By: Chris Acuff

The start of this idea is from a previous post, “Building a Better World”, where I brought the Nobel Prize winning principles from a book called “Why Nations Fail” (synthesized with concepts from the anthropology book  “A new history of everything”) to writing and world building.

The core concept of my argument is that by defining the organizations of a world, how they operate, who is in them, what they do, etc, you can build a more richly written world that – when combined with the personalities, goals, and flaws of characters, both NPCs and players – essentially runs on its own. It is an engine for storytelling.

Beyond that though, I want to look at different stories and how they use institutions / organizations to create immersive storytelling.

There are few shows that I think have ever done it as well as Andor.

There are so many aspects that I could talk about here, from the private security groups to the solidarity of the workers Ferrix to the prison gangs, each of these organizations are BEAUTIFULLY written, for for the sake of specificity I am going to focus on the two main organizations, the nascent rebellion and the Empire, more specifically the ISB. Spoilers, of course, although I will try to write this in a way where if you have not seen it, you won’t get anything that will detract from the impact of the reveals within the story.

The organization of the rebellion is one of the best written aspects of the show. While most of the organization is happening off screen, there is enough there for you to feel that it is real. Luthen, brilliantly played by Stellan Skarsgard, has clearly syndicated his organization, meaning not everyone knows everyone else within the organization, and only a handful actually know Luthen and are in contact with him. The secretive action of the first bank heist not only establishes the cloak and dagger tone but also directly tells the watcher “Luke Skywalker isn’t here, the lofty ideals of the original trilogy are not here. This is a rebellion, these are insurgents, these are what the Empire will call terrorists. This is how rebellion starts.”

Long before we see anything at Yavin 4 we run into Saw Gurrera and his anarchists, and the lack of trust he has for any kind of outsider. He rattles off a long list of different types of dissident groups, showing that the rebellion is not only not united, but his paranoia shows they are willing to fight each other as well. (And Luthen showing up and talking about needing to sacrifice people already on a mission that new intel says not to do)

In season 2 we meet another reckless group of freedom fighters on a ridiculous episode that seems too silly to be true, but just ask anyone who goes to political party meetings and they will tell you, that is how it is. Not only that, but the secretive world of rebellion financing. There are the wealthy like Mon Mothma and Luthen who are willing to give their capital to the cause, something that is never mentioned in other Star Wars media. When the bourgeoisie is confronted with the reality of war and rebellion it is initially difficult for them. This is great writing.

Ultimately, the organization of these characters is EVERYTHING to the show. It drives the plot, sets the tone, and establishes the bounds of reality for the story. (again, there are no Jedi here.) But, in order for this cloak and dagger resistance to make sense, there has to be an opposition, and boy howdy is there.

One of the best things the Clone Wars animated show does is subtly show the gradual transformation of the Republic governmental systems in a military bureaucracy. Andor lives at the tail end of that. There are clearly some vestiges of Republic stuff (the senate, which is destroyed off screen in “A New Hope”), or the utilization of Republic stuff for the Empire, but nothing serves as such a clean break from what a Republic is supposed to be than the ISB – Imperial Security Bureau.

The ISB is room full of obviously unelected bureaucrats with immense authority over the policing of an entire galaxy. They are the police state, and we also get to watch their investigations, how they tighten the noose around the nascent rebellion, and (importantly) how they make mistakes.

I really hate when dystopian fiction gives the impression of the big bad guys as all powerful / extremely well coordinated / omniscient. Even the archetype of some of this all seeing eye idea- Sauron, makes tons of mistakes, that’s the whole point of Aragorn as a character- he is the distraction, he is the one who Sauron thinks should have the ring. – But I digress.

This show handles that kind of dynamic exceptionally well.

The ISB is made up of people, they have their own biases, blindspots, personalities, and by getting a chance to actually follow them we can see both the crushing power of an organization with such a vast amount of resources and how their own person-ness causes them to fail. To quote Nemek, “The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural.”

I also appreciate that these people are not written sympathetically. They are human, yes, but they are monsters, and monsters of their own making and monsters of their background and monsters of their philosophy. Moreover, they have a competitive internal structure that incentivises this philosophy and the show directly demonstrates the consequences of that structure. Again, great organizational world building that aims the plot and defines the realm of reality.

A great example to me of the callus will for control is most exemplified in the fluke that gets Andor tossed up in prison- not for anything he has actually done, but just because he is at the scene of a minor crime. The law is impersonal and reckless, and we see this on Ferrix as well when the private police force conducts its raid to go after Andor at the end of season 1.

The best worldbuilding causes the world to become a character in its own right, and Andor does this in spades and in so many different ways. However, it is the organization of the characters, of the institutional systems of this world, that define the plot of the story and I believe the time spent to define and insinuate the structure and activities of these organizations is what makes the show so damn good.