A Mind Aflame

I really and genuinely doubt that Orlo is going to be killed off, because of the symbolic purpose he serves. He is more than just Catherine's best friend and most loyal confidante (even when tested by his own family, he didn't sway nearly as much as Marial or Elizabeth and never ever treated her the way Peter has). He is also still the (relatively) young man who sat weeping at Descartes and the idea of free thinking and progress in a royal library that was so old that it was covered in dust and cobwebs.

What do I mean by this? Well. ALL of the main cast stand for something more than who they are as historical individuals, which is why the show is justified in only being loosely historically accurate, While Marial stands in for Machiavellian selfishness, Archie for the corruption of virtue or principle, and Elizabeth as disillusionment and pragmatic survival. Meanwhile, ORLO is still the Conscience, capital C, a distinctly Russian archetype of the tortured intellect who Still Believes. One of my followers (please speak up if you see this!) is a Russian viewer who wrote a compelling analysis of Orlo AS Count Pyotr "Pierre" Kirillovich Bezukhov from Leo Tolstoy's iconic War and Peace: down to the point of being asexual-coded, having a conscience but also a very pragmatic fear of the repercussions of too-fast, too-drastic change, and wearing spectacles: which are also an archetype, of seeing but not acting. When the spectacles come off, after he has killed a man, Orlo changes, and so does the method by which Catherine acts: it becomes more violent, direct, and extreme.  

Orlo, as a character, is a SIGNAL. He is the externalization of ONE SIDE (the honorable yet level-headed side) of Catherine’s internal struggle.  And the ACT OF LOOKING is the primary way, literal and metaphorical, that he signals: hence the focus on glasses or no glasses. 

So I think it's reasonable to judge Orlo's viability through the rest of this series BASED ON what he REPRESENTS, metaphorically. Do we still have a narrative NEED for "The Conscience," or perhaps better put, "The Original Hopes and Dreams of the Heroine"?

I would argue YES.

This show really relies on the Bakhtin Carnivalesque (basically, almost farcical vulgarity in order to democratize, humor as a weapon, a form of satire) to confer its message on viewers, but I think it also knows when to tether itself to more serious moments (which almost ALWAYS involve Orlo, or, if they're vulgar and humorous, ORLO is the one to look upon these actions aghast and disgusted).

A prime example would be in season one, when Catherine, previously promised efforts at variolation (early vaccination science, which ORLO suggested) to stop smallpox among serfs, stands watching in horror as their bodies are burned en masse across the field from Peter's palace.

Another example is when ORLO gets lost in the woods and had to face killing another human being for the first time, and how that action directly tarnished his principles, posing the narrative question to the audience: when is this violent act justifiable, if ever?

Still another, in season two, when ORLO tries to talk Catherine down from freeing all the serfs in a single day, knowing that even positive change must be incremental if it will last.

Season Two tested MY faith, both in Catherine and in the writers of The Great; I thought, LIKE ORLO, that there was going to be at least a brief moment of reveling in Catherine's victory.

Instead, Catherine was proven to be what she genuinely is--still a child, with ambition but no experience, making the fatal flaw of never listening to people who have valuable insight to offer, highly educated but still relatively sheltered, a player in a much bigger game of politics and rhetoric in a country that was never good at changing quickly for the better. We are shown unequivocally that Catherine is not yet ready to become the famous, lol, girlboss empress of European history whom we all know.

It's worth noting that The Great also uses a style of historical narrative that straddles the eccentricities of an unfamiliar epoch AND social issues that still echo with resonance everywhere today (censorship, misogyny in the "media," religious intolerance and bigotry, the danger of certain cultural hegemonies, etc etc). Another famous franchise that does this is Lin Manuel Miranda's Hamilton: which also never claims to portray these historical figures accurately (hell, Alexander Hamilton owned slaves!) BUT which uses them as--again--archetypes, larger-than-life caricatures of themselves, who stand in for ideas. They're almost allegorical that way. Orlo is no exception.

At first, like you, I was REALLY angry (I kinda still am LOL), and I couln't tell if this was deliberate, or if we were meant to be convinced, like Catherine, that Peter had really changed, and was really intent upon being a good husband and father. I was horrified by Catherine pulling AWAY from Orlo, who is, to me, Peter's narrative foil AS AN ARCHETYPE, not just as a character/individual. I was sad when Orlo said "I am for you, always, even when you don't realize it," and left.

However, I think that, by the end of Season Two, we're meant to see Catherine's slip into the illusion of domestic bliss and true love AS A VAST MISCALCULATION (the thing with Peter and her mom.....yeesh.... lol) and I think we are meant to see Orlo's absence BOTH literally AND symbolically, as idealism, conviction, and hope for positive change temporarily thwarted by a (well-meaning but headstrong and arrogant) young woman's very HUMAN need for someone to love and support her.

But he WILL be back, because the show is, after all, called The Great, and they don't mean Peter. And Catherine needs her conscience and her hope back to incarnate her own highest potential.

Upon more closely rewatching this series a second time, I am only on episode 2 and I can name two distinct cases of him acting out of kindness WITHOUT personal, political advantage.  Once to Catherine, and once to Velementov.

1) When Catherine is clearly suicidally despondent after Peter burns down her school, Orlo approaches her at a party and asks her “Shall we walk in the garden?” It’s clearly an excuse to give her a socially acceptable way out of the party, without being branded inappropriate (a woman without a male escort). He surely intends to also apologize for letting it slip that the school was for girls, leading to its destruction, and to console her.  

He is only stopped because Peter then shoots Catherine’s pet bear–a symbol of her naive love for her new homeland, and Peter’s sole act of kindness toward her–and when she rushes out after slapping Peter, it will only make things worse if Orlo follows. 

2) When Peter derides Velementov for being fat, and asks his frat bro Arcady to stab the general in the face if he doesn’t dance for them, Orlo steps in very quickly to change the subject to the next item on the court’s agenda, to spare Velementov the humiliation. 

Orlo is easily, EASILY, the kindest character in the entire cast. 

This is the face of someone who has been trapped for years.  By filial obligation, catapulted to the nobility by merit as a genius and diplomat, but forever beholden to humble, fanatically industrious, roots.  

This is a very interesting origin story for Orlo. It explains so well why he is so determined to do everything by the book, why he believes in calculated and incremental change, why he was weeping at Descartes in a dusty forgotten library, mourning what he could and should have been and his country with him: why he is so “hot-blooded” post-coup, to secure his own position of power, for the promise of returned prosperity to the family that gave all its fortune to see him reach his potential.  Orlo still has everything to lose, and Catherine’s noncommittal, emotion-driven ambivalence toward Peter–a poor show of gratitude to someone who was unwaveringly loyal when he had (has) everything to lose, has to be driving hm mad with anxiety.  When Orlo killed that Swedish soldier in the woods, he had to abandon the staunch belief in Enlightened values–reason, equanimity, dignity, and nonviolence–that got him so far, with his family’s blessing (and high expectations). It’s no wonder he’s so fucked up now! He probably doubts everything he had faith in or was, because it failed to save him when he was in danger. Only animal violence saved him that night.   “You had to do it, and you did,” said the soldier in S1, who gifted him the Swede’s head. 

And now, on top of it all, he must make deals with Catherine, who has been demanding from the start that he “stop being a coward” (translation: cautious and pragmatic) and putting everything he believes in or has in jeopardy, on behalf of a bankrupt uncle and looming, hyper-critical, hyper-strict family.  

Demonstrations are just one tool in a greater resistance movement.

If one is activated beyond the level of demonstrating only, that is good.

But not everyone is, and demonstrations are a way to further activate and onboard newcomers to a resistance movement.

There's a place for people who are a little more activated (not necessarily the most activated in a resistance movement who may be traveling or tending to higher level state or national organizing) to attend a local demonstration to pass the word to others about further local resistance efforts.

For example, I've found information online easily about national level organizing or resistance in other states and counties, but I actually don't know who is safe or actively involved in resistance or mutual aid in my immediate local area, so events that have local events within a larger movement can help us find our people.