It took two and a half months, lots of sleepless nights (including one
in the con hotel), and some last minute alterations but Nakia (v1) made
it to ECCC.
I have a bit left to do before she’s done (the beadwork is actually puff paint – yay improvising). So taking a break on this project to work on stuff for Sakuracon and then I plan to finish my beading and some additional detail work before I take her to Rose City in September.
Kylo Ren’s lack of Motivation: Regardless of how I feel about Uncle Luke sneaking in Ben Solo’s room late at night to poke him with his Lightsaber, I don’t like btw, the real problem I have with Kylo Ren is the fact that I don’t know the actual reason why he did what he does anything. Ben thinks Luke tried to kill him, but why did he kill Luke’s other students or burn down the temple? Why did he join the First Order? What did he hope to accomplish by joining the First Order? Why did he dig up Vader’s mask? If he thought killing Han Solo, his father, would finally snuff out his light, why didn’t he kill Finn and Rey when he had the chance? Even know, why does he say “Let the past die”, but continue to lead the First Order in the same direction that Snoke did? Snoke wanted the Resistance dead, so why take up his mission. Why did he go from calm and controlled in most of TLJ to a screaming lunatic again by the end?
The problem I have with Kylo Ren is that there isn’t a clear motivation on why he does anything. Kylo Ren seems like he acts how the plot demands him to act and actually doesn’t even have a clear motivation. And it’s not like the Joker’s lack of motive. The Jocker has a motive, even if that motive changes throughout the years. The consistent motive he has had has been “Just Because”. The motive to do things just because you can do them has been clearly displayed in his actions and his unpredictable nature. That’s not the case with Kylo Ren. It’s been 2 films and I have no idea why he does anything. The only reasons we have are headcanons but no actual proof or canon confirmed information.
It’s this lack of actual motivation that many people find issues with the character. I know I like the character’s backstory, it’s interesting. The son of two war heroes that fell to the darkside and is now one of the biggest threats to the galaxy. It’s a cool concept…the only problem is that there is no motivation. That problem makes Kylo Ren a cool concept for a character, but not an actual character.
It’s this lack of motivations why so many people argue if he is a flat traditional villain. A complicated Anti-Villain, or something misunderstood in-between. It also doesn’t that since this character lacks the context needed to understand why they do what they do, many people are left wondering why they should care. I’ll be the first to say that Kylo Ren’s popularity is carried by Adam Driver’s acting chops but still fails because the Writers give nothing to us in regard to motivation.
Here are two examples of two characters that I feel have amazing writing and character development.
Zuko from Avatar the Last Airbender – His sense of honor is what drives him for the entire series of ATLA as the antagonist to dueltagonist. It’s what makes him a full character. Even when you didn’t agree with the character, you knew where he was coming from. That’s important. It’s what drives him to spend the entire 1st season trying to capture the hero for his father – training that same hero to defeat his father. It’s his motivations throughout the series that makes the character so interesting. I don’t even need to know his backstory or have a fan explain why I should like the character. Even when he is doing that’s I don’t like, I enjoy the character because I can understand why he does things.
Jaime Lannister from Game of Thrones – Jaime’s motivation is the struggle he faces between doing what is right for the many vs doing what is right for his family. These motivations are what drives him to do many morally ambiguous or downright bad things. Ranging from killing the mad king he had sworn to protect before the king could end countless lives – to pushing a child out of a tower when the kid caught him having sex with his twin sister. These are things that could make a weaker written character look so inconsistent, yet because the writers take time to develop Jaime Lannister and his motivations, we can understand the character. Do we agree? No. But we can understand it. For the most part at least.
Kylo Ren doesn’t have any clear motivation as to why he does what he does. So when we see him Kill Lor San Tekka in cold blood, order the slaughter of the Jakku villagers, Mind torture Rey and Poe, kill his father Han Solo, almost kill Finn, but not finish the job, offer training to Rey, hesitate in kill his mother Leia Organa, kill Snoke, takes over the First Order because the past should die, but then continues with the same mission as the First Order.
No one can actually explain why he does the things he does without having to resort to a headcanon, or resort to a third party media to explain his actions. That’s a failure in writing. If you can’t explain the motivation for a character in the main source of media he appears in, that means you have not done a good job in writing your character.
I can watch Zuko and I understand his character perfectly. Anything from the video games, the comics, or commentary by the creators just explores a deeper meaning or shows to more to what I already know, but I don’t need any of that extra stuff to understand the character, just appreciate him more.
Even Jaime Lannister, who was suffering from a lack of character development in the most recent seasons, his motivations were still clear. Did his fans agree with his choices? No. Yet we all knew why.
I understand Kylo Ren now as much as I did when he first walked on screen. Everything I know about him is through his ambiguous backstory, which is even missing large gaps in it.
That’s my problem with Kylo Ren though. Adam is doing a great job, honestly carrying the character. I just wish the writing was a good as the acting.
[image text: “The phenomenon of female anger has often been turned against itself, the figure of the angry woman reframed as threat — not the one who has been harmed, but the one bent on harming. She conjures a lineage of threatening archetypes: the harpy and her talons, the witch and her spells, the medusa and her writhing locks. The notion that female anger is unnatural or destructive is learned young; children report perceiving displays of anger as more acceptable from boys than from girls. According to a review of studies of gender and anger written in 2000 by Ann M. Kring, a psychology professor at the University of California, Berkeley, men and women self-report “anger episodes” with comparable degrees of frequency, but women report experiencing more shame and embarrassment in their aftermath. People are more likely to use words like “bitchy” and “hostile” to describe female anger, while male anger is more likely to be described as “strong.” Kring reported that men are more likely to express their anger by physically assaulting objects or verbally attacking other people, while women are more likely to cry when they get angry, as if their bodies are forcibly returning them to the appearance of the emotion — sadness — with which they are most commonly associated.”]
ANDREA BROCCARDO (A) Cover by ROD REIS VARIANT COVER BY DECLAN SHALVEY
L.J.'s Obsessions 