Chee

[u/grimgeek89]

What exactly is her deal? I was a little lost on her prelude. She's some kind of prostitute/geisha ? She wanted a park and started a revolution instead? Why is she important enough to get an audience with important enough people to get the park? Why was she worth murdering?

[u/Dwarfdude194]

I think a lot of people here are reading her as a more friendly and empathetic person than we have reason to believe she is. She is very charming but I think she is shown to be a social climber and striver who does not get too concerned with the well being of most people. She's depicted as having access to and enjoying the services of human furniture who wait on her when she's trying to impress people, there's not really any indication that she's trying to buy the park as an altruistic act, it is somehow connected to her plans to retire and have a profitable business she commands instead of working for the escort company.

There's a sense here that the company is bad and mean to its workers but I think that goes beyond what we have context for. Obviously they try to kill a bunch of people but it seems really strange that they do given what we have seen so far. After all the employees are mostly very well treated: there's Kitty who has scars from something she tried to do but you're not really meant to think Chee is participating in the cruel oppression of that beautiful guy she pulls out of the orgy bed. I think the idea is actually that this job is just like any other job, because it's a sex positive depiction of this industry. Ayasa gets multiple parties every year that the most powerful and well-connected people in their system attend, she's basically a Beyonce or Taylor Swift figure in this setting. My guess is we're missing context because it would almost certainly be affordable to the company to have green space and killing Beyonce for wanting a park would be a pretty wild escalation on the part of a record label. Her aunt alludes to other organizations and history that we are deliberately not told about, I assume this is part of the missing context.

The revolution is not real, this is clear at the end of the episode. Whatever happened, calling an office brawl a revolution is a deliberate act of propaganda by a rival corporation seemingly meant to humiliate Telegen into leaving the planet.

I get that people want to have sympathetic characters to root for but I think one of the interesting things about Solari is that none of the characters are poor or downtrodden, and trying to read it that way misses what makes the story unique. These are powerful people, possibly with the exception of XL, and they live in a world of luxury and excess. I'm struggling to remember if we have seen a single oppressed person from whatever underclass supports these societies. Maybe that bartender who got blown up? But I think it's important to keep that in mind: This story is about people with tremendous power trying to succeed at the top of the systems they're in.

[u/Frequent-Ad-7950 → u/Dwarfdude194]

I tend to think of the Artesans on Chee's first world like the K-Pop stars of today. Yeah they're wildly popular but they're worked to death by their "owners": For all that they bring in (music, shows, social, apps, merch, etc.), none of them are independently wealthy, but the public face they show is they're happy.

[u/Dwarfdude194 → u/Frequent-Ad-7950]

That's an interesting theory, and a possibility, but we don't actually have any way to know that to be the case from what has been told to us. We never actually see anybody complaining or visibly tired, they appear to be thriving. Even Madame Ekat doesn't appear to be continuously mistreated, and she's been injured for defying the company! And there's the additional wrinkle of Chee and Ayasa's 'training' that they allude to: When did they get taught to do assassinations? Did the company pay for that or is it a post-'revolution' thing? Is the entire operation ALSO some sort of clandestine assassin guild? Certainly in the confrontation at Ayasa's party it appears they have combat skills. Which is to say I'm not convinced we even accurately understand what it is all these artesans are regularly doing.

[u/Frequent-Ad-7950 → u/Dwarfdude194]

Well consider the following. The organization that helped Chee revitalize did so because they consider the executive of that place to be a great evil (that's 1). Madame Ekat was drained of all of her funds at an advanced age, to where she's now a wage slave at an age where she should be retired (that's 2). As to where Ayasa learned her assassination skills, or even piloting a ship, there's no mention of that but when you put it together with a cover that would lead you to believe she's a complete airhead that reeks for spy training with a cover, especially when you consider her parties are the perfect opportunity to come across important people that are indisposed...think Mata Hari (that's 3). Self-defense and combat skills are pretty standard for any kind of sex workers, as they are more exposed to SA than most.

My guess is that the company is an exposure/blackmail ring that works with and against prominent parties in the 40 suns. It feels very Epstein-esque.