This essay contains spoilers for Andor season 1 through Andor season 2, episode 8 (but not episodes 9 through 12).

When I first watched Andor season 1, I couldn’t quite put my finger on why I found the character of Syril Karn so compelling. I mean, he’s pretty much a fascist, right? He’s a cop who seems to worship the ISB (the Empire’s secret police force, akin to Hitler’s Gestapo) and Supervisor Dedra Meero (who works for them).

Perhaps he was compelling because he was also kind of pathetic: He was desperately trying to gain the approval of practically everyone he encountered, including his constantly disapproving mother. This, of course, does not excuse his fascist tendencies. But it made him somewhat of a “sad boy.”

Indeed, while I was watching those early episodes (before his name had sunk in), I would jokingly refer to him as “Ben Shapiro.” This was partly due to the two of them sharing a bit of a resemblance from certain camera angles (in my eyes, at least). But mostly it was because Shapiro also seems to give off similar “sad boy” energy. Like, if you told me that Ben Shapiro often collapses onto his bed like this, I would totally believe you:

But in season 2, Syril’s character comes into sharper focus. He is still pretty fascist-y, especially given his rising in the ranks of the Empire’s bureaucracy, his relationship with Dedra, and his agreeing to act as a spy for the ISB. But he also seems to genuinely appreciate Ghorman culture (placing their spiders prominently on his shelf) and even its people. When he is interacting with the Ghorman rebels, he is obviously enjoying cosplaying at being a spy, but he also seems to enjoy his interactions with the group—or at least, he appreciates their approval and acceptance of him.

Then in episode 8, when Syril finally learns that the Empire had long planned to destroy the Ghorman planet, he is in utter disbelief. Especially with regards to his role in all of it. When Ghorman rebel leader Carro Rylanz tells him what is happening, Syril pleads: “I meant you no harm . . . I was here to trap outside agitators” (which Carro understandably dismisses). Later, when Dedra basically confirms what is happening, he angrily chokes her (which could be an entire essay in and of itself) and then announces, “Good luck, Dedra” and storms off.

There was a moment when Syril hops over the Imperial barricades and into the crowd that I (and perhaps you) thought (hoped, even) that he would join the Ghormans in fighting back against the ISB and their stormtroopers. Not only out of his appreciation for Ghorman, but because the ISB had intentionally lied to him—telling him he was doing good and important work by helping them bring down “outside agitators,” when in reality they were using him to outright destroy the Ghorman people and their culture.

But Syril never joins in the fray. Instead, he just stands there, dumbfounded, as the battle between the Ghormans and the Empire rages on all around him. He stands there for an uncomfortably long time. I kept expecting him to do something, but instead, he does absolutely nothing.

Until he sees Cassian Andor—his imagined “great white whale” of an “outside agitator.” And that’s who he goes after. In other words, Syril doesn’t take a side in the real battle—the one that matters. Instead, he goes after someone he has long had an irrational obsessive beef with.

To put it another way: While the Empire is destroying an entire planet and its people, Syril instead chooses to “punch left.”

The purpose of this essay is not to claim that Syril Karn is a reactionary centrist—he is a fictional character, after all, and I’m sure different people will interpret him in all sorts of varied ways.

But over the last few months, I have watched numerous mainstream pundits—the ones who spent the last decade waxing poetic about “free speech” and decrying “political correctness” and “cancel culture,” but only when the targets of their scorn are on the left (the people they have long had an irrational obsessive beef with)—act similarly dumbfounded as Trump 2.0 atrocities continue to unfold all around us. Like Syril, these pundits deny any culpability for the role they played in helping to create this mess. And they refuse to meaningfully speak out against fascism—the one fight that matters. Instead, they just stand there looking around, for an uncomfortably long time, hoping to find something that strikes them as “too woke” to beat up on.

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