You know what’s sad? This isn’t even the first time I’ve seen people confused about Kylo Ren’s age due to Rian’s and Adam’s comments. I’ve seen someone ask a similar question on Reddit, too.
To clear things up, yes, Kylo Ren is close to 30, not much younger than the actor who plays him (Adam Driver is 33). Ren was born Ben Solo in 5 ABY (after the Battle of Yavin), and the events of The Force Awakens took place in 34 ABY, making him around 29 during the movie.
I think the following comments by Adam about his character in an interview for the December, 2017 issue of GQ add a bit of clarification (emphasis added):
“It makes complete sense how juvenile he can be. You can see that with our leadership and politics. You have world leaders who you imagine — or hope or pray — are living by kind of a higher code of ethics. But it really all comes down to them feeling wronged or unloved or wanting validation.”
So no, the character isn’t juvenile in physical age, he just acts that way. I hope that clears things up. And no, that’s not because he’s a sweet confused baby or whatever, the actor himself is very clear that it’s about a lack of ethics. In the same interview Adam talks about the absolute conviction of terrorists as another influence on the portrayal of his character.
Kylo Ren, much like the real-life morally bankrupt people Adam refers to, may have real struggles and pain in his life. Who doesn’t? The point is that he chose to deal with those issues, or rather failed to, in an immature and entitled way and that is why he comes across as so adolescent.
Heck, it seems in universe, people are confused about Kylo’s age. He’s literally the age of the New Republic (like he shares his birthday with the signing of the galactic concordance), but in bloodline (6 years before TFA, Kylo is 24) Leia sees him as too young to tell him about Vader.
Kylo does have the feel of someone whose development stalled off at some point in the past, and I wonder how much of it has to do with personal trauma and how much with the way he was raised. I suspect both.
On personal trauma, Ben’s relationship with his parents already appears to be distant at the time of Bloodline and we’re still in the dark about what sent Han and Leia into separation and prompted Leia to send their son to Luke. LucasFilm officials have stated that the murkiness in Han’s past is due to necessity.
On the parenting side, Leia’s decision also strikes me as someone trying to protect a part of herself, projecting onto her son and trying to protect in him an innocence she never had. She had watched her home planet be destroyed, been tortured mercilessly by a fascist enforcer (who turned out to be her biological father, yay), and learned about the Skywalker part of her heritage before she was Ben’s age at the time of the novel. People who went through a lot at a young age sometimes cope by trying to protect their own children, and it seldom works well. It’s alternately stifling and alienating to be treated as younger than your age, and Ben may have reacted with corresponding petulance and distance.
Leia may also have feared what additional strains the revelation might place on her relationship with her son. In this sense it was the relationship she was trying to protect–again, not an effective strategy that relied on a lack of communication and avoiding difficult subjects rather than facing them as a family.
I think there is room to talk about Han and Leia as loving but flawed parents who were not always coping well with their own severe traumas, while also squarely placing the responsibility for Kylo Ren’s crimes on himself where it belongs. I have so much sympathy for Leia because I don’t even know how she could have functioned with the magnitude of what she had suffered, and blocking things out was perhaps the only way she could work or even survive. But it certainly had a terrible effect on her family life and, I believe, her child.
Why the “Kylo killing Leia would be the last straw” is bs.
Outsude of my post about how it dismisses and downplays Han’s death. There are two other major issues I have with people using this argument.
The first one is this just transparent Kylo woobyfication. We all know that with Carrie sadly gone, LF isn’t going to have Leila’s final movie end with some cheap death at her son’s hand. A repetition of Han’s death. They’re not going to disrespect her memory like that because they know it won’t go down well with viewers. So this is just a transparent way to excuse anything Kylo does do.
Oh he murdered a bunch more innocent civilians and children and tortured a couple more. But see, he didn’t kill his mom. This proves there’s still good him. Forget he was fine with her dying in TFA. We wouldn’t forgive everything he does. So our breaking point is going to be the one thing we are almost completely assure won’t happen.
But it’s also really disrespectful towards Leia’s character. Like the worse thing Kylo could do this how mother is kill her.
Forget Kylo has hurt Leia time and time again. Do you think him murdering those kids and forcing her own brother into self exile didn’t hurt her? Do you think him supporting an organization that committed the same mass genocide her own planet faced didn’t hurt her? Do you think him destroying the legacy not only she worked all of her life for, but her parents and people died for didn’t hurt her? Killing an unnarned old family friend? Torturing innocent people? Trying to murder others?
Do you think him in cold blood murdering his own father, someone she begged to go to Kylo didn’t hurt her?
Kylo has hurt Leia time and time again. At this point Kylo just putting a literal knife to her heart would be more merciful than what he’s actually done to Leia.
If any of you actually cared about Leia you wouldn’t be saying any of that “well at least he hadn’t killed his mother”.
Guess what? He already did kill his mother the moment he killed those padawans and joined the First Order.
In the picture: Phasma looking at Finn and baby Finn files
After re-watching The Force Awakens, as it is often the case when you see a movie for a second or third time, I came to appreciate a few characters insights and general details that I had previously missed out on. I would like to share them with you.
Let’s now look at FINN:
Finn’s escape and subsequent journey really are remarkable. His emotions are palpable and there’s that scene where he takes his helmet off on the Star Destroyer where you can literally see all his feelings dancing behind the “glass” of his eyes, like little fires. You get this sense of panicking urgency, this need he has of getting out of the First Order asap, and to me, it all felt very real.
One detail I found fascinating in the opening scene is that Poe – the first meaningful “outsider” Finn iteracts with – is the one who kills his stormtrooper friend (killing the last friendly image of the First Order he has), effectively initiating the domino that will lead to Finn’s “awakening”.
Finn’s test:
Director Rian Johnson, while addressing The Last Jedi content, commented on how the 2nd instalment of the sequel trilogy will prove to be “testing” for all the main characters.
Now, while Kylo Ren’s problems, weaknesses and tribulations are often discussed and quite easy to pinpoint, as are Rey’s, Luke’s, Poe’s and Leia’s; Finn the Cupcake’s (a well-earned title, no less) demons haven’t quite received the same amount of attention. Perhaps because they’re – at this point – subtler (and no, I am not talking about Finn’s attachment to those he cares about: I tend to associate that more with his “light side”, since it’s so obvious and out in the open).
Let’s discuss them a bit more in depth:
I have personally found two features of Finn’s that could be conductive to growth or, likewise, darkness. One of them fully escalated and found resolution during TFA, the other hasn’t, as of yet.
1) fear (and, to an extent, sloth) – Finn’s escape was likely catalysed by two factors: fear of killing innocents for a wrong cause and fear for his own life (and, implicitly, fear of growing up/letting go).
While escaping, obedient Finn is also confronted for the first time with his own individuality, in a deep manner.
The questions “who am I?” and “where am I going?” were likely to be the background music to his rocambolesque escape, though more subconsciously than in a Jedi-like meditative manner at that.
Fear of dying is what keeps Finn anchored to his child self. What keeps him from hoping. And daring.
Finn outgrows this the moment he ditches the Outer Rim guys to go fight the First Order at Maz Kanata’s castle, Rey having played a key (human) part in his decision.
After this, Finn gains a piece of his identity, making one step forward towards adulthood.
2) Phasma – yes. Phasma. The captain. The warleader. The steely soldier in a mask …his parental figure, in a sense. The embodiment of Imperial care and “tough love” every subservient citizen should look up to.
Kylo Ren and Rey are not the only ones troubled by their families. Finn is too, in his own way, and by the end of TFA he still struggles to come to terms with it in a mature way.
The line “I’m in charge, I’m in charge now Phasma, I’m in charge!” after he and Han capture the Captain and the wary, aggressive way he holds her captive and orders her around while pointing a blaster at her head prove that beautifully, showing us a rougher, conflicted side of Finn’s that had stayed dormant up until that point.
Everything about this scene with Phasma shouts “trial”. Finn’s self-confidence wavers as he partially loses his cool, portraying the adolescent Phasma trained. It’s as if he is actually doubting his freedom, while in her presence, and hasn’t quite grasped how to handle that.
The TLJ trailer, alongside the purpose of Finn and Rose’s undercover mission, give us reason to think that this Phasma demon will be addressed in the upcoming movie.
Finn does not hate Kylo Ren. He does not hate Hux, nor Snoke. But he could hate Phasma, because of what she attempted shaping him into. Because deep down he feels that he’s not completely free as long as he hasn’t proven that to her. And although as informal as any Imperial training can get, there’s still a level of intimacy a trainer and her stormtrooper share, as opposed to fighting against any other faceless First Order follower.
Phasma acts as a sort of Frollo to Finn’s (able-bodied) Quasimodo.
Will Finn free himself of Phasma’s (literal and figurative) influence without succumbing to hatred?
I’m looking forward to seeing where this is going to end, and I seriously hope Johnson has given this arc the depth it deserves.
Finn doesn’t hate Kylo Ren, Hux or Snoke? The people who stole him from his family, nearly ruined his life, and seriously physically hurt him and his friends? Could you share your reasoning behind this statement?
I’m also unsure why Finn shouldn’t hate Phasma or the rest of her gang for that matter. He has every right to be angry at his abusers. Anger and, dare I say, hatred at Kylo Ren helped him fight an overwhelming enemy, and anger no doubt helped him return to and function in Starkiller Base, the last place in the Galaxy he wanted to be.
@lj-writes Well, Darth :-), since you raised this point, let me start by asking you a question: what is the message Star Wars heroes convey?
Would Luke still be the hero we all love if revenge had been the motive behind the defeat of his terrible father?
Would we still hold Obi-Wan in high regard if hate had been the driving force behind his maiming of Anakin?
Feeling anger and hate is natural, acting upon them is naturally brutish, especially for a Star Wars positive character of such relevance. Finn sure does hate what Kylo Ren did, what Snoke represents, but he does not hate, nor obsess, over the annihilation of their personas (for personal ends especially). He has a much higher purpose than that. And even if he hates them, his challenge (like all other main characters’ challenges, even Poe’s) will be to allow these negative feelings to relent their grip on him, and to mature into overcoming his obstacles without resorting to them. Why else would we look up to Finn, if this weren’t the case?
Otherwise…well. There’s always another avenue, if that suits you best. Star Wars has plenty of characters who let themselves be driven by the winds of vengeful, bloodthirsty passions, too: Darth Maul and Darth Vader are two among them, and look where this way of seeing life brought them!
Remember Finn’s interactions with Kylo? He was always fearful (not cowardly, but with the knowledge of someone who knows what the First Order is all about), not angry. After the knight of Ren slayed his own father, Finn and Rey ran away from him. The time when Finn realized he needed to act, for himself, for life, for the right thing – was when Kylo hurt Rey. And no, I couldn’t see the eyes of hate when he wielded that blue lightsaber. The eyes of a lion who fights against another creature, sure. But not the eyes of hatred.
On the other hand, Finn could hate Phasma on a more personal level simply because of the fact that – as his teacher and trainer, someone whom he shares a more “intimate” bond with, at least figuratively – she represents a part of him that he hasn’t fully elaborated yet in the context of his new life as a free man.
Let us not forget that before defecting, Finn was just one among many obedient Stormtroopers. In one of the opening scenes, Phasma and Hux examine his history files, stating aloud that he had never created any problems: that is, he was raised to be one of them, believing he was doing the right thing.
“I was taken from a family that I will never know” Finn told Rey, true. But I don’t believe that the main underlying message here was that he resented them for that. I think that the main underlying message was that he had practically known no life outside them. No other reality. I think that the way we negotiate our present with apparently contradicting roots is relatable to many of us.
If Luke and Obi-Wan (and even Rey, when she didn’t inflict the final blow to an injured Kylo) emerged victorious from their battles without falling into the black pit of hate that could have claimed them, why wouldn’t you wish the same sort of elevation for Finn?
We’re in Star Wars, not in some badly subbed Vegeta vs Majin Bu match, for Force’s sake.
P.S.For clarifcation: my Finn character analysis is by no means complete, it is just the transcription of some new things I noticed after recently re-watching TLJ. The personal journey part is partially covered, the Phasma part is the bulk of it but interactions with other characters are missing.
P.P.S. tell me, is the word “hate” a bit more nuanced in Korean? I ask you this out of curiosity, since there is often no perfect black-and-white translation between languages, especially when they have different roots.
That’s pretty much the generic “hating your oppressor makes you just as bad as them.” I like how you take the Jedi Code that helped lead Anakin to ruin as the last word in this universe.
Thank you, I wanted to know if you had factual basis for your assertions and for differentiating between Hux/Ren/Snoke and Phasma in their relation to Finn, I gotta say that was the most words it took to say “no” I’ve seen in a while.
Sorry, but I’m just gonna run off with this for a moment if that’s okay?
Because the visual… not parallel, but maybe echo between the top gif and the lower gif just hit me.
One a Kylo without his mask, the other a pre-suit Vader. Both are shots almost directly downwards and both are leading a group of troops.
This is Vader just after he accepted Sideous’ offer of power and fully turned himself to the Dark Side. We don’t know anything about Kylo in the shot except that it’s clearly after he wrecks his helmet – you can see his face very briefly in the shot – but you’re not going to tell me that the choice of angle and the way this shot is set up isn’t intentional.
I think that just like Vader is on his way to cement his alliance with Sideous killing the Jedi and destroying their temple, we’re seeing Kylo on his way to do something similar.
In the picture: Phasma looking at Finn and baby Finn files
After re-watching The Force Awakens, as it is often the case when you see a movie for a second or third time, I came to appreciate a few characters insights and general details that I had previously missed out on. I would like to share them with you.
Let’s now look at FINN:
Finn’s escape and subsequent journey really are remarkable. His emotions are palpable and there’s that scene where he takes his helmet off on the Star Destroyer where you can literally see all his feelings dancing behind the “glass” of his eyes, like little fires. You get this sense of panicking urgency, this need he has of getting out of the First Order asap, and to me, it all felt very real.
One detail I found fascinating in the opening scene is that Poe – the first meaningful “outsider” Finn iteracts with – is the one who kills his stormtrooper friend (killing the last friendly image of the First Order he has), effectively initiating the domino that will lead to Finn’s “awakening”.
Finn’s test:
Director Rian Johnson, while addressing The Last Jedi content, commented on how the 2nd instalment of the sequel trilogy will prove to be “testing” for all the main characters.
Now, while Kylo Ren’s problems, weaknesses and tribulations are often discussed and quite easy to pinpoint, as are Rey’s, Luke’s, Poe’s and Leia’s; Finn the Cupcake’s (a well-earned title, no less) demons haven’t quite received the same amount of attention. Perhaps because they’re – at this point – subtler (and no, I am not talking about Finn’s attachment to those he cares about: I tend to associate that more with his “light side”, since it’s so obvious and out in the open).
Let’s discuss them a bit more in depth:
I have personally found two features of Finn’s that could be conductive to growth or, likewise, darkness. One of them fully escalated and found resolution during TFA, the other hasn’t, as of yet.
1) fear (and, to an extent, sloth) – Finn’s escape was likely catalysed by two factors: fear of killing innocents for a wrong cause and fear for his own life (and, implicitly, fear of growing up/letting go).
While escaping, obedient Finn is also confronted for the first time with his own individuality, in a deep manner.
The questions “who am I?” and “where am I going?” were likely to be the background music to his rocambolesque escape, though more subconsciously than in a Jedi-like meditative manner at that.
Fear of dying is what keeps Finn anchored to his child self. What keeps him from hoping. And daring.
Finn outgrows this the moment he ditches the Outer Rim guys to go fight the First Order at Maz Kanata’s castle, Rey having played a key (human) part in his decision.
After this, Finn gains a piece of his identity, making one step forward towards adulthood.
2) Phasma – yes. Phasma. The captain. The warleader. The steely soldier in a mask …his parental figure, in a sense. The embodiment of Imperial care and “tough love” every subservient citizen should look up to.
Kylo Ren and Rey are not the only ones troubled by their families. Finn is too, in his own way, and by the end of TFA he still struggles to come to terms with it in a mature way.
The line “I’m in charge, I’m in charge now Phasma, I’m in charge!” after he and Han capture the Captain and the wary, aggressive way he holds her captive and orders her around while pointing a blaster at her head prove that beautifully, showing us a rougher, conflicted side of Finn’s that had stayed dormant up until that point.
Everything about this scene with Phasma shouts “trial”. Finn’s self-confidence wavers as he partially loses his cool, portraying the adolescent Phasma trained. It’s as if he is actually doubting his freedom, while in her presence, and hasn’t quite grasped how to handle that.
The TLJ trailer, alongside the purpose of Finn and Rose’s undercover mission, give us reason to think that this Phasma demon will be addressed in the upcoming movie.
Finn does not hate Kylo Ren. He does not hate Hux, nor Snoke. But he could hate Phasma, because of what she attempted shaping him into. Because deep down he feels that he’s not completely free as long as he hasn’t proven that to her. And although as informal as any Imperial training can get, there’s still a level of intimacy a trainer and her stormtrooper share, as opposed to fighting against any other faceless First Order follower.
Phasma acts as a sort of Frollo to Finn’s (able-bodied) Quasimodo.
Will Finn free himself of Phasma’s (literal and figurative) influence without succumbing to hatred?
I’m looking forward to seeing where this is going to end, and I seriously hope Johnson has given this arc the depth it deserves.
Finn doesn’t hate Kylo Ren, Hux or Snoke? The people who stole him from his family, nearly ruined his life, and seriously physically hurt him and his friends? Could you share your reasoning behind this statement?
I’m also unsure why Finn shouldn’t hate Phasma or the rest of her gang for that matter. He has every right to be angry at his abusers. Anger and, dare I say, hatred at Kylo Ren helped him fight an overwhelming enemy, and anger no doubt helped him return to and function in Starkiller Base, the last place in the Galaxy he wanted to be.
I’m really uncomfortable with this idea that Rey being as strong in the Force as Killoren supports Reheelo rather than Rey Skywalker/Solo. I mean, does that strike anyone else as uncomfortably eugenic? Of course, the idea of a kind of divine lineage (which just happens to be white/white-passing) deciding the fate of the universe already lends itself to illiberal interpretations. See David Brin’s “Star Wars” despots vs. “Star Trek” populists on this point.
However, the idea that Rey is Force-destined to marry Kul-de-sac, a man she hates, so they can have a new generation of super-strong Skywalker babies takes this already problematic premise to new and disturbing lows. Rey’s own feelings of disgust and pain from her interactions with Kal are brushed aside or outright romanticized in this process, making the way this pairing is shipped frequently misogynistic as well. And let’s not even get into the blatant misapplication of the concept of a Force bond making them love each other against their will. The Force is not a date rape drug, damn it.
If Rey is a Skywalker or Solo, on the other hand, it makes sense within the existing canon that she would be as strong in the Force as her cousin or brother. It also preserves the recurring theme of choice, that one’s moral choices matter more than blood, making this canon palatable. As others have pointed out, Rey and Krill being the opposite ends of Anakin Skywalker’s legacy both underlines that theme and neatly ties off the three trilogies. To me they’re the only parentage theories that make thematic sense and make for a satisfying conclusion.
So I know this might sound wild, but hear me out! I kept thinking about Adam Driver’s recent comments to GQ about a princess hiding who she is in order to survive. The exact quote is:
“You have, also, the hidden identity of this princess who’s hiding who she really is so she can survive and Kylo Ren and her hiding behind these artifices.”
The immediate conclusion people drew was that he was talking about Rey’s origins, and I would be as happy as anyone if this means she is Leia’s or Luke’s daughter.
However, that seems to me a little too easy? And a violation of his NDA if this was an unauthorized comment? Make no mistake, the current promotional blitz is a carefully orchestrated event. The GQ interview and the other media appearances aren’t hard-hitting journalistic pieces on a search for the truth of a galaxy far, far away. They’re meant to sell the movie to us in a way LucasFilm has planned and approved. Unless Driver is currently being sued for all he’s worth I don’t buy that he let a spoiler slip.
It also doesn’t quite fit. Rey isn’t hiding who she is, her identity was hidden from her. There’s also no indication that not knowing her own identity helps her survive or hide.
There was also speculation that the line referred to Leia, but this also doesn’t fit because everyone knows who Leia is–a princess of Alderaan by adoption and the daughter of Anakin Skywalker and Padmé Amidala by birth. The revelation that her birth father was the hated Darth Vader derailed her political career years before TFA started.
What if the princess is Rose Tico? Here’s what we know about her: she works in maintenance, she is a “nobody,” her home was destroyed by the First Order and, according to the book Star Wars Made Easy, “she has a tragic past that she prefers to keep hidden.”
This last part has prompted speculations that Rose is a former student of Luke’s and survived the massacre of the Jedi school. But what about the part where her home was destroyed by the First Order? I guess one could say the Jedi Temple was her home, but we know that she has a sister, Paige, so she has or had an origin family. Wouldn’t it be more natural to say this family’s home was her home? Did the First Order destroy her school AND her family’s home? I mean that seems a bit much to me.
What if we assume instead that the destruction of her home and the tragic past are connected–her home was destroyed, and this is part of her tragic past? Running with the princess theory, she was royalty on her home planet but it was destroyed by the First Order, and she had to go into hiding as a result.
We know from the Princess Leia comic that the Empire targeted the surviving Alderaanians after destroying their home planet. The First Order is certainly not above such tactics, especially when any surviving members of the former leadership may be a threat to their rule.
Rose as a lost princess, in other words, fits the description of a princess hiding her identity to survive and also matches our scant prior knowledge of her. Even Kelly Marie Tran flatly stating that she’s not royalty could be read as a deflection that is not quite a lie–it was said in the present tense, and from a certain point of view (cough) royalty with no power and nothing to rule is not, in fact, currently royalty beyond a title.
Now think about the courage it took for a Princess Rose, marked for death by the same organization that destroyed her home planet, to run not away from danger but into it by joining the Resistance like a certain other Princess we know of. Think of how her story would affect Finn, whose internal conflict in TLJ is whether to stay and fight or to run.
To get even farther with the speculation, what if Rose’s destroyed home and the home Finn was taken from are the same? What if they are bound by the ties of a common origin, even the ties of family?
I would die of joy if we have Princess Rose and her knight Sir Finn, or Princess Rose and Prince Finn as brother and sister. Even if it’s not canon it’s a really fun piece of speculation.
And if you’re outright dismissing this theory as crack, why is that? If you’re willing to believe a scavenger can be a princess, why not a mechanic?
YES PLEASE!
Isn’t it already known that there’s some kind of massive secret/revelation in her identity?
Yup! I mean I was a bit off with where Adam’s comment was pointing in the interview (it was… Kylo Ren? sort of) but there’s also @kyberfox ’s necklace meta which hints at something potentially big. I can’t wait for the reveal!
@lj-writes and I got to talking the other day about Rose’s necklace and how it might tie into her past and her story in The Last Jedi.
Early on in our discussion the talk fell on Jedha, in part because Rogue One established it as a form of Space Asia and it would not be beyond Star Wars’ usual MO to have another Asian character – or rather two since we must include Paige in this too – and because of what we have of Rose’s background so far makes her seem like a refugee surviving at the fringes of the galaxy. And by extension her sister, Paige, too.
Considering that refugees are often discriminated against – in fact we see no justice for Jedha in extended canon at all – and the fact that the First Order, like the Empire before it, are persecuting and deliberately targeting religious minorities, any Jedhan living in diaspora would be a prime target.
A quick trip to Google by us both revealed several more interesting facts.
First, Kelly Marie is 28 so unless they age up Rose considerably she obviously didn’t survive the destruction of Jedha itself, but Veronica Ngo who plays Paige is 38! Apart from everything else, that’s some age gap between the sisters.
Of course, if Paige along with her family were direct survivors of Jedha, it would take years before they’d feel safe enough to start rebuilding and certainly not while the Galactic Civil War was still on. But if we use Kelly Marie’s own age as a measuring stick, Rose would have been born a few years after RotJ, a time where the galaxy might have felt safer and the Jedhan diaspora would have had hope for the future.
That was, of course, before tragedy struck again, and the First Order destroyed their second home just as the Empire had their world of origin.
While LJ and I were discussing this, we had a simultaneous discussion about “Why a crescent? Why would that specific symbol mean something to Rose?”
Early discussion brought up the Death Star itself, which looked like a crescent from the surface of Jedha when it was doing its destructive work.
(All the following pictures here are dug out or made by LJ. Thank you for doing that legwork)
Here’s the Death Star forming a crescent shape over Jedha as it blocked out the sun:
And here it is seen from the ground as it was firing the beam.
But that is a rather morbid imagery, why would Rose want to carry it? And why the lattice work on its surface?
Here LJ’s Google search brought up an interesting fact about Jedha.
There was a group on the moon that was called the Church of the Contained Crescent. They, at some point in the past, inhabited the catacombs that Saw Gererra uses as a HQ in the movie and when they did, they installed a lattice window.
This image from Rebels does not appear to be the latticed window itself, since it seems to be in a tunnel, but it forms an interesting visual parallel with Saw standing before the window at his base.
In the trailer (Bald Saw) the lattice window was intact, while in the movie it had been shattered, but you can still clearly see the remnants of the lattice work.
(A tragic bit that LJ also dug up, Saw died at that window.)
What’s more, the window must have taken some effort to put in because it is actually a short tunnel through a rock wall, which creates the visual effect that when you look at it from almost any angle – except head on – you see a crescent shape.
A crescent covered in lattice work.
This picture gives a particular good view of the remaining lattice work
Now compare with Rose’s necklace.
When you compare the edgings into Rose’s necklace, they look very suspiciously like what remains of the lattice in the window.
Now we know nothing about this group – The Church of the Contained Crescent – except that they existed, but LJ came up with the idea that they might have been a prophetic/end of days group who foresaw Jedha’s doom – perhaps marked by the crescent shape of the Death Star – and the reason they vacated the catacombs was to make room for Saw’s group. Or perhaps they were trying to prevent their own vision from coming true by vacating.
This remains unanswered as we know nothing about them except the name and the fact they installed that window.
One could object to this theory by pointing out the lack of “Jedhan sounding names” – though given that that is a fictional place then what would that indeed be – but then it wouldn’t be the first time someone was hidden under another name than their birth name for the sake of protection.
Padme Amidala hid in her time as queen of Naboo often under the alias Padme the Handmaiden to protect herself from enemies. Leia was raised under the name Organa, rather than under Skywalker or Amidala or Naberrie to shield her. Even Jyn Erso had numerous aliases in her life because her own name would make her an Imperial target. So why shouldn’t the Tico sisters live under a name not their own if their original names mark them in the eyes of the First Order and those who support them. And possibly even in the eyes of members of the Republic who wish to forget the past entirely.
Of course, if this is true it leads to some very interesting questions and thoughts.
For one thing, Rose possibly being a member of a “Force church” begs the question how she ties into the Force plot, further made relevant by the fact that Kelly Marie had chemistry readings with Mark Hamill indicating that they’ll share some crucial scenes together.
It would also mean an expansion of both Jedha’s role in canon – and maybe that, for once, LucasArts would deal in any kind of depth with one of its multiple instances of genocide – but also an expansion of the many other Force ideologies beyond Jedi that the new canon has introduced. We got the first – the Church of the Force – in TFA when the First Order massacred a village of worshipers on Jakku. We heard of the Guardians of the Whills in Rogue One where two of the last members played a prominent part.
Furthermore, it would deeply affect the interactions between her and Finn. Not only is Rose more likely to be a few years older than Finn, just like Kelly Marie is a few years older than John. They may even have aged the character up compared to the actor, making the age gap even bigger than most people expect.
The ages and personalities would affect her hero worship dynamic with Finn as well. She isn’t a star struck young girl, but a grown woman, “a very practical person” according to actor Kelly Marie Tran’s recent interview with Entertainment Weekly with a very tragic, hardscrabble past. She might see in Finn as much of justice as her people are ever likely to see in the galaxy. After all, the actions of Bodhi, Chirrut and Baze seem to have been as much justice as Jedha ever got, whether under the Empire or the New Republic.
Jedha has always looked to its heroes because many were willing to exploit their resources and culture but few were willing to fight for them. Rose may see in Finn such a hero, and in the process will become another such hero. Whether she will be a Jedhan hero is a matter of speculation and theory at this point, but the crescent necklace hints tantalizingly at that possibility.
Awesome, you posted this! Thanks for putting the ideas and information together. I would love it so much if the story of Jedha were extended in the main movies and the spiritual paths surrounding the Force got more examination. And if Rose were to be a Jedhan hero for a new generation in the footsteps of Bodhi, Chirrut, and Baze… *high-pitched inaudible squeal*
Is the “princess” actually Rose?
So I know this might sound wild, but hear me out! I kept thinking about Adam Driver’s recent comments to GQ about a princess hiding who she is in order to survive. The exact quote is:
“You have, also, the hidden identity of this princess who’s hiding who she really is so she can survive and Kylo Ren and her hiding behind these artifices.”
The immediate conclusion people drew was that he was talking about Rey’s origins, and I would be as happy as anyone if this means she is Leia’s or Luke’s daughter.
However, that seems to me a little too easy? And a violation of his NDA if this was an unauthorized comment? Make no mistake, the current promotional blitz is a carefully orchestrated event. The GQ interview and the other media appearances aren’t hard-hitting journalistic pieces on a search for the truth of a galaxy far, far away. They’re meant to sell the movie to us in a way LucasFilm has planned and approved. Unless Driver is currently being sued for all he’s worth I don’t buy that he let a spoiler slip.
It also doesn’t quite fit. Rey isn’t hiding who she is, her identity was hidden from her. There’s also no indication that not knowing her own identity helps her survive or hide.
There was also speculation that the line referred to Leia, but this also doesn’t fit because everyone knows who Leia is–a princess of Alderaan by adoption and the daughter of Anakin Skywalker and Padmé Amidala by birth. The revelation that her birth father was the hated Darth Vader derailed her political career years before TFA started.
What if the princess is Rose Tico? Here’s what we know about her: she works in maintenance, she is a “nobody,” her home was destroyed by the First Order and, according to the book Star Wars Made Easy, “she has a tragic past that she prefers to keep hidden.”
This last part has prompted speculations that Rose is a former student of Luke’s and survived the massacre of the Jedi school. But what about the part where her home was destroyed by the First Order? I guess one could say the Jedi Temple was her home, but we know that she has a sister, Paige, so she has or had an origin family. Wouldn’t it be more natural to say this family’s home was her home? Did the First Order destroy her school AND her family’s home? I mean that seems a bit much to me.
What if we assume instead that the destruction of her home and the tragic past are connected–her home was destroyed, and this is part of her tragic past? Running with the princess theory, she was royalty on her home planet but it was destroyed by the First Order, and she had to go into hiding as a result.
We know from the Princess Leia comic that the Empire targeted the surviving Alderaanians after destroying their home planet. The First Order is certainly not above such tactics, especially when any surviving members of the former leadership may be a threat to their rule.
Rose as a lost princess, in other words, fits the description of a princess hiding her identity to survive and also matches our scant prior knowledge of her. Even Kelly Marie Tran flatly stating that she’s not royalty could be read as a deflection that is not quite a lie–it was said in the present tense, and from a certain point of view (cough) royalty with no power and nothing to rule is not, in fact, currently royalty beyond a title.
Now think about the courage it took for a Princess Rose, marked for death by the same organization that destroyed her home planet, to run not away from danger but into it by joining the Resistance like a certain other Princess we know of. Think of how her story would affect Finn, whose internal conflict in TLJ is whether to stay and fight or to run.
To get even farther with the speculation, what if Rose’s destroyed home and the home Finn was taken from are the same? What if they are bound by the ties of a common origin, even the ties of family?
I would die of joy if we have Princess Rose and her knight Sir Finn, or Princess Rose and Prince Finn as brother and sister. Even if it’s not canon it’s a really fun piece of speculation.
And if you’re outright dismissing this theory as crack, why is that? If you’re willing to believe a scavenger can be a princess, why not a mechanic?
The existence of the Executioner Stormtroopers, a unit dedicated to rooting out disloyalty in the ranks, has set fans buzzing. The reveal provided more fuel to speculation about a possible Stormtrooper uprising headed by Finn, and The Last Jedi trailer only intensified the speculation.
Could it be that we know at least one of the Executioner Stormtroopers from tie-in media? Someone who is known to Finn and has/will have a complicated relationship with him, with the potential for really gripping conflict?
I believe, or rather was—very easily–convinced by @kyberfox, that Finn’s old squadmate Zeroes, Trooper designation FN-2000, will appear as an Executioner Stormtrooper in TLJ. He is the only other known survivor of Finn’s Stormtrooper squad, and appeared in the Before the Awakening novella collection and, according to Wookiepedia, The Force Awakens junior novelization and The Force Awakens: Finn’s Story.
Full credit goes to Mara (kyberfox) by the way for this idea and even a possible casting choice for Zeroes, I’m just writing this up with her permission because I want this meta to be out there and because I spotted some stuff in BtA that further supports Mara’s theory.
Based on our chats I will also speculate briefly about the possible direction of Zeroes’ story, one obvious, one far less so and again suggested by the incomparable Mara.
So let’s briefly review the members of Finn’s luckless squad. Finn was the leader of a four-man squad composed of himself, FN-2000 (nicknamed “Zeroes”), FN-2199 (“Nines”), and FN-2003 (“Slip”). Of his squadmates we met Slip first. Alas, Slip’s first appearance was also his last and his death at Poe’s hands led to the first hint that Finn was different from the other Troopers.
[Image description: A close-up of Slip’s helmeted face just before his death]
We met the next member of Finn’s squad, Nines, during the battle of Takodana when Nines attacked Finn with a big baton and a bigger grudge. Before he went down at the business end of Chewie’s bowcaster he distinguished himself with the iconic cry of “Traitor!” and by nearly taking Finn down.
[Image description: The Stormtrooper with a shock baton who dueled Finn at Takodana, since identified as Nines]
As far as we know Nines’s first appearance was also his last, though depending on the protection provided by Stormtrooper armor and Nines’s luck we can’t completely discount the possibility that he survived. (For a headcanon/au of Nines surviving the battle, see this gorgeous moodboard and headcanon by @jakkus-storyteller.)
So that leaves two members of Finn’s old squad, Finn himself and Zeroes, who was not seen in The Force Awakens but did appear in tie-in works. For my purposes I will be relying on Before the Awakening for his characteristics.
[Image description: Zeroes in the background of a scene from Before the Awakening illustrated by Phil Noto]
What makes the mysterious Zeroes a likely candidate for an Executioner, and likely the most prominent member of the unit story-wise? For one thing there’s the fact that he and Finn knew each other, and that’s generally a better source of drama than an enemy who is a complete stranger.
What’s more, Zeroes was someone Finn once had a sense of responsibility for. If you read Finn’s story in BtA you know that when he feels responsible for someone he goes all out. His superiors’ only dissatisfaction with his performance was the way he protected and supported Slip, whom they considered a weak link. Finn would have done the same for Nines or Zeroes had they been the ones who needed him.
Further intensifying the drama is the fact that Zeroes may well hold a grudge much like Nines did. If the First Order’s stance toward defection and collective responsibility is anything like North Korea, which it was partly based on, both Nines and Zeroes would have been subjected to a metric ton of crap due to Finn’s defection. Due to their association with a defector they would have faced intense questioning and scrutiny, denunciation, demotion, demeaning treatment, and more.
In this context Nines’s scream of “Traitor!” is not just ideological but also personal. Of course most Stormtroopers, brainwashed with propaganda, are going to see Finn as a traitor anyway, but his old squad members may well have been tainted by association in addition to the usual reasons to despise a defector. In addition Nines was portrayed in BtA as an angry guy in general, so his outburst and rage-filled fighting style are consistent with his character.
Zeroes’ circumstances as Finn’s old squadmate are largely shared with Nines. Would his response to these circumstances differ from Nines’s? Does Zeroes have personal characteristics that would result in a different response to similar circumstances, and that would suit him to being an Executioner?
Based on the brief characterizations of Zeroes in BtA my theory is that Zeroes is a very different character than Nines, and that his personality provides additional reasons why he is likely to be an Executioner.
So what kind of character is Zeroes? A lot of the time in BtA he and Nines are indistinguishable. There’s Finn, the leader of the pack in ability as well as in position, and then there’s Slip, who is always falling behind and subject to Finn’s protection. Nines and Zeroes are at the middle of the pack, not the pinnacle of excellence that Finn is but also not the problem that Slip is. They both are, in many ways, rank-and-file Stormtroopers.
The few times Zeroes stands out as an individual, however, the clues to his character are subtle but unmistakable. In a post-simulation briefing with Phasma, Zeroes shows more eagerness to please his superior than any other member of the squad when he is described as “[drawing] himself even higher” when Phasma pointed out the need to improve his marksmanship. No other member of the squad has a similar physical reaction to Phasma’s feedback, leading me to believe Zeroes had a stronger visible reaction than the others.
Then there is a passage later on when Zeroes figures out ahead of the rest of the squad that they are about to get sent on their first mission:
“It’s coming, you can feel it. No more exercises. An actual deployment.”
When they do go on the mission, he explains to the squad why Phasma didn’t brief them about their destination and target:
“She’s not going to tell stormtroopers the Supreme Leader’s plans, or General Hux’s, or even her own. She’s not asking for our opinion. She’s got a job she wants done and she’s counting on us to do it.”
Notice how he gets into Phasma’s mindset despite having no more contact with her than anyone else in the squad. He also shows exceeding ability in reading his surroundings and the people around him—a good quality for an information officer, including a secret police. In these matters of discipline and morale he comes across as more of a squad leader than Finn does, showing the makings of a fine political commissar.
True to his analytical and watchful nature, Zeroes generally seems to have a more even keel than the hot-tempered Nines or even the constantly self-doubting Finn. This makes it even more interesting when Zeroes does lose his temper after losing a match to Finn:
Zeroes shrugged [Finn] off, his anger evident even behind his armor. [Finn] figured that was because he’d broken Zeroes’s streak.
This situation deserves further analysis. I mentioned, from the above briefing scene, that Zeroes showed more eagerness to please his superior than any other squad member. The main flaw Phasma pointed out to Zeroes was his marksmanship. This is in stark contrast to Finn, who, as Phasma revealed, fired only 36 times but scored 35 hits.
Then came the melee training, which Zeroes discovered he was actually pretty good at. He beat four opponents in a row, the longest winning streak up to that point. The success must have felt good to anyone, but especially to Zeroes who likes to please authority and was likely feeling overshadowed by Finn.
Then what happens? Finn breaks Zeroes’s winning streak and breaks his record, outshining Zeroes even at this. Again. This is when Zeroes starts getting mad, unlike Nines who just started out angry according to Finn. Zeroes is not generally an angry guy, but he shows clear ambition here, a desire to shine.
To recap, Zeroes is a really ambitious guy who has a sharp eye for reading situations and people. He also knows his superiors exceedingly well and wants nothing more than to please them and climb the ladder of power himself.
Zeroes may not be quite the warrior material Finn is (as it is, I’m pretty sure Zeroes would have been squad leader if Finn didn’t surpass him so clearly in conventional evaluations), but he has very clear strengths in another area: Espionage, especially internal surveillance. Something like discovering and dealing with disloyalty in your own ranks, in other words. Something like the Executioner unit.
In fact, Nines’s and Zeroes’s differing abilities and personalities may well have led to different reactions to Finn and his defection. They would both have had to prove their loyalty in some way in addition to working out their personal grudges. Nines, with his temper and straightforward (and rather unimaginative) mind, thought that way lay in beating Finn in battle.
Zeroes, on the other hand, is very likely to have taken a more systematic, methodical approach. What better way to prove his loyalty than by uprooting disloyalty within the ranks, exposing future Finns before they emerged? This course of action both plays to his strengths and matches the way his mind seems to work. And he certainly showed the intelligence and imagination to engineer such a position for himself. In addition, I’m sure he would not say no to a rematch should he and Finn cross paths again—say, because Finn is trying to foment an uprising among Stormtroopers.
Mara even had an idea of who might play Zeroes if he does appear in TLJ and beyond: Bronx-born actor and model Dante Briggins, who played uncredited Stormtrooper roles in TFA and is slated to appear again in TLJ as one or more unnamed Stormtroopers.
[Image description: Picture of Dante Briggins]
Mr. Briggins matches Zeroes’ physical description of having dark brown skin; the character’s other distinguishing characteristic, a scar on one cheek, is not difficult for professional stage makeup artists to simulate.
What can we expect from this character if he does appear in TLJ? The more straightforward path is that of the implacable yet methodical enemy, and it’s certainly something one can expect from Zeroes’s ambition, his intellectual detachment, and his lack of hesitation when shooting unarmed people at the end of Finn’s story in BtA. Where Finn fought a physical battle with Nines he may find himself in a battle of wits with Zeroes in a game of intelligence and counterintelligence.
A much less predictable and, in my opinion, more interesting story was suggested by Mara. In this theory Zeroes is a part of the uprising, likely part of their leadership given his position and abilities, and is their inside man in the Executioner squad. You can flip everything we know about the guy on its head and it still works—yes, he’s a sharp and canny guy, but that also means he can make himself seem to be exactly what the FO brass want. His lack of hesitation in shooting the miners? We have no idea what he was thinking, and this may well be the act of a man who doesn’t want to commit murder but is also ruthless and pragmatic not to blow his cover for people who will die no matter what he does.
I find this possibility of a rebellious Zeroes fascinating because he would provide such a perfect foil for Finn. Where Finn chose to flee due to his revulsion for the First Order’s crimes, Zeroes chose to stay and topple it from the inside. Where Finn chose individual moral purity, Zeroes chose to stay with the other troopers and share in their suffering and also their crimes. Where Finn turned his weapons on other Troopers in the quest for his own freedom (which was fully justified, I want to make clear), Zeroes is working toward getting as many Troopers out alive as he can, though his chosen path no doubt leads him to kill, directly or indirectly, those he cannot help. I mean I’m pretty sure the name “Executioner” isn’t just for the cool factor.
Just think about the possibilities for conflict. In Finn’s eyes Zeroes is a criminal for participating in the Order’s war crimes and turning in disloyal Troopers. In Zeroes’ eyes Finn is selfish for seeking freedom only for himself and killing other Troopers. Under this scenario Finn and Zeroes personify the conflict between individual freedom and moral purity on the one hand, and the search for collective freedom at the price of getting one’s hands dirty by staying in a criminal organization.
Each man is a coward in the other’s eyes. To Finn, Zeroes didn’t have the courage to leave. To Zeroes, Finn didn’t have the courage to stay.
Finn and Zeroes may also learn from each other, however, and complete each others’ journeys. Finn might realize his quest for individual freedom, while brave and admirable, is incomplete unless it includes others. Zeroes might learn the value of Finn’s individual vision and heroism in making collective freedom a reality. They’d both have to swallow a lot of pride before they come to this realization and work together, but if they do they’d be unstoppable as a team.
If Finn and Zeroes do work together, they would parallel an ancient story of two men with very different values and temperaments working together to free the enslaved—Moses and Aaron, the brothers from Exodus who led their people out of slavery in Egypt. I won’t go deeply into the Finn-Moses and possible Aaron-Zeroes parallels here, but I’m hoping Mara will (nudge nudge).
Suffice it to say Finn is definitely the fiery visionary who went off on his own and who was forced to defend his ideals with violence much like Moses. On the other hand, a theoretical rebellious Zeroes would be the communitarian trying to keep his people together and sharing in their suffering as well as their moral compromises, much like Aaron.
The possibility of the fourth member of Finn’s old squad, the only other surviving member so far as we know, making an appearance as an antagonist—and even more intriguingly, a grudging ally—enriches and deepens the overall story and the character of Finn. Even if it doesn’t turn out to be canon it’s great material for speculation and fan works.
At the very least I hope we get to meet Zeroes in some form in the movies, and hopefully he’ll prove a more lasting character than the other members of his ill-fated squad.
L.J.'s Obsessions 