Finn Meta Week Day 1: Finn’s Family – Finn of Taris?
The above picture is of Senator Tynrra Pamlo, who represented the planet Taris in the Galactic Senate pre-Empire and was shown in Rogue One. The actress, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, has said that she was initially just going to be in the background of this scene, but her part was expanded to a minor speaking role.
I think this was deliberate. I do not think Senator Pamlo is Finn’s mother. But I do think that there may be a hint that Finn is from the planet Taris. Taris is described as being a planet in the Outer Rim whose prosperity soon led to overpopulation. Then when the trade routes proved no longer to be profitable, civil disorder and social unrest rose, the environment suffered, and it led to civil war. It’s also mentioned that there was a huge issue with classism, and that the society was very stratified, with the alien underclass being crushed under the heels of the wealthy human nobles at the top of the food chain. Jedi and Sith struggled for dominance there, but Taris ended up being abandoned by both groups, and unrest, rampant crime, poverty, and lawlessness reigned, even though it was able to retain some of its former glory during the Galactic War.
It would have been easy for an organization like the First Order to swoop onto a shattered planet like Taris and scoop up children who were members of the lower strata. Maybe even the parents felt that the First Order was a better option than having their children stay on a world where there was no real future for them. While I’m not super-thrilled with some of the stereotypical “inner city” signalling of Taris, when I think about how Finn could have been stolen from his family, it makes sense to me that he would come from a world that was either broken by the First Order or was in such disarray itself that the snatching of children was relatively easy.
Finn’s desire to escape to the Outer Rim could be some ingrained memory that he has of his home planet or possibly the Force guiding him there. Taris has a lot to offer, but has been through hell and back. It would be interesting, if Finn really is from Taris, to see him return home and help rebuild.
That’s brilliant, that Finn was drawn to the Outer Rim for subconscious reasons–somewhere he felt safe for reasons he couldn’t explain and rationalized as getting away from the First Order, even though the Outer Rim could be pretty wild and lawless itself.
I need to call this post out because this is just some straight up delusional shit.
First of all Ruin Johnson himself confirmed that Kylo manipulatived Rey so that he could be in a position to kill Snoke. This plan had been going on since Kylo smashed his helmet. Since then Kylo wanted Snoke dead.
Second of all Rey is not serving a system that made her wait 15 years. Seriously do these people even watch the same movies?! Rey was left on Jakku! It’s not apart of the New Republic and it’s in the middle of nowhere! It’s like blaming the America for getting abandoned in a uncharted island.
Third of all Kylo isn’t asking her to stop a corrupt government, he’s asking Rey to join a fascist Organization that just committed mass genocide a few days ago! What are you idiots smoking?!
Kylo’s belief system at the end of the last Jedi is that The New Republic, The Resistance, Jedi, Sith, and HIS FAMILY need to die. He is proposing no only to continue Snoke’s work, but cause even more death and destruction than his old master would’ve. Kylo is talking about finishing up what Vader started aka becoming the Empire of the galaxy.
Rey, who had literally just heard from Snoke that Kylo had walked her into a trap and the entire time she had the idea that Kylo had light in him, was all Snoke and Kylo manipulating her. She’s literally realizing that her dad mentor was right and knew all along what would happen if Rey trusted Kylo. She is begging Kylo to not kill anymore people, to just go home to his mom and end this war that he continues to make worse.
Kylo screams at Rey, turning everything on her. He attacks her weakness, her family, information he knows from her that’s her weakness and can break her so she hopefully can lose her resolve.
Kylo exploits her biggest fear, her biggest insecurity, lying to Rey that in the end of the day she never mattered to her family and that she was nothing to anyone.
Rey is absolutely broken by this. She hadn’t been this defeated since she was preparing to die next to Finn in TFA. Seriously she had just been told that she is completely nothing, she comes from nothing. That her parents didn’t care about her and she was sold for drinking money. Kylo realized her moral compass wouldn’t allow her to break, so he’s breaking her spirit instead.
After literally breaking Rey’s spirit down, Kylo tells her to join him. Like I said above, he is asking Rey to join a genocidal, fascist organization and help him kill her father mentor, the man who she cares for and who saved her life from him! And countless billions more. This is as far from romantic as can be. It’s sadistic.
Even Ruin Johnson said himself this was pure manipulation and Rey realized it right here. Every word he had said was wrong. She needed to get off this ship.
What was his reaction?
He tries to kill her!
This isn’t the face of someone in love. Rey is realizing that if she doesn’t get to the Resistance soon, everyone she loves will die. She’s fighting for her life and the Resistance.
What did Kylo do after?
Kylo lies that Rey killed Snoke and goes down to Crait and tries to kill everyone, personally ordering his men to Kill Rey.
One of Kylo’s last lines in the movie is promising Luke that after he kills him, he’s going to Kill Rey.
Kylo is literally the villain at this point and these crazy shippers need to stop acting like Rey is just sleeping on a good man like Kylo. No, Rey is trying to stay away from a literal mass murder who’s trying to conquer the Galaxy and kill everyone.
my god, the delusion of that post. there’s no compassion for Rey here. Kylo just wants someone on his side. He thinks he can turn her to his ideology of rage and burning the past, but when she doesn’t bite he turns cold. Tries to break her down enough that she can be manipulated.
And it does break her, not in the way he thinks though. She is broken not because she’s nothing, but because this person she trusted, that she thought could be saved is someone she was completely wrong about. “Please don’t go this way” is her desperately hoping that this isn’t playing out the way it is.
For the first time, Rey believed in someone. She let herself trust someone after YEARS of only trusting herself. And you know why? Because when she was all alone, when she expected nothing at all, Han, Chewie, and Finn came back for her. Finn, runaway stormtrooper, who she had only just met, came back for her.Despite all his fears he ran straight into the fire, defying all his own self-preservation instincts for Rey. And so she had thought Ben was like Finn. Scared but someone worth believing in.
Or maybe she had thought Ben was like her. Alone, in desperate need of someone to reach out and show him they cared, to show him he was worth the risk. And she thought she could be that. She thought she could be his Finn. But she was wrong. Kylo isn’t changing for her. He isn’t changing for anyone.
She isn’t his hero.
And when he shows just how little he cares for her, how cruel he can be to her, she is completely crushed.
Omg the thought that she wanted to be Finn to someone as lonely as she was… 😭 I think Han was a big part of this, too–she was grieving him and wanted to believe he hadn’t died in vain. If TFA was the story of Rey and Finn uplifting each other with love and friendship, guided by Han and Leia’s caring and Luke’s example, TLJ was the story of both of them realizing not everyone is worthy of trust, with authority figures failed and fallen.
Also I gotta lmao @ the idea that it’s not abusive if the abuser has feeeeeelings and genuinely believes what they’re saying. Guess what? Abusers are people. There are abusers who are completely cynical puppet masters who don’t believe a word that comes out of their own mouths, but they’re not the only type of abusers. The majority of abusers IME actually do believe their own bs, if only because they need to keep their self concept of being moral people while controlling and using their victims.
It’s fucking disturbing, that’s what it is, the way they jump down everyone’s throats screaming that a neo-Nazi analogue is a) no such thing, b) a poor dear who isn’t responsible for any of his atrocities uwu and, scariest of all, c) justified in everything he does because it’s war, baby. The new SW fandom is like a mirror turned darkly on the state of the world.
And they obscure (often vehemently deny) that the point of Rey’s story arc is that the hero of the ST is not a white guy. She doesn’t believe it herself, she’s hinging her value to the the Resistance by her ability to bring them a white guy with Skywalker blood to save the day.
Though it can be argued that the final standoff of Crait undercuts it, Rey comes to see that she is the hero of her own story. Not Luke, and certainly not Kylo. She actually is the real protagonist (along with Finn and his butchered but parallel arc). There won’t be a bait and switch where the white guy is the real protagonist after all.
And yet, so much fan commentary says otherwise, desperately insisting that the ST is all about Kylo and Rey and Finn are supporting players in his story. It’s hard enough to see good in TLJ, but the TLJ “version” that many fans are pushing is so bad it makes Disney look incompetent, sexist, and racist. All because all half the fandom cares about is an over-dramatic white guy with flowy hair.
I don’t think the standoff on Crait undercuts that theme, since after all it was about Luke sacrificing himself–or simply disappearing, who knows–for the remnants of the Resistance, and for the new generation of heroes. The framing might have been all off but whole of TLJ was about undermining the idea that the Skywalkers are the heroes, or at least heavily questioning what the Skywalker legacy is actually about. The Skywalker men’s legacy is tarnished; to the extent anything positive exists about the legacy, like Padmé’s conviction in democracy, Leia Organa’s armed resistance, and Luke’s commitment to the Force, the inheritors to that legacy are Rey, Finn, and Poe, together with the Resistance members like Rose and Connix while Luke has failed and Kylo has fallen.
I mean am I all sorts of furious about the way it was handled, YES. It did not have to be done in a way that villified and destroyed one of the most iconic heroes of all time, and Leia’s sidelining is especially egregious. The mishandling of Finn, Rey, Rose, and Poe has been hashed out so exensively, I don’t need to repeat it here.
Nevertheless, if you look past the bungled execution to what the movie was trying to do, it is ridiculous to think the Skywalkers-by-blood are still the heroes. That’s the idea TLJ subverted, to the extent it subverted anything.
Reylos that want to compare Kylo Ren to Snape can have that comparison if you ask me.
You think that Kylo/Reylo is just like Snape/Snily? Okay, great, that means that Kylo’s attracted to Rey but Rey knows he’s a jackass that wants to murder everybody she’s ever cared about and she’ll tell him to fuck off and leave her alone and then he’ll be sad and do something good before dying, but he won’t do anything good because he has good morals, because he does not have good morals, he just knew that the woman he had a creepy crush on would’ve wanted him to do that one good thing. He won’t be redeemed because he’ll never see the error of his ways, but a bad writer may act like that is redemption even though he only ever did anything good to make himself feel better (to get rid of his feelings of guilt).
And Rey will go on to marry Finn, somebody who actually loves and respects her. And she will never feel like she owes Kylo anything because he’s legitimately a bad person and she was only mistaken when she thought he could be a good person.
What if the rumor is true, and Kylo Ren is not only the primary villain of EpIX, but is also bald (as he was originally in EpVIII before RJ switched gears) and starting to resemble Snoke? I don’t trust leaks, but leaks about appearance tend to be more accurate than leaks about the plot (Like, who thought that Snoke wearing a gold robe was actually true when it leaked?). (As for Finn, he’s described as resembling “a gunslinger with two blaster pistols” – believable enough. He always was a great shot).
Some fans are saying that “Baldo Ren” is far too big of a risk for LF, that they need to keep him attractive for the women or face backlash. First of all, gtfo with the “women watch Star Wars for the hot guy” bs, I mean, really? Even if we frame it as empowerment that women can ogle men and not just the other way around, Finn and Poe are right there.
JJ liked TLJ, and TLJ set up Kylo as Supreme Leader, with Rey, Finn and Poe as the future of the “light,” of freedom from oppression and defiance of a return to old ways we should never to return to.
Is keeping Kylo “hot” really the important thing here?
But then, I thought Kylo’s appearance under the mask was meant to juxtapose the fact that he’s an evil man – the most dangerous evil has an attractive face, we really should understand that in a time when hate groups intentionally present as clean-cut, “respectable” boys next door.
Now that Kylo has crossed the line by killing Han and Snoke and becoming Supreme Leader, is it really so unfathomable that his outside will start catching up to his inside?
this is better than anything I’ve seen in years about Kylo
I’m not writing the story of Star Wars.
Adam Driver is fine with or without hair.
But I have a thought about this idea.
A story with Kylo Ren who becomes like Vader, without hair like Vader, bad like
Vader, without light like Vader.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve already seen this story!
Vader has already been there and died for his son’s love.
If they want to make a different story.
Vader’s nephew must choose love and not power.
And I’m not talking about romantic love….
Romantic love helps, but…
If we want to see a different story.
The story told in the galaxies.
The history of a galaxy so far away.
It can be like the Skywalker family, the family that could have all power in
their hands, saved the universe and chose love.
Kylo has already chosen power over love repeatedly.
Here’s the difference, and why Kylo Ren is not just a rehash of Darth Vader: Vader had little power in the scheme of things. The Emperor put him in a life support suit and had him do his bidding, so not to waste that Sith energy. Vader came from nothing, was told he was the chosen one, was taken from his mother, and he eventually fell out of fear for his family.
The contrast is clear: Anakin’s fall began when his beloved mother died, triggering grief and rage. Kylo tried to force the same end by killing his father with his own hand. Completely different, and it shows that Kylo is more dangerous, because he wants it so badly, not even realizing that his grandfather lost everything and essentially became enslaved again, by the Emperor and his life support suit, when he fell to the Sith.
Kylo Ren is a fraud in comparison. There’s no Sith. It’s all him consciously striving to be a “dark lord.” Snoke could not control him (this should be undeniable fact at this point). It’s all him, no dark forces compelling him and keeping him in its service. What’s scary is the he COULD choose not to commit evil, since there was no true fall to the Sith, but he doesn’t.
It’s actually a very different and compelling story compared to the villain “choose love” scenario. And, of course, the ST DOES have a “choose love” theme that is meaningful without being all about Kylo.
Vader? They’re going for a Darth Sidious post-RotS look if that art is anywhere close.
This’d fall nicely into line with a character who’s shown to want only power. In fact of all the Star Wars character on OT and PT, Sidious is the one Kylo resembles the most.
As @lj-writes and I have spoken off elsewhere, Finn, Rey and Kylo is a replay of the dynamics between Padmé, Anakin and Palpatine. With Finn and Padmé, Rey as Anakin and Kylo as Palpatine/Sidious.
Yes, if the prior two movies made anything clear it’s that there is no Vader in the sequel trilogy. Vader is who Rey could have been if she had not withstood Kylo’s manipulation, and could yet be if Kylo decides third time’s the charm and uses more effective leverage (it’s Finn, you fool). Kylo himself is no Vader, however. He is a wannabe Vader who wants the mystique and the power surrounding him. Vader’s drive was not power, though, but love and the loss of it. Power was just something he was born with, a curse he tried to leverage to get what he truly wanted, which was to protect Padmé. It was Palpatine, Vader’s abuser and master, who wanted power.
CW discussions of Nazis and neo-Nazis below.
This is another reason Kylo is a neo-Nazi analogue rather than a Nazi analogue. The Nazis at least emulated the German Empire, which was all kinds of evil but had actual achievements as a state like the unification of Germany and the creation of the modern German state. The neo-Nazis on the other hand looked at the Nazis’ lost war that devastated Europe, the gruesome industrialized genocide, and decided that’s what they wanted to be. Kylo similarly looked at the Galactic Empire’s genocide of his mother’s people, Vader’s mass murder of children and the torture of both Han and Leia, and decided that was what he wanted. Neo-Nazis are malcontent assholes who think throwing out repugnant keywords and gestures make them Nazis as opposed to the brutal efficiency of the German state machine the Nazis inherited from the German Empire. Similarly, Kylo Ren is such a try-hard poseur that he wore a mask he never needed and artificially created bereavement for himself, copying Vader’s trappings without the faintest idea of what Vader stood for or what made the man tick. Kylo Ren, like all neo-Nazis, is a cosplayer gone horribly wrong.
The fact that they’re laughable fakes doesn’t make neo-Nazis or Kylo any less dangerous, obviously. In fact it makes them more dangerous because their starting point was not to emulate greatness but to emulate evil. The Galactic Empire and the Nazis alike should have served as warnings, but instead they inspired copycats in the worst people.
Kylo Ren is no heir to the Skywalker legacy, not even Darth Vader’s. He is the heir to Palpatine. It’s up to Rey, Finn, and Poe to reclaim the Skywalker legacy, including the shadow and warning of Vader’s choices, and defeat fascism as Luke, Leia, Han, and Anakin did before them. That’s what makes it the Skywalker Saga, because it interrogates the true meaning of what it means to be a Skywalker. Is it blood or is it the choices people make? To make Kylo out to be the hero because of blood while disregarding the choices he has made would be to reaffirm the very blood supremacy Kylo Ren and his repulsive real-life counterparts espouse.
Like is that awkward guilt or paternal comfort or grounding in reality or just ‘I’m moving through your space because this cockpit is tiny and I don’t want to startle you’ idek all four probably.
Definitely all four. Lando doesn’t get nearly enough credit for being this actually incredibly compassionate and empathetic person. I mean, in a lot of ways his character arc mirrors that of Luke and Leia – he’s just lost his world and his people, and he’s not sure what will happen to them or if all or even some of them will make out of Bespin alive and safe. He did his absolute best to save them, but the thing is Cloud City was his home, his world, he cared about it, he loved it, he loved his people, and now he’s lost all that. But he’s still there, focusing on what he can save, helping and offering comfort to Luke and Leia (neither of whom he actually knows), watching the life he’s built for himself go up in smoke and just letting it go, because there are people who need his help.
Lando’s the responsible one. He says it as a joke to Han, but he really is. There’s a lot more to his character than just the scoundrel. And I just love him so, so much.
Lando Calrissian is awesome.
There is so much focus on Lando “betraying his friend” and not enough on the fact that he did his best to save thousands of people. Lando didn’t betray Han out of greed, or fear for himself–he did it out of fear for the people of Cloud City he was responsible for.
I checked up on a blog I used to follow for the A+ ASOIAF content, which I had to unfollow alongside many others when they pretty much became a 99% reylow blog of the worst kind…. And it’s still is.
On the upside, I had a nice and long laugh at a specific piece of meta that argues that the millennium falcon has been purposefully written as a ‘Ben S’ parallel, including proof such as Rey fixing the poor broken and abused ship.
It starts reasonably enough, pointing out that Han has been looking for his beloved ship all this time, and for his son too. Which, OK, interesting premise, what else do you have that supports it?
…and then it proceeds to read EVERYTHING, and I do mean everything, in a reylow & “poor Ben” lens, not even supporting the initial “falcon = kyle Ron” angle but just taking it for granted and moving on to the shipping and projecting.
Gems include:
– the falcon being the first ship Rey pilots (what does that have to do with ‘Ben’? I mean, yes, sex metaphor – but why? This is still based on nothing, considering the previous ‘falcon is ben’ arguments are flimsy at best and this is not really an argument but rather a consequence of this wild speculation, made to fit into their “romance”),
– rey fixing the falcon in various ways (no comment…)
– the falcon’s cannon being stuck in the wrong position and rey making it point in the right direction (…why are reylows so fixated on rey healing kyle? Is there even anything else to their relationship as they perceive it?)
-rey’s “the garbage will do” apparently = reylow confirmed. ???
– han noticing how “good” rey is to the falcon and offering her a job with him (which somehow = han thinking she’d make a good girlfriend for his son. UMM?)
– porgs making a “domestic nest” in the falcon (I guess the op really 100% believes they’re going to start a family… Still, what!!)
– “Ben” saying to blow that ‘piece of junk’ = self loathing (?!)
Also, as a nice bonus, there was absolutely NO mention of Finn ANYWHERE (even though the “garbage” line is spoken to him, he is with her for her first flight in the falcon, he is the first one to touch her hand and so on and so forth). Leia, Han, and even Chewie get mentions, but I guess the one person who escapes from Jakku with her on the same ship doesn’t count… Maybe because he doesn’t know ‘Ben solo’, so he’s useless to their narrative.
All in all, though, the saddest part about this all is that I understand how they come to this level.
They start out taking something with actual depth (such as ASOIAF, which is as dense with symbolism as they come) and apply to these movies both the ability to read into the smallest details that they’ve learned through actually good stories, and the themes (like light & dark, death and the maiden – the kinds of tropes they love) they found in those stories.
Liondick isn’t even nearly good enough to have put even half of the symbolism they read in TLJ (and JJ sure wasn’t adding any reylow subtext to TFA), but thanks to him “teasing” it they feel confident enough to assume nearly everything that they’ve read into the sequel trilogy was absolutely intended and purposeful, down to the smallest details or further reaches.
Congratulations: you now have the delusions of a romantic love story full of wonderful and obscure symbolism and themes, a story of hope, love and redemption…
A shame it’s all in their heads.
At the latest stage, it probably acts in a way similar to the post I was describing: they grab onto an idea that has a teeny tiny bit of canonical support (han losing his falcon and son both > falcon = Ben), then they don’t even attempt to find any more proof outside of their ship (or headcanoning of Ben as an abused, tortured boy who just needs some love), and simply proceed to apply that tenuous connection to anything that can be viewed as reylow, including even the most headcanony of head canons (like reylow starting a family being supported by the ports nesting in the falcon!! Like what).
Because obviously it is a given that rey will fix ‘Ben’ and that they’ll love each other forever and ever and have a thousand little Skywalker kids, and everything should take it for granted.
They pretty much build elaborate castles (mimicking actual castles with good foundations) on thin air, using only what’s in their heads to support it, and then claim it was all intended, it was all meant to be, you guys, reylow is canon and you’ll all see!
The saddest thing is that readings like this can be fun. I mean, I’ve analyzed Harry Potter through lenses that were never intended by JKR, and I’ve had a lot of fun – but when you start thinking it’s all canon, all part of a grand plan, then you shouldn’t wonder why you’re seen as such a lunatic.
Reylows will rarely (if ever) accept seeing ‘Ben’ & rey as anything but what they’ve decided they are. There is no fascist murderer, just a boy who was manipulated and abused, and who simply needs to be saved. There is no woman who got brutally tortured and who had relevant relationships with people unaffiliated with ‘Ben’ – there is just a lonely girl who is, too, looking for love. (I’ve literally seen someone offhandedly mention they can’t personally bear the fascism in the reylow relationship be accused of gaslighting and manipulating. !!! When was ‘the FO is a neo-nazi parallel, and Kyle Ron a neo-nazi analogy as an angry & entitled white boy who also murders’ a controversial, nay heretical view?)
They’ll take and twist what they see until it fits the world in their mind – and anything outside it will just be ignored at best, erased at worst.
You literally can’t have a conversation with them – they live in another world, and will take any attempts to burst the bubble as a personal attack.
Here is to hoping this analysis helps someone figure out an actual way to talk to them civilly?
(Just to make it clear, this isn’t my work but a submission that I
published. I don’t think I would have had the fortitude to make it
through the whole meta asdjkl I assumed the interface would show the url
of the person making the submission, but I guess that’s not the case?
If the original submitter wants to identify themselves, please
contact me so I can give credit.)
Also in true Reylow meta fashion I can’t stop seeing the gun turret as phallic symbolism. Finn was the first person in years to take a ride on that broken cock and fire it so… Finnlo endgame, baby!
Or: How TLJ is RotS averted far more than RotJ subverted
At
the end of The Force Awakens we watched Finn and Rey both stand up to Kylo Ren for each other, effectively saving each other and
themselves from the Master of the Knights of Ren. When Rey was knocked
out Finn took up the lightsaber; when Finn was injured, Rey woke up to
his screams and snatched the lightsaber from Ren to defend Finn and
herself.
This dynamic takes place again in the climax of The
Last Jedi, except Finn and Rey were not in the same scene like they were
during the dueling sequence in TFA. in TLJ, though kept apart until
their heartwarming reunion hug, they saved each other through the
choices they made and what each meant to the other.
The A-plot of
TLJ has been called a subversion of Return of the Jedi, for good reason.
Rey attempts to bring Kylo Ren back to the light in scenes that are
some very direct callbacks to Luke and Vader in RotJ, except
Kylo Ren, unlike Vader, refuses Rey’s plea and rises to the position of Big Bad
instead.
TLJ is only primarily a subversion of RotJ if you focus
on Rey and Ren, however. If you broaden the focus to Rey, Finn, and Ren
and the dynamics between them, it is the tragic ending of Revenge of the
Sith averted.
Kylo as a parallel for Palpatine with Rey as Anakin makes so much more sense than Kylo as the new Anakin and Rey the new Padme. SO much more sense. If we learned one thing from Snoke’s surprisingly weak role in TLJ, it’s that Kylo was the manipulator, the one pulling the strings. It took nothing for him to kill Snoke and become Supreme Leader.
Vader never came close to being Emperor or anything of the sort. He died taking down the Emperor, even with his incredible power. If Snoke thought Kylo could be his Vader-esque attack dog, he miscalculated. Snoke was less powerful and possibly less evil than Kylo. Luke’s terror looking into Ben’s mind supports it.
Kylo miscalculated too, though – he’s not as sharp as Palpatine. He thought Rey’s weakness was her parentage and desire to have an “important” place in the story, some narcissistic projecting by Kylo. Her weakness was Finn. If he had told her that joining him would save Finn, things may have played out differently. Instead, Kylo acted as another challenge in her journey back to Finn. She was unsuccessful in “turning” him, but he was unsuccessful in diverting her journey the way Palpatine did with Anakin.
Wow. I never thought of that before, but I think you’re right @diversehighfantasy. I wonder if Kylo is just not bright or, ugh, as much as I HATE to think it, is attracted to Rey in some manner that the idea of doing that was repugnant to him. It’s not as if he doesn’t know Rey is still attached to Finn. It says right in the novelization that he knows she’s thinking about him. Palps hit Anakin’s weak spot in Padme. Kylo should have realized Rey’s weak spot was Finn. The idea that he didn’t take it suggests to me that he’s either dumber than a box of dog hair, or that there was some thought of making this some sort of stupid love triangle.
@diversehighfantasy Looking at the plot objectively, it really was Kylo manipulating everything to his advantage. By reeling Rey in as he did with a sob story and bringing her to Snoke’s flagship he:
– Established personal rapport with Rey and turned her against Luke
– Physically separated her from her allies in the Resistance, isolating her further
– Gained a distraction so he could kill Snoke
– Gained an ally in the fight against the Praetorian Guards, because the Knights of Ren were all on vacation or something
– Gained a patsy to blame Snoke’s death on
– Had the perfect opportunity to exploit Rey’s psychological weakness and bring her to his side, except he chose the wrong hook like the elitist narcissist he is
– Rose to the position of Supreme Ruler
An alternative theory: Space Hugh Hefner doesn’t look that hot himself, he seems ill and in pain. It’s possible that he did not have that long to live, so maybe this was his twisted idea of a succession. Was KR scheming and ruthless enough to kill and succeed him? Or would Hux take that position instead? This is the kind of thing Hitler actually did, pitting his senior staff against each other, minus the death wish part (that came later).
Holy shit, was this what Snoke meant at the end of TFA by completing Kylo’s training? If not what JJ intended, then at least what RJ made of it? Kylo had passed the test of killing what he loved; was it time for his final test, to learn to scheme and manipulate and take power? And did Kylo actually realizethis on some level when he didn’t fire on Leia–I mean he didn’t give a shit anyway that she was spaced–that his real obstacle wasn’t to keep repeating the Han scenario, but to overcome Snoke himself?
Could this be the in-universe reason for the Knights of Ren being sent away–so that Kylo would be deprived of his greatest tactical asset and would be forced to improvise?
Maybe Snoke wasn’t as incomptent as he seemed. Maybe everything went exactly as he planned, or at least hoped.
@leg-grestrade The idea of KR being attracted to Rey makes him about eleventy times more disgusting so it might actually work for his character, although it adds a really gross taste to everything and isn’t really the SW tone. I mean, imagine if Palpatine did the “I have you now, my pretty” shit on Leia or Padmé… like… ew. One of the things I like about SW is that powerful women are allowed to have male rivals and enemies without it being creepily sexual. Jabba the Hutt was an exception and- well actually I’m fine with Rey strangling Kyle to death lol.
I think Kylo’s choosing to take an elitist tack was mostly projection as DHF said, since he was ragging on her being a “scavenger” even in TFA as though she weren’t completely comfortable with that. But it’s really disturbing to think that he might be obsessed with “pure Force babies” himself.
But yeah, if he grows any kind of smarts at all he will use Finn against her and vice versa in Episode IX. The bond between Finn and Rey has been built up for two movies, and he–and the creators–had better use it to maximum effect.
@lj-writes, I think my supposition sort of goes hand in hand with your idea of Kylo ragging on her. That’s why I scoff at reylos claiming Kylo had an enormous boner for her in TFA. He didn’t. One of the things with Kylo I thought JJ got right, if he was making him a Vader stan, was sharing Vader (and Palpatine’s) disdain for non-Force sensitive beings. They might respect them to some degree, like a Tarkin, but they still thought they were inferior, to a certain degree. There was something in Legends where Palps almost went over the line, questioning why Vader would have gone for Padme as a non-Force sensitive before catching himself and stating that she was a lovely woman from a good family on par with the Naboo Palpatines (all of whom he killed, btw).
In TFA, Kylo considered Rey nothing but a dumpster diver, who he was going to violate and discard, the way he’d planned on doing with Poe. It was only when she proved to be Force Sensitive that he backed off and tried to change tactics, because as FS being, she was now worthy of more of his regard – until he didn’t need it anymore.
This is why I feel it was a mistake to not confirm Finn as FS in TFA. Because in TLJ, the through-line by Rian Asshole seems to be “Rey can only turn to Kylo because as a FS being, he alone understands her pain and what she needs, and they have a bond no one who isn’t FS an understand.” By not making them have a familial bond, Rian was basically saying Kylo and Rey are the only ones for each other, and if it doesn’t happen, it’s not because it shouldn’t, but because it couldn’t. It’s something that has been picked up by general audiences as well as Reylos, and goes along with Kylo’s disgust that Rey is worried about Finn. Why worry about some non-FS “traitor” when FS Kylo and his square boobs are right there?
Of course, no one seemed to complain about the lack for Force Sensitivity in the partners of Leia and Anakin. But we all know what the difference was there.
I never got the impression Vader respected Tarkin tbh, he and Palpatine found Tarkin’s abilities useful but Vader was really pissy about Tarkin not respecting the Force and himself enough, feeling himself owed a degree of deference for his abilities. The way Snoke talks about Hux, a.k.a. Tarkin II, behind his back is downright depersonalizing–not to say Hux doesn’t deserve serious disrespect, but it seems to be for the wrong reasons.
While I strongly believe Force sensitive Finn is canon, I am not at all sure that the canon will confirm his Force sensitivity and canon Finnrey at the same time. Anakin married a non-Force sensitive, as you point out, and so did Leia. In the lamentable Luke-Leia-Han triangle Leia chose Han even before she knew Luke was her brother. Luke’s marriage to Mara Jade or someone like her never happened in this continuity, so far as we know. If Kyle Ron is interested in bucking that trend and “continuing the bloodline” with a powerful Force-sensitive woman (ew), it would present a stronger contrast if Rey marries a non-Force sensitive rather than another Force-sensitive person. It’s all sorts of problematic that they might position the Black male lead as the one with “lesser” genes whom Rey chooses for love, but Han was originally cast to be played by a Black man with all the problems this implies. And the Reylows can fuck off with their not-even-veiled eugenics rhetoric.
I don’t understand the people who say that Kylo would have worked better if he had been a random, I really don’t. Kylo’s connection to the Skywalker bloodline, along with the lack of clear motive for his actions, is the entire point.
See, he’s a Nazi.
Okay, so technically he’s an allegory for a neo-Nazi in a space fantasy setting, but given that this hellsite has a distinct difficulty with complex concepts I’ll keep it simple. He’s a Nazi.
Why did Nazis do what they did? Why do neo-Nazis do what they do?
If you peel away all the embellishments and propaganda it comes right down to this: they see themselves as having a special legacy, a special bloodline to protect and they have a right to do so because they feel they’ve been chosen.
JJ has said that the early concept of Jedikiller only started working when they made him connected to the Skywalker bloodline, to the chosen family in Star Wars.
Kylo’s motivation, like that of all Nazis, is that he’s doing this because he belongs to the chosen people and thus have a right to rule. Not because he’s qualified, but because he belongs to the destined people.
No it’s not deep or complex, but it was never meant to be. Kylo is an antagonist and one JJ always meant to emulate a neo-Nazi. Giving him complex motivation would have detracted from this and, like with the real life equivalent, made it possible to justify what he’s doing because he has X, Y, Z motivation. Instead JJ gave him the most basic motivation of Nazis, he’s right because he’s chosen and because he has the strength to do what he does.
It’s not glorious. It’s pathetic, sad and ultimately someone who’s irredeemable. Not because he couldn’t choose differently than he does but because it’s not a motivation that makes anyone want to see him redeemed.
Of course, even people who sees Kylo as a villain and antagonist have a really hard time accepting him being a Nazi, so maybe this view isn’t really that surprising.
I mean the actor himself told us that Kylo Ren is an elitist (link), it’s not that deep people.
[Adam Driver] refuses to see his character as bratty. “There is a little bit of an
elitist, royalty thing going on,” he says, reminding us that the
character’s estranged mom is “the princess. I think he’s aware of maybe
the privilege.”
Cass Sunstein has criticized TLJ in part because Kylo didn’t fall due to losing a loved one (link), but maybe that’s because… Kylo is no Anakin… and is not nearly as sympathetic?
Mr. Dark Side, Kylo Ren, does have a bit of a struggle, and in that
sense, Johnson maintains continuity with Lucas’s vision. But in this
movie, at least, the struggle turns out to be a head fake. Because
Kylo’s descent doesn’t have the precipitating cause of Anakin’s – the
loss of loved ones – and because we don’t see Kylo suppressing the
better angels of his nature, the film doesn’t come anywhere close to the
depths of Lucas’s films.
If anyone is positioned as the new Anakin–but with a happy ending–it’s Rey, in struggling with the loss of loved ones, or at least her idea of them, and also in resisting manipulation by her would-be abusive mentor Kylo where Anakin fell to Palpatine’s manipulation. It’s interesting that Sunstein couldn’t recognize this story when it manifested in a female character, though to be sure it’s a common enough blind spot and RJ didn’t make it easy for anyone.
Precisely.
People, not just Cass here, are obsessed with having Kylo be the next Vader/Anakin, but he isn’t. Not to mention they’re even more obsessed with the reason why he fell to the Dark Side than they are with Rey’s parentage.
But let me ask you something. Did we know why Anakin fell in the OT? No, we didn’t, because the reason for it wasn’t relevant to Luke for whom Vader was a foil.
Is it relevant to Finn or to Rey why Kylo fell? So far we’ve been given not a single reason why this information should be relevant to either of them, so I don’t get why people are so upset about not knowing.
Except as yet another case of prioritizing the white guy over the two actual leads in the ST. Kylo’s motives for turning to the Dark are no more interesting or relevant to the narrative than Vader’s were in the OT. It’s not a plot hole, it’s not a flaw in the storytelling, it’s intentional. Only the parts of Kylo and his actions that are pertinent to Finn and Rey are relevant to the story, and unless someone can come up with a good reason why either of them should remotely care about it it’s going to remain irrelevant.
All too true. (You and @lj-writes are killin it with the meta lately).
It’s funny, too, because Rey’s “nobody” revelation effectively removes the possibility that he fell because of a lost loved one. The Rey Solo theory revolves around a Solo family tragedy before Kylo’s fall (Leia implies in TFA that the family was dealing with something that led to sending him to Luke, which is open to interpretation but fit with the loss of another child). Rey was taken and believed to be dead, throwing the family into turmoil and pushing a grieving Ben toward the Dark Side. The Rey Solo theory doesn’t always attribute Rey’s disappearance to Kylo’s fall, but when it does it gives Kylo a sympathetic reason to embrace the darkness. (The death of Anakin Solo was a turning point for Jacen Solo/Darth Caedus in the EU, so it isn’t hard to get onboard with the idea that Rey was a combination of Anakin and Jaina Solo.)
Rey being nobody shatters that. Fandom rejoiced because it meant they could get together and have Pure Force Babies (something the narrative has never suggested was a goal of Kylo’s even with his Nazi mindset), but it gives him no reason to be like he is other than toxic entitlement based on bloodline.
(They’ll say the reason is Snoke’s supposed brainwashing, but that ignores the fact that the ST remains firmly about choices.)
Yes. It’s important not to ignore the fact that Kylo’s entitlement stems from his lineage. He is the only Star Wars villain (iirc) who’s actual ideology aligns with Nazism, where others wore it as an “evil” aesthetic. Sure, the Empire and FO are human supremacists, but Kylo represents white supremacy in a much more tangible way.
When he confronts Rey and Finn on the crumbling Starkiller Base, it’s almost heavy-handed, but for the fact that most of the audience didn’t see it. A volatile white man holding on to his flickering “birthright,” demanding a woman and Black man return the power (Luke’s saber) that he believes belongs to him.
That’s not subtlety. Nor is the scene where Kylo orders the slaughter of the villagers. Especially when Finn was very clearly put into the position of a soldier “just following orders” (the Nuremberg Defense), but chose to disobey.
Fans remove Kylo’s culpability because he didn’t pull the trigger, but do we consider the Nazis who issued the orders but didn’t kill firsthand less culpable? FUCK NO.
So people can hem and haw about how it’s wrong to say Kylo is a Nazi/white supremacist parallel, but it’s in the narrative, especially under JJ’s watch.
You right, JJ isn’t remotely subtle. He never was and in this case the only way he could have been less subtle about would be to name them Nazis and give the characters names such as Adolf and Hermann.
And no there’s never been a quite this obvious Nazi analogy in Star Wars before. The Empire was simply about might makes right and the rule of the strongest, in many ways it was simply generic fascism with some Nazi aesthetics on top to make it look cooler.
The whole “preserving/claiming a birthright/legacy” is a new theme for a Dark Side character. Or rather, it is Kylo’s own fucked up version of the past and his birthright he’s trying to claim. Just as with real life Nazis it’s not actually their past, culture and people they’re trying to claim and protect, it’s their own private, revised, fucked up version of it they’re on about.
As a lot of people have pointed out his words to Vader’s helmet doesn’t make any sense because what Vader really wanted was to protect his family. But I’ll posit that they’re not supposed to make sense in the historical context of the universe because it’s not even Vader/Anakin’s legacy Kylo is trying to protect or claim, it’s his own revised, fucked up version of it.
Yes Rey Solo or I’d argue even Rey Skywalker could have given Kylo a sympathetic motive for turning to the Dark Side, but as things stand he doesn’t have.
More than that, TFA does everything it can to make Kylo look unsympathetic and paint him in a negative light without making him completely one dimensional.
Like this is a universe where the space Nazis after being defeated fucked off to “space Argentina” but rather than just lay low and die out they get right back at it becoming proud space neo-Nazis.
One organization that was an important the Nazi Germany was Hitlerjugend. It was a paramilitary organization of which membership was mandatory for all German boys between the age of 6 and 18. It was meant to not only teach them proper Nazi values and ideals, but also turn them into good soldiers.
In a universe such as the present Star Wars one where the in-universe Nazis fucked off and restarted the in-universe version of Hitlerjugend would absolutely be an important thing too.
Does it sound familiar? Do we know of a character who had grown up under such conditions?
Indeed we do.
Another thing.
Ideologies and organizations such as the (vague) one the First Order espouses is supposed to attract people who feels disenfranchised, are economically disadvantaged and/or have a great need to belong to someone or some place and struggles with their identity.
Do we know of such a character in the story?
Well, look at that.
But it isn’t Finn or Rey who turns to the First Order, though they should have every single reason to. No, the one who embraces it is this asshole:
Ben Solo. Raised with just about every single privileged know. Loving parents, financial secure, erudite and educated. He is the one who embraces the First Order, because his own fucked up, revised version of his “legacy” entitles him too.
Or so he thinks.
Which leads me back to the beginning of all of this.
JJ stripped Kylo of all ideological motivation to make it impossible to use that to excuse or defend his actions. In creating Finn and Rey as the characters he did, JJ also undermines every personal motivation Kylo could use to make himself look good.
The last two years have been something of an experience watching fandom trying to justify Kylo’s actions and argue that he’s actually, deep down good, when everything in the narrative told us the opposite. Even TLJ could justify his actions, instead it just ran avoidance tactics on the topic never addressing it. Even Rian knew that in a story where Finn and Rey exists, where Kylo has no ideological convictions beyond claiming his birthright, it isn’t possible to make him look sympathetic.
On a closing note. The whole “pure Force babies” thing always made me want to thrown up. Do these people realize who and what they sound as spouting that shit. I’ve hears actual Nazis be more circumspect in their phrasing than these people.
If you had asked me a year or two ago if they were aware or not, I’d have said they weren’t. Now I’m no where near as sure that these people aren’t 100% aware of who and what they sound as saying that shit. I’m wondering if they think they’re cool doing that.
The part about the FO attracting disenfranchised people like Rey is 100% canonical and intentional. That’s one of the FO’s schticks, positioning themselves as the great hope for those who are underprivileged and desperate. Not only that, there are at least two high-ranking FO characters–Gallius Rax and The Cardinal–who are actually from Jakku and trapped in poverty until the FO picked them up and gave them opportunities. Though not from Jakku, Phasma in her novel was similarly from a poverty-stricken, constantly warring post-apocalyptic world. I have pointed out before that the FO thrived in part due to the Republic’s failure to provide economic justice (link).
Also, your analysis reveals more clearly why Kylostans have gone the path of either arguing he’s brainwashed or justifying his actions. JJ purposefully took away the traditional ideological or emotional “justifications” for the character’s actions, forcing Kylostans to either show their ass and say his actions are inherently right/understandable or fall back on saying his character is essentially a puppet.
I remember when I delved deep into Reylow meta and came out of it a committed anti, one of the first things I noticed and an early turn-off was how distinctly fascistic the rhetoric sounded, like Kylo believes in the rule of the strong over the weak (that’s accurate) and Rey is powerful (uh-huh) and that makes them a perfect match (what?!). (Link) The Force Baby shit only upped that impression, and really that was never what SW was about. Both Anakin and Leia married non-Force users, and Luke as far as we know never had children at all in this continuity. The fact that a subset of fans think SW is/should be about Force eugenics in contrast to everything it’s actually stood foris seriously disturbing. Idk why people seriously think JJ wou do that.
Or: How TLJ is RotS averted far more than RotJ subverted
At
the end of The Force Awakens we watched Finn and Rey both stand up to Kylo Ren for each other, effectively saving each other and
themselves from the Master of the Knights of Ren. When Rey was knocked
out Finn took up the lightsaber; when Finn was injured, Rey woke up to
his screams and snatched the lightsaber from Ren to defend Finn and
herself.
This dynamic takes place again in the climax of The
Last Jedi, except Finn and Rey were not in the same scene like they were
during the dueling sequence in TFA. in TLJ, though kept apart until
their heartwarming reunion hug, they saved each other through the
choices they made and what each meant to the other.
The A-plot of
TLJ has been called a subversion of Return of the Jedi, for good reason.
Rey attempts to bring Kylo Ren back to the light in scenes that are
some very direct callbacks to Luke and Vader in RotJ, except
Kylo Ren, unlike Vader, refuses Rey’s plea and rises to the position of Big Bad
instead.
TLJ is only primarily a subversion of RotJ if you focus
on Rey and Ren, however. If you broaden the focus to Rey, Finn, and Ren
and the dynamics between them, it is the tragic ending of Revenge of the
Sith averted.
Kylo as a parallel for Palpatine with Rey as Anakin makes so much more sense than Kylo as the new Anakin and Rey the new Padme. SO much more sense. If we learned one thing from Snoke’s surprisingly weak role in TLJ, it’s that Kylo was the manipulator, the one pulling the strings. It took nothing for him to kill Snoke and become Supreme Leader.
Vader never came close to being Emperor or anything of the sort. He died taking down the Emperor, even with his incredible power. If Snoke thought Kylo could be his Vader-esque attack dog, he miscalculated. Snoke was less powerful and possibly less evil than Kylo. Luke’s terror looking into Ben’s mind supports it.
Kylo miscalculated too, though – he’s not as sharp as Palpatine. He thought Rey’s weakness was her parentage and desire to have an “important” place in the story, some narcissistic projecting by Kylo. Her weakness was Finn. If he had told her that joining him would save Finn, things may have played out differently. Instead, Kylo acted as another challenge in her journey back to Finn. She was unsuccessful in “turning” him, but he was unsuccessful in diverting her journey the way Palpatine did with Anakin.
Wow. I never thought of that before, but I think you’re right @diversehighfantasy. I wonder if Kylo is just not bright or, ugh, as much as I HATE to think it, is attracted to Rey in some manner that the idea of doing that was repugnant to him. It’s not as if he doesn’t know Rey is still attached to Finn. It says right in the novelization that he knows she’s thinking about him. Palps hit Anakin’s weak spot in Padme. Kylo should have realized Rey’s weak spot was Finn. The idea that he didn’t take it suggests to me that he’s either dumber than a box of dog hair, or that there was some thought of making this some sort of stupid love triangle.
@diversehighfantasy Looking at the plot objectively, it really was Kylo manipulating everything to his advantage. By reeling Rey in as he did with a sob story and bringing her to Snoke’s flagship he:
– Established personal rapport with Rey and turned her against Luke
– Physically separated her from her allies in the Resistance, isolating her further
– Gained a distraction so he could kill Snoke
– Gained an ally in the fight against the Praetorian Guards, because the Knights of Ren were all on vacation or something
– Gained a patsy to blame Snoke’s death on
– Had the perfect opportunity to exploit Rey’s psychological weakness and bring her to his side, except he chose the wrong hook like the elitist narcissist he is
– Rose to the position of Supreme Ruler
An alternative theory: Space Hugh Hefner doesn’t look that hot himself, he seems ill and in pain. It’s possible that he did not have that long to live, so maybe this was his twisted idea of a succession. Was KR scheming and ruthless enough to kill and succeed him? Or would Hux take that position instead? This is the kind of thing Hitler actually did, pitting his senior staff against each other, minus the death wish part (that came later).
Holy shit, was this what Snoke meant at the end of TFA by completing Kylo’s training? If not what JJ intended, then at least what RJ made of it? Kylo had passed the test of killing what he loved; was it time for his final test, to learn to scheme and manipulate and take power? And did Kylo actually realizethis on some level when he didn’t fire on Leia–I mean he didn’t give a shit anyway that she was spaced–that his real obstacle wasn’t to keep repeating the Han scenario, but to overcome Snoke himself?
Could this be the in-universe reason for the Knights of Ren being sent away–so that Kylo would be deprived of his greatest tactical asset and would be forced to improvise?
Maybe Snoke wasn’t as incomptent as he seemed. Maybe everything went exactly as he planned, or at least hoped.
@leg-grestrade The idea of KR being attracted to Rey makes him about eleventy times more disgusting so it might actually work for his character, although it adds a really gross taste to everything and isn’t really the SW tone. I mean, imagine if Palpatine did the “I have you now, my pretty” shit on Leia or Padmé… like… ew. One of the things I like about SW is that powerful women are allowed to have male rivals and enemies without it being creepily sexual. Jabba the Hutt was an exception and- well actually I’m fine with Rey strangling Kyle to death lol.
I think Kylo’s choosing to take an elitist tack was mostly projection as DHF said, since he was ragging on her being a “scavenger” even in TFA as though she weren’t completely comfortable with that. But it’s really disturbing to think that he might be obsessed with “pure Force babies” himself.
But yeah, if he grows any kind of smarts at all he will use Finn against her and vice versa in Episode IX. The bond between Finn and Rey has been built up for two movies, and he–and the creators–had better use it to maximum effect.
L.J.'s Obsessions 