Rhydo Plays a Pivotal Role in 'Andor' Season 2, but What Actually Is It?

The second season of Andor is carefully showing us how the rebellion at the heart of the original trilogy took shape. Even as it does that, though, the show is also immersing us in many of the details of its world, which often means incorporating terms that might be unfamiliar to people who are not total Star Wars fanatics.

Rhydo, which is short for rhydonium, is one such term that was unfamiliar to many before Forest Whitaker's Saw Gerrera started talking about it. Now, many want to know more about what it is and why it's so important in this story. Here's what we know.

As we see in this block of Andor episodes, rhydonium is very important to Wil's reluctant agreement to help Saw Gerrera. Saw refers several times to rhydo, calling it his "sister" and telling the story of his time on Onderon and all that it cost him.

Rhydo is, above all else, a dangerous and highly volatile fuel that can spark at the smallest provocation.

In addition to being an actual substance, though, rhydo is also a tidy metaphor for Saw's philosophy of rebellion. Saw's rebellious spirit is motivated by his personal loss and by instinct. He believes himself to have "clarity of purpose," and sees his cause as pure in a way that some of the other rebel factions are not. Rhydo is highly combustible in precisely the way that both he and the rebellion are.

Like rhydo, the rebellion just needs the right spark to explode the entirety of the empire. The fumes of rhydo are toxic, but Saw breathes them freely, and it causes much of the damage that continues to accumulate in his lungs. In spite of that damage, though, Saw continues to breathe deeply, understanding that his life in the rebellion will not be long, whether he breathes the substance in or not.

Although it proves to be a handy metaphor inside the Andor universe, like most of Star Wars lore, rhydonium has a history that dates back to before the series. The earliest canonical mention of the fuel came in a 2021 issue of Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures, and it has since appeared in both Star Wars: Rebels and The Mandalorian.

Like so many of the substances that make up the Star Wars universe, Rhydonium has its analog in the real world. It could be thought of as something akin to oil, although we're led to believe that it's even more combustible than oil is.

What's most important, though, is how the substance speaks to the thinking of the characters discussing it. Saw is an explosive radical who believes in the total destruction of the Empire. Rhydo is the perfect substance for him for this reason, even if its role in the story is as much practical as it is symbolic.