By the end of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, one wouldn’t have been faulted for thinking Cassian Andor and Jyn Erso had formed a romantic connection. Moments like the two of them sharing a special look while on an elevator and them dying in each other’s arms on Scarif prompted many Star Wars fans to ship Cassian and Jyn together. But Tony Gilroy, who co-wrote Rogue One, didn’t “pay attention” to these romance theories when making the recently-concluded Andor series, though he did have some kind parting words for this disappointed segment of the fanbase.
As seen over the course of Andor’s two seasons, which can be streamed with a Disney+ subscription, Diego Luna’s title protagonist shared a deep connection and on-again-off-again relationship with Adria Arjona’s Bix Caleen. So although Gilroy was well aware of the Cassian/Jyn shippers, he wasn’t going to let stop him from delving into a different romantic relationship, telling Collider:
I felt bad for the people who had invested so much time in the fan fiction and stuff like that. The people who really had gone deep on it. It's not considered canon, and it's not something I have to pay attention to, legally, within the order, but people worked hard on that stuff, and it meant a lot to them. You don't want to trample on somebody's flower garden, you know? But I have to do what I have to do. I'm sure there's somebody who will never get over that. I apologize. I really do.
It was nice of Tony Gilroy him to acknowledge the passion that these Star Wars fans have for pairing Cassian and Jyn together rather than ignore them or even dismiss them. This wasn’t a matter of Gilroy being disdainful of this particular ship, it’s just that it didn’t align with his creative vision for Andor. For him, it was more important to explore what Cassian had with Bix rather than act as though Jyn was his only love.
In fact, Tony Gilroy also admitted during the interview that it makes sense for Cassian and Jyn to be shipped together given all they went through, even though he doesn’t see it as a full-blown romance. As he explained:
It's also instructive to remind you that you may go on a project tomorrow and have a really intense relationship with a bunch of people, and not even romantic, but you may have a very intense relationship with people and feel that you are incredibly close friends. Then you realize that, oh my god, they've been married four times. We all have an accumulation of history, and what we're made of is often way more complicated than we want to admit.
Sadly, Cassian and Bix’s romance ended on a tragic note long before he met Jyn Erso and they embarked on a mission to steal the Death Star plans. A year beforehand, shortly after Cassian had decided to leave the Rebellion in order to start a life with Bix, she left him on Yavin IV and told him he needed to stick with the Rebels and help them overthrow the Empire. Adria Arjona also confirmed that Bix knew at that point she was pregnant with Cassian’s child.
Bix promised that she would find Cassian once the Empire was defeated, but that never came to pass, and Diego Luna’s character never learned he was a father. Still, at least he was with Jyn Erso in his final moments rather than alone, and hopefully there will come a day when Bix and her child can return.
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