Warning! This post contains SPOILERS for Andor episode 10.In Andor episode 10, Luthen Rael gives a brutal monologue that speaks not only to his personal sacrifices but also to the dark origins of the Rebellion. Andor season 1, episode 10, "One Way Out," reveals that Luthen has a mole — Lonni Jung — embedded within the Imperial Security Bureau. The two agree to meet when Lonni voices his desire to leave Luthen and his job at the ISB, fearing for his life and that of his new family. This prompts Luthen to share all that he's sacrificed in the 15 years since the Empire came to power.
The entire monologue in Andor episode 10 is an opportunity for audiences to understand who Luthen really is in the Star Wars canon as a major founder of the future Rebellion. When asked by Lonni what he has sacrificed, Luthen's reply is "everything," and he does mean everything. This includes any degree of compassion and decency he alludes to having before the days of the Empire. Luthen is "condemned to use the tools of my enemy to defeat them," as seen by his deliberate attempts to make the Empire even more oppressive in order to incite more rebellion. As proven by this monologue, Luthen dynamically reshapes perceptions of the Rebellion and its origins. It never started with heroes, and Luthen proves it couldn't have.
Luthen's Andor Monologue Shows The True Cost Of Star Wars' Rebellion
Sadly, Andor's Luthen Rael knows what it truly takes to start and maintain a rebellion. Understanding that he won't be the one to enjoy the rewards, he has still sacrificed his entire self for the cause. It takes giving everything to the Rebellion to make it work, and he knows it. It's also why he's constantly in search of potential heroes like Cassian Andor and Lonni Jung, whom he's helped move up the ranks in the ISB to make him an even better informant within the Empire. Luthen needs heroes because he has to be the furthest thing from one. He makes hard and darker choices like letting 50 men die to prevent Imperial suspicions of Lonni.
Especially in its infancy, the cost of the Rebel cause in Star Wars is extremely high. It had to be, in the face of the Empire's strength and widespread oppression. Without Luthen Rael and those like him who were willing to sacrifice everything, the Rebellion would have never evolved into something brighter that had more of a choice about how they fought the Empire.
Luthen's Andor Episode 10 Monologue Makes The Rebel Alliance A Bigger Miracle
Proved in the lower levels of Coruscant, someone as darkly motivated as Luthen Rael had to exist for the Rebel cells to get any kind of traction and eventually form the Alliance. Considering the true cost as Luthen lays it out, it's a miracle the Rebellion ever came together in the first place. Saw Gerrera's first appearance in Andor features the extremist conversing with Luthen, speaking to the fact that while so many want to fight and resist the Empire, he believed they'd remain disjointed due to all their different tactics, ideals, and perspectives on the fate of the galaxy in the aftermath. It's the very reason why Luthen has been poking the Empire so much to make it even worse, hoping that greater oppression will incite a more unified cause. Rebels like Luthen had to exist for the sake of birthing the Rebellion as it's known in the original trilogy.
Luthen's Andor Speech Connects To More Star Wars Characters
One of Luthen Rael's most gripping lines is his belief that he's burning his life for a sunrise he knows he'll never see. This carries ties to the ending of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and the deaths of Cassian Andor and Jyn Erso, giving their lives so that the Rebels had a fighting chance against the Death Star. Likewise, much of what Luthen says about sacrificing kindness and decency could be applied to Senator Mon Mothma as well. After all, she's currently considering marrying off her daughter to the son of a thug in exchange for keeping her financial dealings secret from the eyes of the Empire. While Mon Mothma ends up becoming one of the Rebellion's shining leaders and later the Chancellor of the New Republic, she too is learning the true cost of the Rebel cause, one that Luthen has been giving long before the events of Andor.
New episodes of Andor release on Wednesdays on Disney+.
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