Andor Walked a Delicate Line With Its Newest Tragedy

The second act of Andor season two, among many other things, reunited rebel lovers Vel Sartha and Cinta Kaz as a part of Luthen’s makes an attempt to scope out resistance to the Empire on Ghorman. Separated for years after the occasions of season one—save from a distant “reunion” on the climax of season two’s opening trio of episodes—when Vel and Cinta meet once more throughout these episodes, they’re given an opportunity to replicate on each their relationship to Luthen and the rising Rise up, and in the end to one another, culminating in a young second: one which, after the casual queerness of their arc throughout season one, handily turned what’s arguably Star Wars‘ most outstanding and specific showcase of on-screen queer intimacy but.

Alas, it was to not final. Virtually instantly after Cinta and Vel get to share a second of ardour collectively, tragedy strikes. Coping with anxious and unprepared members of the Ghorman resistance to stage a heist of Imperial weaponry, an altercation between one of many guerrillas, Samm, and a neighborhood Ghor results in an unintentional blaster discharge, a stray bolt that catches Cinta clear within the chest, killing her immediately (banner week for Varada Sethu being shot, apparently, between this and the latest Doctor Who).

It’s concurrently each a superb dramatic second—particularly the aftermath of Vel’s grief, the place she ruefully hangs the trauma of Cinta’s loss of life on Samm’s conscience, a better ache she will deal within the second than merely killing him in flip—and an extremely precarious one for Andor to navigate. Regardless of nonetheless it might be dealt with, the second nonetheless brushes up on a controversial trope of disposing LGBTQ characters that has plagued dialogue of queer illustration in media for years: the thought of “Bury Your Gays,” through which a queer character is launched after which killed off for shock worth as soon as they’ve checked a field off for various illustration reasonably than being given a lot of a personality arc.

Star Wars, particularly in on-screen materials, nonetheless has an extended strategy to go in introducing outstanding LGBTQ characters, 5 years on from its painfully lackluster watershed moment with Rise of Skywalker‘s fleeting sapphic kiss. Whereas queer characters actually exist lots in Star Wars media more broadly these days, from comics, to books, to video games, Star Wars continues to be within the eyes of many nonetheless primarily a franchise of movie and TV, and Vel and Cinta have been arguably by far and away probably the most outstanding on-screen LGBTQ characters it had delivered within the final decade. Giving one in every of them a tragic finish—particularly nearly instantly after permitting them a second of pleased reconciliation and romance—would all the time have stung for queer audiences on this context, no matter how effectively it was dealt with, and particularly no matter how Andor itself is usually prepared to derive rigidity in its spy thriller narratives by making it clear to audiences that the overwhelming majority of its solid are not often assured security.

However alternatively, Andor doesn’t deal with Cinta’s loss of life as mere shock worth. The second is offered with super weight, a which means that the arc itself is constructed round within the tensions of what it actually means for individuals to take resistance into their very own palms. Cinta’s bravery may’ve earned her a hero’s loss of life, a blaze of glory reflecting the alternatives she had made to combat again in opposition to the Empire, however the bitterness of her loss of life is that folks in conflicts like Andor‘s don’t get the freedom of the loss of life they’ve earned. It may be sudden, and messy, and indelicate, as a result of that’s merely the fact all of us face within the shadow of the nice equalizer. Her loss of life will not be solely a harsh lesson for the Ghorman Entrance, however for Vel and the viewers too: revolution isn’t clear and barely with out price.

Vel and Cinta are one in every of a number of romances Andor explores, and sometimes fractures, as they’re caught up on this query of the need of resistance—and arguably whilst their relationship varieties a big a part of that questioning, its nature as an explicitly queer one will not be the only real defining facet of that lens. In distinct distinction to Rise‘s fleeting, simply discarded queer second, Andor treats each Cinta and Vel as enriched, fleshed-out characters who happen to be queer, reasonably than capital-Q, capital-C Queer Characters whose existence solely hangs on the metatext of the franchise attending to say “look, lesbians!” after which having little else to say by them earlier than they are often discarded. That doesn’t erase both character’s queerness, however simply makes it one facet of their entire.

Andor‘s narrative treating them each on this regard, whilst Cinta and Vel face the robust prospect of nonetheless being one of many only a few on-screen queer {couples} the franchise has had to date, additionally signifies that the present treats the each of them prefer it does nearly some other member in its solid. In Andor‘s case, which means giving them the narrative proper to be jeopardized, to be put in hurt’s means, to expertise random tragedy as a lot as some other heteronormative character would. And whilst Star Wars nonetheless continues to take tiny steps in direction of higher representing a plethora of queer characters, it’s simply as vitally necessary that it doesn’t really feel prefer it can not dangers with these characters merely due to consultant significance. Neither Cinta nor Vel had to be doomed by the narrative, however within the story that Andor is telling in Star Wars, the truth that they are often is a testomony to the sequence treating them as greater than only a checked field on record of various illustration.

Star Wars ought to have extra homosexual individuals in it, completely, so the lack of any at this level is all the time going to harm. However a part of that journey to tangible, high quality illustration additionally signifies that these queer characters want to have the ability to be as messy, sophisticated, and nuanced as their straight counterparts, to be handled as precise characters to whom queerness is only one high quality, and one story, amongst many they can be utilized to discover. And typically that additionally means, for higher or worse, having the ability to put them in hurt’s means and expertise tragedy, as an alternative of leaving them safely tucked away on a shelf.

Andor season two is now streaming on Disney+.

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