Who is Kleya? More Andor Theories

[unspeakablehorror]

 

Here's some more theorizing, this time about Kleya.

 

Kleya is Luthen's assistant in his antiques shop, but it's clear early on that she's far more than that.  She is his confidant, and deeply involved in the rebellion herself.  In episode 11, her exchange implies she's been with Luthen a long time, probably for at least as long as the rebellion has existed, but likely before that.  Who is she?  I've seen numerous ideas proposed: that she's Andor's sister, she's Luthen's daughter, even that she's Leia (based on the similarity of their names and her facility with disguise).  While all these characters would be relevant choices, I think there's also good reason to think none of them are the case. Let's talk about these possibilities briefly, and why I think they are unlikely.  In addition, I'll discuss a theory of my own.

Let's start with Leia.  This one I'm going to dismiss immediately due to one glaring discrepancy: the age difference.  Leia would be 14 at this time, as this season takes place 5 years before the battle of Yavin, when Leia will be 19. So at this point she is little older (though much more politically minded) than Mon's daughter Leida.  Kleya is clearly not a teen girl.  I'm going to guess from appearance that she may be about 30, though let's be generous and assume she may be as young as mid 20's.  That's still far too old to be Leia.  Of course there are many other reasons I think this unlikely, including the fact that we know from the Obi-Wan show and Rebels that Leia had taken an active role in Alderaanian politics from a young age, and so probably didn't have time to stand around in a shop all the time during the day (and even at night!) as an antiquities assistant in between her duties as Princess and soon-to-be Senator of Alderaan.

Andor's sister would be a little more likely.  She looked about 6-8 in Cassian's flashbacks, putting her just at or shy of the lower end of my estimates here for Kleya's age.  But it's possible I've underestimated her age.  It's a little unclear when Cassian's flashback occurred, but the insigna of the soldiers on the crashed ship was Separatist, so we know it likely happened sometime during the 3 year period of The Clone Wars.  It would be a little puzzling, though, since she seems to want Andor dead so that he isn't a liability to Luthen.  So her priority seems to be protecting Luthen, not Cassian, despite the fact that Luthen seems interested in taking him on.  Still, maybe she doesn't know Cassian Andor is Kassa.  If Luthen is like a father figure to her (maybe he was on Kenari around the same time as Maarva), maybe she looks out for him as much as Cassian looks out for Maarva, which could set up an interesting parallel between them.  If she is Cassian's younger sister, she seems to have a more mature and hardened outlook than he does.  So this one seems unlikely to me but not impossible.

Then there's Luthen's daughter.  Which would work, sure.  The age difference seems believable for that.  I'm not sure how old Luthen or Kleya are, but Luthen is clearly the older of the two. And she does seem to prioritize Luthen, but they don't really seem to have a father-daughter dynamic.  Then again that could just be the long amount of time they've spent undercover.  This solution seems unsatifying to me, because while it works, there's nothing that canonically points to it over anything else excepting how much she prioritizes Luthen and how long they seem to have known each other, both of which could have been for any number of other reasons.

But I think there's another possibility, which I haven't seen discussed yet: Kleya was Luthen's padawan.  Of course, this only works if Luthen was a Jedi, but as I've discussed earlier, I believe there's a large amount of canonical evidence for that now.  This would explain Kleya's prominence in the Rebellion and her shared aloofness from its other members.  Kleya is really very similar to Luthen in terms of her ruthlessness and calculation.  At the same time, underneath that all, I think she also shares his same dedication to the Rebellion, even if they disagree at times on what is best for it.  And I get the impression they mostly agree, excepting on Cassian. I do think Luthen wants to get him to join the Rebellion, whereas Kleya would rather not take the risk of Luthen being exposed.  Maybe she worries Cassian will be another Skeen, or even just that there's too much risk to Luthen of allowing him in the inner circle given the ISB's interest in him.  

And of course she would also be in danger if Luthen is exposed to the Empire, but I think this is less of what she's worried about, and more about the loss of Luthen himself or about the separation that would entail.  If there's anything Andor (the show) is about, it's about how people working together are more than the sum of their parts.  Luthen and Kleya's ability to work together gave them a critical morale and operational  advantage the other Jedi didn't have.

If she was his Padawan, she'd be unusual in that both her and her master survived the Jedi  purge without being separated.  Previously we've seen it was extremely rare for Jedi Masters to survive the purge, and all other Jedi we've seen were entirely isolated from other Jedi of that era.  If so, then when Kleya calls him in this episode and asks if he's coming home, she really means home to Coruscant in general, not the antique shop specifically, because it's where they've *always* lived, once in the Jedi Temple, and now still in the upper levels of the planet.  This would certainly explain the importance she places on Luthen specifically and the distance she places between herself and the other members of the Rebellion besides Luthen.