Syril Karn is Andor’s Tragedy of Male Rage

The following story contains spoilers for Andor season 2, episode 8, “Who Are You?”

“WHO ARE YOU?”

Those are the last words Syril Karn, Andor‘s resident ladder-climbing imperial bootlicker, ever heard. And considering the phrase made up the title of the episode—which would serve to be Syril’s last episode—it comes with quite a bit of depth.

From the very beginning, Syril (played brilliantly by Kyle Soller) was presented as a character foil and a mirror image to the show’s titular character and hero, Cassian Andor (Diego Luna). As we see Cassian learning that there’s more going on (and more potential for both him and what he believes in), we also see an ambitious young Syril, then just a space cop overseeing Ferrix, also learning about what he believes in—and being stymied. Eventually, Syril loses his job for pursuing what he believes to be “right,” encountering Cassian along the way and gaining what would, in his mind only, become a lifelong nemesis.

Andor is a show in the world of Star Wars, about how things got to be the way they are. We know what happens in A New Hope. We know what happens in Rogue One. And Andor exists to show us the little, intricate things that have always been necessary to get us there.

But Andor is also a show with more parallels to real life than anyone could’ve expected when the show was first announced—and that’s thanks to the brilliance of showrunner Tony Gilroy and the team of writers who work with him. Syril is a space cop in a galaxy far, far, away, yes. But as a troubled young(ish) man looking for purpose, Syril’s life is one that makes more and more sense with the more screen time he gets. He lives a shallow, empty life, with his nagging-but-loving mother, Eedy (the wonderful Kathryn Hunter) as basically the only other person he interacts with. He has no friends. He has no hobbies. All Syril has in his life is working for, and believing in, The Empire—and so he puts everything he has into it.

This is a kind of character we’ve never seen before in any Star Wars media; Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn) may represent the idea of the “banality of evil,” but at least he’s a very high ranking figure. Syril is a nobody, a schlub. He’s a horrifying example of someone who could’ve been normal, but got sucked into believing in something and never found his way out. With the way very real young minds are shaped in 2025, this is a relevant track to find someone on; the way people are misled and warped into believing something based on appeals to rage and anger is just as relevant in our world as it is in Star Wars. When Syril’s mission to pursue Cassian on Ferrix in season 1 is a failure and he’s fired, he told himself that only he can be the person to make this right. And he never stopped believing that for the rest of his life.

Syril and Cassian are presented, throughout, on parallel paths. At one point Syril gets fired from his job, yes, but at one point Cassian winds up in prison. Both have setbacks, but are relentless in their pursuit of what they believe in: Cassian even needs some convincing to ultimately join the cause of the rebellion, but Syril is all in on The Empire. So much so, in fact, that it connects him with ISB Space Nazi Dedra Meero (Denise Gough) in a relationship that at first is obsessive and eventually, somehow, turns romantic.

As Andor moves through season 1 and into season 2, we see that Syril, despite his lack of experience in anything other than bootlicking, can be smart and resourceful when he needs to. He can be charismatic, seen when his new job on the doomed planet of Ghorman gets him involved with a group of local rebels. But because he’s so obsessed with a cause he doesn’t fully understand, he’s all too quick to sell those rebels out to Dedra and the ISB, without even realizing what his deceit is leading to.

And, well, it leads to genocide. It’s not entirely clear what Syril thought he was contributing to, but Soller’s performance in “Who Are You?” is nothing short of brilliant. It takes no words—only stunned, horrified facial expressions—for Syril to realize that his lifelong devotion has been to a cause far more destructive than he ever imagined. And it’s breaks his brain in half when he realizes that the information he’s been reporting back to Dedra has been leading to this all along; He is complicit. The plan, to Syril’s horror, was always to find a good reason for the Empire to wipe out the people of Ghorman and steal the planet’s resources.

While there’s a moment earlier in season 2 where it seems like Syril might be defecting to the rebellion that proves to be a fake out (he doesn’t hesitate to relay secrets back to Dedra), “Who Are You?” finds the former space cop at an actual crossroads. He clearly sees the destruction surrounding him, he’s already acknowledged that he’s been deceived (strangling Dedra and putting his own troubled morals on display; In a world where word of Darth Vader and his force chokes gets around, this probably seemed like the right thing to do in Syril’s mind), and out in the chaos, he realistically could’ve gone anywhere, and done anything. There was still a right ethical choice to be made. But he sees Cassian setting up a shot (he plans to assassinate Dedra) and completely loses his mind.

Syril launches after Cassian, tackling him like he’s Lawrence Taylor and entering into a huge fist fight amidst the surrounding madness. These two have been on a collision course for the entirety of the show, spanning years and years and years. And now, they finally meet again.

For Syril, this is the peak of everything he’s been building toward and believes in. In the Syril story in Syril’s head, he’s the hero, and this is the final boss villain. In a moment where Syril seems to be coming to grips with the horrors that have developed around him—contributing to a truly fascistic genocide, being used by someone he loves—his mind is faced with a choice. But when he sees Cassian, he goes animalistic. Logic goes down the drain. This, he thinks, is the person responsible for everything that’s happened to him. This is all Cassian Andor’s fault, and now he’s going to pay.

In the process of their struggle, Syril ultimately ends up with the upper hand. He’s holding Cassian at gunpoint, ready to pull the trigger, and Cassian has to ask: “Who are you?” It’s a gutting moment for Syril. He’s built his entire life around tracking this man down. The core, primal modes of his body are telling him, for whatever reason, that if he can just defeat this guy, maybe things will be all right. And then he’s faced with the stunning realization that not only does Cassian not know who he is in this moment, but he doesn’t remember him, and has never given him a second thought. Syril hesistates, and is shot in the head, dying instantly from a blaster bolt shot by one of the Ghorman rebels he betrayed.

Their dueling paths now complete, we see the two paths in full: Syril, guided by the hate that so many young men in the Star Wars world and the real world give in to, put everything into a system that betrayed him, in pursuit of a nemesis who thinks nothing of him, for a cause that ultimately cost him his life. Cassian, meanwhile, learns to pursue hope. He never concerned himself with Syril or even learned who he is because he didn’t have to. He, and the other rebels, had bigger fish to fry. And so they did.

But Andor isn’t content with just showing us how one person messes up his own life. Similar to the way Netflix’s fantastic Adolescence depicted not only the influence and danger of a violent culture on young men but also the ripple effect impact on their families, we see the way Syril’s choices and his ultimate death impact those closest to him. Dedra Meero shows more emotion than we’ve ever seen before; She knows she played Syril, but wanted truly to get out of there and back to Coruscant where they were happiest together. Eedy, meanwhile, is crushed. She was tough on her son, but he didn’t deserve this, she’s clearly thinks.

“Who Are You” ends not with a blast, or an explosion, or a ship flying through the air. It ends with tears flowing down Eedy’s eyes as she watches the horrors on Ghorman on TV. Because it’s not just whole planets being destroyed in this conflict, and with the ways the people involved are being destroyed from the inside out—it’s the loved ones taking the hit too.

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