I am, in fact, actually doing this

Cassian spends almost the entire series trying to run away. Autonomy is vital to him because the most important choice of his childhood was made for him. Maarva knocks him unconscious to save him from almost certain death on Kenari. We know why she does it and that she doesn't have time to explain properly, but he doesn't. He's a boy who was just abducted from everything and everyone he ever knew, including his sister. Of course he just wants to find peace. He wants to return to the idealism of his childhood, a community of children making decisions for themselves. That was taken from him, and the idea that he's meant for something greater isn't a gift. It's a threat to that dream. He wants to be a boy in love, and if that means walking away from the fight, that's what that means.

But Cassian was always going to be doomed by the narrative because we know what happens to him. We know he has to die. I consider his story a tragedy. I don't think "kill me or take me in" is him choosing the cause. I think it's a man who's tired of being told by the universe that what he wants doesn't matter, and he finally gives up. The Empire has destroyed another one of his homes. He leaves behind a relative on Ferrix just like he did on Kenari. But it feels good to get back at them. It feels good to parrot Luthen and Nemik at the people he meets on his missions, to be a messenger. I think he's at peace knowing he can do both. He can have his community and fight when he's called for.

Losing Brasso puts him right back in that place of defeat where he clings to Bix even harder. The Empire's not going to take anyone else from him. The Rebellion can have everything except this love. That's not selfish. And if it is, then being selfish isn't a moral failing; it's human. The world around him may be waking up to the realities of the Empire, but he's been in this fight since he was six years old. I do not resonate with any take that labels him as some selfish guy who needs to learn to put others first. He's a child soldier who wants to come home to the woman he loves. That's incredibly reasonable actually. He doesn't want to choose, and he doesn't have to. Luthen insists that he does, so alright then, he will, and he chooses Bix. They find their way to Yavin probably because of her. The Rebels need him, but Cassian doesn't care. He's not here for them; he's here because it's where Bix wants to be. He's content.

Ghorman brings him back again. A frightened boy afraid to lose, afraid that the rise of the Empire will mean more choices being made for him. Of course the first thing he does is tell Bix he wants to leave. Of course he's done. He's reliving his trauma. Not just the losses but the imprisonment, the dehumanization, the violence. He went to Ghorman for justice and instead witnessed a genocide. And what has anyone ever told him except that he would have died on Kenari, that he's meant for something important, that this is bigger than him. Maybe that's not comforting, actually! Maybe that's exactly what he's so fucking scared of, that he's never actually been in control of his own life. Except he can't accept that when he remembers being in control of it on Kenari. The Empire strips so many of the galaxy's choices away. Maarva chooses for him because she knows better. The Force chooses for him because it knows better. Bix chooses for him.

I don't think Bix leaving makes him choose the Rebellion. I think it breaks him. I think that boy inside of him dies. I don't see him as a leader choosing to do the right thing. I see him as a beaten down dog who has to finally accept that the Force considers him a pawn in a larger game. That's exactly how the Empire treats people, but he's constantly being told it's different. If the Empire landing on Kenari is a death, Maarva abducting Cassian is a rebirth in that she chooses to transition him from one world into another. Ghorman is not a death. It scares him, and of course it fucking does. What Bix does by leaving him and killing his dream, that's the death.

Which is why it's so meaningful to me that Cassian chooses to save Kleya. It's not a choice he's coerced or talked into; in fact, it's very much the opposite. That's his rebirth, and this time, it's consensual! He's not acting from a place of survival or surrender but pure compassion. He's doing something he actually wants to do.

And who does he save? Kleya Marki

Kleya who hid in a strange ship, just like the one Cassian chose to wander into as a boy. He had choices then. He didn't know he was in danger, but he was acting on behalf of his community, investigating like a leader. Kleya is the opposite. She's hiding. She's fighting only for herself, for her very survival. She's already lost her community. Hiding isn't a choice; it's an instinct. The Empire arrives and brings her death just as they brought Cassian's.

Luthen offers her his hand, an inverse of what Maarva does to Cas. But can you really call that a choice? She's a terrified child whose whole family was just slaughtered. It's not a rebirth because going with him means she has to leave behind the part of her that's human. Kleya is a ghost that follows Luthen around motivated by the desire I don't even think she knows she has that she wants to be alive. She's working toward revenge because revenge is a feeling, but she doesn't get to hold it. When she gets close to her humanity and she's watching other people be executed, Luthen convinces her to remain detached. It's not safe for her to be alive with him because he's always going to tell her that the endgame is more important. Whereas Maarva brings Cas into her community, Luthen intentionally isolates Kleya from everyone but him. It's the only attachment she knows other than the family she probably doesn't let herself think about.

Luthen presents Kleya with a lot of choices, but those choices are an illusion because they are all founded on a dangerous grown up treating a terrified victimized child as an equal. So of course Cassian running pisses her off. Of course his desire to choose and be human is insulting to her. Part of her understands that she never had a choice, that if she's chosen anything, it's to align herself with Luthen, which requires a constant abandonment of her own humanity. She feels in the abstract. You can't do what she does on behalf of the galaxy without loving, but I don't think she loves people. I think she loves life and wants to protect it because she feels so dead inside.

So she kills Luthen. She is exactly what he made her to be. A flawless, emotionless soldier who does what needs to be done regardless of how she feels. And then he's gone, and she starts to lose it because the last time she was without him, she was a child hiding in a ship. This is literally the only emotional attachment we see her have throughout the entire show, even if it's one that grows around her pain. She accepts so easily that the jig is up, that she just has to get this message to someone. She's walking back and forth with a blaster in her hand because if the Empire gets there first, she knows what she has to do. But she's fucking scared because she knows this message is too important. She doesn't want Luthen to die for nothing. She doesn't want everything she's done to be a waste because that's exactly what it would be. And I think she's scared most of all because no part of her believes she's going to be rescued, and that means she'll never get to be alive again. And that's the part she's been keeping to herself. Save the galaxy. Fight the Empire. Because maybe if they win, she'll get to stop being a ghost. That makes everything worth it. If she fails, or, as she's accepting, if she saves the galaxy but has to die, then it wasn't worth it. Not in the way that matters, the only selfish thing she wants for herself. That's why she's breaking. That's why she doesn't want to die. Because the only thing that's been motivating Kleya is that she wants to live to see the sunrise, no matter how many times Luthen tells her she won't.

But then Cassian. Telling her he's not leaving her there. And she's so caught off guard. She's so vulnerable and scared. But he doesn't force her anywhere. He's not a threat. He's patient. He's giving her the choice he didn't get. He's giving her the humanity she's not expecting. He waits for her to agree. Then she gets knocked unconscious, just like Cassian was, but not by someone who convinces her they meant well, by the Empire, by the enemy. Melshi carries her to the ship, mirroring the shot of Maarva carrying Cassian on Kenari. Cassian and Melshi bring Kleya into her rebirth.

By choosing to save her, Cassian heals part of himself. He proves that his choices do have an impact and that he can trust his compassionate nature. He proves that he's competent and capable. He's a little boy following his intuition and walking into a threat so much bigger than him. Where Maarva disempowers him, establishing a pattern of passivity and running away, he empowers himself, takes deliberate action, and runs toward the danger. He heals the damage that that lack of choice caused by treating Kleya differently. He shows her that her choice matters in a way no one has done for him.

By choosing to go with him, Kleya heals part of herself. She is forced to confront the difference between Cassian's offer and Luthen's. Cassian's doesn't require her to sacrifice and carve away pieces of herself. It doesn't require her to overlook the fact that this person killed her entire family. Whereas Luthen made her feel like she'd always be chasing a sunrise, Cassian says "you can see the sunrise right now." But she still has to choose it, and that requires her to admit she wants what he's offering. She's a little girl scared for her life, choosing to take someone's hand not because she needs to but because she wants to. (I know that the Empire is on her tail, but I genuinely think Kleya would rather die than go to Yavin for most of that conversation because if Yavin is good it means Luthen was wrong, and her traumatized brain can't let Luthen be wrong yet; hence, it's not actually about survival.) By taking his hand, she proves that she can trust her own judgment, that all those times she wanted to act in the moment and was conditioned to silence that voice, she was right. She learns that safety doesn't require isolation and lonely hypervigilance.

Kassa becomes Cassian because of the Empire but comes home to him by saving Kleya. A nameless girl becomes Kleya because of the Empire but is guided home to herself when someone insists that she, not Kleya, is worth saving. (Also.. Kassa is pretty close to Kleya, ISN'T IT?) They literally healed each other's childhood trauma, and it couldn't have happened with anyone else. They are mirrors of each other.

And the difference between them? The saving factor in all of this is not something predestined. It's not that one of them is a great hero. It's not because they earned it. It's community. Cassian had community, regardless of whether what Maarva did was what he wanted. He had community on Kenari, and he had it on Ferrix. He had it with Bix and Brasso and Wilmon. "Stone and sky." He has it with K2 and Melshi. He even has it with Draven and Mon. That's what saves them both. Not the Force. Not the Jedi or the Rebels. Attachment. Connection. Kindness. Kinship. Love. Friends everywhere. That's the world Cassian brings Kleya into. And what's one of the first things that happens? Vel finds her stumbling around and offers her community. "You're here with friends."

Cassian may be doomed by the narrative to die, but he's already seen the sunrise. He wants to hold it in his hands the way he used to, but it always slips away. It sucks watching two seasons of the show knowing this guy is going to die and being told I'm supposed to find comfort in this greater good ideology. I don't. I think the idea that he can only be a hero by accepting his role as a sacrificial lamb is insulting. Cassian did so much good before he was a Rebel. He did so much good even when he was dragging his feet. He did so much good even while acting selfishly. His life matters, and he deserves to have a say over it. That doesn't make him less of a hero. But in the end, he doesn't have a choice over where he ends up. He has to die, and there's nothing he can do about it. He has to give up control completely to forces larger than himself, one final humiliation from destiny.