painkillerscoffeeandcathair:

icandothis-icandothis:

Rian Johnson has some real problem with male maturity. He took two oldest members of the new cast and gave them storylines about boys.

Keylo is fucking 30 yo, he’s been in his edgelord-space-nazi-killer-of-innocents phase for 10 years now. And yet he’s framed as a “boy” by the narrative, starting with Snoke literarly calling him that, to showing him constantly vulnerable and emo and and cowering or having emotional outbreaks (*cough* tantrums *cough*) He was childish in TFA but in TLJ it’s actually given a sympathetic angle, he’s not “childish” he’s young, delicate and conflicted, he’s “coming to know himself” and all that bullshit.  He’s also given a “tragic” backstory and is constantly shown to be somehow abused by older people (snoke, luke). Almost up untill the very end, he’s shown to be coerced/forced/influenced by the circumstances and people older and stronger than himself.
He’s thirty (30) and he’s given a tragic “coming of age/discovering oneself” story fucking 10 years too late.

Poe is 32, a commander in the Resistance, a rank you don’t just get overnight and without loads of field experience, and yet, somehow, he’s regressed in TLJ to a stage of a young, hot-headed, irresponsible buck, a kid with too much audacity that needs to “learn a lesson”, needs to mature by being put down. During the entirety of the first half of his arc, he’s not once treated seriously by neither the narrative nor the other characters. He’s treated like a disobedient child who needs to be taught a lesson. Leia, his superior officer, slaps him to punish him. Then when she gets to him during his mutiny, she just wordlessly stunts him into unconsciousness as if he’s not worth any negotiations, any reasoning, cause he’s just a stupid child. The same thing happens later when Holdo and Leia leer over unconscious Poe and say they like him cause he’s a troublemaker – they are two military leaders saying that about a subordinate officer who’s just lead a mutiny, like, they are not once treating the situation with the gravity it deserves. The whole thing is framed into a loving and wise parent forgiving a petulant child for acting out, but it’s a grown ass man, a Captain leading a rebelion against the military chain of command!

And, apart from all of the above, any “coming of age and learning important life lessons to be less childish in the future” storyline given to a 32 y-o grown ass man is completely illogical

Of course it’s symptomatic that the white vile villain is given the sympathetic, “sweet child o’mine” story and the latino hero is reduced to an agressive, irresponsible teenager.

And it’s also symptomatic that the story about being young and finding yourself somehow bypasses the characters who actually need that story.

Rey? She’s like, a literal teenager who did not really have a childhood, she’s nineteen and thrust into a completely new world. She needs to learn about it, she needs to find herself in it. Instead she’s given the tired “woman tries to safe a douchebag” trope.

Finn?? He’s just a little older than Rey, he’s just pretty recently finished his childhood years without having an actual childhood, he’s just come of age and symulteniously has just freed himself from under soul-crushing abuse. He needs a “finding oneself” story on so many levels. His “coming of age” story has so much potential angles to it, so many themes to explore! Yet the only thing he gets to know abt himself is that he’s a Rebel scum (and isn’t it Resistance scum?) but the actual road to him starting to identify with the movement is just not shown at all. You don’t actually see what he’s transitioning from, because the “personal to political” shift in his involvement is just barely sketched out.

tl;dr: rian gives teenager storylines to grown-ass men, and not actual teenagers or young people and that’s fucked up and also racist and pretty sexist, the end

I’m not going to say this interpretation is *wrong*, but…well, there are many points in life that offer us opportunities for change. Adolescence, yes – but again at 25, and 30, and 40..Or after a breakup, a job loss, an illness.

We know that VII was Finn’s first “real” battle. We know that in smaller organizations, promotions can happen quickly when attrition is high. So Finn could be 27 and be a garbage man – and now he has blood on his hands. Poe has been raised in the Rebellion, but his desire to flatten it can outstrip his common sense. And Kylo Ren is coping with his mythical uncle losing faith in him – then losing faith in himself. These are all points for emotional growth – but that growth is messy and nonlinear.

Could you clarify what you mean by Finn being 27 and a garbage man? Because he’s neither, and the FO is not a ‘smaller’ organization. Do you mean he would have been a garbage man at 27 if it weren’t for high attrition among Stormtrooper ranks? He was actually the top of his class, though, considered prime officer material, and he wasn’t promoted out of desperation for warm bodies or anything like that.

Poe was similarly a commander in the Republic army–again, not a small organization and an army in peacetime so not one with high attrition–before he resigned and joined the Resistance, where he was given the same rank before hostilities commenced. Again, not a case of jumped-up wartime promotion.

If there’s a case of rapid promotion by attrition it’s Kylo Ren, and that’s because he attrited the competition himself.