I love Star Wars. I love writing. I think about both all the time. 

The older I get, I think about them mostly together. Star Wars is less the cosmic wonder it was for me as a kid, but more something I approach as a writer and critical thinker. Not always. Sometimes I just like to hang out in a galaxy far, far away. That was basically the case with The Bad Batch. Until season two, when Tech became the first neurodivergent character in the franchise. That spoke to me. I’m autistic.

And then they killed him.

It was a good death. Might have been a great death. He sacrifices himself for the crew, fulfilling Squad 99’s ethos of never following orders. And in retrospect, it makes sense. All the focus on his character, at the expense of others in the animated series, should have been a sign that the writers were going to leverage this greater attachment to him. From a story standpoint, I completely endorse the move. It establishes huge stakes. No one is safe. This isn’t just a cartoon; this is serious business. It’s in keeping with the show’s generally very mature approach to a very dark time in Star Wars lore.

But as an autistic person, I hated it.

This always happens. Representation arrives in media, finally – FINALLY – and then it’s jettisoned. Willow and Tara are lovers on Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Tara is murdered. The 100 kills off Lexa. Willow, the TV series, features Disney’s first lesbian princess and highest-profile LGBTQ+ relationship. It’s canceled after one season, despite a devoted following. GLAAD recently reported that LGBTQ characters decreased in streaming by 6.4% in 2023.

It got me thinking. On one hand, it’s a business. Great shows have always been canceled before their time (RIP Pushing Daisies). Fan-favorite characters have always died. What’s different now? Little, in terms of the economic practicalities. The importance of diversity and representation in modern media carries a significant and symbolic weight that goes far beyond personal recognition. We live in a time here in the United States where the word ‘gay’ is being banned from schools and libraries. Marginalized creators from every background are seeing their work banned. They’re seeing their health and their freedom restricted or annihilated. When you couple that with any regression in representation, with any erosion in one’s escape, the result is desperate.

Can nothing bad ever happen to representative characters?

No. That’s not drama. But that doesn’t make it simple. I wrestle with this, both as a writer and a consumer. I write about neurodivergent, queer characters. Bad things happen to them. A lot. There are things I will not do, such as indulge in tired tropes (there is a notable lack of fridges in the Eververse). Does that box me in dramatically? I don’t think so; you can apply drama and tension to any character without fulfilling the same old cycles. Being aware of a character’s value to your audience – it helps to know who your audience is – can aid you as the creator in challenging yourself to craft more original stories. 

Bad things happen to good people. 

The world reminds us daily of this awful truth. So we often want an escape in fiction. When I watch Star Wars, especially The Bad Batch or another animated series with ostensibly lower stakes, I just want to jump to hyperspace. Leave everything behind. So Tech’s emergence as a neurodivergent character – something nicely telegraphed from the beginning – invested me in the show more than I expected. The series started off very wobbly. For me at least, it didn’t seem to justify its existence. That changed in season two, and not just because of Tech.

The show began to examine an unexplored period in Star Wars lore. Where did all the clones go after the Clone Wars? How did the early Empire cement its hold on the galaxy? The political maneuvering is extremely complex. The gruesome fascism on display by the Empire goes far beyond anything seen in the movies. The show builds your interest, builds the characters, and expertly raises the stakes (all while delivering what is easily the most visually stunning Star Wars show). Tech means a lot to me, not just as a Star Wars fan, but as an autistic person. His death hurt and it hurts me that a wholly unique avatar for neurodivergence is now dead mere episodes after the show made this explicit.

Would I have killed Tech?

I don’t think so. I see the dramatic value in it, though Echo arguably makes more sense. He’s a beloved character from an earlier series, his ultimate fate is unknown but assumed given his absence in the subsequent timeline, and he and Tech are somewhat redundant. They’re both, well, tech-savvy.

So, why Tech?

Why not Echo? It could have been obvious to the writer that Echo was an obvious choice to the viewer, so they undercut expectations. It could also be that they believed this was the right thing. And it could be. We decry plot armor in stories; shouldn’t we dislike it for every character? Should autistic characters in media only survive? Should they only be positive role models? These are ideal, but not reflective of reality. Good people suffer. Good people make bad choices. Drama demands that conflict and tension challenge us.

We need to challenge ourselves.

We need to examine the choices we make as creators. What are we doing when we kill a character? Or depict them in a certain fashion? What function does it serve in the story, and what does it say to the audience? Who is your audience? When everything is so precious, when the real world is infinitely more dangerous than any story we’ll consume, we have to be considered. And as readers, viewers, and listeners, we have to consider that a consequence of representation is the natural consequence of drama. I don’t like it. I want Tech to live.

I want Tech to come back next season, but that would undermine a heroic sacrifice. That would potentially invite other tropes that are just as bad. Tech didn’t express himself like everyone else. Not every story is like every story.

We have to face that challenge.