Star Wars has gone to great lengths over its nearly 50 years to show different forms of love to its audience. There's the love between father and son through the story of Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker; a mother's love for her children through Padme Amidala; even the love between friends shown through characters like Rose and Finn.
Romantic love, as is to be expected, is a prominent feature throughout the franchise as well. Even this, however, displays differently depending on the story. Anakin Skywalker's love for his wife causes him to go to dangerous lengths to protect her. Han Solo and Leia Organa are reunited in the sequel trilogy largely because of their shared love for their son, which only rekindles their love for one another. In a galaxy far, far away, love often means sacrifice.
Andor Season 2 has hit this point home once again in one of this week's episodes, "Welcome to the Rebellion."
Throughout the episode, in the direct aftermath of the Ghorman massacre, Cassian Andor promises that he's done fighting after his final mission to get Mon Mothma to safety after her senate speech. He tells this to Luthen Rael and even to Bix Caleen, promising that she and Cassian can leave together to find a better, quieter life somewhere far away. What matters to him most, he tells her, is that they're together.
This leads Bix to making an important choice: Let Cassian abandon the rebellion to find comfort and safety with her... or refuse to let him walk away from the fight against the Empire?
Bix has known Cassian for a long time. She knows that once he has his mind made up about something, there's nothing anyone -- not even she -- can do to stop him. So she does the only thing she knows will keep him where he needs to be. In the middle of the night, she leaves without saying goodbye, leaving only a message behind saying that when the war is over, she will find him, and they can be together again.
There are many great and tragic love stories in the Star Wars universe, and this one now ranks highly among them. Bix loves Cassian so much that she understands something he doesn't -- that the best thing for him, and for the future of the galaxy, is for her to be the one to walk away. And she deserves to walk away. She's done enough. She's been through enough. Her fight may be over, but his isn't. Even if that means she will never see him again.
This display of love, this kind of sacrifice, is what rebellions are made of. To love is to know someone so deeply that you will give up your own happiness so that they remain exactly where they need to be -- for the good of themselves; for the sake of the world, or galaxy, or universe. If she survives, she will go on loving him for the rest of her life, for years to come. But she will do so knowing that her choice didn't just matter. It made victory against oppression possible when few other things could.