Reylows pretending the Dark and Light sides of the Force are co-equal polarities like yin and yang will never fail to amuse me lol. I heard of Reylows comparing their hellship to the main couple in Strange Magic, an animation George Lucas worked on, when clearly Kylo was a better parallel to the villain. More enragingly shippers have compared Hideko and Sook-Hee from The Handmaiden to reylow. I may do some side by side comparisons showing that no, kylo is the abusive uncle. (Finn and Rey are not like Hideko or Sook-Hee either, btw, because THEIR LOVE STORY IS COMPLETELY DIFFERENT FROM AN ARCHETYPAL MALE-FEMALE ROMANCE AND THAT’S THE POINT THE DISRESPECT)
@naemerydae Every time they hit rock bottom they drill a hole through the bedrock. (Please don’t look up what reylows think drilling through rock symbolizes.)
Notice how I don’t have to dishonestly erase and ignore the actual context of Finn and Rey’s interactions in order to make these? That’s because these are the beats of an actual meet-cute and not disingenuous distortions of canon. I am critical of how violently Finn was struck in the face and how it was played comedically, but it is part of a common pattern with these stories.
Yes, the Rey and Kyle visuals could look similar if you took their scenes out of all context while disregarding the characters and stories–and that’s the point. These shitty “parallel” posts are attempts to sanitize the context of the originals, as though kidnap, torture, and manipulation constitute a normal meet-cute.
Also isn’t it interesting how these posts disregard an actual “Reylow” parallel where the Light Fury is trapped and terrified, then appears to be borne away against her will? For all that shippers insist the abduction was romantic as hell, it seems they don’t like actually acknowledging Rey’s pain and fear…
…or the fact that this means Kyle’s actual parallel in HTTYD 3 is this wavy-haired douche dressed in black.
Also saying “they’re kid’s movies” to discourage critique is an ass move. Do you think children are immune to issues like abuse and violence in real life? You don’t think children, like the rest of us, use stories to understand and cope with their lives? I know I relied on fiction as a child to deal with things I couldn’t tell people and didn’t even have the vocabulary to express. If anything children’s media need to be scrutinized more, not less, for the ways they’re framing these and other issues.
You’re also a raging hypocrite if you’re fine with kidnap, torture, and manipulation being disguised as a cute and harmless romance and being deliberately put in the tags for a children’s movie (especially when many of the shippers openly admit the ship is a kink for them), but think the people who criticize that practice need to “chill a little.” Fuck. Off.
Rebloging this because of the damn good quality of content and editing
Aww, thank you kindly! While I did make the edits frame-accurate to get side-by-side gifs, the footage did most of the work for me and even I was surprised by how good the match was. The facial expressions, the angles, right down to Finn and Toothless’s swagger in their “mating dances” sequences (literal for Toothless, more sublimated for Finn). Just look at the way they shake their bodies side to side while they try to impress and the way Rey and the lady Fury look at them, from “d’awww you are the most adorable thing ever and I could eat you up” to “should have quit while you were ahead, pal.”
It just goes to show what old and common tropes TFA was drawing from, and demonstrates that the Finnrey scenes were by no means subtle. It’s just fandom swearing up and down that these scenes can’t possibly be romantic for Reasons.
@greencheekconure27primary Kylo is Paris, obviously–has a penchant for creepy one-liners (”Younger than she are happy mothers made,” for context Juliet is THIRTEEN “I can take whatever I want”), is possessive of and feels entitled to a girl who just wants him to fuck off, won’t take “no” for an answer 😂
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.
It’s why I was so attached to the idea of Rey Solo, I admit, because it would reconcile Kylo being like Anakin with the reason for his fall being relevant to Rey. The why would tie into Rey’s story while the how would directly contrast with Finn’s.
But it looks like the ST is going to go the route of only the how being relevant to both Rey and Finn. Rey at the end of TFA and even more throughout TLJ is where Kylo used to be, only to make different choices: she was chosen and groomed by a powerful Dark Force user while vulnerable and alone, but unlike Kylo she told the guy to fuck all the way off and chose to stand with her friends, not murder them. Finn throughout TFA and TLJ continues to present a direct contrast to Kylo Ren at every point, from backgrounds to choices to responses to abuse.
Rey is the one who could have been Kylo, had Kylo succeeded in his efforts. Finn is the one who stands in complete opposition to Kylo, and Kylo hates him for it.
This only strengthens the Finnrey/Anidala feels, by the way. Anakin/Rey was Palpatine/Kylo’s chosen victim-apprentice, but where Anakin chose the darkness and servitude Rey chose the light and freedom. Padmé/Finn was Palpatine/Kylo’s rival and enemy, but where Palpatine succeeded in destroying Padmé Kylo failed because where Anakin turned against Padmé, Rey was steadfast in her loyalty to Finn. We have no idea and no reason to care why Palpatine fell other than his desire for power, and the same is true of Kylo.
Finn and Rey are Padmé and Anakin, only with a happy ending.
Their story so far has many of the same beats as Anakin’s and Padmé’s had in TPM and AotC.
In the first installment of the story Rey (Anakin) is trapped in a life of servitude on a desert planet. While she might not be a slave exactly, she comes across as a form of indentured servant.
Finn is the rebel against the status quo, the way Padmé rebelled at the stagnation and indifference of the Senate and at the end of the day will take matters into their own hands and resort to armed might to set things right, when the large galaxy appears to don’t give a fuck about their issues.
In part two, they’re kept apart. Where what kept Padmé and Anakin apart was social strictures and rules, Finn and Rey are kept apart physically. But in both cases both of them are yearning to be with each other against all the odds.
Their reunification after the battle is as tender and passionate as Anakin’s and Padmé’s after the Battle of Geonosis. They rush to each other and hold on tight, finally in the arms of the person they love.
But unlike Padmé and Anakin, Finn and Rey don’t have to hide. There are no strict Jedi masters spouting a dogma against romance to tell Rey she can’t show the love she feels for Finn. And Finn’s position in the Resistance as a leader and hero is not at odds with him loving and showing love, for Rey.
So though we lack an actual wedding scene I wonder if in Episode IX we’ll be presented with Finn’s and Rey’s romantic relationship as a already given entity, they’re simply presented as a couple from the beginning. Or if the confession of their love will happen very early instead.
Either way, it would make the most sense if the two of them spend most if not all of the movie as a couple and we see them navigate the obstacles of an ongoing war alongside the obstacle they face as a couple, the same way we see it with Anakin and Padmé in RotS. Only in this case Finn and Rey will have the happy ending Anakin’s obsession denied him and Padmé.
YES I’VE BEEN SAYING THIS FOREVER. Finn and Rey are genderflipped Anidala with a happy ending and better lines.
Other similarities, if you go back to TPM:
– Padmé/Finn originally met Anakin/Rey under an identity they assumed for safety reasons
– Both eventual couples became friends under Padmé/Finn’s assumed identity, and Padmé/Finn willingly revealed their true identity much to Anakin/Rey’s shock
– Both couples were good friends first. This stage was much longer for Padmé and Anakin since they were children when they first met and there were 10 years between their meeting in TPM and realizing their feelings in AotC. It’s pretty clear Rey and Finn were attracted to each other almost from the moment they first met, but they still started out as friends first and foremost.
Additional similarities with AotC:
– Rey and Finn meet at almost exactly the same ages Anakin and Padmé
were in AotC, 19/23 to Anakin and Padmé’s 19/24. Incidentally 19 is the traditional age for Skywalkers to begin their adventures as adults including meeting prospective love interests, and 23 is the traditional age for Skywalker men to choose a side
– Padmé/Finn was marked for death due to their principled actions, and Anakin/Rey became involved in the situation by order or circumstance
– Padmé/Finn went to rescue a friend (Obi-Wan/Rey) despite the threat to their lives
– The rescue did not go as envisioned and it turned out the rescuee was more than capable of handling themselves
– Padmé/Finn is slashed across the back by a monster
– There’s a heartfelt declaration by both Padmé/Finn and Anakin/Rey, though the guy made the first move in both cases (”You are in my very soul, tormenting me”/”Rey, come with me”) and the girl initially refused (”It’s impossible”/”Don’t go”) before she reciprocated in the face of almost losing him (”I’ve been dying a little bit each day”/”Thank you, my friend.” I’m not kidding about the better lines here…)
In TLJ, arguably there was a form of social stricture that kept Finn and Rey apart physically–Rose and her demand that Finn give his full allegiance to the Resistance. As I discussed in The Temptations of Finn and Rey (link), this was a callback to Finn’s being coerced to give everything to a “higher cause” his whole life. This in turn ties back to the similarities between the FO’s Stormtrooper program and the Old Republic Jedi, taking children from their families at a young age and transferring their attachment to a larger cause. I like to think Rose grew as a character and realized that she had been wrong about Finn, but RJ’s execution is so muddled it’s hard to tell ¯_(ツ)_/¯
For this reason I think there’s a chance that “will they or won’t they” will still be a thing in Episode IX. Finn and Rey ended TLJ on essentially a misunderstanding and on opposite ends from their last real talk on Takodana. For all they love each other they are still essentially strangers who spent maybe a grand total of one day together in the midst of a galactical crisis. (That’s another parallel to AotC Anidala, incidentally.) The crisis is worse than ever at the end of TLJ, providing plenty of excuse for two uncertain and traumatized people to bury themselves in work and avoid talking about things too close to their hearts.
from fire to ice, from silence to screaming with rage and hatred, from masks to glaring into each others eyes, from haunting stillness to violent action, from finn choosing not to fight to kill but to fight to protect who he loves, from kylo calmly and casually displaying his power to desperately trying to kill an (as of yet) untrained jedi, from them sharing a moment across a wide open space to them literally fighting blade to blade
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