*Mon Mothma-related Andor spoilers.*
Yes, this character made her debut all the way back in Return of the Jedi, I know she’s appeared in Rogue One and the animated shows, and she just popped up on Ahsoka. But let’s face it: if you know me, then you know I’m here primarily to talk about Andor. Let’s get into it!
The Rebellion has many faces. There are those like Vel Sartha and Saw Guerrera who join up and are out sleeping on the ground, going on missions. There are those like Luthen Rael who orchestrate movements from behind the scenes. There are those like the people of Ferrix, many of whom aren’t active Rebels, but who’ve spent so long just trying to survive living under the Empire that they reach their breaking point and fight back.
Then there’s Mon Mothma. Like Luthen, she’s at once hypervisible and completely invisible. At this point in Andor, she’s never going to be pointed out as a face of the Rebellion—her involvement is all 100% behind closed doors, far from the front lines. But part of the reason it’s so vital to keep her rebel associations hidden is because she’s so seen in her day-to-day life. As a prominent member of the Galactic Senate and part of Coruscant’s wealthy elite, her life is all about rubbing elbows and giving speeches. Everyone knows her, and so no one can find out what she’s been doing in secret: privately bankrolling the Rebellion.
Mon Mothma is using her own family money from her personal account, presumably paying for things like blasters, transport, food, comms equipment, and more. Paying for the means to keep rebels up and moving, and paying for the means to keep the Rebellion alive. And no, unlike her cousin Vel, she’s not infiltrating an imperial garrison full of armed soldiers, but just because her risk is less immediate doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. She’s explicitly moving against the Empire, and she’s socializing with folks who won’t hesitate to turn her in if they realize what she’s up to.
As the changing laws begin to hit closer to home and she worries about the wrong people noticing the massive discrepancies in her personal accounts, Mon Mothma is forced to reckon with just how sincerely she supports this rebellion. But her legal troubles, and the desperate choices she’s faced with to try and stay ahead of them, aren’t the only fallout from her actions. Because of how compartmentalized her life needs to be, there’s hardly anyone she can share her whole self with, and that sadly includes her family. Being distant from her husband Perrin isn’t a great loss for her; theirs was an arranged marriage, and it’s clear that Mon Mothma doesn’t think much of him. But it’s painful for her not to be closer to her daughter Leida. Between her work with the Senate, her secret meetings with Luthen, and the deceptions she needs to maintain, she’s not very present for her daughter, so Leida turns instead to her dad for parental guidance. She feels resentful toward her distant mom anyway, and Perrin encourages those feelings, pushing the two further and further apart.
Given that we do see Mon Mothma in Return of the Jedi, we know that her journey on Andor still has a long way to go. I’m looking forward to seeing how she gets there.
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