Star Wars is full of love stories, and so was Andor—even if it ran the whole spectrum from powerful romances to just some of the most downright toxic. Splitting somewhere in the middle between love story and total disaster was the messy marriage of Mon Mothma and Perrin Fertha, and according to one writer, it’s exactly that balancing act that made the Chandrilan couple so compelling to watch.
Alexander Freed got to write some of our earliest looks at Perrin and Mon’s relationship in The Mask of Fear, the first of a planned trilogy of Star Wars novels called Reign of the Empire that is covering the 20-year period between the Empire’s rise and the true beginning of the Galactic Civil War. Set shortly after Revenge of the Sith, the cracks in the Mothma-Fertha household, even as Mon pushed herself more and more to the side of resistance against the Empire, were not as prominent as they were by the time we would see the couple in Andor‘s first season. But speaking to Polygon, Freed discussed that finding that balance between Mon and Perrin as their relationship waxes and wanes is part of the appeal, especially when their marriage does ultimately start to splinter.
“I enjoy getting deep into the flaws of characters who are trying their best but falling into bad habits anyway,” Freed said of the couple. “It’s something I return to a lot and something that embodies [Mon and Perrin’s relationship] to a large degree. Perrin is not a monster. Mon is certainly not a monster, but they have found themselves in a situation where their relationship is not working, yet it is deeply carved into their lives. Neither of them really knows how to live without it.”
“There’s a lot of really interesting emotional meat there. […] It was enjoyable to get to dive into that,” Freed continued. “I became incredibly fond of Mon and Perrin while working on them. They were delightful to write.”
Of course, by Andor, the cracks in Mon and Perrin’s marriage are clear for all to see—even if there are still sparks here and there of what love they had for each other. It makes Mask of Fear all the more interesting that, despite being chronologically earlier, it was released sandwiched between Andor‘s first and second seasons, which not only saw the husband and wife thrust back into the marriage rites of their culture thanks to daughter Leida but ultimately ends with Mon fleeing Coruscant and her husband, and Perrin emptily finding the comforts of his lavish life with other women. But Freed didn’t have too much of an opportunity to really go deep into their relationship in order to avoid any potential issues linking up with Andor‘s sophomore season.
“Everything that was getting written was getting read by Lucasfilm folks. So had I gone astray, it would have gotten caught.” Freed added. “The general vibe was like, ‘Yeah, play with this a bit, but don’t go ridiculously deep with it, either. This is largely going to be living within the TV show, so try to keep this to subplot level.’ And that was fine with me.”
It might have only been a subplot in Mask of Fear, but with Mon, Perrin, and Leida all set to appear in the next Reign novel, Edge of the Abyss, no doubt we’ll get to see even more of their fracturing relationship as the novels edge closer and close to the time of Andor.
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