ST Rey & Kylo Ren in Episode IX

*Shrug* if they wanted to make the ST center on The Tragedy and Redemption of Ben Solo they wouldn’t have structured the ST the way it did. As it is, there are two protagonists with no ties to Kylo other than having been hurt/abused by him.

If Rey can be the central character of the ST without being a Skywalker (and ofc I firmly believe she is one), then apparently being a Skywalker in the Saga isn’t as important as one may think it is.

 

I think the ST does center on the fall and redemption of Ben Solo but it is being done very differently than in past stories. Vader's turn was very sudden and he died afterward. Ben, I think, will gradually turn away from the dark side and live.

I consider Rey and Ben to be central to the ST and I think Rey will become part of the Skywalker/Solo family.

 

*pops out of lurking mode*

Catching up; I don’t post much but like reading everyone’s thoughts, y’all are awesome & have interesting stuff to say. Even if I don’t agree w/certain stuff, it’s all food for thought that makes me excited for 9, whatever happens.

I wish we’d get info as to the Resistance & FO’s endgame should one defeat the other & vice versa. Clearly FO = bad , likely to impose a gov. akin to Sheev’s, & Resistance = good. I’m all aboard the Ben Solo redemption train, but I wish we knew what they’d do differently, to not repeat the mistakes of the PT gov. & New Republic, that’d actually WORK. Because as it stands, other than his connection to ma & pa, their devotion to the cause, what’s his stake in helping the Resistance? Even with his connection to Rey, I don’t see that being enough to motivate him to help. ☹️

If Kylo/Ben has political know-how (hey he might even if he’s awful at it ) &/or inherits stuff from Leia (if she’s dead in it & not retired or something; I imagine $$$, secret bases, idk )&/or connections to powerful/wealthy figures in the galaxy not tied to the FO or Resistance currently (& our Resistance friends have no clue of) from Han’s travels & Leia’s connections, hell even force-knowing folks &/or planets from his days traveling with Uncle Luke, imo these are great assets he’d bring to the Resistance, were he to help them destroy the FO. W/the fastest (omg they better keep the force bond alive lol) way of contacting the Resistance through Rey, this could be good way to tie them together again. It also lessens the issue of Rey not telling Resistance leadership about her & Ben’s force bond: “wtf didn’t you tell us about this connection this whole time?! Wait he’s got connections to who/where/what omg that could actually work to take down the FO.”

Also, now that Uncle Wanwo is back, having Rey & Ben contact him separately or together for support, Lando playing both of them cause he wants to help the Resistance & also smack Kylo for murdering Han, would be a cool way to add him to the story imo.

Sorry for the rambles. Didn’t realize I had that much in me.

 

The ST focuses primarily on Rey’s journey, and secondarily on Kylo’s.

And if anyone thinks a Saga trilogy must center primarily on a Skywalker, then the answer isn’t that it must center on Kylo.

 

I don't agree that Ben is a secondary focus in the plot of this trilogy. Luke went into exile because of what happened with his nephew, not his "daughter". Han and Leia were separated for years because they were grieving the loss of their son, not their "niece". I could go on, but the point is that Ben Solo and the circumstances of his fall/redemption are very much central to the story. Rey is his equal in the Force and they have a strong connection that has allowed them to understand and relate to each other. I don't see their journeys as two parallel lines destined never to cross. I think they care about each other and their paths will ultimately bring them together, as allies or more.

 

In the context of the story, specifically, Rey is the primary protagonist.

At the moment, the nature of Kylo’s place in the narrative is clear. Rey’s is not - yet.

(“You have no place in this story” - pure meta, and really not to be taken as truth, which should be clear because he also called her “nothing,” which is just absurdly wrong.)

Why is Rey in this story? What’s her connection to the Skywalker family drama? Wtf was up with the Luke/Rey dynamic in TLJ and why did RJ call the Luke/Rey relationship - not Rey/Kylo - the beating heary of the movie?

And why does the narrative depict her as, essentially, a Skywalker in all but name (yet)?

Of course Rey’s and Kylo’s destinies are intertwined. But this isn’t a BatB story; it’s structured completely differently. But if one focuses on the Rey/Kylo relationship to the exclusion of the broader context, or believe that stories like Pride & Prejudice are more relevant to figuring out the ST than, say, the SW canon, I think that sort of tunnel vision will lead one astry re speculating about how the ST will end.

 

This trilogy’s Force story IS the tragedy of the Fall of Ben Solo. To say he isn’t a central character when he is r last Skywalker is laughable at best.

 

I still hope Kylo will not turn to the Light side.He is pure. He should be made to show that Dark side is also pure, and the integral part of the nature of the Force.
I think redemption of Kylo will spoil it .
I hope there is intellectual power in story group to notice Kylo has oportinity to make purge of the filth form the Galaxy, destroy criminals, Hutts, Hux and enemies of the peace like that on Canto-Bight and and this will be his true redemption but he should stay on the dark side to the end.Of course this would imply he dies at the end.But it would be a good death.
Rey should have been another Skywalker, light sided for this to work .
In reality , I know its inevitable we are going to get, very likely, ReyLo.While it looks superficially OK it will spoil Kylo's potential and his character and make Rey desert child bride.

 

In reality, adult women are not child brides.

 

Nobody said he isn’t *a* central character.

But he isn’t *the* central character. The trilogy isn’t primarily about him. Look at the marketing. Look at the screen time. Look at the amount of narrative focus on each character. Look at each character’s motivations (oh, wait...we don’t even know what Kylo’s are...). Heck - Kylo doesn’t even have a full theme track.

Rey is the “Luke Skywalker” of the ST in that she is the primary protagonist and *the* central character. Kylo is the “Darth Vader,” albeit he is more of a POV character than Vader was and the narrative appears to want only half the audience to loathe him, vs the entire audience with Vader.

Although I’m curious about your characterization, because Ben Solo fell prior to the events of the ST. Are you saying you believe that the ST’s narrative is being driven by the backstory and postulate that we’ll learn more about same? At the moment, Ben’s fall is clearly a tragedy for his family and the galaxy, but it’s less clear why he himself should be viewed as more than, say, a mass murderer/school shooter/radicalized privilaged youth who is pitiable in that he was manipulated by an older evil figure but who is still, fundamentally, a villain himself and, in fact, retains the ability to make good decisions instead of awful ones but makes awful ones anyway. Some think Kylo just tries to be villainous but really was never cut out for it; some thinks he’s a villain crafted to reflect the fears of the modern age, and who - in a frighteningly realistic fashion - perpetuates the abuses he himself was subject to, thinking he is right to do so (“a cur’s weakness, properly manipulated, can be a sharp tool”).

(I *am* curious. I have maintained that there’s some tragic catalyst event in Ben’s past - whether or not it has anything to do with Rey or who her parents are - that we have yet to learn about. From what I’ve seen, some Rey Unrelated theorists agree, while others insist that the films are done with his past and nothing more needs to be told regarding his fall. From your characterization I’d be inclined to think you fall into the former camp?)

 

Good points. I especially like your idea of the protagonists capturing him first and the Knights assuming temporary leadership in his absence. That could be interesting. A few extra elements to consider:

1) The Knights were introduced alongside Kylo Ren in the Forceback & have been referenced in TLJ as well. Theres only been a week of time passed over both movies so their return to a different leader that they know oh to well could be explained in the opening crawl. There’s already an air of mystery surrounding how they’ve been seen & talked about but not yet heard. In some ways it reminds me a little of the talk about the Winter Soldiers. In that film they were being presented as the big bad but the twist was that the ploy was to get the heroes to fight each other. This would be like that without such a twist.



2) They literally can match and exceed Kylo’s worst known acts fairly easily by doing the following:

A) Showing us a flashback to the temple night from the perspective of the other knight and new big bad. Have him literally suggest to Luke, “Master Luke. I heard Ben plotting something awful. He’s not himself!” And be the one who pushed Luke to check in on Ben. Show that young man smile as Luke tells him he’ll investigate and that everything will be okay. Then have that young man telling Snoke “It’s done and should proceed as you foresaw.”

B) Ben Solo ends up being covered in his own rubble with Luke. Both are KO’d. The new bad kills more of the students.

C) Ben Solo rises and argues with the new bad about what’s happened. Snoke communicates with both & tells them they shouldn’t be fighting. Ben Solo gets the leader role as the grandson of Vader. New bad is resentful. Suddenly the story is a tiny bit closer to politician Palpatine being active behind the scenes while the audience doesn’t know of him as the main threat until closer to the end.

D) New bad works with Hux. I think you’re underestimating the comeback story for Hux here. He was battered by both Snoke & Kylo Ren but that doesn’t make him incapable of being sneaky or working with the Knights. It gives him more motivation and a mini arc or being near the top and capable, smacked around & humbled, and then vengeful and back near the top as he gets to do to Kylo Ren what Kylo did to him in VIII.

E) New bad challenges Ben on what really happened versus Snoke. All of the Knights collectively mind torture Kylo Ren as one and extract what really happened, his feelings for his mom and his feelings for Rey & how they killed Snoke together.

5) New bad kills Leia. All she has to do is be written as recovering in a Bacta tank in the plot and written as still alive and one of this new bad’s first acts is destroying that facility. Leia dies. Suddenly, this new bad due to the temple massacre being more their doing and by killing Leia is hated more than Ben. What’s more he’s more of a threat to Rey and the movement. Not only cause he’d be made pure evil but because he could tell the Resistance that their story of Rey the Snoke killer is a lie and that he was killed by a backstabbing traitor who’s been dealt with & that their hero is a false idol. The fragile allies ask if it’s true and Rey admits she worked with Ben Solo. Suddenly, she’s less respected than before and the resistance has a setback in momentum and Finn & Poe don’t see her quite as perfect as they once did.

Story practically writes itself from there.

 

Whatever tiny distinction you're trying to push here doesn't really matter, IMO. There are two central characters in the Force plot as I see it. Rey is the heroine and we see things unfold from her POV, but it is the past and uncertain future of Ben Solo that created the actual conflict in the story. He is the last remaining Skywalker of the saga so far and that fact alone makes him central.

Your claim that the trilogy isn't about Ben Solo falls apart when you take the central plot and backstory into consideration. Rey doesn't come into that until the events of TFA. She had lived alone on Jakku for many years and she has no history or relation to the Skywalkers. Her family are evidently scumbags who dumped her, and it had nothing to do with the bigger things going on in the galaxy. There is no known link with Snoke or the Skywalker family. Pick up any book covering the timeline between ROTJ and TFA and it will likely mention Ben Solo and/or his parents; stories about Rey pre-TFA are about her life as a Jakku scavenger with no ties to anyone we know from the original trilogy. Her own destiny with the Force was on hold until the conflict physically came to her planet, and her initial involvement was based on her being a good person who just wants to help others in need. Her involvement became more personal as she met and got to know the other heroes, and eventually she begins to form a relationship with Kylo Ren himself. Rey's part in the saga did not really start until the moment she decided to save BB-8 from being disassembled; before that, she was simply a scavenger on Jakku who was sold/abandoned by terrible parents that died unredeemed. She is the protagonist whose view and judgment we are supposed to trust as the audience, but the story is largely concerned with the Solo/Skywalkers (Ben, Luke, Han, Leia) and her interactions have been heavily with those characters as she becomes more deeply and directly involved in their drama. Ben has been described as a co-protagonist and her other half, they are important to each other and they are both absolutely central in the ST. It really isn't the either/or situation that you're presenting.

I would like to gently remind you of the canon events that led to said "school shooting". Luke went to his nephew's bedside in the middle of the night, read his mind without consent, and then ignited his lightsaber with the intent to kill him in his sleep. I have personally never heard of a school shooting that involved the headmaster pulling a weapon first without provocation, and then having half the students turn against him. Your classification of Kylo as a school shooter might've made sense before TLJ, which showed us that the headmaster/teacher on campus seriously betrayed the trust of an already troubled student - his sister's only child no less - and inadvertently started a chain of tragic events through that mistake.

 

I think the ST is as much about Kylo as the OT was about Vader; the villain with a major role, but still, Luke and Rey are "the big cheese." The villain is not equal.

I really don't know what JJ will do with Kylo's redemption, that one I am up in the air on; but I am quite confident there will be no Reylo. JJ won't engage in the weirdness of hooking the heroine up with a loose canon mass murderer. He won't go there. Not even if Kylo does in some way get "redeemed." David Lynch might do that, but not JJ.

On the issue of Luke standing over Kylo with a light saber, that was because Luke saw what Kylo was, and how hopelessly evil he was (bringing him great conflict given he had seen what evil powerful Jedi can do). The fact that Kylo woke up and found Luke over his doesn't mean sympathy is warranted for him, or minimization of the things he would do

 

I wasn't trying to convince you on this point, @anakinfansince1983 . I honestly don't feel I can persuade you to view Ben Solo as anything other than a torturer, mass murderer, etc.

 

You mean like Anakin who was the same age as Rey at the end of TLJ.

Oh wait, they are both adults.

 

@godisawesome , a lot of this stems from one huge issue that may have easily thrown a key aspect of their entire redemptive planning for him out of whack. Fisher’s passing.

She was saved for the end. The idea could have easily been for the audience to view his redemption through the eyes of a mother finally getting a son back. Similar to how Vader’s redemption works for some who don’t want it because they live it more through a young man who’s always wanted to be with his father.

Star Wars lost that when Fisher passed and if that was the plan all along, and the amount of rewrites following her passing suggests to me that it likely was, then this is no longer a situation where any of us can look at it the same way. The saga has already lost some of its most potent emotional drama saved for the final chapter of a mother seeing her son redeemed so between scrapping what lead them to approaching the ST the way they did where they showed him conflicted and unable to kill his mother and made it clear that he wants to be with Rey... while showing her beat him twice in two movies... it seems to me that they didn’t have a retread or the TFA conflict in mind for a third time.

If we accept that what was originally planned for has had a huge part of its potential removed from the passing of the antagonist’s mother passing off screen then the situation becomes more one where the creators have to scramble to make changes to either sacrifice and fundamentally change what they wanted at the end (a redeemed Ben Solo) because Fisher is gone and just make him pure evil throughout IX and revisit the conflict of TFA at the end and essentially state that nothing they made afterward really went anywhere that impacted the trajectories both characters were on... or... they do what I’m thinking and approach redemption differently and sooner into the process, knowing that Fisher won’t be there to help smooth it out in the end.

This entire plan from me with a new big bad emerging from the Knights of Ren with a compelling and dark backstory (and twist that it was him who killed the students, and helped orchestrate the Luke & Ben falling out, and who was Snoke’s first puppet, joining with Hux to take on the antagonism for the finale as a scarier and more evil bad that all of the fandom can unite around in anger as his list of evil rapidly grows (eventually including him firing on a building where it’s implied Leia was recovering) comes in reaction to them losing Leia for episode IX and throwing off their plans.

Because there’s no great solution here it’s literally about finding the lesser evil in the storytelling and I’d rather have a less established villain (that’s still established as well as the average Marvel villain is from film to film) in order to enjoy the drama and what if possibilities of Ben Solo becoming an uneasy ally earlier into the storytelling and still pull off whatever redemptive arc they originally had in mind (potentially even bettering it by aiming for something different than Vader redemption 2.0).

Given the writing trend of bringing antagonists and protagonists together lately around common enemies I suspect it’s where things will go.

 

I would dispute the assertion that Kylo is emotionally mature enough to be considered an “adult” in the context of a romantic relationship

 

zomg he's a murderer?? I didn't know.

 

I honestly don't care what you see him as (it's not my problem), but it gets a little repetitive when it's in every second post (or every post even) and it makes it a bit more difficult to discuss the future of Kylo and Rey in episode IX, as the title suggest. We fans know what he is, still loves and accepts the character, and as far as I know, I've never tried to make you see him as anything else.

Anyhow, back to the more interesting things, I'm curious how their connection will play out in IX. We know that Rey closed their last Skype session, but will they continue to use Force Skype, or will they move on to meet in person (since I don't really think there will be a serious fight between them, as in life and death, and if there's a fight I doubt they would kill the other, imo)?