I’m starting to think I need to create a sub-category on this blog dedicated purely to discussions of sexual violence in media, because, here I am again.

Let’s get this out of the way: there will be spoilers here.

So, a little background: after watching the first three episodes of Season 2 of Andor, I was not surprised that my husband was upset and bothered by a scene of sexual violence that occurs. I was a little more surprised, however, to discover that I was not. At all. I decided that I needed to unpack why that might be, because as a general rule, I am very rarely cool with depictions of sexual assault in media.

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a huge Star Wars nerd. I grew up on it. I played with the action figures. I know a truly embarrassing amount of trivia about the larger Star Wars universe. I’m still hoping that Disney’s going to give me that call someday to hang out in the writers’ room. (Seriously, Disney: call me.)

The thing is: this is not the first time that Star Wars has depicted sexual assault, but apparently, that earlier instance didn’t “count”—because it was Jabba the Hutt and Princess Leia. Just today on social media, I saw someone say that Jabba couldn’t possibly have sexually assaulted Leia, because he wouldn’t have been capable of the act of penetration. As if that’s the only definition of sexual assault. Which was when I realized what the problem really was: that earlier instance hadn’t depicted sexual assault.

It had titillated it.

When people talk about male gaze in cinema? They’re talking about this. Everything about what happened to Leia was focused on the sexualization of a damsel in distress; the gold bikini, the heavy chain and slave collar, the humiliating acts, and the promises that she would “learn to appreciate” Jabba. Even as a teenager, I recognized that this was coding for sexual assault. The fact that Jabba was probably not physically capable of penetration didn’t make it okay or remove the trauma.

But it was sexy, right?

The problem, of course, was both how and why it was filmed. Leia’s objectification was an ‘oh no! Luke had better rescue her!’ ratcheting of tension in a scene that wasn’t even about her. It was about Luke, and this was just a complication, a raising of the stakes. All the while the camera lingered over her body. And if you try to tell me that slave bikini hasn’t had a major presence in the fantasies of men ever since, I will call you a liar.

Fast forward to Andor, Season 2.

Like Leia, Bix isn’t *technically* raped. No penetration occurs. Heck, Jabba had more success in terms of how far he got. Bix’s attacker is taking advantage of his position, his power, and Bix’s illegal status to try to get a little side action with a pretty girl, and part of why it’s horrifying is that in the beginning he tries to pass himself off as ‘just a nice guy.’ I’m sure that if you’d asked him before all this, he’d have sworn up and down (and believed it, too!) that all his previous assignations were entirely consensual, even though it’s completely obvious that any ‘yeses’ only occurred because the migrant women were desperate and too scared to say ‘no.’

When Bix does say no, he reacts with violence.

None of this is shot provocatively. Bix doesn’t look sexy. The fighting is dirty and ugly and bitter. When Bix kills the lieutenant, it’s nothing so heroic and cool as choking a Hutt with her own slave chain. Bix is clearly traumatized by the experience. It’s uncomfortable. It’s meant to be.

The Return of the Jedi said: This is hot. Andor, Season 2, says: This is horrifying.

Because this is a chillingly realistic portrayal of the behaviors that happen in totalitarians regimes. We don’t need to guess that. We know that, because history exists. And sure, maybe this behavior is technically illegal in the Empire, but so what? I’m betting as long as the soldiers are making their quotas and never picking on anyone important, nobody checks.

This is, in many ways, what makes Andor the most radical Star Wars series to date. It understands that true tyranny isn’t flashy. It’s boring, bureaucratic, normalized. It’s what happens when cruelty is systematized and justified as “order.” It’s what happens when individuals become resources, bodies, numbers. What happened to Bix didn’t happen to her because she was royalty (as the mistreatment of Leia has been retconned to explain) but because she isn’t. Because she’s nobody and she won’t be missed.

Contrast that with Leia. As much as I love her—fierce, brilliant Leia—the visual framing of her captivity in Return of the Jedi was always about spectacle. It wasn’t about Leia’s trauma; it was about what Leia looked like while being traumatized. She was an accessory to someone else’s fantasy, both in-world and behind the camera. (To be fair, that’s always been a problem with the original trilogy’s treatment of Leia: see her comforting Luke on the loss of a teacher he’d known for a few days while completely ignoring that she’d just lost her entire freaking home planet.)

Andor doesn’t make that mistake. Bix’s assault is about Bix. No one comes to rescue her from the assault. Her suffering is not entertaining. It’s brutal and ugly and real. If I shuddered while watching it, it was because it was too relatable. Andor seems determined to show some of the uncomfortable realities hiding in the shadows of the Star Wars universe, and much like Season 1, it’s doing so with a lot of skill and nuance.

I’m not complaining.