History Series / Andor

* ButNotTooGay: Vel and Cinta are a lesbian couple (the first explicit LGBT+ characters onsceen in ''Star Wars'' media). However, in contrast to straight people around, their relationship shows far less intimacy. Andor is seen in a room after spending the night with a woman (who's [[ModestyBedsheet under the covers]]). Bix pretty clearly wants her boyfriend to have sex with her (though she doesn't say anything. Cinta and Vel, meanwhile, don't even kiss. Granted, this is {{downplayed}} since the physical intimacy isn't that strong in the other cases, but still notable.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: The series begins with Andor searching for his long-lost sister and their originating from Kenari being significant. Over the course of Season 1, his sister and Kenari cease to play any further part in Andor's story arc or are even mentioned at all. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] as several other characters think Andor is chasing ghosts and from what we see, it is highly unlikely he would ever find his sister.

* CoolGuns
** Blaster guns that look like barely modified Kalashnikov assault rifle props are used by the Aldhani rebel cell as a nod to the gun's stereotypical association with unscrupulous militias, guerrillas, and resistance fighters across the globe.
** Cassian himself seems to be armed with a [[VideoGame/DarkForcesSaga Bryar Pistol]], a TragicKeepsake from his late adoptive father. The pistol has two barrels and can rotate between the two using a little switch, which Cassian hits with a neat little flick of the wrist.

* WeAreEverywhere: Nemik's manifesto describes a heroic version of this as the early rebellion. As this show takes place several years before the Rebel Alliance exists as an organised military force, Nemik describes ''all'' forms of insurrection from regular citizens as its own rebellion and states that they all count towards the larger fight against the Empire. While the Rebel Alliance as a guerrilla military hasn't yet formed, the idea of resistance exists and is occurring everywhere.

* ShowDontTell: Wonderfully averted with Nemik's manifesto, played over Maarva's funeral, demonstrating that TropesAreTools and every rule can be broken. Part of what inspires Cassian to devote himself to the Empire is that manifesto, which spells out the CentralTheme of the show: fascism is bad and self-defeating precisely because it will create the rebellion that will destroy it; rise up and fight the Empire.

* HellholePrison: The Imperial prison that Cassian ends up in on the moon Narkina 5 is an interesting example. It's clean and hygienic (seriously, there's not a speck of dirt anywhere in the place), prisoners have relatively limited interactions with the guards after going through the intake process, each prisoner's cell is thoroughly cleaned every day and prisoners even get as much (flavorless, to be sure) food as they want. All of that said, while the day-to-day reality of life in Narkina 5 isn't nearly as bad as it is in other Imperial prisons, the prison ends up being a fundamentally soul-crushing place where the prisoners are kept in line with brutal electric torture and threats of death while being used as slave labor by the Empire to build parts [[spoiler:for the Death Star]]. One prisoner kills himself by deliberately stepping onto the electrified floor, and the [[ConditionedToAcceptHorror reactions]] of the other inmates suggest this is far from a rare occurrence. [[spoiler:Oh, and you never get to leave. All imprisonments are indefinite -- when a prisoner's sentence ends, they're simply shifted to different level or facility to maintain the illusion they'll be allowed to leave. When the Hprisoners on level two figure this out, the entire floor is instantly killed]].

* CentralTheme: Fascism. Over the course of 12 episodes, we see how Cassian is transformed from a petty criminal who is driven by concern for his family into a dedicated rebel willing to do whatever it takes to bring down the Empire. There's no grand moment, no single event, just the constant grind of the banality of evil, of uncaring bureaucrats enacting cruelty because that's their job. Over the course of months, he's subjected to the unceasing dehumanization and devaluing of an empire that only values power for its own sake, and becomes the man willing to commit atrocities to end it that we met in ''Rogue One''.

* HellholePrison: The Imperial prison that Cassian ends up in on the moon Narkina 5 is an interesting example. It's clean and hygienic (seriously, there's not a speck of dirt anywhere in the place), prisoners have relatively limited interactions with the guards after going through the intake process, each prisoner's cell is thoroughly cleaned every day and prisoners even get as much (flavorless, to be sure) food as they want. All of that said, while the day-to-day reality of life in Narkina 5 isn't nearly as bad as it is in other Imperial prisons, the prison ends up being a fundamentally soul-crushing place where the prisoners are kept in line with brutal electric torture and threats of death while being used as slave labor by the Empire to build parts [[spoiler:for the Death Star]]. One prisoner kills himself by deliberately stepping onto the electrified floor, and the [[ConditionedToAcceptHorror reactions]] of the other inmates suggest this is far from a rare occurrence. [[spoiler:Oh, and you never get to leave. All imprisonments are indefinite -- when a prisoner's sentence ends, they're simply shifted to different level or facility to maintain the illusion they'll be allowed to leave. When the prisoners on level two figure this out, the entire floor is instantly killed]].

* DrivenToSuicide: A despairing prisoner in Narkina-5 commits suicide by deliberately stepping onto a lethally-electrified floor rather then be put through anymore of the Empire's slave labor. Judging from the other prisoners’ reactions, he is not the first to do so.

** In "[[Recap/AndorS1E10OneWayOut One Way Out]]", Cassian says "he'd rather die trying to take them down than giving them what they want" during his attempt to rally Kino to his prison break. Kino later repeats this during his RousingSpeech.