#Cassian is a problem child and he either desperately tries to tread out of the current of centralized ideology to be acted upon

[raceispunk]

I ran out of tags check the next reblog >

another detail I need to sit with for a bit, because I think it’s another piece in my Cassian-Andor-Has-Been-A-Rebel-Fighter-Before-Now conspiracy theory:

Karis is trying to accept and rationalize “not playing by the rules” and accepting a mercenary’s help in the beginning of the episode from an ideological standpoint. He’s trying to work backwards from a new conclusion: that allowing mercenaries to fight the Imperials is based actually. Cassian tells him he’s “half right” and Karis, perhaps not used to being challenged by his peers on theory, asks “and how am I wrong?” and is actually genuinely listening even though at this point he isn’t sure how to feel about Cassian being there at all.

And Cassian says: “They don’t care enough to learn. They don’t have to. You mean nothing to them.”

And you see Karis sitting there, really absorbing it for a second like real people do in real political/ideological/philosophical conversations, before he responds: “Perhaps I’ll think differently tomorrow,” to which Cassian warns him to be “careful what you wish for.”

And then when Karis talks down to him, assumes Cassian is saying that everyone should just “submit” to the Empire and “be thankful” about it, Cassian has this serious, disgusted look on his face and says, “Do I look thankful to you?”

Karis corrects himself and tells him he’s glad Cassian is here. He looks chastised before Cassian tells him he’ll be fine and that he’ll sleep when it’s done (which is RUDE and TRUE).

Guys. It’s right there. Cassian has been in Karis’s shoes before, except the difference is that Cassian has seen his homeworld colonized and exploited. He has escaped Kenari and Mimban, and who knows where else. Clearly this is Karis’s first (and last RIP </3) bit of praxis, at least on this scale (I’d be shocked if he wasn’t doing little things here and there before joining up - activist circles are often sort of hard to break into unless you know someone - someone gives a name to someone who knows someone else, like with Cassian > Bix > Luthen). The other difference is this: privilege and background. I will bet a lot that Karis is from a relatively privileged (maybe Core World, not likely from the Mid or Outer Rim - a metaphor for the Global North/South) position, not because he’s intellectual and articulate or whatever lol but because he feels like the sort of leftist who spent a lot of time reading and writing theory but not necessarily seeing and experiencing the type of colonialist Imperial oppression he’s fighting firsthand.

Karl Marx (who was upper middle class and who I think Karis Nemik is supposed to be referencing lmfao he was working on a damn manifesto after all) is considered hard to read today but back when the Communist Manifesto was first published, it was extremely accessible to everyone of all education levels, which makes sense given what it was suggestion: a working class-led revolution to overthrow all social classes. It was commissioned by the Communist League to spread the word - accessibility to all was the point.

If I’m correct, Karis could have gone about his life as normal without getting involved in the way he did. Cassian had no choice - he was someone who Republic colonizers and later Imperials didn’t even think to learn about. Just in the way, like the Dhani people. Cassian has always known what he’s against because he’s had no choice. He was radicalized by his own experiences, Karis might have been radicalized by the experiences of others.

So that gives Cassian a different perspective - not necessarily that revolution is worthless I don’t believe he thinks that lol, but that the way it’s being done is kind of… not clicking. But it’s a perspective that a ground-up revolution needs front and center, and at the core of it.

I think Cassian believes Nemik will learn more about Imperials from seeing them up close and come to a different conclusion (perhaps one that Cassian has come to before). The correct one obviously. They’re too small to even care about. But that can work to their advantage, as seen in the ISB headquarters.

The irony is that the mission doesn’t make Nemik think differently in the sense that Cassian believed it would. It gives Nemik more insight into Cassian, into a rebel-turned-merc. Because Karis Nemik is the first of the group to believe that Cassian is a true believer. I don’t know that he actually stops believing this, but he definitely dies thinking Cassian is going to continue his manifesto (our manifesto), give it more context from lived experience and eventually pass it on.

In a way he’s like Bix - he believes Cassian is meant for greater things than mercenary work. But also Cassian has to eat. And that’s how he behaves at the end: he doesn’t do the truly mercenary move (like Skeen would have done). In fact he protects the rebellion and kills a threat to the cause without hesitation. And then he asks for his payment and walks away.

I still hold out hope that Cassian was a soldier. Anyway let me know what you think and if you have anything to add.