Why did Skeen want to betray the Rebels? The latest episode of the current Star Wars series, Andor, saw a small group from the Rebellion successfully pull of their heist. The aim of that heist, which had been planned out meticulously, was to steal 80 million credits from the Imperial base in Aldhani and stick a middle finger up to the Galactic Empire.
There was plenty of action, and a few casualties too. But, one of the most important aspects of the latest episode of the sci-fi series was the late plot twist involving Arvel Skeen. It was revealed that the Star Wars character wanted to upend things, and join forces with Cassian Andor to steal the credits for himself.
It was a tense moment, as the audience tried to figure out which way Andor was going to go. But why did Skeen want to betray the Rebels?
Why did Skeen betray the rebels?
In his dialogue with Andor at the episode’s conclusion, Arvel Skeen revealed that he had no emotional connection to the Rebellion, and that he was little more than an opportunist. Speaking to Andor, Skeen explained “I’m a Rebel. It’s just me against everybody else.”
The story he had told the group earlier about his reason for joining the Rebellion – about his brother – was a lie. So, Skeen was just out for himself. We can assume that he joined the Rebel group because he saw it as a big opportunity to bag a lot of credits.
Beyond that, the reason he wanted Andor to help him specifically was because Andor was the only one who could pilot the ship. Despite the earlier friction between the two, Skeen also though that he and Andor shared similarities, saying “We were born in the hole, all we know is climbing over somebody else to get out.” Well, it turns out that Skeen was right: he just hadn’t anticipated that Andor would be able to climb over him too.
Why did Andor kill Skeen?
In Andor episode 6, after Skeen had made his offer, Andor pulled his blaster out and dispatched Skeen faster that you could say the word ‘Greedo’. The TV series hasn’t shied away from killing characters off so far, and this was no exception. But why did the Andor kill Skeen?
Andor killed Skeen because he left Andor with no good choices. And as we saw in the opening episode, when Andor has no good choices he’s more than happy to use his blaster to solve his problems.
Andor didn’t want to steal, but he will have assumed that if he didn’t take Skeen’s offer, then Skeen would have killed him. This is because Skeen wouldn’t have let Andor tell Vel that he was intending to steal the cargo. So, if Andor didn’t want to pull a second heist, he had to kill the sneaky Star Wars character. It’s a Porg eat Porg world, and Andor knows it.
Check out our guide to the Star Wars movies for more science fiction fun. Or learn more about Andor characters like Luthen Rael and Syril Karn and dive into our Andor season 2 release date guide.