From Rogue One To Andor: What Motivates Us To Join The Fight?

/ Noam Ebner

Rogue One Is Back… With Hope

With Andor on the horizon, I took advantage of Rogue One’s rerelease and went to see it at a local IMAX. What an amazing piece of Star Wars, with so many negotiation, conflict, and resolution scenes for my trusty legal pad. From  Lyra Erso’s negotiation with Director Krennic, trying to reclaim the Erso’s lives back from the Empire, to Leia defining the information she had received about the Death Star as “Hope,’ each scene offers a lesson in negotiation and conflict. And of course, that Vader hallway scene at the end is just plain awesome. Just like the first time I saw it, I think I didn’t breathe at all for the last five minutes of the movie.

The Philosophy of Hope

After the movie, I wanted to share some thoughts on the blog. Instead, I found myself reading and then contemplating someone else’s blog piece: Rogue One and The Philosophy of Hope, written by Matthew William Brake on the the Pop Culture and Philosophy project’s blog. This project, if you’re unfamiliar with it, uses pop culture – movies, TV shows, books, and more - to spread philosophical ideas, in just the way we use them to spread conflict literacy. Great stuff.

Brake asks why, in the face of near certain death, and with much of the Rebellion leadership chickening out around them, Jyn Erso and her band decided to press on and conduct their mission to Scarif. He discusses this through the perspective of philosopher John Caputo’s notion of “the call:” an intrinsic insistence on doing something that makes a difference, to do something that is essentially important even when we could (and sometimes, rationally should) avoid doing it. Such as fighting a Death Star, or walking into an Imperial base.

Mulling this fascinating post, I considered how ‘the call’ relates to conflict. From a conflict and resolution perspective, it seems to flow into our motivations to take action in a conflict situation. Personality issues and economic considerations aside, why do we engage in conflict, rather than avoiding or passively accommodating? In Jyn’s situation, why did she choose to do what she can, while knowing it is unlikely to be enough?

Jyn’s metamorphosis from someone who was willing to live with the Imperial flag reigning across the galaxy into the woman who decided to march into Imperial Central and simply wing it, is remarkable. So, philosophy aside, what drove her?

The Call to Conflict

Well, don’t look at me, pal. There are as many answers to this question as there are readers of it, which I hope means a lot. (Yeah, I’m talking to you!) Simply, each of us is able to look at Jyn’s altered decisionmaking and recognize some aspect of it in ourselves. Perhaps you think she was motivated by a desire for vindication; to clear her father’s name. Or, by reputation management; a desire to change her rep as a self-centered scoundrel to that of a meaningful piece of the rebel effort. (She wouldn’t be the last scoundrel to make that shift, would she?). Perhaps being in the presence of people who had sacrificed so much for so long had rubbed off on her, and she was motivated by a shift in values? Was she motivated by self-preservation, thinking this to be the only real way to keep the Empire and the Rebels off her case? Maybe she simply wanted revenge; revenge for her imprisonment by the Empire, for her father being held against his will and his ultimate death, for her mother’s murder, for her lost childhood, for Saw Guerrera’s death, for Jedda, and/or a hundred other things we were never shown on screen?

Vindication, image-management, shifting values, self-preservation, and revenge are all real-world drivers of our participation in conflict. Of course, there are other drivers, and just to make things interesting, we can (and usually do) have multiple drivers behind our decision to engage in conflict or to simply not look up and see the offending flag wave. Think back to the most recent fight you had – with a friend, a coworker, or anyone else – and ask yourself: why did I get into that? Why did I get involved? What was I trying to achieve?  You might also ask yourself: Why didn’t I ask myself all these questions back then, before getting engaged in the conflict? 

Know Thyself. [Then, Only Then, A Jedi You Will You Be.]

Sure, the maxim “know thyself” has been attributed to many Greek philosophers, but we’re here to talk Star Wars and Conflict Resolution, not Star Wars and Philosophy (the Pop Culture and Philosophy project has three books on that topic, if you’re interested…). Knowing thyself is critical for those who wish to get better at managing their conflict behavior. In particular, knowing which parts of your motivational mix tend to get you engaged in conflict is worth your weight in beskar.

So, as an exercise, meld yourself with Jyn. If you were her, which of the motivations above (or, others you come up with on your own) would have motivated you, in her position, to fight? Which might have led you to a different decision? Which don’t resonate with you at all? Which cause you to wish there was an Imperial base you could infiltrate?

As a follow-on exercise, watch Andor with us. We’ll be blogging Andor as soon as we can process it, as often as we can. Andor is bound to touch on this issue of conflict motivations. Remember: Cassian Andor told Jyn that he had been in this fight since he was six years old. What got him into the fight? And, why did he never unhook from the fight, instead continuing to do terrible things for the Rebellion (his words, not mine)?

From the Andor trailer that I was unable to avoid

[unlike co-editor Jen Reynolds, who loves watching Star Wars trailers and figuring out what’s going to happen, I do my best to avoid them, preferring to experience the movie/show in its natural unfolding. However, the Rogue One screening included a ten-minute trailer in full IMAX sound and color, and I snapped. I won’t spoil it for you however, read on!]

…I got the impression that in his past, Cassian also faced choices of whether to join the fight in a structured way or remain a free agent, in it for himself, much like Jyn. What, then, motivated him to join the fight and stay in it? I expect there to be multiple motivations, as well as more than one decisionmaking point. Each of these offers a good opportunity to explore which of his motivations (in favor of fighting, or in favor of avoidance or yielding to others) resonates with us.

Star Wars is at its best when it offers us windows into ourselves, and we take the time to peer through them thoughtfully.

Also, when people jump into X-Wings and blow things up, of course. Gotta love that.