Andor’s Anto Kreegyr Just Set Up a Classic Star Wars Trick

This Star Wars: Andor article contains spoilers.

In the galaxy far, far away, names carry a lot of weight. Whether it’s the reveal that the Child is actually Grogu instead of Baby Yoda, that Luke Skywalker was originally going to be “Luke Starkiller,” or the fact there’s a Tusken Raider called URoRRuR’R’R, names in Star Wars to tend to stand out, even when they’re just a jumble of letters or Glup Shittos.

Tony Gilroy’s Andor has introduced a whole host of colorful characters with interesting names: Syril Karn, Dedra Meero, Kino Loy, Bix Caleen, Vel Sartha, and even a Tay Kolma. (You never just get a “Dave” in Star Wars, do you?) But there’s one character in particular who’s been namechecked more than any other in recent episodes. We’re of course referring to the elusive Rebel leader Anto Kreegyr, who’s been seemingly positioned to play a major part in the season one finale. But it’s also possible he’s meant to serve a completely different purpose, one that should be very familiar to longtime Star Wars fans.

In “Daughter of Ferrix,” Luthen meets with Saw and doubles down on his stirring speech from “One Way Out”, proving he’s willing to do anything to keep the fledgling Rebellion afloat. In this case, that means allowing freedom fighter Anto Kreegyr and his men to walk into an Imperial trap. According to Luthen, it’s the only card they can play — to instead warn Anto of the ambush on Spellhaus would mean alerting the Empire to the fact that the Rebels have a mole embedded within their ranks. Basically, for the Rebellion to thrive, Anto must die, Luthen says, and Saw ultimately agrees.

So the table seems set for a Rebel defeat in next week’s season finale. But does that mean we’ll actually get to watch this disaster play out on screen, or is Anto simply canon fodder meant to be killed off-screen to push the story forward for the other characters? With the Star Wars show recently adding Hollwyood A-lister Andy Serkis to its ranks, casting another big name as Kreegyr would be one hell of a send-off for season one. Instead, we’ve heard nothing about who could be playing him, while a reveal of his face via hologram didn’t look like anyone we knew.

By the looks of it, Anto Kreegyr could actually turn out to be the oldest plot device in the Star Wars storytelling playbook: a MacGuffin.

In essence, a MacGuffin is any object or character in a story whose sole purpose is to trigger the plot and/or drive it forward but is insignificant in itself. For example, in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, the MacGuffin is the money Marion steals — it’s the object that leads the characters to Norman Bates’ hotel but the cash itself doesn’t end up being all that important once the slashing begins. George Lucas, being a student of classic cinema, put the MacGuffin to very good use in 1977’s A New Hope, which sees multiple parties searching for R2-D2 because of the secret plans he’s carrying. Artoo is what leads Luke to Obi-Wan, to finally escape Tatooine, to the Death Star, and ultimately into that X-wing cockpit in the third act.

Unsurprisingly, since the success of the original film, Star Wars has returned to this plot device again and again over the years, most recently in the Sequel Trilogy. There’s the map to Luke Skywalker in The Force Awakens, the master codebreaker in The Last Jedi, and The Rise of Skywalker has the Sith wayfinder and Ochi’s dagger. Star Wars even came full circle in 2016 when Rogue One featured yet another group of heroes chasing Death Star plans. Andor itself has also referenced another IP’s MacGuffin in the form of what appears to be Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom’s Sankara Stones in Luthen’s Coruscant collection.

Now it’s the show’s turn to chase its own MacGuffin. As we head into the finale, Kreegyr is at the center of several characters’ stories: Luthen and Saw are in damage control mode ahead of the raid on Spellhaus, while the ISB wants to catch Cassian and is torturing Bix in the hope of proving that Anto is the mysterious Axis. Quite the reputation for someone we’ve never met and who could end up dying in between episodes.

Truth be told, it would be a shame if we don’t get a bombastic Andor finale at Spellhaus — especially after the show teased those X-wings sitting in Saw’s camp and we watched Luthen take on that Imperial cruiser with the Fondor — but it would also be in keeping with Star Wars tradition if Kreegyr himself didn’t turn out to be an important player in the story and instead just served to keep the other characters moving. As Luthen would undoubtedly say, even if Kreegyr dies off-screen, he will have played his part.

Star Wars: Andor is streaming now on Disney+.