psst, hey! I noticed some symbolism!
We already know Andrea and Frankie are Gwen's knights, but did y'all notice that each of them is represented by broken knight gear?
Frankie is a broken shield, and Andrea is a broken sword. I might be wrong about why, but I want to try to analyze it anyways. So let's start with the most obvious one, Frankie.
So Frankie. Francesca. Frank. She's not okay, both physically and mentally. She hallucinates that her handmade toys are alive and talking to her; has 3 different life-sucking jobs, one of which includes a boss who has PULLED OUT 2 OF HER TEETH because "she didn't behave". She even tried to help a broken android of her favorite childhood character while ignoring that both she and Andrea were bleeding and bruised.
All this to say, I don't think Frankie cares about her well-being enough, which is understandable considering the things the girls need to do to make rent and survive in this late-stage capitalism hellscape. But we see that she's the kind of person who not only sacrifices herself for those she cares about, she's also willing to lose teeth and get beaten up to fix something because she wants to work with Andrea in the labs.
From what we know so far, she's been punched, dragged through the mud, and probably had to steal to feed herself and Andrea, along with stealing parts for both her and Andrea's robots. And yet, she still gets back up, she still has hopes and dreams of working as an engineer for the park.
She's a broken shield that still stands because her convictions remain strong, despite all the pain and cracks she's endured. But that doesn't mean she's indestructible, and eventually something has to give in, and that something may be her mental health, along with losing an eye.
Now, Andrea... we didn't get as much insight into Andrea's way of thinking as we did with Frankie, but I think the reason she's a broken sword is related to her working for the park as an engineer.
Throughout the entire pilot, we get to see Andrea justifying herself to others, saying she had no choice but to be a crownie due to a lack of money and the state of the world as a whole. We don't know if that is completely true or if she had to convince herself that this was the only way to survive due to a different motive. What we do know for sure is that she HATES her job and also loathes the company behind the park. There's also the fact that she isn't as good as Frankie at robotics, yet somehow got the attention of Park Planet for long enough to be employed by them for a while.
My theory on that is that she showed one of Frankie's inventions to get employed at the park, but couldn't match the expectations placed on her and got fired after her dino animatronic malfunctioned.
Her passion for robotics seems lost, along with her dreams for a better-paying job for both her and Frankie. Who knows how long she fought to get a chance at a better job at Park Planet, how many nights she stayed awake to show she was good enough, and then she got fired. Her sense of wonder and love for the park is GONE, yet she's so used to being in fight or flight mode, she's ready to yell and fight off people calling her a crownie even after she was just fired. not because of loyalty, but because she's used to it. She's used to fighting tooth and nail, used to picking up the pieces and finding a new way to survive.
A broken sword can still be used as a weapon when you're desperate, but it can also cut you if you're not careful, and I wonder if she'll accidentally hurt Frankie later on in the name of survival for both of them.
