There should absolutely be some mysterious reason why Rey can’t kill Kylo. She can knock him out, defeat him for the moment but she can’t end him. And the only one who can should be Finn. and NO it’s not bc Rey’s in love with Kylo, you nasties, it should all be some crazy Force related mumbo jumbo!
Rey’s the Zuko in this narrative, at least in that narrow sense–Zuko passed on a clear chance to kill his asshole father Luke Ozai, saying that was Aang’s job as the Avatar. Rey herself in the novelization knew that it was not the will of the Force that she kill Kylo Ren (and no, she felt nothing for him lol). It would be cool if Finn is the Aang in this scenario who has the legitimacy and the will of the Force behind him to end Kylo Ren–or better yet, pull an actual Aang and strip the asshole of his Force powers. Remember how I keep raving about how Finn might be Force immune? Imagine if he could turn that on its head and take away another Force user’s powers…
God I hate the “too well adjusted to be traumatized/an abuse survivor” argument. Apart from the clear racist bias there I hate it because it dismisses any survivor who’s coping mechanisms aren’t overtly destructive or self-destructive.
Just because Finn’s coping mechanisms doesn’t involve throwing tantrums, assaulting or screaming at people, doesn’t mean he doesn’t display clear coping with trauma, or that he isn’t traumatized by what the FO did to him or that he grew up in a very abusive environment.
For one thing he’s clearly compartmentalizing the hell out of his life and he also seems to use goal orientation as a coping strategy to avoid dealing too much with the chaos that is inside of him. But that chaos and his emotions does overflow at times.
But then he’s right back to coping again. Every time one of his goals are achieved he tries to pick up a new one. It is so damn obvious. And yes it helps move him (and the plot) along, but that’s because he is in action oriented situations so far.
But that doesn’t mean it isn’t coping mechanisms and that these might become bad in the long term. It could be interested to see what Finn ‘sans goal’ for a lengthy period would do to deal. We’ve already seen him when his compartments bled and how that makes him panic.
But non-destructive coping mechanisms – self or otherwise – doesn’t mean “well adjusted”, doesn’t mean “not traumatized” or “less traumatized”. It just means “the way this person copes fits their current situation, but that doesn’t minimize the pain and trauma they’ve suffered”
I could easily have continued here because Finn displays far more than just this. But I felt my twitter novel was long enough and I hate the character limit on that platform.
So yeah, apart for the obvious racist bias in the argument in displaying a complete lack of ability to emphasize with a Black man’s pain, people who do this have also just dismissed every single “good survivor” out there who’s coping mechanisms aren’t openly maladjusted.
But to reiterate. Coping in ways that aren’t overtly damaging to self or others doesn’t mean a person was less abused or is less suffering/was less harmed/is less in pain from what they were put through. It just means that they’ve found coping strategies that aren’t openly harmful to others and not immediately harmful to themselves either.
Though Finn’s methods of compartmentalizing and picking goals to avoid dealing with his emotional chaos and pain can easily long term come back to bite him in the ass and become maladjusted and harmful. But for the time being they have helped him along rather than hindered him.
And you know, that’s what coping evolves to do. Help you in a situation where everything is fucked up.
Did you have a favourite character to write in the new ‘Star Wars’ generation of characters?
Alan Dean Foster: There is always a favourite. Obi-Wan Kenobi is that one, but I really like Rey. I think she is a good central character, I think I may write her differently in some ways, but any writer would probably say that, otherwise you’d just have clones of the original writer. She is interesting and resourceful and hopefully her background will be developed in different ways and in more detail. I would have gone a different way with her in the recent film, but a lot of people would say that.
I also like the character of Finn, he is very under developed and there is an enormous amount of potential there for his character. His character harks back to the people in the German army fighting who disagreed with what was going on, but I think there is a lot of internal conflict there that needs to be explored other than just kind of using him, as you will, occasional comic relief and he seems to be a filler right now. We don’t know what he is thinking or what is going on and he just exists to advance the plot at certain points. I think he is a much more interesting character than that.
Wow, even Alan disagrees with how they’ve been treated lately. Isn’t that something?
He was writing for them both. It’s probably disappointing to see Finn get sidelined and Rey be reduced to someone who torrents her abilities.
Interesting if even the writers didn’t like TLJ. Wasn’t John Williams also not fond of TLJ?
He stated at least once that he doesn’t believe TLJ’s treatment of Rey’s backstory is the real deal. What’s worth noting is that after TFA he stated that he believed Luke was her father. While I’m not too invested in that idea anymore, I do want something better than the inconsistent, pointless and lazy answer that TLJ gave us.
Mark Hamill said that JJ’s version of Episode VIII was “much different” than Rian’s version. Daisy said that JJ had developed an outline and ideas for VIII that Rian pretty much tossed aside. It speaks for itself honestly.
Also to further answer your question, Oscar, Mark, Daisy, and both Johns have voiced some form of criticism(s) against TLJ.
I love animals and I believe in equality and fair treatment for all living things, but the fact that enslaved Troopers who were stolen from their families at a young age takes no priority, not only with the movies but with the fandom as well, disturbs me.
People actually watched Finn confess that him and fuck knows how many more were taken from their families and forced into a terrorist organization.
I’ve seen many people say “Finn doesn’t seem too broken up about.” Newsflash, asshole! Every single Trooper since the Clone Wars was trained to ignore any feelings and focus on the objective at hand and the First Order Stormtroopers were trained by the complete monster Brendol Hux who wanted to copy the Clone Troopers way of training the FO’s future soldiers. Just because Finn refused to fire on surrendering, crying, defenselesscivilians, doesn’t mean he’s not going to defend himself against people trying to kill him or drag him back to that hell.
Worst of all Finn, and many other Troopers like him, wanted to be good soldiers in the FO’s army. What broke Finn was the senseless murder of innocent life, not because he cared about the New Republic, it’s because he hadn’t been brainwashed into a monster yet.
The Stormtroopers were either taken from their homes at a young age, born into it the First Order, or were blindly recruited young from horrible living conditions.
If there is any victims on the side of the First Order, it’s the Stormtroopers that everyone from the writers to the fandom treat as canon fodder, even though the co-protagonist of the sequel trilogy was a Stormtrooper.
It’s not just animals, either. They’re talking about DROID liberation in the franchise now and still no peep about Stormtroopers.
Rey: You’re right, Finn’s lips do look like they’re as soft as Felucian cloudbread …
Chewie: [statement in Shyriiwook]
Rey: I know! Those shirts definitely show off his amazing shoulders. That was the first thing I noticed on Crait. Well, one of the first things.
Chewie: [declaration in Shyriiwook]
Rey: Well, we haven’t had any time alone for me to tell him that yet, but … I will. It just has to be the right moment. I can’t just blurt it out like a kriffhead, you know?
Chewie:
Rey: Do I know where Finn is now? Well the last time I saw him, he was talking to General Organa. Why?
:’) For Finnrey Fridays’ Languages theme, done on commission by the amazing @goldengrimoire3!
While I want a Stormtrooper Rebellion, it’s basically became the go to sole character arc for Finn for people who don’t really put him in the greater scope of things. I want to see Kylo and Finn meet again because they are clear foils to each other. They’re journey began in TFA and it should end IX.
As for Rey, even if Kylo is her cousin, the forced foil TLJ was trying to push just didn’t seem organic. I want Rey on the action, but watching her fight Kylo for the 3rd movie in a row isn’t interesting just because we’ve already seen multiple times that she’s stronger. I hope JJ knows what to do with her.
The problem with Rey is that unlike Finn, she never followed the basic writing elements of the hero’s journey in the first place and by TLJ Johnson just used her as a plot device. Finn wasn’t utilized in TLJ, but that was also his saving grace. You can’t break what you don’t use.
If anything, I think a Finn and Rey vs Kylo and KOR fight would look cool, but JJ will have to put some type of emotion on it to prevent throne room scene part 2.
This is my wish now: Finn and Rey vs. Kylo and the KOR but us getting to know the KOR beforehand. But Finn vs. Kylo and Rey and Luke fighting Snoke sounds like a cool idea too. Anything but a duel where Rey and Kylo are alone.
I really hope the KOR are actually developed in IX and not just villain canon fodder like the twirling lobsters.
This is really the last chance the characters have to define themselves.
In conjunction with your idea that the FO will be at civil war and mine that the KoR will be acting as enforcers to crush internal dissent–what if Finn and Rey and the others’ early missions involve taking out the KoR so that discontented factions of the FO can rebel?
It still bothers me that Kylo Ren never used the Force against Finn. I mean, we’re talking about the guy who’s been shown doing this
and this
and this
also this
and so much more to his enemies and even people who just kind of annoyed him in the moment. The dude has oodles of Force power and is not at all shy about throwing it around. Other Force users are not immune, as shown with Rey who is even more powerful than he is.
So why, in his fight against Finn at the end of TFA, did Ren never even try to use the Force? Finn went running to an unconscious Rey after Ren knocked her out. Finn had even thrown his blaster aside, not that blasters work against Ren as Poe found out at the start of the movie. Why didn’t Ren throw Finn against a tree, too, or lift him into the air and choke him? That’s more like the guy’s usual MO.
Instead Ren not only dueled Finn but even resorted to punching him after disarming him, which had viewers commenting that his animosity against Finn seemed very raw and personal. It is true that Ren seems to have a personal beef against Finn (link), but again, the new Supreme Leader of the First Order has never been hesitant to use Force power against people regardless of how well he knew them or how strongly he felt about them. He revels in making people, from total strangers to hated rivals, helpless with his power. So why not Finn?
My hypothesis is that there’s another layer to Ren’s animosity against Finn beyond the usually-discussed ones of Finn defecting and making the opposite choices he did, and Ren’s hatred being the manifestation of his regrets. That’s a valid point and I have argued it myself (link), but what if there’s something more immediate and visceral going on?
Let’s go back to that moment in the village near the beginning of TFA, when Ren stared for a long moment at Finn before he turned away. He then unfreezes Poe’s blaster beam to strike a pole Finn was standing near, startling him and showering him with sparks.
This is an amazing theory that would add a whole new layer to the lore. It fits perfectly with what we saw in TFA. The only time (iirc) in TLJ Finn was in a Force scene was when Rey moved the boulders. She wasn’t using it on him, of course. He was able to run through it though. 🤔
Thank you! And speaking of that scene, this part where the rocks are moving out of Finn’s way is odd when I look at it now:
Some have said Finn was using the Force to move them out of his way, and others have said Rey cleared them herself. While I love the former theory, I don’t think the movement of the rocks fits either version of events.
For one thing, Force telekinesis has never looked like that as far as I know. Even extremely powerful Force users like Yoda or Kylo Ren have had to reach out, both with the Force and physically, and concentrate in order to move heavy objects.
It’s true Snoke was able to move Rey around quite a bit without hand-reaching, and Kylo Ren had to move Anakin’s lightsaber without reaching out because he was disguising his intentions. But when the effort became strenuous and stealth was no longer needed, as when Kylo Ren strove with Rey for control of the lightsaber, he was right back to physical reaching.
So if this was Finn moving the rocks, then he was doing something unprecedented as a Force user, particularly a first-time user moving heavy objects. He’s putting in less effort and focus than experienced Jedi Masters and moving the rocks practically unconsciously.
Now while I would love this to be true, the movement of the rocks also doesn’t look right for a Force push. Force-pushed or pulled objects tend to move with velocity matching their mass. So a small object like a lightsaber can zip through the air with a Force push or pull, while large and heavy objects pushed or pulled against gravity move more ponderously. These rocks around Finn fly like small objects rather than the large and heavy ones they are. It’s been pointed out that they move in tandem with Finn’s own movements–again, not how Force push has been shown to work at all.
For the same reasons it doesn’t look like Rey was moving the rocks either. On the first point, focus, her concentration was on holding the rocks in the air in a floaty way, not throwing them around in a pushy way. Her hand stayed in the same position throughout until she dropped it on seeing Finn and the Resistance, and she didn’t show the kind of physical movement that would indicate she was clearing away only part of the rocks for Finn and the others. The second point of velocity holds as true for her as it does for Finn–the rocks move too quickly compared to their mass, even setting aside the difficulty of doing this while she’s focused on keeping most of them in the air.
And in fact, when Rey does break concentration and lower her hand the Force telekinesis effect is gone and the rocks all fall, showing that she did in fact need the focus aided by hand movement to keep them in the air. The emotion on her face, the little sob as she starts toward Finn, the way she walks like she’s dreaming oh my heart
So a fully plausible interpretation of this scene is that neither Finn nor Rey was moving the rocks, at least not consciously. Know what the movement of the rocks is consistent with, though? If they were being repelled by something–like a Force-resistant field around Finn, maybe? That would explain why it didn’t take any effort or concentration on Finn’s part, and why the rocks were moving in time to Finn and away from him.
Yeah it’s interesting how there’s always a reason to find Finn boring, unsympathetic, and unrealistic. He’s too perfectly good or too violently bloodthirsty, too childishly naïve or too aggressively sexual, too emotionally healthy to be realistic or too emotionally broken to be romantic (not with Rey, that is–because evidently Rose is perfectly safe with a creepy obsessive stalker). If there’s one thing I’ve learned in fandom it’s that a Black character will never be good enough for fandom, often for wildly contradictory reasons.
So this is why Mandalorian Finn makes most sense to me and is my favorite Finn theory.
First it makes sense that the First Order would use Mandalorians for their Stormtroopers. Mandalorians are infamous as warriors throughout the Galaxy and even the predecessors of the Stormtroopers were cloned from a Mandalorian. They even went to war against the Jedi which ain’t exactly small potatoes. And they were a pain in the ass for the Empire too.
Secondly with Mandaloriansspread out across the Galaxy, it still keeps things open for Finn to be from another planet like Jehda. I mean both Luke and Liea are ethnically Naboo but grew up on different planets.
Also it opens the possibility that Finn is a descendant of the only Mandalorian Jedi, Tarre Viszla. Which means he could lead a Stormtrooper rebellion and unite the Mandalorians to join the Resistance. And we’ve already established how bad that would be for the First Order.
But you know what’s even more terrifying than a Mandalorian? A Force Sensitive Mandalorian. What’s even more terrifying than that? A Force Sensitive Mandalorian that was enslaved and trained to be an elite soldier and now wants nothing more than to protect the people he loves.
Love the Mandalorian Finn theories!
And while Tarre Viszla was the first Mandalorian to join the Jedi Order, there had been Jedi who deflected from the Jedi Order to join the Mandalorians against the Republic!
Oh! I did not know that! That is cool!
OP did you just casually combine my two favorite Finn parentage theories, Mandalorian Finn and Jedhan Finn?! Given how steeped Jedha is in Force lore, Mando Finn who is also a Jedhan would have a direct pipeline to both the military and Force sides of the story. *dies of excitement*
*Reanimates* And yes, the FO should fear the Mandos and Republic (or Republic-adjacent, who the hell knows at this point) uniting. The Mandalorians and Republic worlds would crush the FO if they can work past their historical animosity, and if there’s one thing that could make Mandos work as one with the Republic it would be rage at the discovery that slavers have been stealing their children.
L.J.'s Obsessions 