ST Kylo Ren and Rey in VIII and IX (See new guidelines on page 228)

I think the challenge for Kylo Ren/Ben Solo boils down to the fact that he is equal parts light and dark. He can't just deny the dark, because it is half of whom he is. He has to find a way to sublimate the dark and accept it as something he can temper but can never destroy. Trying to go Full Monty dark hasn't worked. He still feels torn apart because he is forsaking half of his identity. I suspect he would be equally torn if he tries (or had as an adolescent) to swing the pendulum in the other diriection toward 100% light.

He has to find that elusive balance in the pragmatic middle.

And who knows, maybe that centerpoint isn't evil or bad in any capacity. Maybe it's just balance.

 

It's because he can't embrace the Light in the first act of the trilogy. There's no story in that. It's true. Stories have to go certain not-so-logical way in order to be told. That's why all stories have clichés, tropes, plot holes, etc. they are not real life so they adhere to storytelling rules not to chance. Unlike real life where even best laid out plans don't go according to the plan cause of chance. In storytelling, you can control that and mess with character's plan because you need it to move the story forward not because it happened randomly. In ST case, they don't need Kylo to embrace the Light in TFA so he couldn't. or, they also don't need Rey to meet Poe so she didn't/won't. Etc. It's all plot driven. What the plot needs is what you get.

 

but can anyone please tell me who will play the villain in TLJ? I mean if we get a nice debate club about philosophical questions like 'To be dark side or not to be dark side', this is nice, but not for a Star Wars movie. We need a convincing villain to fight. And if Kylo acts now as a loser....

 

Kylo Ren remains the villain in the Last Jedi, along with Snoke. Do not be so quick to dismiss Kylo as a looser, there is more complexity and depth to his character than you want to admit.
If anything, my guess is that he will be even more dangerous and unpredictable now.

 

I've got no stake in this race.

But my cousin said the same thing when gearing up for RotJ after ESB came out and revealed Vader was Luke's father.


"Who are they going to fight now? Just the bounty hunter guy?"

 

you say he is pulled to the light side and at the same time you say he is the villain. That just don't work for me. I don't want a sympathetic villain. Just give me a normal villain to be destroyed.

 

You can be a villain and you can be conflicted at the same time. By your logic, a hero cannot be a hero if he is feeling the temptation of the dark side.

 

he can be the hero as long as he does not give in to the dark side. Kylo crossed this line for 100% with killing his father.

 

In many movies, things happen precisely because characters behave in the way that doesn't make sense. Someone withdraws an important information from another character and that creates drama. Someone hears some scary sound and goes towards it, ends up dead (this is the much lampooned horror cliché). Many things in TFA happen out of sheer convenience (people find themselves conveniently at the right place at the right time). In fact, Rey running into the forest after experiencing a scary vision, instead of looking for Han and Chewie for comfort, falls into "character does illogical thing to move the story forward". Finn getting sudden cold feet in order to clear the room for Rey's solo journey into the Force is another example of non-sense behavior that comes from the plot demands rather than characterisation.

Also, Kylo's decision isn't supposed to make sense now since we don't know the full story. Unlike Anakin fall that was told in a linear fashion (and also has the all important element of illogic - if he confided in Obi Wan, disaster would be averted, and we wouldn't have the story of the fall), the movie starts with Kylo already a Dark Lord. So how he got there and why will be revealed in sequel(s) and therefore make his actions sensible in retrospect. Or not, depending on whether it's done right.

 

You cannot deny the fact that he regrets it the moment he does it. This is not Anakin who murders room full of kids and carries on to slaughter dozens more. Kylo will never be as strong as Vader. He thinks that by killing Han, he will be full dark, but he is not, and he learns it when Han's body falls into the pit.

 

Snoke. He's the Big Bad of the stroy.

Kylo is the little bad. Little Bads herald the Big Bad. They tend not to be the main threat, but rather the distraction from the true villain. They are also known for switching allegiances and flipping sides. Little Bads often question their role in the story and tend to be conflicted and pragmatic. Little bads tend to also be the villain for only the first arc of the story (in the ST, that would be Kylo Ren in TFA), leaving the role of the villain to be held by the Bigger Bad in the final acts.

A good example of a little bad is Spike to Angelus in the Buffyverse,

There's no way in hell that Kylo Ren is the Big Bad. He can't evil his way out of a wet, paper bag without conflict. Snoke is unmitigated evil.

More information here. Oh look, there's Palps.

Looks like this trope site refers to the Little Bad as "The Heavy." Same sentiments, same argument.

 

Anakin is an interesting case. There's no doubt that he regretted the whole thing, from assisting in Mace demise to killing the Jedi and even Gunray&cronies. But he kept going through it, with tears in his eyes, because he deemed Padme's life worthy of losing 10,000 other lives. he's my favorite character so I'm jumpy when he's dismissed as just a baddie who kills kids with ease. it wasn't easy at all but Padme was everything so here we are.

 

I fully understand this perspective, because it is shared by me as well I merely simplified his case to make a point in my previous statement.

 

I know we have the Kylo fans here, so I better agree to disagree.

 

Is it wrong to be Kylo's fan?

 

I agree. It wouldn’t hurt the movie if they had made the character more logical – and that is usually quickly accomplished by giving him a strong reason behind his motivations

The question “why the hell is he doing this if it causes him so much pain?” is something that ought to be answered in the future just so we can follow the logic behind his actions, because if we can’t follow the logic behind his actions then it’s gonna be hard to sympathize with the character. “Because plot” is not a reason. People still need a more concrete reason to understand the motivations that are driving the character, and the absence of that is what is leading to these fan fantasies of an abused child/abandoned son/extremely stupid emo teen etc to compensate for the lack of narrative logic.

It’s not just a matter of Kylo being an archetype, it’s more that this kind of archetype does not work as well as the original did because the context is different now. Kylo is presented as someone who willingly defected a seemingly peaceful government and rejected the love of a living family to join something that is causing him pain and seemingly goes against his beliefs (murdering, thieving, etc.) – which really makes no sense.

 

yep, I never become a fan of someone who killed his father.

 

ManWithoutAStar I understand. I just think that Kylo's regret is better pointed out when compared to Anakin's regret. We know he regretted killing Han but now's the question where he will go from there. Is the regret going to open his eyes or he'll continue a tearful slaughter like his grandfather? We still don't know the full reasons while Anakin's decision was driven by desire to save Padme's life at any cost, and that included measures she would be completely against. I find it fascinating that he actually believed that Padme would go along



it's as if he didn't know her at all but had some fantasy image of her that he tried to preserve. Love him so much.

 

I agree! His story arc is one of the most interesting aspects of this trilogy to me

It was really heartbreaking to see Anakin become so obsessed and clouded. He commited atrocies in the name of love. As you said, Padme's life was worth more than lives of thousands others. And after submitting himself to the darkness, to all this evil just to gain power to save her, and when she rejected that, it doomed him.

 

In some circles, perhaps.

 

Kylo Ren and Rey in VIII and IX

 

Kylo Ren fans in a Kylo Ren thread. Shocker, I know.

As for "killing his father" as a reason to hate him, I'd like to go on record that Kylo is my favorite character from the ST yet his father is my all time favorite SW character of any genre. So that logic that you put forth is not a hard and fast rule.

 

i buy that line because i think the character said it in earnest. i think that as characters fall towards the dark side, their perceptions become skewed, their emotionality more twisted, etc. they lose clarity of perception, iow. so things that might seem obvious to a person who isn't fallen isn't so obvious to them (nor is it easy to achieve). it's like irl how people get caught in destructive cycles that they can't see the way out of or can't seem to break. it may look easy from an outside perspective, but if that is someone's life, it's actually really, really difficult because of where they are (their perceptions, their mental states, etc. and the brain itself actually changes in response to how one utilizes it, so to "change back" is hard work).

and kylo ren's ideology is obviously extremist and crazy (at least it seems that way to me)... he's a fanatic. so obviously his mind and perceptions are a convoluted disaster. he can't properly see right from wrong.

i don't know if kylo ren's more "true place" is just fully in the light side of the force or finding balance in-between or whatever. i've speculated about both. but it seems he couldn't make the light side work for him and went the other way and now the dark side isn't working for him either. so for the time being, he seems trapped (caught in between). i've speculated before that snoke likes that he is stuck in between and his "guidance" only leads to increasing this conflict and being torn between both sides, for reasons yet to be discovered. i also don't know what sort of abomination will emerge once snoke helps him "complete his training."

regarding rationality, it seems the character makes rational decisions ofc, but is not a very rational person. his actions in the movie often aren't particularly rational and imo reflect being pulled by both sides of the force. so his state of being "torn" is actually *why* he doesn't make rational sense. within the same scene he'll often do things indicating both light and dark: such as killing LST and the villagers (dark) but letting finn go without consequence (light). i maintain that the dark side is 'dominant' in the sense that he is convinced it's the right path and so he tries to make himself more dark and wants to be like darth vader, and because he commits terrible atrocities.

i'm still confused about rey hearing the voice in her head in the novelization to kill kylo and that being snoke as many say... mainly because i don't know if snoke has been crafting a creature of conflict in kylo, or if he really has been just trying to get him to go full dark side (but kylo's inherent conflict doesn't cooperate with that). in the former case, it makes no sense to try to recruit rey to the dark side and to throw out this malformed creature of conflict. but it does make sense in the latter case. (at least to me)

i'm still kind of of the suspicion that rey didn't hear snoke in her mind, but just herself channeling the dark side.

 

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