podcast 3

The main ideas from this transcription are: - Discussion about Cassian's character arc throughout the show, highlighting his transformation and growth. - Mention of a major event in episodes 9 and 10 that caused the downfall, involving the guards and prisoners. - The theme of the show is explored, with one person discussing cause and effect, another discussing decisions and willpower, and a third person agreeing with both themes. - Examples are given to support the themes, including Mothma's decision to marry off her daughter for the rebellion and the consequences it has on their relationship. Hey guys, welcome back to Let's Talk About It. Here we have Zachary Winnell and Ariana Sanchez. And today we're just going to be talking about our thoughts on Andor and things that came out of the show and just kind of what we thought about it. So I'm going to start off with Zach first. What did you think of Cassian's character arc throughout the show? I would say it was kind of like that, you know, stereotypical kind of like, not like a western vibe, but more like that edgy, oh, I was on the streets, I'm the only friend for yourself. But also I have this family that I need to find a way to get to them, say, hey, are you good? They might not be even alive at this point, and I might be just wasting my time. But in the end, it's kind of like that classic, huh, this cause that I decided to join, I was only doing it for money, but kind of like this cause, you join this cause, huh, I only joined this for money, but after a while, this seems kind of cool, like I could do something for once in my life. I won't have to be going for scraps, you know, like how I've always been. So this can give me a chance to do something in my life, give me a purpose. We can really see that throughout the show. You know, at first he was just searching for his sister, and then he got sent to prison, and he learned to be a leader, you know. I think that really helped him with wanting to be in the rebellion, but that's just my take on it. Any other thoughts, either of you? No. Okay, so... Commit felonies. Don't commit felonies, don't do it. So next we have Ariana, I have a question for you. What event caused the downfall of something in the show? I would say a major... So Ariana, next question is for you. What event caused the downfall of something in the show? I would say a pretty major event that happened and caused the downfall would be in episodes 9 and 10. That was when the guards had put a prisoner back into a rotation when he was supposed to be released. And once the guards had realized that they had messed up, they had killed the whole floor. And then that in turn caused the prisoners to break out and start a riot. I thought that was definitely a big cause and effect. Like, if the guards would have just done their job and just, you know, done the right thing instead of just like, oh, we'll put him back in there. And then they're like, oh, now we gotta kill everybody. Yeah, it's like they really ruined themselves because in reality, they were the ones that died and all of the prisoners escaped. It's definitely something that they wouldn't have thought happened, but it did. I agree with that. I kind of want to compare this to like, I'm not gonna compare it at some point in the past, but I say I could compare the whole killing of the prisoners sometime to another thing in Germany, which was the, this was way into World War II. It was called the Scorched Earth Doctrine. And it was basically the plan to like, if the Allies were to ever get too close to like, Germany, just destroy the infrastructure of the current Third Reich. Because the goal was to basically get rid of any potential helpful resource to the Allies. It's the same thing with the prisoners. The mistake was that they accidentally brought in a prisoner that was supposed to be released, but they just brought him to a prisoner. The people that were on there with prisoners were like, wait, what the, what is this? Wasn't he supposed to be free? And the prisoner probably was like, yeah, he was supposed to be free. He was like, what is this? Why am I here? I should be home right now. And the guards was like, oh, they're catching on. Nah, this isn't good. We need to stop them from rebelling. And they fried the whole floor probably to prevent more rebelling or any further insurrection to come up. Yeah, definitely. That's a good take. Okay, so for this next little section, we are going, I'm going to ask each of you about what you think the theme of the whole entire show is. So Ariana, I'm going to start with you. Give me your thoughts. I definitely think that cause and effect is a big part of this show. Because a lot of the things that happen are because someone does something, something else happens. And it's just a repeating cycle. This keeps going and going. It was like the question earlier with the downfall, because someone did this, this is what happened. Yeah, that's fair. So do you think consequences go into that? We see Deidre, who was torturing Bix and, you know, doing not great things on Ferrix. And it kind of seemed like her consequence of those decisions was almost getting killed by the mob and being scared, to put it frank, shitless. You know, she seemed like she was a mess towards the end. Do you think that could go into it a little bit? Yeah, I could definitely agree with that. Because that's like, if she would have just... We apologize, we had to take a short little break because we started laughing at each other. But to continue off of what you said... I was trying to say that. I definitely agree with that. Because if she wouldn't have been like that way towards people, she wouldn't have got what she deserved. And almost died. That's consequence. Do you think that they should have killed her? Yeah, because she's horrible. Okay, fair. That is very fair. And Zach in the back earlier said she deserved it. So I think all three of us can collectively agree that Deidre, she's one of my least favorite characters on the show. I don't know about either of you, but I did not like her. So next, we are going to get Zach's opinion on what he thinks the theme of the show was. Thanks for this segue. Anyway, I think, yes, while cause and effect is a very important theme in this show, I think it's more about decisions and the willpower to act on those decisions. Very nice pronunciation there. Anyways, the basic, I guess, framework for this whole show is, can I do this? Should I do this? Is there a cost to this? Will I be willing to take that cost? So many, let's see, instances where this can backfire. Like say, Marva, she was like, oh yeah, go fight the empire. And then everyone was like, yeah, let's fight the empire. And then out of nowhere, this kid decides, you know what, I'm going to pull out a bomb that I made from scratch. And I'm going to see what happens if I chuck it. He chucked it, everything, does the whole explosion. Oh yeah, silence. And then the empire is like, yes, stop there. So wait, Zach, are you saying that questioning rebellion is going to be, like, is that what you believe our theme is for the show? Partially. It's in the middle, like questioning, like, what should I do? Is this worth it? What do I get out of this? It's not only like a question of whether or not I should do the, join the rebellion, it's whether or not I should actually do something with my life. Should I run? Should I fight? Should I sit there with popcorn and saying, all right, let's see what happens. Like, it's weird. There's like three decisions when it comes to like decisions. Like, and also with the decisions, you have to be willing. Like, if you like say like, yeah, I'm gonna do something. You got to actually back up and like do that thing. It's like coming up with your like goal for a week or a month, like a long-term goal. And we can see this in so many instances, like Mothma's inevitable succumbing to like the deal with that one banker dude. I don't know who, what his name is, but unrelated. It's, you can compare that to like a traditional, like, hey, this family is having beef with my family. I think I should marry off my child to son of that family or the child of that family. Cause it can go both ways, I guess. Nevermind. Can we cut that? Can we cut, can we cut that? Basically like it can go vice versa. Like a guy from a certain family wants to marry off the boy to the daughter of that family. And it could go vice versa, like girl to boy, boy to girl. Cause back then, you know, different preferences on marriage and different views on what marriage should be, but getting sidetracked, it's kind of like that deal, like, instead of like marrying to like strengthen family ties with an, strengthen ties to another family and prevent like infighting with the culture, it's more or less like, I need funding. I need money for rebellion. So I'm going to swallow my pride for this one time, this one teensy bit moment, and I'm just going to let it just play out. I'll, I hate myself for it, but I'll go by your demands. It's a good take. I like that because Mothma really did not want to betroth her daughter to the banker's son, you know, because that's something she wanted to do for money for the rebellion, but she ended up making that sacrifice for not only herself, but her daughter. So that decision changed her and her child's future. Yeah. So along with that, Ava, what do you think a theme could be, or do you agree with one of us more than the other? I definitely agree with your theme the most, the cause and effect and the consequences of everything throughout the whole entire show. I feel like we see cause and effect and what can happen when someone hastily makes a decision. So it's kind of ties in with both of yours, actually. The decisions we make will impact the future of not only ourselves, but other people and the consequences of those actions, whether it's good or bad, will affect not only you, but other people. So it's kind of actually difficult for me to pinpoint which one of you two I agree with the most because they kind of tie in with each other. We just talked about Mothma's decision to marry off her daughter to a scoundrel's son, but she was thinking about the rebellion and other people and not her child, which we can see is probably why they have a strained relationship throughout the show. I would assume that the daughter feels neglected and like she doesn't get a lot of her mom's time. And now her mom just made this monumental decision for other people and wasn't thinking about her own daughter and what her life would look like, even if it was filled with the life of luxury. But I think the whole show kind of is a balance of cause and effect and what consequences come out of that. So back to Mothma, do you think that that action for the end result, do you think it's worth it for the rebellion? Or do you think that... If we're talking in the scale of for the greater good, we see what happens when she gets that funding. They're able to get everything for the Death Star and destroy it essentially because that's what Andor does. He gets the Death Star plans to Princess Leia who gets it to Obi-Wan, I believe. That's what happens towards the funding. That's what happens in Rogue One, which Andor is a precursor for that. But for the greater good, I'd say she made the right decision. What they wanted to happen ended up happening. For her daughter individually, no, I feel like it was not the right decision. She's essentially getting rid of her child so that she can help other people, not thinking about the family that she already has. I feel like it's a weird paradox because she's doing the right thing, but it's not the right thing. It's like you can't have a world without her. That's why it's kind of hard to say that she did the wrong thing. She did the wrong thing for her daughter, 100%. Personally, if my mother were to marry me off to a random boy at the age of 14, I... No. But I don't know. It's just kind of hard to say if it was a good or bad thing. So with the cause and effect theme going on to different characters, do you think Cyril or Cassian's cause and effects are worse? Which of the two do you think ended up having the most consequences to the show? I actually don't remember what really happened to Cyril. I just remember when he saved Deidre, I'm going to be honest. And Cassian, knowing what I know from the other movie, he dies. That's kind of his consequence of everything that he did. You know? But I feel like Cassian had enough of a... Like he, in a way, paid his dues when he died, you know? And also he went to prison for, I don't even know how long he was in there. What, like a couple months maybe? Yeah. I mean, and he had been doing bad things. He did kill two people, right? At the beginning. And don't kill people is something you can take away from that. But he was a fugitive. He didn't make the best decisions at times, but then he kind of flipped it around and decided he wanted to actually help people instead of being selfish, which is something that we had talked about with his character arc. But that's hard for me to say. So you said that Cassian kind of got his dues paid and he kind of deserved... Do you think that Cyril got what he deserved? Because he just, he's just, you know... Did he die? Oh. What happened? So maybe that's something that we will see in season two, whenever it comes out, is what happened to Cyril. Because we've been told that we don't really know what happened to him. Honestly, I feel like... Well, okay, with your knowledge right now. Do you think that he... No, I think he deserves to... Honestly, I kind of think he deserves to be put in that prison, even though it's not existent anymore. But he deserves to be treated like a prisoner. I mean, he is weird and stalkery and like... It kind of grosses me out. I feel like he also, in a way, has the same thing that Mothma does. Like, he sort of... He sometimes does the right things. But he's only doing it for his job. Not because it's right or bad. He just does it because... Like him trying to find Cassian at the beginning, you know, and going on that manhunt for killing two of his men. I would say that's the right thing. He did kill two of your men. That should not happen. However, you took it too far. You had someone killed, which is... That's doing exactly what Cassian did. Makes him no better. Exactly. And it's like he even lost his job. We know that. But then he became all weird with Deidre. He would follow her around. He would show up randomly. I mean, that's a criminal act, at least, I mean, on our planet, in our country, it is. You know, stalking is very illegal. But I wouldn't say that he got the same level of justice, if that's the way to put it. Like... I don't know. Like, I don't know if any of that made sense. But in my head, it kind of did. So, Zach, do you have anything for me? All right. So, you said you would agree with both of our things, but one, obviously, more than the other. Could you perhaps connect both of the things and just describe them both in like one word? Just one, one singular word that can just describe the whole... The whole entire idea? Yeah. Both ideas, smash them into one, and kind of like... Consequence. Because consequences don't just have to be a bad thing. Consequences can be a good thing. You know, there's different kinds of consequences. You know, like, say you get grounded and your parents take away your phone or your laptop or your TV. That's a bad consequence. However, a good consequence would be getting a pay raise at work for being a good employee or, you know, your parents reward you with a car if you have been driving for a couple years and you haven't gotten into any accidents, those tickets, you know, like... There are good consequences within the bad. So, I would say consequence kind of... Encapsulates both of those ideas. You're welcome for plugging in that big word. Sure. I was going to say like tenacity. Tenacity? Yeah. Because willpower, you got to be able to withstand those consequences, you know? Sure, but how does cause and effect go into tenacity? How does cause and effect go into tenacity? Because you have to be willing to do something and if you're not willing to take the effect of that... If you do something and it causes this, if you can't deal with the effects of what you did, like obviously the consequences of your actions, why are you even doing it? That's fair. Yeah, that's good. That's a fair take. I just think of consequence because, I mean, really anything can be a consequence, good or bad. It doesn't... I mean... And you could also think of a positive consequence as a reward, but in reality, it's kind of the same thing. What about risk, though? Risk? Risk. R-I-S-K? Yes. You think of any other word that I can spell that sounds like risk? Nar. I actually... What about risk do you want to talk about? Like, what risk are we... The risk of doing certain things and risking the consequence and risking putting your life on the line? Yes. Kind of what Cassian did, and he has risked his life now to do the thing on... The robbery on whatever planet that was. And... Aldani. Aldani. And, you know, like, he risked his life. They all risked their lives. I wouldn't say risk is... I wouldn't say risk is one of the words that I would use for both of those things. Yeah. You're risking. You have the willpower to take that risk. And with risk... You're always risking. It doesn't matter what you're doing. You're risking your life doing anything. I mean, risk to me is just normal in daily life. I, however, would not put it with those things. Because in my head, you're always, always, always taking risks. Turn more into a debate in the actual podcast. Jesus Christ. That's okay. I feel like... I don't know. I think it's kind of fun. Moving on from whatever that was. Arianna, I have a question for you. We have been discussing it a little bit, but do you think Deidre and Dr. Gorsh are the angels of death in the Endor series? So from what I know about the angel of death is basically a little scientist that did experiments on kids during World War II, Jewish camps. I would say so, yeah. Because Gorsh, he had his experiment on Bix. Even if Deidre wasn't doing it, she still was the one to allow it and have him follow through with it. But I would definitely say so. They both have the mindset of it, definitely, like with the angel of death. So another question about the experiment. What do you think it does? Obviously, Bix went crazy. She barely speaks. She looks wild. But what, in your opinion, do you think it does? I'm assuming some kind of mental thing. I think what it plays is kids screaming. I think that's what that is. But definitely some kind of mental thing. I don't know. That's scary, though. Imagine you're already locked up. You're just like, oh, I'm here and locked up. This sucks. And then this crazy scientist guy is just like, I'm going to do this little experiment on you. Surprise. That's terrifying. I feel like there's so much technology in Star Wars, in the series, that maybe they put something in her brain so she constantly sees things, hears things. I don't know. I kind of thought that might be what it is, but I have no idea. Yeah. Zach, I'm going to ask you the same question. What do you think the experiment is? It's a very massive experiment. Here's the thing. The difference between the actual angel of death and this instance, it was meant with the other. The experiments were probably meant to kill because it was part of Hitler's final solution and they needed to find a way to kill Jews fast. But with this instance, Gorse was like, hey, let's make it so that it's one use only because multiple uses, yeah, you're going to die. I don't know what happens after one use, but it's certainly not fun. So what do you think it does? What do you think the experiment is? What do you think it is? It's kind of like a, not really a sense like a, hey, it's obviously a torture device for interrogation, but maybe it's a prototype, more or less like a, say, it can do so much in such a short amount of time, but what if we could still do it to where you can use it multiple times, but up the ante. It's kind of like, hmm, what is the maximum we can do and what is the lowest we can do depending on the person. That's good. That's good. So, Zach, is there anything in the world history of Earth that you can compare Narkina 5 to? Yeah, I think I remember me comparing it to concentration camps, probably not, but I also want to think about the labor camps of the Soviet Union. They weren't like, as you saw, they were making stuff for technology. In this case, they were probably making, doing projects or construction in Narkina 5. However, in this case, they're vastly different. The Soviet gulag camps, they were mostly working themselves to starvation. They didn't really care if they lived or died due to, yeah, you can replace them. Same as Narkina 5, easily replaceable. The prisoners, you could probably get another one in a short time, just charge your average Joe Schmoe of whatever crime you could think of. Just basically frame them and then just easily replace it and work it dead die. But the difference between that and the gulags was because gulags, they were meant to starve you. It was meant to punish political enemies and people that were kind of against the whole Soviet Union deal, against Stalin's rule. And or people they just saw as a threat. With Narkina 5, it's more or less, they did feed you as much as you can. However, it's your basic prison food, bland, no taste, and you had water as well. So that's kind of like the vast difference. Like one is like, we don't care if you die. And we're going to make sure if you have the possibility to die, you die. The other ones like just your average Joe Schmoe prison, you know? Yep, yep. Okay, so I have one question, Ava. Okay. Do you think that the prison camps on Narkina 5 are about the same as these Soviet camps? In certain ways, yeah. I feel like Zach's right. They did do a lot of construction like work, building some bombs and stuff. Like I know that that was kind of a big thing. I mean, I think it was more like mechanical parts for like certain... Yeah, like the parts for bombs or like the parts for guns or you know, like, and they were probably placed into groups like how Narkina 5 was, you know? But again, Zach is right. They weren't fed as much as Narkina 5. But something Zach thinks he found is that the better you worked, the more food you got in the Soviet Union. No, I know it was the less you worked, the less food you got and your rations were tight back then. Like bad. Okay, well it was practically the same thing. And to agree with Zach and kind of go off of what he had said when we weren't recording, that the less you worked, the less food you got. Which the less you worked on Narkina 5, you got zapped, you know? But also the winning teams for the day got more flavor in their food. So that might be something that's like if you worked a little bit harder or more, they might have given you a little bit more of a reward. But I think that there are some aspects that are very similar, but they're also vastly different, you know? The guards on Narkina 5 just kind of leave them alone, it seems like. They don't really interact with them at all. And they had like shift leaders. Yeah, the shift leaders were more walking over more than the guards. The guards were just kind of there. Yeah, whereas at the Soviet camps, I mean, the guards were everywhere. They were so abusive to the prisoners. They probably tortured them, I would assume, you know? They were horrible to those people. So I feel like that's something that's also very different. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Good. The final question I kind of want to ask you, I'd say, out of every single character arc in this whole show, what would you say is like the best one, your most favorite, other than Cassian? Which is a pretty good arc, by the way. But what is the best character arc, in your opinion? So one that I like, and it's not a good arc, but it is an arc, is Mothra. I, you know, at the beginning, we kind of see her as this senator who just wants to help her people, and just wants to help people, you know? Like, that's what the funding for the rebellion is for, you know? It is to help people not be oppressed by the empire. And, you know, she wants to have clean money. She doesn't want to get it from people that she doesn't trust and that she doesn't know. And when she, you know, has to go through a different channel to get money, it was kind of like different for her, and she didn't really like it. And she wasn't going to, you know, go into business with that man. But then they desperately needed the money, you know? Like, it's something that they needed to be able to continue the rebellion and to continue to help people. And so the fact that she literally pawned off her daughter, her early teenage daughter, is interesting to me. It's, I don't know, I feel like even if you are a parent and you need money for something, you don't practically sell your child to anyone, which is exactly what she did. And you can have a different take than that, but she is getting money in return for this guy's son to marry her daughter. She practically sold her daughter. I think there was a direct mention of like buttrolls and all that, but yeah, I get where you're coming from, but also. I mean, when you are selling something, you receive money back for that, you know? And she is receiving money for the buttroll to her new business partner's son. And I feel like the only reason he wanted the daughter is to get more social influence and more political power, which is a sale. And everybody, that's all the time we have. This is our last episode, so it was fun, but you know, things have to end. So this is Ava. This is Zach. Ariana. And that's it.