Reasoned debate vs blind panic

I’m as Finnrey as they come. No other romantic pairing for either of them will work for me. Any short search of my blog will feature love of Finnrey and hatred of reylow, doomrey, finnlow, etc.

That said, I do think it’s fair, and probably necessary, to discuss the optics of Finnrey and why so much was changed in the movies.

I wrote a post a long time back asking how Finnrey fandom could be more welcoming and supportive, particularly to black fans who at that time were getting inundated with racist messages from reylows. I received a lot of good feedback. Well that post seems to be making the rounds again because a couple of black fans reached out and we’ve been conversing. Neither of these fans likes Finnrey. Both of them feel it follows the shopworn “black man lusts after white woman because white” trope and that Rey’s feelings really aren’t comparable. I understood in part, but as I’m not black I couldn’t understand completely. To me, it seemed obvious that both of them cared deeply for one another, and I really understand what “not comparable” meant.

Then one of these fans said to me that if the Finnrey dynamic was more like in the TFA novel they might have shipped it. That confused me more, since this was a novelization of the movie they said they did not like the Finnrey dynamic in. I was told to read it and I would understand better. I borrowed it and finally got a chance to read it.

They were right. I now understand.

As Finnrey fans, I do think there is a place for debate about why the novelization made it so much more explicit that Rey found Finn attractive and was falling in love with him. I think it is fair to ask why the clunky “my friend” was added when “We’ll see each other again, I believe that, Finn” or even just “We’ll see each other again” would have sufficed. The bedside scene in the novelization was much more that of a woman leaving her love to go off on an adventure. It was a subversion of the Odysseus trope and worked well. “My friend” seemed tacked on, 19 year olds don’t talk that way, and when I first heard it I did think it odd. Having now read the novelization, I think it’s more than odd, and it seems like something JJ was told to insert.

I’m writing all this to you because one of the takeaways from my original post to the fandom was that black fans said they often felt marginalized and that their concerns are not taken seriously in the fandom, particularly about race and racism. Obviously since the person was anon, who knows who it was, but that doomrey anon you just answered? That person said almost exactly what one of the black fans I recently spoke to said, that it was possible Rey will be made to realize her feelings for Finn were not love, and that Poe makes her “tingle” in a way that Finn didn’t. That the “my friend” business was an out LF gave itself to extricate itself from having to follow through with Finnrey, they can always say Rey only felt friendship for him.

I was told that several black fans left Finnrey fandom after TLJ because of Finn’s overall treatment and because it seemed to them that the Poe and Rey meeting was meant to be significant in more ways than just, they’re meeting finally. I respectfully disagreed, feeling that 10 seconds and smiles didn’t negate all that Finn had gone through with her. The response to that was that LF had decided to make Finn a joke in TLJ so why would it be so far fetched to use him as a starter boyfriend of sorts for Rey that she could measure her feelings for in comparison to Poe and realize she liked Poe “that way” more.

You said to that anon that doomrey would be shitty storytelling. I agree 100%. I also know Daisy herself has said she does not want doomrey at all. But Finn stumbling around leaking bacta was also shitty storytelling, so was him getting tased and the suicide run that wasn’t. Yet we got all of those and much more shit in TLJ.

I think there can be reasoned debate and discussion about LF’s racism making them not care that they derail the story – and doomrey would definitely be derailing it – just so long as they appease their racist fan base who don’t want to see a black man and a white woman romantically involved, and hysterical anons declaring that the first scene of IX will be of Poe zipping up and Rey rising from off screen wiping her mouth. Several black fans feel as that anon does, that Finn might be used by LF as Rey’s romance barometer and she decided that Finn was cool but Poe really makes her knickers wet. These are not “secret doomreys” these are black fans who are angry that Finn might be discarded because of racism. So yes, while doomrey would be an awful follow to the story being told, when has that stopped LF before, is their point. It’s a good one.

It’s fine if you don’t want that discourse on your blog. But I wanted to write because I’ve been trying to be more mindful of not dismissing ideas contrary to mine, particularly on regards to racism. That doomrey anon could have, and possibly was, been written by any of the black Finnrey and former Finnrey fans who expressed the same sentiment to me privately and I think that instead of dismissing it, the fears of some black fans should be recognized, even if you don’t agree with the substance.

Well no, it doesn’t tbh. I’m aware Rey is fictional, but I’m puzzled why you’re using that argument on me when this is what rey/kylo fans say to people who call him a fascist. Kylo Ren is clearly modeled on spree shooters/family annihilators and the FO on fascist regimes. The fact that they are fictional doesn’t suddenly negate the parallels. If it’s true that the Jurassic Park guy wanted to put Poe and Rey together, the storyline would have supported it in some way, probably as I suggested (1)

themandalorianwolf:

lj-writes:

with Rey deciding that her attraction to Poe oustrips her
attraction to Finn. Also I don’t get why you act as if there’s no
precedent for this in SW. Before George decided to make Luke and Leia
twins, Leia clearly was more drawn romantically to Han than to Luke. It
was suggested in the prequels and tie in material that Captain Panaka
was deeply in love with Padme and that she was attracted and receptive,
but then Anakin came along and that was that. They’re fictional, too,
fyi. (end)

You’re conflating two very different questions here. The first is whether saying “this is bad story” is the same as saying “this character had no right to make that choice.” The second, which you’ve just introduced, is about whether real-life parallels can inform the reading of a fictional story. They are two very different things and the answer to the first is “no,” while the answer to the second is “yes.”

Rey and Poe have zero romantic buildup in the first 2 movies and a rushed one-movie romantic subplot will be pretty weak compared to Finnrey. That’s judging the merits of a story involving fictional characters and has nothing to do with shaming Rey for not marrying her high school bf or whatever. Like I said in response to your previous ask, if we think of Leia like a real person she has every “right” to fall in love with Admiral Ackbar or Wedge or Mon Mothma. Does that make it a good story? No.

“Before George decided to make Luke and Leia
twins, Leia clearly was more drawn romantically to Han than to Luke.“

Pretty sure you meant “more drawn romantically to Luke than to Han,” and I’d dispute that. Luke and Leia had great rapport, yes, but even though I liked Luke/Leia better prior to the sibling reveal I still had the annoying suspicion that Han and Leia would end up together because they had the whole Slap Slap Kiss thing going on, a trope I dislike but is real nonetheless.

“It
was suggested in the prequels and tie in material that Captain Panaka
was deeply in love with Padme and that she was attracted and receptive,“

Um. Padmé and Panaka were never shown romantically on screen–idk what movies you watched–and, judging by their actors’ ages, Panaka was nearly 30 years older. I mean I really hope you’re not suggesting this supposed romance started in The Phantom Menace when Padmé was 14. Are you seriously comparing this nonexistent-on-screen and potentially horrifying “attraction” to Finn and Rey’s love built up over two movies?

This anon doesn’t make any sense.

Han and Leia is a completely different situation than the nonexistent relationship between Poe and Rey.

For one, there was never supposed to be a sequel to A New Hope. It was originally just called “Star Wars”. Luke and Leia were the implied couple by the end of the movie. When Empire came around, there was a love triangle that came around because George hadn’t decided what he was going to do with them until return of the Jedi. But beyond that, Han and Leia had already 2 movies worth adventures and a three-year time skip together. They also had already started a relationship of sorts when the “I know” scene came to pass. Was the relationship developed the best? Maybe, maybe not. It was the 80s. Best we were going to get in a sci-fi movie back then.

Meanwhile Poe and Rey have no relationship with each other or history. Rey has only shown an actual interest in Finn for the last two movies. In fact their relationship is the one thing that transitions over the two sequel movies fluidly. Even in the Poe Dameron comics, Rey and Poe act more like platonic friends, even going as far as to call themselves torture buddies because of what they had endured from Kylo. Rey even tells Poe that Finn is special to her.

I’m just gonna say you comparing Finn to Panaka, just comes off completely racist on so many different levels. If there’s any comparison it would be comparing Padme to Finn and Anakin to Rey.

This anon reminds me of a Reylow who racks their brain on a way to make sure the black man and the white woman don’t get together. The races comparison doesn’t help their case at all.

Why is Finn compared to Mace Windu or Quarsh Panaka (though more likely–I fervently hope–anon meant his nephew Gregar Typho) who aren’t anywhere comparable to him in personality, story positioning, or importance? I wonder what the connection is…

stupid very basic question: what does “coded” mean? Sorry, I’m lost.

diversehighfantasy:

lj-writes:

themandalorianwolf:

lj-writes:

It’s when a character is given the markers of a group affiliation that the character cannot actually have or is not explicitly stated to have. An example of the former is Sebastian from The Little Mermaid having a Trinidadian accent and being from Jamaica. A crab cannot be Jamaican (or Trinidadian), but he was coded as being from the Caribbean. A leading case of the latter is queer coding using stereotypical gay/queer traits, especially for villains.

I never knew that. Isn’t that technically what the characters from Steve universe are? Their not technically woman, but they are…I think.

I’m not going in that fandom.

So why is Kylo called a coded character?

Yeah they could be seen as examples of female-coded or nonbinary-coded characters, seeing how they’re aliens who come from a culture without gender. (If there’s any gender I’d say Pearls are coded as the pliant, objectified, subservient women.) The show is very queer, and recently they decided to take things way outside coding territory and make it explicit with a wedding scene and a big kiss. I agree it’s a good idea not to go anywhere near SU fandom, though, and I lost a lot of interest in it myself for other reasons. Still plan to watch it with my son, though.

If Kylo is coded as anything he’s coded neo-Nazi lmao. There’s even Word of God on this from JJ. There is a joke about him being “dumbass-coded” (link via @thehungryvortigaunt) but that’s not coding, he just is a dumbass.

Kylo is called coded as a weapon. It doesn’t take a social scientist to see that hyperfocusing on the white villain in a movie series with no young white male heroes and deciding he’s the hero has racist implications. If it was a fringe view, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal, but it’s everywhere, and as we’ve seen multiple times, kylostans (lbr, reylo isn’t about focusing on Rey beyond aesthetics) demand that he is respected for a perceived innate goodness, a demand not extended to the characters of color who make up the Canon group of heroes.

Invoking coding is an attempt to muddy the waters when people notice this racist pattern. If Supreme Leader Kylo himself is marginalized, well, then, his actions are justified and calling him a criminal for his actions is like, the same as calling an innocent Black guy a criminal just for existing (which reylo shippers have actually done). That’s not how marginalization works. That’s never been how it works. The popular suggestion that Kylo, who was introduced to us as a commander giving orders to slaughter an entire village of religious followers, is the good guy because he looks a certain way, is the opposite of marginalized.

And yet, one of the things kylostans love to do is to apply marginalization to him in order to “turn the tables” on fans who think it would be reprehensible for a character who is so clearly an allegory of modern white radicalization (as well as Nazism, e.g the village) to become the real hero in a story where the heroes we’ve been given are people of color and women.

One can defend the belief that Kylo is the true hero in one of two ways: By admitting they support the ideology (as some far right fans who believed the Empire were the good guys did in the early ‘00s ), or by telling us we have it all wrong and Kylo is the most marginalized of all, to the point where he’s coded as “POC” or femme or mentally ill. Fans unwilling to put in the effort it takes to see Kylo as the real hero are prejudiced against the marginalized. Check and mate. “Antis” are the Real Racists.

tl;dr: Whiteness is a HELL of a drug.

themandalorianwolf:

lj-writes:

diversehighfantasy:

baensolo:

“R/eylos are 95% a minority”

Their own demographic survey begs to differ:

So yeah spare me with the bullshit, demons.

1.37% Black. TBH I didn’t think it would be that low.

Also, they note that the ship is popular in Asian countries, meaning that some percentage of the Asian fans are not “minorities.”

But remember, “minority” doesn’t equal POC. It includes religious minorities, LGBTQ, people with disabilities, and, sometimes, women. White women benefit the most from Affirmative Action, after all.

Can confirm that it’s popular in Asia, Korean Twitter is overrun with these demons.

Black twitter hates Reylow

I’m still ROTFL at the 1.37% number 😂 I’d have guessed more like 5%, personally.

In response to @luffykun3695 yeah, the dynamics of reylow are similar to what shows up in a lot of Korean media. It’s one of the reasons I dislike K-Dramas.

I’m tired

If you went by the charges commonly flung at Finn you would absolutely think he’s a monster and the villain of this franchise. He’s been called traitorous, murderous, aggressive, obsessive, abusive, stalkerish. And now I’m dealing with TLJ stans saying Rose was right and he was hateful and violent for wanting to die for his friends. He was going to make the ultimate sacrifice, the same act Holdo is relentlessly lionized for, and I’m told the rules are different for him for Reasons and it’s a sign he’d given in to the Dark Side–and what’s more, he couldn’t turn away from it of his own accord like Luke did, he had to have Rose acting as his external conscience and physically beat some sense into him. Again. The way fans all but salivate at the thought of controlling and disciplining Finn with pain and physical force makes me want to throw up.

When he’s not demonized he’s dismissed as this pure cinnamon roll who is just too Kind and Good to do what needs to be done in war like, idk, murder and torture prisoners. Make no mistake, all the rampant war crimes apologism in this fandom is not only about rehabilitating Kylo Ren but also diluting Finn’s character. If the shooting of unarmed prisoners is a valid act of war, if torture is not a heinous crime but just something that happens between enemies in wartime, then Finn is no longer a conscientious and courageous soldier. He becomes simply a softie who is too good for this world, a weak-hearted deserter who didn’t have what it takes for the hard reality of war. Propping up Kylo Ren with these false premises always comes at the expense of Finn’s character. Always.

When he’s not being demonized or dismissed Finn is just… absent. In a lot of articles and fandom discussions you would not know that he is a major character, far less that he was the protagonist in TFA. When he comes up at all he is talked about like he’s just there, and not someone who is deserving of story weight and fan speculation like Kylo Ren and Rey are.

Spending time in fandom outside of a very narrow circle of Finn stans leaves me questioning my sanity and perception. Was he really a minor character like Qui-Gon Jinn or Mace Windu, both of which he has been compared to in terms of importance? Did I imagine his importance to his story, how revolutionary the character is in so many ways, what he means to me and so many others? Was I wrong in thinking the narrative would have been better if he had been given the dignity of making his own choices without having physical force used on him?

Responses to the character of Finn have revealed some truly frightening undercurrents in this fandom, so much mean-spiritedness and absolute refusal to give him any benefit of the doubt, to acknowledge his complexity, importance, or indeed his existence. I never dreamed I would ever be in a fandom where a character that commits mass murder and torture is treated like a hero and a conscientious ex-slave soldier like a villain or a bit character, yet here we are. The Star Wars fandom is like some kind of Bizarro World and it tires me out.

jewishcomeradebot:

jewishcomeradebot:

jedi-padawan-ben-solo:

Y’all do you that you can like both Kylo and Finn at the same time

Like I am almost tired of saying this. Y’all. Chill out with saying it’s one or the other. That’s stupid.

I like Kylo as a villain. What I can’t stand is that woobified Darth Negging creature that fandom has created, that’s nothing but a whitewashed Finn. Because what they really want is Finn. They just don’t want a Black man to have that character or story, they feel that the white Nazi allegory is entitled to it.

Believe me, I like Kylo just fine. It’s the fandom woobfied creature and his racist stans I loathe with a passions.

Why don’t you go tell these people they can like Kylo without turning him into Finn, without sidelining Finn’s importance and without vilifying the Black male lead?

And since I know “fans” like you and your “this never happens” bs, here’s some receipts for you.

X, X, X, X, X, X, X, X, X, X, X.

And that’s just me going through the first couple of pages of my Reylo Racism and Reylo Receipts tags. If you want more just go read through those tags yourself.

The world of hurt for reylows will be 10 times worse than it was for reyskies, reysolos or anyone who thought she is from a significant lineage. I’m absolutely sure of it. Leia being ALIVE gave me a stronger gut feeling it isn’t going to happen at all. that’s why they want her dead or hoped she wouldn’t come back.

jewishcomeradebot:

themandalorianwolf:

lj-writes:

I don’t get this connection, can anyone explain it to me? Why has a living Leia suddenly become inconvenient for Reylows? I thought in their mythology she was supposed to be the sweet long-suffering mother who welcomed Kylo back with open arms? Have they finally gotten through their skulls that they got Leia all wrong? Is it because, with the confirmation that Leia won’t be recast or (re?)animated, archived footage!Leia can’t tearfully fall at Kylo’s feet and beg him to forgive her for making him a mass murderer? Why do they want Leia dead?

But yes, I want reylows to cry for 10 years the way canon Zutarans still are. Pointing and laughing at them will be worth the nuisance they’ll make of themselves.

Leia being alive goes against every single theory they have had since Carrie Fisher died.

If Leia is alive, and since more than likely going to be written out the political way to explain her absence, everything Kylo does will be in direct aggression to his mother.

The New Republic/Resistance becoming a terrorist group? Impossible, Leia is still alive.

The New Republic/Resistanc being led into the ground? Impossible, Leia is still alive.

Kylo would be going to war with his own mother. Reylows cant flip that without trying to do the whole abusive mother thing again, which will practically make them, even though they already are, the undisputed demons of the Star Wars community because they are slandering Leia in her final film appearance.

Reylows are pretty much in denial. They think Johnson was a supporter and Kylo is the protagonist, Rey his baby maker, and Finn was a useless side.

But some of them are starting to wake up and realize that Finn/John is JJ’s main man, JJ was the one who started Force sensitive Finn and the whole Rey mysterious past, Kylo unapologetic villain, and of course Rey and Finn falling for each other….Reylows are scared of what JJ will do and all I can I say is:

That’s why think they starting all this drama. The end is here and Finn is coming for that ass.

Also, they know they can’t spin it any longer with “Leia will redeem Ben” because it is unused footage from TFA and that movie was about Kylo becoming the villain. Any footage from there concerning Leia and Kylo is not likely to be positive. More likely it is not to be about Kylo at all, but about the Resistance, Republic politics or The Force.

I.e. Leia exists completely unattached to Kylo and that in itself is a danger to reylos because they need everything to be about their precious Benny Boy.

Furthermore, they were all set about Lando when we hadn’t had Leia confirmed yet, because he was to them a good bet for redeeming Kylo. But with Leia in there and not redeeming “Ben” then Lando is not such a good card after all, he has a much more tenuous connection and they damn well know it.

So yeah, I agree with @themandalorianwolf. They know the end is coming, that it is almost undoubtedly going to spell Kylo’s death unredeemed (conclusion of the Skywalker saga and all). The fact that JJ is centering his first shot on Finn is just salt in the wound to them and they’re acting out like the abusive group they are.

Finn was always what they wanted Kylo to be. We all know it but they’ev spend the last several years conjuring up this myth that it isn’t so. I remember August last year when we got that interview with Daisy where she said that “falling in love with your friends is the best thing” in response to a question about romance in VIII. And I vividly remembered how aggressive Reylos suddenly got and tried to paint Finn as someone who wasn’t Rey’s friend at all, which was an enormous heel about after having said Finn was friend zoned since TFA came out.

Every single time it becomes clear that Kylo isn’t the male lead, that Finn is and that Kylo is likely to die and die unredeemed, then they pitch fits like this. Because they’re just that racist and that delusional.

I usually ignore stupid stuff like this and figured Oscar was just gigging for fun but apparently this was an event to raise money for people displaced in Guatemala? I’m sorry but it does look really bad John didn’t go and not just that, Driveon who hates public stuff and isn’t particularly close to Oscar did go. I’m sure there’s a reason but it looks bad Scoob

jedipadawan4589:

captainsaltymuyfancy:

lj-writes:

John can give to a good cause without necessarily having to go to a glitzy event. People really don’t cut him any slack.

Shut the fuck up anon, John is a person with limited time and energy, why should he be expected to make an appearance at every charitable event he’s connected to? He’s held to such a ridiculous standard of behavior and totally unfair expectations in everything he does while his costars never are and they aren’t half as busy or as socially involved as he is. The unbelievable hoops Black celebrities have to jump through to even be treated like human beings is so ridiculous and completely racist.

May I add, that even if he DOES meet this insane standard it hardly matters any? A racist public will continue to ignore him at best, or find some other “unforgivable offense” like wearing the wrong color. You just, can’t, win.

Speaking of true colors, Adam attending Oscar’s charity concert with Daisy and John not going means that reylow is happening according to reylows and that John is just a bit player, since he’s not hanging out with the “big guns” in the cast. I’m so tired. I feel horrible for black fans who have to see this shit every day. Do these people not tire of being racist and antiblack? John and Oscar are friends. I’m sure he had a good reason for not attending. But these fucks just decide the narrative.

jewishcomeradebot:

themandalorianwolf:

lj-writes:

They still don’t get it, do they–John is the biggest gun in that cast 😂

Or maybe John is I don’t know….FILMING FUCKING EP IX!!!!!!!!

For Christ sakes maybe the dude was tired as hell from a long day of filming or he had to film or train some more.

I never understand why this fandom hates to see us in any positive leading role. It’s like those arguments back in the day when they said Lando wasn’t in the Sequel trilogy because he was a traitor.

Nah man, that would mean they’d have to face that Finn’s role in IX is big and significant, something that doesn’t leave John much free time for leisure pursuits.

But they’ve already convinced themselves – contrary to all narrative evidence – that Finn is an insignificant side character who isn’t going to be doing much of anything in IX. So “clearly” John can’t be that busy when Daisy and Adam aren’t.

Ret/wlows calling Kylo “Ben” is so funny to me. Like those idiots claim they are KyLo fAnS yet have to pull Ben Solo out of their ass for their shitty ship.

naemerydae:

themandalorianwolf:

lj-writes:

Some of them seriously say they don’t ship Kylo Ren and Rey, but Benny Boy and Rey. They’re the SAME PERSON, Karen.

Benny Boy doesn’t even like the name “Ben”.

It’d be like Rey calling Finn “FN-2187”.

Does no one understand character development. The only people who knew him as “Ben” are dead or view him as Kylo now.

Reylows fail at their own ship

He only just shanked his father to cement his chosen identity, that’s clearly nothing of significance whatsoever. They dgaf about Kylo as a character either, hence “Ben” “save Ben Solo” “redemption fetus” “he’ll just switch back to Jedi in IX, Finn who continuity what Rey’s agency I don’t know her” “praise Ruin aka R/ylo Ben Johnson!! our only god!!”

No liking him for what and who he is ever to be found. No accepting of his own terrible choices, it’s always someone else’s fault, he got no say on himself poor babby. No Rey switching to the dark side either, if they must ship it. Only mental gymnastics to replace Finn, lbr now.

Woobie Puppet Solo is boring as fuck and only exists for one purpose and one alone: One-upping Finn. Finn was brainwashed and abused all his life to do evil? Well Benny was brainwashed as a FETUS. Finn bravely defected at risk to his life, earning widespread admiration and striking a blow against the First Order? Benny’s going to do it BETTER and COOLER. Finn has an adorable and heartwarming, yet mature and poignant relationship with Rey? Benny’s relationship with her will be an EPIC ROMANCE that will bring BALANCE to the FORCE.

Benny is just whitewashed Finn made up by people who can’t stand the fact that Finn is the male lead, who want their white male OC to outshine him and be the TRUE hero that they refuse to believe Finn is. Benny is an embodiment of classic white whataboutmeism, the belief that they have been robbed if whiteness is not centered. Woobie Ben is a puppet of fandom racism much as he is an imagined puppet of Snoke’s.