ST Kylo Ren's Future/Fate. Death/Redemption/Other?

Hasn't it been stated that Snoke began the process while Leia was still pregnant with Ben? And in TFA doesn't Leia say that Snoke was after Ben from the very beginning?

Considering Snoke's machinations I'm not sure I'd characterize Ben's emotional development as "normal."

It's been noted before, but I think the creators are at least attempting to characterize Kylo as being "under a spell" of sorts.

 

I assume you're using that gif to argue that Kylo/Ben is cold and ruthless, emotionally unaffected by his father's death? I'm seeing someone who steeled himself to do something appalling, and who is numb in the immediate moments after getting it done. Have you never felt that feeling of numbness after a traumatising experience? I know that people have assumed I've been 'strong' during some deeply shocking experiences, when all I've been is unable to access emotions while I cope. I've accessed those emotions big-time a few hours later, as Kylo/Ben did. He's a hot mess by the time he's fighting Rey.

They employed a Oscar-standard actor for this role for a reason.

 

Oscar-standard actor or not, I didn’t feel one tinge of emotion or sympathy for Kylo in the movie, and that is mostly because of the way he was written. Kylo really came across as a spoiled brat, with his “that belongs to me!” and “I can take whatever I want” lines. His confrontation with Han was only emotional for Han Solo. I had a hard time buying the authenticity of Kylo’s tears, as all his dialogue with his father was so self-absorbed, so “me, me, won’t you think of my feelings?!” that it felt more like Kylo was just trying to forcefully paint himself as the victim of his own story, and I cannot feel particularly sad for a character that acts like that.

I found Vader sympathetic in the OT and that was before any of the backstory. I cried when he died. But with Kylo, I really do think they need to decide on the backstory and put it in the movies so to minimize that strong “psycho spoiled brat” vibe he gives off and make me feel sympathetic towards him (if that is the goal with the character).

 

Han forgave kylo because he was dying and he didn't want it to end like that and it's considered selfless. If kylo killed Leia do you think Han would forgive him then? That's a big fat no from me. I know matricide and patricide are framed differently but say kylo killed chewie ? Still a no

I get the impression that some people think Leia is team Ben solo 100% no matter what and that is plain reductive. She thought Han would be able to get kylo back but she was wrong and he died, that's probably eating her up. She's not going to make that mistake again, not Leia! I wouldn't be surprised is Han was her last hope . Of course I may be wrong and the writers want to stick with the blind mother archetype, which is endearing in a way! And I think after Vader even though she never forgave him, she knows that her son can be redeemed no matter what, but this is the point where she realizes that she can love him all she wants but if he doesn't want to come back to the light, he's not gonna. This is a perfect opportunity to incorporate more of our Leia than in TFA in which I was left wanting

 

"Experience" as committing cold-blooded murder...? I mean, its not as if Kylo was the surviving victim of a crime or had to face a situation beyond his control. He's the perpetrator.

 

Well, I certainly don't see Kylo changing overnight. Nor do I see him being redeemed without consequences. Nor do I expect him to be widely accepted by everyone immediately. He's killed a lot of people, including Luke's Jedi. Yes, it's possible to be redeemed, but the question is how and to whom?

 

some people think that leia is clearly blind and wrong about her son, but that would be the viewer putting the "blind mother" archetype on her. we don't know what she knows. we haven't even gotten the backstory really. i suspect that leia is more correct than not regarding her son, and so she won't fall into the "blind mother" archetype because she's not actually blind.

RandomGreyJ - in star wars redemption can occur pretty quickly, as it did with vader. but yes, the character needs to have something driving him towards it, or some impasse he's forced to resolve. one possibility with kylo is that he will react differently to killing his father than anakin did to thinking he'd killed padme and the unborn kids. for vader, it firmed him up on the dark side. he has nothing left, he destroyed what he'd most cared about, so his own rage and hatred at himself trap him in the dark if nothing else. but ben/kylo who is constantly shown as not being like darth vader may go the other way and realize there is still a chance to stop this, even if it's too late for him personally.

eta: and i think he's going to have to obviously venture into such selfless territory in order to redeem himself (and redeeming himself wouldn't even be the goal). because as much as it was clear to me that kylo is in pain much of the time, he is still confessing about how much he is suffering moments before he murders his father, which caused a lot of suffering for quite a few people (not least of which was han). this sort of selfishness needs to be overcome.

 

It just goes to show what a range of opinion LFL has to cater for.

Me, I'm old enough to have stood in line for the first release of Star Wars (no-one thought it would be a trilogy at the time). I wasn't even a kid. I was a young adult. I LOVED Han Solo - funny, cynical, cool. He was my favorite character.

But it was clear all the way through the OT that Han was basically selfish. He extended a sense of care to people he knew and liked, which was good, but compared to Leia, who cared about people she would never meet and might not like at all - he was shallow and lightweight. I still loved him, was still pleased to see him back with Chewie...but when TFA showed that he'd dealt with family disaster by leaving Leia to deal with all the heavy, grown-up stuff and gone back to adventure and petty crime with his buddy, I felt disappointed in him. I wasn't devastated to see him fall into the void, I was just glad that he'd finally come good in terms of his wife and his son. Then I read Bloodline and the Aftermath novels, and I felt even more confirmed in those feelings. He let Leia down, over and over. I'd bet money that he let Ben down too. And that's from a long-term Han fan.

I was proud of him for being scared of Ben but still doing the brave thing. I was proud of him for caring that 'the galaxy is depending on us'. He went out the best possible way for Han Solo. And everything said that his son was sick to his soul at having to do what he did. Maybe you need to watch a lot of arthouse indie movies to pick up on the acting, but Adam Driver played Kylo as fighting every good instinct and almost losing. I didn't get the impression Kylo was doing it to make the cover of Time more often than Nixon or whatever.

Vader? Meh. But my adult son still cries at the moment when the helmet descends on Anakin at the end of ROTS. We're all different. Who'd be Kathleen Kennedy?

 

I believe Pablo addressed that. Someone asked him about Leia's comment about Ben he basically said something along the lines of "Give me one mother who wont defend her son." Or something. It was after he said that Kylo was responsible for his crimes.

 

do you really think though that they would write leia as "the blind mother"? it seems that this is also another of PH's non-answers. he can brush aside the question by saying it's a universal mother thing.

as for kylo being responsible for his actions, yes he is.

 

It makes Leia's situation difficult and contradictory. All good for drama and soap opera.

 

you mean if she is "blind"? i realize there is a middle territory here (one eye cracked). but i doubt they would make her simply the blind mother, because it invalidates her. we would have to kind of gloss over things she says about kylo because she's been blinded by her mothering instincts. i just don't think tptb will go there much. i think it's more likely that we can believe leia about who ben/kylo at least was. i think we can believe her that there is still good in him too, as i think she would be able to sense that (and i agree it's there anyway from watching the movie). leia was wrong to send han after kylo (imo) but it may be what brings him back in the end after all.

 

Care to explain how you need to allow yourself to be a victim??

Is this anytime someone is on the receiving end of something bad, or just things you don't agree with?

 

Have you never met anyone who chooses to define themselves as a victim?

Obviously people become the victims of wrongdoing all the time. But some choose to make victimhood a key part of their self-identity, thereby justifying a lot of anger and entitlement that becomes all-pervasive. I certainly see that in Kylo.

 

Wait, that's not what I'm saying about Kylo. I don't think he sees himself as a victim of Snoke's powers.

 

I think he sees himself instead as a victim of Han's parenting.

 

You tell yourself to be a victim to legitimize your crimes. Most of the psychos do not see the fail on their side but blame everyone else. They are cowards when it comes to being responsible for what they did.

E.g. Lukes backstory was far worse than Bens. Still Luke never forgot what is right or wrong - not to mention Finn.

 

How do we know this?

• In the film, one line: "He would have disappointed you", said in a slightly bitter tone.

• In interviews, Adam Driver saying wtte that Kylo felt abandoned by the people around him.

• In interviews, CF saying wtte that Leia and Han weren't completely bad parents

Anything else?

This isn't enough to hang a whole premise that Kylo is a professional victim. The encounter on the bridge was the moment for EmoBen to say "Who's sorry about withholding the allowance NOW, Dad?" and that's not how the conversation went. The whiny-victim idea has come from Kylo's unexpected tears, fan conjecture and Pablo, who seems to hate Kylo essentially because he's not a straight-up villain.

If anyone in the ST comes across as a flouncing, whiny pro Victim, it's Luke...

 

What are you using the abbreviation "psycho" for, psychopathy or psychosis? Because they're not the same. In any event, I don't see Kylo as a psychopath. I think TFA was at pains to demonstrate that Kylo possesses a conscience. A psychopath wouldn't sit alone in his quarters agonizing over his "pull to the light".

 

The "he only would've disappointed you line" remains fascinating to me. While I don't see this as a whiny blame game, nor do I see it as the reason Ben Solo fell, that line was delivered with such an exposed vulnerability, as if it was a confession. It makes me wonder what transpired to make Kylo Ren confess it to a complete stranger. It wasn't bitter, it was sad. And it didn't come across as a whiny, "Well, he never came to my soccer games" disappointment. This cut deeper.

Now don't get me wrong, Han Solo has been my absolute favorite character since I was a kid. But guessing he missed the mark at times when it came to parenting. What event occurred in their past?

What is also interesting is how he seems stuck on that but does not see the highly dysfunctional dynamic he has with Snoke. He declares the Supreme Leader to be wise, not acknowledging the abusive dynamic of an evil force user watching and manipulating him "Since the beginning."

Or maybe he finally realized it on the bridge after he killed his father. Snoke will crush you. I think there was a realization on the bridge that Kylo realized that he wasn't being trained to be a master someday. He was just a thing to be consumed. Perhaps that's why he went from "get the map from her mind" mode to "You need a teacher." He went completely rogue after that.

Then again many a fan refuses to acknowledge that a juvenile awakening to the Force being manipulated by a much powerful evil Force user couldn't possibly be a past victim of that power imbalance.

 

Yes, I think the point of Kylo Ren is that he has a very active conscience that he tries to suppress. The result? A hell of a lot of projection, and Finn is its prime target.

I don't think there was any event; rather, it's just so common for sons to feel like their fathers weren't the men they needed them to be.

 

That wasn't a line in the film, was it? It was an interview with Adam Driver who said the character 'feels kind of abandoned by the people around him'. Kylo wasn't sitting in his quarters muttering about how let down he felt, he was imploring Vader to help him stick to the path he'd chosen. I don't see that as victimhood, unless you see his attachment to the FO as being entirely for the purpose of revenge against his family.

 

I agree, which is why it's interesting that after Kylo senses Finn's insubordination in not firing on the villagers, he looks at him but then just walks away. I think in J.J.'s commentary (not sure if that's where I heard this) it was stated that originally the scene where Kylo speaks to Vader's mask about the pull to the light actually took place right after he walked away from Finn. They moved it in editing.