Ever since itwas first teasedthatAndor‘s second season was preparing to show the tragedy that coiffure the stage for theformal establishment of the Rebel Alliance , there ’s similarly been discussion of the fact that there aretwoGhorman Massacres . The one we are about to learnmuchmore about in this calendar week ’s batch of episodes , and the very different variant of events that take place inStar Wars ‘ old Expanded Universe . Would we be get something new , or something revolutionize by the story that had come before?Andorsimply respond : why not both ?
Although this calendar week ’s episode are primed to ignite the simmer tensity for what will becometheGhorman Massacre — the one that sparks Mon Mothma to publicly runway against Palpatine ’s one-man rule , flee the Senate , and call for the Alliance to furbish up the Republic — last week ’s actofAndorseason two charter us to Ghorman betimes to explore the major planet ’s resistor to the Empire . We learn pretty quickly during that exploration that while tensions between the Ghor and the Empire are at an all fourth dimension high at the moment ( thanks to a campaign the Empire ’s enact to carry out its private desire to mine the earthly concern for resources it needs to work up the Death Star ) , patronage for the regime is not just contemporary feeling on the world .
There has already been a massacre on Ghorman once . TheTarkinone .
© Lucasfilm
This Tarkin massacre matches many of the item of what was the basal Ghorman Massacre inStar Wars ‘ former EU : it took place comparatively early on in reign of the Empire , it involved a immature Tarkin slaughter hundreds of unarmed Ghorman protestors by landing a cruiser on them , it spark wide public blowback to the royal regime . It is , for all intents and purpose , the EU ’s Ghorman Massacre reconstituted into currentStar Warscontinuity . But crucially , it is no longertheincident that remove that name . The fresh story does n’t erase the EU one , it weave it into story , and create thematic and narrative depth by choosing to say that it was not one or the other , but both .
Now , Ghorman ’s history of impedance declare up a mirror to the cyclic battle echoed throughout the widerStar Warssaga — and crucially , the Empire ’s cruelty , the Tarkin Doctrine of veneration crushing protest , is given a fateful flaw . Ghorman did n’t break in the wake of this first Imperial atrocity , it remembered its pastand fought regardless , and although we ’re only on the cusp of learning the full detail of this late one , we know the planet ’s resistance will inspire greater pushback against the Empire in the aftermath of it , laying the fundament for open astronomical civil war and the Empire ’s fall in its wake . It ’s a brilliant latitude to the first time of year ’s lesson with Nemik , the idea that fascist control through superpower can be broken if only hoi polloi try , and keep trying , to not bend in the human face of it .
And most significantly , it ’s texture that weigh more than just jibe off a get it on name or consequence . Andordoesn’t nudge and point when it make note of the Tarkin massacre ; if you were n’t already conversant that this was a known thing from the EU it might as well just have been an constitutive piece of background entropy . It ’s woven into the story in the moment , not to interrupt the current story , but further enrich it . It ’s something the series has done a surprising amount of , from offhand mentionsof the Rakatansto the oodles of Easter egg in Luthen ’s old geezer collecting : it treatsStar Wars ‘ “ legends ” as history , something to provide colour and circumstance but not to needfully dictate the chronicle it ’s recite in the here and now .
The gunpoint of extract the Tarkin mass murder is not simply to say “ here is that matter from that other clock time ” and call it a day , but to recognize the storytelling potential of recognizing these twin versions of this same event , and realize it ’s more interesting to have both co - subsist rather than set off out one or the other . After all , there should always be a little truth in fable .
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