Galactic war crimes

Andor is back for its second season, and it's off to a pretty interesting start as it looks at the formation of the rebellion against the Empire as we barrel towards he events of Rogue One over the next couple of weeks.

This season will play out in a quartet of three-episode arcs, each taking place in the years between Season 1 and Rogue One. In these episodes, we follow Cassian Andor as he steals an experimental TIE Fighter from a secure facility and ends up in the midst of some squabbling rebels, Mon Mothma as she contends with her daughter's politically expedient marriage, and Bix and Brasso after they escaped Imperial custody on Ferrix, hiding out as itinerant mechanics on the farming planet Mina-Rau.

The local residents of a Mina-Rau community have sheltered the characters, and it isn't long before an Imperial cruiser arrives in orbit to begin some snap inspections. If discovered, the soldiers would likely find that Bix and Brasso are wanted after escaping Ferrix, and they're on pins and needles trying to figure out how to avoid them. When the soldiers eventually catch up to them, one officer approaches Bix in her home, and tries to rape her. She ends up escaping by hitting him on the head with a hammer, but their escape is costly.

It's a striking, uncomfortable scene, and it's already generated some complaints from the usual quarters of bad-faith commentators, most notably a prominent YouTuber called Star Wars Theory who complained that the scene was "unnecessary," that there are other ways to show that the Empire is terrible, and that "Vader wouldn't tolerate that shit nor does the Empire condone it."

The tweet is probably bait and while I hate reacting to takes from other folks online and give them the attention and oxygen that they need to survive, it's a subject that's worth examining, because it is a notable and worth including: a fascist Imperial force would absolutely do this, and historically, they have.

Star Wars has from the beginning been about standing up to a fascist regime, one that was explicitly coded as Nazi Germany, right down to the uniforms. This particular scene in this first arc of episodes from Andor reminded me very, very much of how German forces operated in the territories they conquered. These Imperial teams are shown to operate with impunity, rolling into settlements for inspections, taking food, and committing crimes against the people there. This lines up with the actions of Nazi soldiers during the Second World War.

This is a complicated historical subject that still merits scholarship, but I did come across a paper by Fabrice Virgili^[1] "Rapes Committed by the German Army in France (1940–1944)" which provides some insight (in pretty horrific detail – use your judgement if you decide to read it) into the sexual violence that German military and soldiers used against civilians during the war. In general, rape was something that occurred sporadically early on, and which became more frequently in the war's later years. ^[2]

Virgili cites several cases of where German officers would sexually assault the women they encountered. These situations weren't about sexual gratification – he notes that German soldiers frequently relied on prostitution for that – but of power. He also notes that many incidents weren't necessarily what we'd think of when you think of an assault, pointing out that the power that the occupying forces wielded held certain implications. One French woman explaining "I met a German captain with whom I had intimate relations twice. Prior to this, he had hit me and although I slept with him, it was because I was worried about reprisals."

In another instance, Virgili points out that German authorities did prosecute soldiers who committed violence against women in the field, a Luftwaffe gunner was sentenced to three years of forced labor for raping a 10-year-old shepherdess in October 1940, but points out that these efforts were used to portray their forces as behaving properly during occupation. As the war intensified in 1943 and 1944, those authorities relaxed their orders against resistance fighters: "in the current situation, measurements that are too severe cannot lead to punishment for those who carry them out," and Virgili points out that while there were situations where offending soldiers were reprimanded or even executed, "such severity was becoming increasingly rare."

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Andor's creator Tony Gilroy explained his thinking behind the scene. “I get one shot to tell everything I know — or can discover, or that I’ve learned — about revolution, about battles, with as many incidents and as many colors as I can get in there, without having [the story] tip over,”

“I mean, let’s be honest, man: The history of civilization, there’s a huge arterial component of it that’s rape. All of us who are here — we are all the product of rape. I mean armies and power throughout history [have committed rape]. So to not touch on it, in some way … It just was organic and it felt right, coming about as a power trip for this guy.”

The Empire is an occupying force that uses incredible, overwhelming violence against its subjects across the galaxy. We've seen them use superweapons to destroy planets, use genocidal tactics to destroy their enemies, use torture, executions, civilian murders, child murder, and indiscriminate imprisonment: sexual violence is just another tool that they can utilize to demonstrate the power that they hold over the people they've conquered. There is a reason why the galaxy devolved into a brutal civil war, and Andor has been the first project that really shows that brutality up close.

Militaries are generally governed by rules and laws, telling their soldiers not to commit war crimes and to adhere to basic tenets of acceptable behavior, for a range of reasons – ensuring that their soldiers are treated humanely in the event that they're captured, and widespread atrocities can make an occupying's military's job all the more difficult without the cooperation of locals.

But there are rules on the books and the realities of conduct on a battlefield: soldiers in every conflict known to man have committed crimes against enemy combatants and civilians. It doesn't matter if a chain of command wouldn't condone these crimes: they will still occur. As Virgili explained, if these types of attacks are found to help their cause, how they're treated within the chain of command can come down to individual discretion, ranging from a "hey, don't do that again," to execution.

In the situation we see in Andor, rape and sexual assault is used by Imperial personnel as a coercive tactic on Mina-Rau. The officer in question knows that his victim is an illegal migrant, and understands that her presence is required to keep the farms operating and lays it out for her: if she cooperates and submits, she gets to stay. We also see the locals sheltering the characters from Ferrix (maybe) yield to the Imperial forces when the pressure mounts on them, painting a complicated picture of the situation and how even the threat of sexual violence against a population can be used as a tactic to yield results. These are things that have happened during real-world conflicts: soldiers using the power of their uniform and everything it represents to operate with impunity.

War operates in broad strokes from overarching strategy and filters down to decision and actions made by individuals in the moment. It doesn't matter what the chain of command has as its policies: if you imbue people with power and authority of an oppressive government with few or no options for recourse against them, of course that power will be abused.

Within the story's larger world, I imagine that the Republic and Imperial militaries would probably have a policy against assaulting and murdering civilians and children – even child combatants, but these rules didn't stop Darth Vader and the Clone Troopers from executing children during Order 66. Rules on their own won't hold soldiers back from committing misconduct and war crimes: a military's judiciary structure and internal culture is what will hold them accountable, and that only works if it's used.

If Imperial officers from the highest ranks can call a meeting where they casually discuss the destruction of a planet and its population, (as we see in another part of these episodes) will they really hold soldiers who sexually assault and rape civilians to account? The show and these episodes are showing that the Empire is fine with operating this way: in their eyes, whatever it takes to get the job done.

This is the point of Star Wars: it's an allegory for how unfettered power is a bad thing, using space wizards and plastic Nazis, and it's one reason why I was so taken with Andor. It's a serious take on the world that explained and showed precisely why fascist and oppressive force is so terrible. It drives home the point that the Empire is willing to use brutal tactics to achieve their ends, and as we lose our first-hand memory of the atrocities of the Second World War, it's an important thing to continue to examine, especially as the world appears to be sliding back into this territory.

This is a series that does what good storytelling should do: challenge our perceptions of the world and give us insights into the one we live in. If these first episodes are anything to go by, the season is off to an interesting start.

This is a lot of explanation and history chasing after an emotional response, but this is a story decision that's important to take some time to understand! Star Wars is a franchise that can accompany a lot, everything from animated shows aimed at preschoolers (Young Jedi Adventures) all the way up to more serious content (Andor). That's one of its strengths, and it's worth understanding how "Star Wars" isn't just one thing to one audience, and shouldn't be treated as such.

I've written before about the fairly toxic environment that exists online for franchise fandoms and something that I'll note is that I'm taking this "complaint" at face value, because we live at a time when media literacy isn't great, and where anyone with a camera and microphone can game some social media algorithms for attention, clicks, and revenue.

I think it's one thing to say that you don't want to see a scene like this in a franchise like Star Wars, and honestly, I'd agree: this was an unpleasant and uncomfortable scene to watch. But it's not the first time that we've seen sexual violence portrayed against female characters: Princess Leia's iconic metal bikini is one example. Twi'leks have an in-universe reputation for being victims of sex trafficking, and Ahsoka Tano was put up for auction as a child in The Clone Wars.

I'd follow that up by saying that we've seen characters and the Empire do plenty of terrible things throughout the franchise – this feels like a weird, arbitrary line to draw in the sand. Scrounging around for justifications that these actions and this scene in Andor is out of place feels like an extended exercise in explaining to one's audience that it's another example of Disney's mishandling of the franchise.

It plays into a long-running and tired narrative that serves only to rile up the usual brigade of bad-faithed commentators while misreading the purpose of the scene. While arguments such as this gives these bad-faith arguments some attention, they're worth highlighting because they have enormous followings. Military history is a topic that I've studied quite a bit – a school gave me a piece of paper saying so! – so it's especially frustrating to see this sort of ignorant crap floating around. It might be uncomfortable to watch, but like all history, it's especially important to understand.