Andor Honors Those Who Tried

Spoilers ahead for all of Andor, including series finale “Jedha, Kyber, Erso,” as well as Rogue One.

Luthen Rael’s name is never spoken during Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, despite all the webs he wove, levers he pulled, and people he blackmailed to get the Rebellion off the ground before stabbing himself to prevent Imperial Security Bureau officer Dedra Meero from torturing him for information on his Axis spy network. Also unmentioned are Clem or Maarva Andor, who shaped Cassian into the revolutionary he would become, and Brasso, who swung a brick and helped Ferrix rise up, and Salman Paak, whose hanging inspired his son Wilmon to join Luthen’s ranks. The thousands of Aldhani Indigenous killed for the Empire’s outpost; the hundreds of prisoners electrocuted on Narkina 5 after realizing they were never getting out; the countless Ghormans who learned they were set up for slaughter. Luthen’s loyal deputy Cinta Kaz, accidentally shot while helping the Ghorman Front during their first major operation; ISB mole Lonni Jung, assassinated by Luthen after warning his handler that they were made. Even Karis Nemik, author of the “freedom is a pure idea” manifesto that goes viral in Andor’s series finale, remains unidentified. “Who do you think it is?” a humiliated Major Partagaz uselessly wonders before shooting himself, the legacy of Nemik’s words outlasting his own life.

Another name that is never mentioned in Rogue One is Bix Caleen, Cassian’s lover and, as revealed in the final moments of “Jedha, Kyber, Erso,” mother to the child, also unnamed, who Cassian will never know exists. Bix being an Andor-exclusive construct invited the assumption that she, like so many of the rebels we met in this series, would not make it out of this story alive, so in some ways it’s a triumph to see her healthy and beatific in the wheat fields of Mina-Rau alongside Cassian’s little-brother-like droid B2EMO. The revelation of the child in Bix’s arms isn’t a “happily ever after,” though, or a grand reveal that opens the door for another story about the continuing adventures of Cass Jr. This child’s parentage does not make it “special” — it is not a secret Skywalker, it does not possess Force abilities, it is not a nod to some greater galactic saga — but it does make it significant and central to Andor’s provocative ideas about what constitutes heroism. Bix will probably memorialize her and Cassian’s allies, relatives, and loved ones to their child, but the beautiful tragedy of building a better future is that it usually provides to descendants the freedom to forget those who sacrificed to make their existence easier.

As Andor concluded, its body count grew and grew, but so did its esteem for those who gave their lives to the cause. Andor’s defiant rebels did immoral things for the benefit of the Rebellion: Saw Gerrera gives up Anto Kreegyr and dozens of his followers to maintain his own secrecy; Cinta is suggested to have killed Mon Mothma’s banker Tay Kolma after he threatened the senator with blackmail; Luthen shoots Lonni after the man wears out his usefulness; Cassian kills security officers and later, in Rogue One, unknowingly mimics Luthen’s actions by killing his own mole. But as Luthen says to his daughter figure Kleya once they realize the ISB is closing in, “I think we used up all the perfect.” Andor isn’t celebrating good people who did exclusively good things; it’s arguing for the appropriateness of extreme measures to counteract extreme strife. These characters aren’t saints, but they are martyrs, and the final moments of “Jedha, Kyber, Erso” honor them by assuring us that their actions, violent or not, had enduring, exemplary meaning.

“Martyr” is primarily a theological term, broadly used to refer to someone who dies for their loyalty to either Christianity or Islam, but also increasingly a secular or nondenominational one. Andor doesn’t have a guiding creed; the series is as disinterested in the Force as it is curious about the different cultural practices of various galactic planets. Instead, into that divine vacuum steps the Rebellion itself. For those who devote themselves to overthrowing the Empire, the mission becomes dogma that dictates everything: what they say, whom they trust, whether they love. They expect to expire for their actions, and most of them do. They’re martyrs for their beliefs — and, in line with the ancient Greek and Arabic definitions of the word, witnesses for their truth and for the Empire’s misdeeds. With their every act against the Empire, the Rebels testify to the despotism under which they suffer. With their every success, they present a new way of governance and a new path forward. And with every death, they reflect the ruthlessness of what they’re fighting against and the righteousness of their own cause.

In 1920, Italian Marxist and anti-fascist philosopher Antonio Gramsci popularized the phrase “pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will,” the idea that even when a revolution’s success feels slim, we owe it to ourselves and our allies to push forward. That balance is fundamental to what Andor tells us about the necessity of giving it all to the Rebellion, regardless of the likelihood that most of the series’ Rebels won’t live to see their efforts realized. Many of Andor’s dead don’t know each other, but together they make a daisy chain of reassurance that their disgust with the Empire and their desire to do something about it are both valid. The series’ compassion for anyone willing to act is everywhere: As Luthen tells a young Kleya in flashback, “We fight to win. That means we lose. And lose and lose and lose, until we’re ready.” Within that milieu, Bix’s choice to support the Rebellion by leaving Yavin so that Cassian can commit himself fully to the cause is an adjacent form of loss, one that goes against what we knew to expect from Andor but supports its overall commitment to fighting for a better future. In a struggle like theirs, any action is justified, any decision is defensible, anyone who dies in defense of their shared faith is a hero, and anyone who lives to pass those ideals onto future generations is, too.

In other Star Wars projects, Force users are in a way resurrected; as their physical forms decay, they can live forever as part of that energy. In Andor, most of those who perish in the fight are lost to the history of this far, far away galaxy, their names never known past those who loved them most. But unlike, say, Dedra and Syril, a couple whose final fate in Andor is a sort of Imperial dark mirror to Bix and Cassian’s, they aren’t in the fight for the sake of status or renown. They’re doing it for those whose lives will improve because of their actions — for all those saved by the Death Star’s destruction in A New Hope, and for children like Cassian and Bix’s, who will get to forge their own path through the New Republic.

The Force healer told Bix that Cassian was a “messenger,” and as Cassian heads off into Rogue One to confirm Luthen’s Death Star intel, we see that purpose, and we know where it leads. All of Andor was about death, but in its final moments the series finds life-affirming poignancy as well, the ideals Cassian pursues because it’s the right thing for a warrior to do juxtaposed with the family Bix protects because it’s the right thing for a survivor to do. It’s heart-wrenching that Cassian will never know his child, and we mourn for him, we mourn for Bix, and we mourn for the life they couldn’t have together. But we exalt them, too, for their willingness to give so much of themselves so that others can, as they always did, try.

Related

• Andor Series-Finale Recap: The Place You Helped Build
• Andor’s Adria Arjona Doesn’t See Bix As a Victim