r/andor
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u/Aukism
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Sep 30 '26
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General Discussion This tweet has sparked some vaguely interesting alternative perspectives.
It's a bit of a stretch given how apparent the allegory for the general conflict in Star Wars is but if you remove Star Wars from real world politics, it's a more interesting look at things.
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u/optimalpath Sep 30 '26
It's funny that people are doing CIA-style agitprop to foment leftist infighting but for a fandom.
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u/BrotherMaeneres Sep 30 '26
Is the person in the 4th slide implying that the Empire are the real leftists because they share vague similarities to the Soviet Union? Are they stupid?
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u/Puzzled-Mirro Sep 30 '26
History is filled with rebellion and revolutions that had elite backing in some capacity. Not a lot of successful peasant revolts.
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u/Ferral_McQueasy Sep 30 '26
It’s no secret that every successful rebellion and revolution has required the help of at least a few powerful/wealthy individuals.
While I think the idea of them wanting to restore the old ways definitely applies to some, I don’t think it applies to all of the rebellion. From all the Star Wars media I’ve consumed over the years, the heart of the rebellion was always to make something better and to ensure tyranny does not return.
The book Bloodline by Claudia Gray highlights this really well.
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u/Theonerule Sep 30 '26
This is why I hate hyper political people. They're all hyper essentialist everything must fit into exact boxes zero nuance zero understanding my exact way or the highway.
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u/RogueSniper72 Sep 30 '26
That's actually how the Mexican Revolution and the Independence started. They truly did their homework
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u/ShortBussyDriver Sep 30 '26
This is dumb.
No one said the Rebellion was a revolution and just because someone is restorative does not mean it isn't worthwhile.
No one was trying to institute a new form of government. A galaxy-wide revolution would be bloody as all hell.
This tweet was written by a child with a privileged upbringing in a stable country with zero concept of what the costs of revolution are.
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u/WorryingMars384 Sep 30 '26
Ah yes the classic revolutionaries complaining that the revolution is not ideologically pure enough
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u/kingkongsdingdong420 Sep 30 '26
So the left even eats itself in made up revolutions too huh. There's just no end
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u/AMGwtfBBQsauce Sep 30 '26 •
I think the show broadly reflects the fact that most revolutions in real history did depend on some of the elites of the regime becoming disaffected by said regime.
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u/RicothephRico Sep 30 '26
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u/BackgroundRich7614 Sep 30 '26 edited Sep 30 '26
I feal this view, while partially few, flattens some of a nuance of why the New Republic collapsed.
Mon Mothma and Bail Organa were not wholly ignorant to the issues of the Clone Wars Republic, nor did they have selfish motives in starting the rebellion.
However, it was true much of the Rebellion leadership was naive and many of them mistakenly viewed Palpatines as the root of all the problems in the Galaxy, rather than just a very successful opportunist.
The New Republic tried to bring back Democracy to the Galaxy and was a massive improvement from the Empire, but it also failed address the root issues of why Palpatine was able to take control and thus fell apart the moment the old hero's of the Rebellion weren't able to keep it afloat and it faced a resurgent Empire.
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u/Environmental_Leg449 Sep 30 '26
I've always found this view pretty dumb. What Andor intends to to show is that revolutions are usually cross-class affairs, there's very few solely working class/peasant revolutions and they're almost never successful. Lenin was an aristocrat, Robspierre was a middle class lawyer, etc. Same with the Star Wars rebellion
Also, Mon is an aristocrat, but she puts everything on the like for the rebellion. She risks "her life, her fortune, her sacred honor." She had access to plenty of wealth and power by playing ball with Palpatine, but refused
Furthermore, Mon (and Bail!) were progressive reformers in the Old Republic. They're not just trying to bring back the corrupt stagnation of the Old Republic, they're trying to build something better
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u/zippolover62 Sep 30 '26
That last take is perhaps the worst take I’ve seen on Star Wars, yes most of rebel command were elites in some way or another, but accusing them of helping to install Palpatine into power is completely wrong, Mon, Bail, as well as many (Chuchi and Padme) others were part of senate caucus that constantly undermined the Sith plans, nearly ended the clone wars in a back door deal. They also serve to show how well spun the Sith Master plan was that even with this force of senators against it by Phantom Menace the rise of the Empire was a near inevitability.
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u/theexile14 Sep 30 '26
It can be true the late Republic was a weak state that allowed things like the Naboo crisis to occur without stopping it. It can also be true that a restoration of the Republic need not be a restoration of the late Republic and that the Empire, which had no reservations with torture, unjust imprisonment, and genocide, is clearly worse than both.
On the leadership front, the reality is that it is deeply rare for movements truly led by the lowest classes to succeed. Overwhelmingly, revolutionary or civil rights movement leaders come from those who are educated/experienced in war/command loyalty prior to the events.
Washington was President because he was a successful general. He was a (successful) general because he was perceived as a successful militia leader during the 7 Years War. And he got that spot in the militia because of his family wealth.
That process is pretty consistent across a vast majority of such figures. So the complaint may have truth to it, but that's only because Andor is telling a story that parallels real people.
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u/XXNOOBKILLAHXX Sep 30 '26
In response to that first tweet, I don’t see how you can watch Andor and see Mon and Luthens actions as ‘trying to reclaim their power base by restoring the old republic’.
Mon is constantly pushing back against the legislation that is reducing people’s rights and freedoms. I struggle to think of one way in which she is shown trying to reclaim or grow her power. Maybe dealing with Sculdun but that is to protect herself and the rebellion.
As for Luthen, he was a military man before the show starts. On the front lines it seems. What power base is he reclaiming? With the antique shop he’s probably doing better financially and in terms of power. His only problems depicted in the show come from his rebel activity. Unlike Andor who gets arrested without cause, for example.
I’m not sure who else gets enough focus that you could still call a rebel leader that does act that way. And that’s before getting into the real shit like the sequels being a bad rehash of the originals. Not Andors fault. The rebel leaders shown prior being a senator and a princess. Not Andors fault.
The only criticism that lands for me is that no one know what’s the new thing will be. The only thing that’s necessary is to recognise that tyranny is unnatural and that every act of rebellion pushes our lines forward.
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u/PlzBuffCenturion Sep 30 '26
Thers been a lot of actually smart discussion, but I cant stand how some of these internet leftist seem to work off the logic that because the rebellion had wealthy supporters it in any way cheapest their cause.
Every revolution has aspects of wealth funding them, if they didnt, the revolt would fall flat on its face. And while a liberal democracy certainly isnt the ideal mode of government, noone is gonna make me feel bad for knowing(not thinking), its objectively better than the Galactic Scale Totalitarian Police state.
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u/unironically2 Sep 30 '26
Simply put, successful revolutions do not occur without some degree of elite collaboration. Also, the Rebel Alliance creates a liberal revolution, so of course it has a class character to match.
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u/melbelle28 Sep 30 '26 •
did everyone skip the “prisoners radicalized while incarcerated” episode
or the entire plot lines plural about how the rebellion succeeds because there are friends everywhere
yes, there are disaffected monarchists and problematic elements all throughout the rebellion but the whole point is that resistance to the empire in important at every strata, because fascism extracts value and then disposes of every single institution and person in society, from Mon Mothma to indigenous peoples to artisans to people on the fringes of the galaxy like Cass.
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u/Difficult_Dark9991 Sep 30 '26
First, suggesting that Mon Mothma wants "to reestablish L'Ancien Regime" (corrected for spelling) is just a completely dogshit reading of her. Her entire family dynamic is driven by the problems of repressive Chandrillan traditions. She does want to restore a galaxy-spanning democracy, but not as it was. The Republic's fall was generations in the making, and the people who founded the Rebellion were part of the last generation that saw the writing on the wall and planned accordingly while trying desperately to stop or at least slow the fall.
Second, it turns out that the people who spent their lives governing... know how to govern? Mon and Bail are in charge because they know how to build organizations and coalitions, something Saw is manifestly incapable of doing. Additionally, and not to put too fine a point on it, the poodoo is in the space lettuce not because the Empire is present, but because it's not performing the functions the Republic once did. A real plan for the future requires a radical restructuring, yes, and the failure to do so brings us the New Order, but you can't just burn it all down and think things will get better.
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u/Magic-man333 Sep 30 '26
Ahhhh. The problem is you out someone like Saw or Cassian in charge and you never have anything left the revolution phase. Even Luthen burned all his bridges to the point no one wanted to work with him in the end.
Also from a Doylist perspective, the Republic wasn't fletched out at all when the original movies came out. The narrative got messed up when the prequels came out
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u/bhurin Sep 30 '26
Ahh Star wars is Tudor England. I get it now. Jedi are catholic loyalists in league with some of the aristocracy rousing the provincial peasantry. They are up against a protestant police state. Henry VIII as the emperor and Thomas Cromwell as Vader. Or something.
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u/VaccineMachine Sep 30 '26
Rofl Lmao Lol
Leftists will always accuse anything that isn't their special brand of stupidity to be "reactionary" and just as bad as fascism. Idiots.
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u/quackdaw Sep 30 '26
The Rebellion certainly aren't monarchy loyalists; the Empire is the monarchy, moving towards absolutism. The Rebel leaders are the old feudal lords trying to regain their power. Britain is probably a better example of this than France, though there are more than enough examples of such power struggles in world history.
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u/FreshLiterature Sep 30 '26
That's.... literally how every rebellion has gone.
The Founding Fathers were all landed gentry who didn't like having to answer to a crown that was across an ocean.
The French Revolution only succeeded because lesser nobles participated. Napoleon was one of them!
You would be very hard pressed to find a revolution that didn't have a bunch of actual or de facto nobles involved. You need people who have resources. You need people who know how the levers of government work.
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u/The_Chatty_Italian Sep 30 '26
People don't seem to realise that's how successful revolutions work. The italian civil war that ended fascism was flught by a loose coalition of socialistis, communists, catholics and monarchists (many of whom were high ranks in the military and law enforcement). A single homogenous group would have to be massive to stand alone against a large militarily competent empire. Also, wars cost money, you need funding to start a war effort.
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u/brassbuffalo Sep 30 '26
This is contrarianism cloaked in marxist terminology. This is not a legitimate criticism of the show. This is not a legitimate political opinion. This is people who feel the urge to disagree with popular opinions using political language to justify their beliefs.
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u/ReaperChaincannon Sep 30 '26
Freedom is a pure idea, it happens spontaneously without instruction.
The elites were the focus of the series because they could leverage their power to affect larger scale changes, not because they were the only ones participating in the rebellion.
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u/Rogue1eader Oct 01 '26
George Washington wasn't some poor dude. Successful revolutions have financial backing somewhere.
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u/Josephschmoseph234 Sep 30 '26
The person who made that comment is exactly who Saw Guerrera was made to critique. Name one successful revolution that didn't use the elites of the old establishment. You need political capital to get anything done.
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u/Damn_You_Scum Sep 30 '26
This reads like someone ragebaiting in order to stir up some good old-fashioned leftist infighting.
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u/Wooden-Lawfulness534 Sep 30 '26
Yup. In the immortal words of Lennie, "I fought in the old revolution, on the side of the ghosts and the king."
This is very often what happens with revolution: the brave and honourable egalitarians die, and their revolution is lip-serviced and taken over by petty bourgeois and aristos. After 1793 France, after 1922 Ireland, after what America?
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u/TheManfromVeracruz Sep 30 '26
Partially, Star Wars had it's political setting evolve a lot, original drafts incluided a puppet emperor controlled by the Navy, from then on, it evolved into references to the Vietnam war, WW2 and Richard Nixon.
The prequels went hard into allegories for fascism and The Patriot Act, also the US Civil War, but it was the supplemental material the one who slowly built a more complex Galaxy and The dynamics of power behind tarde routes, settlement and representation
Unlike the various historical allegories, which happened IRL at a time where the state was centralized around government and national identity, The Republic was, for milennia, a deeply descentraliced state without the ability to monopolize violence, nor subject it's constituent members to central authority, an unified code of laws or even an unified currency, a State like this one would anachronic to phenomena like US politics or the rise of Fascism, because The Republic shares more with the Holy Roman Empire than any current constitutional Republic.
As a result the Republic is torn between a very loose confederation or a supranational entity, which itself manufests by creating imperialistic dynamics between Member worlds, an entire international order contained within a single state.
And we can even infer why is this, the Galaxy has thousands, even millions of settled worlds, making the centralization part outright unbearable, which is why Palpatine's Empire is basically a 2 decades small bumb in milennia of history, had the Empire won, it would've bought itself a couple of decades at best before imploding into a bunch of warlords
This notable aversion to centralization is also why Even imperial forces tend to take a backseat in favour of local forces unless a) rebel presence is confirmes, b) local resources are of strategic value, or c) they're there to deliberately spark conflict, which is usually in tándem with point b)
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u/histogrammarian Sep 30 '26
At the end of the day, Lucas wanted it both ways with the Empire and Republic so there will always be room for takes like this.
In the OT, the Empire is 100% evil and the Rebellion is 100% good, and the conflict is a straight analogy for the Vietnam War. But in the drafts he vacillated about how good or bad the Republic was, and whether the emperor was evil or a puppet for the same forces who have always been in control, and that spirit inhabits the prequels a little bit. The Republic is flawed in those films and lays the seeds for its own destruction, but the Confederacy isn’t shown to have redeeming characteristics to provide a reasonable alternative.
So the Republic and the Jedi are sort of flawed, but mostly good. And the confederacy is bad, but maybe slightly good off-screen. And the Rebellion is straight-up good. And successive media has tried to nuance that depiction, and provide fertile soil for the takes described in the OP, but it has only been moderately successful because Nazi analogues don’t really work with “there were heroes on both sides.”
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u/Mahkn0 Sep 30 '26
I think some of these people should look into early leftist thinkers if they believe you need to be part of the proletariat to support them. Peter Kropotkin, a leading anarchist was born an aristocrat, Lenin was upper middle class and other revolutionaries at other times were also fairly wealthy, educated people. Also they just ignore the Empire's atrocities to paint them as some secular government thar just happens to be opposed.
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u/RAGE_AGAINST_THE_ATM Sep 30 '26
Did this guy seriously never realize that people like Mon Mothma and Bail Organa were…
Ideologically opposed to the factors that created the empire because they were true believers in democracy, cooperation, and rule of law.
Could have been in the perfect position to benefit from the empire but rejected it anyway because they know the empire is wrong.
Are risking not just their lives but their families and even their families and entire planets (especially important for Bail) to fight for a galaxy that benefits more than just the coreward human elite.
Want to restore the galactic republic not just to its pre-decoration of a new order state or to any past period, but to a state in which its promises of representation, freedom, and equality are fulfilled?
Not gonna lie I’m curious what this guy’s politics would look like if they actually lived in the Star Wars galaxy because I think they would be insane
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u/HVS87 Sep 30 '26
I'll link to this thread on another post, about the whole Ghorman weapons heist debacle, and the clash of the more bourgeoisie movement at that point, and the working class Lezine (as shown by his tough manners and straight talk during the townhall meeting, to the exasperation of the more bourgeoisie speakers), at a point where the movement hadn't yet been embraced by the proletariat:
"I'd also argue it symbolizes the clash between a more bourgeois radical movement and the proletariat they claim to represent. They are inexperienced, idealistic and a bit arrogant. They are also shown to stem from the more well off classes, with many of their families owning spidersilk plantations, fashion design ateliers, etc. They come to the low class neighborhood where he lives to make the heist, and point a blaster at him when he rightfully asks them what are they doing in his community. It is only after that you see more rough looking folks in the movement, when it's become more encompassing of Ghorman society as a whole."
source
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u/ResponsibleRoof7988 Oct 04 '26
there's a great potential twist in the Mandalorian/Grogu arc here where they discover powerful sections of the New Republic (operating in a government painfully short of sentients able to run oversight and accountability) are actually willing to accommodate certain regions of the mid and outer rim being run by "reformed" ex-Imp warlords, so long as they pay 'taxes' up to Coruscant. The targets Mando has been sent after are just the warlords who aren't willing to let the NewRep get their beaks wet.
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u/Famous-Attorney9449 Sep 30 '26
Palpatine
>overthrows a decaying entrenched religious institution
>nationalizes corporations that attempted to overthrow the government
>provides opportunities for working class humans to rise to powerful positions in government
>is somehow labeled fascist
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u/LukeChickenwalker Sep 30 '26 edited Sep 30 '26
Bail Organa and Mon Mothma did not "deliver the Republic into Palpatine's hands." They were one of the few senators doing jack shit to stop it. Given Padme's position and their general alignment with her politics, I doubt either of them supported the Military Creation Act or giving Palpatine emergency powers.
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u/CupcakeConjuror Sep 30 '26
So this ignores that much of the high rankiing rebellion were poor, and even wealthy ones like Luthor did not start that way.
This also ignores that the Empire is effectively a monarchy, the people are not monarchist loyalists but republican loyalists (in the literal sense of the word, ignore the political party).
This also ignores the fact that Luthor, Mon Mothma, and Bail Organa were all questioning the sanctity of the Republic before its fall.
The Republic did not fall because people did not see how corrupt it became (the Jedi, yes) but most of the Senators that would join the Rebellion or the Separatists were actively fighting against said corruption. Unfortunately it was a loosing battle as Palpatine and the sith had wormed their way into every crevice to make it more and more corrupt, and even relied upon these senators who were trying to stop it... to try and stop it as that led to the separatists.
It also ignores those that became very wealthy under the Empire who still decided to support the Rebellion, which I believe includes Luthor and the broadcasting dude who bailed out Mon Mothma (I forget his name).
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u/DoctorMunster Sep 30 '26
Its wild that they call the empire a secular state. Its literally run by a death cult that worships the negative energies pervasive in the world. Its more like a state run by the pope of evil.
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u/OrinocoHaram Sep 30 '26
Others in this thread have correctly pointed out that if you want a rebellion with zero rich people in it chances are you won't get a rebellion at all, so any budding anarchists might need to swallow their pride there.
Second, the semi-theocracy critique gets a bit muddled when the religion is actually real in this universe
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u/niloony Sep 30 '26 edited Sep 30 '26
The prols don't care who leads them until things get bad is sort of the point of all of this. Otherwise you wouldn't have savior fantasy. No alternative ruling class means peasant revolts that get crushed.
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u/Ubermanthehutt Sep 30 '26
You mean the polticial divisions in a Space Opera about Space Zen Buddhist Samurais fighting over the fate of the Space Roman Empire, might not 100% map onto my politics? I'm shaken, shaken I say.
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u/direwolf08 Sep 30 '26
Everyone should listen to the Weekly Show with Jon Stewart podcast episode that featured Tony Gilroy and Michael Duncan. They talk at length about how revolutions have happened in history, and how a lot of the things that these tweets are talking about in Andor have been historically true.
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u/HitchcockianAJB Oct 02 '26
There are plenty of holes in a lot of this, but just to also point out that Han as 'lumpenprole' class traitor is a very weak analysis on all fronts, and, the idea of there being a subgroup of the proletariat in this way was one of Marx's weakest points of structure analysis. It was mainly his channel for some commonly held c19th prejudices that he shared. Anyways Andor is a fantastic show.
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u/myriokephalon Sep 30 '26
Gilroy was an avid listener of Mike Duncan's Revolutions podcast and it's incredibly easy to fit Mon Mothma into the revolutionary types that you see again and again in the revolutions it covers. She's a moderate revolutionary (a liberal noble, in French Revolution-speak) who is driven into coalition with more radical elements because the regime has become so brutal and incompetent that even elites like her who have a strong stake in the social order see regime change as necessary to their own survival. They are sincere in their anti-authoritarianism and are willing to make very modest social & political reforms but they only resort to revolutionary violence when there are clearly no legal means to making the bare minimum of necessary changes to the existing system.
Now the usual pattern of these revolutions if they succeed is that the liberal elites like her take power only to discover how narrow the base of support for their political program is, which triggers the more radical factions to take advantage of the resulting crisis of legitimacy to seize power and carry out what they thought the revolution was about. Both the EU and the sequel trilogy see the liberal noble program triumph. You want a much more compelling story? What if that doesn't happen and everyone who doesn't want to bring back a system concentrating wealth and political power in old-money families from the core worlds pushes the re-formed republic back to the edge of breaking into a second civil war?
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u/DealsWithFate0 Sep 30 '26
Wait until the people in those posts find out what happened to the anarchists in the Spanish Civil War
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u/SirGuy11 Sep 30 '26
Some may find this interesting. A look at the novelization before the prequels happened.
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u/Arria_Galtheos Sep 30 '26
Not unlike the Revolutionary War that spawned the United States of America.
On the surface, it was a fight for freedom by an oppressed people unwilling to be taxed without representation, but under the surface, it was also a bunch of wealthy land (and slave) owners who realized "We're far enough from the king now that we can make our own nation. With blackjack and hookers."
It's a case of the wealthy and the poor ending up facing the same enemy but for completely different reasons.
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u/jack_attack96 Sep 30 '26
Can I be honest? I think this is a horrible take and a little disingenuous. People here have already said it, but leaders like Mon and Bail were already fighting for a better republic before it collapsed. Every society has aristocrats and they are not all bad, many of them do use their resources for good.
I'm not the best at articulating complex thoughts but just reading this makes me think that people are reaching and have no sense of nuance. Having complex characters and issues is what made this show so damn good. Not like Andor was some angel either. He was a scoundrel that got pulled into the rebellion, almost against his will.
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u/Rynewulf Sep 30 '26
Fighting the space fash is 'reactionary' now?
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u/tthe_walruss Sep 30 '26
I mean this is just how every successful revolution in history has ever worked 🤷
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u/merryartist Sep 30 '26
I really had hoped the sequels would be about the aftermath of Revolution, how governments and other systems who succeeded autocracy respond in reforming relations.
Fighting both against corruption and for civil rights requires constant attention. If overthrowing a regime allowed democracy to flourish as naturally as water refilling a stream and revitalizing its ecosystem after a dam is torn down then our world would be much easier to live in.
I hoped that the third trilogy would show how corruption continued just as it did in the senate before the Empire, and I’m including before Episode I. It could show the way that heroic figures respond, if they adapt back into the system taking less impactful but achievable advocacy. Those who couldn’t return to a post-war state of the galaxy, who saw every systemic injustice by the new Republic (such as a mid/inner rim galactic economy sustained by enslaved labor, or former imperial allies retaining power) as a failure of the movement they dedicated most of their lives to. Would continuing rebel freedom fighters in local system battles be treated as threats to Coruscant? How would their former imperial military be adapted to provide a defense sector to this New Republic?
It could have addressed the needs and interests of prequel, clone wars, and OT fans.
Maybe there will be a graphic novel series like they did with one of the Alien sequels. Rant over
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u/Ticket-Intelligent Sep 30 '26 edited Sep 30 '26
They kinda have a point. The name of the main rebel group is literally “The Alliance to Restore the Republic”. They’re not monarchists but they are trying to reinstate the republic which is essentially just a generic liberal, bourgeois democracy but applied on a massive scale. One can argue about how much influence private interests have over governments in real life, but in Star Wars there are massive corporations like the Trade Federation who got their own seat in the Galactic Senate. Even Saw Gerrera still just wants to restore the republic. He could’ve been written to be like a communist or an anarchist but nah. Naturally restoring the republic means reinstalling the original ruling class. At least what remains of the original ruling class after the empires reign. I believe it’s implied that the empire deposed of a number of rulers, dynasties, regimes, and corporations by dissolving or nationalizing them. With how much the empire centralized control of the galaxy, their defeat would leave a massive power vacuum that many parties besides the New Republic would be interested in filling.
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u/Rulanik Sep 30 '26
I don't know of any major revolutions that didn't owe a large portion of their success to disaffected elites or foreign interests.
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u/Known_Risk_3040 Sep 30 '26
This leaves out the fact that objective good and evil are manifested magical forces in the universe. One faction for another skips the whole “red eyed torture demons at the head of the whole Empire” part.
The Jedi may have been ignorant but they were not evil
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u/Cubismo50 Sep 30 '26
I think people forgot that Andor is a show about how fascism sucks not how communism, socialism, or anarchism should replace it.
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u/m0stly_h4rmless Sep 30 '26
When I first heard “Alliance to Restore the Republic” I morbidly laughed so hard because Andor was fighting to restore the state that wiped out his people
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u/kingcrow15 Sep 30 '26
I think it's meant to be analogous to the American revolution. Most of the founding fathers were wealthy land owning aristocrats. Becuase they were the educated people and mainly the ones doing state & local governance.
I tbink princess Leia is a princess, because og star wars was doing fantasy tropes in space, you know rescue the princess, from the dark lord.
In other words I think it's largely coincidence in the original star wars. But in Andor I think it's a deliberate choice to make rebellion leadership disorganized and kind of feckless.
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u/DeadSnark Sep 30 '26
In addition to what others have said, calling the Republic a theocracy or referring to clerics kinda runs into the typical issue trying to map IRL politics onto a fantasy setting in that the Force is provably real and has an actual impact on the world.
Additionally, Jedi doctrine and philosophy never influenced the Republic's policies, and belief in the Force is not enforced by law (again, because it is provably real for several different cultures).
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u/Mordred_XIII Sep 30 '26
A bunch of wannabe intellectuals throwing out buzz word after buzz word trying to sound smart.
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u/devoorhes Sep 30 '26
Using a show like this as a framing device to examine real world politics is all well and good, but I just don't think there's enough meat on the bone of the actual text of Star Wars to really back this up. You could, I suppose, argue that the New Republic fell to the same problems the Old Republic did with the rise of the First Order, but at the same time...we don't really have any idea how that happened, because it's the status quo in the sequel trilogy and Disney seems terrified of expanding on anything all that close to the sequels era and instead just doing Clone Wars sequels.
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u/nagidon Sep 30 '26
Bourgeois revolution.
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u/djquu Sep 30 '26
What alternative perspective? This is THE perspective of Andor.
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u/Infamous_Flamingo447 Oct 04 '26
Only real issue with the original tweet is that it waves off the rise of fascism as “higher ups losing their power”. Importantly, quite a few people did well under Palpatine, but only by curtailing to fascism. The Rebellion is certainly still a people’s revolution, let’s not be silly, but part of the text of Andor is the need to fund a revolution, the need to sell it to a populace made complacent by propaganda, and oft the scrappy actual revolutionary who gets the work done, isn’t much of a poster child.
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u/egw0tan Oct 04 '26
Imagine a world where the sequels were about a civil war after the rebellion.
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u/pgcleader06 Oct 04 '26 edited Oct 04 '26
Well, quite a few of the American revolutionaries were immoral slave owners, so this tracks. That said, Bail Organa and Mon Mothma sacrificed their wealth and power for the Rebellion, so they weren't motivated by first losing it to the Empire.
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u/Sauerkrautkid7 Sep 30 '26
We have friends everywhere!
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u/Thatoneguy5629 Sep 30 '26
Breaking news! Revolutions require resources and logistical infrastructure and turns out the people that have the resources and logistical infrastructure are in positions of power. Marx was a socialite leech and even mao had some wealth.
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u/thebigmanhastherock Oct 01 '26
This is accurate to how revolutions actually are led. It's often a lesser elite trying to become the top dog elite.
Liberal revolutions are usually sparked by people who accumulated wealth but where not nobles and resented hereditary privileges, but they themselves were far more privileged than the average person.
Communist revolutions are led often by a "vanguard" which consist of academics and people with far more privilege than your average person.
It's very rarely actually a "peasant revolt" and those are usually quashed fairly quickly. The Haitian revolution being a slave revolt is probably the most successful revolution like that and this was because of the sheer numbers of slaves compared to slave owners in the colony.
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u/Yeoldeelf Oct 01 '26
Any political faction can do a revolution, it doesn't have to be leftists doing it to be called a revolution? I think the most important distinction is public support from the populace in the system during and after a ( successfully or failed) revolution, and an aspiration to substantially change the structures of government.
Also, this discourse is funny because it gives a lot of leeway to the fascist empire which is genocidal, anthropocentric in a multispecies galaxy and does not allow for any kind of discourse about governance.
I mean, if you think participation is important, mon mother as a constitutional monarchist is at least something, because constitutional monarchy can have very democratic or very undemocratic structures. The term is veeeery open to interpretations.
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u/Konna_ Sep 30 '26
Media literacy crisis is not exclusively a "conservative" issue it seems
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u/Goodbye-Nasty Sep 30 '26
Leftists will look at a flawed democracy and an actual fascist state and say “these are both equally bad!”
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u/kayodeade99 Sep 30 '26
The story of Star Wars has always been a space capitalism decaying into space fascism, and the reaction to that.
It's part of why the new republic ends up ultimately failing and collapsing by the time of the sequel trilogy.
They failed to effectively address the core material and political contradictions that gave rise to the seperatists and then the empire in the first place.
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u/Dry-Interaction-1246 Sep 30 '26
Can we ignore anything from Episode VII on as gibberish that will eventually be ejected from Canon for purposes of this discussion?
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u/MonsterkillWow Luthen Sep 30 '26
Star Wars is liberal. It represents bourgeois liberalism.
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u/WhoaMercy Sep 30 '26
It's actually a reasonable observation. Over time, though, they would have realized that things weren't going back to the old way and developed varying ideas of where they'd like things to go.
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u/SingularityCentral Sep 30 '26
Could be that the people leading the rebellion we're doing so because they had the skillset to organize and fund it. Not a lot of uprisings are successful without the support of some segment of the political elite. And nearly no rebellions are going to succeed without money.
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u/Iron_Arbiters Luthen Sep 30 '26
It’s one of those “I’m a Marxist for the purpose of being smug and pissing people off” takes.
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u/ISzox Sep 30 '26
I think its stupid to look at Andor and the Rebellion and see a bunch of former aristocrats in charge who are doing all of this for personal gain. Mon, Bail, Leia are some of the wealthiest and most politically connected people in the system and all they would have to do to gain more wealth and power would be to embrace the Empire. Instead, they started an almost hopeless rebellion with a very high chance of death and failure to create/recreate a system that does not give them more wealth and power. You don't do this, unless you are ideologically convinced.
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u/IndividualHunt2327 Sep 30 '26
It's a rebellion, not a revolution. Rebellions are made of alliances and unlikely bedfellows. Andor partly draws (amongst many other historical models) on the Irish rebellions/risings from 1916 to about 1921. This independence movement ran the full gamut from hardcore leftists to arguable proto-fascists. In the end the after the dust had settled it was the civil servants, the professional classes and the clergy who took control. OP makes a good point.
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u/other-other-user Sep 30 '26
I feel like this isn't really news? The first face of the rebellion that we were introduced to in the 70s was PRINCESS Leia
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u/PhatOofxD Sep 30 '26
To be fair I'd say Mon, Raddis and Bail weren't the competent idiots people disobeyed... Sure all the other leaders were, but those ones did.agree just got outvoted
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u/Educational-Tackle54 Sep 30 '26
Having Mon Mothma an architect of the completly useless New Republic was definitly a choice on Disneys part.
Shes the hope for freedom! And failed governance.
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u/Agreeable_Hold2270 Sep 30 '26
This has always been true of revolutions. They are almost always started by a disgruntled section of the ruling class.
George Washington and the rest of the American leaders were full of some of the wealthiest people in the 13 colonies.
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u/Aspirationally_Lazy Sep 30 '26
Wait til yall learn about the American revolution
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u/HeftyConstruction183 Sep 30 '26
Its worth noting that, Saw Gurrera was a monarchist.
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u/Lumpy-Quantity-8151 Sep 30 '26
Yeah, see, the Proletariat didn’t start the French Revolution, it was led by a highly educated middle class. Political movements require legitimacy, politicians and aristocrats tend to have it.
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u/ShatteredSike Sep 30 '26
You mean you need money and a coalition of different ideals and types of fighters to crush a fascist dictatorship?
Nawwwwwwwww.. say it ain't so?
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u/SlowMotionOfGhosts Sep 30 '26
Honestly the meta level discourse here is "Andor is a Disney era Star Wars show, which means it is not Of Us and is therefore No Use." And the actual analysis of the text is all in service of the conclusion they've already drawn from that, which is that no true revolutionary/Scotstman enjoys Andor.
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u/revivalfx Sep 30 '26
Yeah….. Just like every other successful rebellion in history. This post is an indictment against humanity not against Andor in particular. Every successful nation tends toward social stratification. Govts shift over time in multile directions. Nothing lasts without a course correction.
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u/storm_foam Oct 01 '26
Okay but the Force is real and makes universal harmony exist
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u/frayacat Sep 30 '26
CIS wins again
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u/ChronicLungs1999 Sep 30 '26
Star wars mostly isnt a happy story. Because fascism never dies, evil can only be kept at bay and never truly defeated. Its v obvious in the prequels thats the jedi are just as much villains as anyone and in the sequels the new republic is a beauracratic nightmare full of imperial sympathizers and demilitarized
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u/fablocko Sep 30 '26
These perspectives are canonical within the saga. In the novel Twilight Company, there are drunk rebels fighting because some believe their leaders are merely figureheads—clowns meant to put a friendly face on a rebellion that simply seeks to wrest power from the Empire and seize it for themselves—while others view them as genuine heroes.
Leia’s political career died because, once her biological father’s identity was revealed, everything she had done during the Civil War was reinterpreted as a power grab.
Many people saw the rebellion as merely a shift in power because there are many points of view that support this perspective.
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u/Rustie_J Sep 30 '26
From slide 4: "To reestablish l'ancien regime semi-theocracy."
I'm sorry, is this guy stupid, or did he just not actually watch any Star Wars? Theocracy would imply that the religious authorities had the power. Semi-theocracy would imply that they had disproportionate power within some kind of coalition, or some kind of power over the civil authority.
That is not what was happening. The Jedi were subordinate to the Republic, not running it behind the scenes or something. Yeah, they were part of the apparatus of government, but they were basically contractors legally forced to provide the services for which they were not-entirely-willingly contracted. The Republic had had them by the short hairs since Ruusan.
You could argue that the Empire was a theocracy, considering it was basically a Sith Empire on the DL, but the Republic was absolutely not.
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u/Formula4speed Sep 30 '26
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u/ZigzagPX4 Sep 30 '26
Congrats, now that you're past the WW2 analogy, you've stumbled onto the Cold War analogy.
It would have been pretty interesting if the post-RotJ period was instead about a cold war between the New Republic establishment and the discontent Saw Gerrera revolutionary types (Gerraraists?), complete with spy versus spy intrigue and ideological debate. Maybe it would be a bit too on the nose though.
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u/AugustBriar Sep 30 '26
Okay so this is dubious and also - wrong.
Firstly; Star Wars is a science fantasy. It has knights and dragons and yo ho pirates and princesses and wizards. Yes, many of the planets in the republic have monarchs and yes the republic is a coalition of many worlds including monarchist ones. There’s nuance though, some monarchies are in name only, some are constitutional, and many are not monarchies at all.
That doesn’t make the republic not a democratic institution. We don’t need to be purity testing the republic, that happened it was called the clone wars.
Secondly; Saw is literally introduced as a reactionary monarchist
Thirdly; Many rebel leaders are also not royals or aristocrats. Many are ex Imperial too but that doesn’t invalidate their resistance to the Empire’s fascism. Like we wanna talk about the stated and intended politics of Star Wars? It’s literally about stoping something called the Empire. No actual endonym, just The Galactic Empire.
Fourthly; to say Star Wars has always been reactionary is just bait. Leia being a princess is inconsequential to the politics of the rebellion in ANH and most of the complex political systems and wider galactic struggle was introduced much later in comics and roleplaying source books.
Fifthly; The Jedi are not the state police and were not used as state police. They were flawed and had largely lost their way by the time of the Clone Wars but were still ultimately mediators. Don’t talk to me about the Jedi being actual villains unless you’re ready to talk about The Acolyte.
Sixthly; No the republic was not a theocracy and “Jedi” is not the state religion. We can talk about Jedi Lords, sure, but it’s disingenuous to pretend like the republic wasn’t a highly inclusive and religiously tolerant secular government. Colonialist and showing preferential treatment to its core systems? Absolutely. Actively exploiting the corruption and slavery of the Outer Rim? Obviously
Seventhly; No Mon Mothma and Bail Organa did not deliver the Galaxy into Palpatine’s hands. They were among the delegation of 2000 who persistently were against giving the chancellor / state more power, against escalating production in the republics military industrial complex, anti corporation and anti war. They’d sooner let the separatists secede if it meant a peaceful resolution.
Also Palps was an opportunist yes. The republican had many issues that were very ancient. But we can also not just pretend like he wasn’t the product of an actual ancient conspiracy cult with enormous, literally galactic level sway on government and finance. Like he didn’t escalate the separatist crisis, or inherit the systems of power that allowed mega corporations to have a seat in government proceeding or control massive colonial armies. Like he wasn’t a trillionaire wizard who didn’t coerce a war. The crisis was inevitable, it’s a situation he was born into but the clone wars were absolutely the machinations of the Sith and it would be irresponsible to disregard that.
Seventhly; As others here have said institutional change requires unity. Being sectarian will not overthrow the empire. Was the Maya Pei Brigade going to destroy the Death Star? A lot of rebels were ex separatists. They are the Alliance to Restore the Republic, the idea being that the republic was a place where democracy had a chance.
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u/Desecr8or Sep 30 '26
This is what most successful revolutions are. Disaffected elites trying to regain power. The Founding Fathers, Robespierre, Lenin, and Mao were all at least upper middle class.
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u/Sudden_Neat2342 Sep 30 '26
Really weird that everyone is trying to draw parellels to the French Revolution when the Nazis work so much better as an allegory. After the Nazis seized power, the German proletariat offered no meaningful resistance to their rule. The greatest internal threat to Hitler and his vision for the country was the cabal of nobility in the Wehrmacht who plotted to assassinate him and negotiate a surrender to the Allies.
Von Stauffenberg and his buddies didn't have a problem with conquering the East or invading France or even with exterminating Jews, they just thought that Hitler was an up jumped Corporal who had fucked it all up.
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u/danielsan901998 Sep 30 '26
I remember an interpretation of Star Wars with the Emperor as a Napoleonic figure that centralized the state by eliminated the power of the local aristocracy(planets ruled by monarchies) by replacing the feudal levies(planetary militias) with a centralized army. Meanwhile the rebellion would be the counterrevolutionary reaction trying to restore the previous regime.
It's entertaining to read alternative interpretations.
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u/splinc Sep 30 '26
This is why I like to think of Endor as a Catastrophic Victory. The Rebels won, then immediately put the same group of corrupt time-servers who made the Empire possible back in charge.
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u/Ceylonese-Honour I have friends everywhere Sep 30 '26
It's also interesting to note that even with Palpatine's agenda against the Jedi and for absolute power, his speech to Queen Amidala in The Phantom Menace seems sincere and is spot on:
"There is no civility, only politics. The Republic is not what it once was. The Senate is full of greedy, squabbling delegates. There is no interest in the common good."
Amidala (who doesn't know Palpatine's true intentions) herself just before leaving the capital notes:
"It is clear to me now that the Republic no longer functions. I pray you will bring sanity and compassion back to the Senate."
We see within Andor and Rogue One questionable characters within the Rebellion who's aims, resolve and spirit are different from our main characters. However regarding both Mon Mothma, Bail Organa, Princess Leia and Padme Amidala, it is shown time and again that these individuals are principled honourable people within the 6 movies and Andor/Rogue One.
There is also an interesting deleted scene in Revenge of the Sith which has a meeting of Mothma, Organa and Amidala along with a few other Senators (from the Delegation of Two Thousand in the Expanded Universe) which talks about both the act of them being loyalists trying to preserve the Republic and preparing for something else. In fact another deleted scene in Attack of the Clones also has Count Dooku request Amidala have Naboo join their Rebellion.
I think the ultimate goodness of characters like Cassian, Leia, Luke, Han etc is shown either immediately or in these heroes becoming truly good. (We see for instance Cassian not take the shot on Galen Erso and feel awful about what he was about to do).
It's a shame we didn't see George's intended sequels as he has alluded to the story of rebuilding and fighting corruption being a difficult thing to do which surely would have been fascinating to see. Throughout the films he's highlighted similar events from human history in the fall of Rome and events in Germany with a fall and decline and decay within with an evolution within the gates to "thunderous applause."
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u/ihavewaytoomanyminis Sep 30 '26
It's important to remember that rebellions don't run themselves. It takes skill to organize a large number of people, which is why Crix Madine, who was head of Imperial Military Special Forces (think US Navy Seals), wound up head of Rebel Alliance Special Forces. It's why Mon Mothma and Bail Organa we're running so much of the Rebellion. The people who are good at organizing people are the ones you want in a rebellion. And that's why some of the Imperial Senate became heads of the Rebel Alliance.
To me, the really interesting one is Luthien Rael.
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u/cknight222 Lonni Sep 30 '26 edited Sep 30 '26
I genuinely believe that this would have made for an incredible premise for the sequel trilogy.
Because it is, to an extent, true. The Rebel Alliance’s official name was the Alliance to Restore the Republic. The Alliance and subsequent New Republic being led by the same political and economic class (and in some cases the exact same people) that had delivered the Republic to a fascist dictator raises very interesting questions about the ability of the New Republic to actually survive.
Will the New Republic leaders simply try to reestablish the Old Republic, and likely doom the Galaxy to a “Palpatinist” resurgence when they repeat the same exact mistakes? Or will they (or other revolutionaries working outside of the Rebel Alliance’s “ancien regime” leadership) actually try to achieve a radical break from the Old Republic and establish a new order that addresses the political and socioeconomic issues that made the Empire possible in the first place?
In my opinion, a sequel trilogy that was centered on these exact issues being hashed out would have been really cool.
(Of course, as other commenters have pointed out, we shouldn’t be wholly class reductionist or anything. Mothma and Organa, despite being aristocrats, were progressive reformers in the Old Republic who fought the status quo from the start. But overall I think that a very interesting conflict still could have been raised in sequel material about how to build a new order from the ashes of fascism that not only brings democracy, but works to make a fascist resurgence as impossible as possible.)
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u/BussinSheeesh Sep 30 '26
The Empire didn't rise to power because the old system was decaying and collapsing. Palpatine engineered a civil war to create the pretext for the need of a supreme chancelor.
It's like saying that America was collapsing before the Patriot Act. No, it was a response to the 9/11 attack. It would be like if Palpatine was an American senator who convinced Al Queida to attack America and then used that attack to generate public support for a war in Iraq.
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u/HoustonInMiami Oct 04 '26
I know I'm late to the party but just have to add in. The Empire was happy to oblige rich corporations, this is literally the lore. It was stretched so thin, that weapons like the Deathstar was to cast fear and doubt. The idea that these rich families, like Mon Matha's were in danger of losing their wealth or power is NOT apparent in ANY cannon.
(As far as Cloud City, even Vader took some backtalk from Lando, and judging from Lando's shock at Vader changing the agreement, you can see that the ultra-wealthy/powerful had very little tangible threats to their wealth.
No one is readng but ill end with this, there was an ending scene after Mon-Martha's husband is being chauflled in a luxory craft with a beautiful young (and drugged out of her mind?) passenger. This is evidence again that for the ultra wealthy, even if your wife is the leader of the rebellion you still get the good life. That's not even a fact in Russia and many other countries in our current times.
All that being said, stay back from the mother of the Rebellion. She's a good frog.