ST Rey & Kylo Ren in Episode IX

I saw “angry blank” and you get a like

I needed JJ to explain to me that Kylo wasn’t manipulating Han the entire time because I couldn’t tell. And even with that explanation, Kylo was still manipulating him because Kylo knew he was waffling about killing his father, whereas Han thought he was waffling about leaving with him. I consider that a lie because Kylo was very well aware of how he was misleading Han.

Kylo never looks conflicted to me. Sometimes he looks like he’s feeling especially sorry for himself in any given moment, but usually he looks blank. That goes especially for when he killed Han and when he hesitated to kill Leia and then believed he watched his own underling kill her on his order. Blank stares don’t convey emotion to me. I’ve had this discussion with soap opera fans enough times to be convinced that the benefit of blank stare acting on the part of an attractive man is people can and will read into it whatever they want (see above with my interpretation that he looks like he feels sorry for himself, not like he’s conflicted about killing good people that love him).

 

BBM. I am the same way. I get absolutely nothing out of Driver's usual facial expression. I don't see conflict at all, more like emoting (the few times he does attempt it) as a means of manipulation of either the other character in the scene or the audience.

 

On the other hand, there are some aspects that could also lead towards some kind of Reylo in IX. Villain/heroine parings and enemies to lovers are also pretty popular tropes and there are many ways to portray them on screen, there's no one single template.
- The dark/light/balance symbologies. Them being mirrors of each other.
- Kylo Ren's strange fascination towards her (bridal/monster carry, "you need a teacher", his look after she pulled the lightsaber etc.
- the Force bond that no one else seems to understand.
- Rey's growth in the Force is always linked to Kylo's.
- Rey can change her mind based on new information.
- The loneliness (for him it's about the expectations of being the child and nephew of heroes and the resentment towards his parents for sending him away and that's without mentioning Snoke's influence and manipulation in his childhood. For her it was her family who abandoned her to Unkar Plutt on Jakku). You may not think it's convincing but it's in the movies.
- There are clearly moments in both movies which are wired to generate sympathy for Kylo (Snoke's punishment, the call to the light, him choosing not to kill Leia, his inner conflict is much more apparent than Vader's was at this stage at least in the movies, Leia wanting to bring him home).

So because Finn may not have been Rey's love interest, that means we're "erasing" his character? What about Finn's character arc? Also TFA was the first act in a trilogy and JJ was aware of that so he set up things for the next two movies such as Rey/Finn and Rey/Kylo and it was up to Rian to figure out how to make things progress which it definitively did for the Rey and Kylo dynamic, not so much for Rey and Finn. However, Rey and Finn are now back together and Poe is there too but there's still a gap between them, she has something none of them can understand no matter how close they are.

The movie also begins with her thinking Kylo can't redeem himself. That means her opinion will have to change, either something will happen to finally make Kylo change or there's a new revelation about his past which will generate even more sympathy—very likely considering how they want to explore the origins of the FO.

 

At this point I'm pretty sure that Rey is a clone of someone...most likely Ben Skywalker himself.
That could explain what the VF article was talking about in relation to their connection.

Would that still be incest if they got together?

 

I think there’s supposed to be a lot of ambiguity, there.

We know next-to-nothing about his motivations and history. I’m glad that we’ve finally gotten confirmation that there’s more key ST backstory left to explore. I’m a bit tired of folks (generally - not directing this at you) assuming we already know everything we need to know about who these characters are, what they want, how they tick.

 

“May not”? The post ignored even the possibility that JJ was referring to Finn and jumped to the conclusion that he must have been referring to a Kylo. Like it or not, that’s erasing Finn.

 

I guess Kylo's bare chest is "platonic" bonding.

 

Without knowing the characters’ backstories or motivations, infatuation might be the first thing that comes to mind for some.

But it isn’t too different from Luke trying to save Vader in RotJ right after we saw Vader beat the crud out of him and his friends onscreen.

Remove the context of father/son, and Luke’s attitude seems inexplicable, yes?

In the present case, we see the same behavior/attitude of Rey re Kylo but no context.

Because *there is a mystery in progress.*

“We don’t have answers 2/3 through the story” does not equal “there was never a mystery or answers to same.”

And yes - RJ was well-aware that *without context* a mysterious close bond between a handsome male character and a beautiful female character could easily be misconstrued as romance. Hence his jokes. (As I’ve previously noted - either he was joking or Luke/Vader is canon.)

ETA:

No - it’s “uncomfortable intimacy.”

See also - “girl walking in on her male relative changing.”

 

Ben just happens to be shirtless when their force-link kicks in. Rey literally asks him to put on more clothes.

Seems pretty damn platonic to me. She's wondering whether there's an avenue to turn him back from his darkside folly, and is willing to engage with him to that extent, she doesn't want to get freaky with him.

 

I thought Rey and Finn was still a possibility after TFA, though as time went on and I read what dynamic RJ thought was the focus, then after watching TLJ and finding out what was Finn, Rey and Kylo's arcs in the movie, plus with Finn's budding relationship with Rose, now I don't think so as much. It doesn't help that JB is really pushing for the Rey and Kylo dynamic as something that fans want to see more of.

 

“Budding romance”?

John literally said Finn is single as of the start of RoS.

It’s also possible for a female character to have relationships of different types with different male characters. Men and women can relate to each other in meaningful ways that do not involve romance.

 

Okay great, so it remains the bigger possibility that JJ was referring to Finn and Rey when he discussed romance, not RJ's plan which everyone is pretty clear on deviated from what JJ was thinking of. Nothing else you said has any bearing on JJ talking about TFA itself before TFA was even released.

 

Rey flirts with poe at the end of the force awakens novel. At the end of tlj they get a moment in the end. Its not a flirty moment but the way rey looks at him could implicate some attraction there. Finn is gonna end up with rose and kylo is not going to turn to the light side (i doubt it anway)

 

My guesses are:

Finn will hook up with Jannah.

Poe will fall in love with Rey, and she might reciprocate the feelings but she'll choose a "no attachments" Jedi lifestyle.

Rose will be mostly absent from the movie, but they might hint that she's got a sweetheart in the rebels.

Kylo will die an angry incel.

BB-8 will hook up with Dio.

 

How do you know RJ's plan on this aspect of the ST deviated from what JJ originally wanted to do? Not from what I've seen from his TFA commentary and apparently JJ thinks this dynamic is so important that IX will explore it even deeper than VIII (the one where she gambles to save his soul). The novelizations which were based on a previous TFA script showed a less contentious dynamic, so who knows if this "bond" between them was much more obvious in earlier drafts of the script and they changed it to make it more ambiguous. There's also been a few leaked concepts art which coincidentally didn't end up in the Art of TFA because they don't want to spoil what comes next and they want people to speculate.

 

I didn't claim to know anything. You are arguing over my critique that Finn was erased as even a possibility for who JJ was referring to despite the fact that all the good evidence (which is consistently ignored when people cherry pick to claim JJ set up reylo) points to FinnRey as who he was setting up in the romance department.

The novelization for TFA shows that Kylo intimately and painfully violated Rey, who was in agony, just like the film does. Any claim that it isn't a violent assault on her mind is twisting TFA from what it actually was to suit a narrative that people wanted to see. It's the same dishonesty that exists when people refer to a clear-cut monster carry as a bridal carry. Typically romances aren't built on mind r***.

Wait, what's my evidence that RJ did his own thing? JJ explicitly said so:

If you want to argue that JJ set up Reylo, you cannot rely on TLJ to make your case. JJ has been explicitly clear that TLJ did not go in the direction he was imagining.

 

Oh I fully believe RJ worked from the same backstory JJ did. PH said as much.

Rey and Kylo being the central dynamic in the ST and having a close and complex connection does not equal “romance” so why are these facts being pointed to as supporting reylo? I’ve firmly believed they’re the primary focus and have a deep connection and yet the conclusion I’ve come to is completely different conclusion.

Ergo, those elements are not evidence of romance.

Also, if reylo were the core of the ST, its existence would not be a “spoiler” 2/3 of the way in. Is the claim that the ST is *secretly* a grand romance? Or that there’s a core romance but it’s purely subtextual?

I believe Kylo will be redeemed and survive. I believe his backstory will turn out to be very sympathetic . I believe that Rey and Kylo will end the trilogy with a positive relationship of some sort.

And none of that is predicated on reylo.

Know what Adam called the bond Rey and Kylo were forming? “Camaraderie.” Know what other context he’s used that word? Talking about his time in the Marines.

 

I wonder what would be his answer for the same question now, would he try to avoid it? FinnRey could have been a thing at some point during TFA's development but now JJ has TLJ to take into account. Kylo and Rey's relationship will be one of the main relationship in IX along with Finn/Rey/Poe and Rose hopefully. The VF articles focused mostly on their relationship, not so much on the others beyond what we already know (them going on an adventure together). Kylo is a villain for now so obviously he will do evil things, what matter is if he will ever choose to change path which in SW is a real possibility because this a fantasy setting destined to 12-year-olds, not the real world. Hope, compassion and love are the most important messages in SW to me. "Love conquers all" . Again, it doesn't have to be romantic but I think both possibilities are still possible.

 

Great, so we can agree that way back when JJ was talking about a possible romance in the ST, before TFA was even released, a person obviously should not act like it's impossible that he could have been referring to Finn. Such an assumption would erase Finn's character in an inaccurate, baffling way.

 

I can't wait for when they can finally discuss the ST development after IX. It would be quite revealing, no matter the outcome. Maybe a panel at SWCA?

Finn is not mentioned because he's not the subject of this thread, Rey and Kylo's dynamic is. We're discussing all possibilities for those two characters. If I wanted to mention FinnRey I would have quoted it in the Rey/Finn thread but yes I agree it could have been a possibility.

 

No argument either way, but according to Pablo, JJ's first script with Arndt didn't even have Finn at all.

 

You said this:

This quote presumes that if JJ thought there would be romance in the ST, he would have had to change his mind for reylo not to happen. You ignored even the possibility that JJ was never talking about reylo. That erases Finn. It doesn't matter if this isn't the FinnRey thread. The assumption erased everything but Kylo and Rey from the story, which is inaccurate and again, it baffles me how people are so quick to ignore Finn's existence. I made a comment and you challenged me by saying you didn't erase Finn because he "may not" have been Rey's potential love interest. Your arguments are shifting all over the place.

It's super simple - there is ZERO reason to assume JJ was referring to reylo when he talked about a potential romance in the ST before any films in the ST had been released.

This has nothing to do with our conversation about one of JJ's specific quotes.

 

Finn used to be “Sam.”

And Kylo is an amalgam of the Solo son and the “jedi killer.”

For me, the relevant question is - can’t we reasonably conceptualize and discuss the Rey/Kylo dynamic in a way that acknowledges that Rey’s other relationships are also very important to the story?

This story isn’t actually all about Rey and Kylo. We can stick to the thread topic without acting like the other characters are irrelevant.

 

It means nothing has been "debunked" as some people claimed how so quickly. I do believe there will be some kind of Reylo dynamic (not necessarily in a romantic sense), however I believe romance is also a possibility. I've seen romance happens even after the antagonists were shown as sadistic mass murderers but they ended up going through a redemption arc and they were accepted by most people so I could see romance happening only if Kylo redeems himself and even then it could not end up as a romance. I think characters are much more than simple love interest and it's not erasure to say that Kylo and Rey might have been the endgame since the beginning because apparently some elements of IX have been planed since JJ worked on TFA and he thinks this dynamic is important and wants to develop it more (it could be romantic or not). Or maybe they were initially brother and sister when GL was still there and they had different love interests. I would like Rey to remain single but I don't think that's what LFL wants. My thoughts on FinnRey are informed by what I saw in both TFA and TLJ and I no longer see him as Rey's love interest.