Dedra and her guy - an Andor alernative.

 

Did anyone else ship the Dedra-Syril relationship in Andor as hard as I did?

Watching it, I felt like a secret queer in the sixties or seventies watching a gay relationship that had been smuggled into mainstream TV.

"Oh wow, he likes this. OMG, she knows exactly what she's doing. He loves her. She loves him. This is FemDom. It really is."

Now, the relationship wasn't exactly smuggled into the show. Dedra is shown to be sympathetic and we get to see Syril's motivations. He's a good guy, just on the wrong side. 

There's a trope of course. "Bury Your Gays" And it felt exactly like that when Syril blames Dedra for betraying the Ghormans and heads off to his inevitable death. Their love is pure but corrupted, so he has to die for his transgressive love and Dedra gets her just deserts in an imperial prison.

Nobody seemed to have a problem with this, calling it 'Syril's redemption arc' and just deserts for the Imperial Gestapo leader. But seriously, fuck that. 

In the balance between his Mistress and the fate of a whole planet Syril's clear choice should have been to back Dedra to the hilt, no matter what. What are the lives of millions of spider farmers compared to his devotion to his one true love? Maybe he could have tried to persuade her but finally agreed to follow her lead. Could they have just abandoned their jobs and fled from Ghorman to live out their lives together on the Galactic rim? Anything would have been better than Syril dying pointlessly. 

Given that we don't really get romantic payoffs for any of the main characters, wouldn't it have been great to have the transgressive femdom couple lose the war but win each other. I'd have given anything to see Dedra and Syril get away and live out their relationship. Sigh.