Warning! This post contains spoilers for Andor season 2, episodes 7-9.

Andor season 2 has broken one of Star Wars’ most important Imperial storytelling rules, and that choice has made the show all the more emotionally complex. While Andor is, at its core, a story about the founding and growth of the Rebel Alliance in the face of the Empire’s oppression, it has also given viewers a glimpse of the inner workings of the Empire’s organization, its security services, and the people who work there – specifically Dedra Meero and Syril Karn.

In the grand scheme of things, those who work for the Empire are the villains, but Andor reminds us that the conflict between good and evil isn’t always so cut and dry. Syril’s story in Andor season 2 has made him one of the show’s most complex characters. His obsessive desire for order led him straight into the Empire’s and Dedra’s arms, and yet, despite his penchant for order, his complicated relationship with his controlling mother, and his devotion to Dedra, even Syril eventually hesitates to serve the Empire. How does that hesitation affect how we understand his character?

Andor Actually Made Us Sympathize With A Villain's Death

Characters were inevitably going to die during Andor’s interpretation of the Ghorman Massacre. That’s the nature of oppression and war, after all. I don’t think any of us saw Syril’s death coming, however – or, at the very least, we didn’t see the circumstances of his death coming. Right before Dedra orders the instigation of a riot and the killing of Ghorman civilians, Syril confronts her and rightfully argues that the Ghormans’ impending doom is unjustifiable.

He finally sees the truth of what the Empire is doing, and though there's nothing he can do to stop it, that simple act of recognition is a massive step for his character. This is someone who, from the very start, dedicated his life to hunting down those he deemed to be on the wrong side of the law. Syril believed wholeheartedly that the Empire was the only thing standing in the way of a lawless galaxy. For someone like him to recognize the Empire’s violence and finally understand that the Empire didn't care about him? What might that have meant for his future?

And yet, even when he’s on the cusp of truly removing himself from the Empire’s propaganda, when he’s just starting to genuinely empathize with the Ghorman resistance and their cause rather than using them for his and his partner’s gain, he allows his overwhelming need to win, to see “justice,” overwhelm him. When he attacks Cassian, you can feel his rage boiling over. He nearly broke away, but not far enough, and the look in his eyes when Cassian tells him he doesn't know Syril was uncomfortably tragic.

The most important mission of his life ends like that? I wonder what must have been going through his mind. That doesn’t mean that I’ve forgotten or condoned everything that Syril did, or everything that he ultimately encouraged Dedra to do. There’s a lingering question after Syril’s death, though: What if? What if he’d been brave enough to confront Dedra and the Empire’s mission on Ghorman sooner?

We Can Understand Syril, But It Doesn't Make Him Right

Redemption is a recurring theme in Star Wars. Multiple characters have defected from the Empire and its offshoots to serve the revolution, including Han Solo, Wedge Antilles, Thane Kyrell, Finn, and more. Syril never got that chance, despite Andor season 2 setting him up for that kind of narrative arc. I’m glad Andor chose not to take his journey that far; after all, not every villain deserves redemption, and Syril made his choices. He could have chosen to let Cassian Andor go after his revelation with Dedra, but he didn’t. That’s on him.

We can feel strangely sympathetic about Syril’s death, not because he was on the cusp of choosing the right side, but because his life, in the end, feels like such a waste.

It's also part of the point. We can feel strangely emotional about Syril’s death, not because he was on the cusp of choosing the right side, but because his life, in the end, feels like such a waste. Syril was smart. Studios. Loyal. Dependable. In an alternate reality, he could have been something, but not this time. Syril was his own worst enemy.

This Is The Whole Point Of Andor: Ordinary People Do Bad Things

Syril, perhaps more than anyone, proves why the Empire held on to power for so long. While the Rebellion’s success shows that there are plenty of ordinary people in the galaxy willing to do the right thing, like the farmers who helped hide Cassian’s friends in Andor season 2’s first three episodes, Syril proves that there are just as many ordinary people willing to do the wrong thing. Sometimes they’re simply ignorant, sometimes they’re genuinely selfish. Sometimes they purposefully choose to look the other way.

They live their lives while others suffer, and Syril did the same. He fell in love. Was promoted. The Empire gave him everything he ever wanted. What incentive was there for him to question that? Why not keep the comforts of his life intact while everyone else paid the price? Does his capacity to "love" mean there was good in him? The Empire is the ultimate cruelty, and Syril played a relatively minor part in it, but he still played that part.

These questions are reminiscent of those posed in a poem titled Vultures by Nigerian novelist and poet Chinua Achebe, which questions humanity’s capacity for cruelty. In the poem, a commander who oversees the burning of bodies in a concentration camp stops by a sweet shop to buy chocolates for his children. How can those two sides ever co-exist in one person? In Andor, we soon realize that it is people who embody that kind of terrifying duality who keep the Empire running, and Syril, to a less outwardly violent degree, was one of them.

Andor's series finale premieres Tuesday, May 13 at 9 PM EST/6 PM PST exclusively on Disney+.