rereading this ask since @lothalsmoons posted it on twitter and I’m just noticing that anon put “sheltered by the rebellion” as an actual String of Words and. Anon.
We don’t know how long Cassian’s been with the formal Rebellion. The Rebellion also wouldn’t have sheltered him. Proof? Let’s dig into canon.
1. Cassian probably joined the RA later in life.
The Cassian show starts when he’s 23, presumably he’s been with the Rebellion for some time now as a pilot or something.
Since the RA was formed - and the Festian resistance joined the Alliance - when he was 20, I’m going to hazard 19-21 as a canon guess for when he himself joined, depending on if he helped facilitate that joining together or not. There’s a chance, that, like Jyn, Cassian only joined the Rebel Alliance when he was 21.
Also, the Rebel Alliance, with Mon’s whole “I don’t want to be seen as a terrorist even though the Empire calls us terrorists no matter what we do” thing of not killing anybody would 1000% mean they wouldn’t take a 7 (since that’s how old he is when the Empire rises) year old solider on, (not to mention a few years probably pass before Rebel leadership catches wind of the Festian resistance movement, so he could be anywhere from 8-11, anyways). Cassian seems like the kind of person who would end up fighting in some way anyways.
What happens after Cassian’s 6, around the same age Jyn is taken in by Saw, we don’t know. But we do know that between being part of Fest’s/the Atrivis Sector’s Resistance (after the Separatists were defeated) and joining the RA, Cassian was also part of an anarchist cell. I highly doubt he was being coddled wherever he was (now I have thoughts on how Saw and non-Alliance rebel cells are treated in canon and by fandom but that’s another essay) but he was suffering just as much as Jyn was. They’re both child soldiers in rebel cells (I’ll get back to this later).
Whether he joined the RA at 7 or 21…
2. Cassian’s childhood was like Jyn’s.
1) lost at least one parent
Jyn on Lah’mu. Cassian at 6.
2) lost home/planet and fleeing it for safety
Jyn fleeing Coruscant, Lah’mu. Fest has refugees, also Cassian says he lost everything.
3) being drawn into the fight against the Republic/Empire since a very young age.
Jyn joining with Saw. Cassian being in it since he was 6.
Thus, based on what we know, they are no more or less sheltered than the other. Though you can argue we don’t know what pre-Clone War era Fest was like, much less during. While Jyn was born in a jail cell, her Core infancy/early childhood on Republic-then-Imperial Coruscant was a lot cushier than Cassian’s Outer Rim one. Her childhood on Lah’mu is comparable to Cassian’s on Fest. There’s the constant shadow of war and fear of their parents.
But what if Cassian did join the Rebellion at a younger age? And that, said Rebellion, was soft on him?
2. Cassian’s teens were like Jyn’s.
The youngest member of the Rebellion we see is Ezra, who’s around 16 ish at the time. My personal headcanon for Cassian is that he’s drawn into Bail’s circle when he’s 12-13 or so, but that’s because I like the idea Bail having to deal with a headstrong teen Cassian a few years before he deals with a headstrong teen Leia and I love paralleling those two in particular.
Pick 6. Pick 16. Let’s look at that range of ages for Cassian joining the RA. If child/teen Cassian grew up in a protective RA in fanon, then let me point out Jyn was protected in canon at those same ages. Like it or not Rebel Rising is canon, and Saw made a point of protecting Jyn ever since he found her. A very strong point. He didn’t let her leave their safeworld until she was 14.
I’m not saying she had a cushy upbringing - it WAS DIFFICULT especially for a traumatized child/teen, a child solider and going through military training routines, no formal education (she was still educated/self taught and had Net access), no sense of safety and the constant fear. But these are all things and experiences Cassian would’ve had in the Rebellion.
You could argue that, similar to Ezra but over a longer term, Cassian was sent to the Imperial Academy as an undercover spy, and thus would’ve had some stability, safety, and a formal education (but still grueling because, Empire), but the Academy is for the 16-18 range which also happens to be the same age range Jyn was with the Ponta family. Who had stability and safety.
Now, another thing is that the Rebel Alliance didn’t exist until Cassian was 20. So even if he had joined the Core Worlder’s rebellion, as I call it, it’s not the formal military structure we see in R1/ANH where maybe, MAYBE Cassian might’ve been sheltered.
(Not too long of a tangent - I don’t think had Cassian at 6, joined the R1/ANH era style RA, he wouldv’e been sheltered or suffered excessively, the other extreme that people like to think. That’s not how rebel cells work. On one hand, the RA is particularly sensitive to things that are Bad like Killing People (even in self defense) and Slaves and raising Child Soldiers. They aren’t the First Order). On the other hand, the RA wouldn’t just not use the opportunity a young Cassian presented. If it wasn’t the RA, any rebel cell would use him as a spy, a (message) smuggler, a explosives installer, an extra pair of eyes, or a long distance shot, because nobody notices little kids with keen eyes and steady fingers.)
Back to the point. A teenage Cassian in a pre-Alliance RA would be similar to what Ezra and Jyn go through in rebel cells. Cassian would’ve been experiencing the same, or been dealing with Bail’s dirty work, almost as Leia’s foil where she was the pure, protected one, and Cassian was the one who had to do all the nasty spying. Or he was doing that for Cracken and Draven as a teen in the Academy. Either way, it was nothing cushy or protective.
TLDR: Here’s my main point.
All of that up there easily-retconnable supplemental data with some of my own extrapolation/headcanons to boot, so let’s step out of canon and look at Rogue One: the movie.
THE WHOLE POINT OF THE MOVIE IS JYN AND CASSIAN ARE MIRRORS. Maybe their lives aren’t identical down to the nanonsecond, but nobody’s more privileged than the other (if we take the actors races and genders out of the consideration, which for this in-text analysis we should). The aforementioned arc beats (1-3) are the same. Diego and Fel always talk about how similar their characters are, how they’re mirrors.
In the movie, Cassian himself says that she’s not the only one who lost everything ie. he lost the same things she had. They’re the same. Making this about who’s more oppressed defeats the entire point.
They’re the same people (in terms of experiences/what happened to them) who made different choices.
Cassian chose to fight, and he thinks being able to choose not to fight is a (potentially Core-world since he’s a Outer Rim Separatist child) luxury (ie. privilege).
Jyn chose to not fight, and she thinks being able to fight is a (Rebel Alliance - since Saw didn’t like all the RA democracy) luxury (ie. politics).
And for what I think about that two POVs, read the original response.
Cassian isn’t misguided, and trying to paint him as wrong within canon or fanon (especially for Jyn’s sake to make her “right” and to show that Cassian is “wrong”, even though as I mention in my first reply, she’s the one who adjusts to Cassian’s POV and joins the RA) just shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the entire movie.
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