The Old Guard 2: Andy's Immortality And Her First Death, Explained

In The Old Guard comic books, Andy, aka Andromache of Scythia, is hailed as the eldest and the oldest immortal ever to have lived. In her lifetime, she had seen numerous civilizations build and crumble before her eyes. As per the second comic in the franchise, titled “Force Multiplied,” Andy is around 6000 years old and was born somewhere at the transition between the Stone and Copper Ages. But you still might be wondering when I was the first time she died, right? Well, in “Force Multiplied,” Andy told Nile and the rest of the team that back in the day, she was a Babylonian. She was around fourteen or fifteen when she fought her first battle alongside her mother. But it was a barbaric time, and a chance to survive can even turn one’s family into their enemies. Andy’s mother used her own daughter as a shield against a group of men charging towards them with their spears. The savage men didn’t think twice before piercing their sharp weapons into Andy’s body, killing her on the spot, but lucky as she was, Andy didn’t die. This was the moment when Andy received the gift of uncertain immortality.

At the time, Andy didn’t really wonder if her power was a boon or a curse. Her world was small and simple. No one really asked the difficult questions, as everyone was busy surviving the odds. However, being betrayed by her own mother filled Andy with irrevocable anger and hatred against humanity that took ages to cool down. She became a ruthless warrior and a ruler, whose tales of courage and valor traveled to far-off lands, turning Andy into a fabled spirit or a god. But alas, she got bored and left her throne to look for something new, something that gave her the thrill of living.

As the ages went by, Andy’s gift of immortality poisoned her calm and peace. Immortality had always been a curse in disguise, and with time it started to show its true colors. It forced Andy to witness the death of her friends and lovers, leaving her alone and heartbroken each and every single time. Throughout the centuries, she went through the same pain and suffering over and over again. She tried running away from it, but there was no escape. Loneliness and isolation were the only things that Andy feared the most because in all these ages or centuries, she got attached to people numerous times, and a part of her heart broke when they died. She couldn’t share her gift of immortality with them and couldn’t die to find some peace, but fortunately, some centuries later, she met another immortal named Lykon, though things didn’t really work out between them and they parted ways. Andy left him to search for the woman in her dreams, who was none other than Noriko, introduced as Quynh in the Netflix adaptation.

In the first two chapters of the comic book series, Andy didn’t lose her immortality, so this was a plot first introduced in the film by Greg Rucka, the writer of the comic book, who even wrote the screenplay for Netflix’s adaptation. And I guess the reason behind such an addition was that he wanted to give closure to Andy, or maybe all the immortals, which was why the second film in the franchise further explored the idea of the lost immortal, Nile, who could take away anyone’s gift of immortality. In the first film, when Andy first met Nile in Afghanistan and was trying to convince her to join her team, Nile, in a fit of rage, stabbed Andy near her shoulder. Basically, it was after this particular incident, when Andy lost her power, but she didn’t point out the exact reason behind such a phenomenon. She started remembering an old friend named Lykon, whom she’d met when Alexander conquered Judea. They worked together for 2000 years until Lykon mysteriously lost his immortality and died during city-state wars in Italy. According to Andy, he looked so relieved that it was finally over, and Andy wished for the same fate for herself. So, for six months, living her life as a mortal, Andy truly believed that her time had come and she would eventually be able to die to find the peace she yearned for. However, her second youngest friend, Booker, had some other ideas in his mind. He blamed himself for Andy’s loss of immortality and had been suicidal for a long time, suffering from the pain of losing his own family and burdened with the guilt of betraying his friends.

In The Old Guard 2’s ending, Booker found out that Nile not only had the power to take one’s immortality but also created an opportunity for an immortal to transfer their power to another immortal. He quickly decided to transfer his gift to Andy to redeem himself. Booker knew that Andy was the strong leader the team needed to do good to humanity, and for that she would need her gift back. As far as Booker was concerned, he always regarded himself as a burden to the team and hence sacrificed his life and met his fateful end.

Now to address the elephant in the room: will Andy lose her power again? To be very honest, Greg Rucka didn’t do a pretty good job in fleshing out this concept of the last immortal and the clause of immortals transferring their power. It does sound like a pretty complex idea, but it was poorly executed, because of which it left room for more confusion than clarity. But in my personal opinion, Andy might lose her power again. The way things are going, I think Rucka is in a hurry to end the franchise with the third film, based on which I am assuming most of the immortals will die by the end of The Old Guard 3. But I can be wrong. Maybe once an immortal has lost their power, they cannot lose their gift again and might end up living forever? And if that’s the case, then Andy will become the last surviving immortal, considering Nile will die before her. So, is that Andy’s fate? To end up all alone, the feeling she had been running from her entire life?