October 16, 2025 • 35 mins
This is the first 30 minutes of a longer conversation. The full conversation is available on the Human Nature Odyssey Patreon.
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A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, there was an old Republic that, out of fear of a phantom menace, voted to consolidate authoritarian power—unknowingly sealing its own demise. It transformed into an Empire, bent on wielding its weapons of mass destruction to conquer all who dared resist.
But don’t worry—this is just a story. It has nothing to do with us. After all, it all happened a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Right?
Jake Marquez and Maren Morgan are fellow podcasters, filmmakers, and friends. We continue our mid-month bonus series where we take something from the zeitgeist and view it through a broader civilizational lens.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
A long time ago in a
galaxy far, far away,
there was an old republic
that, out of fear of a phantom menace,
voted for a consolidationof authoritarian power
that led to its own demise,
transforming itself into an empirebent on wielding its weapons
(00:26):
of mass destructionto conquer all who would resist them.
But don't worry, this is just a story.
It totally has nothing to do with us.
This all took placea long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.
After all,
for the last half century.
(00:46):
Star Wars has been one of our culture's
most popular and widespread myths.
It's the latest spin off series.
Andor, which recently completed its secondand final season,
continues the Star Wars tradition
of blurring the line between mainstreamHollywood blockbuster
(01:08):
and cultural mythologythat helps us understand, reflect,
and engagewith our own reality in real time.
Today, Jake
Marquez and Marin Morgan of the deathin the garden podcast
join me for another bonusepisode of Human Nature Odyssey.
(01:28):
It's part of a monthly series.
The three of us have started togetherwhere we take something from the Zeit
ghost and view it through a broadercivilizational lens.
Here you can listen to the first30 minutes of our two hour conversation.
The rest is availablenow on the Human Nature
Odyssey Patreon,or the death in the Garden Substack,
(01:49):
where you can actually see us talkingas a video episode,
complete with clips from Andorand the original Star Wars series.
The goal of these bonus episodes
is to create special editions to the workwe're already doing,
and by supporting the Human Nature OdysseyPatreon, you're helping
keep the flagship showcontinue for years to come.
(02:12):
On the Human Nature Odyssey Patreon,you'll find all sorts of bonus episodes,
writings,and a growing community of thoughtful
and friendly fellow travelerson the journey.
We'll return to our flagship showin a couple of weeks on October 29th,
or release the next episode titled
How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse.
(02:34):
It's been a long time in the making,and it's going to be a fun one.
Stay tuned.
All right.
Without any further ado,here is the beginning of my conversation
with Jacob Maron about Andor,
Star Wars Rebellion,
and the reality of our global empire.
(03:03):
I found myself
before even getting into, like,the Andor specifics,
wanting to reflect onjust Star Wars as a cultural myth.
Because I know about you guys.
But for me, I mean, sincebefore I saw the movies, you know,
my older brother and my dad, my dad was,I guess like 20 when the movie came out.
(03:27):
And he talks about,you know, when I was like four telling me
about this movieI was going to see when I was older where,
you know, when he was at the movie theaterand the first image that came on the
screen was just this, like mind blowinglygiant spaceship like, slowly going over
your head that like, from his description,you know, like no one had seen before.
(03:48):
And like, my older brother was like,telling me all about
Darth Vader in the force,and then I to the movies.
And it felt like, like being handedlike a holy text that was just.
And then, you know, as we were growing up,like the prequels came out,
which screw the haters,I love the prequels.
Where I was,I was the perfect age for Jar Jar, Love
(04:10):
Jar, Jar Jar, and, really felt like,
you know, these,
myths and legendswhere so much to grapple with.
And I'm now living with my friendsand their two kids who were,
about to be ten and five, and I'mshowing them Star Wars for the first time.
(04:32):
And, you know, it's funny, like,I live with another friend.
It's not his kids.
He was, like, watching in the corner,me showing them Star Wars.
And I'm really trying to, like,talk to them about, like,
I want us to dig into the, like, mythologyof this and like the deeper questions.
And my friend Jean was like, oh man, the
the special effects look so stupidnow and then.
(04:54):
He felt bad about it after he was like,I'm sorry for say that around the kids
because it's like, yeah,there's something cheesy about Star Wars
and it is just a mainstreamHollywood blockbuster movie.
But there also is like an invitationto really like,
explore the mythology of itin a way that,
(05:16):
yeah, I just I feel like Andor
continuesto continue to ignite that for me.
Yeah, yeah, it's hard to cut you off,but on that thread, I think that's the
the biggest successthat George Lucas started this
all off with is besides the,you know, the fun action
and the adventure of all of it.
He really was trying to create,
(05:37):
in many ways, what I think token was doingwith Lord of the rings
a mythology for the ages,
a world in which you could play out
archetypal stories in philosophiesand themes.
I remember in my AP psychologyclass in high school,
our teacher showed us
this documentary that somebody had madethat was dissecting
(05:59):
all of the kind of coremyths and mythologies about Star Wars.
And you have the sun,
and you have the father, and the fatheris redeemed by the son's actions
later on in life and all these incrediblemythologies that are woven into it.
And I think that's what great filmsand storytelling can do, is it?
It's this playground of ideas outside of
(06:22):
just the Hollywoodaspects of all these things.
They are incredible playgrounds.
And I think that's what Tony Gilroy didso great with Andor is that he recognize
there's this there's this whole universeyou can play with and tell universal
themes that have nothing to dowith the nerdy nitty gritty
of all the stuff thatpeople get so focused on the Star Wars.
(06:43):
But it is an incredible placeto play with these ideas.
And so I think where Star Wars, shines
is when we get those bits and pieces of
humanity and those general themesthat we can all relate to.
And I think it's very, very importantfor us to focus on those things,
because they can be so,so nourishing and leaves me
(07:04):
thinking for days and days and daysabout what I just watched and, you know.
Yeah.
And I think, you know,what Andor points to for me is like, it's
even though it's so different,I think potentially thematically, but not
I wouldn't say it's even that differentthematically from the original trilogy
or even the prequels,
because I think actually the prequelsdo a better job of elucidating the theme
(07:25):
than the original trilogy does,which which in this instance.
Yeah.
Well, it's because I think that it showsin a little bit more details since it's
focused on the antagonist mostly,and we're watching his progression,
we're able to see the, the,the fear of death and how that is like
driving Anakin's decisionmaking and his decisions to join the Sith.
(07:46):
And so I think that we get to seethat theme really, really at center stage.
I think that obviously
the original, trilogy is a lotmore about this sort of scrappy heroism,
and it's a lot more of that sortof classic, like monomyth
sort of structure that he, you know,that George Lucas is he's,
you know, said many, many times that it'sderivative from Joseph Campbell's,
(08:07):
The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
And I think that that's very, very clear.
But I think the prequels showthat theme around death and mortality
and the fear of death really well.
And then I think that Andoris so different
than a lot of the sort of more contentthat I think we've gotten
since Disney took over, Lucasfilm,because it became
(08:28):
less a less mythological,it became less thematic as time went on.
And I think with the sequel trilogy,you can see that
that there was a real decline in quality.
But then with a lot of these other showsthat have come out,
and I haven't actuallywatched a lot of them, to be fair.
But as far as I'm aware, therethere are a lot more, just like for
entertainment, they're more popcorn,they're more just for fun.
And I think that Andorreally brought back to its roots,
(08:50):
rather than necessarilyfocusing on the theme of death.
That was in the original, series.
I think that it was what it doesshow is like sacrifice as a main theme.
And what does that look like?
And then what is justice like? These?
They're big, important topics.
They're not this sort of like it'sit's amazing to me how like through
(09:11):
deep character study,you can explore these huge topics
that really actuallydo have a lot of ramifications
and implicationsfor how we exist on the earth.
And so.
So, yeah.
So I don't know where I was going withthat, but I guess just to say that, like,
there's something within thismythos and George
Lucas's intention,like he created a universe that
(09:35):
without it,I don't know that this show could exist.
I don't know if Andor could existwithout Star Wars.
And all of the iterationsthat came before it.
And that's something that's really unique,like, I think Tony Gilroy.
I mean, the way that he talks about it,he's kind of like,
you know, I didn't expect this to happen.
Like, I never in my wildest dreams couldhave imagined making a show like this.
(09:56):
And I don't think that I can't imagineit outside of this context,
being as impactfulbecause the Empire as an emblem for this
sort of oppression and totalitarianism,
you can't really do a direct corollary.
Corollary in other media, and or like
in other stories, in the way that you canwith like a galactic empire.
(10:19):
And what does that doand how how does that, inspire rebellion
and the people who are being crushedunder the boot of it?
You know, it just I don't know, itjust this it feels like a unicorn,
like a miracle.Jake and I were saying that last night.
It's like a miracle. Like,how does this exist?
How did they pull this off?Who let them do this?
And thank God they did.
This is incrediblethat in this day and age,
(10:41):
somebody was allowed to writethis and it's very adult.
You know, I was so, so surprised.
I mean, it opens upthe first scenes in a brothel.
And the second scene, I mean, the secondseason, there's an attempted rape scene.
It's very adult in that way.
And it deals with some very, very heavythemes that I, I appreciate so much.
And it's adult in the sense two of that.
(11:02):
You really have to watch it.
It's very rare that the character, it'sactually will probably never happen
that the characters would be like,I'm thinking this.
So next I'm going to do this.
You know, you're constantly watchingand or being like,
really have to be like, oh, wait, shit,
are they thinking what I thinkthey're thinking?
Do they realize what I thinkthey're realizing?
(11:24):
Like, having like, rewatch some stuff,like it's, so it's adult in like it,
it's a sophisticated storytelling that,
for somethingas mainstream as Star Wars, it's very rare
that like a mainstream story is,so trusting of its audience.
To me, that's like, what part of, like,what the unicorn is like.
(11:46):
I remember I couldn't find this quote.
But I remember, you know,we had to read Black Elk Speaks the, like,
classic, Lakota Indian text,
from this shaman black owl could,
dictated to the sky and likeI think published in like the 1930s.
And it became,
(12:07):
this like, you know,Native American spirituality text.
And I remember in high schoolreading this, like, review,
then another Native
American scholar had written on theon the back of Black Elk Speaks,
saying like, this is so importantfor young people to get in
touch with, like meaningful spiritualityin an age of like,
Star Warsand like and I it's interesting.
(12:30):
I can totally
understand and resonate with likethere is something
so I can imagine comingfrom like a rich storytelling culture
and then watching like eventhe original Star Wars movies being like,
people love this shit, like,this is the corniest stuff ever.
Like this whiny little Luke guy,you know, like Chewbacca and
(12:51):
but I think, like,what's so cool about Star Wars is
that, like, George Lucas created it,but he like you're saying
he was drawing on so many mythsand now that it's opened up
to other creators having their say, it'sopen to more interpretations.
The fact that it's being filteredthrough this, like mega corporation
that doesn't care about anyone or anythingexcept for making money,
(13:15):
it's like,you know, Disney is like the concrete
that's like heaped on top of it,but like star Wars and even before Disney,
you know, when it was a blockbustersuccess in the 70s and 80s,
that was also like this, like concrete,but just like pure human storytelling
and myth was always like the cracksin what was growing in it.
(13:36):
And, during college, I studied abroad,
with the National LeadershipSchool Nobles in Tanzania.
It was this amazing three month programwhere we were backpacking
throughout the country and, going to different villages.
We summited Kilimanjaro are the guides of
the program were from, Kenya and Tanzania.
(13:58):
And, one of the other students in the group,
Hilda, grew up in Tanzania,and she became a good friend of mine.
And, you know, for three monthswe're backpacking.
There's no movies, there's no TV.
We all had like one copy of, like,Game of Thrones.
We were like, taking turns reading.
And throughout the daywe're just like, hiking
(14:19):
and had a lot of time to, like,just naturally tell each other stories
and most of us inthe group were like, American or Canadian.
Hilda was the only studentwho was from Tanzania.
She had never heard of Star Wars.
And I was like, that is the coolest.
It's like the coolest thing ever.
(14:39):
Like, because and she was like,you know, really excited to hear about it.
And we had a lot of time.
And she was also very generous.
And so me andlike a couple other people in the group
like, told Hildathe story of star Wars to pass the time.
And she, like, asked questions about it,you know, and it felt like for me
(15:00):
that really confirmed, like,oh, this is a very juicy and rich story.
Like, this is how Star Wars is meant to betalked about, like it should be reframed
and like, altered and like differentthemes can come up.
And, I love thinking about, yeah, Star Wars
as like a true cultural mythologyin that way.
(15:21):
And also like, I was raised
Jewish in this sect called reconstructionism, which is
the emphasis is like not takingany of the stories literally.
You're supposed to just like you'resupposed to wrestle with it.
Arthur Wasco was one of the main rabbis,and he's he's
still alive is very old guy.
Now he talks about the, the black and the white fire of the Torah
(15:46):
and the black fire is the texts itself.
It's like the letters on the page.
But then all the space aroundthose letters is the white fire,
and it's in those spaces that you have,like the Torah.
Historically,there's things called the midrash is where
the and that the Talmud, where rabbis are,it's essentially like fanfiction.
They're like riffing on these stories
(16:07):
from the Bible and like in reconstructionism, like that's the whole point of it.
And so I feel like,you know, Andor is like the white fire,
like filling in some of the cracksand then like our conversations about it
are able to, like,bring out so much meaning.
That was in the story originally.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think there's, I think toto make those cracks in the concrete
(16:28):
happen like you're describing,it's important
for people to talk about these thingsand dissect them and to not just isolated
watch something be entertained.
Maybe it stir some emotion in youand then you walk away.
I think the power of storytelling,special visual storytelling,
is to watch things together
and talk about them and dissect themand see if you can't pull out threads.
(16:48):
I mean, me and Marie, when we watch and orany show, we're always pausing like, oh,
I think they're doing this here.And I think this is what this is about.
I wonder, did you notice that? Oh,that's really clever.
And I think it's really important.
And I think that's why I want to have
these conversations with you,is because it helps.
These stories actually mean somethingif we bring it into our own lives
and we talk about them with each other
and weand we take them out of just the screen
(17:10):
and we bring them into our lives and weand we just like you're talking with your,
your guide, you know, that's that's that'sthe power of that story
is sharing things and finding the humanitybetween each other and having
those stories seep into our lives is,I think, the important part.
So that's why I think it's importantthat we encourage people
to not just be entertained,but to truly be,
(17:31):
enmeshed ourselves in these storiesand try to find something in them.
And I think it's really, really importantthat we encourage people to do that more
so than ever in this dayand age, that we actually need
to really think about storiesand what they mean.
And I like that, you know, these religiousmythologies aren't seen as literal,
but things to dissect and think aboutand apply in our own lives.
(17:52):
And I think that's what we should dowith, like all religious texts
and sometimes history, in many ways,it needs to be mythologized
and picked apart and,and and modernized in a way.
And I think that's what's so great aboutand or is that,
I mean, people have made a lot of contentonline about this, showing the direct
parallels with actual historical events,which is true.
(18:14):
Tony Gilroyis like a big student of history,
and there are direct parallels,but they're not the same.
But they, they they are that that echoingof true through history of these
recurring patterns and themes that causerebellions, that cause an empire to fall.
And I think it's really importantfor us to identify those things.
And just to add to that,because I think, you know, just based off
(18:37):
of what I've heardfrom what Tony Gilroy has said is
and this is something that it's like,you notice it, but I've noticed it more
so listening to peopletalk about Andor than anything else.
But but when I look back,I can think it's like the way that people
talk about other, like, really, reallySeminole important works of fiction.
They talk about the characterslike they're real and they are real.
(18:59):
And I think that that's somethingthat's really special about Andor
is you listen to these interviewswith Tony Gilroy
and it's like, you know, Stephen, like or,what's his name?
Jon Stewart.
You know, he's talking aboutCassian Andor, like he's a person.
And I think that that's like it's it'ssort of like Jon Stewart had Tony Gilroy
and another historian on his podcast
(19:21):
to talk about the historical implicationsof Andor.
Yeah.
And in that podcast, Tony Gilroy,the what he says, and this is just true.
If you write fiction, you know, this.
Your characters are real people,
and they do things that confuse youand you try to control them and you can't.
And so that's one of the thingsthat, you know, Tony Gilroy was talking
about is like, he has this sort of likehe has like the world,
(19:44):
the framework of Star Wars that he canhe can put a story within.
And then he has all of thissort of historical context
that comes from his own studiesin his life.
But then he has the characters andhe plops them in and he sees what they do.
He, he it's sort of like you, you know,you wind up the, the little mouse
and like, let it go. But then it goes.
It goes and does its own thingand you can't control it.
(20:05):
And that'sand I think that that's like something
that's really beautiful and interestingabout this is that it's sparked
so much conversation in the culturebecause of how, how high quality it is.
But I just love listening to people talkabout these characters like they're real
because they are in this very,very strange way.
And, you know, in a sense, it's likewe can kind of think back and be like,
that's how people talked about the gods,you know, in like ancient Greece.
(20:28):
It was like,
no, like Hermes is a real guy,like he's a real person and he does X,
y, and Z thing.And this is what we can learn from him.
And I think that that'sjust true of mythology.
And I think it's like I had to kind of goon this whole journey with death
in the garden of like goingand receiving information from the world
to get back to the place of likestories are so human and so important,
(20:50):
and I just want to spend my life like,devoted to taking it seriously.
And so I think that we're doing,in our own small way, a service by taking
this story seriously because, you know,our, our friend Daniel, he had said it.
He's like quoting somebody else.
But, you know, just the ideathat storytellers
are going to be held responsiblefor the world that we live in.
(21:12):
And I think also storytellerswill, you know, will be responsible
for the decline, but also forthe potential flourishing of humanity.
And part of it starts with usstopping with this sort of idea that,
moviesand books are all about entertainment,
and we start taking themreally, really seriously,
especially the ones that resonateso deeply.
It's like there's a reason for that.
(21:32):
It's like speaking to thislike universal human experience of that.
Stories matterand this is what humanity does.
We tell stories.
And so I just yeah,I just totally just to end cap
I'll be quick when in another interviewwith Tony Gilroy, he's being asked
what he thinks about the futureof storytelling
and filmmaking in the world of AIand changing economics and streaming.
(21:54):
And he says, I don't know, butall I know is that people need stories,
and that's kind of what drives him.
He just, you know, people need stories.
Absolutely.
I, you know, we all love the bookIshmael by Daniel Quinn.
I devoted the first season of HumanNature Odyssey to exploring it.
And one of the foundational ideas
(22:15):
that that book is based onis that what makes humans special
isn't that we, you know, create tools,
or like, build cities.
The the fundamental
aspect of being a humanis that we tell stories
and not just tell stories,but we enact them on the real world.
(22:37):
Like, I love playing imaginary gamesas a kid, and at a certain point,
yeah, and a lot of the imaginary gamesI was playing was Star Wars.
You could hear me
doing the lightsaber sound effectsand flying around on the playground all
over the place.
And that certain point,
I was like, sad to feel myselflike not playing imaginary games as much
until I got to a certain pointand looked at all
(22:59):
the adults around me who were like,taking these things so seriously,
like money and countries
and, you know, wars and religions.
It's like, oh, Ishmael, help me see that.
You know,those are imaginary games for adults.
And the solution is not about like,well, let's just not act out any stories.
(23:21):
That's like saying, like,
I'm going to try to cut off all my hair,do not have a haircut.
It's like, no,even if you're bald, that's a haircut.
And it's impossible for humansto not act out some kind of story.
And I think there's like two different
kinds of stories.
(23:41):
One is the most common,and it's like a reflection story.
It's like this story reflectsour culture for what it is.
Often filmmakers are are making movieslike that and not even thinking about it.
They're not thinking about like,the culture, like, you know,
a lot of the superheroes like Iron Man,
(24:02):
it's like that'ssuch a reflection of our culture.
You know, Batman'sa reflection of our culture.
Like the idea that you're going tojust have this wealthy dude, like,
use his money to build technology to thenwithout the supervision
of any, like, regulatory committee,just, like, beat up all the bad guys.
I don't like they weren't those aren'tthose weren't those stories weren't
meant to, like, shiftthe culture in a new direction.
(24:26):
Because then you have storiesthat are really trying to like,
show a different way things could be.
And I think it's very rare for a storylike that
to get any sort of like,mainstream traction.
You know, like
I'm trying to think of,like, a mainstream example.
I guess I'm not crazy about this movie.
(24:47):
No offense to the people who by likeAvatar by James Cameron is like trying
to challenge some of our ideas aboutlike, what's advancement?
But Andor
is reflecting back a truth to us.
But it's a it's a kind of reflection storythat, like,
(25:08):
allows us to see what's happeningfor what it is,
and to engage with it maybe more lucidly
or effectively, rather than just like,
us like, not our heads and be like,oh yeah, that resonates.
That is what it's like,like Andor makes a resume.
That is what it's like, like, damn, lookat these people doing something about it.
(25:32):
Yeah, absolutely.
And it kind of has the dual quality of it.
It has this mythic resonanceas well as this applicability.
And Tony Gilroy talks about thisquote that Tolkien said
because he was like famously againstallegory, like he was very frustrated
by people reading the Lord of the ringsand thinking that Sauron was Hitler
and things like that, because he was like,no, no, no, no.
Like I'm writing a storythat's a myth about, like these things.
(25:56):
And it just so happens to be ableto be applicable to our culture,
but it's not allegorical.
And, you know,Tony Gilroy has said similar things.
And I think that's a really hard balanceto actually strike,
because I think even with somethinglike the Lord of the rings, while for me,
I think it's a really incredibly powerfuland important myth that we have
(26:17):
in our culture,I really, really resonate with it.
But there's also somethingthat's a little intangible about it.
You know,
even though we have this hero and Frodoand Sam that's like this ordinary hero
that we follow and we respectand we resonate with and we're aware of,
like the weightthat that Frodo is carrying,
we can feel that there's somethingabout deep diving into the little people
(26:38):
in the rebellion that will haveno thanks whatsoever,
who will not be lauded as heroesand will be forgotten in history,
and to be able to resonate with themand get as much like screen time
with those people
we get to be, becomes so close and like,fall in love with these characters.
There's something about it where it's likehe managed to sort of strike this
perfect balance, where it's likewe have the mythic resonance
(26:59):
and all of these important things that areso help us understand our world better.
From a deeper,more sort of subterranean level.
But then we also have this very,like human story, and we have all of this
imagery that, like, is so applicableto the world that we live in.
You know,that's the thing that just strikes me
every time I watchthis show is just like the,
(27:22):
you know, the mining,the like the strip mining of Gorman,
the way that the empire talksabout human beings and about
or just about people and, genocideand people in this, this banality of evil,
all of these things that, like we know,are part of the human condition
in civilization.
And we know thatthey're part of our world,
but they're able to be contextualizein this mythic framework
(27:44):
that makes it even easier for regular,regular people to, like, engage with.
Like these are things that we're lookingfor, but there's something about fiction
that kind of like softens the blowa little bit, makes it a little bit easier
for people to engage with these ideasthat are really hard.
I think a cool thing for us to talk aboutis the Empire,
(28:04):
and that is such a fundamentalpart of Star Wars and
we get to see that
in such a more nuanced, interesting detail
in and orand I think like what works about,
you know, the Empireand what you're talking about.
(28:24):
Like, is it myth, is it history like?
Of course, it's analogous to certainthings like Ronald Reagan in the 80s,
apparently called referredto the Soviet Union as the empire,
which is like so ironic because it's,you know, it's like, Ronald,
you know, statesit's all like they're hard to.
Yeah.
And but like the Empire from Star Warsisn't any one empire.
(28:49):
It's it's about empire itself.
And that concept is so crucialfor all of us to understand that
any country or group of people
can act like the empire, you know?
And I think that's somethingthat Israel is wrestling with right now
and having a hard time coming to termswith to the extent of like,
(29:12):
Ken and, peoplethat has been victimized in the past
and has been underdogs,even they can act like an empire.
And so I think it's importantto not ever think of, like
the empireas representing like one specific like.
And that would be the limitation ofif we were to make like, you know,
(29:33):
historical fiction.
It's like, oh, okay.
Well, I think like, you know,it's it's often talked about how like,
the Empire was inspired by the Nazis and,you know,
we were raised, where, you know, NaziGermany was the ultimate evil empire.
And I think the danger of thatis a limited view of empire.
(29:54):
Is that, like, okay, well, then,as long as I don't look like they looked
and I don't talk like they talked,and I can't be an empire,
it's like no empire is
something, deeper than that.
Well, maybe we can, like, what are thequalities and behaviors of empire?
(30:15):
You know, the qualities of behavior,empire, imperialism,
ecological destruction, power, control.
Taking away freedom in the name of peace.
Help me out here. What else do we have?
Like corporatism?
You know, the just the blending betweenprivate and public is usually something
that happens with empire.
(30:35):
And then also, a level of
being too bigto fail, being unchallengeable.
But, you know, I just want to say, like,I really resonate with what you're saying.
Alex, I'm
really glad that you brought that up,because one of the things that I find
a bit concerning about,one of the ways that we can maybe
allegories Star Wars,is by turning Emperor Palpatine.
(30:59):
And it's not saying that emperor EmperorPalpatine is not like Trump.
It's not saying that.
But there's a lot of ways that we can haveEmperor Palpatine in the world.
And, you know, I think one of the thingsthat is elucidated in Andor
is that so much of,you know, so much of that
the horrorsthat the Empire is enacting upon the world
(31:19):
are you can see how they're applicableto our world.
But it's important to recognizethat under every president,
under every leader,for the past several hundred years,
they've been enactingthe same story of empire.
And it doesn't and it doesn't.
It's it's not helpful to have one person,but be it Netanyahu, be it Putin, be it
(31:39):
Trump, be Emperor Palpatine,because it's a deeper than that.
It's an idea that's sort of pushing itforward, you know?
And I see that so much like in,you know, looking at, kenari where,
Cassian comes from, you know, the mining,this is this planet,
this rape jungle landscape, of this, persecution of this indigenous population.
(32:00):
Like, I just think it's important for us
to always contextualizewhen we're talking about these things.
It's like this is a long historyof our history.
In addition to this sort of more condensedhistory of the Galactic Empire.
So totally. And that's,
Well,
that's something that I think is so coolabout Andor is that it's more of
sociological storytellingrather than psychological storytelling.
(32:23):
Which is terms that I heard, like,in reference to, like Game of Thrones
a few years ago,
which I really, vibe with, whereit's like psychological storytelling.
It's reallyit's like the great man of history.
It's about like, individual characters
who are, like, exertingtheir will on the world and, sociological
storytelling is more about, like, systemsthat can exist beyond any one person.
(32:45):
And Game of Thrones, the books,and that the show is then,
you know, inspired by sets up this systemthat, like even main characters can die.
And the plot, the world just keeps goingbecause it's about these dynamics
and what Andor shows isthat the Empire is not just,
you know, Emperor Palpatine or DarthVader.
(33:06):
It's, you know, a like it's a whole system
that can continue to grind on regardlessof what its individuals are doing.
And like you see, these individualswho are like, trying to work for
it are like, you know, thinking forthemselves to like, level themselves up.
But even, like the most loyal among them,like, can end up in a prison at the end,
(33:29):
like the Empire is this thingthat's just like using people.
It's like chewing them upand like spitting them out.
Absolutely, absolutely.
And I think it's, you know,the thing I took away from it
is one of the things I took away fromit is many of the main characters
become rebels or become radicalized,or become politically aware
(33:49):
because of their own firsthand experienceof a behavior of empire,
of watching a planet be strip mined,of watching a genocide happen.
And I think that isone of the recurring patterns of empire.
No matter how big or greatthey become, they always overstep.
And you can only push peopleso far by your behaviors
(34:12):
and your qualitiesbefore you always end up,
with these rebellions
and people having no other choicebut to revolt against.
All right.
And that is the beginningof the conversation Jake and Marianne
and I had about Andor and Star Wars.
There's another 90 minutes to it.
We discuss archetypal empire,
(34:33):
the limitations of rebellion movements,
and what lessons we can learn from Andor
that might apply to our global empire,
from the United States to Palestine.
You can listen to all of thaton the Human Nature Odyssey Patreon.
Thank you so much for your support.
Talk with you soon.
A long time ago in a
galaxy far, far away,
there was an old republic
that, out of fear of a phantom menace,
voted for a consolidationof authoritarian power
that led to its own demise,
transforming itself into an empirebent on wielding its weapons
(00:26):
of mass destructionto conquer all who would resist them.
But don't worry, this is just a story.
It totally has nothing to do with us.
This all took placea long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.
After all,
for the last half century.
(00:46):
Star Wars has been one of our culture's
most popular and widespread myths.
It's the latest spin off series.
Andor, which recently completed its secondand final season,
continues the Star Wars tradition
of blurring the line between mainstreamHollywood blockbuster
(01:08):
and cultural mythologythat helps us understand, reflect,
and engagewith our own reality in real time.
Today, Jake
Marquez and Marin Morgan of the deathin the garden podcast
join me for another bonusepisode of Human Nature Odyssey.
(01:28):
It's part of a monthly series.
The three of us have started togetherwhere we take something from the Zeit
ghost and view it through a broadercivilizational lens.
Here you can listen to the first30 minutes of our two hour conversation.
The rest is availablenow on the Human Nature
Odyssey Patreon,or the death in the Garden Substack,
(01:49):
where you can actually see us talkingas a video episode,
complete with clips from Andorand the original Star Wars series.
The goal of these bonus episodes
is to create special editions to the workwe're already doing,
and by supporting the Human Nature OdysseyPatreon, you're helping
keep the flagship showcontinue for years to come.
(02:12):
On the Human Nature Odyssey Patreon,you'll find all sorts of bonus episodes,
writings,and a growing community of thoughtful
and friendly fellow travelerson the journey.
We'll return to our flagship showin a couple of weeks on October 29th,
or release the next episode titled
How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse.
(02:34):
It's been a long time in the making,and it's going to be a fun one.
Stay tuned.
All right.
Without any further ado,here is the beginning of my conversation
with Jacob Maron about Andor,
Star Wars Rebellion,
and the reality of our global empire.
(03:03):
I found myself
before even getting into, like,the Andor specifics,
wanting to reflect onjust Star Wars as a cultural myth.
Because I know about you guys.
But for me, I mean, sincebefore I saw the movies, you know,
my older brother and my dad, my dad was,I guess like 20 when the movie came out.
(03:27):
And he talks about,you know, when I was like four telling me
about this movieI was going to see when I was older where,
you know, when he was at the movie theaterand the first image that came on the
screen was just this, like mind blowinglygiant spaceship like, slowly going over
your head that like, from his description,you know, like no one had seen before.
(03:48):
And like, my older brother was like,telling me all about
Darth Vader in the force,and then I to the movies.
And it felt like, like being handedlike a holy text that was just.
And then, you know, as we were growing up,like the prequels came out,
which screw the haters,I love the prequels.
Where I was,I was the perfect age for Jar Jar, Love
(04:10):
Jar, Jar Jar, and, really felt like,
you know, these,
myths and legendswhere so much to grapple with.
And I'm now living with my friendsand their two kids who were,
about to be ten and five, and I'mshowing them Star Wars for the first time.
(04:32):
And, you know, it's funny, like,I live with another friend.
It's not his kids.
He was, like, watching in the corner,me showing them Star Wars.
And I'm really trying to, like,talk to them about, like,
I want us to dig into the, like, mythologyof this and like the deeper questions.
And my friend Jean was like, oh man, the
the special effects look so stupidnow and then.
(04:54):
He felt bad about it after he was like,I'm sorry for say that around the kids
because it's like, yeah,there's something cheesy about Star Wars
and it is just a mainstreamHollywood blockbuster movie.
But there also is like an invitationto really like,
explore the mythology of itin a way that,
(05:16):
yeah, I just I feel like Andor
continuesto continue to ignite that for me.
Yeah, yeah, it's hard to cut you off,but on that thread, I think that's the
the biggest successthat George Lucas started this
all off with is besides the,you know, the fun action
and the adventure of all of it.
He really was trying to create,
(05:37):
in many ways, what I think token was doingwith Lord of the rings
a mythology for the ages,
a world in which you could play out
archetypal stories in philosophiesand themes.
I remember in my AP psychologyclass in high school,
our teacher showed us
this documentary that somebody had madethat was dissecting
(05:59):
all of the kind of coremyths and mythologies about Star Wars.
And you have the sun,
and you have the father, and the fatheris redeemed by the son's actions
later on in life and all these incrediblemythologies that are woven into it.
And I think that's what great filmsand storytelling can do, is it?
It's this playground of ideas outside of
(06:22):
just the Hollywoodaspects of all these things.
They are incredible playgrounds.
And I think that's what Tony Gilroy didso great with Andor is that he recognize
there's this there's this whole universeyou can play with and tell universal
themes that have nothing to dowith the nerdy nitty gritty
of all the stuff thatpeople get so focused on the Star Wars.
(06:43):
But it is an incredible placeto play with these ideas.
And so I think where Star Wars, shines
is when we get those bits and pieces of
humanity and those general themesthat we can all relate to.
And I think it's very, very importantfor us to focus on those things,
because they can be so,so nourishing and leaves me
(07:04):
thinking for days and days and daysabout what I just watched and, you know.
Yeah.
And I think, you know,what Andor points to for me is like, it's
even though it's so different,I think potentially thematically, but not
I wouldn't say it's even that differentthematically from the original trilogy
or even the prequels,
because I think actually the prequelsdo a better job of elucidating the theme
(07:25):
than the original trilogy does,which which in this instance.
Yeah.
Well, it's because I think that it showsin a little bit more details since it's
focused on the antagonist mostly,and we're watching his progression,
we're able to see the, the,the fear of death and how that is like
driving Anakin's decisionmaking and his decisions to join the Sith.
(07:46):
And so I think that we get to seethat theme really, really at center stage.
I think that obviously
the original, trilogy is a lotmore about this sort of scrappy heroism,
and it's a lot more of that sortof classic, like monomyth
sort of structure that he, you know,that George Lucas is he's,
you know, said many, many times that it'sderivative from Joseph Campbell's,
(08:07):
The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
And I think that that's very, very clear.
But I think the prequels showthat theme around death and mortality
and the fear of death really well.
And then I think that Andoris so different
than a lot of the sort of more contentthat I think we've gotten
since Disney took over, Lucasfilm,because it became
(08:28):
less a less mythological,it became less thematic as time went on.
And I think with the sequel trilogy,you can see that
that there was a real decline in quality.
But then with a lot of these other showsthat have come out,
and I haven't actuallywatched a lot of them, to be fair.
But as far as I'm aware, therethere are a lot more, just like for
entertainment, they're more popcorn,they're more just for fun.
And I think that Andorreally brought back to its roots,
(08:50):
rather than necessarilyfocusing on the theme of death.
That was in the original, series.
I think that it was what it doesshow is like sacrifice as a main theme.
And what does that look like?
And then what is justice like? These?
They're big, important topics.
They're not this sort of like it'sit's amazing to me how like through
(09:11):
deep character study,you can explore these huge topics
that really actuallydo have a lot of ramifications
and implicationsfor how we exist on the earth.
And so.
So, yeah.
So I don't know where I was going withthat, but I guess just to say that, like,
there's something within thismythos and George
Lucas's intention,like he created a universe that
(09:35):
without it,I don't know that this show could exist.
I don't know if Andor could existwithout Star Wars.
And all of the iterationsthat came before it.
And that's something that's really unique,like, I think Tony Gilroy.
I mean, the way that he talks about it,he's kind of like,
you know, I didn't expect this to happen.
Like, I never in my wildest dreams couldhave imagined making a show like this.
(09:56):
And I don't think that I can't imagineit outside of this context,
being as impactfulbecause the Empire as an emblem for this
sort of oppression and totalitarianism,
you can't really do a direct corollary.
Corollary in other media, and or like
in other stories, in the way that you canwith like a galactic empire.
(10:19):
And what does that doand how how does that, inspire rebellion
and the people who are being crushedunder the boot of it?
You know, it just I don't know, itjust this it feels like a unicorn,
like a miracle.Jake and I were saying that last night.
It's like a miracle. Like,how does this exist?
How did they pull this off?Who let them do this?
And thank God they did.
This is incrediblethat in this day and age,
(10:41):
somebody was allowed to writethis and it's very adult.
You know, I was so, so surprised.
I mean, it opens upthe first scenes in a brothel.
And the second scene, I mean, the secondseason, there's an attempted rape scene.
It's very adult in that way.
And it deals with some very, very heavythemes that I, I appreciate so much.
And it's adult in the sense two of that.
(11:02):
You really have to watch it.
It's very rare that the character, it'sactually will probably never happen
that the characters would be like,I'm thinking this.
So next I'm going to do this.
You know, you're constantly watchingand or being like,
really have to be like, oh, wait, shit,
are they thinking what I thinkthey're thinking?
Do they realize what I thinkthey're realizing?
(11:24):
Like, having like, rewatch some stuff,like it's, so it's adult in like it,
it's a sophisticated storytelling that,
for somethingas mainstream as Star Wars, it's very rare
that like a mainstream story is,so trusting of its audience.
To me, that's like, what part of, like,what the unicorn is like.
(11:46):
I remember I couldn't find this quote.
But I remember, you know,we had to read Black Elk Speaks the, like,
classic, Lakota Indian text,
from this shaman black owl could,
dictated to the sky and likeI think published in like the 1930s.
And it became,
(12:07):
this like, you know,Native American spirituality text.
And I remember in high schoolreading this, like, review,
then another Native
American scholar had written on theon the back of Black Elk Speaks,
saying like, this is so importantfor young people to get in
touch with, like meaningful spiritualityin an age of like,
Star Warsand like and I it's interesting.
(12:30):
I can totally
understand and resonate with likethere is something
so I can imagine comingfrom like a rich storytelling culture
and then watching like eventhe original Star Wars movies being like,
people love this shit, like,this is the corniest stuff ever.
Like this whiny little Luke guy,you know, like Chewbacca and
(12:51):
but I think, like,what's so cool about Star Wars is
that, like, George Lucas created it,but he like you're saying
he was drawing on so many mythsand now that it's opened up
to other creators having their say, it'sopen to more interpretations.
The fact that it's being filteredthrough this, like mega corporation
that doesn't care about anyone or anythingexcept for making money,
(13:15):
it's like,you know, Disney is like the concrete
that's like heaped on top of it,but like star Wars and even before Disney,
you know, when it was a blockbustersuccess in the 70s and 80s,
that was also like this, like concrete,but just like pure human storytelling
and myth was always like the cracksin what was growing in it.
(13:36):
And, during college, I studied abroad,
with the National LeadershipSchool Nobles in Tanzania.
It was this amazing three month programwhere we were backpacking
throughout the country and, going to different villages.
We summited Kilimanjaro are the guides of
the program were from, Kenya and Tanzania.
(13:58):
And, one of the other students in the group,
Hilda, grew up in Tanzania,and she became a good friend of mine.
And, you know, for three monthswe're backpacking.
There's no movies, there's no TV.
We all had like one copy of, like,Game of Thrones.
We were like, taking turns reading.
And throughout the daywe're just like, hiking
(14:19):
and had a lot of time to, like,just naturally tell each other stories
and most of us inthe group were like, American or Canadian.
Hilda was the only studentwho was from Tanzania.
She had never heard of Star Wars.
And I was like, that is the coolest.
It's like the coolest thing ever.
(14:39):
Like, because and she was like,you know, really excited to hear about it.
And we had a lot of time.
And she was also very generous.
And so me andlike a couple other people in the group
like, told Hildathe story of star Wars to pass the time.
And she, like, asked questions about it,you know, and it felt like for me
(15:00):
that really confirmed, like,oh, this is a very juicy and rich story.
Like, this is how Star Wars is meant to betalked about, like it should be reframed
and like, altered and like differentthemes can come up.
And, I love thinking about, yeah, Star Wars
as like a true cultural mythologyin that way.
(15:21):
And also like, I was raised
Jewish in this sect called reconstructionism, which is
the emphasis is like not takingany of the stories literally.
You're supposed to just like you'resupposed to wrestle with it.
Arthur Wasco was one of the main rabbis,and he's he's
still alive is very old guy.
Now he talks about the, the black and the white fire of the Torah
(15:46):
and the black fire is the texts itself.
It's like the letters on the page.
But then all the space aroundthose letters is the white fire,
and it's in those spaces that you have,like the Torah.
Historically,there's things called the midrash is where
the and that the Talmud, where rabbis are,it's essentially like fanfiction.
They're like riffing on these stories
(16:07):
from the Bible and like in reconstructionism, like that's the whole point of it.
And so I feel like,you know, Andor is like the white fire,
like filling in some of the cracksand then like our conversations about it
are able to, like,bring out so much meaning.
That was in the story originally.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think there's, I think toto make those cracks in the concrete
(16:28):
happen like you're describing,it's important
for people to talk about these thingsand dissect them and to not just isolated
watch something be entertained.
Maybe it stir some emotion in youand then you walk away.
I think the power of storytelling,special visual storytelling,
is to watch things together
and talk about them and dissect themand see if you can't pull out threads.
(16:48):
I mean, me and Marie, when we watch and orany show, we're always pausing like, oh,
I think they're doing this here.And I think this is what this is about.
I wonder, did you notice that? Oh,that's really clever.
And I think it's really important.
And I think that's why I want to have
these conversations with you,is because it helps.
These stories actually mean somethingif we bring it into our own lives
and we talk about them with each other
and weand we take them out of just the screen
(17:10):
and we bring them into our lives and weand we just like you're talking with your,
your guide, you know, that's that's that'sthe power of that story
is sharing things and finding the humanitybetween each other and having
those stories seep into our lives is,I think, the important part.
So that's why I think it's importantthat we encourage people
to not just be entertained,but to truly be,
(17:31):
enmeshed ourselves in these storiesand try to find something in them.
And I think it's really, really importantthat we encourage people to do that more
so than ever in this dayand age, that we actually need
to really think about storiesand what they mean.
And I like that, you know, these religiousmythologies aren't seen as literal,
but things to dissect and think aboutand apply in our own lives.
(17:52):
And I think that's what we should dowith, like all religious texts
and sometimes history, in many ways,it needs to be mythologized
and picked apart and,and and modernized in a way.
And I think that's what's so great aboutand or is that,
I mean, people have made a lot of contentonline about this, showing the direct
parallels with actual historical events,which is true.
(18:14):
Tony Gilroyis like a big student of history,
and there are direct parallels,but they're not the same.
But they, they they are that that echoingof true through history of these
recurring patterns and themes that causerebellions, that cause an empire to fall.
And I think it's really importantfor us to identify those things.
And just to add to that,because I think, you know, just based off
(18:37):
of what I've heardfrom what Tony Gilroy has said is
and this is something that it's like,you notice it, but I've noticed it more
so listening to peopletalk about Andor than anything else.
But but when I look back,I can think it's like the way that people
talk about other, like, really, reallySeminole important works of fiction.
They talk about the characterslike they're real and they are real.
(18:59):
And I think that that's somethingthat's really special about Andor
is you listen to these interviewswith Tony Gilroy
and it's like, you know, Stephen, like or,what's his name?
Jon Stewart.
You know, he's talking aboutCassian Andor, like he's a person.
And I think that that's like it's it'ssort of like Jon Stewart had Tony Gilroy
and another historian on his podcast
(19:21):
to talk about the historical implicationsof Andor.
Yeah.
And in that podcast, Tony Gilroy,the what he says, and this is just true.
If you write fiction, you know, this.
Your characters are real people,
and they do things that confuse youand you try to control them and you can't.
And so that's one of the thingsthat, you know, Tony Gilroy was talking
about is like, he has this sort of likehe has like the world,
(19:44):
the framework of Star Wars that he canhe can put a story within.
And then he has all of thissort of historical context
that comes from his own studiesin his life.
But then he has the characters andhe plops them in and he sees what they do.
He, he it's sort of like you, you know,you wind up the, the little mouse
and like, let it go. But then it goes.
It goes and does its own thingand you can't control it.
(20:05):
And that'sand I think that that's like something
that's really beautiful and interestingabout this is that it's sparked
so much conversation in the culturebecause of how, how high quality it is.
But I just love listening to people talkabout these characters like they're real
because they are in this very,very strange way.
And, you know, in a sense, it's likewe can kind of think back and be like,
that's how people talked about the gods,you know, in like ancient Greece.
(20:28):
It was like,
no, like Hermes is a real guy,like he's a real person and he does X,
y, and Z thing.And this is what we can learn from him.
And I think that that'sjust true of mythology.
And I think it's like I had to kind of goon this whole journey with death
in the garden of like goingand receiving information from the world
to get back to the place of likestories are so human and so important,
(20:50):
and I just want to spend my life like,devoted to taking it seriously.
And so I think that we're doing,in our own small way, a service by taking
this story seriously because, you know,our, our friend Daniel, he had said it.
He's like quoting somebody else.
But, you know, just the ideathat storytellers
are going to be held responsiblefor the world that we live in.
(21:12):
And I think also storytellerswill, you know, will be responsible
for the decline, but also forthe potential flourishing of humanity.
And part of it starts with usstopping with this sort of idea that,
moviesand books are all about entertainment,
and we start taking themreally, really seriously,
especially the ones that resonateso deeply.
It's like there's a reason for that.
(21:32):
It's like speaking to thislike universal human experience of that.
Stories matterand this is what humanity does.
We tell stories.
And so I just yeah,I just totally just to end cap
I'll be quick when in another interviewwith Tony Gilroy, he's being asked
what he thinks about the futureof storytelling
and filmmaking in the world of AIand changing economics and streaming.
(21:54):
And he says, I don't know, butall I know is that people need stories,
and that's kind of what drives him.
He just, you know, people need stories.
Absolutely.
I, you know, we all love the bookIshmael by Daniel Quinn.
I devoted the first season of HumanNature Odyssey to exploring it.
And one of the foundational ideas
(22:15):
that that book is based onis that what makes humans special
isn't that we, you know, create tools,
or like, build cities.
The the fundamental
aspect of being a humanis that we tell stories
and not just tell stories,but we enact them on the real world.
(22:37):
Like, I love playing imaginary gamesas a kid, and at a certain point,
yeah, and a lot of the imaginary gamesI was playing was Star Wars.
You could hear me
doing the lightsaber sound effectsand flying around on the playground all
over the place.
And that certain point,
I was like, sad to feel myselflike not playing imaginary games as much
until I got to a certain pointand looked at all
(22:59):
the adults around me who were like,taking these things so seriously,
like money and countries
and, you know, wars and religions.
It's like, oh, Ishmael, help me see that.
You know,those are imaginary games for adults.
And the solution is not about like,well, let's just not act out any stories.
(23:21):
That's like saying, like,
I'm going to try to cut off all my hair,do not have a haircut.
It's like, no,even if you're bald, that's a haircut.
And it's impossible for humansto not act out some kind of story.
And I think there's like two different
kinds of stories.
(23:41):
One is the most common,and it's like a reflection story.
It's like this story reflectsour culture for what it is.
Often filmmakers are are making movieslike that and not even thinking about it.
They're not thinking about like,the culture, like, you know,
a lot of the superheroes like Iron Man,
(24:02):
it's like that'ssuch a reflection of our culture.
You know, Batman'sa reflection of our culture.
Like the idea that you're going tojust have this wealthy dude, like,
use his money to build technology to thenwithout the supervision
of any, like, regulatory committee,just, like, beat up all the bad guys.
I don't like they weren't those aren'tthose weren't those stories weren't
meant to, like, shiftthe culture in a new direction.
(24:26):
Because then you have storiesthat are really trying to like,
show a different way things could be.
And I think it's very rare for a storylike that
to get any sort of like,mainstream traction.
You know, like
I'm trying to think of,like, a mainstream example.
I guess I'm not crazy about this movie.
(24:47):
No offense to the people who by likeAvatar by James Cameron is like trying
to challenge some of our ideas aboutlike, what's advancement?
But Andor
is reflecting back a truth to us.
But it's a it's a kind of reflection storythat, like,
(25:08):
allows us to see what's happeningfor what it is,
and to engage with it maybe more lucidly
or effectively, rather than just like,
us like, not our heads and be like,oh yeah, that resonates.
That is what it's like,like Andor makes a resume.
That is what it's like, like, damn, lookat these people doing something about it.
(25:32):
Yeah, absolutely.
And it kind of has the dual quality of it.
It has this mythic resonanceas well as this applicability.
And Tony Gilroy talks about thisquote that Tolkien said
because he was like famously againstallegory, like he was very frustrated
by people reading the Lord of the ringsand thinking that Sauron was Hitler
and things like that, because he was like,no, no, no, no.
Like I'm writing a storythat's a myth about, like these things.
(25:56):
And it just so happens to be ableto be applicable to our culture,
but it's not allegorical.
And, you know,Tony Gilroy has said similar things.
And I think that's a really hard balanceto actually strike,
because I think even with somethinglike the Lord of the rings, while for me,
I think it's a really incredibly powerfuland important myth that we have
(26:17):
in our culture,I really, really resonate with it.
But there's also somethingthat's a little intangible about it.
You know,
even though we have this hero and Frodoand Sam that's like this ordinary hero
that we follow and we respectand we resonate with and we're aware of,
like the weightthat that Frodo is carrying,
we can feel that there's somethingabout deep diving into the little people
(26:38):
in the rebellion that will haveno thanks whatsoever,
who will not be lauded as heroesand will be forgotten in history,
and to be able to resonate with themand get as much like screen time
with those people
we get to be, becomes so close and like,fall in love with these characters.
There's something about it where it's likehe managed to sort of strike this
perfect balance, where it's likewe have the mythic resonance
(26:59):
and all of these important things that areso help us understand our world better.
From a deeper,more sort of subterranean level.
But then we also have this very,like human story, and we have all of this
imagery that, like, is so applicableto the world that we live in.
You know,that's the thing that just strikes me
every time I watchthis show is just like the,
(27:22):
you know, the mining,the like the strip mining of Gorman,
the way that the empire talksabout human beings and about
or just about people and, genocideand people in this, this banality of evil,
all of these things that, like we know,are part of the human condition
in civilization.
And we know thatthey're part of our world,
but they're able to be contextualizein this mythic framework
(27:44):
that makes it even easier for regular,regular people to, like, engage with.
Like these are things that we're lookingfor, but there's something about fiction
that kind of like softens the blowa little bit, makes it a little bit easier
for people to engage with these ideasthat are really hard.
I think a cool thing for us to talk aboutis the Empire,
(28:04):
and that is such a fundamentalpart of Star Wars and
we get to see that
in such a more nuanced, interesting detail
in and orand I think like what works about,
you know, the Empireand what you're talking about.
(28:24):
Like, is it myth, is it history like?
Of course, it's analogous to certainthings like Ronald Reagan in the 80s,
apparently called referredto the Soviet Union as the empire,
which is like so ironic because it's,you know, it's like, Ronald,
you know, statesit's all like they're hard to.
Yeah.
And but like the Empire from Star Warsisn't any one empire.
(28:49):
It's it's about empire itself.
And that concept is so crucialfor all of us to understand that
any country or group of people
can act like the empire, you know?
And I think that's somethingthat Israel is wrestling with right now
and having a hard time coming to termswith to the extent of like,
(29:12):
Ken and, peoplethat has been victimized in the past
and has been underdogs,even they can act like an empire.
And so I think it's importantto not ever think of, like
the empireas representing like one specific like.
And that would be the limitation ofif we were to make like, you know,
(29:33):
historical fiction.
It's like, oh, okay.
Well, I think like, you know,it's it's often talked about how like,
the Empire was inspired by the Nazis and,you know,
we were raised, where, you know, NaziGermany was the ultimate evil empire.
And I think the danger of thatis a limited view of empire.
(29:54):
Is that, like, okay, well, then,as long as I don't look like they looked
and I don't talk like they talked,and I can't be an empire,
it's like no empire is
something, deeper than that.
Well, maybe we can, like, what are thequalities and behaviors of empire?
(30:15):
You know, the qualities of behavior,empire, imperialism,
ecological destruction, power, control.
Taking away freedom in the name of peace.
Help me out here. What else do we have?
Like corporatism?
You know, the just the blending betweenprivate and public is usually something
that happens with empire.
(30:35):
And then also, a level of
being too bigto fail, being unchallengeable.
But, you know, I just want to say, like,I really resonate with what you're saying.
Alex, I'm
really glad that you brought that up,because one of the things that I find
a bit concerning about,one of the ways that we can maybe
allegories Star Wars,is by turning Emperor Palpatine.
(30:59):
And it's not saying that emperor EmperorPalpatine is not like Trump.
It's not saying that.
But there's a lot of ways that we can haveEmperor Palpatine in the world.
And, you know, I think one of the thingsthat is elucidated in Andor
is that so much of,you know, so much of that
the horrorsthat the Empire is enacting upon the world
(31:19):
are you can see how they're applicableto our world.
But it's important to recognizethat under every president,
under every leader,for the past several hundred years,
they've been enactingthe same story of empire.
And it doesn't and it doesn't.
It's it's not helpful to have one person,but be it Netanyahu, be it Putin, be it
(31:39):
Trump, be Emperor Palpatine,because it's a deeper than that.
It's an idea that's sort of pushing itforward, you know?
And I see that so much like in,you know, looking at, kenari where,
Cassian comes from, you know, the mining,this is this planet,
this rape jungle landscape, of this, persecution of this indigenous population.
(32:00):
Like, I just think it's important for us
to always contextualizewhen we're talking about these things.
It's like this is a long historyof our history.
In addition to this sort of more condensedhistory of the Galactic Empire.
So totally. And that's,
Well,
that's something that I think is so coolabout Andor is that it's more of
sociological storytellingrather than psychological storytelling.
(32:23):
Which is terms that I heard, like,in reference to, like Game of Thrones
a few years ago,
which I really, vibe with, whereit's like psychological storytelling.
It's reallyit's like the great man of history.
It's about like, individual characters
who are, like, exertingtheir will on the world and, sociological
storytelling is more about, like, systemsthat can exist beyond any one person.
(32:45):
And Game of Thrones, the books,and that the show is then,
you know, inspired by sets up this systemthat, like even main characters can die.
And the plot, the world just keeps goingbecause it's about these dynamics
and what Andor shows isthat the Empire is not just,
you know, Emperor Palpatine or DarthVader.
(33:06):
It's, you know, a like it's a whole system
that can continue to grind on regardlessof what its individuals are doing.
And like you see, these individualswho are like, trying to work for
it are like, you know, thinking forthemselves to like, level themselves up.
But even, like the most loyal among them,like, can end up in a prison at the end,
(33:29):
like the Empire is this thingthat's just like using people.
It's like chewing them upand like spitting them out.
Absolutely, absolutely.
And I think it's, you know,the thing I took away from it
is one of the things I took away fromit is many of the main characters
become rebels or become radicalized,or become politically aware
(33:49):
because of their own firsthand experienceof a behavior of empire,
of watching a planet be strip mined,of watching a genocide happen.
And I think that isone of the recurring patterns of empire.
No matter how big or greatthey become, they always overstep.
And you can only push peopleso far by your behaviors
(34:12):
and your qualitiesbefore you always end up,
with these rebellions
and people having no other choicebut to revolt against.
All right.
And that is the beginningof the conversation Jake and Marianne
and I had about Andor and Star Wars.
There's another 90 minutes to it.
We discuss archetypal empire,
(34:33):
the limitations of rebellion movements,
and what lessons we can learn from Andor
that might apply to our global empire,
from the United States to Palestine.
You can listen to all of thaton the Human Nature Odyssey Patreon.
Thank you so much for your support.
Talk with you soon.
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