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.

In fact, seeing TLJ as RotS averted subverts
the very idea that Kylo Ren was ever Anakin to Rey’s Luke: Rather he is
Palpatine, and Finn and Rey parallel Padmé and Anakin respectively, except
they each avoided destruction and enslavement. Rey, in no small part due
to Ren’s manipulation, saw him as a tortured soul who could be
redeemed. In fact he was a master manipulator who was drawing her
in for his own gain.

Rey’s lack of genre savviness, based on
a mistaken character reading, almost led to her meeting Anakin’s fate
as the subservient apprentice to an abusive master. Instead, she was
able to avoid it because of the love between her and Finn. In turn, Finn
and the Resistance avoided destruction in part because Rey did not turn
on Finn as Kylo wanted and as Anakin turned on Padmé.

The similarities between Finn/Padmé and
Rey/Anakin, and also their story together, have been commented on enough
times, recently in posts like @jewishcomeradebot’s (link with my addition).
What I have not seen discussed is the similarities of their dynamics to
Kylo Ren/Palpatine, the man who manipulated a powerful younger Force
user under the guise of friendship only to use them to grasp l power,
and tried to take his rival out of the picture for good.

Put
simply, Finn is Ren’s opponent and rival, much as Padmé was Palpatine’s
opponent and rival. They share a common background and know each other, have opposing convictions and goals, and work against each other. Rey on the other
hand, is someone Ren wants to turn and make his apprentice, much as
Anakin was targeted and groomed by Palpatine. The tragedy in RotS was that Palpatine achieved his goal
of defeating Padmé and making Anakin his apprentice. The happy ending in
TLJ is that Finn and Rey escaped that fate.

How did Finn and
Rey avoid the tragedy that was Padmé and Anakin’s story? On Rey’s side,
it was because she knew Kylo Ren was full of bantha poo-doo (and also
was poo-doo himself) when he told her she was nothing except to him. She
had incontrovertible proof that this wasn’t true, no matter how he
might twist the knife in the wound of her abandonment, no matter how
alone and desperate she felt by his design.

She knew because
Finn had come back for her to Starkiller Base. He had returned to the
very heart of the nightmares that he was ready to flee to the ends of
the galaxy to run from, and he very nearly paid the ultimate price for
it–for her. She knew that Han had thought of her as a daughter and that Leia
and the Resistance loved her. The love she had been filled up with
since she left Jakku, with Finn and his sacrifice for her at the center of it all,
anchored her and prevented her from being swept onto the shoals of Kylo
Ren’s deceit.

On Finn’s side,
he avoided total defeat and death in large part due to Rose’s and later
Luke’s intervention, but even their help would have meant little in the long run if Rey had turned against him and the Resistance as Anakin had turned against Padmé and all
she stood for. Where Anakin and later Kylo himself had committed mass
murders at their masters’ behest, Rey refused to stand by and let her
friends be slaughtered and joined forces with them. Where Palpatine had
triumphed by turning Anakin against Padmé, Rey was steadfast in her
loyalty to Finn, and Kylo failed to tear their bond apart. Their love
proved stronger than his violence in TFA and his wiles in TLJ.

The
culmination of TLJ, then, repeats that of TFA with Finn and Rey saving
each other through the strength of their love. The duels in TFA were
just between Finn, Rey, and Kylo with a personal, even claustrophobic
feel. Only Finn’s life and Rey’s freedom were in suspense since the
destruction of Starkiller Base was already imminent. In TLJ the stakes
are even larger, with more people involved and the future of the
Resistance–and by extension, the galaxy–in the balance.

Incidentally,
seeing TLJ as RotS averted and Ren as a so-far unsuccessful Palpatine
means there is no need for Ren to have an understandable motivation. As @jewishcomeradebot has pointed out (link),
Vader’s motivation for falling to the Dark Side is completely opaque in
the OT. Luke, the actual protagonist, had no reason to know or care
about Vader’s reasons. I would like to add that the PT explored Anakin’s
internal life, but that was because Anakin was the protagonist of that
series. Kylo Ren is not a protagonist, he has been and remains the main
antagonist. The motivation behind his fall is irrelevant to Finn and
Rey. It may be that there is no reason other than his belief that he is
superior to others and is entitled to power, much like Palpatine.

Where
does Finn and Rey’s story go from here? With the pretension of TLJ
being the new RotJ dispensed with and the tragedy of RotS avoided for
the moment, SW is on entirely new ground. The ends of both preceding
trilogies were teased but subverted or averted. There is no precedent to
guide us now.

One constant in the ST, however, is the strength of
the bond between Finn and Rey. Both the ST movies so far ended with
that bond both reaffirmed and acting as a powerful force (maybe even
Force) for good in the lives of our protagonists and the ongoing war. To
carry this motif forward Finn and Rey’s love could be tested even more,
with still larger stakes–the outcome of the entire war.

On Rey’s
side, one interesting dilemma would be whether she can accept the risk
of losing Finn in order to honor his conviction. This was a test that
Anakin had failed in regard to Padmé, to both their destruction. Rather
than stand with Padmé Anakin turned against everything she believed in,
and the desire to control her to avoid losing her overwhelmed his love for her. We know that
Rey, like Anakin, wanted nothing more than a sense of belonging and
attachment and she found that with Finn. Now that Finn, like Padmé
before him, found a cause bigger than the two of them, can Rey honor
that cause even if it might mean she cannot be with the only person who came
back for her? What is love? is it
holding on to the beloved no matter what? Or does it lie in accepting
change if it may come, and accepting the beloved’s free will even if it means parting with them?

On Finn’s side, his story has been about freedom and the
ever-expanding awareness that he cannot be free by himself. From the first he needed another person, Poe, to escape the First Order. After losing Poe he sought freedom for himself as he continued running, unexpectedly picking up a comrade that he became more and more attached to. This attachment grew to the extent that it overrode his original goal–he
found that his individual freedom meant little if Rey was suffering. Then, in
late TFA and TLJ, the Resistance and a larger awareness of the galaxy were enfolded
in his circle. In the next movie the galaxy itself, including possibly the Stormtroopers in forced servitude, is likely to be included
in his fight.

With his circle of moral obligation expanding so much, can Finn remember to think about himself and his closest relationships? This was something actively discouraged in him in the First Order as selfish and inconsequential, and after his arc in TLJ his earlier conditioning may lead to his falling into the same habit of self-effacement, though for an opposing cause. Is it selfish to think of his beloved when the universe is at stake? Can he bring himself to think he deserves to love and to be loved? Does true freedom exclude considerations of love, or is freedom only complete with love? Rose gave one answer at the end of TLJ, that freedom can only be won through love, and certainly Rey avoiding servitude through love is a case for that assertion as well. This conclusion is likely to be tested, though, as the fight intensifies and the demands of the war grow harsher.

Where Rey’s continuing story seems to be about the nature of love with implications for freedom, Finn’s appears to be about the nature of freedom with implications for love. Resolving this continuing arc will hopefully lead to a satisfactory conclusion of the sequel trilogy and the story of Finn and Rey.

(For @finnreyfridays )