For what it’s worth, Cassian says to Jyn, “you’re not the only one who’s lost everything.” It’s an interpretation, to be sure, but I always sensed that he was including people close to him in this statement. That Cassian’s life is unfortunately filled with heavy loss.
I think Cassian is a person who cares deeply for others, and clearly we see he’s capable of forming enough of a bond with people to convince them to go to Scarif. Many of them wouldn’t have joined that mission if someone else had asked them to go, right? Didn’t it make a difference that it was Cassian who had asked them? Hadn’t he recruited some of them?
That’s kind of the thing about recruiters, though. He meets so many people, and many of them, he loses. Time after time. I think – and of course we’re all talking headcanons here – that Cassian had to have had close bonds with people, but the constant losses… in that situation, it’s likely that a person has to close themselves off to protect themselves. By the time he meets Jyn, that’s the person we see, but that doesn’t mean he was always like that. He cares so much, he intentionally distances himself, but he’s not cold. He does what he has to. And it is breaking him apart.
I see his interactions with Jyn as a catalyst, but catalysts expedite change. I think it just expedited a trajectory Cassian was already heading towards. We see him grappling with his situation in his first scene, with Tivik. And at any rate, Cassian affects Jyn, too. I don’t want to say they “change” each other but they definitely both impact each other and that is the point.
I’ve been intentionally vague about “relationships” so far to mean all varieties, but I do want to mention that personally I’m a fan when characters have relationships before they meet whoever I’m shipping them with. I think prior relationships can sometimes actually strengthen a ship. A past relationship fails for some reason (and hopefully not because someone died; see below), and when that happens, it can show how well the ship I support actually works. And that’s not to diminish the importance and meaning behind those past relationships.
Every person I dated before I married my spouse – those relationships failed for a reason and helped me to be a better partner and helped me to understand enough about myself to know the kind of person I liked most to be around, if that makes sense. And just because I did not end up marrying any of those people doesn’t mean I should never have dated them, that I did not deeply care for them at the time, and that I don’t still, to some extent, care for them.
Take Jyn’s relationship with Hadder. Setting aside conflicting opinions of Rebel Rising, I actually really liked Hadder and her relationship with him. That relationship was important and meaningful to Jyn. But also, there was something fundamentally not right with it because Jyn was not capable of sharing her true self with Hadder, and she had justifiable reasons for not doing so. That wouldn’t have been sustainable. I don’t like that he died, and would have preferred they drifted apart, but I do like that she had him in her life.
I’d like Cassian to have a chance for that experience, too. I find it difficult to imagine he wouldn’t have. (I mean… not the part about dying, the part about being loved and supported.)
I guess the question for me though, is how did that/those relationship(s) go?
Some people have already mentioned they’re concerned over “casual” relationships. And I agree with that because I don’t see Cassian as some Bond-esque constantly taking a lover type of person. Those generally aren’t meaningful relationships and don’t feel right for Cassian.
I do tend to think, though, that Cassian’s commitment to the cause could cause conflict in a relationship. I see the cause as his main priority, and having any kind of “typical/standard” relationship might suffer in that situation. I can see him caring deeply about a person, but it doesn’t work out because they don’t understand him, or perhaps separation or duties just get in the way and they drift apart, or perhaps the other person is just as committed to the cause and they take comfort in each other’s presence when with each other, but the idea of “committing” to the “label” of a relationship is challenging for them. We sort of see this kind of tension with Hera and Kanan in Rebels. None of these circumstances mean that either party doesn’t care. It just means that war is war and can create obstacles in a relationship. “Not committing/not being able to commit” to a relationship is very different from “incapable of having connections.”
The reason I’d rather see these relationships has little to do with Jyn; I just don’t want to see someone fridged. Admittedly that contradicts what I stated above because it’s highly likely that if Cassian lost someone … they died. So like, if that does happen I suppose I won’t be surprised. But yeah, fridging sucks. There’s probably a careful way to write that story though so that the Significant Other’s death is less to hurt Cassian and something that makes more sense within that character’s own arc. But yeah, I worry about these things because SW doesn’t have the best track record with how it’s handled some character arcs.
I also don’t want to see Cassian paired up with “the woman right next to him” just because “let’s add romance herp derp!” But that really comes down to I’m worried about the writing and not Cassian being in a relationship in and of itself.
Do I worry about the Andor series? Yeah, I’ve been disappointed by Star Wars franchises before. I’m going to be worried. And I just tend to be the type that worries. But the new SW media I have enjoyed most has all been the “television” content, so maybe things will be okay. I do think if Diego Luna gets much of a say, it’ll probably be good.
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