Can Star Wars pull off this bold twist in the story of Bix Caleen & Cassian Andor's child?

One of my biggest gripes with Andor season 2 is the show's cliché ending, where Tony Gilroy reveals that Bix gave birth to a baby after leaving Cassian on Yavin 4 a year earlier. Gilroy just left the baby for the final scene as a shock effect and to lessen the blow of the show's hopeless ending and Cassian's hopeless future.

Via The Direct, in a recent interview with Gold Derby, Gilroy revealed that he's at peace with whatever Disney chooses to do with the baby in the future. He says, "Let’s be really honest, it doesn’t hurt me when I can tell Bob Iger there’s a baby. And he can name it, and he can sex it, and they can do whatever they want with it."

Gilroy reiterated that including the baby was meant to lessen "the bummer of Andor dying" in Rogue One, which is another issue I have with the idea. I don't think the baby makes Cassian's death any less tragic, and I don't believe the baby makes Cassian's death any more hopeful. Cassian was the hope, and his death was already tragic to me, as a viewer, when I watched Rogue One for the first time. The existence of a baby who is supposedly Cassian's, and whom Cassian was unaware of, and was never shown ever discussing with Bix, doesn't make what happened to him in Rogue One any better.

Cassian's sacrifice brought hope to billions around the galaxy, ensuring that the Death Star would eventually be destroyed before the Empire could blow up multiple planets and systems. This makes his life worth more than any baby or any relationship he had before or after joining the Rebellion. Bix left him because she wanted to, and I think it's a bummer that Bix's entire life, including her offspring, has to be connected to Cassian to give it meaning. I think she deserved to have a life outside of Cassian, as the two were childhood lovers, and despite Cassian's womanizing ways, somehow, trauma-bonded again by the time of Andor season 2.

Bix deserved to do more things with her life, and sadly, Gilroy could only imagine her as a single mother to Cassian's child. If Bob Iger decides to bring Bix's child into the picture in the future, I hope Lucasfilm is brave enough to pull off a twist that makes the baby someone else's and not Cassian's. Bix should be shown having a healthy relationship outside of one man. If she wants, she can tell the baby about Cassian's sacrifice, and this can serve as the child's inspiration. However, making him Cassian's biological child is forced.

Cassian's legacy is the Rebellion's success and the destruction of the Death Star. He doesn't need to father a child to be more important to Star Wars canon, and Bix certainly deserves to live on as a woman who found life beyond her Ferrix and Yavin 4 memories, and her child deserves a father who is alive and present in life.

I hope Lucasfilm is brave enough to leave the legacy baby storyline behind, but I doubt it, and I'm not looking forward to them rehashing the Rebels Season 4. Star Wars Rebels did it better, as Hera and Kanan were already parental figures to Sabine Wren and Ezra Bridger. The couple were together till Kanan's final moments, and he died protecting her. On the other hand, Andor season 2 took the problematic direction of forcing a decision on Cassian, thereby lessening his loyalty to the Rebellion. It felt like he only stayed because Bix left him, which made him a weaker character in my eyes.

I hope Lucasfilm does a favor to Bix and gives her a future beyond raising a child Cassian didn't know anything about because Bix deserves to be more than a vessel for a dead man's legacy, and Cassian's legacy is bigger than his lineage; his legacy is being the galaxy's savior, and ensuring Luke Skywalker would be able to destroy the Death Star when his time came.

Andor and Rogue One: A Star Wars story are streaming on Disney+.