Andor: Who Are You?

[The following essay contains MAJOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!]

Season 2 of Andor unfolds with an oppressive degree of urgency and a palpable sense of inevitability. With the threat of the Death Star looming on the horizon (indeed, intermittent title cards supply a literal ticking clock, counting down the years until A New Hope’s Battle of Yavin—not to mention the title character’s eventual demise), the walls are closing in on Rebel and Imperial alike. The Empire, desperate to prevent its planet-destroying super weapon from being prematurely exposed, has tightened its tyrannical grip on the galaxy far, far away. Everyone—from undocumented migrant farmers to wealthy merchants, from starving would-be revolutionaries to courageously defiant senators—suffers under Palpatine’s totalitarian regime.

Even those that should theoretically benefit from the system feel the pressure of the boot on their throats. In the eerily quiet aftermath of a particularly distressing scene, for example, Dedra Meero—a high-ranking operative in the secret police—tugs at the collar of her uniform, the symbol of her pride transformed into a figurative noose around her neck. Death Star architect Orson Krennic, meanwhile, exits the narrative with his tail between his legs, leaving a trail of sweat in his wake, haunted by a humiliating series of failures and tormented by the knowledge that his position in the military’s hierarchy is more tenuous than ever—the antithesis of the confident, swaggering, flamboyant figure that was established in the show’s season premiere.

And then, of course, there’s poor, pathetic Syril Karn. Introduced as a glorified rent-a-cop with delusions of grandeur, the former wannabe hero of his own personal fascist power fantasy has “matured” into an obedient cog in the machine. Having thus restrained his overinflated ego, he currently enjoys a relatively stable romantic relationship with Dedra (previously the object of his unrequited infatuation). They live together in a fancy, upscale apartment that, from a certain point-of-view, epitomizes luxury and privilege: it’s clean, tidy, spacious, and immaculately furnished. It can also be accurately described as empty, sterile, featureless, and devoid of personality—a purgatorial limbo as emotionally and spiritually unfulfilling as Siryl’s job as a humble bureaucrat.

It is therefore no surprise that the opportunity to infiltrate a nascent group of insurgents instantly reawakens his insatiable hunger for validation. Unfortunately for his conscience, his ostensible objective—to root out “foreign agitators”—is a complete fabrication, obfuscating a more nefarious, clandestine mission: to subtly embolden and further radicalize local resistance to Imperial occupation as a prelude to “relocating” (i.e., slaughtering) the planet’s entire population (which has already been thoroughly demonized via a carefully coordinated propaganda campaign). When the true extent of his employers’ cruelty and subterfuge is laid bare, Syril’s psyche, sanity, and very identity rapidly deteriorate. His superiors don’t care about maintaining law and order; their only goal is to plunder natural resources and exploit labor—regardless of the moral cost. His agency was always an illusion; even his own lover callously manipulated him. He can do nothing but watch in a mute, numb daze as chaos engulfs the town square, his grim work bearing the bitterest fruit imaginable…

…whereupon he spots Cassian Andor lurking amongst the fleeing bystanders. Provoked into a savage frenzy at the sight of the fugitive responsible for all his misfortunes (from his distorted perspective, anyway), Syril tackles the Alliance assassin and quickly pummels him into submission. Before he can savor his victory over a decidedly concrete, tangible enemy (as opposed to a comparatively abstract political ideology), however, his “arch-nemesis” utters three simple words that finally shatter the few remaining vestiges of his self-worth:

Who are you?

Confronted with his utter insignificance in the greater scheme of the overarching conflict, Syril hesitates, lowers his guard, and contemplates the futility of his ambitions. In this context, the fatal gunshot that immediately follows seems almost merciful—a lethal punctuation to the metaphorical killing blow delivered seconds prior. It’s an appropriately unceremonious, undignified, anticlimactic conclusion to the tragic tale of a small, pitiful man that was happy to spill blood for the sake of comfort and security—until the violence affected him personally. Karn’s death isn’t merely physical; it’s existential. He discovers exactly what he is beneath his façade of stoic discipline: cowardly, superficial, hypocritical, unprincipled, inconsequential. How ironic that a man who craved attention and affection is posthumously reduced to an anonymous statistic—yet another nameless victim of the brutal authoritarian philosophy that he once defended with such naïve enthusiasm.