It’s easy to look back at all of the posts I’ve tagged Kylo Ren; there aren’t that many. Which says a lot about my disinterest in him in general. I don’t hate him the way some do, but I’m frankly on the fence about his potential redemption.
There’s a reason for my own uncertainty about Kylo’s redemption, and for one of my friends to declare that Kylo Ren “looks like a weasel and I hope he dies!!!”. (She was hilariously vitriolic! I really didn’t expect it from a woman who barely has time to go to the movies.) TFA just doesn’t present much to the general audience as a reason to sympathize with Kylo, other than his family heritage.
But a lost sister for Ben Solo could generate a lot of compassion. Thinking about the possibilities of Rey and Kylo as siblings these past two months has done more to interest me in his story than anything else in a year and a half.
Assuming that everyone believes that the lost Solo child was dead, then:
How did Ben feel about losing his baby sister when he was just a teenager? What did her loss do to the relationship between Han and Leia, and between parents and surviving child? What chasms were hidden under the surface during those years between the presumed death of “Rey” (whatever her name may have been then) and Ben’s eventual descent into the First Order?
Like many theorists I think the “it” Han was referencing when he told Leia “we both had to deal with it in our own way” was the loss of their daughter. In context, since Leia mentioned she “lost you both” when she sent Ben away, this means she coped by sending Ben to Luke and throwing herself into work while Han left. I can sympathize with how abandoned Ben would have felt–it’s one of the few scenarios where I could feel for him–left to deal with his own grief while his parents were buried in theirs. Like Anakin he may have felt it was his own fault for not being strong enough, opening a path to the Dark Side, while anger at his parents fueled his descent.
Finn, Han and Chewie take cover, Chewie pulling some explosives out of a duffel. Blast doors nearby.
FINN: We’ll use the charges to blow that blast door. I’ll go in and draw fire, but I’m gonna need cover.
HAN: You sure you’re up for this?
FINN: Hell no – I’ll go in find and try to find Rey – (improvising, fast) – The troopers’ll be on our tail. We have to be ready for that. There’s an access tunnel that’ll leads –
made me think about how unique it is that Finn allows himself to be emotionally vulnerable with Han and how it shows how deeply he trusts Han on an emotional level.
Because it sure as hell isn’t something he’s used to doing with an adult, as most if not all adults in Finn’s life so far would have been authority figures who would have condemned him at the very least for such a “weakness” as the one he so readily shows to Han.
Contrast this on how he acts with Phasma, an important adult figure in Finn’s life.
After his return to the Finalizer after the massacre of Tuanul Finn is having a breakdown. He seeks out a private place to have it, knowing that it wouldn’t be an acceptable reaction to have.
As he walks into the darkened corridor he even looks over his shoulder to make sure he’s unobserved and unfollowed before removing his helmet and allowing himself to panic over what just happened.
Enter Phasma.
Finn’s behavior changes the moment she’s there. Despite still very much being traumatized and in a state of panic, he immediately straightens and tries to get a hold of himself. Phasma is not emotionally safe for him, he knows this.
But Han on the other hand has earned Finn’s emotional trust over the course of the story by actions such as:
Thanking Finn for bandaging Chewie. Finn’s reaction here makes it clear that he never expected thanks for it and he’s both pleased and uncertain when Han does.
Not only not condemning Finn when he decides to leave on Takodana, but telling him to keep the blaster rifle he just lent him. This might be a bigger deal to Finn than it appears to be on the surface, remember how afraid Finn still is and how he frantically searched for a weapon on Jakku? By giving him the means to defend himself Han might have been giving Finn a bigger gift – from an emotional perspective – than a blaster rifle might normally seem to be.
Asking Finn if he’s okay after saving his life during the First Order’s attack. Finn is not used to others looking out for him or checking how he’s doing outside of a purely functional perspective. But Han’s concern here has nothing to do with Finn’s ability to perform, it’s purely emotional.
So when Han asks him if “he’s up for this” (i.e. the attack) Finn does something that for him must be very usual, even unique. He lets his highly competent soldier side step aside for a moment and lets Han see the frightened, vulnerable young man that he also is.
It’s only for a moment and then the soldier side of him is back to planning their assault, but that Finn – willingly and knowingly – lets Han see that side of him at all, does nothing to hide it… that says a lot of how much he’s come to trust Han emotionally in the short he’s know him.
It also makes me wonder how losing Han in the way he did, seeing him murdered by his own son, will affect Fin’’s journey going forward.
I HAD NOT EVEN THOUGHT ABOUT THIS OMG and I’m really kicking myself here for fixating on Han and Rey’s bond to the exclusion of the much more understated but also crucial relationship between Han and Finn. Smh at my own sexist and racist biases here.
I agree with all the instances you mentioned, plus there’s also another crucial interaction: when Han saw through Finn’s lie about being a big deal in the Resistance and told him as much but chose to let it slide, even handing Finn a blaster nevertheless.
This is huge for someone who grew up abused. Not only do many victims turn to deception protect themselves, being discovered in a lie is often the ultimate nightmare because you’re now going to be mistreated for the truth you were trying to hide and be punished for lying.
Instead Finn is given a message he probably never had been before: I know you’re lying but I’m not going to pry because I respect your boundaries. I’m sure you have your reasons and you’re smart enough to handle your own business. But you know, just fyi, she’s going to find out. Also have a deadly weapon while we’re at it because why not?
I respect you. I believe in your capabilities. I know you’re a good person. I trust you with my life.
Those four sentences are, at minimum, the basis of a damned good friendship and a solid familial relationship as well. I’m pretty sure most of us can name at least one family member we couldn’t convincingly say all four to.
This also ties together in interesting ways with Finn’s distrust of authority, since Han never approached Finn as any kind of authority except in the sense of being older and more knowledgeable. He treated Finn as an equal, one he trusted and respected, and I think it was just what Finn needed at that point in his life. Han should have taken Finn a little more seriously than he did, though, because Finn was right about there being First Order spies at Maz’s and taking BB-8 out in public was a huge mistake.
I wonder if, in addition to suffering from the loss of Han and feeling a lot of rage at Kylo Ren, Finn will end up adopting some of Han’s style toward those who look up to him? Finn is probably not going to be a conventional authority figure given his experiences and the ways he reacted to them. I think treating those who look up to him as friends and equals, trusting their judgment and letting them make their own mistakes like Han did, would be more suited to who Finn is. I look forward to seeing if his relationship with Rose bears this theory out.
It never sits right with me that Cassian is called a former Separatist. Cassian, as @attackfish pointed out, was born 26 BBY and was at most seven years old when the Clone Wars were over and the Separatists were officially defeated in 19 BBY.
I mean, child Cassian may have thrown rocks and bottles at the Republic military, maybe even tagged along with Separatists to give what help he could, but that alone does not make him an insurgent. It is factually, morally, militarily, legally, and humanly wrong to call a child a combatant when he was being a kid in a community under attack. That’s the kind of rhetoric that gets children murdered.
Flip the script, though. What if this was a story that Cassian spread about himself? What if he himself claimed to have been a Separatist and the story spread? What would he gain from telling such a lie or, at the very least, gross exaggeration?
Well, there’s an element of fear and respect, of course. Maybe his enemies would think twice before tangling with a battle-hardened insurgent. Maybe he wanted his comrades to take him seriously. Maybe he wanted to get into the Rebellion and forged his credentials. (”Oh hey, I used to kill Republic soldiers. Can I get in on this Alliance to Restore the Republic action?”)
You know what I think, though? I think he originally made up that story to lie about his age.
Imagine Cassian at fourteen or fifteen, with nothing more to lose and nothing left for him at home except ruins and grief. He wants to join the Rebels but they’re like, hey um, there’s a little problem. You’re underage, come back when you’re old enough to drink kthxbye
And Cassian, rubbing at a moustache that is totally not makeup and speaking in a falsetto baritone that is totally his natural speaking voice, tells them: HOW DARE U I’M NOT A KID I’M TWENTY-FIVE. I USED TO BE A DANGEROUS SEPARATIST AND I’VE KILLED CLONE TROOPERS FOR LESSER INSULTS IS THIS BECAUSE OF MY HEIGHT I’M SUING FOR EMPLOYMENT DISCRIMINATION
And the Rebel recruitment officer is like… okay…? It’s not like they can pull records to check anyway, even if the records from Separatist planets were all intact.
So young Cassian joins the Alliance, head held high, and the story spreads and becomes part of his mystique. Sure it might not match with some of his other biographical details and his close friends might know it’s bullshit, but the story was useful on multiple levels and he didn’t bother denying it when people asked.
Okay, Finn is a hero for what he did to help lead to the destruction of Starkiller base, but I want to make a very important point.
Poe nailed the critical hit.
Finn and Han and Chewie got the shields down, blew a hole in the walls of the oscillator, created the valuable opening for the resistance.
And Poe flew in there alone and shot up the whole place to actually blow it up. Knowing full well he probably could have died and intentionally flying through explosions to keep shooting up the oscillator.
Starkiller exploded because of Finn and Poe.
What’s more, Poe went in alone because he was losing people there and he HATED it. He explicitly chose to take the greatest risk alone because he couldn’t bear to lose anyone else and he was sure of his skills.
This go-it-alone heroism is a pattern with him, and it is a flaw as well as a strength. When the going gets really tough he chooses to shoulder the risk alone, and while it’s worked out because he is that good (and that lucky–Finn was his fortune😍) there’s no saying this streak will continue. It’s a great quality in a pilot but dangerous in a leader. Maybe that’s a source of the tension between him and Leia, because Leia wants him to succeed and also worries about her boy. Their respective traumas may clash in really interesting ways.
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