‘Star Wars’ theory identifies the battle that changed the course of the entire Rebellion

Star Wars has always had an interesting relationship with the theme of duality, given the ever-present nuance of the Force and the struggle between the Empire and the Rebel Alliance.

But as we saw several years back in Rogue One, duality was something of a burden for the Rebellion’s earlier members; indeed, the pre-Rogue One Rebellion did its fair share of reluctant killings and other acts that blurred the line of the cause.

But, as one user took the time to divulge on r/FanTheories, that all changed with the Battle of Scarif, the aforementioned film’s climactic campaign in which the Death Star plans were successfully stolen, and for the first time since its inception, the Rebellion was completely united.

It’s Cassian Andor that the user frequently circles back to as a prime example of what the pre-Scarif Rebellion used to be. The eponymous Andor protagonist murdered informants to keep them quiet, and took orders from Davits Dreven to kill Jyn Erso’s father, Galen.

Although the latter act was one that Cassian ultimately didn’t commit, the original poster points out that, because the orders to kill Galen were not officially sanctioned by the Rebellion in a more public forum, there’s reason to believe that the Rebellion is significantly divided at this point in time. Saw Gerrera, who was eventually no longer welcome in the Rebellion because of his extreme methods, is another example of this.

But all of that changed with the success on Scarif. The Rebellion no longer needed to rely on black ops tactics, but instead wage a much louder war from a place of hope On top of that, the loss of their aforementioned guerilla fighters meant that a reassessment of their approach would have to happen anyway. And at the end of the day, the original poster argues, the Rebellion realizes that it’s not enough to fight haphazardly against the Empire. What’s important is that the fight never loses sight of its cause.

As dark as the Rebellion used to be, though, it hardly compares to the once-dominant evil of the Empire that we’re now witnessing over the course of Andor, which is currently streaming on Disney Plus.