Andor, Episode 10, One Way Out — Luthen Rael’s speech.
Lonnie: “And what do you sacrifice [for the Rebellion against the Empire]?”
Luthen Rael: “Calm, kindness, kinship, love. I’ve given up all chance at inner-peace, I made my mind a sunless space. I share my dreams with ghosts. I wake up every day to an equation I wrote 15 years ago for which there is only one conclusion: I’m damned for what I do, my anger, my ego, my unwillingness to yield, my eagerness to fight. It’s set me on a path from which there is no escape. I yearn to be a savior against injustice without contemplating the cost. And by the time I look down, there’s no longer any ground beneath my feet. What is my sacrifice? I am condemned to use the tools of my enemy to defeat them. I burned my decency for someone else’s future. I burned my life to make a sunrise that I know I’ll never see. Now the ego that started this fight will never a mirror or an audience or the light of gratitude. So what do I sacrifice? Everything!”
First, the above speech was amazing, and portions of it likely hit home for those in national security careers. Second, the average audience reaction is probably something like “If not for the Empire, Luthen would have had a normal life.” I submit that if not for the Empire, Luthen would have found something else to ruin himself with.
“One always finds one’s burden again.” -Albert Camus, “Myth of Sisyphus”
