nervous-writing

[nervous-writing]

Some thoughts on Syril from Andor (Spoilers for the whole show)

I feel people who call Syril an incel and the like are sort of missing the point of the character or are on purpose projecting something onto him that wasn't intended by the writers/the show and it's deliberately trying refusing things from his perspective or in any other way that doesn't align with the way that they already want to see him.

What I mean by that is that Syril by himself isn't just the typical Right-Wing Fascist that only lives to see others who are different suffer.

When he tries to find Andor in season 1, does he use far too much force, leading to the death of an innocent civilian? Yes (though the death of that civilian isn't directly caused by him, but rather his men going overboard, as per usual for police), but to him, Cassian is someone who murdered two colleagues of his (Syril doesn't at all know that they were the ones being aggressive, again, all he knows is that Cassian murdered two of his co-workers), I think wanting to catch that guy is pretty reasonable.

It should also added that he was even more motivated to do this because his superiors wanted to sweep those deaths under the rug, which is pretty bad, especially if you are someone who believes that the police and authority should always try to uphold "justice".

When Cassian and Luthen manage to escape, leading to the death of several more colleagues of Syril, his reaction doesn't strike me as the show wanting me to go "yeah, get owned!" but instead we see a guy who is just utterly destroyed by the fact that he watched people die rather violently and that he is to blame for it while having gained nothing from it.

When he met Dedra I saw people calling him an incel for being obsessed with her (I also saw people calling her a girl-boss, which is a whole different can of worms that I'm sure I should get into). Again, he shows behavior that can very easily be laid out in the worst of ways and him following her is creepy, but he isn't doing it because he feels like she belongs to him or because he sees her as an object, the way he sees her is being the kind of person that should be in charge and that he wants to work for. For Syril, Dedra is the kind of authority figure that he admires.

I think what bothers me most is when people just call him an incel fascist loser who got what he deserved, even though when looking at him and what he does, it makes perfect sense from his perspective. When he chokes Dedra, he isn't doing that because he is an incel who only knows violence against women. He just realized that the woman he loved and that represented everything he admired, wasn't trying to prevent further crime from happening by snuffing out what he has been taught was a threat, who had used him for two years (constantly lying to him about what he was doing) but instead she was instigating chaos and pushing an entire planet into looking like criminals (to the rest of the galaxy) so that the empire could gain something from the planet without anyone being upset about what would happen to the people of the planet. The very same people that Syril has been living with for years at that point, so it is fair to assume that he was even more attached to them and the culture. (And to make it clear, no I'm not saying violence against women is justified, but this wasn't a case of Syril using violence against a woman because she's a woman, but because he understood that a bunch of innocent people were going to either be killed or at the very least be imprisoned, I think it's reasonable for anyone to get rather worked up about it.)

Now with his death. Some say that he was about to have a redemption, others say that he was blaming Cassian for everything and didn't see himself to blame at all.

Of course he would blame Cassian, as laid out at the beginning, his hatred towards Cassian is rather justified from Syril's perspective, because if Cassian didn't exist (or hadn't murdered those two people), Syril wouldn't be standing amongst a massacre (which he feels very much responsible for, otherwise he wouldn't spent a reasonable amount of time just having the same empty stare that he had when he witnessed several colleagues of his being murdered because of Cassian)

So when he sees Cassian, of course he would use this person who can be argued is responsible for everything that has happened in Syril's life, he would try and murder that man. Only to be then met with the fact that this person, the most important person in Syril's life, doesn't even know who he is. Syril lowers the gun, we don't know if he would have ended up with the rebellion or if he would have still tried to kill Andor or would have just completely crumbled beyond the point of no return. In the end he was killed by someone who also blamed him for everything that had gone wrong (which is once more very reasonable for the character in question).

I think one of my main issues with people just giving Syril the incel label is that they reduce the complexity of this character. To me, when I started Andor, I saw Syril as being the kind of consequence that just never was part of Star Wars. The good guys kill the bad guys and it's never really more than that, we don't see the perspective of the bad guys (not saying that the Empire itself should be made to look like the good guys, I'm talking about having a more human perspective for the randos who get mowed down without mercy) for example, we see Finn be traumatized by watching his friend die in front of him, but no other Storm Trooper is ever given the chance to be seen as a human, they are just canon fodder that can be mowed down without a second thought.

What I love about Syril is the show going "You know what, what if someone was actually emotionally affected by the deaths happening around them" and that leading to him being motivated in a manner that could very easily be framed in such a way that, if the show wanted to be different, could make him out to be the hero of this story (the same could be said with Dedra and her being the one to actually make progress in the ISB while not being taken seriously at the beginning of the show).

Syril (like so many characters in Andor) is complex and tragic in the fact that you can so very easily understand them and also see how their lives could have turned out differently. If he had seen the crimes of the Empire sooner or had he been introduced to Cassian in a different manner, perhaps he could have joined the rebellion or not falling into the trappings of fascism.

I feel people calling him an incel fascist kind of want to forget the fact that at his core, Syril isn't fundamentally evil and how easy it was for someone who wants to do good, to fall into the trap of fascism and the promise of "bringing justice" and "doing the good thing" without him being pro genocide or anything like that.

[nervous-writing]

One thing that always bothers me with more “mature” super hero media is how common the trope is of the hero either being too late or unable to save people. I get setting the stakes of the story, you want danger to be real, but it’s kinda depressing if Batman just watches on (or isn’t even present) for the millionth time as people are subjected to the most horrible fates, cause the author needs to show us how serious it is and you would only be able to take the story and threat serious if impossibly high amounts of people are thrown in to the meat grinder first. Of course some will say that it makes it more realistic for a hero to not be able to save everyone (heck, stories that acknowledge it, turn it into a message or a major theme), but if it’s just murder and death for the sake of it, idk, kinda removes the aspect of it being a “super hero” story if the hero is basically never able to save people or only the ones that need to stay alive cause brand recognition.

[nervous-writing]

isn’t it crazy to think how the original Star Wars, the movie that was made to follow the Hero’s Journey as close as possible, that many see as the definitive BlockBuster Movie, the movie that has all the tropes, of farm boy having his home destroyed and that motiviting him to fight the evil bad guys, to the Mentor dying and the shifty gangster dude having a heart of gold/deciding to step in not for money, but because it’s the right thing to do... That movie, doesn’t really have a romance. Yeah there is stuff hinted at or set up with Leia and Luke or Han and such, but the movie itself doesn’t end with the woman getting together with either one of the main male leads. The only “real” romantic couple in the movie are Luke’s aunt and uncle, who are there to die and have that motivate Luke to leave his home.

[nervous-writing]

the only “solutions” that ever come from anti trans folk are only ever the following: -do nothing/don’t accept trans people as the gender that they identify as, so you don’t have to change anything -tell trans people that they are sick and need to be “healed” (or in other words, make them hate themselves because they don’t feel comfortable with the gender that was assinged to them at birth) -Actively targeting trans people and saying that they are a threat to public safety (often coming with the added comment that they are groomers) Of course these aren’t any solutions (at least for any decent human being) and please let me know how trans people take away women’s rights, rights that are so important to you, that you forget about them as soon as you can’t use them as an excuse to promote hate towards trans people.

The solution to JK rowlings issue and most other topics surrounding trans inclusion is to create additional categories, ex....

i) Bathrooms - in areas where there are mens bathroom and womens bathroom there could also be a "bathroom for all". This bathroom would be available to anyone, but in particular trans people and non binary people could use it comfortably.

ii) Sports - New categories created for trans athletes to compete against each other. Ie "trans-womens 100m"

This seems like a fair solution, right?

While there are many arguments that can be made for and against gender neutral bathrooms and I would say that it would cause most arguments about the whole bathroom discussion to be ended, the problem isn't really that there are male and female bathrooms and that trans people want to use the bathroom of the Gender that they identify as, it is an argument that most Transphobes use to hide their transphobia and make it sound more reasonable than it actually is. It is much easier to demonise Trans people when you tell people who aren't really that experienced with the topic, that you are just worried that someone pretending to be a woman, does so to get into a woman's bathroom. With that framing, you have easily set up the narrative that this sort of thing is something that happens often and that it is a real problem. Comfortably ignoring things like how little this sort of thing has happened, most rapist just walking into whichever space they want to walk into, it being a lot more effort to "appear" as a trans person than most people would be willing to do (seeing how you would need to spend at least a good number of days at the very least to properly set yourself up so that you could get into one bathroom) and how it would come with so many more problems. As for sports, that is a bit more complex, though most transphobes use the logic of "oh, this male athlete wasn't able to win so he decided to just pretend to be a woman to win there" which once again forgets about how difficult for a person to be registered as trans and then needing to deal with the fact they will be shamed by other athletes and loud portion of society. And creating a special catergory for trans athletes might sound good on paper, it still results in trans people being marked as "other/different" and not as "real" men or women. there are already some ways that sports adjust to this even without the whole trans situation in mind, like with having different weight classes for the athletes. Both of these topics can be discussed at length, but usually, in cases like J.K. Rowling and other transphobes, they aren't being brought up because they have real concerns about it, they just use it as a way to easily win over people who have no real experience with this sort of topic and aren't too interested in looking into it.

[nervous-writing]

Thank you for your thoughtful answer. I have a lot to learn, but before i go. Can you clarify something for me pls? My current view is that bio males are male and transgender males are trans males. They is a difference, that i note, but they are also the same. Judging by your opinions on the sporting catergories is the problem with that thinking more of an issue surrounding safety? Because if a trans person publicly identifies as trans it will make them even more visible and vulnerable to transphobes and their hate? or is it more to do with a preference by most trans people for no distinction to never be made between a trans male and a (bio) male?

Trans Men are Men (identify men) and Trans Women are Women (identify as women). The thing with having seperate sporting catergories is that it would both make trans people feel like they aren't accepted as the gender that they identify as and it would also make most people sub-consciously think of trans people as different from biological men and women. It would also make it even easier for transphobes and bigots to find out who is trans and target them for it (it is already rather easy to figure out which athletes are trans because of the media coverage it is usually getting, but having them all be in a seperate category would remove any need for research on the transphobes' part). Another problem would be with the seperate category would also most likely be that there aren't enough trans athletes to justify this sort of catergory in the first place unless you are pulling in trans people from all over the country. I hope this was helpful and thank you for your questions and openess to learn more about this topic!

[nervous-writing]

The solution to JK rowlings issue and most other topics surrounding trans inclusion is to create additional categories, ex....

i) Bathrooms - in areas where there are mens bathroom and womens bathroom there could also be a "bathroom for all". This bathroom would be available to anyone, but in particular trans people and non binary people could use it comfortably.

ii) Sports - New categories created for trans athletes to compete against each other. Ie "trans-womens 100m"

This seems like a fair solution, right?

While there are many arguments that can be made for and against gender neutral bathrooms and I would say that it would cause most arguments about the whole bathroom discussion to be ended, the problem isn't really that there are male and female bathrooms and that trans people want to use the bathroom of the Gender that they identify as, it is an argument that most Transphobes use to hide their transphobia and make it sound more reasonable than it actually is. It is much easier to demonise Trans people when you tell people who aren't really that experienced with the topic, that you are just worried that someone pretending to be a woman, does so to get into a woman's bathroom. With that framing, you have easily set up the narrative that this sort of thing is something that happens often and that it is a real problem. Comfortably ignoring things like how little this sort of thing has happened, most rapist just walking into whichever space they want to walk into, it being a lot more effort to "appear" as a trans person than most people would be willing to do (seeing how you would need to spend at least a good number of days at the very least to properly set yourself up so that you could get into one bathroom) and how it would come with so many more problems. As for sports, that is a bit more complex, though most transphobes use the logic of "oh, this male athlete wasn't able to win so he decided to just pretend to be a woman to win there" which once again forgets about how difficult for a person to be registered as trans and then needing to deal with the fact they will be shamed by other athletes and loud portion of society. And creating a special catergory for trans athletes might sound good on paper, it still results in trans people being marked as "other/different" and not as "real" men or women. there are already some ways that sports adjust to this even without the whole trans situation in mind, like with having different weight classes for the athletes. Both of these topics can be discussed at length, but usually, in cases like J.K. Rowling and other transphobes, they aren't being brought up because they have real concerns about it, they just use it as a way to easily win over people who have no real experience with this sort of topic and aren't too interested in looking into it.

[nervous-writing]

So I was thinking, before J.K Rowling decided to go full transphobic, the most attention she up until then was by repeating her idea of the students and teachers in Hogwarts just shitting and pissing on the floor.

After that she started to talk about how trans people or rather trans women being able to go inside the bathroom of the gender that they identify as, is a massive problem.... I feel like there is a connection that I'm not entirely sure about...

[nervous-writing]

I love those moments in The Hobbit where the narrator just decides to make comparisons to the real world. While it might pull some out of the immersion when looked at the story in the grand picture of Middle Earth and such, it works so well for this story and it being something that you are being told to by some friend rather than reading it in a book, which is only made better when you either read it to someone or someone is reading it to you. Having grown up with the book, it also helps give a proper idea for everything to a younger reader by giving them simple examples to compare themselves to the characters and the world.

JRR Tolkien, writing The Hobbit: The passages there were crossed and tangled in all directions, but the goblins knew their way, as well as you do to the nearest post-office…

Me, a child, reading it: Oh dear. I’m not sure I do know the way to the nearest post-office. It sounds as if that’s absolutely something I’m supposed to know. I can’t know less than a goblin. The book will be disappointed in me.

Me, a little while later, figuring out the location of a nearby post-office: oh thank goodness

Me for the rest of my life: feeling vaguely comforted and affirmed by knowing the location of the nearest post-office, a facility I almost never use, because I am at least the navigational equal of a goblin

[nervous-writing]

Flat Earth

So we can all pretty much agree that flat earth is an incredibly stupid believe that is both easy to debunk and a gateway drug for many people into far more destructive (both for oneself and for others) ideas. But looking at maps like this, these could make for fantastic ideas for stories and fantasy worlds. Like you have a fantasy world where most of the places have been discovered and, explored and lived in by the people of that world, only for them to then discover that there is so much more of the world that they just haven’t been able to explore. It could kick off a second age of discovery, myths and legends would be seen in an entirely different light and the places that haven’t been yet discovered could be entirely different, due to how they were isolated from the “main” lands and therefor the cultures, people and other beings have developed completely differently. This is just rambling and I’m definitely not the first to talk about this sort of thing, I just watched “Folding Ideas” video on Flat-Earth and thought it was cool idea if used for something else than conspiracy theories.

[nervous-writing]

Seperating the Work from the Author

I love how there are Harry Potter Fans, who don't want to think about any of the stuff that JK has done or said, simply stating "Just seperate the art from the artist" and things along those lines so that they can go on and keep enjoying Harry Potter without ever needing to question whether or not they should maybe move on to something else. But as soon as you criticize JK in any way that isn't related to her work directly (like how she keeps digging that holeon the whole trans debate or how she uses the name of a Conversion Therapist as a pen name for her crime books), you will have dozens of PotterHeads run up to you and tell you all about how it's not cool to hate on Harry Potter like that or that they grew up with that series and that they can't stand people making fun of it. Not once did anyone mention the quality of Harry Potter or anything along those lines, but because JK and Harry Potter are so closely linked to each other, any form of criticism on JK will be seen as a critique on Harry Potter itself. If you feel the need to get upset at someone and defend Harry Potter and you being a fan of it, because that person said something about JK, you can't use the argument of seperating the Art from the Artist. Of course there are many other reasons that you can name for why continuing to pretend that consuming more Harry Potter is completely fine because you don't agree with JK (who is spending a lot of time, money and her platform to actively make the lives of trans people worse), isn't really the best option, but I just thought that the behaviour of PotterHeads who don't want to think about JK in response to when someone criticizes JK exclusively, rather funny. tl;dr A lot of Potterheads love to say that you should seperate Harry Potter from JK, but act like Harry Potter is being attacked if you criticize JK Rowling