How many times can an author do something subversive in their characters’ development and make it still feel subversive?
That isn’t an invitation to a philosophical debate, it is a question that has been on my mind after watching Synara’s Score. In a positive way. Ever since The Clone Wars, Dave Filoni’s projects have been showing interesting characters with interesting story arcs. A trope we have seen him use quite a few times is taking a seemingly one-dimensional character (introduced as a basic villain) and throwing them into a box with a protagonist (figuratively speaking). A conversation ensues, where we discover something about the character’s backstory, but the dialogue with the protagonist becomes transformative by itself. I believe we have just witnessed the seeds of this in “Synara’s Score”.
But let’s start from the beginning. “Synara’s Score” picked up from where last week’s story left. Some time has passed, and we learn that Kaz has become friends (or rather, tried to become friends) with Synara, whom he had rescued from the derelict in Sector Six. Synara has found herself a job, she is now scavenging for spare parts. And that’s why, when Yeager desperately needs to repair the station’s defense turrets, Kaz takes Tam to see Synara.
Pass The Bechdel Test
I should start with noting that it was delightful to see Tam Ryvora, the only female character in Yeager’s crew, getting more space. It was great to learn more about her backstory – and on top of everything, see her opening about it to another female character. The Star Wars animated shows certainly haven’t had the problem with underrepresentation in this respect, but it is always good to see that trend continuing. Especially since Tam is not your average cool epic heroine, but she’s a simple hardworking mechanic.
Synara, on the other hand, seems to have her entire story arc in front of her. Currently, her allegiance seems to lie with the pirates, but we can already see her beginning to care about Tam, if nothing else. Synara decided to turn on her own pirate crewmate, partly to maintain cover, but she could have just as easily disposed of Tam had her allegiance to the pirates been stronger than her blooming friendship with Tam.
Doza And The First Order
The episode moved the plot forwards in several ways again. Under the threat of pirates, Captain Doza finally agrees to accept the First Order’s proposal and protection. The show is doing a great job in showing how nothing is straightforward. Multiple actions of individuals with different motivations combine their vectors into results that are different from each of the participants’ expectations. Kaz wants to stop the First Order, Doza wants to protect his station, the pirates want money. But Kaz also rescued Synara because he wanted to help someone, starting a different chain of events. Synara alerted the pirates because she believed that was her job, but also protected Tam. The pirates attacked the station because the First Order hired them to do it, but Doza now calls upon the First Order to protect the station.
When The First Order does not need the pirates any more, what are they going to do? Are the pirates going to split – Synara (and maybe others) joining the Colossus inhabitants while others enter the First Order? What about Doza, what about Torra, what about the Resistance? If I compare just the show’s story to that of for example Rebels season 1, I must say that there is much more focus on the plot in Resistance. And I am just curious to see what will happen to the characters’ allegiances and where each of them will decide to stand when the moment comes.
