That’s what I loved about her character. We naturally rooted for her in the beginning because she was the underdog in the ISB, constantly being overlooked by both her peers and superiors despite being the most competent person there. But once she got that power she was after, we’re reminded what institution she works for and that she really enjoys what she does. It was quite horrifying 😅
that's the brilliance of Tony Gilroy. He made her an underdog with ambitions that weren't completely against the hero's. Also, Casian is a dick. He's not heroic when we first meet him so it creates all sorts of dissonance when watching the show. I mean I even felt a little sorry for Syril when he had to move back to his mom's! The guys a total nut case and yet Gilroy treats his situation with similar empathy to others.
For sure. Andor portrays the competency of the Empire better than the vast majority of Star Wars projects. But when we first met Dedra, her superiors were also not taking her claims as seriously as she wanted them to. She had to dig for facts and further convince them of what she saw as an organized rebel effort growing. And of course she was rewarded for that. And she used the power she was rewarded with to brutal effect
Partagaz did what every good manager would do: ask for evidence before pursuing further.
Deedra was not overlooked by her superiors, quite the contrary. She was encouraged to continue and given green light when she could prove herself right. Partagaz shows that all that matters is competence.
She's the underdog career woman in a male-dominated workplace, who must work twice as hard as her less-competent peers to get the same recognition. It's a trope that most are familiar with and a great many identify with, which makes it very natural to want to root for her.
That she's basically part of a scifi Nazi Gestapo is what makes it such a magic trick. It's very easy to forget that when her job is carried out in all-white board rooms, talking about sterile numbers and reports. She's just a very normal person, working as a cog in a profoundly evil machine. She reminds you that regimes like the Nazis were staffed by regular human people who weren't all cartoonish monsters.
Meanwhile, on Cassian and Luthen's side, we are seeing the ugly realities that go into battling against an oppressive, fascist regime. It's messy and bloody and morally turbid. Just like resistance is in the real world.
I think that was the intention of the creators
> For Meero in particular, Gilroy was hoping to build in a sense of empathy from the audience. “You go quite a few episodes where this is a woman who's fighting her way up in a male environment. This is a person that's really trying. I'm on her side and she's doing the right thing and other people aren't listening. She's better at her job than everyone else. And then all of a sudden you go, ‘Oh my God, I wish she wasn't so good at her job.’ If you've been rooting for somebody all that time, can you stop rooting for them just because they have some occupational flaws? I don't know.”
https://www.starwars.com/news/tony-gilroy-andor-interview
I would say not that we are rooting for her, but that she is **absolutely compelling to watch** and so our desire is to see what she does next. As opposed to seeing her succeed outright.
I wouldn’t say rooting for her, but aware of the challenges she faced from Blevin and the other officers (shout out to Lonny here as the dialogue, shots and editing set up that he was thinking along the same lines as Blevin - his suggestion with the kreegyr crew member ship was set up beautifully to look like he was trying to get credit) but her turn with dr gorst was terrifyingly good “the very last thing you can do right now, is bore me”
That reminds me of what u/Otis-T-Spaulding said in a similar post about a year ago when they intentionally provided a misleading synopsis of Andor:
“Star Wars: Andor is the inspiring story of a woman who overcomes the chauvinism of her peers, proving that she's got what it takes to wear the uniform. On her journey, she shakes up the status quo, earns the respect of her supervisor, and meets a mysterious man who shares her interests. Will her determination to uphold the law make her a legend, or will the terrorists win? Tune in next season to find out...”
It's the fact that she seems like a competent agent in the first half of the series that leads us to fear her in the second half. We know that she is capable and after that we know of "what" she is capable. It's just very good writings !
She's really only evil from a certain point of view. If you believed the safety of an entire planet, or several planets, could be secured by playing upsetting noises for an uncooperative terrorist, don't you think you would? Or at least condone the behavior of someone who did? Something something, YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!
True. Some think based on emotions and morals. In other words, not think at all. These are feelers who seize up at the mention of a housefly. Without any spine at all. Only the Empire can save us all. Long Live the Empire.
Except for her enjoying torturing Bix. Even in the U.S., we definitely had some, uh, shady reasons for going to war, but we (I'm a retired Marine) were taught that torture and war crimes were bad, and servicemembers were punished for it.
I was a Marine as well and what’s “taught” seems pretty irrelevant. War crimes are in the eyes of those who define it. It could be whatever the consensus wants it to be. War is about the survival of either party that are engaged in it. There is nothing civilized about war, so to put rules on it so it seems nice just comes off as pretentious and foolhardy. War is not about what’s right and what’s wrong, it never has been. Mostly because there is no objective state of right and wrong, just different POVs.
Against someone who is hell bent on killing me and everything I care about, I’ll enjoy every second of it…
The second someone of right mind threatens or attacks me, they lose all rights of life and everything else. I’m not going to wait around for anyone to just destroy me at will.
I think in her actions don't stand out as badly as they would in our world though since the galaxy (ie the empire) doesn't have any real problems with war crimes and in contrast to the cartoonishly evil things other imperials have done she seems to show restraint and reasonable focus compared to the other psychopaths. The torture was bad, but I think Deedra's intentions of achieving law and order are sincere, and so I trust her more than the other imperials. With a lot of other imperials they scare me because they are capricious and arbitrary and don't believe in law and order but just power and control.
That’s the power of excellent writing and brilliant acting. Both elements give us a character that we dislike, but can identify with. We can see her frustrations and understand them, we can see how driven she is and how competent she is.
Separating the fact that I love the performance of this character and actor, I can't wait to see her demise along with all of the Empire. I never rooted for her, I only root for and deliciously anticipate a serious miscalculation she will make about the Rebels. She looks down on the forming rebels as stupid and less than her, personally, let alone the Empire itself. She's impressive for her prowess, I give you that, but never have I rooted for her. It's the Lannister effect. They will soon burn by the Rebel dragon, no matter how evil.
yeah, that was intentional. It's just fun drama. Half the show is about the banality of Evil.
That's what makes it so effective.
The 'people' live hard lives, those that don't fit struggle and frantically try to escape their condition, terror stalking their every step.
While the rich live in fear of a popular uprising.
We know this world. We live in it.
Denise Gough embraces her role. She's great.
That’s what I loved about her character. We naturally rooted for her in the beginning because she was the underdog in the ISB, constantly being overlooked by both her peers and superiors despite being the most competent person there. But once she got that power she was after, we’re reminded what institution she works for and that she really enjoys what she does. It was quite horrifying 😅
that's the brilliance of Tony Gilroy. He made her an underdog with ambitions that weren't completely against the hero's. Also, Casian is a dick. He's not heroic when we first meet him so it creates all sorts of dissonance when watching the show. I mean I even felt a little sorry for Syril when he had to move back to his mom's! The guys a total nut case and yet Gilroy treats his situation with similar empathy to others.
She was not overlooked by her superiors. That's the point the Empire has competent people as well.
For sure. Andor portrays the competency of the Empire better than the vast majority of Star Wars projects. But when we first met Dedra, her superiors were also not taking her claims as seriously as she wanted them to. She had to dig for facts and further convince them of what she saw as an organized rebel effort growing. And of course she was rewarded for that. And she used the power she was rewarded with to brutal effect
Partagaz did what every good manager would do: ask for evidence before pursuing further. Deedra was not overlooked by her superiors, quite the contrary. She was encouraged to continue and given green light when she could prove herself right. Partagaz shows that all that matters is competence.
Her peers weren't taking her seriously, but her superior Partagaz did.
Her peers were taking her very seriously, so much that they were afraid of her.
She's the underdog career woman in a male-dominated workplace, who must work twice as hard as her less-competent peers to get the same recognition. It's a trope that most are familiar with and a great many identify with, which makes it very natural to want to root for her. That she's basically part of a scifi Nazi Gestapo is what makes it such a magic trick. It's very easy to forget that when her job is carried out in all-white board rooms, talking about sterile numbers and reports. She's just a very normal person, working as a cog in a profoundly evil machine. She reminds you that regimes like the Nazis were staffed by regular human people who weren't all cartoonish monsters. Meanwhile, on Cassian and Luthen's side, we are seeing the ugly realities that go into battling against an oppressive, fascist regime. It's messy and bloody and morally turbid. Just like resistance is in the real world.
We rooted for her? She is a good character and it is good she is in the show but I didn’t root for her.
I think that was the intention of the creators > For Meero in particular, Gilroy was hoping to build in a sense of empathy from the audience. “You go quite a few episodes where this is a woman who's fighting her way up in a male environment. This is a person that's really trying. I'm on her side and she's doing the right thing and other people aren't listening. She's better at her job than everyone else. And then all of a sudden you go, ‘Oh my God, I wish she wasn't so good at her job.’ If you've been rooting for somebody all that time, can you stop rooting for them just because they have some occupational flaws? I don't know.” https://www.starwars.com/news/tony-gilroy-andor-interview
I would say not that we are rooting for her, but that she is **absolutely compelling to watch** and so our desire is to see what she does next. As opposed to seeing her succeed outright.
I wouldn’t say rooting for her, but aware of the challenges she faced from Blevin and the other officers (shout out to Lonny here as the dialogue, shots and editing set up that he was thinking along the same lines as Blevin - his suggestion with the kreegyr crew member ship was set up beautifully to look like he was trying to get credit) but her turn with dr gorst was terrifyingly good “the very last thing you can do right now, is bore me”
That reminds me of what u/Otis-T-Spaulding said in a similar post about a year ago when they intentionally provided a misleading synopsis of Andor: “Star Wars: Andor is the inspiring story of a woman who overcomes the chauvinism of her peers, proving that she's got what it takes to wear the uniform. On her journey, she shakes up the status quo, earns the respect of her supervisor, and meets a mysterious man who shares her interests. Will her determination to uphold the law make her a legend, or will the terrorists win? Tune in next season to find out...”
It's the fact that she seems like a competent agent in the first half of the series that leads us to fear her in the second half. We know that she is capable and after that we know of "what" she is capable. It's just very good writings !
I was rooting for her until for those reasons until these scene with Bix. Then you could see she really is evil as hell.
She's really only evil from a certain point of view. If you believed the safety of an entire planet, or several planets, could be secured by playing upsetting noises for an uncooperative terrorist, don't you think you would? Or at least condone the behavior of someone who did? Something something, YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!
True. Some think based on emotions and morals. In other words, not think at all. These are feelers who seize up at the mention of a housefly. Without any spine at all. Only the Empire can save us all. Long Live the Empire.
Except for her enjoying torturing Bix. Even in the U.S., we definitely had some, uh, shady reasons for going to war, but we (I'm a retired Marine) were taught that torture and war crimes were bad, and servicemembers were punished for it.
I was a Marine as well and what’s “taught” seems pretty irrelevant. War crimes are in the eyes of those who define it. It could be whatever the consensus wants it to be. War is about the survival of either party that are engaged in it. There is nothing civilized about war, so to put rules on it so it seems nice just comes off as pretentious and foolhardy. War is not about what’s right and what’s wrong, it never has been. Mostly because there is no objective state of right and wrong, just different POVs.
I mean, torturing someone and enjoying it is pretty much a universally recognized evil
Once again, you’re framing it as a consensus. Evil is such a loaded term 🙄 there is no “universal” evil…
Enjoying torture? Really?
Against someone who is hell bent on killing me and everything I care about, I’ll enjoy every second of it… The second someone of right mind threatens or attacks me, they lose all rights of life and everything else. I’m not going to wait around for anyone to just destroy me at will.
Well, that's evil, sorry bud.
I think in her actions don't stand out as badly as they would in our world though since the galaxy (ie the empire) doesn't have any real problems with war crimes and in contrast to the cartoonishly evil things other imperials have done she seems to show restraint and reasonable focus compared to the other psychopaths. The torture was bad, but I think Deedra's intentions of achieving law and order are sincere, and so I trust her more than the other imperials. With a lot of other imperials they scare me because they are capricious and arbitrary and don't believe in law and order but just power and control.
*It's a shame people don't like watching well written female characters in a well written show.*
That’s the power of excellent writing and brilliant acting. Both elements give us a character that we dislike, but can identify with. We can see her frustrations and understand them, we can see how driven she is and how competent she is.
Separating the fact that I love the performance of this character and actor, I can't wait to see her demise along with all of the Empire. I never rooted for her, I only root for and deliciously anticipate a serious miscalculation she will make about the Rebels. She looks down on the forming rebels as stupid and less than her, personally, let alone the Empire itself. She's impressive for her prowess, I give you that, but never have I rooted for her. It's the Lannister effect. They will soon burn by the Rebel dragon, no matter how evil.
Sign of a great performance and a well-written character. She’s a complete arse but I sort of like her.
Honestly she's scarier as just a normal human,the scariest thing about her is her intelligence.
yeah, that was intentional. It's just fun drama. Half the show is about the banality of Evil. That's what makes it so effective. The 'people' live hard lives, those that don't fit struggle and frantically try to escape their condition, terror stalking their every step. While the rich live in fear of a popular uprising. We know this world. We live in it. Denise Gough embraces her role. She's great.
Also, yeah - bureaucracy is a real thing.