ST Adam Driver (Kylo Ren) in the ST

Actually this is an identified age of emotional development that the pediatric/adolescent medicine and psychiatric community is viewing as Emerging Adulthood. It is this in between developmental stage between adolescence and adulthood.:

That said, the Age of Majority--18 as recognized in 47 US states--is an arbitrary legal definition created to define adulthood from the following standpoints:

The two are very separate entities.

 

Sure. It's probably a certain point of view type of thing. I'm sure Ben heard what he wanted to hear and made his decision based on the information he had or didn't have.

Luke: Darth Vader killed the Emperor, and brought balance to the Force.
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Snoke: Darth Vader killed the Emperor because of how powerful he was, unfortunately, Force Lightning killed him. Also Anakin Skywalker was weak and had compassion for his son. You need to be stronger than that. You must give yourself fully to the dark side if you are to be my apprentice.

 

I suspect Kylo has the facts especially considering that in TFA novelization Snoke is warning him about how Vader fell due to sentiment.

Kylo asks Luke mockingly on Crait if he had come to save his soul, which seemed to be a reference to Luke saving Vader.

So at least in the present Kylo knows what happened. He for some reason believes what happened was wrong and apparently sees it as Luke destroyed Vader. I mean, Vader went back to the good side and died. All his great potential to um form an ordered galaxy was gone with him--and so Kylo aspires to carry it out for grandpa.

 

@oncafar Yes, but basically we know for sure that Kylo knows that 1. Vader turned 2. About his sentiment and inability to kill his son

Everything is else can be twisted\false. Or not.

I'm just speculating that this can be a reason why Kylo is so antagonistic towards Luke.

 

I think he would know "Luke saved Vader's soul" as well. Though who knows that that means to him.

 

He was ambivalent and possibly resentful of Luke even before Snoke began to present his Vader/Luke myth to him.

When Luke saw what Ben was thinking - the possibilities of assuming his grandfather's mantle, concluding where Anakin went wrong and doing it "right" - and was as convinced of the prescience of Ben's insight as he was of his own. That was the critical short circuit of Luke's emotions with Ben's. Luke momentarily confused where he's gone wrong with Ben with what he actually got right with his father.

 

I said in another thread that I'm sure Adam Driver is nothing like his character, much like kindly Ian McDiarmid is nothing like Palpatine. And thank goodness for that! Lol.

[I don't know how to hide spoils, sorry. But I presume everyone has seen it!]

I don't like Hux. I don't like Ren. But the actors are solid.

 

What exactly do you mean by that Jojo? In what way does the narrative keep telling us that Ben/Kylo is complex and deep?

 

From what it sounds like, he's pretty shy and introverted in real life. But with a good sense of quiet sarcasm.

 

“Look at these horrible, loathesome things Kylo is doing! But aww lookit him, the poor kicked puppy...CONFLICT!!!!” Etc etc.

It’s sending “He’s sympathetic!” signals without showing us the stuff narratives typically show the audience when it’s trying to get you to think kindly of a bad guy (or “bad guy”). Dear lord, we don’t even get a solo clip of Kylo angsting over Han (though we get a clip of Luke doing so); we are simply told he is by Snoke.

Not to mention the sympathetic scenes of Kylo cut from TFA and TLJ.

The end result is a bevy of mixed messages to audiences, making Kylo a very divisive character.

Either LFL, JJ, and RJ are all wildly incompetent, or they have a Plan and Reasons (even if it’s not a perfect plan or the best of reasons). I find the latter far more likely, and I think the divisiveness has been intentional. If you love Kylo, you’re reacting as intended. If you hate Kylo, you’re reacting as intended.

 

I didn't get the feeling that the archetypal bad kid who maintains victim-hood to avoid acknowledging the wrong that he's doing is narrative telling us he is sympathetic. It's just a position that will, by certain degrees, be upheld and/or undermined in the final analysis of his character's story.

Sympathy is always a judgement on the part of the sympathiser. And not one that's necessarily rational. I'm not sympathetic towards Ben. But I'll keep an open mind due to the complexity that we have been given enough glimpses of so far.

I actually felt that the murder of his father, particularly, Driver's (and Ford's) performance in that scene, and in the resultant defeat to Rey in the forest, are the definition of Kylo's complexity so far.

Ben's stoicism in the face of Snoke's narration of that episode is carried over from his attempt to claim that Han meant nothing to him. Ben though that Han, killing him that is, meant proving himself to Snoke and having his choices validated in the process. Neither was the case, which is what prompted his actions in TLJ .

A character's complexity can be defined by the complexity of the dilemma they are faced with too.

Complexity doesn't necessarily mean good/bad. The tendency, when character or concept is complex, is to pick a side. (Which is precisely what Ben has done.) I don't believe it's necessary to do that. Or for a complex character to be bad but have you rooting for them anyway.

 

Yeah, I never really found him sympathetic.

 

You’re right - Kylo is neither pure evil (“Rey’s gonna cut his head off - good riddance!!”) or mere victim whose crimes can be excused, justified, or hand-waved away ( #bensolodidnothingwrong). Yet I see a great deal of both extreme positions floating about.

Kylo Ren has yet to be adaquately explained in the context of him being a “sympathetic villain on a redemption arc.” I was rather shocked at his depiction in TLJ. The only positive things he does is kill Snoke (which was partly to save Rey but also in large part due to his hatred of Snoke) and declined to fire on Leia (which I give him no props for because in all other respects in the movie he was directly or indirectly trying to anahilate her and everyone she cared about). What, no brief moment of showing Kylo being kind to a droid? No cute lil Ben Solo flashbacks? No demonstation of remorse for killing Han?

This is a kids’ movie. Subtext is not an adaquate substitute for actually showing us this stuff. I am judging Kylo’s depiction in the proper context and find it lacking. I personally think it does a disservice to the character and is one of my top reasons for thinking there needs to be a 4rth movie. In many Kylo fans’ minds, he’s essentially redeemed already. But just because one finds a character sympathetic does not make him adaquately sympathetic as a character in the story. If LFL didn’t want many people to loathe Kylo at this point, they wouldn’t. Making a villain sympathetic and likeable to the majority of the audience, and blunting possible hatred of the character, is not hard. I don’t think those sympathetic scenes were removed because JJ and RJ thought, “Eh, everyone will root for him anyway!”

I feel that Kylo’s portreyal is often analyzed as if the ST were some multi-season TV show, like Buffy and Avatar, which allows for very gradual redemption arcs for villains. Kylo has been given (likely) 3 fast-paced ensemble movies to achieve redemption and - hopefully - regain a modicum of sanity. I believe Kylo will be redeemed, but because of strong literary foreshadowing (as I feel the dialogue in these movies is very revealing, though not discussed nearly as much as I think it should be) and because he’s Han and Leia’s son, not because I see him having been portrayed onscreen as having any redeeming (no pun intended) qualities. (I’m sure he must have them, but - again - I think that’s being saved for 9).

To be clear - I love Kylo as a villain (and Adam’s acting is awesome), but I feel frustrated as a viewer because I feel that I’m being *told* he’s a sympathetic villain on a redemption arc without the sort of corresponding depiction that’s standard for such archetypes (for very good reasons). I also feel perplexed by insistance that there’s nothing more we need to learn about Kylo’s past, or that no questions remain as to, y’know, why Kylo is evil (remembering that we got 2 whole movies dedicated to answering that question re Anakin...).

I want to love Kylo as a redeemable villain. I was more certain he’d get a robust, emotional redemption arc in TLJ than I was re anything else in the film. I’m sure they have a decent reason to delay (and, in fact, I’m quite confident that I understand said resson) but I find my patience tried when I see fans acting as if everything is perfectly comprehensible from TFA+TLJ and there’s no substantive context to expect in 9. I find such a view nonsensical. (Not that my frustration should matter to anyone but myself, but I hope it helps explain my terseness.)

 

I agree with you in what I bolded as that has been my issue with Kylo all along. I've been told through narrative from other characters for two films now that he's supposed to be conflicted or sympathetic but he was not adequately written or depicted that way IMO for me to board that train. I just don't see it. From my understanding most people don't think they need to see more about his past since the novels have blamed Snoke and or his parents for it or the films blaming Luke/Snoke.

 

And frankly, we should not have to read a companion book to get a grasp of wtf they’re doing with a major pov character.

Which is why I expect it in 9.

(I tend to think it far more likely that a ?? decision was made due to questionable judgement rather than to utter irrationality. I trust that there’s a method to the madness, even if I personally think it should have been handled in a different way.)

 

I just don't see how the film could be "telling" us to be sympathetic about an unsympathetic character.

He is portrayed as conflicted. He's prepared to do anything to resolve the conflict and winds up doing unsympathetic things that compound his downward slide. But it does also suggest that the desire to resolve the conflict could see him do things that are relatively sympathetic. Like destroying Snoke. Not killing his mother.

When the choices he makes stop being purely self serving, then he will have earned our sympathy. It will be vindication of Han and Leia.

 

By sending signals classically associated with a character the narrative wishes us to consider sympathetic without actually giving us much reason to feel he’s actually a good person.

Yes, he’s “conflicted.” But since we aren’t actually given a motivation - much less an understandable motivation! - for him being evil in the first place, “conflict” =/= “sympathetic.” “Conflict” tends to = “sympathetic” when a narrative shows us a “good” reason for the character’s actions.

And no, I don’t think what we’ve been told thus far even comes close.

Wtf did Snoke do to turn a decent kid into a psycho capable of murdering his father in cold blood? Why on earth is Kylo so terrified of never being as “strong” as Darth Vader? “Awww he just feels really hurt and is lashing out” is an adaquate motivation for a teenaged character who, say, takes his dad’s starship on a joyride and gets in trouble. Kylo’s crimes are a whole ‘nother level.

I can’t fathom the idea that it’s not important for the viewer to understand this stuff. I can’t recall any other story I’ve encountered that didn’t consider it important.

 

It's not psychopathy/psychosis.

Snoke turned Ben's family into his enemies. Made a virtue of being merciless in pursuit of a destiny he became convinced was being denied him, at best, or that he could be killed before fulfilling (which Luke tragically appeared to confirm in his mind).

The resistance is not in the mainstream. It's marginalised. Ben has learned that he comes from a heritage that once featured at the pinnacle of a pan galactic society while his destiny appeared to be mired in the conflict that defined his parents generation and which brought about the current limbo state of affairs. Snoke has seduced him with the chance to resolve that conflict by fulfilling his grandfather's legacy.

Ben's inner conflict is a reflection of the tensions that linger from the fall of the Empire.

Without actually making you sympathetic to Kylo Ren, or absolving him, the misguidedness of it all, the affinity with the ancient concept of the sins of the father being visited on their son(s), indicates the potential for the character to be guided back to some degree of redemption.

I think the audience understands what it needs to if it can conceive of the factors and circumstance at play in making a young man rebel against his parent's generation and against them personally. It's not entirely necessary to provide a watertight case for Han and Leia's compassion to be endorsed implicitly by the audience before Ben does anything unambiguously sympathetic.

 

I was using “psycho” colloquially. But - as Snoke states - Kylo is “unalanced.” Which is, imo, pretty key.

A narrative should not require that the audience guess at the main characters’ possible motivations. A lot of what I hear said about Kylo is - frankly - headcanon interpolated from bits and pieces of actual canon. Reasonable interpretations. But not established canon. [The movies themselves haven’t given us much about Kylo’s inner life other than “conflict” and being strangely drawn to Rey (whom, I believe Adam recently said in an interview, he finds oddly “familiar”)].

Which is fine. We all do it to some degree. But we shouldn’t *have* to do it. Especially for a villain being sold as more than a 2-d evil toon, like Palps in RotJ.

 

I don't think there is any guessing regarding his motivation "...I will finish what you started [Grandfather]"

 

That’s not his motivation. His motivation = why he wants to finish what Vader started (which is...???...presumably something more than killing the last Jedi?).

Without that, he might as well be a prettier Palps

 

Ben hasn't had the benefits of watching all the movies to show him how misguided that is.

 

It seems Snoke got A+ in History and decided that there is no better way to get ultimate power and victory in the galaxy than destroy somebody who saved it from the Empire last time. Luke Skywalker and Jedi.

So basically Snoke decided not to repeat Palpatine's mistakes. Corrupted young Skywalker and paid special attention to his relationship with his family - because the last time it was family who saved Vader and destroyed Palpatine.

Snoke destroyed Jedi from the inside and destroyed Skywalker's family from the inside. Turning Ben is good plan because Luke Skywalker won't kill his family. Turning Ben by illusion that his own family want to kill him is jackpot. After this it's easier to manipulate Kylo. I won't be surprised if Snoke is the one who manipulated events that night in the hut.

The one who controls Skywalker is the one who owns the Galaxy and all that jazz.

Sorry JoJo, but I don't believe that Snoke can't recognise Rey as Skywalker, that they will play Luke dirty like this if he didn't say Rey this (even for the most noble reasons) and don't believe that they will go mainstream with sex jokes after Iger approved the script for IX. They have marketing plan for all such things and Story Group started talking openly about Rey\Kylo only after JJ went with story to Disney. Also, can't believe that you guys on SCouncil didn't discuss that scream from interrogation scene before, it was basis for many ReySky and ReyRandom theories.

 

There’s obviously quite a bit Snoke doesn’t know

Nah, didn’t notice that scream then. But now that we’ve heard the scream again, and in what contexts, and with the other screams...it’s far more relevant.

And yes, I believe RJ was in pretty bad taste. Then again, the Reylos seem to be the only fan contingent over the moon about his movie. *shrug* Cynical.

ETA: Oh lord that reminds me of Mark’s Luke/Leia joke...