Andor’s Luthen Rael is one of the best Star Wars characters ever

The premiere season Andor It’s a delicate and careful balancing act, something Star Wars stories are rarely able to do. It’s at once a series about revolution, power, oppression, and sacrifice, all the while depicting the real human toll each of those things can extract on the everyday people fighting for and against them. While Cassian Andor, the character at its center, was broken down to the point of offering his life for the cause, its most interesting character is the one who gave up his life long before he can even remember: Stellan Skarsgård’s Luthen Rael.

Star Wars is home to Luthen. He’s the most subtle character Star Wars ever has. His character has the same gravitas as the Star Wars living myths Han Solo and Luke Skywalker, with all the commitments and complications of Obi Wan Kenobi. It is in the hands of Andor creator Tony Gilroy and Skarsgård, Luthen is the kind of complicated, thorny, fascinating character Star Wars just never seemed built to contain.

Just like most people here AndorLuthen’s character is more about details than explaining. From his first moments on screen (feigning a business deal to conceal a recruitment operation), to when he pulls up his careful, pained mask as an antiques dealer, to his furious bluster in front of rebel legend Saw Gerrera, Luthen’s drive has always been clear: to eradicate the Empire by any means necessary.

His unwavering commitment to the cause gives the show a reason to employ one of the most brilliant pieces of visual storytelling Star Wars has ever seen: Luthen’s biggest moments all frame him like a Sith Lord. And why shouldn’t they? By the rules of the universe, that’s probably the box he fits most neatly into.

The most striking example of this is when Luthen, who appears to be standing alone on the bridge over Coruscant in Episode 10, looks menacingly against a stage background. He also has a black cape hanging behind him. There, Skarsgård delivers the monologue that builds the foundation of Luthen’s ideology as a character, as he explains giving up his life for the cause, becoming a walking sacrifice for the Rebellion, and throwing away any sense of personal morality or happiness – all for the sake of doing right by the galaxy.

Luthen Rael in Andor standing on a bridge wearing a black cloak

Image: Disney Plus

That Sith framing returns in the first season’s finale when we see Luthen, once again sporting a black cloak, stalking through the streets of Ferrix. He’s determined to hunt down Cassian, in hopes of saving the secrets of the Rebellion. Star Wars’ previous entries have all taught us a darkly clad figure stalking around in search of our heroes could only be the actions of a villain, or at least someone bad.

However AndorSince its inception,’was about challenging the boxes Star Wars has so often thrived upon.

There’s no logical way to read Luthen as a Sith Lord, or an Imperial spy, or even as evil. He is the most committed agent of the Rebellion we’ve ever seen in the series. He is the Chess Grandmaster willing to sacrifice every pawn he needs to, if that’s how victory is achieved — no matter how small that victory may be. So by framing him in parallel to Star Wars’ greatest villains, Andor gains access to an intra-universe shorthand for moral dubiousness that clues us into how complicated we’re supposed to feel about Luthen.

Luthen in a black cloak with a hood up walking around Ferrix in Andor

Image: Disney Plus

Luthen doesn’t get the Cassian treatment — the hero who hasn’t found his way yet — or the Maarva treatment, a spark of righteous fury ready to ignite a rebellion. He doesn’t even get the Mon Mothma treatment of someone caught between doing what’s right for the world and what’s right for her family. Luthen, in a show that uses a wider range of brushes to paint, would be viewed as an evil character. In Andor,He gets all the rewards he is due. He’s cruel, cold, clever, calculating, and the only person ruthless enough to give the galaxy a chance against its new fascist overlords. Gilroy, the showrunner, wants us to be uneasy about this cost.

Star Wars has rarely been a series that felt the need to justify its characters’ means, as long as their ends were good. But that’s all Andor concern with. Luthen, who is framed as a Sith Lord with a Darth Maul like speeder in the desert and a Darth Maul –like weapon on his haulcraft. It forces us to reckon with what it means when the actions of a hero don’t look that different from the actions of the villains we’ve seen before. Just like Luthen’s, it makes us constantly consider the cost of liberating ourselves from oppression.

This is even more clear when the funeral riot starts on Ferrix in the show’s 12th episode. For just a moment, we see Luthen’s cold exterior break during Maarva’s speech. In that moment, he isn’t there to kill Cassian. He’s witnessing the bittersweet payoff to all his sacrifice.

Maarva’s hologram giving a speech at her funeral in Andor

Image: Disney Plus

Luthen cannot inspire mass numbers of people to give their lives for a cause. His only ability to command others is that of a leader. He knows well enough that revolutions can be built upon hope and not on orders. Luthen chose a life that involves building a galaxy of kindling, in search of fire to ignite it. This is precisely why Maarva brings tears to his eyes. She’s the reality of his rebellion.

Luthen Rael crying in Andor watching Maarva’s speech

Image: Disney Plus

Once the riot gets underway, however, Luthen is able to see the return of coldness in a blink. Not because he can’t take the carnage of watching people die for what they believe in — after all, he was ready to kill Cassian himself — but because he knows watching their sacrifice might cloud his judgment later. Seeing the passionate crowds throwing themselves on Imperial shields, blasters, and bombs in hopes of freedom is what Luthen’s entire rebellion relies on, but he’s still human in the end. He must kill that part of himself to allow those people to succeed in overthrowing the Empire. Luthen can’t sacrifice himself for the cause on Ferrix because he did that years ago, and he’s done it again every day since, and he has to keep doing it until either he’s gone or the Empire is.

So instead, Luthen leaves Ferrix just as the plan he’s built for decades starts to take shape. The pawns can’t have faces if they’re just going to be sacrificed.

Since Star Wars began, a character such as Luthen lurks somewhere deep within Star Wars. A New HopeIn 1977, the movie was its first premier. Rebel Alliance was a scrappy organization that seemed to be willing to break any rules in order to subdue their enemy. However, that first movie and all subsequent movies are heavily based on myths about rebel heroes. They’re about men and women with tremendous powers and the singular ability to change the universe on their own.

Yes, it is possible to suggest that someone was behind the scenes working hard for Luke. But it wasn’t until Luthen in Andor that we got to see the full depths of that, or how profoundly damaging it could be to watch a person reckon with making the Rebellion’s hardest choices.

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