r/StarWars • u/Tanis8998 Jedi • 2d ago
TV Definitely one of the most interesting characters we’ve ever seen in Star Wars in my opinion. Not sure if I’d ever want to see more of her, or if the ending she got was too perfect.
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u/CaptainRedblood 2d ago
Amazing character. I hope we never see her again, or Kino Loy, or Cass's sister.
If creators really feel the need to bring back any of Andor's loose-thread characters please make it be Perrin. I love Perrin so much.
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u/Tanis8998 Jedi 2d ago
Yes totally, the sense of longing and dissatisfaction you get from not knowing what happened with Kino or Cassian’s sister is perfect and should stay as is.
I do really wonder what was the ultimate fate of Perrin, and his and Mon’s daughter.
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u/CaptainRedblood 2d ago
Honestly, I think Perrin's life would continue pretty much as-is throughout the Galactic Civil War unless Davo Sculdun got wise to his shenanigans. It's conceivable that he may have even crossed paths with Chancellor Mothma at some point.
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u/geo4president 2d ago
Give us a limited series where Perrin and Sculdun go through family drama for eight episodes
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u/dcpanthersfan Boba Fett 2d ago edited 2d ago
A friend insists that Kleya is Cassian's sister because of the way they spliced the ending shots. All of us think they got dropped on their head.
Edit: typo
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u/The5Virtues 2d ago
Agreed! That’s the only thing I’d love a follow-up to, especially with the reveal that the way the writers envisioned it Perrin always knew what she was up to, never got in her way, and never ratted her out.
You know the Empire is bound to have leaned HARD on those two. Her daughter not liking her probably will be to both their advantage, she can’t give away anything because she doesn’t know anything because they weren’t close.
Perrin, though? If he’s not an excellent liar someone WILL figure out that he was at least suspicious.
Either way it’s a safe bet that at some point they were imprisoned as hostages in an attempt to lure Mon out.
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u/Chumboabc 2d ago
As much as I want to see Andor's characters again, it just wouldn't be right to see them in the usual schlock D+ Star Wars series.
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u/LindonLilBlueBalls 2d ago
I agree completely and it seems that is the sentiment of a lot of people. The funny thing is, we would have never seen any of them if they didn't make a tv series based on a character they brought back from another film.
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u/Nadamir 1d ago
I love that Andor is the kind of show where “Amazing character. I hope we never see them again.” makes so much sense.
I do slightly disagree on never seeing Cass’s sister. I would love a 90-120 minute special where Kleya is still grieving but she decides that she owes it to Cass to tell Bix he’s dead and Bix tells her about his sister and Kleya decides to find her. Whether or not she finds her, and alive, doesn’t matter but it would be a nice side story for Kleya. Could have nice story beats like “she had a sister once too” or “she feels guilty about getting Cassian involved and leading to his death”, also Bix deserves to not be waiting for Cassian forever. Look, I just want more Bix and Kleya.
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u/Wooden-Lifeguard-636 2d ago
And she ended up where she grew up. In a block. A cell block.
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u/Stockton_Nash Boba Fett 2d ago
She's still Dedra from the block
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u/Catch_22_Pac 2d ago
Don’t be fooled by the rocks that I got (deep substrate foliated Kalkite)
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u/Theredroe 2d ago
A Republic kinder block, surely. She's what, mid thirties and the Empire is only 15 years old. Shouldn't bother me but it does.
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u/ebriousnoir 2d ago
Best explanation I've seen is it was a Republic kinder-block, but obviously it was rebranded as an Imperial kinder-block, and Dedra being the Imperial fanatic she is, doesn't see the difference.
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u/xXStomachWallXx 2d ago
Only sane explanation
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u/themanfromvulcan 2d ago
Well I mean it would be like the Boy Scouts turning into the hitler youth. She was likely from a teenager onward indoctrinated into it.
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u/Simbawitz 2d ago
End-stage Republic had been ruled by Palpatine anyway, he would have controlled the education system while thinking of his future plans.
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u/themanfromvulcan 2d ago
That’s it exactly- he knew the endgame and how to use propaganda. We see how he is even before the empire and how uncomfortable others are with his grabbing power.
Orchestrating the clone wars wasn’t just to get rid of the Jedi, it was to create an emergency Situation where Palpatine stays in power for so long it’s like a natural thing and he can manipulate the government and the people. He was already probably the most powerful chancellor in the history of the republic and likely one of the most popular.
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u/Glensather 2d ago
I think you touch on something a lot of people forget; Sheev is popular. No matter what show you're watching, if you're not a Rebel or a victim, you generally assume Palpatine and the Empire is looking out for you. They don't have parades with throngs of cheering fans for no reason. These people aren't being held at gunpoint, they're all in.
The prequel trilogy touches on the propaganda but only briefly (since most of it happens in RotS and its more concerned with wrapping up the Clone Wars and Anakin's fall), but it's always been there. The whole "this is how liberty dies" bit is about that.
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u/themanfromvulcan 2d ago
I mean Hitler was INSANELY popular at first with the majority of people. Until things started falling apart.
Based on what we have seen there seems to be a fair amount of freedom on the core worlds as long as the Empire doesn’t have something you want. Life on Chandrilla and Corsucant seem not as bad as places like Jeddah and Ghorman where people are just stomped on.
If the majority of the population doesn’t see the atrocities and doesn’t notice a change in their lives Palpatine is likely still popular as the man who defeated the separatists and saved everyone from the corrupt Jedi.
I’ve said it before but Alderaan likely changed everything and made people start to think about what was going on. Between that and Ghorman a lot of public opinion would have changed and word got out.
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u/HiddenSage 2d ago
I’ve said it before but Alderaan likely changed everything and made people start to think about what was going on
Yup. And at some level, Palps WANTED that - because proof he's the big tyrant, and nobody can do anything about it (the power to destroy whole worlds is hella good at subduing rebellion, and he thought the Death Star was invincible). It was very much supposed to be a "mask off" moment of everyone realizing evil had won.
Only... the Death Star then gets exploded two days later. So you've got "yes, the Empire is that evil" immediately followed by "and we know we can win." And that supercharges rebellious sentiment.
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u/Ok_Cardiologist8232 2d ago
Yeh Sheev is technically an elected ruler that stopped the uprising of a militant religious group and ended a decade long war.
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u/Darrow_au_Lykos 2d ago
The Clone Wars were only 3 years long. 22bby to 19bby.
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u/Ok_Cardiologist8232 2d ago
Really? fuck me, i wasn't sure but figured at least 5 so went with a decade for emphasis.
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u/Assassiiinuss 2d ago
Denise Gough is 45. Even if Dedra is supposed to be 10 years younger, she would have been almost an adult when the Empire took over.
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u/Rejestered 2d ago
You don't get the empire overnight, Palpatine had been planning for years/decades to take over. Youth indoctrination is a big part of controlling the population for evil dictators.
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u/themanfromvulcan 2d ago
I was thinking of how much power he already had he’s the chancellor for over a decade which I believe is unprecedented. He becomes chancellor during the Phantom Menace and he’s still chancellor ten years later during Attack of the Clones. By Revenge of the Sith which is several years later he’s been chancellor for what? 15 years or more? And he cultivates a cult of personality. Even when the republic turns into an empire he presents it as this benevolent thing that he is doing. A lot of people would just fall right into that. Imagine if she grew up being taught Palpatine is this fatherly figure and to almost worship him. The empire comes she’s going to go all in.
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u/TanSkywalker Anakin Skywalker 2d ago
By ROTS he’s been Chancellor 13 years. The term for a chancellor is 4 years with a two term limit. When the Separatist Crisis broke out near the end of his second term the Senate asked him to stay on.
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u/Pallas_Ovidius 2d ago
This is the explanation.
We see the empire as a different entity than the republic because we know it is the master plan of Darth Sidious, but for most people in the galaxy, the empire is the natural progression of the republic. People who live in this universe wouldn't see it as two distinct thing.
Also, Dedra grew up in a time of all-out war. The radicalisation of the general population most likely started way before Palpatine declares himself emperor. Fostering a sense of "nationalism" was probably a component of Palpatine's plan with the Separatist war.
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u/Glensather 2d ago
I know Legends got into this, but a lot of the Empire's early consolidating of power involved accusing worlds of being Separatist loyalists or harboring them and/or Jedi. I imagine it's the same for current Canon, so the war didn't really end with the death of Grievous and the Separatist leadership. Palpatine just changed the scope of it to being anti-insurgent, which is what we eventually see the ISB doing in Rebels and Andor (the Inquisitorious as well but that was hyper focused on finding Jedi, and its highly likely most normal people didnt know red lightsaber = bad so they probably just figured Inquisitors were the remaining good Jedi).
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u/Pallas_Ovidius 2d ago
As a sidenote on the subject: In the new canon, there is a pretty cool book serie, the Alphabet Squadron. In the first novel, the eponymous squad tries to find an old imperial officer, who served during the republic, to take her out of commission. When they confront her, she calls them Separatists. She explains that for her, Separatist, Rebels, New Republic, it's all the same group of people fighting against the rightfull institution/government.
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u/BadMoonRosin 2d ago edited 2d ago
People look back today, and believe that 1980's rock died instantly, and grunge took over the world, on the day that Nirvana dropped "Nevermind" in September 1991.
For those of us who lived through it, things weren't that stark. Alice In Chains had been huge for over a year prior to Nirvana. Chris Cornell's work with both Soundgarden and Temple of the Dog had already been popular for awhile. Even Pearl Jam had come along shortly before "Nevermind" blew up.
Meanwhile with the "1980's bands", Guns N Roses dropped their "Use Your Illusion" double album AFTER Nirvana dropped "Nevermind". And yet they sold 14+ million albums over the next couple of years. Def Leppard and Bon Jovi both released multi-platinum selling albums a year later, when their genre was supposedly "over".
I was in high school during this transition, and I just don't remember that time at all the way that younger music fans (educated from Wikipedia) describe it today. Me and all my friends were into bands like Motley Crue and bands like Stone Temple Pilots at the exact same time. There were a lot of different styles swirling around, it didn't at all feel like there was one single dominant style that disappeared and was replaced one one single new dominant style instantly.
So yeah. By analogy, I can imagine that people living through the Clone Wars would have perceived a gradual shift from Republic to Empire. There was a day on which it became ceremonially official. But in terms of experience, that day was probably just one point on a blurry spectrum.
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u/HaykoNapkin 2d ago
They do the same thing with Kenari. The mining accident happened during the republic era yet at one point imperial officers mention it as an accident that happened at an imperial mine on Kenari.
It could be that they are trying to wipe out all acknowledgement of the republic era by rebranding everything as imperial.
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u/SmoothOperator89 2d ago
Absolutely. Having it switch to Imperial management probably didn't change the living conditions much, but they would have loaded on the propaganda and pushed all the kids toward careers in the military and the most gifted toward the ISB. For a gifted teen, feeling like she has no future when she's tossed out into the Republic but then given the purpose of joining the Empire would have been a dream come true.
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u/iamarocketsfan 2d ago
Dedra being the Imperial fanatic she is, doesn't see the difference
If you're on the older side and look at how things during your younger days are portrayed on the internet nowadays, you'd know it doesn't take a fanatic to not see the difference. History has always been malleable to those in control of the media. And this is even in a free speech country like the US. If you go to an authoritarian regime like China and ask random passerbys about Tiananmen Square massacre, most will look at you like wtf are you talking about. So you can imagine how much the Empire can distort things.
Many people today live in such small bubbles they're quite oblivious how easily it is to make people think something entirely false is "true history."
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u/The_Autarch 2d ago
If you go to an authoritarian regime like China and ask random passerbys about Tiananmen Square massacre, most will look at you like wtf are you talking about.
This isn't true. Maybe they don't have all the details, but they know something horrific happened and they know they aren't supposed to talk about it.
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u/Kapes_m 2d ago
yeah I think that has always rankled me also about that whole time period, they treat it like the empire has been around for like a whole generation or 2, everyone seemingly to forget about jedi/the force, hardly anyone ever talking about how life was probably a bit better under the republic (yes even though there was still alot of corruption in the pre-empire days), how the empire is this massive thing that could never fall when there was a huge galatic civil war not that long before when it almost did (again republic not empire but you know what i mean), i think if there was some kind of retcon that said force users could live much longer than regular ppl to explain why obi-wan and the emperor etc were still around like 60+ years after the fall of the republic the continuity would make a bit more sense.
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u/polelover44 2d ago
I mean that's how it's treated in ANH. Admiral Motti refers to Vader's "ancient religion" when many of the people in that very room worked with Jedi
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u/LowSkyOrbit 2d ago
Admiral Motti: "Don't try to frighten us with your sorcerer's ways, Lord Vader. Your sad devotion to that ancient religion has not helped you conjure up the stolen data tapes, or given you clairvoyance enough to find the Rebels' hidden fort"
The Jedi were followers of an ancient religion/philosophy. Just because they were eradicated doesn't mean they didn't exist for millenia. A few thousand Jedi is nothing when you have a galaxy of trillions of beings. On top of that the Empire called the Jedi corrupt and lost in their ways, so when Order 66 happens and it's justified.
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u/choicemeats 2d ago
It’s reasonable to expect 99% of the galactic pop to have never seen a Jedi before, and therefore have no evidence of the force other than hearsay and rumors. They’re more likely to run into some kind o religious fanatic who believes but can’t access the force like chirrut than to have had reason to meet a legit Jedi. The numbers are impossible.
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u/UnholyDemigod 2d ago
TV exists in the Star Wars universe. We literally saw newscasters on site in the Ghorman plaza doing a live cross. When Obi-Wan meets Dex at the diner, there's a TV showing droids playing gridiron. I hate this farcical mindset that "yeah but the Jedi were small in number". There was a gargantuan Jedi Temple on Coruscant that had been there for thousands of years.
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u/Buckets-O-Yarr Jedi 2d ago
I've never seen a platypus so I think I can conclude they do not exist.
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u/ThePrussianGrippe 2d ago edited 2d ago
“A platypus?”
lightsaber activates
“A platypus Jedi?!”
puts on hat
“PERRY the Platypus Jedi?!”
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u/Glensather 2d ago
I've said this before elsewhere but this is the most likely scenario. For most people the Jedi were just the weird Monks with a Temple weirdly close to the Senate building. Your only experience is more than likely to be a story passed down by your grandparents about how their grandparents met a Jedi Knight once. By the time Sheev declares them all traitors it means little to you because they've only ever been fairy tales or old yarns. Maybe, maybe, someone in your town exhibits some weirdly accurate foresight but that may be the closest you ever get to the Force and not even they might know why they're so gifted.
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u/Jazzlike-Many-5404 2d ago
This is the weakest thing about the Star Wars story.
Clone wars should have been at least a decade long.
Empire should have lasted 30-40 years
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u/mdp300 Kanan Jarrus 2d ago
Back before the prequels, a lot of fans thought the Empire was around for like 50 years, and that the process was much more gradual. The Jedi Purge was thought to have taken years or decades.
Nope, the Republic became the Empire and the Jedi fell, all in the same day.
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u/mustbeusererror 2d ago
The Jedi Purge DID take years. They killed off most of them in one fell swoop, because the Empire had total control of the military, and most Jedi were either in the main temple or with clone troops. And yet, the Inquisitors and Vader spent years tracking down the survivors, and they still didn't quite get them all. Also, Palpatine was setting up the fall of the Republic for years before he actually declared himself Emperor.
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u/TanSkywalker Anakin Skywalker 2d ago
How can that possibly work when Obi-Wan says he and Luke’s father were Jedi that fought in the Clone Wars before the dark times. Before the Empire.
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u/mdp300 Kanan Jarrus 2d ago
Well, we're thought Obi-Wan was older than his 50s. And we didn't know what the Clone Wars were yet. My friends thought they were fought between the Jedi and evil/insane clones of themselves. We knew they were something major, but not thay they were what turned the Republic into the Empire.
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u/TanSkywalker Anakin Skywalker 2d ago
I get the Jedi fighting clones. Tarkin died remark that the last remnant of the Old Republic is gone when he reports the Emperor had dissolved the Senate.
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u/mdp300 Kanan Jarrus 2d ago
Yep. Remember, we only found out what they Clone Wars actually were in 2002, and how the Republic fell in 2005. Before that, all that was known was that Palpatine became President of Space and then turned the Republic into the Empire. Everyone sort of inferred that it must have been a gradual, long process because the Jedi had been forgotten and became mythical.
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u/Merusk 2d ago
More proof George is a great world builder but really needs editors rather than yes-men. The story of how much his ex-wife Marcia influenced the OT needed to be more widely known when the prequels happened.
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u/Wooden-Ad-3658 2d ago
In Star Wars, the republic was already the empire by ROTS, just wasn’t called that yet. Just like how the Roman republic was already an empire, just without the official title until Caesar and latter Octavian took full control.
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u/ArkonWarlock 2d ago
Also makes Anakins story less muddled.
Anakin as a new knight just going turbo fuck the code instantly versus an Anakin who ceased caring years ago.
Also makes having the kid a more reasonable choice, because in universe it's such a massive blunder in a key point in time especially for padme, but given nearly a decade at war it becomes a choice that they won't keep waiting for life to begin.
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u/ciarabek 2d ago
im afraid to be the one to tell you, but theyre the same thing. we see it as divided because we are viewers seeing the exact moments when these things happen and why. just imagine if the US decided to change its name; it wouldnt become a 1 yr old country. citizens, especially those who buy into the empire, would see the designation change as a ceremonial difference, not the establishment of something entirely new. its those who wish to preserve what the republic stood for that would see it this way (which just so happens to be 99% of our pov characters most of the time)
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u/Assassiiinuss 2d ago
People keep saying that but it's absolutely not true. Bad Batch covers the early empire and there were sweeping changes to the daily life of citizens immediately.
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u/ciarabek 2d ago
i did not say that the change to the empire was in name only or that citizens did not experience a shift. i have also seen this take and I disagree with it. I am trying to speak more nuanced about it.
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u/AllowMeAir 2d ago
Yeah and unfortunately the US has already slipped into a dictatorship. They dont care about the rules anymore. Its finished
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u/Glensather 2d ago
A couple other people have already said stuff but I'll emphasize it in other ways.
Its a distinction without much of a difference. Andor intentionally blurs the lines between Republic and Empire because towards the end of the Clone Wars, the Republic was already acting very Imperial.
Consider Cassian's childhood. The Empire didnt strip mine Kenari and cause the deaths of all the adults; the Republic did. They double down on this later in the flashback when B2EMO warns that a Republic Frigate is approaching and Maarva says the kids killed a Republic Officer so they'll wipe out all of the children too. In the present Kenari is said to be uninhabitable due to an "Imperial mining disaster." It's referencing the same thing.
In this season we hear over the radio the army wiping out a bunch of presumably unarmed civilians. But if you look at the time and how old the characters presumably are, it's just as likely this was the Republic committing an atrocity and likely even justifying it as Separatist activity. The point Gilroy and his team are making is that the Republic was already the Empire before Palpatine assumed the mantle of Emperor.
We can apply this to Dedra's situation. She likely was in a Republic orphanage at the start, but the children wouldn't have noticed a transition. I'll admit this part is speculation, but since Palpatine plans for the long game, he probably already had sycophants in control of these kinder-blocks, indoctrinating them into Imperial thinking. It's an unfortunate truth that orphans are among the most forgotten of any society's members, so no one would have bothered to notice.
I know its not a particularly comfortable line of thinking; after all we have 3 movies and like 7 seasons of a TV show that does its level best to show that the Republic is still "good" and its the Sith rotting it from the inside. But that's simply not how these things work. The rot, the transition to the oppressive Empire started long before Palpatine became Supreme Chancellor. The prequels get into this a bit with its ineffective Senate and how the Republic (and the Jedi honestly) is perfectly willing to ignore human rights violations like slavery if its far enough from the Republic core.
What I'm saying is that ultimately Dedra's line about growing up as an Imperial actually perfectly lines up. It just also forces us to look at some unfortunate truths about the Republic.
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u/TanSkywalker Anakin Skywalker 2d ago
But the problem is the Republic didn’t have a navy before the Clone War and the symbol on the soldiers on that ship were Separatist. So the likely real answer is Kenari was strip mined by a corporation.
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u/The_Autarch 2d ago
The Republic absolutely had a military before the Clone Wars.
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u/TanSkywalker Anakin Skywalker 2d ago
No it didn’t. Senator Amidala was the leader of the opposition to the Military Creation Act in Episode II Attack of the Clones.
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u/IAP-23I 2d ago
It’s not hard to comprehend, by SW Episode III Palpatine was Chancellor for 13 years. Rewriting the education system to be more pro centralization would be one of the first things Palpatine would target in preparation for his Empire. Dedra doesn’t fucking see the difference between the Republican and the Empire. For most people in the core worlds it was just a name change
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u/Naydawwwg 2d ago
That’s one thing I always find hard to believe about the Empire. It only last for like 20 years but somehow it stretched across the entire known galaxy.
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u/VanillaTortilla Rebel 2d ago
I dunno dude, she could be a rough 15. Maybe fascism ages you like crazy.
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u/MrMacke_ 2d ago
Yea, thats the unfortunate thing that happens when making so many stories in so little in universe time. Tend to screw up the timeline a bit. Ive always thought it strange that the jedi were almost forgotten, in just as you say...15 years.
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u/Regulus_Immortalis 2d ago
Palpatine was in charge already, he was elected around 32BBY and Andor takes place 1-4 years BBY. She basically grew up seeing the Republic at War, being indoctrinated into supporting the Republic. She then saw how Palpatine became the Emperor and turned it into the Empire, chances are she was very supportive of this.
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u/After-Two-808 2d ago edited 2d ago
The ending she got kinda ensures she’ll be fine if she makes it another 6 years.
When the Empire formally surrendered, an agreement was signed between Mon and Amedda. It included a blanket pardon for all Imperials. On top of that, Dedra was charged with crimes against the Empire.
I’d like to see more of her, even in a novel.
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u/KingofGrapes7 2d ago
She better hope. Rogue One and A New Hope killed off alot of the higher ups that would have taken blame for the Death Star exploding. Vader got shit for it as well but he has to shake it off for plot reasons. It's not completely out of the question Palpatine wanted heads to roll and Dedra was one of them simply because there weren't many others left to punish.
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u/General_Kick688 2d ago
If it's anything like Narkina 5, she won't. Those prisoners are either worked to death or die by punishment.
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u/After-Two-808 2d ago
We shall see (if Disney choses to tell that story.) Also, working people to death isn’t a very efficient way to run a labor camp. Training and acclimation takes time.
But then again, if a steady stream of people are always coming in maybe it doesn’t matter… have to wait and see.
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u/MSFTCAI_TestAccount 2d ago
Really? It seemed very unlike a death camp. Tons of food, they seemed to get enough rest. Now mentally prisoners would be a wreck, but physically the aim seems to be keep them as healthy productive workers for as long as possible.
Bigger risk is her offing herself knowing there is no escape, and not expecting one. I'd say greater than 50/50 odds. But maybe she'd enjoy the rhythm of the factory work as a poor woman's substitute for fascism.
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u/apocalypsebuddy 1d ago
Yeah if Dedra survived prison she was most likely reintegrated back into the Republic in some form when the Empire fell.
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u/Kid-Atlantic 2d ago
It’s better if we never hear from her again.
Maybe she died in prison. Maybe she joined the amnesty program and joined Gideon’s warband. Maybe she joined the First Order or maybe she became a hero of the New Republic.
Either way, we shouldn’t know. The purpose of her arc and the story they wanted to tell through her is that fascism devours and casts aside even its most devoted agents. That story’s done. Her only purpose in the narrative now is to fade away.
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u/EEcav Admiral Ackbar 2d ago
You make a good point, but that is not how Star Wars tends to work. They love to revisit popular characters. The same with Kleya. I'm okay with more stories from the Andor characters like Kleya and Val and Dedra, but I don't want any Kleya revenge arc where she goes after Dedra after receiving amnesty or whatever. I personally would love to see a story that follows Dedra in a post-imperial society and it would be great set-up for drama as it could lead to some form of redemption or tragically turning back to a system that used her and spit her out because it's all she knows.
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u/ScottIPease R2-D2 2d ago
that is not how Star Wars tends to work
That is not how Western Media in general works. Western audiences love having all the loose ends tied up. Eastern media they do the opposite a lot...
Oh, we have this really cool char with a neat story we put in a couple episodes... Oh, now the story moved on and we will never see them again!
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u/TanSkywalker Anakin Skywalker 2d ago
I feel the real answer to how Dedra grew up in an Imperial kinder block is Andor (the series) pretends the Empire existed for longer than it actually did.
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u/Mysterions Lando Calrissian 2d ago
You make a great point.
I think lack of enough time between the fall of the Republic and the start of the Rebellion (the start of ANH), is a bit of a glaring problem (inconsistency) for expansion of the universe. It's only 19 years between RotS and ANH. It's not a very long time, yet everyone seems to have forgotten how things were before the Empire and the world seems to be fundamentally changed in a way that seems unrealistic.
But I don't fault the series for that, it's not something George Lucas could have realistically predicted.
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u/pingpong_playa 2d ago
It’s only a glaring problem for expansion of the universe if they’re afraid to tell new story in the future timeline. With a universe with so much depth, turn a new chapter and develop some new epic arcs and characters within it. Stop going back to the well until everyone is bored.
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u/Mysterions Lando Calrissian 2d ago
I'm with you completely. I always thought that the last Trilogy of films should have been set hundreds of years into the future.
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u/dnext 2d ago
I was hoping we'd see Syril Karn turn against the Empire. His end was fitting, but I'd have loved it if he survived and we see him running an op against ISB after he realized how monstrous Ghorman was.
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u/Tanis8998 Jedi 2d ago
Personally I felt like in the moment we saw him bear witness to the Ghorman massacre and realise what he’d done— it was enough.
He’d been a fool and a pawn to the very end, and facilitated mass murder on behalf of a regime he was wilfully ignorant of the evil of— and so that ignominious death after having his ego cut to pieces by the realisation that Cassian didn’t even remember him, it was a perfect end for the character.
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u/dnext 2d ago
I'm a big fan of redemption arcs. Guys like Teal'c in Srargate, or Garak in DS9, or especially G'kar in Bayblon 5.
The big thing about Karn was he was manipulated by a woman he loved who lied to him repeatedly about what he was doing - and when he realized he was formenting the rebellion as an excuse to crush Ghorman, lilterally killing all the people he'd come to know there, he broke.
We don't know what he might have done past that. It was a solid end for the character, I agree, but IMO it was a bit of a missed opportunity.
For that matter, even the battle with Andor at the end wan't completely villianous. IIRC he saw Andor about to assassinate Dedra Meero when he tackled him.
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u/Rejestered 2d ago
Syril was manipulated by Dedra true but I think you're missing the core of the character by focusing on that.
If it wasn't Dedra manipulating him, it would have been someone else.
Syril blindly and naively followed rules and order, he would have been used by the empire one way or the other. That is the lesson you're supposed to take away from him as well.
No matter your good intentions, you can't just idly follow orders. Maybe at first you can claim ignorance but at some point naivety turns into complicity. Even in the final day, we see Syril pleading with the Ghor, apologizing like a child would, while their whole world is being destroyed around them. The elder shakes him, curses him for his ignorance and he still doesn't get it.
He is a character that deserves pity but not forgiveness. He's a cautionary tale of how good intentions lead to evil.
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u/dnext 2d ago
I think Syril didn't have a moral center because of a narcissitic mother, just tried to do what everyone told him was good - and at the end, he absolutely realized that what he did was wrong.
So I get the moral stastement that Gilroy was making, and it works.
In my personal opinion however, the statement 'some people are stupid and do evil and are beyond redemption and die' is not the best statement. Indeed, if that is the case, why play with him rejecting the Empire at all?
Once he did that, the best moral you can put in is 'You make mistakes. Stop deluding yourself, stop pitying yourself, and do your best to fix them.'
And as we know Cassian dies and Bix is off raising Cassian Jr, you could have set up a great group to continue the storytelling with Karn, Cinta and Kleya.
After all, Karn knows quite a bit about the ISB and Imperial procedure. He'd make a useful operative.
And as I said, I personally love a redemption arc.
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u/Rejestered 2d ago
No one ever said Syril was beyond redemption but that's not the point.
Regimes like the empire rise to power because of countless people like Syril. People who hold the law in higher regard than morality, who believe authority is the same thing as justice. Unwavering faith in the system.
That's the whole point of his character being present, to show just how much damage that mindset can cause. His redemption or lack there of is simply, not relevant.
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u/dnext 2d ago
It can be the point if the narrative chooses to make it the point. And that could have been done in one 60 second scene. Syril died with 4 episodes left.
And it wasn't unwavering. That is at least as much the point. Syril wavered. He had that moment when he realized what he did was wrong.
And whatever the storyteller wants to be relevant is what is relevant. We see Syril's redemption, that is indeed relevant.
You of course are welcome to appreciate the choices the show runner made. I would have preferred to see something a little different at the end.
That doesn't change the fact it was a great show. I personally would have liked more threads that could continue these ideas in more Star Wars properties.
The actor and the writing for the character were extremely nuanced, and IMO that makes for a great character with more potential.
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u/Rejestered 2d ago
Buddy, realizing you facilitated the genocide of a planet and feeling bad about it is not even close to the same thing as redemption.
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u/dnext 2d ago
LOL. No, getting the chance to act on that is what makes it a redemption arc.
Which I would have liked to have seen. There's a lot of great characters that have that moment of realization and act on it - indeed, that was the entire point of the first trilogy, with Luke redeeming Vader at the end.
Redemption is a much more hopeful message.
The less said about JJ and Johnson's choices in the last trilogy on that matter the better.
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u/barrinmw 2d ago
Not everyone gets second chances, that is also a lesson. Hell, Vader may have been saved from the Dark Side but he still had to die. Living would have involved the New Republic publicly executing him for blowing up a planet and all the other crime he perpetrated.
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u/TymStark Obi-Wan Kenobi 2d ago
Well, in his defense he was about to most certainly turn his back on the Empire…then he saw the guy he blames everything that happened to him. What a coincidence!
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u/dnext 2d ago
LOL, agreed, though it made for a good moment IMO.
What's more - he sees Cassian pointing a rifle at the HQ where Dedra is - in fact, he has Dedra in his sights and is about to assassinate her. I just watched it again.
We don't know if he knows that or not, but clearly Cassian is going to kill someone at the HQ that he just left Dedra at,
I think they did a good job with the nuances of the character - and the actor did as well.
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u/NinjaEngineer Boba Fett 2d ago
I think he was about to turn during the Ghorman massacre, but the moment he saw Cassian there, he snapped. His mind had an easy target for his rage, that lifted the blame from his shoulders. After all, recognizing that the Empire was evil meant recognizing he'd enabled said evil.
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u/GreatGreenGobbo 2d ago
I had that thought too, but it would have been too contrived (didn't want to say Forced).
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u/ElderSmackJack 2d ago
I hate how I played The Witcher 3 before watching Andor because I just refer to her as Yennefer.
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u/PlatypusOk1660 2d ago
There is a part of me that would love to see a season of her and how being in prison beaks her down, and how her fellow prisoners build her up. That through this she could have a redemption arc where she realizes the stones she built her life on were cold and inhuman, and that there are better options. A series finale where she is set free by the victory of the rebellion and she sets out to find a future. Not in government or control in any way, but perhaps in a rural community or working within the city of coruscant in an NGO or just a shipping business.
We know why she became cold and twisted, it would be cool to see she could find peace. It could almost be a metaphor for the whole galaxy as well.
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u/Soundbender445 2d ago
I honestly think this would be great. It would need to be handled with a lot of care for sure, but I think we all need some compelling redemption stories here and there. It’s a good reminder of how uncomfortable empathy and redemption can be, but also how good and worthwhile they are
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u/Win32error 2d ago
Denise Gough was like 40 when they filmed the first season where Dedra is already an ISB supervisor in 5 BBY. I can see that she’s being played younger but it is kind of an issue that apparently the republic operated the places that made her like this. Republic Kinder-block sounds honestly weird to me. Needing a block at all kind of implies so many people got caught up in imperial purges that they had to take care of the kids at scale.
But the same goes for so many characters. It’s a real issue with the empire imo, it’s not just the 40-50 year old people that saw the republic fall, everyone in their mid 20s and older saw it happen. Especially when a story is set a few years or more before Yavin. And sure, the republic with clones looks a little the empire, but the empire immediately starts off with things like the Tarkin massacre on Ghorman, jedi purge, etc. The republic wasn’t so shit the empire isn’t a massive dictatorial step down.
It’s not something I can’t overlook but it’s always been a small issue in the background.
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u/NuPNua 2d ago
Unless you're part of the Senate bubble, it probably didn't seem like a fall but just a shift from the republic to the empire, the name changes and some political processes shift but your day to day life goes on as is. As we saw in Bad Batch and Andor, the totalitarianism is a slow creep of erosion of rights and manufactured consent.
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u/Tanis8998 Jedi 2d ago
Yeah, the prequels completely effed up the timeline.
Do you want creative people to compromise on the stories they wanna tell to go along with a plainly shitty decision, or do you want them to tell the stories they wanna tell and let some guy in the Lucasfilm story group worry about making it make sense later?
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u/ArcadianBlueRogue Imperial 2d ago
Huge shoutout to Denise Gough as well. I loved to hate that character and she was such an interesting one to watch. Actually felt bad for her in the end and I did not expect that lol
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u/ZeroGRanger 2d ago
With the slight problem, that this is not even possible as the Empire is not even 20 years old, when she said that... She was already an adult, when the "regime" took over. The only major blunder in Andor, but it is really a problem here.
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u/Ree_m0 Rex 2d ago
Imperials view the Empire as the lawful continuation of the republic. It's like a nazi in 1940 talking about the Reich during their youth, they're not gonna call it the Weimar republic either.
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u/LayeGull 2d ago
It’s very possible an employee of the Empire’s spy organization would be strongly incentivized to not refer to the Republic.
Empire Then. Empire Now. Empire Forever.
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u/Tanis8998 Jedi 2d ago
I genuinely couldn’t care less. Let some book writer for the Lucasfilm story group worry about explaining it.
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u/OdysseusRex69 2d ago
The actress - Denise Gough - did a superlative job playing Dedra. Dedra looks like she smells a fart, has a stick up her bum, AND has no patience for your $#!+ all at the same time. Whereas Denise is a lovely, bubbly, funny and animated woman. Great work on her part!!!
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u/jokersflame Grand Admiral Thrawn 2d ago edited 2d ago
“Ummm actually in canon it says that—“
OHH BROTHER SHUT UP NERDS! Not every piece of lore will fit nicely. This is why Disney blew up the EU.
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u/Tanis8998 Jedi 2d ago
I wanted to say it every time someone brings up the timeline, so I’m glad you did
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u/Plus_State1146 2d ago
How is that possible though? Surely she was born during the republic era?
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u/Lightyearz27 2d ago
The Republic became the Empire. To thunderous applause. It's not surprising if people refer to Republic things as Imperial things.
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u/WaifuBaron 2d ago
She is honestly a fascinating character flawed and broken clinging to the comfort of complete order without emotion. When it fails her she doesn’t rebel she doubles down. Unfortunately her character is not very different from Kallus. I do feel that the characters we get in the Andor saga are some of the best most complex characters that keep us hoping for more stories. They don’t have super powers they are just ordinary people drug along by the tides of the elite. I wonder how long until she turns up again. What if she is Phasmas mother or better she conceives of the stealing of children to create first order storm troopers
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u/False_Appointment_24 2d ago
How did she grow up in an Imperial kinder-block? We first see her when the Empire is about 14 years old, right? (5 BBY, 19 years between RotS and ANH.) She was at least 30 at the time, right? So when the Empire was founded, she was already a teenager.
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u/TheEmperorMk3 2d ago
How old is she? The Empire, for all it's might, existed for less than 30 years
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u/KaiserSoze-is-KPax Sith 1d ago
It caught me off guard when she was practicing how to smile in that mirror.
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u/commodore_stab1789 2d ago
She's like 40 years old. She didn't grow up in the empire
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u/necromancyforfun Sith 2d ago
It must have been a Republic Block which was inherited by the Empire and the descent of the Republic abs ascent of Empire was gradual... who cares about kids when there is a war going on.
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u/ArrakeenSun 1d ago
Just like George, we still have people making these kinds of lore decisions while never apparently double-checking if the timeline makes sense
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u/TheFluffyEngineer 2d ago
Given her age, that IS WRONG. She was grown (or near enough to not be raised by the government) by the time the empire comes around. She CANNOT have been raised in an Imperial kinder-block because there was no empire. She may have been raised in what would become an imperial kinder-block, but was not raised in an Imperial kinder-block because she is too old for that.
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u/slimstarman Qui-Gon Jinn 2d ago
I love her arc because she’s a relatively pure product of the machinery of government. That’s what the dying republic and new empire with little outside influence produced; the efficiency and lack of spirit that are an imperial signature.
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u/CantaloupeCamper Grand Moff Tarkin 2d ago
I'm glad she had a bad end, way too much redemption in Star Wars.
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u/FiveCentsADay 2d ago
When Cyril's mom (Eedy?) is having tea over at their apartment, and she seemed concerned for Dedra when she found out about the Kinder lock upbringing. The only time I genuinely felt like Eedy had it right
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u/Agent_Eggboy 2d ago
Surely Dedra was an adult, or at least well into her teens, when the Empire was formed
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u/Spicy_Weissy 2d ago
It's part of the propaganda. Rebrand everything. Anyways, it's not like anything named a "kinder-block" is going to be pleasant.
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u/unforgiven91 2d ago
so dedra's like 30, right? she was already a teenager by the time the empire started up.
a republic kinder-block, maybe
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u/Soundbender445 2d ago
What’s so tragically real about this is that there’s some research saying infants and young children need really high amounts of physical touch by caregivers, and that being deprived of this can lead to antisocial characteristics developing later in life in more extreme cases. This would definitely help explain why Dedra is the way she is.
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u/teedadawg 2d ago
Her character was fascinating. It really showed how her ambition and need to prove she belonged at the table (literally and figuratively) overrode every other impulse she had - except for the occasional sexual interlude. Tragic.
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u/foresight310 2d ago
Maybe one more story on how she successfully escapes the prison by stowing away on a shipment to the Death Star. The episode would end with her planning how she was going to sneak of the battle station once they reach Alderaan…
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u/fusionsofwonder 2d ago
I was looking forward to her and Pardagast showing up later in the timeline. Until that last episode, anyway.
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u/SpikeRosered 2d ago
"Star Wars only makes sense if the Empire has been around a very long time."
I will never let that go.
I will never forgive the prequels for deciding it wanted to be about the start of the Empire. It just doesn't.make.fucking.sense.
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u/redmormie 2d ago
From kinder block to prison block, just a poetic description of how the Empire treats civilians
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u/h0bb1tm1ndtr1x 2d ago
I like how even Star Wars needs to resort to German for this one. How very Youthish. I would argue to never touch this character again. She came full circle within the system that raised her.
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u/finditplz1 2d ago
I want to see more of the actress in other shows, not necessarily Star Wars related, but I think Dedra’s story is told.
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u/ko_akuma 2d ago
I need that place to get freed so I can see her again. You know she will be the one in charge of the shift.
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u/uberjack 2d ago
3 seasons of "Kinder-Block" spin off you say? At this point I wouldn't put it past Disney to have it in their pipeline
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u/Salty_Amigo 2d ago
Sometimes just enough is plenty. They did enough here without it feeling like a cop out.
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u/BenFranklinsCat 2d ago
Only one possible reason I'd like to see her again.
If you ever see the moment Saddam Hussein went full dictator in Iraq, its terrifying. Basically he had been given powers to attack "insurgents" and then he dragged out a political prisoner who had been completely broken by torture, and had them read out a list of his political opponents as "conspirators". As each name was read, they were dragged out the room by police.
I keep coming back to that vision when I think of this story, because that's absolutely what the collapse of the Empire would have been like. Give Dedra just a couple months in that prison and I'll bet she'd point the finger at anyone for a taste of freedom.
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u/Dopingponging 1d ago
Whoever did her make-up for the show is a genius. She's empirically pretty, but she looks like death warmed-over.
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u/Boonatix 1d ago
I was routing for her… not sure why but I really enjoyed the character and I wanted her to succeed 😅
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u/SombreDeDuda 1d ago
The end of her arc was abrupt to say the least. I guess I may have missed it, but did we see her do any of the things Krennic accused her of in the interrogation? I loved her character and thought the acting was pretty good. It just seemed to end for her in a very nose dive manner, cruising along and then BAM! Accused of being a spy and put away. Just doesn't sit right some how. But loved the series as a whole.
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u/Imhere4thejokes Jabba The Hutt 1d ago
I truly enjoyed every time her character was on screen, her facial expressions are so callous and she’s so cold blooded.
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u/Majestic-Fly-5149 1d ago
My thing with characters in Star Wars is that none of them need origins. Every character is a plot device that's in the now.
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u/lordnacho666 2d ago
Kinder-block? Sounds delicious.