebellion. “I gave up everything” being repeated in various forms.
Maybe after the finale and a few weeks to simmer in it while drawing connections from reality will awaken a few of the libs, but recuperation is a thing because of how effective it is in the lib mind.
How could you watch season 2 and not think saw had a point? He predicted the destruction of all the groups he named.
https://www.reddit.com/r/andor/comments/1jwdgwg/comment/mmjk047/
user named “Ozymandias” trying to call Lenin/USSR imperialist
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I’m confused. Are Marxists too ideologically pure because they don’t like Democrats? Or are they too hypocritical, and therefore not ideologically pure enough, because they love “authoritarian regimes” like AES countries?
Marxists are bad. Therefore, they are all the bad things all at once, including the bad stuff that contradicts the other bad stuff.
It’s probably all the recreational rhydonium huffing, coupled with an abject lack of understanding of dialectical materialism (due to their aversion to huffing rhydo).
Say the line, Parenti
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