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Speaker 3: Okay over, Hello, and welcome to this episode of Superhero Ethics.
Speaker 3: Today we're going to be talking about a topic that
Speaker 3: is inspired by the recent TV show and Or Star
Speaker 3: Wars and Or, so there will be some spoilers for that,
Speaker 3: but that also has relevance to a lot of the
Speaker 3: other properties we discussed, and frankly to our own world,
Speaker 3: which is, namely, how do we understand power and authority
Speaker 3: under fascism and how do we judge the different individuals
Speaker 3: who are part of that. Looking primarily at the character
Speaker 3: of Cyril, but also looking at a number of others
Speaker 3: from and Or season two and season one and some
Speaker 3: other properties as well, and let me kind of just
Speaker 3: start by framing a couple of things. First of all,
Speaker 3: I think one of the problems with the way a
Speaker 3: lot of this gets discussed online is we've gotten to
Speaker 3: a point where fascism and authoritarianism are pretty much mixed
Speaker 3: up as one and the same thing. And we're not
Speaker 3: going to go deep into the details here, but I
Speaker 3: do think we're and a lot of what we say,
Speaker 3: I think is going to apply to general authoritarianism as well.
Speaker 3: But one of the elements of fascism is a strong
Speaker 3: individual leader around whom there's often a kind of cultive
Speaker 3: personality of some sort or a reverence for that one
Speaker 3: true leader that is often, but not always found in authoritarianism,
Speaker 3: and that's gonna be a big element of what we're
Speaker 3: talking about today. So one to kind of just, you know,
Speaker 3: make that distinction, because I do think that those terms,
Speaker 3: as well as Nazism are often all rolled up as
Speaker 3: the same term, and I think there are three distinctly
Speaker 3: different things. Fascism is a kind of authoritarianism, and Nazism
Speaker 3: is kind of fascism, but et cetera. With that, though,
Speaker 3: let's now kind of talk about the actual issues where
Speaker 3: we're gonna be jumping into REGGI can you give us
Speaker 3: kind of just a quick summary of the journey that
Speaker 3: Cyril goes through. For for people who haven't watched and
Speaker 3: or and are not going to or are not going
Speaker 3: to for a while, I do recommend you do so.
Speaker 3: And if you can't, hit stop. Even if you don't
Speaker 3: like Star Wars at all, this is one of the
Speaker 3: most Unstar Wars like shows. It's much more like political
Speaker 3: drop political thriller or spy thriller, but where there laser
Speaker 3: bolts instead of bullets. But Reggy give us a quick
Speaker 3: rundown of what is Cyril's journey in this in this
Speaker 3: show that we're gonna be talking about.
Speaker 7: Yeah, So Cyril Karn is the character played by Kyle
Speaker 7: Soler on this show, and he begins the show as
Speaker 7: a corporate security officer inspector.
Speaker 5: He's a cop.
Speaker 7: He's kind of like sub imperial. He's not directly tied
Speaker 7: to the empire, but this corporation pre more is kind
Speaker 7: of subservient to the Empire, and they in the beginning
Speaker 7: they get to do their own thing, but there's this
Speaker 7: worry that imperial authority will come in and take over
Speaker 7: at some point, which they do, and so he begins
Speaker 7: this journey as a cop who is investigating the murder
Speaker 7: of two fellow security officers on a planet by the
Speaker 7: main character of the show, Cassie and Or, and he
Speaker 7: goes and he figures out that and Or is the
Speaker 7: suspect in this case and goes to arrest him and
Speaker 7: basically causes an incident on and Or's home planet. Feryx
Speaker 7: is disarmed by and Or and is at the time
Speaker 7: not quite yet compatriots Luth and Rail held at gunpoint,
Speaker 7: disarmed and then they escape, and this starts his obsession
Speaker 7: with and Or. He loses his job over this incident
Speaker 7: because it's a whole screw up, right, and that also
Speaker 7: fuels him too, is like he I lost my job
Speaker 7: because of him, Like he murdered two people and got away,
Speaker 7: And even though he gets a different job back on Coruscant,
Speaker 7: he's constantly obsessed.
Speaker 5: With and Or.
Speaker 7: When he gets news that and Or's mothers die, he's like, aha, like,
Speaker 7: I'm gonna come for the funeral.
Speaker 5: He's gonna show up. I'm going to get him.
Speaker 7: And that's that's how season one ends, and in season
Speaker 7: two at this point, now he is in a romantic
Speaker 7: relationship with dead Ramiro, who is the isb supervisor.
Speaker 3: Is the Imperial Security Bureau, Yes CIA, the KGB of
Speaker 3: the of the Galactic Empire.
Speaker 7: And through her, through her operation on a plant called Gorman,
Speaker 7: he becomes a spy for the Empire, albeit a very
Speaker 7: amateurish one, but for him, like someone who was a
Speaker 7: cop and is always kind of aspired to this lifestyle
Speaker 7: and this type of job, like he loves. He's like,
Speaker 7: I get to be a spy. At one point, when
Speaker 7: he meets Dedra's boss, he says, this is the best
Speaker 7: day of my life.
Speaker 5: And it's I laughed.
Speaker 7: It was kind of funny and a little sad to me,
Speaker 7: and I think we're going to talk about.
Speaker 5: This very much.
Speaker 7: And this is a huge spoiler for a thing that
Speaker 7: happens in season two. So again, like if you are
Speaker 7: interested in the show and you haven't caught up yet
Speaker 7: at this point, you might want to pause the podcast
Speaker 7: and go watch the show because it's amazing. So I'm
Speaker 7: going to get to the spoiler now, which is that
Speaker 7: Cyril basically participates in an Imperial operation to instigate a
Speaker 7: riot on Gorman, which leads to a massacre in a
Speaker 7: plaza and ultimately what they call the Gorman Massacre or
Speaker 7: gormant genocide. Right, And in this moment when he realizes
Speaker 7: that his girlfriend Dedra has been lying to him about
Speaker 7: what's going what's been going on, and what his role
Speaker 7: in this whole thing is, he goes into shock right
Speaker 7: and and does some things that we will also talk about,
Speaker 7: and he it's it's hard to tell what he's thinking, right, Like,
Speaker 7: we don't get any dialogue or internal monologue, but he
Speaker 7: walks out of Dedra's office in shock, walks out into
Speaker 7: the plaza where the massacre begins, and just like stands
Speaker 7: there shell shocked until he sees the object of his
Speaker 7: obsession over two seasons, Cassie and Or, and he snaps
Speaker 7: out of it, and he goes and gets in a
Speaker 7: fistfight with him, and shortly after that he is he
Speaker 7: is killed, and that's his journey.
Speaker 3: I think it's a great summ reached. A couple of
Speaker 3: quick things I want to fill in. First of all,
Speaker 3: what you said before about the these sort of security forces.
Speaker 3: A book that I'm reading right now that's can perform
Speaker 3: a lot of these conversations, I think is one I
Speaker 3: definitely recommend people reading, especially if you like history, is
Speaker 3: a book called The Rise and fall of the Galactic Empire.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, yeah, and it read that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's written as though it is a history book
Speaker 3: written by people in the Star Wars universe shortly after
Speaker 3: the events of the sequel trilogy, looking back on the
Speaker 3: Galactic Empire. And there's one paragraph that talks about exactly this,
Speaker 3: and it talks about how there are these security groups
Speaker 3: and that they are interested in keeping up the law.
Speaker 3: But the biggest one of the things that are also
Speaker 3: very interested in is avoiding the Empire getting more involved.
Speaker 3: And it starts here. Imperial training may have prepared stormtroopers
Speaker 3: for many things, but they're a little more than a
Speaker 3: blunt instrument designed for subjugation rather than a more nuanced
Speaker 3: governing force. The fear of having them deployed to a
Speaker 3: system tipping it from being governed into being occupied, which
Speaker 3: thinks are really great sentence, could cool even the hottest
Speaker 3: tempers among those who found themselves on the wrong side
Speaker 3: end of shifting imperial laws. Furthermore, the security forces themselves
Speaker 3: were equally keen to avoid active imperial scrutiny or involvement
Speaker 3: in their affairs. Because this goes on, it would cut
Speaker 3: their budgets and their power and that's exactly why Steril
Speaker 3: gets into trouble because and I think it reveals so
Speaker 3: much about his character. And here's where I think becomes
Speaker 3: a really important thing to understand about fascism. He is
Speaker 3: the person. What he wants is law and order. He
Speaker 3: truly believes that strict authoritarian government will make everybody safer,
Speaker 3: will make things better. And because what he understands is
Speaker 3: that two police officers, two of the people kind of
Speaker 3: under his watch, were killed by this murderer Cassie and
Speaker 3: Andor he doesn't want to listen to what his boss
Speaker 3: tries to. His boss figures the whole thing out like
Speaker 3: thirty seconds, you know, and predicts like these guys were
Speaker 3: probably corrupt, probably shaking down Cassian. Cyril doesn't want to
Speaker 3: hear any of that. He just sees a man killed
Speaker 3: two people, and we've got to track down that man.
Speaker 3: And here's the lace as I understand it, And Riki
Speaker 3: please jump in if you see it differently. I think
Speaker 3: what his story is one of he has believed the
Speaker 3: lie that this fascist authoritarian government will bring law and
Speaker 3: order and will make everything right. And what he understands
Speaker 3: that's happening in Gorman is that the Empire is making
Speaker 3: completely rational demands of a planet under its control, and
Speaker 3: the people are being terrorists and they're fighting back in
Speaker 3: bad ways and that's not okay, and so they have
Speaker 3: to be repressed. And what he comes to understand is
Speaker 3: that no, actually, the Empire has set all this up
Speaker 3: because they want to destroy the people of Gorman, because
Speaker 3: they want to basically completely strip mind the planet for
Speaker 3: its minerals in ways that would destroy it as a place,
Speaker 3: and all the people couldn't live there to begin with.
Speaker 3: And so for him, that's the moment of recognizing this
Speaker 3: empire is not actually ending corruption. They're not draining the swamp.
Speaker 3: They are the swamp. They are just as corrupt as
Speaker 3: anything else. And for me, at least, I see this
Speaker 3: very much as kind of the Javert story from Le Miz.
Speaker 3: Why he goes after it is for him, it's that
Speaker 3: moment where everything you've believed in has been shattered, all
Speaker 3: the things you because he has a very rigid view
Speaker 3: of the world, and rigid world views are often very
Speaker 3: brittle and they can break, and when it breaks, that's
Speaker 3: why he goes after Cassian, because that's kind of that,
Speaker 3: as you said, that's the very beginning of this is
Speaker 3: a murderer in his mind that he can stop, and yeah,
Speaker 3: it places him in this really interesting position where I
Speaker 3: think we are. And part of this is because that actor,
Speaker 3: who is just phenomenal, we feel some sympathy for him
Speaker 3: in that moment of like his world has collapsed every
Speaker 3: he's realized the lie he's told and he's acting out
Speaker 3: based on that, but we accept to do it. Is
Speaker 3: he tries to strangle his girlfriend, his Dedra who's betrayed him,
Speaker 3: and then he goes after the man who thinks he's
Speaker 3: a murderer and is e mentually put down.
Speaker 7: Yeah, a lot of good points there.
Speaker 5: Definitely.
Speaker 7: The law, like the Syih believes in law and order
Speaker 7: thing is one thing that comes up constantly discussion. And
Speaker 7: the most important thing to me about that phrase law
Speaker 7: and order is that it leaves out the word justice,
Speaker 7: which often you combine ideas of justice and law together.
Speaker 7: And I think that's so important because the Empire is
Speaker 7: the law because they literally write the laws and they
Speaker 7: enforce them, they enforce order, but they are deeply unjust
Speaker 7: as an entity, right, I mean, that's just I don't
Speaker 7: think we can argue that. And because of that there's
Speaker 7: this point that if you are enforcing unjust law, then
Speaker 7: you're that's not good, right, like we would say evil
Speaker 7: in this case, in the case of the empire, And
Speaker 7: you can draw various lines of morality, but when it
Speaker 7: comes down to it, like just unjust laws shouldn't be enforced.
Speaker 7: And that's like this question of like phrases like I
Speaker 7: was only following orders, right, Like orders are laws within
Speaker 7: like a military structure.
Speaker 5: Right, So if you're.
Speaker 7: Following a law, like what's wrong, Well, the orders, the
Speaker 7: laws you're given are unjust, and that's a problem, and
Speaker 7: you need to center on a different scale of morality
Speaker 7: and make decisions based on that if the law is unjust.
Speaker 3: And I think such a big part of there is
Speaker 3: that it is both like a law can be unjust
Speaker 3: and also a law can be unjustly applied. And I
Speaker 3: think that's a lot of what he goes through is
Speaker 3: that I think he comes with the assumption that I
Speaker 3: think a lot of times you hear from people who
Speaker 3: want law and order, is there what they want is
Speaker 3: impartial law order. They want like here's the law. If
Speaker 3: you follow it, you're you're okay. If you don't, you're
Speaker 3: not and it's easy to enforce. You know that, it
Speaker 3: should be very easy to say, we don't need all
Speaker 3: these courts, we don't need all this due process, because
Speaker 3: it's just if you follow the law, you're good. If
Speaker 3: you don't, you're bad. And we don't get as much
Speaker 3: of Cyril's backstory as we got with some other characters,
Speaker 3: for example, some of the characters in the novel Lost
Speaker 3: Stars that we love to talk about. It is another
Speaker 3: phenomenal piece of Star Wars media. But in that and
Speaker 3: in a lot of other things, and also in this
Speaker 3: book the history of the Empire that we're talking about,
Speaker 3: one of the things that's talked about a lot is
Speaker 3: that there was chaos after the Clone Wars, that things
Speaker 3: were crazy, that there was no law and order. And
Speaker 3: this is very much a hallmark of how authoritarianism, especially fascism,
Speaker 3: can take hold. It is after periods of chaos where
Speaker 3: there are people breaking the law throughout, there is terrible corruption,
Speaker 3: There is all of these things, and someone comes along
Speaker 3: and says, I can make it right. I can make
Speaker 3: sure that you are you feel safe again. I can
Speaker 3: make sure that you feel okay again and that you
Speaker 3: get your fair shot. And what I think this show
Speaker 3: kind of it's brilliantly is not all. Not only is
Speaker 3: it fascism will manipulate those fears, but they'll also create
Speaker 3: those fears to begin with, you know, like they will
Speaker 3: make people feel a lot more unsafe than they actually
Speaker 3: are in order to sell the lie of we will
Speaker 3: therefore make you safe. You know, you need to be
Speaker 3: really scared of this ethnic group, uh so that therefore
Speaker 3: this gender group, or this whatever it is, so therefore
Speaker 3: we can keep you safe from them. And that's something
Speaker 3: that like, I fully believe that Cyril has that that
Speaker 3: for whatever reason, we don't get that backstory, but he
Speaker 3: thinks we need this kind of law and order and
Speaker 3: and that's his you know. Anyway, I feel like he
Speaker 3: feels kind of like a Shakespearean tragic hero, you know,
Speaker 3: not that he's a hero necessarily, but that he has
Speaker 3: that like his story, I think, more than anything else,
Speaker 3: is a tragedy. We feel bad for all the people
Speaker 3: Macbeth killed, and there's no way in which we think
Speaker 3: Macbeth is going to be a good King of Scotland.
Speaker 3: But you know, and I hope you're not listening to
Speaker 3: this in a theater, forgive me. I don't have that
Speaker 3: word so many times, but you know, we still feel
Speaker 3: a tragedy about Macbeth, and I think in many ways
Speaker 3: that's what zero story is is it's tragic because you
Speaker 3: see how much harm this man has caused to all
Speaker 3: these others, and it does come to himself as well,
Speaker 3: and it's because he believed these lies.
Speaker 7: Yeah. You mentioned that we don't get necessarily a backstory
Speaker 7: on Cyril, like we certainly don't have any flashbacks of
Speaker 7: him growing up. But I do think that there was
Speaker 7: one very interesting detail that the prop department just slipped in.
Speaker 7: But when he comes back to his home on Corsant
Speaker 7: and goes back to live with his mother, in his room,
Speaker 7: he has several action figures that look like either Stormtroopers
Speaker 7: or maybe like clone trooper armor.
Speaker 3: Like the White arm Right.
Speaker 7: And it's just a small thing, like we all played
Speaker 7: with toys. But I do think like in this case
Speaker 7: they put it in intentionally to show like he played
Speaker 7: with these action figures of these true. Yeah, and that
Speaker 7: is something that we can say is you know, has
Speaker 7: made his character, made him who he is today, is.
Speaker 5: This person who believes in law and order.
Speaker 3: To this, I love the idea that because yeah, it's
Speaker 3: not just that he believes in law and order, but
Speaker 3: it's kind of like he has swallowed the copaganda of
Speaker 3: his world because he believes in the law and order
Speaker 3: and he believes in the fundamental goodness of the people
Speaker 3: who are enforcing law and order. Like, he does not
Speaker 3: want to listen when his boss on his first planet
Speaker 3: points out all the ways in which these cops that
Speaker 3: Cassie and killed might have actually really not been the
Speaker 3: good guys in this situation. He doesn't want to hear that,
Speaker 3: and he doesn't want to pay any attention to the
Speaker 3: evidence that maybe Dedra and the others in the ISB
Speaker 3: are not actually really as good and proper an upright
Speaker 3: as he wants them to be. You know, He's fully
Speaker 3: dedicated to these people are saying the right things, and
Speaker 3: so I will not believe the bad things about them.
Speaker 7: Yeah, And I just want to clarify, Like again, like
Speaker 7: many of us growing up had action figures, army figures,
Speaker 7: g I, Joe, that type of thing. And I'm not
Speaker 7: saying like if you have them as a kid, you
Speaker 7: turn into this type of person, but like there's intentionality
Speaker 7: to television programs, and especially in this case, he is
Speaker 7: an he is still he is an adult. He still
Speaker 7: has these items and when he comes home like he
Speaker 7: I think he specifically like holds one and looks at it, right,
Speaker 7: And to me, that is the people writing this thing,
Speaker 7: Like this is kind of what he still aspires to, right,
Speaker 7: Like he's he's having these memories and it's like, ah,
Speaker 7: like I lost my cop job.
Speaker 3: Right yeah, And he eventually gets he gets a position
Speaker 3: in just kind of the imperial bureaucracy in the Department
Speaker 3: of Standards.
Speaker 5: Yeah, like fuel standards.
Speaker 3: They're investigators, but somewhat they're also just like propagating these standards,
Speaker 3: and he immediately wants to do it in a police
Speaker 3: like way.
Speaker 7: He wants to Oh yeah, he's a book keeper. But
Speaker 7: later on we see him bragging about how he caught
Speaker 7: people stealing from the empire.
Speaker 3: Yep, exactly. So let's let's broaden the lens a little bit.
Speaker 3: Why does someone like Cyril exist in this system? And
Speaker 3: what what do you think we can learn from history
Speaker 3: and some the stories of the other individuals we meet
Speaker 3: through the show and through other things about the way
Speaker 3: power works under the Empire.
Speaker 7: Well, there's a there's a through line of his character
Speaker 7: I still want to talk a little bit about Cyril,
Speaker 7: but start to veer into other places because you you
Speaker 7: mentioned earlier that when Dedra admits what's going on on Gorman,
Speaker 7: or or to get her to admit, I think Cyril
Speaker 7: resorts to violence. As you said, he chokes her. It's
Speaker 7: a very uncomfortable scene. But I think it's an important
Speaker 7: scene to illustrate his character and why I feel like
Speaker 7: he's not a good person right like at his core,
Speaker 7: because in this moment, this this is his girlfriend, and
Speaker 7: he resorts to this violence that is very personal.
Speaker 5: And it made me uncomfortable.
Speaker 7: And then later on when he's in the square, one
Speaker 7: thing I keep coming back to is that he sees
Speaker 7: people dying all around him, being shot by the Imperial stormtroopers, and.
Speaker 5: He doesn't do anything.
Speaker 7: Yeah, he doesn't help anyone. He doesn't try to get
Speaker 7: people to cover, like he's in shock, but he like that.
Speaker 7: That to me is like a moment of decision where
Speaker 7: people want him to be a hero. They're like, oh, like,
Speaker 7: he could have joined the rebellion if only but.
Speaker 5: He doesn't do it.
Speaker 7: He could have joined the rebellion if he had saved.
Speaker 5: Human lives in that moment.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and instead what snaps him out of his shock
Speaker 7: is seeing Cassian, and again he resorts to violence.
Speaker 5: He goes and attacks him.
Speaker 7: So that that to me is like why I don't
Speaker 7: see Cyril as any kind of like heroic person or
Speaker 7: anti hero or whatever. Like. I agree with your assessment
Speaker 7: of tragedy tragic character, but every decision he makes in
Speaker 7: these moments is towards violence, is towards oppression. And he
Speaker 7: pays this lip service when he's talking to dead or
Speaker 7: of like, look what you're doing to the Gorman people,
Speaker 7: but then he doesn't lift a finger to help the
Speaker 7: Gorman people.
Speaker 3: Yeah. No, I want one hundred percent agree with everything
Speaker 3: you just said. I think he's by no means heroic.
Speaker 3: I think it's that I took Shakespeare class thirty years ago,
Speaker 3: thirty five years ago. I don't remember what I think.
Speaker 3: The term that's often used for the protagonist of a
Speaker 3: Shakespearean tragedy I think is tragic hero. I don't remember.
Speaker 3: There might be a better term, but I definitely don't.
Speaker 3: I think he's similar to a protagonist of a Shakespearean tragedy.
Speaker 3: I don't think he's heroic in the slightest and I
Speaker 3: think the moments you just pointed out, those are the
Speaker 3: moments of decision where a hero could make the heroic choice. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, where he could pick up the gun and
Speaker 3: start fighting on behalf of of the people of Gorman,
Speaker 3: where he could look at Cassian and recognize that Cassian's
Speaker 3: actually doing the right thing and sort of have that moment,
Speaker 3: or where he could take the Javert route even of
Speaker 3: like he's gonna die, you know, not off himself, necessarily
Speaker 3: on alive himself, but like do something that will probably
Speaker 3: get him killed but can help do some good, maybe
Speaker 3: even better than Javert. But he doesn't do any of that.
Speaker 3: He resorts back to that core philosophy that, as you said,
Speaker 3: is incredibly violent and is incredibly focused on I know
Speaker 3: what is right and wrong and I'm not gonna let
Speaker 3: anything else challenge that. And yeah, that's that's to me,
Speaker 3: he has the he has the option to become heroic,
Speaker 3: and he chooses not to, And to me, that's the
Speaker 3: tragedy of his character.
Speaker 7: Yeah. And I will note, for those of you who
Speaker 7: are shouting this at your podcast player right now, in
Speaker 7: that moment, Cassian and or the protagonist potentially hero of
Speaker 7: this of this story also is not helping to save lives.
Speaker 5: He's there to assass nate Dedra. The isb supervisor.
Speaker 7: And I think there's some questions as to whether Cyril
Speaker 7: realizes that Cassine is aiming his gun at Dedra or not.
Speaker 5: Like it's not.
Speaker 7: Explicitly shown, so we can kind of draw our own
Speaker 7: personal conclusions. But Cassine is definitely not saving lives either,
Speaker 7: like in a personal sense, Like you could make the
Speaker 7: argument that if he succeeds in assassinating Dedra, then lives
Speaker 7: will be saved, but that's kind of a different discussion.
Speaker 3: Yeah. No, actually that's a really good point, and thank
Speaker 3: you for that. He's and that goes to some of
Speaker 3: the larger questions we'll discuss probably another issue of like,
Speaker 3: you know, what is the role of rebellion in terms
Speaker 3: of like whether to protect the people are being hurt
Speaker 3: right now or a larger strategic but hurtful strategy or
Speaker 3: whatever it is. I'm solidly on the side that I
Speaker 3: don't think Cyril new because I think there would have
Speaker 3: been an establishing shot of some kind of like him
Speaker 3: looking at where the barrel was pointed or something. But yeah,
Speaker 3: it is left someone ambiguous.
Speaker 7: Which is good because I do think that's an interesting
Speaker 7: thing that if you believe that, like if you believe
Speaker 7: that in his last moments, like he snapped out of
Speaker 7: it because he was trying to save dead or like,
Speaker 7: that's fine, Like that's an interpretation that you were allowed
Speaker 7: to make based on what we're shown.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I agree with that, But let's let's brun in
Speaker 3: out a little bit more. What do you see is
Speaker 3: happening in terms of like what is it about the
Speaker 3: empire that that and the way it uses power that
Speaker 3: creates people like Cerial because I don't think he is
Speaker 3: supposed to be an exception. I think the idea is
Speaker 3: that there's a lot of Cyril's out there.
Speaker 7: Yeah. I mean, well, so you talked about how fascism
Speaker 7: is about the central strong figure, right, right, In the
Speaker 7: classic real life historical sense, we have the examples of
Speaker 7: Adolf Hitler and Mussolini, And in the fictional world of
Speaker 7: Star Wars, we have the emperor, Emperor Shiv Palpatine, who
Speaker 7: is the leader of the empire, and so all authority
Speaker 7: derives from the central leader, right, and it is distributed
Speaker 7: among subordinates, but ultimately, like it all goes back to
Speaker 7: the top, which arguably is similar to the rule of
Speaker 7: two for the Sith right in Star Wars, that there's
Speaker 7: a master and an apprentice, and so the power derives
Speaker 7: from the master, and the apprentice is trying to seek
Speaker 7: that power and overthrow the master. The difference I see
Speaker 7: in the Empire and in fascism is that the leader
Speaker 7: is never going to let any of his subordinates a
Speaker 7: mass enough power to overthrow him. And in fact, like
Speaker 7: the system is designed so that all of the subordinates
Speaker 7: are fighting each other rather than trying to overthrow the leader.
Speaker 7: And we see this throughout Star Wars, and it's brilliant
Speaker 7: the way that men like Grandma Tarkan and Director Krenik
Speaker 7: basically like snipe at each other, or Throng and Krenic right,
Speaker 7: and the cartoon Rebel, the way that they are jockeying
Speaker 7: for funds for their individual projects is all to keep
Speaker 7: the subordinates fighting so that none of them can can
Speaker 7: amass enough power and authority to challenge the emperor. And
Speaker 7: we see like in this show in and Or, it's
Speaker 7: primarily from the perspective of the ISP the Security Bureau, right,
Speaker 7: the spy organization, and it's is he the director part
Speaker 7: of gazz He's the guy in charge of the room
Speaker 7: A part.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Colonel l Lauren is the overall had the ISP,
Speaker 3: but he's in charge of this portion of.
Speaker 7: It, right, and he's in charge of the sector directors,
Speaker 7: and Dedra is the director of one specific sector. And
Speaker 7: so there's constantly these scenes in the ISP room where
Speaker 7: she is overstepping her the balance of her sector to
Speaker 7: investigate things like gassion and sometimes like the other directors
Speaker 7: like this is my sector, like get out right, And
Speaker 7: there's this constant infighting in these groups.
Speaker 3: And I think it's brilliant because the show winds up
Speaker 3: without hitting you over the head with it making it
Speaker 3: clear that that's a big part of why the system fails.
Speaker 3: Because when Dedra goes to try to arrest Luthen, I
Speaker 3: mean she does arrest Luthen. Part of why it turns
Speaker 3: into a disaster is because everyone else had been playing
Speaker 3: these territory games with her and she has to play
Speaker 3: them right back. And so she doesn't want to go
Speaker 3: to the other people and say, let's I know this
Speaker 3: part of the story, you know that part of the story,
Speaker 3: let's coordinate and work together. Because she knows that they'll
Speaker 3: probably steal the credit from her, and for her mind,
Speaker 3: that's what has to happen, is that she needs to
Speaker 3: get the credit, and she gets punished for that. But
Speaker 3: if she had been if she had been successful, she
Speaker 3: would have absolutely been rewarded. You know, she was playing
Speaker 3: the game right. She just didn't win. And if you
Speaker 3: if you win, you get punished for it. If you
Speaker 3: don't win, you get punished for it. And I think
Speaker 3: that was There's a lot about how like you know,
Speaker 3: fast and shows the seeds of its own destruction as
Speaker 3: long as there are people strong enough to kind of
Speaker 3: recognize that and see that and fight back. And this
Speaker 3: is absolutely what happens here. I thought it was one
Speaker 3: of those brilliant things of showing that like that, that
Speaker 3: infighting happens on the level of Tarkien and Krenic with
Speaker 3: Vader kind of as a as a mediator almost, and
Speaker 3: but it also happens in a much lower level between
Speaker 3: these like sector chiefs, and it also happens at a
Speaker 3: much lower level between like the grunts on the ground
Speaker 3: in the various battles we see.
Speaker 7: Yeah, absolutely, I to me, I mean I loved everything
Speaker 7: about this show, but being able.
Speaker 5: To see that play out on this level.
Speaker 7: The infighting between the ISB directors was maybe one of
Speaker 7: my favorite parts. I don't know, it's hard, it's hard
Speaker 7: to say, and it draws into contrast with how the Rebellion.
Speaker 5: Operates, right.
Speaker 7: The Rebellion also fights and bickers a lot. We see
Speaker 7: a lot of arguments among the leaders, like including Man, Mathma,
Speaker 7: and Luthan, about how to run the rebellion, but they
Speaker 7: don't undercut each other right right. They disagree, sometimes strongly.
Speaker 7: But one of the most powerful scenes from this season
Speaker 7: in the first arc was when Man and Luthan at
Speaker 7: the wedding are talking about Takoma and what to do
Speaker 7: about him, and Luthen basically says, I'm gonna kill him,
Speaker 7: like I have to kill him to protect you, and
Speaker 7: Man is like, but he's he's my oldest friend. Like
Speaker 7: but but she she doesn't agree to it, but she
Speaker 7: doesn't object in the end, And to me, like that
Speaker 7: is the difference right there between the Empire and the
Speaker 7: Rebellion is that they have this disagreement, they discuss it
Speaker 7: openly or semi openly, and then she's like, yeah, all right,
Speaker 7: I'm just gonna walk away get drunk at this wedding
Speaker 7: and dance and try to forget this.
Speaker 3: And I think that's wonderfully paid off because in the
Speaker 3: final arc, then the second of the last arc, and
Speaker 3: then the final arc, Luthan, who has been critical of
Speaker 3: man Mathma throughout both seasons, he's constantly harping on her
Speaker 3: and saying she's not doing the right things. He still
Speaker 3: recognizes she's the leader that the rebellion needs and risks
Speaker 3: everything to get her out and then to get his subordinate,
Speaker 3: his pseudo daughter Clara, to also create with her. Claya,
Speaker 3: thank you, And I whytn't you to go back to
Speaker 3: one thing about kind of the low levels of power here,
Speaker 3: because I think one of the things I think that
Speaker 3: breaks Cyril, that I think is an essential thing to
Speaker 3: understand about the Empire and about fascism in general, is
Speaker 3: as much as it will claim, you know, authority and right,
Speaker 3: and we are being we're not being woke, we're not
Speaker 3: looking at factors, we're just being impartial. There really is
Speaker 3: a mite makes right idea to it, you know. And
Speaker 3: then at the end of the day, it's about the
Speaker 3: whim of the emperor. It's about the whim of the emperor,
Speaker 3: and then the whims of the people below him, all
Speaker 3: the way down to the bottom. And there's a great quote,
Speaker 3: and I'm going to read this from the Rise and
Speaker 3: Fall of the Empire then tie it back to the show,
Speaker 3: and it said, if Tarkan had survived the Galactic Civil War,
Speaker 3: he would undoubtedly have faced a new republic tribunal. But
Speaker 3: we should not ignore the fact that much of the
Speaker 3: Empire's evil did not take place in the Towers of Coruissant.
Speaker 3: Just as the rebel alliance was more than just Princess
Speaker 3: Leah and mon Mathma's leadership, we should not overlook the
Speaker 3: activities of those at the very grass roots of galactic society.
Speaker 3: Just as anyone could potentially be a hero and the rebellion,
Speaker 3: so too could anyone be a monster in Talpatine's Empire.
Speaker 3: And I bring this up because I think one of
Speaker 3: the most controversial scenes in this second season and also
Speaker 3: some of the online reaction to it, which is the
Speaker 3: attempted sexual assault on Bicks, who she then is able
Speaker 3: to kill. And a lot of people are upset about this,
Speaker 3: A lot of people didn't like seeing it, and a
Speaker 3: lot of and some of the reaction was like no
Speaker 3: Vader would never allow this in his empire, et cetera.
Speaker 3: And I think there's some questions about gender and how
Speaker 3: often this is this kind of scene that's shown to
Speaker 3: show women who are traumatized, and I think I'm not
Speaker 3: the right one to comment on it, but from my perspective,
Speaker 3: I think it was a very important and wonderful scene
Speaker 3: because it shows exactly what this quote is about that
Speaker 3: in that moment, I don't think there's any kind of
Speaker 3: imperial directive of you know, women can be treated this
Speaker 3: way or not treated this way under these kind of conditions. Instead,
Speaker 3: it's someone who has learned the exact who I think
Speaker 3: understands the Empire much better than Cyril does because they
Speaker 3: understand the empires decided that these people, who, by the way,
Speaker 3: are undocumented farm workers, the analogy does not fall very
Speaker 3: far that they can be treated however we want, because
Speaker 3: we're the ones with power and might makes right, and
Speaker 3: so this person is taking advantage of that to take
Speaker 3: what he wants or to try to mix kills him.
Speaker 3: And again, a wonderful ending to the scene. But to me,
Speaker 3: that is such an important statement about the nature of
Speaker 3: fascism and the nature of authoritarianism in these kind of
Speaker 3: situations of when you tell people that no, actually this
Speaker 3: isn't about impartiality. It is about you are the ones
Speaker 3: with authority. You are the ones with a gun, you
Speaker 3: are the ones with a badge. You get to do
Speaker 3: what you think is right. There's almost no oversight over that,
Speaker 3: and they get to do what they think they want
Speaker 3: to do, including horrible treatment of people who the empire
Speaker 3: said you can treat however you want.
Speaker 7: Yeah, the the argument that imperial authority wouldn't allow this,
Speaker 7: like is a law and order, law and order argument, right,
Speaker 7: Like it's against the law, Like sexual assault is against
Speaker 7: the law, just as serials like murderers against the law.
Speaker 7: But as you said, like, this man is the imperial
Speaker 7: authority on this planet, or at least like in this
Speaker 7: part of the planet, doing this audit of the population,
Speaker 7: and so I guess the phrase would be I am
Speaker 7: the law right that in this part of the galaxy,
Speaker 7: this man gets to decide what the law is and
Speaker 7: do whatever the heck he wants. And that is the
Speaker 7: characteristic of authoritarianism. M it's and it's a yeah, it's
Speaker 7: a stunning scene. Stunning not in like beautiful stunning and
Speaker 7: like you, you will be stunned. It's shocking, I guess
Speaker 7: is a better word. And I do think it plays
Speaker 7: out well because when it was happening, I had concerns
Speaker 7: about because Wilman, her friend, was coming back to their farm.
Speaker 7: It's like, oh, is he going to save her? No,
Speaker 7: like she saves herself, she has the agency and kills
Speaker 7: the man herself. Willman does save her by shooting. I
Speaker 7: think one of the other officer was outside, right, so
Speaker 7: there was that, but I don't think it was like
Speaker 7: he's he was the white Knight of this situation. So
Speaker 7: I think it was written well to give her the agency,
Speaker 7: just as like the other arc where he goes for
Speaker 7: doctor Gorst, the man who tortured her in season one
Speaker 7: with the sound waves, that she gets her revenge on
Speaker 7: him personally, I think those were very important things for
Speaker 7: her character.
Speaker 3: Yeah. No, very much so, very much so, and as
Speaker 3: well as the sort of peaceful ending that she gets.
Speaker 3: And I think there is rightfully some discussion about you know,
Speaker 3: her having a child at that point, and I've made
Speaker 3: my thoughts on that clear in the Star Wars episode.
Speaker 3: But yeah, no, I very much agree with that that
Speaker 3: she gets and I just love that she didn't die,
Speaker 3: you know that. I think that was such the cliche
Speaker 3: a lot of us were preparing for. But what else,
Speaker 3: what else do we want to talk about in terms
Speaker 3: of the way that this show or just this question
Speaker 3: in general of how was he power manifest for these individuals?
Speaker 3: And I actually kind of I was opposing that as
Speaker 3: a question, but I kind of to jump in with
Speaker 3: I think what I like so much about this show,
Speaker 3: and it is something I think you've said to me
Speaker 3: at times we've talked about the show, and it's a
Speaker 3: messager and the like is it humanizes the people in
Speaker 3: the Empire, and there's a degree to which you want
Speaker 3: to just hate people that are part of this, and
Speaker 3: I think that the original Star Wars movie allows us
Speaker 3: to do that. The fact is that the Stormtroopers are
Speaker 3: literally nameless, faceless automatons that look like robots almost, that
Speaker 3: don't get to have a human face. And therefore we
Speaker 3: can feel okay with Han, Solo and Luke and Leah
Speaker 3: killing them by the hundreds and blowing them up, you
Speaker 3: know how many of them are on there. I think
Speaker 3: there's a plan in place for that, a time and
Speaker 3: place for like we need to fight evil, and all
Speaker 3: these people are that, but I think it also becomes
Speaker 3: very easy to then, you know, this is kind of
Speaker 3: almost the mission statement of this podcast. A lot of
Speaker 3: the times, I like villains who challenge us, who make
Speaker 3: us wonder like would we make similar choices to its
Speaker 3: Cyril does or what danger does, and how do we
Speaker 3: not do that? And how do we help teach people
Speaker 3: to not do that? Because it is clearly so easy
Speaker 3: for people to do that. And I think there's been
Speaker 3: a perspective a lot of the time that if you
Speaker 3: are too becoming sympathetic towards a villain can mean whitewashing
Speaker 3: them or defending them. And I think there's definitely a
Speaker 3: problem that in Star Wars. You know, there are people
Speaker 3: out there who will tell you Anakin did nothing wrong
Speaker 3: and it was entirely someone else's fault, right, And I
Speaker 3: think that's ludicrous. But then I think you get the
Speaker 3: opposite of No, Anakin was just always pure evil and
Speaker 3: there's nothing anyone could do. And I think, like I
Speaker 3: was amazed that in that moment when he realizes he
Speaker 3: has failed and he will be killed and he needs
Speaker 3: to just un alive himself, I felt a moment of
Speaker 3: sympathy for Pedigrass when Perry, thank you. Yeah, I'm terrible
Speaker 3: with hims. I apologize. We all know this. When Dedra
Speaker 3: is in that prison that looks an awful lot like
Speaker 3: the prison Cassian was in in season one, and she
Speaker 3: just puts her head in her hands because she's so
Speaker 3: broken and defeated. I was so I was ready to
Speaker 3: be excited about her being sent off to the Death
Speaker 3: Star to die, and I felt bad for her in
Speaker 3: that moment. To me, that's just brilliant storytelling because it
Speaker 3: doesn't mean we are sympathetic to that. It doesn't mean
Speaker 3: it doesn't mean we're defending them, it doesn't mean we're
Speaker 3: thinking that they're not as awful as they are. But
Speaker 3: they're still human. There's still people, they're still sentient beings,
Speaker 3: and if we can have those moments of sympathy for them,
Speaker 3: it's because we can under we can relate to them,
Speaker 3: which means we have to look more in ourselves and
Speaker 3: be more vigilant about how do we not become these villains.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I.
Speaker 7: Think Cyril and Dedra are both great characters.
Speaker 8: M H and I I guess I'll use the word
Speaker 8: like I like them as characters and that they are
Speaker 8: enjoyable to watch their journey, But I don't think that
Speaker 8: they're good people at all.
Speaker 7: Yeah, And that's the balance you have to have. And
Speaker 7: as you said, like we shouldn't, we shouldn't excuse their actions, right,
Speaker 7: And that that's why I focused in on Cyril's actions
Speaker 7: of violence, like in those moments, like he chose violence
Speaker 7: instead of choosing to help, right.
Speaker 5: And I think.
Speaker 7: Dedra is also interesting both both of these characters. As
Speaker 7: you are watching this show, at least for me, there
Speaker 7: were legitimate moments where I was like, is this where
Speaker 7: they change? Is this where they join the rebellion? Like
Speaker 7: especially Cyril right in those last moments when he realizes
Speaker 7: what's happening on Gorman, I think a lot of us
Speaker 7: were like, this is it, This is it. He's finally
Speaker 7: gonna he's gonna see Cassie and be like I was wrong,
Speaker 7: Like I want to join like that that was the
Speaker 7: possibility in our minds and it didn't happen. And I'm
Speaker 7: glad it didn't happen because as much as that was
Speaker 7: something I was thinking about like that, I don't think
Speaker 7: that that's what is journey should have been.
Speaker 5: I'm very satisfied with how his journey ended.
Speaker 3: We love Zuko, we love the people who do have
Speaker 3: the the redemption redemption stories, but I, like you reminded
Speaker 3: that that should be the exception, not the rule, that
Speaker 3: most of the time that is what.
Speaker 7: Happens and it has to be earned.
Speaker 5: And same thing with Dedra.
Speaker 7: After the Gorman arc and in the show, like the
Speaker 7: three episode arcs are each a year apart. Basically after
Speaker 7: the Gorman arc when we come back, I think some
Speaker 7: people were like, well, surely after she participates in that,
Speaker 7: she will turn away from the Empire, because at the
Speaker 7: end of that arc, she has a moment where she
Speaker 7: is basically like having a breakdown and maybe crying right
Speaker 7: over what's happening, and so like, yeah, like she's human
Speaker 7: and she has these emotions and feels that, and many
Speaker 7: of thought, okay, well, now like she's going to join
Speaker 7: the rebellion and it didn't happen. And again I'm satisfied.
Speaker 7: I'm satisfied with where she ended up. I felt there
Speaker 7: was like a very good parallel between her final scene
Speaker 7: and the agent Callous from Rebels when he has his
Speaker 7: epiphany of when he's trapped on the ice planet with
Speaker 7: zeb and then sees when Zev is rescued by his
Speaker 7: rebel cell sees how warm they are and how much
Speaker 7: of a family they are. And he goes back to
Speaker 7: his imperial ship and he's sitting there alone in his
Speaker 7: room and like none of his associates like come to
Speaker 7: check on him and see, hey, are you okay after
Speaker 7: that ice planet thing?
Speaker 5: Right, the loneness.
Speaker 7: Of him sitting in his room and Dedra sitting in
Speaker 7: her cell like that was to me a beautiful parallel.
Speaker 5: I don't know if it's intentional, but I.
Speaker 7: Drew that inspiration that like Callous was able to turn
Speaker 7: away from the Empire in that moment when he realized
Speaker 7: and he joins the rebellion after that, And it's a
Speaker 7: good redemption story in Star Wars if.
Speaker 5: You're into that.
Speaker 3: I think there's definitely probably some level of intentionality to it,
Speaker 3: because there's a third time it happens, which is cross Hair,
Speaker 3: when cross Hair and the bad Batch comes back and
Speaker 3: realizes like maybe he should have been with his brothers
Speaker 3: and he is just alone, whereas we see all the
Speaker 3: others together. I want to read one quote from Gilroy
Speaker 3: about Cyril. Excuse me, that I think underscores so much
Speaker 3: what we're talking about here. Gilroy said, it's so elementally
Speaker 3: Greek and dramatic that the thing you've based your life
Speaker 3: on doesn't even recognize you. We're talking to the one
Speaker 3: line we haven't mentioned, which is that very much in
Speaker 3: that Thanos like, you know, you've destroyed my whole life.
Speaker 3: I don't even know who you are. Cassian has no
Speaker 3: idea who Cyril is. Cyril's always been hunting from the background.
Speaker 3: Casian's never realized it, and it just breaks Cyril further
Speaker 3: that this person who his whole life has been around
Speaker 3: chasing doesn't know who he is, causing the quote everything
Speaker 3: that's constructed from doesn't even have any awareness of him.
Speaker 3: I think he's just stunned. He can't even breathe at
Speaker 3: that point. There's the guy that ruined my life, that
Speaker 3: I was chasing for four years, and I'll be like
Speaker 3: this raccoon or relentless fight and I'll be able to
Speaker 3: kill him and then, oh my god, he doesn't even
Speaker 3: know who I am. It seemed like the absolute essential
Speaker 3: summation of poor Cyril's life.
Speaker 7: Yeah, the Thanos versus Scarlet, which I also go back
Speaker 7: to the Street Fighter movie where Bison delivers the line
Speaker 7: for me it was a Tuesday. Yeah, just these classic
Speaker 7: moments of like, you're nothing to me, right, And I
Speaker 7: think it mirrors how Cyril Cyril and Dendra. Yeah, Like
Speaker 7: in their final confrontation, he realizes, I like that their
Speaker 7: relationship the foundation is a lie, right, or that he's
Speaker 7: not important to her. Yeah, And it's a fascinating romantic
Speaker 7: relationship right, the way that we is portrayed. And I
Speaker 7: think he realizes, like the two people that he thought
Speaker 7: were the most important to him in his life in
Speaker 7: a strange way, Cassian and Dedra, like he's nothing to
Speaker 7: either of them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think through Dedra it's it's very much
Speaker 3: personal about her, but it's also about the Empire. You know,
Speaker 3: he wants to be noticed by the Empire. He wants
Speaker 3: the Empire to see you know, everyone else has told
Speaker 3: him he's wrong for being so rigid. If he wants
Speaker 3: the Empire to say, no, you're right, we like you.
Speaker 3: You get to be part of our group now, yeah,
Speaker 3: But instead the Empire just uses him as a tool
Speaker 3: and they're ready to throw him away.
Speaker 7: Part of this is my personal projection, but I feel
Speaker 7: like Cyril thought he was going to get to join
Speaker 7: the ISB through this, like if I show then I'm
Speaker 7: a good spy, I'm a good soldier that I can
Speaker 7: join the I s B, which is what he aspires
Speaker 7: to right like this authority, and he talks about his
Speaker 7: meeting with part of guys, this is the best day
Speaker 7: of my life. And then the line that really hit
Speaker 7: in Cyril and Dedra's final confrontation is she tells him
Speaker 7: you didn't seem to mind the promotions, is throwing it
Speaker 7: back at him and like her face and that scene
Speaker 7: like she immediately realizes, like how much she hurt hurts
Speaker 7: him with that line because she she doesn't know him. Well,
Speaker 7: I think she realizes like he thinks, like you can
Speaker 7: join the ISP and she's like no, like you're never
Speaker 7: going to join the ISB, but I got you these
Speaker 7: promotions in your fuel standards job, and like that's that's
Speaker 7: the best you're ever gonna be is a bureaucrat, Like
Speaker 7: you're never going to be a spy. And it just
Speaker 7: cuts him. And then like it comes and Cassian says,
Speaker 7: you know, who are you? And it's the same thing,
Speaker 7: just like you're nobody, Like you're still just this pencil pusher.
Speaker 3: And that's not something you Roy invented. That is one
Speaker 3: hundred straight from the pages of history. You know, if
Speaker 3: you look at Hitler's rise again and again, there are
Speaker 3: people who he brings in as his like second in
Speaker 3: command and because he needs them at that time until
Speaker 3: he rises one wrung higher and he can get someone
Speaker 3: better and throws them aside and and blames them for
Speaker 3: something or you know, a thing he knew about. Like
Speaker 3: you know, there are things, you know, all of a
Speaker 3: sudden he cares about some part of them that people
Speaker 3: would hate that he didn't care about until that moment,
Speaker 3: you know, whatever it was. And look at also, you know,
Speaker 3: even a much more recent history, like the number of
Speaker 3: people who have been part of Trump's orbit and have
Speaker 3: left that orbit to be thrown aside because someone else there.
Speaker 3: All these are people who want to be They want
Speaker 3: to be the guy that that center of authority looks
Speaker 3: at and says, you're my guy. You know, they want
Speaker 3: the closeness to power. And that is just a huge
Speaker 3: part of what the emperor does, what what Vader does,
Speaker 3: what it's not as much Vader, but like what all
Speaker 3: these people do under authoritarianism, both in real life and
Speaker 3: the fiction of Star Wars is they give people, well
Speaker 3: that promise of you're going to get to see at
Speaker 3: the big big kids table, you're going to get to
Speaker 3: be my new you know, chief of staff or my
Speaker 3: new head of is B or just like one wrong
Speaker 3: hire and then throws them aside.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and the the other. The other thing that this
Speaker 7: show did really well was show or not show the Emperor? Right,
Speaker 7: there was a lot of speculation like are we going
Speaker 7: to get a scene with Palpatine? No, because the way
Speaker 7: that they used the Emperor, they used his name is
Speaker 7: actually like such a great reflection of fascism and the
Speaker 7: power deriving from the one leader. I think in the
Speaker 7: first episode, Director Krennik, who is kind of like the
Speaker 7: highest person we see in the show physically, like from
Speaker 7: the Empire, holds a meeting which is basically the the
Speaker 7: Vansai conference from from Nazi history.
Speaker 5: He holds a meeting where he's like.
Speaker 7: This is how we're gonna deal with the Gorman and
Speaker 7: this is how we're gonna steal their calcite minerals. And
Speaker 7: at the very beginning of a meeting he name drops
Speaker 7: the emperors. I think the Emperor's energy project, and so
Speaker 7: he is deriving authority from using the Emperor's name and
Speaker 7: his connection and is hoarding it over the people in
Speaker 7: this room and saying, that's why I'm better than you,
Speaker 7: that's why I'm at the head of this table, and
Speaker 7: you're all gonna listen to me. And later on there's
Speaker 7: a scene where Partigas also mentions the Emperor, like I
Speaker 7: had a meeting with the Emperor, and like he thinks
Speaker 7: this is very important, and that's how he derives his
Speaker 7: authority over his subordinates.
Speaker 3: And I think that's the brilliance, because you're right, he
Speaker 3: never appears on screen, but he's present in the room
Speaker 3: almost any time imperial officials are talking. And that includes
Speaker 3: even the rebels, you know, when man Mathmann Bail are
Speaker 3: talking about what they do. That the like knowing what
Speaker 3: the Emperor might do is is just always a constant threat,
Speaker 3: always a constant awareness. And uh, perdi guy has you know,
Speaker 3: takes the action he does to end his life because
Speaker 3: he knows he's gonna have to face the Emperor, you know,
Speaker 3: Dedra like the even even in Rogue One, which I
Speaker 3: think is I think we really understand now is basically
Speaker 3: and or season three, you know, the when Tarkian and
Speaker 3: h Krenick are arguing with each other, they talk about
Speaker 3: like which one of us gets to report to the emperor?
Speaker 3: You know, just Tarkan get to tell the story or
Speaker 3: does Krenic get to tell the story because they know
Speaker 3: the emperor is not gonna be impartial.
Speaker 7: And then Kranick goes to Vader, like he tries to
Speaker 7: like undercut Tarkan by going to Vader, and then Vader
Speaker 7: is like, nah, like I'm not going to get involved
Speaker 7: in this. What was the line, don't don't choke on
Speaker 7: your be careful not to choke on your ambition character aspirations. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 7: it was a great line. And what you said about
Speaker 7: the rebels too, like mon Mathema's speech at the Senate
Speaker 7: directly attacks the emperor. The monster in the room is
Speaker 7: Emperor Palpatine.
Speaker 5: Yeah right, And that's.
Speaker 7: That's what's important here, is like ultimately the empire is
Speaker 7: a hydra, right where you cut off one head and
Speaker 7: to take its place, and so you can take out
Speaker 7: all of the Crenics and the Tarkans, but you got
Speaker 7: to take out the emperor like that. That is the
Speaker 7: story being told here, Yeah, you gotta take him out
Speaker 7: twice apparently double shot.
Speaker 3: I think that's that's very important, because, yeah, what we
Speaker 3: see in this world and in our own is the
Speaker 3: the part of why you do this. You have your thought,
Speaker 3: your your people fight with each other, is so that
Speaker 3: any part and this is what the book talks about
Speaker 3: the emperor keeping kind of hands off is let's say
Speaker 3: everything didn't go well. He could be like, oh, oh
Speaker 3: my god, I can't believe Tarkan misused the Death Star
Speaker 3: in that terrible way. We have punished Tarkan. We will
Speaker 3: never allow someone like Tarkian to have a weapon like
Speaker 3: that again, because I would have never ordered the destruction
Speaker 3: of Aldron. You know that that kind of insulation. By
Speaker 3: the time the Deaser comes along, the Emperor doesn't care
Speaker 3: about that anymore. But these history books and stuff talk
Speaker 3: about how it happened all the time in the early
Speaker 3: years of the Empire and things like that.
Speaker 7: Well, yeah, in the bad batch, admirable Rampart, it's responsible
Speaker 7: for the destruction of Toboka City.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm.
Speaker 7: And he was he was following orders right back to
Speaker 7: that phrase, he was following orders. But when it's discovered
Speaker 7: and when it's outed it is still a fledgling empire,
Speaker 7: and the Senate is like, that's not right, and the
Speaker 7: Emperor throws Rampart under the bus and it's like he
Speaker 7: did it on his own. He's under arrest. We're cool, Yeah,
Speaker 7: very much so. And I think the in the book
Speaker 7: because I read the book too, and one of my
Speaker 7: favorite parts is about moss Ameta is like the best
Speaker 7: Star Wars character that we continually don't get to see,
Speaker 7: Like he appears in the pre Equal trilogy and maybe,
Speaker 7: like says a line or two to the Senate, but
Speaker 7: he's like the central figure in Emperor Palpatine's power structure,
Speaker 7: and we just like don't get any of them, possibly
Speaker 7: partly because he's he's a big alien, so it's hard
Speaker 7: to like have him in.
Speaker 5: Live action stuff.
Speaker 7: But he's basically the emperor secretary, Yeah, and he controls
Speaker 7: like all the meetings, the meetings that these people, the
Speaker 7: Cranics and.
Speaker 5: The party guyss have with the Emperor.
Speaker 7: He's the one that's scheduling them, and he is giving
Speaker 7: people their power through their meetings with the Emperor. But
Speaker 7: ultimately that means he doesn't have any power of his own,
Speaker 7: and what the book describes is like after Endoor, after
Speaker 7: the Emperor died, a lot of people thought Massa Beta
Speaker 7: would would be the successor because he was so close
Speaker 7: to power, but ultimately like he didn't accrue any power
Speaker 7: of his own. It all derived in the Emperor, so
Speaker 7: people everyone in the empire was like, well, we don't
Speaker 7: care about him anymore because he doesn't control the means
Speaker 7: of the power, so we're just gonna take our own power.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's a literal definition of a figurehead of a
Speaker 3: pupp and the Aftermath trilogy also goes further into that
Speaker 3: about how he's kind of ruling courtissant but he really
Speaker 3: has no power and in some way he's again he's
Speaker 3: still a puppet, but he's supposed to be like the
Speaker 3: you know that the Emperor. The people who want to
Speaker 3: bring back the empire or Project Cinder or whatever it
Speaker 3: is that they can do with that in secret because
Speaker 3: most need is the public face. Well, this has been
Speaker 3: a great discussion. It's been an hour. We're not going
Speaker 3: to do bonus content I prompts. We'll be getting back
Speaker 3: to that starting next week, but just with and Or
Speaker 3: coming out as well as My Baby Showers this weekend.
Speaker 3: So there's a lot of stuff going on right now.
Speaker 3: But Riki, any last things you want to say as
Speaker 3: part as conversation.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I want to say to go back to who
Speaker 7: we started with Cyril karn it is it is okay
Speaker 7: to like and enjoy bad characters.
Speaker 5: By evil characters.
Speaker 7: I guess, like, I think he's.
Speaker 5: A good character.
Speaker 7: He's a well written, well acted character, but I think
Speaker 7: he's ultimately like falls on the side of evil. There
Speaker 7: was definitely possibilities. I believe that he could have become good,
Speaker 7: that he could have joined the rebellion, could have had
Speaker 7: a redemption. It didn't happen in what we saw, and
Speaker 7: so like, ultimately we have to judge this character's arc
Speaker 7: on what we did see. I think it was it
Speaker 7: was evil, but it's okay to enjoy that. Just examine
Speaker 7: it within yourself and examine your feelings on like why
Speaker 7: you like him and why you think like he could
Speaker 7: have had a redemption. And that's I think that's the
Speaker 7: important part of this discussion because I brought this subject
Speaker 7: to you because there's a lot of people who are
Speaker 7: like Cyril did nothing wrong, like he was a good person, Like, No,
Speaker 7: I don't think so the funniest one to me I
Speaker 7: saw was that Cyril isn't a fascist.
Speaker 5: He just supported fascism.
Speaker 7: If he had grown up in the Republic, he wouldn't
Speaker 7: have been a fascist. And it's like, oh, okay, Like
Speaker 7: that's that's like the strangest definition that you could come
Speaker 7: up with, Like if you support fascism, you're a fascist.
Speaker 3: Especially because unless he's a child prodigy, he did grow
Speaker 3: up at least part of his life in the Republic.
Speaker 3: You know, you know, I think that's true, and I
Speaker 3: think that, you know, in some of the arguments about
Speaker 3: him can become friendly misogynistic in terms of it's all
Speaker 3: deadro and his mother's fault. You showed me something of
Speaker 3: someone even defending Pedigraphs, saying like, you know, I've seen
Speaker 3: some takes that are like Pedagraphs ends himself because he
Speaker 3: hears Nemic's speech and realizes he's been wrong this whole time,
Speaker 3: and the rebellion to flourished. I No, that's not what
Speaker 3: that means at all. It's he realizes how much he's failed,
Speaker 3: he realizes how much this has spread, and it's he's
Speaker 3: gonna get blamed for it. He's gonna get tortured and
Speaker 3: as the same reason why the Grand Inquisitor, you know,
Speaker 3: let's go of that cliff and rebels, because there are
Speaker 3: fate's worse than death. Yeah, and to me, I think
Speaker 3: it's I think there's two elements of it. It's important
Speaker 3: that we recognize, you know, that he's not an evil
Speaker 3: person we can wag our fingers at. It's that he's
Speaker 3: someone who could be like us if we don't make
Speaker 3: better choices. But also that he's a product of the
Speaker 3: system that he's in. And you know, like people talk
Speaker 3: a lot about copaganda, and I don't necessarily underline all
Speaker 3: the conversations about that. Serial's a great example of why
Speaker 3: a lot of us say, like we should be a
Speaker 3: little more critical of the media we consume around like
Speaker 3: cops and soldiers always doing the right thing, you know,
Speaker 3: and it's it's it's all these factors that go in.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I'm really glad we brought out this topic.
Speaker 3: I really love to hear listener feedback on it. I
Speaker 3: think we just get a lot more about these conversations.
Speaker 3: And yeah, Riki, thank you so much for bringing it up.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much to our listeners for being a
Speaker 3: part of all this. We have spoken you die,