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Syril Karn - Blog Posts
when you want to be hunting rebels but you’re overstimulated at dinner with your mom instead
Yeah I know Dedra is a horrible person serving a fascist galactic regime, but mad respect to her for standing up for her autistic bf and putting his insufferable mother in her place. 💅✨
see, i have always interpreted syril’s motivation as finding a place where he can belong, whether that place is a person, a community or an ideology.
syril never really fits in with his colleagues on morlana one, he feels like “a stranger” and “a tenant” in his own childhood home, he doesn’t even have the same accent as any of his coworkers. sure, this can be because he is very socially awkward, but he sticks out like a sore thumb wherever he is. the only time where he sort of (but not really) blend in is when he works at the bureau of standards, not because he finally found his calling but because working a menial job directly for the empire in coruscant means there is little to no room for individuality.
for more than half of the season, we see that the only thing he CAN attach himself to is his own sense of self-importance. he yearns to be seen and recognized by the people he believes to share his values. at its core, his belief is simple and inoffensive enough: maintaining law, justice and order. humans have a natural inclination towards justice, so it stands to reason that he expects everyone to share his sense of righteousness. but when he becomes disillusioned with the people around him because they don’t care about the same things he does, he immediately feels displaced (and the audience feel that too.)
so we have a character who just doesn’t feel right no matter what situation the story puts him in and suddenly he’s with the isb. even though he doesn’t seem to fit in at first, he feels vibrant. he feels energetic. he feels alive. as if he has found his calling. under the rhetoric of the empire, his faith in justice and order is easily reassured and at the same time easily misconstrued as being of “service to the empire”. in other words, he feels vindicated and thus he conflates serving the empire with the pursuit of justice.
so it comes as a shock to no one that he attaches himself to dedra, or at least the version of dedra he’s made up in his head, because he believes she - and by extension the empire - shares his values. his conversation with her after he stalked her and him saving her at the end of the season are, to me, an indication that he has already been radicalized by the empire and its false sense of order and security. so it will genuinely confuses me if he actually turns to the rebellion in season 2.
Syril Karn is doomed to remain a fascist to the end
I've watched a bunch of videos with people talking about how Syril is a wildcard who could go either way with his allegiances, and seen speculation about how he could have easily been a Rebel instead, if he somehow ended up finding that side more attractive.
Here's why I think this is a shallow interpretation of the Andor show.
As the video 'How to Radicalize a Normie' by Innuendo Studios (link here: https://youtu.be/P55t6eryY3g?si=UxUauetzOETvTg1r) says, the young fascist man is not exactly looking to conservatism for a political ideology, but for 'the cure to his soul-sickness'. Syril needs to feel like he is worth something - and his mother refuses to offer him unconditional love. In fact, she actually refers to him as an investment - berating him for failing to offer her what she considers a sufficient return, and then gushing with praise when he reveals that he has been promoted. There is a void in his heart that needs something or someone to love him without reservation - and here comes the Empire, that tells him that he is good and worthy simply for supporting its vision of order. The Rebellion cannot offer any of its members the same - sure, it believes in equality of all the people who the Empire would otherwise look down upon, but it needs them to prove their worth before giving them value as individuals. The Empire, however, will allow Syril to passively consider himself better than large swathes of the galaxy simply by being.
Cassian, on the other hand, learns over the course of the series that he is loved and an individual by his family and community, without reservation. The final episode reinforces this idea - Maarva, Brasso, B2EMO and Bix retain their affection for him despite all his flaws - as Maarva relays through Brasso, she 'love(s) him more than anything that he could ever do wrong'. Even Pegla, who was grouchy earlier about Cassian taking the ships he is responsible for, is able to offer unconditional empathy to him upon seeing him after Maarva's death. Cassian is therefore not vulnerable to the Empire's rhetoric in the way Syril is.
I hope this thread gets reinforced in Season 2 - it really makes the anti-fascist critique that runs through the show.
(I don't think this post has made it here yet but if it has, I'll happily take it down)
I meannn, he could switch sides and just, yknow, snatch a kx droid to go with him 👀
Did anyone else see this and think about how Syril might be the reason Cassian and K2 meet?
Did anyone else see this and think about how Syril might be the reason Cassian and K2 meet?
such a huge fan of whatever the hell syril and dedra have going on right now in andor. syril is such a freak and dedra is just chill with it? protective over it? kinda into it? they are the cringest freakest losers the galaxy has ever seen. he spent last season stalking and obsessing over her and now they live together. he buys groceries and she pets his face. he face plants on her bed and she goes Awwwww. and he is still so awkward but she is just as awkward? obsessed with the shot of them just standing silently in the living room not looking at each other waiting for syril's mother to show up. they are like two strange fascist sunflowers growing beautifully side by side. not to mention syril still being religious about his corporate 9-5 while dedra gets put on an intragalactic propaganda campaign. but it is also quite sweet in a way. syril gets overstimulated at the family function and has to go to the other room to have a moment and his mother tells dedra Isn't he just so strange? surely you'll easily make him less strange. and then dedra says I like him so strange Kill yourself. what a lovely family.
was almost worried fascist fanboy was about to get a redemption arc but no he found out his fascist girlfriend lied to him which meant the last 2 years of his work meant nothing, choked her out bc he's an incel, thought he was about to get a personal victory against cassian only to find out that his archnemesis has absolutely no fucking clue who he is bc he's irrelevant, and then gets headshotted by the billionaire tailor who he's been conning this whole time. FANTASTIC 10/10 NO NOTES.
either we are getting a syril redemption or a syril spy arc (the latter is more likely tho)
dedra has faced her toughest opponent yet: a boy mom