Do you ever cry because Finn and Rey had nothing? They had nothing. Their childhoods stolen from them, dropped in a cut throat environment, no family. The universe didn’t give a shit about them.
But their kindness. Their hope. That burned on. It burned so brightly that even the darkness around them couldn’t snuff it out.
And they found each other, and it was two lost souls finding each other. Yin and yang. The perfect combination.
They fight for each other, they come back for each other, they love each other – there’s no denying that.
Romantic or platonic, you cannot tell me Finn and Rey aren’t soulmates. You just can’t.
Too traumatized for romance? In Star Wars, where the most iconic romance is between a genocide and torture survivor who lost her family and planet, and an orphan who turned to crime from a young age and also suffered capture and torture during the war? No one can tell me Leia was not borderline suicidal, running on rage and revenge, when she led the Death Star to the Rebellion base in an all-or-nothing confrontation. Nor can we ignore the way Han had Leia on informal suicide watch during the evacuation from Hoth and told her as much. Han being tortured and then sold to a crime lord was the catalyst that finally brought them together, and they bonded as a couple during his rescue and recovery. Life eventually became too much for their relationship to bear, but together or not they loved each other until the very end.
Nah, trauma doesn’t disqualify anyone from romance and that goes double for Star Wars. Rey and Finn if anything are healing for each other, and arguably are the only two people that understand each other and love each other unconditionally enough to achieve the complete intimacy of a committed relationship. Frankly any romances they get into with other characters would feel tacked on and won’t be interesting to me.
Maybe this needs to be said by someone who loves and will always love the idea of Ray Skywalker…I didn’t think it for years, but after @lj-writes made a damn good meta, I think my mind has changed. Rey’s heritage was solved way back in TFA. I want to start off by saying this isn’t me acknowledging TLJ as a good movie/sequel, it’s making a theory that if JJ Abrams was the executive producer of TLJ, than regardless of how much power Ruin Johnson said he had, JJ would’ve had to had at least a minor input on some things due to the fact that Bob Eiger more than likely hired JJ to do episode XI way before it was announced to the public and they had already lost 3 directors to creative differences.
Let’s begin
Rey was told back in TFA that whoever left her on Jakku was never coming back. Now Kylo knows this, we as the audience know this. We know Kylo Ren was lying about her parents being junkies, but that’s not the point of the scene. The point of the scene is once again Rey was telling herself something that wasn’t true. Rey can’t keep relying on others to fix her problems for her and has to start looking at the life realistically.
If whoever left her on Jakku still hasn’t come back after all these years, they are never coming back. If Luke Skywalker, the man who turned Vader, couldn’t turn his nephew, and if Han Solo couldn’t turn his very own son himself, and there was nothing Rey could’ve ever done. Kylo Ren killed his father in cold blood to achieve his mission, he wasn’t going to stop now and he’d do whatever it took to finish the mission.
But just as Maz said: there is someone who still could come back for her and that person is Finn. The young man who had fallen from the sky and who had journeyed with her through an ocean of stars. Finn Head rest his life to keep her safe. He had gone back to face the very people who had taken everything from him, who were the biggest threat to the galaxy, who would kill him on sight. Finn went through all of that just to come back for Rey.
It didn’t matter where she came from, because Finn didn’t care who she was or where she came from, he just cared about her.
It might not of been immediately, but Rey knows that she needs to find a purpose in life. She needs to define herself by her actions and move forward. Rey goes to Luke. Now that Finn’s out of commission, she goes to the only other person who may be able to understand what she’s going through.
Whether it was intentional or not, Luke becomes a father figure, a mentor, and a friend to Rey. Metaphorically or literally, Rey is Luke Skywalker’s legacy. Not a legacy of a God or of a fighting machine, but the legacy of a person who always had done the right thing for the people they loved. Thanks to Luke he showed her that nothing will ever stop her from fighting for the people that she loves. She belongs somewhere and that is with Finn and their friends.
Who Rey is or where she comes from, doesn’t change who Rey is. Skywalker, junkie kid, or a daughter who was loved by good people that died. Rey’s purpose was finding herself and she did. Now ahead of her is a future that she is choosing to fight for alongside Finn, the person who never wanted anything from her, treated her with respect, and always came back. Rey I think Rey’s smile after Finn is realizing that she is finally home and has found her family.
I’m not saying that Rey is or isn’t anything. I’m saying that these theories shouldn’t be brought into Ep 9 regardless if Rey was a junkie kid , random daughter, or a Skywalker.
What matters now is the future she’s choosing with Finn and the cause they are both fighting for.
I’m not saying Ray can’t be anything, I’m saying I doubt they’re going to return to it in the movies at least. At best things will probably just be left ambiguous or implied.
At this point I’m fine with Rey being a Schrödinger’s Skywalker, basically, and for there to be enough holes in her “official” origins for people to headcanon whatever they like. It may be the only way to be make everyone semi-happy without having the issue become distracting. Like Daisy said, it doesn’t matter. Rey is not defined by her family but by her choices, and by the people she has chosen to belong with.
I got an A+! 😍 Thank you for your kind words. This is why I think Finn and Rey’s is the best male-female fictional relationship in years, possibly ever, because they both have their respective arcs and hurdles they need to overcome. People who think they are boring and conflict-free aren’t paying attention, or don’t care about conflict other than mistreatment between the man and woman. The central conflict in Finn and Rey’s relationship is that they both struggle with intimacy due to their traumas, and both need to grow into the heroes the galaxy needs them to be. That is the kind of relationship conflict loving couples have, not things like torture and manipulation.
Finn and Rey aren’t boring. They’re just really…damaged.
They went from this
To this
That is a giant leap for people as damaged for them.
If anything this is the most original and untraditional romance in decades, especially in Star Wars films or Disney is general.
If you told people in the 70’s that Disney would make a movie about a black elite soldier who had been stolen from his family and raised to kill for a fascist Terrorist group, would would fall in love with an orphaned white scavenger living in the desert and fighting to survive all her life, they would have thought you mad.
And one of the things that abuse does to you is break your capacity for love and make it hard to accept love. That’s a string Kylo Ren constantly pulled on, especially in TLJ, to try and convince Rey she was unloved and unlovable, would only ever find acceptance, meaning, and power with him. It is really remarkable that Rey still rejected him when she grew up so alone and unprotected, and understandably has such a longing for someone bigger and stronger than she is (Luke, then Kylo) to come in and solve her problems.
It is also remarkable that Finn, who was told over and over again that he was only a cog in the machine and that emotions were a weakness, retains such a capacity for feelings and compassion–and that he is able to bare his soul to Rey, to love and accept love in turn. These two absolutely break my heart with their vulnerability and resilience, and their relationship is the beating heart of the sequel trilogy even when they are apart. ❤️
Note: This is the draft paper by the anon about TLJ. Their e-mail was visible in my inbox so I’m copying this over to another post in case posting as a submission would reveal their personal information. Anon has said they’re on a time crunch, so swift help would be appreciated. I’m mentioning @thelastjedicritical and @tuvok77 who have expressed interest to give them a heads-up, and the anon would be thankful for all feedback!
Star Wars: a space opera of undeniable cultural impact. It is
unusual not to have heard of Star Wars, let alone seen at least one of
the films. Though individually only a select portion of the films are
undisputed masterpieces (even one installment of the sacred original
trilogy fails to qualify for the title— Return of the Jedi is considered
to be the weakest in the trilogy by a certain portion of the fanbase)
the collective saga is iconic and enduring. At least, this was true of
the original six episodes— though The Force Awakens captured the magic
of the original saga, it did not capture its originality. But mediocre
Star Wars films are nothing new; in the past, the prequel trilogy has
been criticized as such. The film that tarnishes the saga— and may well
signal the beginning of the end for a once mighty juggernaut of a
producer, Lucasfilm, is Rian Johnson’s Star Wars: Episode VIII— The Last
Jedi. The Last Jedi is a flippant insult to the fanbase, but worse, its
messages are terrible and offensive.
The most glaring issue is that of Reylo. “Reylo” is the romantic
pairing of Rey and Kylo Ren, the protagonist and antagonist of the
sequel trilogy, by the fanbase. Rian Johnson seems to be a Reylo
shipper, as evidenced by his assertion that Rey and Kylo are “two halves
of our [the film’s] protagonist.” This directly contradicts the
previous film, where Kylo Ren was the antagonist, while Finn was Rey’s
co-protagonist and harbored romantic feelings for her, feelings that
were reciprocated at the end of The Force Awakens. In The Last Jedi,
Rian Johnson seems to forget this relationship; while Finn is still very
much devoted to Rey, she is apparently replaced by the end of the film
by a new love interest, Rose Tico. Meanwhile, Rey seems to forgive Ren
very easily for torturing her and murdering her father figure, Ren’s
father Han Solo, and instead tries to redeem him, out of what is implied
to be romantic feelings for him. Though Rey ultimately abandons Ren
when she sees he is irredeemable, a connection between them is
entertained long enough for Reylo shippers to overtake the fandom. Reylo
sets a horrible example of relationships; Ren has done nothing but
abuse Rey; he abducted her, forcefully probed her mind, attacked and
wounded Finn, her only friend, and when Ren discovered a “Force bond”
between him and Rey, which caused them to appear to each other in
visions, he used it to manipulate Rey into caring for him. One line in
the film in particular stands out as something quoted straight from the
mouths of many abusers. “You’re nothing,” Ren tells Rey, “but not to
me.” Those who interpret this line as romantic do not understand that
abusers in romantic relationships lead their partner to believe that no
one loves them except their abuser; therefore, should the victim leave
the relationship, they would have nowhere else to go. When Rey sees
through his lies, she leaves him, and Ren, furious at losing a powerful
asset, becomes bent on destroying her. Despite the fandom’s illusions to
the contrary, this is not example of a healthy relationship.
But not only does Reylo set a bad example for those in relationships;
it also erases Finn, a black man. In The Force Awakens, Finn is second
only to Rey in importance; in The Last Jedi, he is a side character,
stepping back to allow Kylo Ren, a white villain, to take his place in
the story as love interest and main protagonist. Perplexingly, the
fandom and Rian Johnson seem insistent that Rey and Finn be romantically
paired with anyone but each other, hence Rose as a replacement for Rey.
This demonstrates clear bias as Finn is written as a main character
whose love interest is Rey; this is most explicitly demonstrated when
Finn confesses to Rey that, rather than being a Resistance fighter
actively battling against the First Order, he is a former stormtrooper
running away from it. Despite Finn’s deception, Rey understands
completely and pleads with him not to leave her. The scene is heartfelt
and clearly romantic, and demonstrates that both characters have equally
important arcs. This is a stark contrast to the sequel, where Finn’s
feelings for Rey are portrayed as obsessive and Rey’s feelings for Finn
are portrayed as nonexistent, until the very end when they share two
brief scenes after being separated for the entire film. But not only is
Reylo racist, it also sexist. Rey is little more than a pawn for Kylo
Ren’s redemption, a plot device that, like all the others in the film
such as the Canto Bight sequence, ultimately fails and renders itself
meaningless. The strong female lead of The Force Awakens is stripped of
character to such a degree that she could almost be removed from the
film entirely, much like Finn and his side quest with Rose. The Last
Jedi is so centered on its villain rather than its heroine or would-be
hero that the entire film can be synopsized entirely from his
perspective; his master isn’t satisfied with him, so he kills him and
takes his place before heading off to crush the remaining opposition to
his empire. Rey, who on the surface is integral to Kylo’s arc, doesn’t
even need to be included in the above summary for the synopsis to make
sense. When the heroine and foremost protagonist of a film is so
grievously sidelined, that is sexism.
But The Last Jedi isn’t a blatantly sexist and racist film; it
actually attempts to be progressive. However, its attempts to be
progressive simply cause more problems. Vice Admiral Holdo is a
character created to replace Leia Organa, the strong female character
from the original trilogy. When Poe Dameron, the Resistance’s ace pilot,
questions her strategy (of which she chooses to reveal nothing of, for
no discernable reason) and leads a mutiny against her leadership, it is
Holdo and not Dameron who is shown to be in the right. The message is
clear; women should never be questioned by men. Never mind the fact that
Holdo’s strategy led to several unnecessary deaths; Poe is changed from
a competent commander into a reckless hothead to justify Holdo’s
actions, causing similar casualties in the film’s opening, only more
deliberately (that is to say, while Holdo was not willing to sacrifice
any lives for her plan but unavoidably did so anyway, Poe knowingly
employed a costly strategy.) This is not even in character for Dameron,
who never showed such abandon in his first appearance or the
supplementary comics; Poe was portrayed as an experienced leader who
cared for the lives of those under his command; in The Last Jedi, he is a
young maverick with a Latin temper. This is racist to Poe’s character
and a disgraceful portrayal female leadership. The problem is made worse
because Leia, who showed exemplary female leadership throughout her
appearances in the saga, is pushed aside, put into a coma to make way
for her inferior replacement. Meanwhile, Rose Tico, Finn’s newfound
friend, is constantly belittling him. First she tasers him for deserting
(a crime he cannot be guilty of because he’s not actually part of the
Resistance) and calls him cowardly and selfish for wanting to return to
Rey. Not only is this abysmal treatment of Finn, it is a waste of Kelly
Marie Tran’s talent that her character is written as jealously toxic and
whose main purpose is to separate the female lead from the black lead
as a romantic interest. The Last Jedi does more harm than good for
progressive values, serving to legitimize the criticisms of mainstream
progressivism.
The Last Jedi is an utter disaster of an installment in a great saga,
but not only is it poorly written, it is so poorly written it is
actually bigoted towards women and people of color, while tearing down
men and rich white people to seem progressive. A deliberately divisive
film such as The Last Jedi is inappropriate for our current political
climate and for Star Wars. One essay is too short to describe in
sufficient detail the faults in The Last Jedi and their devastating
effects on society.
I immensely enjoyed Mara( @jewishcomeradebot)’s recent Rey-centric meta (link with my addition),
and the central thing I appreciate about her take on Rey is that she
doesn’t posit Rey as this vaguely positive altruistic figure. Rather her
read of Rey is fiercely self-interested and focused on her own desire, a
rare perspective in fandom. Mara’s posts helped me bring Rey into clear
focus as a character for the first time.
I think people’s
perception of Rey is distorted in part because we tend to attribute
altruism as the primary virtue for women, both real and fictional. This
is reflected in the characterizations of the Star Wars heroines as well:
Leia and Padmé are defined by their dedication to the well-being of
others, or the greater good. They have things they want for themselves,
primarily close relationships such as romance, but their primary driving
motivations are to save others through armed struggle or politics.
I
get that female characters being driven primarily by larger galactical
matters rather than romance was and to an extent is still revolutionary.
I don’t mean to detract from anyone’s love of characters like Leia and
Padmé, and I love them myself. In fact, it is almost impossible not
to love them because there is nothing controversial about them and what
bad things did come out of their decisions (such as Padmé marrying
Anakin post-Sand People massacre) came out of the men in their lives
being trash.
That said, I am also dissatisfied by heroine
motivations that basically go, “she loves the entire UNIVERSE and wants
what’s best for it.” It’s a continuation of the old stereotypes of women
being selfless nurturers, just with more politics and guns. While the
politics and guns are arguably progressive, these arcs are in stark
contrast to those of male protagonists who get to want things for
themselves.
Luke is a good case in point. His goal was primarily
for himself, to leave Tatooine and to become “a Jedi like my father
before me.” He ended up helping the Rebellion and defeating the Empire
along the way, but it was his personal goal to claim his heritage and
realize himself as a Jedi that his story revolved around. Anakin’s
ultimate goal was to keep his loved ones safe, which can be framed
altruistically but in the end turned out to be about himself and his
trauma, not the people he said he loved. Luke’s goal could also have
turned out badly if he had chosen his desire to connect with his father
over the desire to be a true Jedi and joined Vader. Anakin’s goal could
have turned out well if he had chosen to let go of his need to control
Padmé’s fate and overcome Palpatine’s temptation.
Luke and
Anakin’s self-interested goals were thus morally neutral and could have
gone either way depending on their choices, unlike Leia’s and Padmé’s
goals which were inherently moral. Framed more precisely, Luke’s and
Anakin’s goals had conflicts built into them that led to a moral
dilemma, such as “do I kill my father or join him?” Leia and Padmé, on
the other hand, were never seriously morally conflicted. The boys choose
between good and evil, but the girls are all good.
In
Jyn from Rogue One we see a female protagonist with a conflicted goal,
but with a thumb, no scratch that, a giant boulder on the scale. Jyn
wants to stay away from the Empire that destroyed her life, but behind
her trauma and cynicism she wants to reconnect with her father and the
love she once knew as a child. Well guess what? We’re going to shut down
her desire to run away by blackmailing her and taking away her agency.
Also her dad was working for the Rebels all along. Saw, her foster dad,
also wants her to save the Rebellion. And, with her father gone, it is
only through the Rebellion that she will carry on his legacy and find
the love and connection she yearns for. Yay for choice!
So while
Jyn has the appearance of a conflicted goal that she wants for herself,
the actual story pushes her toward the altruistic choice for the
greater good. If anything Jyn has even less choice than Leia and Padmé,
who at least chose their paths and did not have to be strong-armed.
Leia’s and Padmé’s choices were in the distant background, however, and
the stories did not hinge on their moral choices like they did on Luke’s
and Anakin’s. As far as the stories are concerned Leia and Padmé doing
the right things are simple constants.
In this tradition it’s no
wonder that a lot of us have trouble seeing Rey as wanting something for
herself and striving for her own goal. The proud but chequered
tradition of SW women, to say nothing of the cultural background that
casts women as either caring angels or depraved villains, predisposes us
to see her as another altruistic, or driven-to-be-altruistic, heroine
in Leia’s, Padmé’s, or even Jyn’s mold.
Rey’s actual goals are
very different from Leia’s or Padmé’s, however. Much like a younger Luke
she dreams of heroism and admires the legends of the galaxy including
Luke and Han, but her primary goal was not to reconnect with her
heritage by becoming a hero herself. In fact she had no reason to
believe, though the fandom may have, she had any kind of heritage or
famous parents. If heroism were her primary goal she would have jumped
at the chance to leave Jakku and join the Resistance, but instead what
does she want to do after she was forced to leave? She wants to go back.
She doesn’t want to be special, nor does she believe she is. She
just wants her parents back. A special destiny was thrust upon her
against her will, not because she sought it out.
The character
whose driving motivation is most like Rey’s is Anakin Skywalker, the
“Chosen One” who was taken from his mother and spent a lifetime aching
from the loss. Anakin may have been a hero, but that was a job he did
because he was told to, not because he was driven to it by his own needs
and desires. His underlying desire was to love and be loved again, and
after being separated from his mother he found that in Padmé. When his
own fears and Palpatine’s deception led him to dread losing Padmé, he
chose to take Palpatine’s offer of ultimate power to avoid losing his
loved ones ever again.
Rey’s goal, then, like Anakin’s, is a)
something she wants for herself and b) something that could be moral or
immoral depending on her choice. It is not an altruistic and inherently
good goal but a self-interested, morally neutral one. This is the Star
Wars heroine who is the protagonist of her own story with the agency to
match, and not a helplessly good inspiration and role model.
That
is not to say her arc was necessarily handled well. The events of TFA
take away her ability to return to Jakku by having her knocked out and
kidnapped by the bad guy, much like RO did to Jyn’s ability to avoid the
Empire-Rebellion conflict by having her jailbroken, knocked out, and
kidnapped by the good guys.
Obviously both TFA and RO would
have been boring stories if Rey and Jyn were simply allowed to
return/disappear, but the stories could have been designed differently
so the heroines had opportunities to make actual choices while still
engaging with the plot. Rey, like Finn, could have returned to the fight
of her own free will. The Rebels could have dangled a potential lead to
finding Jyn’s father to lure her in. Creators make choices when they
tell stories, and they chose to advance–or fail to advance–these
female protagonists’ stories by using tired kidnap plots.
Thankfully
Rey did get the chance to make a choice at the climax of TFA, when she
chose to take up the lightsaber and fight Kylo Ren instead of using Finn
as a distraction to run away and find the Millennium Falcon on her own.
Of course the outcome was hardly in doubt; she was clearly an important
character with newly emerging Force powers, her kindness toward others
was an established trait, and her preexisting bond with Finn had grown
nearly unbreakable when he came back for her. No one thought Rey might
turn her back and run, and so there was no suspense.
From an
in-story perspective, however, it was still a choice and a difficult one
for her. Ren is a powerful Force user, one she had just managed to get
away from, one who had tortured her, whom she had watched murder his own
father and cruelly cut Finn down. Her mysterious Force abilities, which
allowed her to push him out of her mind and escape him, were a source
of uncertainty and fear. She had vowed to Maz never to touch Luke’s
lightsaber again after it gave her traumatic visions.
Most of
all, there was her prior drive to go back to Jakku where her parents
could find her. She would never have a chance of seeing them again if
she were killed or captured here, or if the duel simply took too long
and the planet exploded with them on it. Given her history and personal
goal, running for it while she could was actually a pretty logical
choice.
So why did she stay and fight? Had she given up on her goal to reunite with her parents and belong with people who loved her?
I
would say her goal was still constant, the path to reaching it had
simply shifted. To borrow from Maz, the belonging Rey sought was not
behind her on Jakku, it was ahead, and she had found it in Finn. Finn
was the first person in memory to ask her if she was all right, the one
she begged to stay with her, the one who came back for her. He was the
love and belonging she had sought. He was worth fighting and dying for.
This
is another distinction between a self-interested goal and an altruistic
one, by the way, and why Rey’s story doesn’t revolve around Finn or
Anakin’s around Padmé even if Finn and Padmé, respectively, were key to
their goals. Story-wise Rey’s goal isn’t to do whatever it takes to
defend Finn. Rather she is doing whatever she can to defend Finn because
she is pursuing her own goal through him–to be loved and cherished as
she never got to be as a child. Under the right circumstances the person
to fulfill her goal could shift, as it shifted from her parents to
Finn, and potentially could shift again. And that is a key point of TLJ,
as I will discuss below.
So how do we know Rey’s path to her goal
shifted from her parents to Finn? Two points: First, after the ground
opened up, separating her and Ren, she ran to find Finn but not to
escape with him or seek help. She lay down to, for all intents and
purposes, die with him. She did not try to find the Falcon, did not try
to carry Finn away, did not try to attract the attention of passing
vessels while the planet disintegrated around them. She felt for his
heartbeat, wept over him, then lay down on his chest sobbing in a way
that reminded me of nothing so much as Juliet collapsing on top of
Romeo.
The second point is that after she and Finn were rescued
and she was free to go back to Jakku if she wished, she instead went to
Ahch-To to bring Luke back. And why? She’s helping the Resistance, sure,
as she was before, but how does that tie into her established goal?
I
think TFA was heavily setting up a deep emotional bond between Luke and
Rey, with her literally dreaming about his island, her Force vision
when she touched Anakin’s lightsaber, her immediately thinking of Luke
when Maz said the belonging she sought lay ahead and not behind, and
their incredibly emotional meeting at the end.
However, since TLJ
borked all that, I now think Rey was helping the Resistance primarily
for Finn much as he helped them for her sake. This way Rey’s departure
still ties into her story goal and makes her a protagonist, not a
passive plot point that bounces around whereever she’s told to go. This
way Rey becomes a self-interested character with potential for moral
conflict, and not yet another entirely altruistic, inherently good
heroine who does whatever is in the greater good.
Think about it.
Finn is injured and needs intensive medical care. He has nowhere else to
go, no one else both willing and able to take care of him and protect
him. The FO if possible hates him worse than they did before for his
role in destroying their superweapon. Yet the Resistance is a target
too, and they need Luke. Finn and the Resistance are on the same
storm-tossed boat now, and if Rey is to think about any kind of future
with Finn she has to save the Resistance first.
If you view TLJ in
this frame, this is the movie where Rey has an actual self-interested
goal and takes actions that could be morally complex. If we posit that
her goal is consistent from the end of TFA and she hasn’t become a
completely different person between one movie and the next, she still
wants the same thing as she did at the end of TFA: Save the Resistance
and protect Finn. She thought Luke was key to that, but he refused.
In
her desperation she turned to Kylo Ren because, again, she has a
self-interested goal–be with Finn–that could lead to moral or immoral
outcomes depending on her choices. She’s not being an all-good and
all-altruistic figure whose sole wish is to save Ben’s soul or the
universe as we expect of our heroines. Rather she is desperate to
achieve her goal and willing to push the moral boundaries in service of
it.
I can also answer the criticisms of Rey being
out-of-character. Daisy Ridley has said in a cast interview that she
played Rey as always thinking of Han on some level, which seems at odds
with her playing nice with Han’s murderer. On the other hand, what did
Han die trying to do? Redeem his son.
Therefore I read Daisy’s
comment to mean that Rey is still grieving Han–it’s only been a few
days since she watched him murdered, after all–and wants to believe
that he did not die in vain. If she can turn his son, then she can prove
that Han was right and his life was not wasted.
But why should
that grief take the form of being so solicitous to Kylo Ren, the man who
not only killed Han but hurt her and Finn so badly, in addition to
numerous other crimes? Isn’t that out of character for Rey, who is so
strong and a fighter, who fought back in rage at the end of TFA?
Rey
is not primarily a fighter, though. Those are the parts we remember the
most vividly, but she is primarily a survivor who adapts to her
circumstances. That means employing whatever means necessary to survive,
including fighting if the need arises, but also being passive and
accommodating if that serves better.
We have in fact watched Rey
be passive in the face of numerous wrongs done to her in her
interactions with a character who shaped her life: Unkar Plutt. I mean
my Reylutt ship manifesto (link)
may have been a joke, but her interactions with Plutt do a great deal
to foreshadow her interactions with Kylo Ren. Plutt was an abusive
authority figure who kept her on starvation rations and systematically
exploited her, but she still stayed with him for over a decade in
seeming passivity. We see her visibly swallow down her rage when he cut
her portions yet again and can only imagine how many times she had to do
so over the years. The only time we see her fight back physically was
when he used violence first by sending his goons to seize BB-8.
The
thing is, much like saying someone can’t be a victim of abuse if they
fight back, it’s also inaccurate and hurtful to say the only “right” way
to react to abuse is by visibly fighting back, or, worse, that you’re
not really a victim unless you’re angry. A lot of victims are forced to
stay passive, for the sake of their own physical and psychological
safety, in the face of mistreatment because that is oftentimes how abuse
works. Rey, especially in her early years, could not have survived as
she did if she were always dwelling on how she was being treated and
lashing out. She had to take a variety of strategies including passive
waiting and patience in the face of injustices, not just fighting back
against immediate threats, to survive deprivation and exploitation.
How
is this relevant to her scenes with Kylo Ren? When she was actively
defending herself with Force and violence he was an immediate threat to
her, to the Resistance, and to Finn. In the Force(d) Bond situation, on
the other hand, she had no way to get away from him but at the same time
he did not know where she was and could not get to her. Raging at him
might be satisfying, but was hardly practical especially as he became
increasingly useful to her. She had, after all, a lot of practice
burying her resentment for the sake of survival and her own goal of
reuniting with her family. Once the threat moved from acute to a
“merely” persistent thing, a different set of reflexes took over.
Another
fact about abuse is that the victim may traumatically bond with their
aggressor. It is how people psychologically survives at times, gaining a
sense of control in a situtation where they have very little, believing
that you can be safe and not be hurt anymore by gaining your
tormentor’s approval and love. Subjectively it can feel a lot like love,
too, because this is a powerful psychological mechanism for our
survival and, in the immediate situation, our subjective mental
well-being. It’s one of those things that make the unbearable bearable.
This
was another way that Rey’s personal, selfish goal could have led to an
immoral or unhealthy outcome: She could have mistaken Kylo’s
manipulation and her own traumatic bond to him as the love and belonging
she sought, and chosen to stay with him at the end of the movie.
In
this Rey closely parallels Anakin, who accepted Palpatine’s offer of
power as a substitute for love and so became Palpatine’s servant. Her
overriding goal of knowing love and safety once again had transferred
once before already, from waiting for her family on Jakku to protecting
Finn and reuniting with him. Could it transfer once again, as
self-interested rather than selfless goals can, this time to a
fundamentally destructive relationship that only had a facade of love
and belonging?
I think this was the reason, little as I may like
it, that Rey was separated from Finn for most of the movie and why Luke
treated her so poorly. If she hadn’t been isolated from Finn, or had
been nurtured better by Luke, she would have been much more centered
and healthier and there would have been no suspense about the outcome
when she reached out to Kylo on board the Supremacy. I would dispute
how well it worked, but I think that was the intention.
Ultimately
Rey made the right choice, as we know. The point as far as this essay
is concerned, though, is that she COULD have made the wrong choice as
Anakin did in the pursuit of her own goal. This makes Rey the first Star
Wars heroine in the theatrical releases with a genuine moral choice to
make, who is not all-good and all-nurturing and therefore morally
unassailable like Leia and Padmé, and who is not strong-armed both by
her “friends” and the story to make the right choice as Jyn was.
Like
Anakin and Luke before her, Rey is a selfish and flawed character. Her
self-interested goals and her own complex psychological profile lead her
to genuine moral choices and mistaken judgments. Flawed execution
aside, that is a very good thing indeed. To me it’s more progress than
any amount of guns and politics.
Rey ultimately failed in her mission, as Luke warned, though she at least managed to return to the Resistance with her conscience and freedom intact and to save it. Now she is faced with the reality that she has to be the Jedi and hero. Luke is gone, Kylo is the Big Bad, and she can’t look to anyone to solve her problems for her.
What’s more, Finn himself, who had asked her to leave with him in the first place, now has a new commitment to the Resistance/Rebellion and possibly a personal and emotional commitment to someone new. As John Boyega who plays Finn has said, the look she gives Finn and Rose says it all.
These developments point to interesting directions to take the character. I hope Episode IX carries Rey’s
development forward with better writing and challenges her harder,
developing her more and having the story hinge on her moral–or
immoral–choices.
@loopy777 Well, obviously. Finn going from “This fleet is doomed” to outright kamikaze for the remnants of that fleet because the person who tased him and mocked him gave him a lecture about the evils of the universe and has a sad past is the height of writing. His character regressing from valuing his own individuality and feelings, something that was systematically denied to him as a child soldier, to seeing himself as expendable for yet another cause is great character development. And his “having” to be hurt yet again to be saved from himself and being lectured to about how hateful he is for wanting to sacrifice himself for other people is a great thematic moment.
And that’s just one character.
If I squint hard the egregious and incoherent “that’s how we win” moment was about Rose realizing she was wrong and telling Finn he shouldn’t throw his life away for a cause like her sister did, that yes, he should live, he should have a chance to see Rey again. But there was a relentlessly glorified suicide run like 5 minutes earlier, and that was evidently about serving the light and not being a hero? And Paige wasn’t trying to destroy what she hated, she was thinking about Rose in her last moments? Finn wasn’t acting out of hate either, he was trying to buy time for the remainder of the Resistance. Why is it love when Holdo does it and hate when Finn does it?
I think I would have liked the scene better without that stupid line, because then at least it could have been about Rose’s trauma and not about her being a thematic vessel or whatever the hell that scene was trying to achieve.
@loopy777 DJ as catalyst for Finn development is even worse, though? At least
Rose became a friend of sorts. Finn went from fleeing to kamikaze
because a random dude he met in a jail cell spouted nonsense moral
equivalency and then–shock!–betrayed them. That looks awfully flimsy to me.
Did
you seriously put Finn’s “individuality” in quotes? I guess I
hallucinated the parts in TFA where he escaped the regime that kidnapped
and enslaved him out of his own “individual” conscience, where he made
friends and built relationships as an “individual,” and wanted to flee
to the Outer Rim out of his terror and trauma as an “individual.” Or the
part in TLJ where he wanted him and Rey, two “individuals,” to be
spared the destruction. There’s even a part in the TLJ novelization
where he all but begs Rose to understand that he was never allowed to
think and act for himself as an “individual” in the First Order (and
Rose dismisses him because yay friendship)!
I’m sorry, buying
time in a desperate situation has always been a valid military plan and,
for that matter, Holdo’s and Paige’s sacrifices also consisted of
buying time with their lives. There WAS a plan on Finn’s part for the
Outer Rim to rally and come to the Resistance’s aid. Finn had so much faith in the
people of the galaxy rising up against the First Order that he was
willing to literally stake his life on it, and then to have his
attempted sacrifice cheapened by being called an act of hate and not
love left a serious bad taste in my mouth.
Also, even if we say he
was acting without a plan, that is at best thoughtless or reckless, not
hateful. Rose’s speech, though framed and received as a thematic
moment, was unearned and made no sense even by your metric.
Yes, Finn was an individual, but ‘individuality’ was a never a theme or a subplot anywhere; it’s not important to the story, and 7 certainly doesn’t posit it as the reason he left the FO. 8 was clear that no more help was coming to Crait, & everyone knew it by then. And I don’t think “thoughtless and reckless” inspires suicide without some deeper emotion driving it- you’re taking away Finn’s agency, and kind of infantilizing him.
@loopy777 “My first battle, I made a choice.I wasn’t going to kill for them.”
I mean… I can’t believe I actually have to explain what an astounding assertion of individuality that was for someone who was brainwashed to be a cog in the FO machine. He listened to his own trauma, his own morality, in defiance of everything he had been taught his entire life, and I thought that made his individuality pretty important to his story and TFA as a whole. I’m curious, what do you think Finn’s arc in TFA was really about?
Oh hey, I didn’t realize “believing in the people of the galaxy” and “fuck it, I’m gonna save my friends anyway even if no one’s coming” weren’t valid motivations, or that attempting to kill yourself to destroy a weapon that would have been used to kill your friends has to come from a place of hate now. By that metric weren’t Holdo and Paige a lot more hateful, since they killed a metric ton of people in their own suicide runs? Or is it okay as long as they had a good plan–do carefully planned suicide attacks never come from a place of hate? As far as I can tell good planning and hatred are like… two totally unrelated indices. One doesn’t say anything about the other.
And why is it infantilizing to read a motivation in Finn that is not hatred? Believing that people will rise up is infantilizing now? Wanting to save your friends is infantilizing? I mean your handwavy “some deeper emotion” seems to be your own assumption and not anything supported by the story, other than the presupposition that Rose was correct. Why does that deeper emotion necessarily have to be hatred–couldn’t it be love, or maybe depression from everything he had suffered?
@loopy777 But Finn’s story being about asserting individuality explains both of those developments? He tried to flee because he listened to his own trauma and fear about the FO rather than be drawn into another cause to fight for. He came back for Rey not because he was obligated by a higher cause because she was someone he wanted to be safe. It’s clear that he hadn’t given himself to the Resistance at this point, but rather had his own goal he wanted to achieve by helping their mission.
It’s also possible that TLJ badly mangled his arc and his newly discovered individuality is ridiculed and called a bad thing, and then his dedication is also called bad so all he can do now is follow the person who was violent against him and insulted him. Maybe Rose Tico is just a horribly written character. You know, just a possibility.
Again, you can’t deny that earning time for one’s allies is a valid tactic that has been used throughout history, in general to show how noble the person is (e.g. Holdo). Even if no one came, Finn’s allies could still find a way out while their cover was intact. Since no one including Rose was expecting Luke to come, as far as anyone knew at that point Finn’s sacrifice actually was necessary for the Resistance remnants’ survival.
It’s interesting that it’s suddenly a “spiteful act of defiance” and “hate” because Finn does it while it’s “heroic” when Holdo does it. It’s also interesting that, while they both miscalculated, Holdo is judged by circumstances she could have known at the time while Finn is judged by circumstances he could not have. Omniscience is expected for Finn, but not for Holdo. And what’s more, not being omniscient makes Finn spiteful and hateful instead of, like, just not all-knowing.
You seem to have forgotten or misunderstood the role “thoughtles or reckless” played in my argument. That was not my first position, which was that he was making a noble sacrifice and there was no evidence he was acting out of hate, but rather a fallback position that even if we accept for the sake of argument (you know what that is, right?) that Finn’s suicide run was poorly planned, a position I don’t actually agree with, that at best makes him a bad planner and not automatically hateful. I was pointing out that even if you’re right about the sacrifice being needless, it doesn’t support your (or Rose’s) conclusion that he was being hateful.
But Finn wasn’t trying to destroy. He was trying to defend, much as Poe was. That’s another reason Rose’s line was dumb, by the way, because there is no clear line between destroying and defending when you’re being attacked by an enemy that’s trying to annihilate you. There’s a famous case of someone trying to apply pacifism toward fascists in our own world, but Neville Chamberlain doesn’t get the best rap unfortunately.
Eh, you can try to insert “individuality” into Finn’s background psychology, but you’re not really explaining where it was in The Story. If we were meant to read “individuality” in there as something important, it would have been reflected beyond Finn. I could easily read “cowardice” into the same moments and choices, and nothing in the movie would contradict me, but it’s equally unsupported by the wider framework.(1/3)
@loopy777 Going back to your earlier point Finn is actually not adverse to violence though, did you miss the part where he jumped out at and killed Troopers in battle on Takodana and actually whooped with joy in battle? Cowardice is even more contradicted by his actions where he hatches an incredibly dangerous plan to escape the FO and shows incredible boldness in battle, for instance literally running into someone aiming a blaster at him. There’s a lot of trauma and fear about the FO, understandably, but it doesn’t translate into anything that can be reasonably or fairly termed cowardice. And for that matter, aversion to violence isn’t a thing anywhere in TFA–not a theme, not a subplot, not reflected in the story anywhere. Violence has never been inherently bad in SW, or even in TLJ itself.
I don’t get what you’re saying about Holdo vs Finn. 8 is clear that when they’re fleeing to Crait, they think allies might still come, but by Finn’s attack they know they’re trapped in a box and alone. Finn is in denial, and all he’s doing is hurting himself by giving into the dark side. And that’s where you argument about pacifism falls apart, because Star Wars has feeling-fueled magic. You may not like it, but it’s the point of this whole series. (2/3)
You are confused about the sequence of events. The confirmation that no one is coming explicitly arrives AFTER Finn’s attempted self-sacrifice and Rose crashing into him. It even comes after the “not fighting what we hate” line. The ski speeder mission was launched in the first place because Poe and others agreed with Finn’s argument that they buy time for allies to arrive. The only new information Finn had between the start of the mission and the end of it was that losses were too heavy and he was, most likely, going to die unless he gave up on taking out the cannon. You can’t argue this was “dark side” without arguing that suicide runs are inherently dark side, in which case Holdo is as much “dark side” as Finn.
Also why are you positing that Finn was acting out of hatred in an argument about whether finn was acting out of hatred? That’s circular reasoning. Unless you’re arguing that destroying a weapon to save innocent people/your friends is an inherently hateful act, in which case, well, he was already dark side in TFA and so were Luke and Lando from the original trilogy. Destroying an entire fleet in a suicide run isn’t particularly pacifistic, either.
‘As for “thoughtless and reckless,” I focused on that because we were already disagreeing hardcore about his sacrifice having any purpose, which I still say the movie is very clear on. You’re free to disagree on the clarity of the moment, of course, but I don’t think you can saying something is “unearned” when you’re reading against the text. (3/3)’
Like I said, you’re arguing from a false premise–that Finn knew no one was coming and they were alone, but he didn’t. If I’m wrong about that sequence of events please let me know.
The “thoughtless and reckless” bit is a neat trick on your part, if you’re even aware of what you’re doing. Let’s look at the flow of the argument so far: You said Finn’s act was hateful because he didn’t have a plan. I pointed out that even if he didn’t, though the movie supports my point that he did, not having a plan and being hateful are two separate categories. I labeled your argument correctly, that what you’re arguing is not that he was hateful but that he was thoughtless/reckless at best. Then you turned that against me, imputing your argument to me to accuse me of infantilizing him. That’s not an honest way to argue, Loopy.
Reading against the text is an impressive accusation coming from someone who’s going off an incorrect chronology of events, imputing knowledge to Finn that he couldn’t have had, and making a logical leap from there to calling him hateful, spiteful, giving into the Dark Side etc. If that’s the kind of distortion it takes to make Rose’s line fit, then frankly it doesn’t look very defensible.
I can’t continue the debate due to some family stuff taking my time,
Good luck, I hope everything is okay!
but
I wanted to say I’m not trying to be disingenuous, I think we’re both
getting confused about each other’s arguments. I was trying to argue
that Finn having no plan and fighting anyway *is* hateful, and also
trying to link back your other “thoughtless and reckless” option to the
same thing.
No, you weren’t. You said I was
infantilizing him and taking away his agency, implying that you weren’t
by interpreting his action as hatred rather than thoughtless/reckless.
Also you never explained how not having a plan is equivalent to being
hateful. Repeating it doesn’t make it so.
Different people are sensitive to different things, and have different reactions as a result. I’ve noticed that even a number of people who are very critical of TLJ don’t see the treatment of Finn as a problem, for instance, and a lot of white women see TLJ as an unqualified victory for female representation. I think a lot of people also react positively to what TLJ was trying to do, especially the last half hour or so, without necessarily dwelling on the failures of execution or how unearned some of its most heartfelt moments were.
And a tech speaking “no one is coming” != confirmation, it’s voicing what was clear to everyone including Finn.
No
it wasn’t omg what the hell are you going on about. They hadn’t even
established communication when the ski speeder mission was launched, and
they went to take out that cannon specifically so they would have enough
time to communicate and for allies to come to them. They were in the
same place information-wise and goal-wise as Holdo was when she did her own suicide
run, unless you’re imputing some kind of telepathetic power to Finn and
the others to magically know without even sending out a call.
I’m
glad we’re no longer continuing this debate because it’s not productive
anymore. If you misremember these pivotal scenes so inaccurately then I
really have to question what it is you like about TLJ–the actual
movie, or the very different version that’s in your head?
Given they way their last fight ended, I much prefer the first option. The second would have to be done really, really well if it is not to feel like a trite rehash of the throne room fight and an abrupt turnaround for the Kyle Ron character. And God, I don’t want a movie where Finn is forced to ignore the injustices done against him like Rey was in TLJ.
Hm, as much as I want less Kylo in EpIX (me being petty, I kno he’ll be in it a lot), this is a very interesting rumor. What if Kylo’s final arc of the trilogy revolves around Finn? (NOT Finn’s arc revolving around Kylo, we already saw that mess with Rey.) What if the big showdown is Finn V Kylo, the ex-Stormtrooper Rebel Vs the Supreme Leader? And does this rumor mean that Finn might actually come up in EpIX speculation? (LMAOOO yeah right)
If JJ continues with the protagonist-antagonist relationship he actually set up in TFA, then a showdown between them is a logical conclusion. There may be a twist to the formula, though. Both TFA and TLJ showed a lot of comparisons and contrasts between Finn and Kylo. TFA emphasized their contrasts; Kylo came from a loving family and privileged background with the Rebels/Republic, while Finn was torn away from his own family and forced to serve the First Order before they each crossed over in the other direction. The mirrored comparisons were still there, though, with both of them asserting their individuality over the group identities they were assigned.
TLJ actually showed a few more of these comparisons, I think, with both Kylo and Finn doubling down on their decisions and being willing to defy authority and push their own agenda. They both kill the past in their own ways, Kylo by killing Snoke and attempting to destroy the Resistance and Finn by killing Phasma and, in the deleted scene, planting doubts in the Stormtrooper ranks. They went about their actions in contrasting ways, of course. Their decisions were in opposite directions, Kylo was destroying while Finn was trying to save lives, and where Kylo enmeshed himself deeper into abuse and oppression in ascending to Snoke’s place, Finn took another step toward freedom by killing Phasma. Where Kylo treated Rey as a means to an end and was ready to destroy her when she refused to change who she was for him, Finn treated her as an end in herself, loving and cherishing her for who she was.
Continuing these comparisons and contrasts into EpIX, there may be a case for Kylo seeing Finn as someone he could reach an understanding with. Like Kylo himself, Finn knows what it’s like to leave everything he knew behind and follow his own path. Though Kylo probably hates Finn more than anyone else and vice versa, he may also think Finn, unlike Rey, might be able to “let the past die” and “kill it, if he has to.” He’s done it before, after all.
Kylo is unlikely to want Finn to serve him like he wanted with Rey. Given Finn’s history, Kylo wouldn’t want him as a subordinate if he has any sense left. What Kylo might suggest, as the fighting is growing protracted and losses are mounting up, is that they have a separate peace. Finn can have the Free Troopers or his Outer Rim worlds. Rather than destroy each other in a futile bloodbath why not sign an armistice and keep to their separate territories? Save what you love and not fight what you hate, right? (Okay, he won’t use that exact line obviously.) Kylo might even show Rey being in immediate danger, and ask Finn if he’s willing to sacrifice her to this fight. Rose might actually be tempted by the idea–the Rebellion are taking heavy losses, triggering her trauma of losing Paige, and after the devastation her home world suffered the idea of a war-free galaxy is an attractive one.
Finn, to the audience and Poe’s shock, might actually appear open to the idea. He has terms, though: The FO must discontinue its Stormtrooper program. It cannot steal children, and it cannot grow clones to fill out its ranks. It must retreat to the Unknown Regions and not expand. If there is any hint of continued slavery and child-stealing by the FO the Rebellion will be back to fuck them up twice as worse as before.
Just as Kylo is about to accept, without any intention of honoring the terms obviously, Finn tells him he isn’t done: His final term is that Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, Master of the Knights of Ren, lay down his lightsaber and surrender himself to be tried for his crimes against the galaxy. General Hux may take his place and rule the First Order, so long as he abides by the terms of the accord.
This, as Finn predicted, has the effect of finally turning Hux to decisive action against Kylo. Hux, who also has no intention whatsoever of keeping those terms once he takes power, carries out his plan to neutralize Kylo. Kylo repels the attack but is distracted or weakened, and then the final showdown begins–both militarily and thematically. Finn, who obviously had no intention of ever striking a deal with the FO under Hux (they’re all bad-faith fuckers here 😂), throws Kylo’s self-contradictions in his face, giving the lie to his rhetoric of letting the past die. Kylo is nothing but a pale copy of Snoke, a murderer and enslaver. “I am a leader of the Free Troopers, and I don’t negotiate with the thrall to a dead monster.” I mean what kind of effect would such a dismissive line have on the entitled narcissist Kylo Ren with his unstable temper?
I’m not saying this is what will happen (just imagine though, holy shit). Nevertheless, the fact that this kind of storytelling is even imaginable with Finn shows how unprecedented he is in SW while still keeping to its best traditions. Whatever the form, the best path for IX is keeping the line of tension between Finn and Kylo Ren and bringing that relationship to a payoff.
What is a traditional hero? The traditional American cinematic hero doesn’t just take orders from his superiors, he acts according to the dictates of his conscience. If we’re talking about the Star Wars universe, the traditional SW hero is Luke going off to Dagoba without telling anyone, Leia hatching a breathtakingly risky plan to lead the Death Star to the Rebel base, Han showing up when he is least expected to save the day. Lando arguing with Admiral Ackbar to keep the assault going despite the Empire’s trap, and Jyn and the crew of Rogue One going to Scarif in direct defiance of orders.
It’s true the record of handling independence of thought and action is very chequered when it comes to characters of color in SW, particularly with post-PT Black and Latino characters (and the PT itself was all kinds of messy about this issue with Anakin). Saw Guerrera is treated as an extremist and terrorist, Cassian has to endure Jyn comparing him to a Stormtrooper, Poe is repeatedly physically punished for rebelling against Leia’s and then Holdo’s bad leadership (what have you done to our princess @ RJ retire bitch), and Finn is somehow supposed to be “hateful” for attempting to make the ultimate sacrifice against orders.
So I can, however imperfectly, understand your nervousness here. But nor can I ignore what actually happened with Finn in both his cinematic appearances. His entire character is built around following his conscience over orders. We would not have the character of Finn if he had not disobeyed a direct order in defiance of lifelong conditioning. Even when he worked with the Resistance and helped them achieve their greatest military triumph against the First Order he was still his own man. Even in TLJ when he was humiliated and berated for being his own person in really distasteful ways, he STILL remained an independent thinker and fighter who has a perspective beyond the Resistance to the galaxy at large.
There is simply no retconning this character to someone who meekly follows orders, who remains a step behind Rey and Poe and never causes trouble. That’s not Finn, and that’s not a traditional hero. Finn is already both the kind of hero we’ve never seen and as traditional a SW hero as anyone gets. That was the understated brilliance of TFA and the reason behind its success, that it was both highly traditional but also fresh and subversive. While this independence was “deconstructed” in all kinds of nasty ways in TLJ, it still remains the core of his character and can’t be simply handwaved away at this point.
Also, while I only have a limited view on this issue because this is about another identity I am not part of, I don’t think you’re doing JJ full justice by treating him as another white man. JJ is Jewish, and the storytelling in TFA and the character of Finn in particular are very Jewish as I understand it. Independence of thought is a prized tradition among Jewish people, and part of the reason it has been such a SW tradition is because the franchise itself was heavily shaped by Jewish creators. If I understand right, and please correct me if I’m wrong, Jewish people have a much different relationship with secular and religious authority than white Gentiles do and JJ, though he has his flaws, is unlikely to share RJ’s confusing and offensive stance on authority.
Why were the male gorilla/wolf aliens coming after Moses and his friends rather than the carcass of the female alien, which was presumably Pheromone Central and must have had a much stronger scent than the traces left on Moses and the others’ clothes? (This must be, of course, why the carcass was part of the final bait along with Moses–also it had to be burned anyway to keep away the other aliens.) Is it because the weed room where the carcass was kept was insulated from smells to avoid detection? This seems the likeliest explanation, since the male aliens weren’t coming for the weed room once Moses and the others got behind the door but rather crowded outside. This is consistent with them losing the trail and hovering at the last place where they had the scent.
Which is kind of mind-boggling in its own way. These pheromones can cross outer space but they can’t get past a weed room’s scent insulation, evidently. Who knew weed dealers were our line of defense against alien invasions? Respect.
Also, is there a chance another female alien could land on Earth, drawing males after her? If so, Earth is fucked unless the authorities–or an audience of violent tin hatters, which seems likelier–listen to Moses and the others’ story. Unless they know to shoot any further female alien from a distance and then napalm the carcass, then thoroughly cleanse any trace of the pheromones on people and the surroundings under UV light, there are going to be repeat landings of male aliens and more deaths.
I’m also trying to figure out how reproduction works for this alien species. If the male:female ratio in the movie is representative for the species as a whole, and assuming male and female are even vaguely analogous terms for this species, maybe it works like a queen ant mating with multiple males and storing their semen for years to fertilize and lay eggs at her leisure. We may have been watching something like an ant mating flight in progress, only to be violently interrupted by Moses.
I mean Moses regretted what he did, but would things really have been better if he didn’t kill the female alien? He himself was already marked by the pheromones just by their initial contact (First Contact, if you will) when she pounced on him, and probably the same people who had been marked by touching him in the original timeline would have been marked even if he had let the alien go. Maybe there would have been a smaller pheromone footprint on him, since he would not have had the queen’s pheromones all over him from killeng her, and so fewer people might have been marked, but that’s about it.
But really, best case scenario, even if Moses hadn’t even reached into the car and never come into contact with the queen, she would have touched and marked someone eventually in a city as crowded as London. The males would have arrived and killed the people who were marked. They could have arrived in even greater numbers without her scent being shielded by the weed room (remember, our planetary line of defense). And if the queen had lived and successfully mated, there would have been aliens born on Earth to wreak havoc unless she moved on elsewhere to give birth/lay eggs. All in all I can’t think of Moses killing the alien as a bad thing, though his intentions at the time were not noble.
Tl; dr AtB is a movie about how weed dealers and disaffected teenaged boys are our best defenses against an alien invasion, God help us all.
@jewishcomeradebot True, I don’t think the army and police, as opposed to inidividual and generally rogue soldiers and policemen, have ever been an effective force against an alien invasion in the history of cinema. The PacRim series are the closest I can think of where an official, sanctioned military group held their own against aliens, and even the Jaeger program was the result of the conventional military’s utter failure against the kaiju.
L.J.'s Obsessions 