Cassian Andor is one of Andor, and turned out to be much more complex than that. Before he ed the Rebellion, Cassian was an underground thief who was much more interested in serving himself than any political cause that would benefit the whole galaxy. But after being personally harassed, persecuted, and bereaved by the Empire, Cassian came around to seeing the noble merits of the Rebels’ mission.
Like many Star Wars characters, Cassian’s story has been told nonlinearly. Similar to Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi, Cassian made his debut in the midst of his narrative journey before prequels expanded his backstory. But the chronology of Cassian’s arc has been much more unconventional than his fellow Star Wars icons. With his untimely death at the hands of Imperial forces in Rogue One, Cassian’s story started at the end. Then, Andor went back to fill in his Rebel origin story with a handful of childhood flashbacks to boot. Despite his low-level position in the organization, Cassian is a crucial figure in the Rebellion.
Cassian Was Adopted By Clem And Maarva Andor
According to the novelization of Rogue One, Cassian Andor was born into a Separatist family who resisted the Republic during the Clone Wars. The flashback sequences in Andor season 1 revealed that he was an orphan, originally named “Kassa,” and he was born on Kenari, a former mining planet that was abandoned by the Empire. Scavengers Clem and Maarva Andor found him stowed away aboard a crashed ship they were searching on Kenari. Worried what the Empire would do to him if they found him, the Andors took Kassa with them, renamed him Cassian, and raised him as their own.
Clem and Maarva raised Cassian on the industrial planet of Ferrix, where they lived with their trusty droid B2EMO. At the age of 13, Cassian witnessed Clem’s execution by the Empire, attempted to exact revenge, and spent three years at an Imperial youth detention center. This heartbreaking backstory planted the seeds of Cassian’s hatred of the Empire and its oppressive methods, although it would take a few years for him to fully commit to the Rebels’ cause. Cassian’s adoptive father clearly meant a lot to him: he completed his first Rebel mission under the alias “Clem.”
Luthen Rael Recruited Cassian For An Early Rebel Mission
At the beginning of Andor’s first season, Cassian became a high-profile Imperial target after killing a pair of Pre-Mor security guards in self-defense. Stealing Imperial technology brought him to the attention of Rebel forerunner Luthen Rael, who saved him from the Empire and recruited him for a daring heist. On Aldhani, Cassian ed a fledgling band of Rebels for their first big score against the Empire: plundering the planet’s Imperial payroll. Although they lost their most dedicated ally, Nemik, along the way and one of the Rebels tried to betray the others for the loot, à la The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, they managed to pull it off.
After the heist was a success, Cassian returned to Ferrix to collect Maarva and take her somewhere safer. However, she refused to leave her home in spite of the increasing Imperial presence, so he reluctantly left her behind. Despite ing the Rebellion for the heist, Cassian was still a long way from becoming the diehard resistance fighter seen in Rogue One. He was still much more interested in conserving his ill-gotten gains and living the carefree life of a retired career criminal on the tropical planet of Niamos than fighting for a cause bigger than himself.
Cassian Was Wrongfully Imprisoned By The Empire
Cassian went into hiding on Niamos with his share of the Aldhani loot. His lavish fugitive lifestyle was short-lived under the watchful eye of the Empire as he was promptly accosted by Imperial officers over a suspicious look and sentenced to six years behind bars. Cassian was shipped off to a prison in the middle of an ocean on the water moon of Narkina 5, where he was put on a factory line under the command of jailhouse ringleader Kino Loy. The season’s mid-credits scene revealed that Cassian and his fellow inmates were building parts of the Death Star, the superweapon that would eventually kill him.
Upon arrival at the prison, Cassian immediately began plotting his escape. He managed to get Kino onboard with the escape plan when it became clear that none of them would ever be released from the Empire’s custody. Andor’s prison arc highlighted how the Empire created its own Rebels. The Imperial rulers kept oppressing the galaxy more and more until the people wouldn’t take it anymore. Eventually, the Empire pushed enough citizens to the breaking point to stage a revolution. The mass jailbreak on Narkina 5, led by Cassian and Kino, is a microcosm of how the Rebellion managed to triumph over the Empire.
Cassian ed The Rebellion After Losing Everything
After escaping from Narkina 5, Cassian was devastated to learn that Maarva had died back on Ferrix. To pay his respects, Cassian cautiously returned to Ferrix for the funeral, where ISB officers were on the lookout for him and he narrowly avoided an assassination attempt by Rael. After figuring out his intentions, Cassian infiltrated Rael’s ship, confronted him about his plan to kill him, and, having lost everything, gave him an opportunity to go through with the killing. This is when Rael saw the spark of resistance in Cassian, so instead of killing him, he offered to recruit Cassian into the Rebellion.
The years between Andor’s first season and Rogue One will be filled in by the season 2. This season promises to connect the events of Andor to the beginning of Rogue One, so it will chart Cassian’s rise through the ranks of the Rebellion’s espionage division. By the end of season 2, he will have attained the rank of captain. In Rogue One, Cassian is integral enough to the Rebellion and its operations that they trust him with their most important anti-Imperial mission to date: stealing the Death Star plans. In season 2, Rael could introduce Cassian to fellow Rebel leaders like Saw Gerrera and Mon Mothma.
Cassian And The “Rogue One” Team Stole The Death Star Plans
At the beginning of Rogue One, Cassian was introduced as a captain and intelligence officer in the Rebellion. He sprung Jyn Erso from Imperial custody to help him and the rest of the “Rogue One” squadron find the Death Star designs begrudgingly created by her father. In this movie, Cassian was introduced as part of a larger ensemble that included ex-Imperial cargo pilot Bodhi Rook, Guardian of the Whills Chirrut Îmwe, and his loyal sidekick, reprogrammed Imperial droid K-2SO. How Cassian met K-2SO and the friendship they built is another plot point that can be explored in Andor’s second season.
The theft of the Death Star plans in Rogue One fixed a Star Wars plot hole. It always seemed a little too convenient that the Empire’s ultimate weapon was built with such a glaring weakness. But Rogue One explained that the station’s reluctant architect – Jyn’s father, Galen Erso – included that weakness as an intentional act of sabotage. By the time of Rogue One, just prior to the Battle of Yavin, Cassian had become more committed to the Rebel Alliance than his own interests. Unlike the Cassian seen in season 1 of Andor, this more mature, more developed Cassian was willing to sacrifice his life for the Rebellion.
Cassian And His Rogue One Cohorts Were Killed By The Death Star On Scarif
Cassian and the “Rogue One” team succeeded in getting the Death Star plans off of Scarif and up to the Rebels on Tantive IV (despite the best efforts of Director Krennic, Grand Moff Tarkin, and Darth Vader himself trying to stop them), but the team themselves didn’t make it off the planet in time. The Empire gave their superweapon a soft launch and destroyed the section of Scarif where the “Rogue One” team was fighting for their lives. Cassian and Jyn sat down together on the shores of Scarif and awaited their grim fate before the Death Star’s destructive rays wiped them out.
When a Cassian Andor solo series was first announced, the project seemed like it might be a pointless addition to the ever-expanding Star Wars canon because the character’s fate has already been sealed. But Andor’s origin story transformed his Rogue One fate. The inevitable tragedy has cast a captivating dramatic shadow over the show’s storytelling. From being given a prison sentence that will outlive him to inadvertently helping to construct the space station that will kill him, Andor has used the dark foreshadowing of Cassian’s death as a powerful narrative device.
