My favorite thing about the "Are we blind?" scene is that it encapsulates all of this so perfectly. Even before Andor, you had Vader going around executing subordinates at random, and now of course we know about the ISB and everything they did: there was no way anyone in that room was going to take initiative and deploy anything until absolutely ordered to. Half of them were probably wondering if it was a training exercise, and the rest were waiting for someone else to go first in case it was the wrong call so that person would get thrown to the wolves.
Ya it's a great callout. Institutional paralysis is just as much a part of the inevitable decline of functional capacity. Every time one of these people leaves or is killed or jailed, the system loses all of the knowledge that person had and has to replace them with someone who is almost by definition less experienced, and therefore significantly less able to take initiative even if they wanted to.
Fantastic. I just finished Andor and loved it so much. Your review is so well written and thoughtful. Thank you.
What a great essay. Wow.
Yes, this, exactly this. Very well said.
My favorite thing about the "Are we blind?" scene is that it encapsulates all of this so perfectly. Even before Andor, you had Vader going around executing subordinates at random, and now of course we know about the ISB and everything they did: there was no way anyone in that room was going to take initiative and deploy anything until absolutely ordered to. Half of them were probably wondering if it was a training exercise, and the rest were waiting for someone else to go first in case it was the wrong call so that person would get thrown to the wolves.
Ya it's a great callout. Institutional paralysis is just as much a part of the inevitable decline of functional capacity. Every time one of these people leaves or is killed or jailed, the system loses all of the knowledge that person had and has to replace them with someone who is almost by definition less experienced, and therefore significantly less able to take initiative even if they wanted to.