diversehighfantasy:

lj-writes:

It still bothers me that Kylo Ren never used the Force against Finn. I mean, we’re talking about the guy who’s been shown doing this

and this

and this

also this

and so much more to his enemies and even people who just kind of annoyed him in the moment. The dude has oodles of Force power and is not at all shy about throwing it around. Other Force users are not immune, as shown with Rey who is even more powerful than he is.

So why, in his fight against Finn at the end of TFA, did Ren never even try to use the Force? Finn went running to an unconscious Rey after Ren knocked her out. Finn had even thrown his blaster aside, not that blasters work against Ren as Poe found out at the start of the movie. Why didn’t Ren throw Finn against a tree, too, or lift him into the air and choke him? That’s more like the guy’s usual MO.

Instead Ren not only dueled Finn but even resorted to punching him after disarming him, which had viewers commenting that his animosity against Finn seemed very raw and personal. It is true that Ren seems to have a personal beef against Finn (link), but again, the new Supreme Leader of the First Order has never been hesitant to use Force power against people regardless of how well he knew them or how strongly he felt about them. He revels in making people, from total strangers to hated rivals, helpless with his power. So why not Finn?

My hypothesis is that there’s another layer to Ren’s animosity against Finn beyond the usually-discussed ones of Finn defecting and making the opposite choices he did, and Ren’s hatred being the manifestation of his regrets. That’s a valid point and I have argued it myself (link), but what if there’s something more immediate and visceral going on?

Let’s go back to that moment in the village near the beginning of TFA, when Ren stared for a long moment at Finn before he turned away. He then unfreezes Poe’s blaster beam to strike a pole Finn was standing near, startling him and showering him with sparks.

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This is an amazing theory that would add a whole new layer to the lore. It fits perfectly with what we saw in TFA. The only time (iirc) in TLJ Finn was in a Force scene was when Rey moved the boulders. She wasn’t using it on him, of course. He was able to run through it though. 🤔

Thank you! And speaking of that scene, this part where the rocks are moving out of Finn’s way is odd when I look at it now:

Some have said Finn was using the Force to move them out of his way, and others have said Rey cleared them herself. While I love the former theory, I don’t think the movement of the rocks fits either version of events.

For one thing, Force telekinesis has never looked like that  as far as I know. Even extremely powerful Force users like Yoda or Kylo Ren have had to reach out, both with the Force and physically, and concentrate in order to move heavy objects.

It’s true Snoke was able to move Rey around quite a bit without hand-reaching, and Kylo Ren had to move Anakin’s lightsaber without reaching out because he was disguising his intentions. But when the effort became strenuous and stealth was no longer needed, as when Kylo Ren strove with Rey for control of the lightsaber, he was right back to physical reaching.

So if this was Finn moving the rocks, then he was doing something unprecedented as a Force user, particularly a first-time user moving heavy objects. He’s putting in less effort and focus than experienced Jedi Masters and moving the rocks practically unconsciously.

Now while I would love this to be true, the movement of the rocks also doesn’t look right for a Force push. Force-pushed or pulled objects tend to move with velocity matching their mass. So a small object like a lightsaber can zip through the air with a Force push or pull, while large and heavy objects pushed or pulled against gravity move more ponderously. These rocks around Finn fly like small objects rather than the large and heavy ones they are. It’s been pointed out that they move in tandem with Finn’s own movements–again, not how Force push has been shown to work at all.

For the same reasons it doesn’t look like Rey was moving the rocks either. On the first point, focus, her concentration was on holding the rocks in the air in a floaty way, not throwing them around in a pushy way. Her hand stayed in the same position throughout until she dropped it on seeing Finn and the Resistance, and she didn’t show the kind of physical movement that would indicate she was clearing away only part of the rocks for Finn and the others. The second point of velocity holds as true for her as it does for Finn–the rocks move too quickly compared to their mass, even setting aside the difficulty of doing this while she’s focused on keeping most of them in the air.

And in fact, when Rey does break concentration and lower her hand the Force telekinesis effect is gone and the rocks all fall, showing that she did in fact need the focus aided by hand movement to keep them in the air. The emotion on her face, the little sob as she starts toward Finn, the way she walks like she’s dreaming oh my heart

So a fully plausible interpretation of this scene is that neither Finn nor Rey was moving the rocks, at least not consciously. Know what the movement of the rocks is consistent with, though? If they were being repelled by something–like a Force-resistant field around Finn, maybe? That would explain why it didn’t take any effort or concentration on Finn’s part, and why the rocks were moving in time to Finn and away from him.