I feel it anon. It is SO upsetting to see people just dismiss Finn out of hand as a love interest because of the color of his skin. Like I knew it was bad for interracial pairings, but the SW fandom just floored me with how much they will do anything do ship Rey with anyone but the black man. Finn and Rey are the kind of I-never-knew-I-needed-you-in-my-life, meant-to-be-together, actual soulmates ship, and yet people refuse to see it. And if Finn was white there would absolutely be no argument that they were the main ship of the series. But instead we get people trying to validate crack ships or a ship with absolutely no buildup because it’s more palatable to them. And it honestly just makes me so angry and sad when I think about it. The only thing that makes me feel better is that I strongly believe that JJ will make them canon. Because even if fandom stays a racist trashfire, that would be such a huge step (STAR WARS, possibly the biggest franchise in the world with a lead interracial couple) and a giant middle finger to all the racists who have been denying them from day 1.
I apologise if I’ve offended or upset you or any poc shippers first off. It really wasn’t my intention at all but if I have then I’ll take responsibility for it.
When I said that, I said it more as an exaggeration in response to ships like damerey being called racist because it’s erasing a black man. And that you could easily say that finnrey is erasing a Latino man or an Asian woman in response with the logic of that opinion.
I don’t think finnrey shippers are racist at all. I like finnrey and even though I ship them more as a platonic ship, I wouldn’t be upset if they were canon.
I was going to respond to a different reblog of yours that construed my reply to say race plays no role in shipping preferences, but I can’t seem to find it anymore. I’d like to clarify that I’m of the same opinion as the people you were deriding on this thread for saying Damerey is antiblack. There is absolutely no valid reason to dismiss Finn and Rey’s two movies of risking their lives for each other and missing each other, not to mention Rey straight up lying down to die with Finn, in favor of she and Poe literally saying hello. That’s the part that annoys me about Damerey (and one of my 374801 issues with Reylo), the dismissal and minimization of Finn and Rey’s bond.
You’re also engaging in a false equivalence here. There is nothing to “erase” between Poe and Rey, they said “hi” and bonded in the comic over being torture buddies. Rose was just plain horrible toward Finn. You can’t pretend Damerey and Finnrose had canon interactions on par with Finn and Rey and then act as though ignoring the much stronger canon bases for Finnrey is the same as pointing out the flaws in Damerey or Finnrose as canon ships.
Finally, re your tags…
You’ve been given answers. Repeatedly. You’re just choosing to ignore them. It’s fine if you don’t agree, but not engaging with the answers you’ve been given after claiming to be genuinely curious seems more than a little disingenuous.
First off I just want to say in regards to damerey and finnrose, I am genuinely confused. You’ve given answers, and I’m not ignoring them lol it’s just in most occasions that I’ve seen people who don’t like the two ships interact with shippers, it’s been very racially charged in the sense of ‘damerey is antiblack, you’re racist and hate Finn if you ship damerey’ etc etc. So with the answers you’ve provided, is that a common opinion that is shared between all anti shippers? That rose was horrible to Finn and that damerey is less than finnrey because they said hi once and had maybe one comic interaction?
Between the first two films, you’re right. Finn and Rey had more interaction and bond between them than Rey/Poe and Finn/rose. And even if you ship ships that are not finnrey, you can’t really ignore that. Do damerey shippers somehow erase Finns role in Rey’s life? Is that why the ship is considered antiblack? (I’m genuinely tryna understand because I’m not deep in the damerey ship).
I hope @lj-writes does not mind if I add my two cents.
While I will not say that all people against damerey are against it for the same reasons, most of us are against those who insist that damerey is a ***canon*** ship stretching from TFA because of a line in the TFA novelization that could be interpreted as Rey finding Poe attractive – a novelization that has now been made uncanon because of tlj.
Again, I’m only speaking for the vast majority of anti damerey folks – there are always troublemaking overdramatic outliers. People who ship damerey as a crack ship or because they find Oscar Isaac and Daisy Ridley attractive – most of us have no issue with that. It is the others, who for two years now have decided that damerey is endgame and have gone so far as to attack black and Asian finnrey shippers with racial slurs. That has, I’m sure you understand, led to bad feeling throughout the fandom, though I personally am aware that the vast majority of damerey shippers aren’t doing that or condoning that.
But to proclaim damerey canon based on two lines in a book that is no longer canon and a 10 second exchange in a movie is antiblack because it places those two relatively meaningless (in the grand scheme of things) interactions above everything that Finn and Rey went through in the first movie and partially in the second.
Also I think some of the terminology is odd. Rey and Poe didn’t have a “bond,” as you mention, as of tlj. They said hello. They were just meeting. Arguably they are bonding in the Poe Dameron comic but it is pretty clear that their two points of connection were Finn saving their lives and Kylo Ren torturing both of them. And at this point in the comic, Poe is preoccupied with what has happened to his squadron and Rey is studying the sacred Jedi texts, so they’re not even in conversation as of the latest comic I’ve seen.
Tl;Dr the majority of people who say they “don’t like/are against” damerey are not generally against the ship per se – we are against the increasing insistence that it is a canon/endgame ship and that nothing Finn and Rey did together in the past two movies meant anything because Poe and Rey smiled at each other and said hello. Since the big difference here is that Oscar Isaac is a white passing Latine and John Boyega is a dark-skinned, broad featured black man, and it almost goes without saying that if Finn were played by a white actor, the instance of “damerey” would be quite a bit less prevalent – probably on par with a ship like finnlo – then yes, it is fair and accurate to say that “canon” damerey shippers are antiblack. They are motivated by not wanting the black man to be with Rey. There can be no other reason for the insistence that damerey is the endgame ship. It would be like me insisting Finn and Kay Konnix are going to marry because they spoke once.
@atoffandhisbobby speaks truth here. (Though I’m unfamiliar with the term “broad featured?” All I get in searching for it are, like, ventilator specs, which I doubt are relevant though John certainly brings air to my lungs.) In my case, and the case of many Finnreys, it’s also been Damereys getting in our inboxes with weird asks about how Damerey is already canon or it’s racist not to ship Damerey (link, link, link, link).
To answer your first question op, while I can’t speak for all antis I’d say that’s a fairly common sentiment among us. I personally don’t interact with Damerey and Finnrose posts or shippers, I have both #damerey and #finnrose filtered and have unfollowed people who post material for these ships, especially untagged.
I also think you have a pretty flattened understanding of what it means to be critical of fandom racism. It certainly can mean self-righteous jerks going out of their way to harass shippers who are minding their own business, and I find that distasteful. (This is distinguished from pushing back against racist arguments or asking shippers who are doing something actually objectionable and harmful to stop, obviously.) The parts I find the most meaningful and worthwhile are where we point out racist patterns in fandom preferences and arguments, including for shipping. Most of the time these patterns are unconscious and implicit, and it helps me recognize my own biases and those of others so I can unlearn my own shit and formulate better arguments/understandings of stories.
In response to your second question, yes, the erasure of Finn is rampant with Damereys. See for instance this account by a Finnrey shipper who left fandom because Damereys kept cooping their Finnrey art and turning it into Damerey (link). While the described behavior took place on Instagram, Poe frequently gets inserted into Finnrey posts on Tumblr, too (link).
Similarly, the reason I filtered the #damerey tag in the first place is because I couldn’t stand how the shippers denigrate and erase Finn. Pre-TLJ I saw a Damerey shipper argue that while Finn had a “cute little crush” (ugh) on Rey, it didn’t really rise to the level of the romantic tension in the scene of Rey and Poe saying hi in the novelization. Post-TLJ there was a popular post going around saying that Poe telling Rey “I know” was in deliberate contrast to Kylo telling her she was nothing. Never mind that it was Finn she had been constantly asking about and Finn she wanted Chewie to carry a message to while she was risking her life on a foolhardy plan, and it was Finn coming back for her that was the most devastating blow against Kylo telling her she was nothing.
I think it’s both. The Resistance is a volunteer militia like the Rebellion before it–there was never any problem with Luke going “awol” to Dagobah instead of meeting up with the Rebels after Hoth. Though Rose was ordered to stun deserters according to the novelization, that doesn’t make it right. It’s doubly wrong in relation to Finn, who had never joined the Resistance and made that fact clear shortly before Rose stunned him.
The racist part comes in where the above is completely ignored and the tasing–which resulted in Finn being thrown into a wall, losing consciousness, and experiencing partial paralysis–is treated largely treated as a joke or simply just desserts for a deserter (which he wasn’t). Fandom constantly shits itself trying to justify the attack, adding another layer of racism in fandom reception.
Hey, as an Asian woman you should obviously recognize that Rose was being Wise™ and Serene™ in her decision to violently suppress the “uppity” black guy.
Argh the trope of the wise guiding Asian woman who exists for the growth of some fucking man can die a fiery death
For the life of me I can’t figure out this argument that Finn’s sacrificial charge at the cannon was hateful and Rose’s “not fighting what we hate” line worked as a coherent expression of theme. The arguments I’ve seen for Finn’s charge being fueled by hate are basically made up to make Rose’s line work and have weak bases in the actual canon scene. Here are some I’ve seen, with counterarguments:
Argument: The mission was pointless because Finn already knew no one was coming to save him and he was going to kill himself out of spite.
Counterargument: There’s no basis in the actual filmed scene to say the original reason for the ski speeder mission–earn time for allies to arrive–was invalidated. Confirmation that their signal was received but not responded to only came after Rose crashed into Finn
Argument: Finn said earlier at Canto Bight that it felt good to hurt the war profiteers with the falthier rampage, while Rose said no, it was worth it to set the falthiers free, which was clear foreshadowing that Finn was driven by hate and a desire to hurt while Rose was focused on love and freedom
Counterargument: Okay, to vent a little, that exchange was plain bad and rendered both Finn’s and Rose’s arcs absurd. It was a really weird and abrupt switcheroo from when Finn was the one who was temporarily awed by the beauty and glitz of Canto Bight and Rose was the one who wanted to put her fists through the town. Plus, given that Rose was the one who tased a wounded Finn into unconsciousness and paralysis because she was so angry at him, it’s kinda rich to see her play the saint without any kind of apology or amends.
To get to the main point, If this exchange was meant to be foreshadowing it was poorly done because the two situations were so different. On Crait Finn was trying to save his friends and preserve hope for the future, attempting to destroy a weapon for that end isn’t inherently hateful
Argument: Finn was bathed in red light, which in Star Wars means he was on the Dark Side of the Force
Counterargument: Effects like lighting can be a nice supplement to storytelling but can’t override the actual story. Like Jesus Christ you really don’t have arguments, do you?
Argument: Finn was mistaken about his sacrifice having any impact, Rose is a technological expert so she stopped him from sacrificing his life meaninglessly.
Counterargument: Actually Finn recognized the technology while Rose didn’t, he has way more reason to know how the First Order’s tech works, and TLJ showed him to be Rose’s peer in terms of technical knowledge and ingenuity.
Even if we accept this argument, though, at best it says that he was being ignorant or incompetent, not hateful.
Argument: Finn was angry during his charge, unlike Holdo and Paige who were more serene.
Counterargument: So being kinda mad that the fascist organization that kidnapped and enslaved you is now going to kill all your friends = being a hateful Dark Sider? Being angry at oppression makes you the moral equivalent of your oppressors now? And if Finn had been more calm and serene about sacrificing himself to save his friends, would the exact same act cease to be hateful?
Argument: Rose said Finn was being hateful, so it must be true.
Counterargument: I saw this circular reasoning from more than one person. Again, you know they don’t have any arguments when they work backward from the conclusion. I mean maybe it’s possible the scene was just poorly written and the movie was incoherent as hell?
@thehungryvortigaunt That’s what tipped me over into actually writing this post after stewing over my growing irritation at these arguments. This is just one of the ways in which TLJ is heavy-handedly and nonsensically Christian, and fandom is falling all over itself trying to validate its idea of Finn and Poe as scary and violent when in fact they are the ones who are frequently targeted by violence.
Yeah, the smugness of that reddit post did make me twitch a little. Other highlights included talking about how Finn taking pride in defeating Phasma is somehow a BAD thing, and pretending like there has never been a megacorporation/war-profiteer in SW canon before (hello, Trade Federation!), or totally ignoring the futility of the violence in Rose’s behavior. The film showed us an Asian woman promoting GIVING UP and letting DEUS EX WHITE MAN save the day on Not-Hoth…
@thehungryvortigaunt omg I stopped reading after the “hate-fueled” part, thanks for reading it so I don’t have to. So basically Finn is uppity and had to be taken down a notch? 😂 The ONLY way Rose’s arc is even vaguely palatable is if she came to realize she was wrong about Finn and was wrong to assault him, except there’s no admission of wrong and no change in her dismissive and insulting behavior toward him. Her spouting that coldest of takes and kissing Finn while all their friends are about to be killed in the background was the height of comedy lmao.
So basically Finn is uppity and had to be taken down a notch?
I’ve seen this same sentiment expressed by many people on SW message boards about other Finn moments and I can’t stand it. Apparently taking stuff and doing whatever one wants is only bad when Finn does it. When he tries to take an escape pod and leave the Raddus to save himself and Rey it’s wrong according to some people because he’s abandoning the Resistance, which he never joined, and taking a ship that he’s not authorized to use. But somehow at the same time it’s okay for Rose to abandon her post and leave the Raddus because Poe sends her and Finn to Canto Bight in one of those ships that supposedly no one was allowed to use. None of the people that get on Finn’s case seem to have a problem with them doing the same things. I guess as long as hypocrisy is fine if it involves Finn being put in his place.
For the life of me I can’t figure out this argument that Finn’s sacrificial charge at the cannon was hateful and Rose’s “not fighting what we hate” line worked as a coherent expression of theme. The arguments I’ve seen for Finn’s charge being fueled by hate are basically made up to make Rose’s line work and have weak bases in the actual canon scene. Here are some I’ve seen, with counterarguments:
Argument: The mission was pointless because Finn already knew no one was coming to save him and he was going to kill himself out of spite.
Counterargument: There’s no basis in the actual filmed scene to say the original reason for the ski speeder mission–earn time for allies to arrive–was invalidated. Confirmation that their signal was received but not responded to only came after Rose crashed into Finn
Argument: Finn said earlier at Canto Bight that it felt good to hurt the war profiteers with the falthier rampage, while Rose said no, it was worth it to set the falthiers free, which was clear foreshadowing that Finn was driven by hate and a desire to hurt while Rose was focused on love and freedom
Counterargument: Okay, to vent a little, that exchange was plain bad and rendered both Finn’s and Rose’s arcs absurd. It was a really weird and abrupt switcheroo from when Finn was the one who was temporarily awed by the beauty and glitz of Canto Bight and Rose was the one who wanted to put her fists through the town. Plus, given that Rose was the one who tased a wounded Finn into unconsciousness and paralysis because she was so angry at him, it’s kinda rich to see her play the saint without any kind of apology or amends.
To get to the main point, If this exchange was meant to be foreshadowing it was poorly done because the two situations were so different. On Crait Finn was trying to save his friends and preserve hope for the future, attempting to destroy a weapon for that end isn’t inherently hateful
Argument: Finn was bathed in red light, which in Star Wars means he was on the Dark Side of the Force
Counterargument: Effects like lighting can be a nice supplement to storytelling but can’t override the actual story. Like Jesus Christ you really don’t have arguments, do you?
Argument: Finn was mistaken about his sacrifice having any impact, Rose is a technological expert so she stopped him from sacrificing his life meaninglessly.
Counterargument: Actually Finn recognized the technology while Rose didn’t, he has way more reason to know how the First Order’s tech works, and TLJ showed him to be Rose’s peer in terms of technical knowledge and ingenuity.
Even if we accept this argument, though, at best it says that he was being ignorant or incompetent, not hateful.
Argument: Finn was angry during his charge, unlike Holdo and Paige who were more serene.
Counterargument: So being kinda mad that the fascist organization that kidnapped and enslaved you is now going to kill all your friends = being a hateful Dark Sider? Being angry at oppression makes you the moral equivalent of your oppressors now? And if Finn had been more calm and serene about sacrificing himself to save his friends, would the exact same act cease to be hateful?
Argument: Rose said Finn was being hateful, so it must be true.
Counterargument: I saw this circular reasoning from more than one person. Again, you know they don’t have any arguments when they work backward from the conclusion. I mean maybe it’s possible the scene was just poorly written and the movie was incoherent as hell?
@thehungryvortigaunt That’s what tipped me over into actually writing this post after stewing over my growing irritation at these arguments. This is just one of the ways in which TLJ is heavy-handedly and nonsensically Christian, and fandom is falling all over itself trying to validate its idea of Finn and Poe as scary and violent when in fact they are the ones who are frequently targeted by violence.
Yeah, the smugness of that reddit post did make me twitch a little. Other highlights included talking about how Finn taking pride in defeating Phasma is somehow a BAD thing, and pretending like there has never been a megacorporation/war-profiteer in SW canon before (hello, Trade Federation!), or totally ignoring the futility of the violence in Rose’s behavior. The film showed us an Asian woman promoting GIVING UP and letting DEUS EX WHITE MAN save the day on Not-Hoth…
@thehungryvortigaunt omg I stopped reading after the “hate-fueled” part, thanks for reading it so I don’t have to. So basically Finn is uppity and had to be taken down a notch? 😂 The ONLY way Rose’s arc is even vaguely palatable is if she came to realize she was wrong about Finn and was wrong to assault him, except there’s no admission of wrong and no change in her dismissive and insulting behavior toward him. Her spouting that coldest of takes and kissing Finn while all their friends are about to be killed in the background was the height of comedy lmao.
For the life of me I can’t figure out this argument that Finn’s sacrificial charge at the cannon was hateful and Rose’s “not fighting what we hate” line worked as a coherent expression of theme. The arguments I’ve seen for Finn’s charge being fueled by hate are basically made up to make Rose’s line work and have weak bases in the actual canon scene. Here are some I’ve seen, with counterarguments:
Argument: The mission was pointless because Finn already knew no one was coming to save him and he was going to kill himself out of spite.
Counterargument: There’s no basis in the actual filmed scene to say the original reason for the ski speeder mission–earn time for allies to arrive–was invalidated. Confirmation that their signal was received but not responded to only came after Rose crashed into Finn
Argument: Finn said earlier at Canto Bight that it felt good to hurt the war profiteers with the falthier rampage, while Rose said no, it was worth it to set the falthiers free, which was clear foreshadowing that Finn was driven by hate and a desire to hurt while Rose was focused on love and freedom
Counterargument: Okay, to vent a little, that exchange was plain bad and rendered both Finn’s and Rose’s arcs absurd. It was a really weird and abrupt switcheroo from when Finn was the one who was temporarily awed by the beauty and glitz of Canto Bight and Rose was the one who wanted to put her fists through the town. Plus, given that Rose was the one who tased a wounded Finn into unconsciousness and paralysis because she was so angry at him, it’s kinda rich to see her play the saint without any kind of apology or amends.
To get to the main point, If this exchange was meant to be foreshadowing it was poorly done because the two situations were so different. On Crait Finn was trying to save his friends and preserve hope for the future, attempting to destroy a weapon for that end isn’t inherently hateful
Argument: Finn was bathed in red light, which in Star Wars means he was on the Dark Side of the Force
Counterargument: Effects like lighting can be a nice supplement to storytelling but can’t override the actual story. Like Jesus Christ you really don’t have arguments, do you?
Argument: Finn was mistaken about his sacrifice having any impact, Rose is a technological expert so she stopped him from sacrificing his life meaninglessly.
Counterargument: Actually Finn recognized the technology while Rose didn’t, he has way more reason to know how the First Order’s tech works, and TLJ showed him to be Rose’s peer in terms of technical knowledge and ingenuity.
Even if we accept this argument, though, at best it says that he was being ignorant or incompetent, not hateful.
Argument: Finn was angry during his charge, unlike Holdo and Paige who were more serene.
Counterargument: So being kinda mad that the fascist organization that kidnapped and enslaved you is now going to kill all your friends = being a hateful Dark Sider? Being angry at oppression makes you the moral equivalent of your oppressors now? And if Finn had been more calm and serene about sacrificing himself to save his friends, would the exact same act cease to be hateful?
Argument: Rose said Finn was being hateful, so it must be true.
Counterargument: I saw this circular reasoning from more than one person. Again, you know they don’t have any arguments when they work backward from the conclusion. I mean maybe it’s possible the scene was just poorly written and the movie was incoherent as hell?
@thehungryvortigaunt That’s what tipped me over into actually writing this post after stewing over my growing irritation at these arguments. This is just one of the ways in which TLJ is heavy-handedly and nonsensically Christian, and fandom is falling all over itself trying to validate its idea of Finn and Poe as scary and violent when in fact they are the ones who are frequently targeted by violence.
Some seem to believe that calling people out on racism is some kind of horrible character assassination or social death sentence, but in most cases it isn’t. It’s just a learning experience. Below is some of the racist shit I’ve done in the SW fandom alone, for instance. My point in compiling these is not to say racism is normal or okay, still less that I am some kind of hero for owning up to these. Rather, what I’m trying to say is that racism is very common and that’s why it’s important to face and address these biases so we can avoid hurting real people. Obviously, due to the subject matter, this post contains descriptions of racism and specifically antiblack racism.
Note: I’m not including links because I deleted some of these posts, others are hard to find due to changes in my tagging system, and I don’t believe there is much value in linking and propagating them anyway. But these happened, and I have no reason to make up instances of my own racism. I could have forgotten or sanitized some things, of course, so if your recollection or sources contradict mine let me know.
I said early in my time in fandom, mid-2016-ish, that I loved Finn and Rey’s friendship but also thought they had great sex appeal so I wanted them to be friends with benefits and co-parents. @diversehighfantasy, in whose notes I put this, very politely pointed out that this tied into a stereotype that interracial couples weren’t truly romantic and their relationships were all about sex. I deleted the post and apologized to her, which she graciously accepted. This isn’t to say her politeness worked and that’s how people should approach callouts–in fact if anything her politeness didn’t work, because I felt angry and defensive in a way that had nothing to do with how she broached the issue and everything to do with the way I had built an identity around being an egalitarian and moral person. I worked through it, and got over it. I was fine. That incident really made me think, and I realized later on that I had been “missing” a fuckton of romantic subtext, nah, huge blatant neon billboard text, between Finn and Rey.
In my earliest Finn meta I had a very different and, I later realized, heavily distorted idea of Finn’s character. I thought for instance he was smiling in glee while he was shooting down Stormtroopers in the hangar scene. Later I realized on rewatching that scene to analyze it, not only was he not shooting at Stormtroopers, he was not smiling at all, just fiercely concentrating. This realization sickened me because I had to wonder how many otherwise well-meaning people who would swear they were not racist saw aggression in Black people that wasn’t there, and in situations with much higher stakes. Research confirms the existence of this bias (link), and that Black children as young as five are subjected to it (link).
I also wrote a short Finnpoe fic that I realize, in retrospect, was racist as hell. Based on the fact that Poe had shot Slip, I had Poe wake up from a nightmare where he had killed Finn instead and wrote about Finn comforting Poe about that trauma, saying Poe would have been right to kill him. Like… yaigh. I’m happy in retrospect that the fic didn’t attract much attention. If I had been called out I would have realized sooner what was wrong with it, but I did figure out from later fandom discussions that this was part of a common pattern with Finn’s own trauma being disregarded and him being enlisted to comfort Poe or Rey. My fic does seem to me like a really egregious example of this trope, though. I tried to watch out for this tendency when I wrote other fics later on, and I think they have much improved as a result.
I also reblogged and laughed about another blogger’s joke involving Adam punching John over unwanted hugging. This was ignorant and insensitive of me, obviously, and was another one of the instances that got instant pushback–deservedly so. Tbh the amount of violence Black people are regularly subjected to in places like the U.S. still boggles my mind, and as a nonblack and also otherwise very privileged person I will never comprehend the full reality of it. That doesn’t mean it was okay for me to ignore the implications of such a joke. And I did in fact feel uncomfortable and wondered if it was racist so I can’t plead ignorance, either–I just didn’t want to think too deeply about it and that was wrong of me.
That’s what I can think of at the moment. There were times I felt defensive and fragile, especially when called out by others, but again–that was my burden to work through, and it certainly wasn’t worth dismissing others’ valid points and hurts over. I was and remain perfectly fine.
And then they blocked me I think I made them mad sdgsdgk
I mean, rich of them to accuse @diversehighfantasy of strong-arming me when she did nothing of the sort. I already said she was extremely polite, but it looks like @permian-tropos felt threatened by proxy?? or something??
I also love how admitting that I misread Finn’s facial expression at a specific point is putting him on a “gigantic appalling pedestal to worship.” I know he enjoyed fighting back against the FO, on Takodana for instance, I mean how dare he feel good about doing something to strike back against his lifelong oppressors eh?
Lando Calrissian’s Return in EP-IX should about Lando
Since even before Lando was confirmed to be in IX, and his return was just a rumor, I’ve been watching people make his return about almost everyone else but himself. The worse offenders of this have been Reylo shippers who make Lando’s return all about Kylo’s redemption to the ge of saying Maz would chew Lando out for wanting to hurt Benny Boy with the threat of Han Solo haunting him.
With this Fuckery I thought I should go over some canon facts about Lando for everyone.
Canon Facts
Han and Lando loved each other and were as close as brothers. They shared decades of adventures together.
Lando cared about Leia and Luke deeply and became like family to them. They had years of adventures fighting.
Lando and his people were almost killed by the Empire and he was given the horrible choice of selling out his friends or Cloud City, the city he was in charge of, would have been punished by the Empire.
Lando and Chewie were just as close as Lando and Han. They had even spent a year looking for a Han was Boba Fett captured him.
Shara Bey and Kes Dameron, Poe Dameron’s parents both served and fight along side Lando, Han, Leia and Luke throughout the last war. They were family.
Kylo murder Han Solo
Kylo led the attack that almost killed Leia
Kylo tried to kill Luke and indirectly did
Kylo led another attack that would have killed Leia
Lando would be furious about Maz’s castle being destroyed by Kylo and the First Order.
Lando would be furious about the torture Poe had gone through by Kylo and the First Order.
Lando would hate Kylo and the First Order for killing his friends and allies in the New Republic and the Resistance.
Lando would hate Kylo for almost murdering Leia twice and leaving her for dead.
Lando would hate Kylo for indirectly killing Luke.
Lando would hate Kylo for murdering Han in cold blood.
I have watched this one wretched part of the fandom to so much shit.
Post TFA they demonized Han and Leia, calling them abusive, neglectful, fear mongering parents while making Rey and Luke’s entire purpose to be redeeming Kylo Ren.
Post TLJ they demonized Luke, Han, Leia and the entire Skywalker name, and blamed them for everything wrong and bad about Kylo while making Rey’s sole purpose to be Kylo’s redemption baby factory fuck toy.
Now Pre-IX they are demonizing Han and Luke, and making Leia’s exit from the movie and Lando’s return all about redeeming Kylo.
How about no.
Lando’s return is about Lando. It’s about him continuing the fight against people that have killed his friends and family. Lando won’t be trying to save Kylo, he’s going to fight him.
Lando will finish what he started 30 years ago and end those fascist bastards. Stop making Lando’s return about Kylo.
Lando knew that thousands of deaths weren’t just a statistic, unlike this fandom, Kylo’s mass murdering life isn’t worth more than the Galaxy. stop ignoring a character’s pain.
Who do y’all wanna use and slander next?
Poe probably knew Benny Boy his whole since their families were so close. Should Poe save Benny Boy next?
Finn and Kylo were both apart of the FO. Should Finn save him?
Or should Kylo be held accountable for his actions and people should stop treating these characters like they’re from some crap romance movie.
For all that canon Reylow and canon ReySky are diametrically opposed ideas (for much of the audience, anyway), I’ve been increasingly noticing similarities in the underlying thinking and reasoning of the people who are in diehard support these options. The key word here is “diehard”–I have nothing against people who simply enjoy one or the other, or possibly both, as fanon speculation. What I’m talking about is people who think Reylow/ReySky HAS to happen in EpIX or it would be a TERRIBLE story and DESTROY Star Wars and so on.
I mean, I do give ReySkys marginally more credit here, in that they do recognize that Kylo Ren is a fascist tyrant and that it’s perfectly valid for Rey to carry on the Skywalker legacy. It’s not a terribly high bar, but credit where it’s due. Nevertheless, here are some similarities I’ve noticed in the reasoning or implications of these fan theories:
Episode IX needs to do over and, this time, get “right” the ideas that were played with and then debunked in TLJ. This means that the limited screen time in IX needs to be spent on Kylo Ren and/or Rey.
By implication, Episode IX needs to focus on the young white characters and, as a result, the leads of color will have that much less screen time. This is not only acceptable but demanded for story integrity.
The bloodline, even without meaningful emotional ties, is an indispensable part of the Skywalker legacy. Even major characters who do not have Skywalker blood–who happen to be mainly characters of color–cannot carry the legacy forward, and are therefore less important.
Kylo Ren’s actions cannot have lasting and final consequences for the Skywalker legacy, and Rey must be the one to clean up and undo what he has done, whether by falling in love with him or turning out to be the other Skywalker scion.
Rey’s feelings in this do not matter. She must either fall in love and have children with a man who mistreated and manipulated her, or accept the burden of carrying on a very tainted family name even though she had few familial and positive interactions with that family.
These are the major reasons I dislike both theories, though to different degrees. If the Star Wars franchise takes the democratization of the Force put forward in TLJ through Rey Random and Broom Boy at all seriously, then it shouldn’t be about Skywalkers-by-blood anymore. It shouldn’t validate Kylo Ren’s repulsive elitism, as large sections of the fandom currently do.
Let the Skywalker blood die out with a patricidal mass murderer, and let the best parts of the Skywalker legacy–the love they had for each other, the sacrifices they made, their dedication to antifascist struggle and democracy–be carried on by Finn, Rey, and Poe. They are the ones who have proven themselves worthy of those values, unlike the blood scion who has spat on them time and time again.
L.J.'s Obsessions 