Andor actress Denise Gough attended this year’s 56th Lucca Comics & Games in Italy. After walking the red carpet, she spoke on a panel discussing her character of Imperial lieutenant Dedra Meero.
She told the crowd one particular quote while discussing how showrunner Tony Gilroy wrote Dedra saying:
"“Tony wrote the first scenes for us to cheer for Dedra, but in the end you don’t do it anymore. She is not just a woman in a man’s world, but a fascist in a world of fascists. It was important to see that power corrodes women as much as men”"
This quote really captures what I love about Andor. The grey nature of the narrative is there to repeatedly challenge the viewer. Dedra is no exception.
In her early episodes, we’re made to want to root for her. A few times, it absolutely crossed my mind that maybe she would be redeemed. There have been plenty of characters like Agent Kallus in Star Wars Rebels who left the Empire to join the good guys. Seeing her as a woman fighting in a man’s world, the audience wants to root for her as an underdog. It’s the same feeling I get when I read any of the Thrawn books. I’m cheering him on only to stop and go, “Wait, he’s the villain.”
This is where Dedra’s writing is so very clever. Her true story isn’t actually about being an underdog. It’s more complex than that. While I have no idea how the season and the show will play out, I personally take Dedra’s story as the very important and horrific role some women have played in holding up fascism and white supremacy. Just to give one of many examples from our real world, it was the women of the United Daughters of the Confederacy that pushed to erect Civil War Confederate Monuments across the United States to help strengthen the hold of the Ku Klux Klan. Stuff like this has happened all over our history from World War II Nazis to Fascist Italy and everything in between.
Andor is telling so many important and timely stories, especially against the backdrop of our struggles over the last few years as fascism continues to rear its ugly head. It might be one of the most important shows running right now, and it’s set in a fake and in space galaxy. It’s brilliant.
Follow all of our Andor coverage here at Dork Side of the Force.