ST Rey & Kylo Ren in Episode IX

He does seem to have great dry and acerbic humor. Which I attribute to both his parents.

 

I think Ben has a mixture of his whole family. Not just bad sides (bad temper) but both sides good too, we see he is human and not just a slave to the darkside.

 

And as we know, sometimes scoundrels can turn out to be nice men.

Aftermath makes a thing of Leia sensing Ben's personality (VERY Han and Leia) and Han telling his newborn son sometimes you have to take a less than straight path to get to where you need to be. Ben's definitely a chip off the ol' Han in that regard.

 

Yes, I think he has many of his parents’ characteristics (along with some Anakin, of course). In the Aftermath: Life Debt novel, Leia describes unborn Ben as follows:

“As such, she is suddenly aware of her child’s mind and spirit: She senses pluck and wit and steel blood and a keen mind and by the blood of Alderaan is this one going to be a fighter!”

Sounds similar to Han and Leia, to me.

I thought this was cute: in the Aftermath: Empire’s End novel, Han describes unborn Ben as “the little bandit.”

 

And Han was an anti-hero in ANH who became more responsible (and he said in Han comic that he don't believe in his potential but he finished a mission to the Rebellion).

In ESB he needed to leave to paid Jabba and both Leia & Carlist Rieekan talked about Han's potential as lead and rebel. Kylo Ren is a terrible leader who don't think too much about what he is doing, TLJ prove it. Also Kylo is ready to torture everyone to get what he wants, he don't control himself.

 

There was actually a really amazing fanvid along these lines (watch?v=KZIzx_7t-rs) made by Alexa Lexie that shows a lot of Han/Ben parallels.

People seem to forget that Han didn't really care about or believe in the Rebellion and that he was more involved because he loved people in it and felt he needed to be there to protect them. It was also convenient for him laying low, as he was in serious trouble with his past coming to bite him in the ass. He was there for love of friends or maybe more, not being a true believer in the cause.

And I do suspect the fact that his family keeping Vader's lineage a secret from him and learning about it in a really dreadful public way in Bloodline would also leave a mark. Not to mention the way in which his entire family lost status and respect overnight with the side that calls themselves the good guys. Supposed friends and allies turned fair-weather. That's another element of a feeling of betrayal from the "heroes" if the ones who actually won the fight for those fools are rejected by them just because of who they're related to. No wonder Snoke sowed seeds of doubt in Ben that these people will never ever trust him, will always see him as the heir of Vader and no amount of good-doing will make them see him as any more than a monster. Luke's actions brought that betrayal within the family, telling him that he's that monster everyone else was whispering about after all for the crime of being born. We see this with the Aftermath rumors of his birth not being normal and him somehow being different.

 

I wonder if Ben already knew about Vader being his grandfather before the Bloodline reveal because Snoke told him. After all, Snoke was far too familiar with what happened with Luke, Vader and the Emperor.

 

The book showed that there's rumors about how Leia's baby born but never said it was true. It's like when people talk about the life of an artist, can be just gossip. Also I don't know how much Chuck knows about Ben's past when he wrote the book (maybe that's why he decided to write rumors about Ben's birth, Luke etc).

 

I'm not so familiar with the Daken comics; I'm strictly an X-23 fan, so all I know about the Daken character comes from his appearances in Laura's stuff (the Collision crossover between the X-23 and Dark Wolverine series, and the "Immune" story arc in All-New Wolverine -- haven't gotten to "Orphans of X" yet) and anything I've seen online in regards to my love of pop culture trivia. So, when I thought they were similar, I was more thinking about the older, stuff, like each of them being taken in by a villain and embracing what said villain wanted to make them into so long as they are the ones in control.

The way that Kylo/Rey and Daken/Laura have parallels is also a little uncanny (baring that Rey and Laura are very different characters and that Kylo and Rey aren't related while Daken and Laura are siblings); both are foils in background more or less (both Kylo and Rey seemed to recognize that they were having teacher problems and unsure where they were going but chose different Force alignments, while both Daken and Laura were raised to be weapons which Daken fully embraces, while Laura spend years deprograming herself), and the father dynamics are similar in that Kylo/Daken rejected that parent and killed/tried to kill them, while Rey/Laura attached themselves to that person (not quite the same since Rey seeing Han as a father figure was more of a "what could've been" due to his murder, while Logan and Laura were able to build a de facto father/daughter relationship). Even the characters' first meetings have some similarities (an initial fight, betrayal, and working together against the group that Kylo/Daken is involved with) and they're set up to have a personal connection.

While I was well aware that Laura is one of the very few people Daken genuinely cares for and had gathered that he's extended that to Gabby (although I'm not sure if it's just because Laura loves her or solely of his own volition), I was not aware that he was connected with Ice Man, much less trying make bargains with him. It will be interesting to see how Kylo's story unfolds and if parallels continue to build up. On the other hand, I don't see it as a given, esp. since they're different characters with different purposes in their franchise. Still, I guess it's a think piece and let's some of us get better ideas of where other sides are coming from (e.g. I can't really picture Kylo and Rey having a positive relationship at all in Episode 9, but I do understand why Daken and Laura can get along, so I can kinda apply that to Star Wars to try and see the other side).

 

I've compared it before to the same type of awful gossip being used to create a born-monster myth out of people like Richard III and Anne Boleyn, who were both accused of having deformities they didn't have and guilt for crimes they didn't commit. For goodness' sake, the Tudors and their political allies (including those rushing to show their undying loyalty when winds blew the other way) said Richard was in his mother's womb for TWO YEARS (an actually impossible feat). It's the same type of medieval mindset about deformity reflecting inner evil in the eyes of God that was used for Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

The rumors are presented in exactly that same sort of context. No wonder Ben was easy pickings for Snoke.

 

That’s very interesting and thanks for sharing. I didn’t think my heart could possibly bleed more for Ben, but here we are.

I read Life Debt, but never finished Empire’s End so I wasn’t sure what was meant by the circumstances surrounding Ben’s birth. From what I gather now, he tried to come early to escape the dark presence that was haunting him, but Leia talked him into “just a little while longer.”

That’s really heartbreaking. Poor kid never stood a chance.

 

Huh Kylo is just 4 years younger then his father was in ROTJ.

 

Yeah, but Harrison Ford (typically hits his birthdays during filming) was basically the same age Adam Driver is now in ANH. He was considerably older in RotJ!

HF: 33/34 (ANH), 36/37 (ESB), 39/40 (RotJ)
AD: 30 (TFA), 32 (TLJ), 34 (IX)

I always roll my eyes at Han being reduced to 29-33 in the OT.

 

I hope we will see more snarky banter between Kylo and Rey in IX. And also Kylo generally being sarcastic such as the TFA "They are apparently well trained for treason" (not exact quote) and "The droid stole a freighter", etc.

I think it is highly likely that was one of the ways Snoke convinced him he was telling him the truth while his parents and his uncle/master were hiding things from him. I was surprised (and a bit disappointed I must admit) that this was not addressed in TLJ.

Huh, precisely my point. Years older as, Han was older than his son when he was doing the floor slide that was discussed that Kylo did (who by the way is 29, not 30) in TLJ.

I would think, a valid observation on my part, given the direct visual call back of the shared mannerism between father and son Solos...

 

Felicity Jones was 33 when she played Jyn in Rogue One and Jyn is 21. Mark Hamill is 66 while Luke is 53, so it's totally common an actor be older than his character (John boyega & Daisy also are older than Finn & Rey)

 

Yet he knows he is a monster. He killed his own father.

He just accepts these in his search for greater power.

 

The character Han Solo was 29 (same age as his son Ben is now, btw) in ANH, then 32 in ESB and then 33 in ROTJ.

Incidentally, Rey is the same age as Leia was in ANH, 19.

 

It still feels weird that Luke, Leia, and Rey were all the same age when they started their adventures.

 

Why weird?
It seems pretty intentional to me.
It's like poetry, it rhymes. etc

 

Not weird as in bad weird as in a weird fact.

 

They're deliberately choosing ages that were given to the OT characters.

19 - Luke & Leia in ANH (also Carrie's real age), Rey in TFA/TLJ.
23 - Luke & Leia in RotJ, Ben during Bloodline's heritage revelation and the lightsaber/Jedi temple incident.
29 - Han in ANH, Kylo in TFA/TLJ.

 

Well, the whining is more of a Skywalker male trait, as is losing control of emotion and being impulsive. Kylo is actually less whining/complaining than Anakin and Luke, IMO.

I'm not trying to make comparisons about which behaviors win my approval in the above paragraph, so there aren't any judgments about what is better/best.

 

And importantly, Anakin was 23 when he fell to the darkside and became Vader. The same age Ben became Kylo Ren.

 

Kylo is way less of a whiny drama queen than Anakin and Luke! He's angry with a lot of self-hatred, but it's not just for the sake of being dramatic. Han was also impulsive and short-fused with a tendency to not phrase blunt truths in the nicest way. Getting totally and utterly distracted over a girl who bests them, calls them names and isn't a doormat at all is something Ben totally gets from Han, not Anakin. The protective streak is also a Han trait.