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