ST Kylo Ren/Adam Driver Discussion Thread

I guess I could just put the quote next to Buffalo Bill or Norman Bates, but it would be misguided to do so. He was talking about Darth Vader. Some may like to apply the victim card to a kid who was born into privilege, yet decided to be come a school shooter and a mass muderer, but it doesn't really work. Heck, darth vader was born a slave and fell to the darkside do to having his love and compassion manipulated by a hidden sith lord, yet I still wouldn't say that he's a victim. GL is talking about a character he created, in a story he wrote. It has nothing whatsoever to do with kylo ren, the guy that murdered his father and blew up his own family unit.

 

After seeing TROS seven times I can confirm that Kylo did not attack Rey once the entire movie. In fact there are two times where he has no lightsaber whatsoever and she tries to cut his head off lol. On the Death Star she turns her back to him once and he lowers his saber and just watches, and then another time he has her beat and he just watches her as she is tired. Easily could have finished her off but he was just chilling.

Adam said in an interview that he was in charge of all the Physicality invoking Kylo/Ben. If he thought something was out of character, he wouldn’t do it. So it appears Adam knew that Kylo was never going to be the aggressor against Rey.

 

That's what I thought. He's test Rey the same way Vader does with Luke on Bespin. Kylo is also pushing Rey further into the Dark Side. Kylo does not pursue Rey after she uses Force Lightening to blow up the shuttle.

I did think Kylo's anger got the better of him just before Leia died. He'd beaten Rey but she wasn't giving up. It looked to me like he might go for the kill. Then Kylo senses his mother dying and Rey mortally wounds Kylo. I'll have to watch that bit again.

 

I consider flying a star fighter at full speed directly at someone an attack.

 

But it also has an element of training doesn't it? There are canons on that TIE Fighter and Kylo Ren didn't use them. It's like Kylo Ren was pushing Rey. Pushing her to get angry and to give into the dark side.

 

Kylo not trying to kill Rey does not particularly shock me. His sick obsession with Rey has never been the issue for me (other than being an incredibly distasteful choice of plot for our first female Jedi protagonist). He doesn't want her dead. He wants to make her his dark bride. He doesn't try to kill her, he just tries to torment and stalk her until she bends to his will and joins him on the dark side. It's gross, but he is the villain so it's not surprising that he does gross things. It's treating this villainous behavior as a prelude to romance for Rey that is bad writing and completely inexplicable to me.

 

And I may be mis-remembering the movie, but I'm like 80% sure he was gonna kill her or at least badly mutilate her on the Death Star before Leia intervened.

 

Yes - she may have started the fight, but he was damn well going to finish it had things fallen into place for him.

I do need to say that its a little odd to treat "Kylo never attacked Rey first in TROS" as some sort of defense of his charecter. It's not like it was becuse he was being polite or something, lol.

The how do you explain flying his fighter at her with the intent to run her over or, you know, all the other times he was the one taking agressive actions throughout the ST?

I don't think what Driver said means what you think it means...

 

Looks like Kylo/Rey weren't the only ones with a special bond.

Spoiler

Reading everything with Tai and Ben is what they should have done with Rey and Kylo. Tai and Ben had a bond, they trained together, his fall hurts him deeply. I felt the betrayal. I wanted Kylo to listen to Tai.

Spoiler

I don't even care that much about the comics, but this relationship is 100x more believable than what he had with Rey. Rey should have been the Tai character from Luke's Jedi temple. She could have survived and ran away to Jakku after this. This is what was always missing from their relationship: true friendship and trust.

 

I don’t. He could have just shot her if he wanted her dead. He knew she could avoid it

 

TROKR Post:

Spoiler

Funny how the first time Ben uses this ability so many have a problem with, it was to save someone’s life. Lol

 

Now, careful Charles Soule and LFL Storygroup because this is potentially when contradiction in narrative could creep in.

I say this because in those comic book extracts, Ben is saying that he didnt have a choice and that the light and the dark have been trying to claim him as their own since he was born.

Now the way that extract comes off to me is that he has been fighting this battle from within all his life. I might be wrong in interpreting it that way, but that is how Im reading this.

But remember Charles Soule and Storygroup, the Vader grandfather reveal occured in the Bloodline novel set 6 years before TFA. Ben didnt know about Vader before that because Leia did not tell him; nor did anyone else in this family. So Ben couldnt be wrestling with this light side / dark side conflict from a Vader ancestor point of view any more than six years before TFA as he didnt know about his ancestry. More than 6 years prior TFA, ancestry plays no part in any internal conflict.

So any "dark side" emotions he has been wrestling with in conjunction with the light trying to pull him in its direction is more associated with his core personality (more than 6 years prior) and not ancestral heritage. And in the Last Shot novel, he was not portrayed that way. He appeared a happy and sweet kid.

So for me, the comic is potentially creeping into contradiction territory. Storygroup, you started out with ideas in 2014/2015 concerning Ben Solo / Kylo Ren. You cant have your cake and eat it here because of potential contradiction.

Even I read part of another extract and its "bold" wording roughly says that he is responsible for the choices he makes. And this is true of course, he is an adult and he is responsible for the choices he makes. There is no denying this.

But something helped get him to this point and you Storygroup cannot white wash this away to simply reduce it back to - it was Ben all along, he was just a bad egg from birth. It is all of his choices that have made him who he is.

Because that is incorrect LFL. JJ began a narrative with this character and a story in mind and what you are doing by saying "it was all of his fault all along with his choices", that is contradicting the story and his character arc.

Tell the story properly in how the narrative began.

 

I think it’s more like he’s been hearing voices in his head, and he now realizes the dark side has always been trying to manipulate him. He now realizes he was getting pulled in both directions the whole time. This doesn’t contradict anything with when he found out about Vader. He now realizes the voices he had been hearing were dark side influenced.

 

That makes more sense.

I think I might have been reading this slightly the wrong way.

I just dont want the blame to be pushed squarely back onto Ben because his initial descent down the dark path was not all of his doing. There were multiple influences and reasons, in conjunction with his own choices and actions, that made Ben fall.

Once he had begun calling himself Kylo Ren then sure, every choice he makes and every action he takes is solely on him. Just not the very beginning when he was younger.

I guess it can quickly irritate me when I see something that appears to solely blame Ben.

 

I think it’s definitely a multitude of factors. Ben feels he wasn’t given much of an option to live out his own life, and carve out his own destiny. He was named after Obi-Wan, a legendary Jedi. Luke wants to train him because of that mighty Skywalker blood of him. Snoke/Sheev also want him for his bloodline, and for him to become the new Vader. Both sides want him to be something special, and are solely focused on his legacy and potential. Ben doesn’t view himself as special at all, and the tug between the dark and the light is tantalizing. He’s got Snoke/Sheev in his head manipulating him about misconceptions. His family sees that he could become something truly special because of his bloodline and family legacy. This pressure and expectation is a lot for Ben Solo to take on. I truly believe he just wanted to be his own person, and not be apart of all this. He feels isolated by these expectations and his bloodline, and it only increases as he learns more about his families past. Seems to me that Ben Solo would have wanted to be a “nobody” but because he was born into the family he was, he felt pressured to be somebody he wasn’t. Tack that on with outside influencers trying to use that power of yours for their own wants, and it’s a tough situation. Ben felt his life was solely being lived to be someone he didn’t want to be. This just keeps getting pushed further as he tries to hide the pain and becomes Kylo Ren, another false personal. The Skywalker bloodline ultimately was extremely cursed when you look at the saga as a whole now. Pain and much suffering for a lot involved.

 

I just read the comic.

Spoiler

I liked that the "good death" that had been foreshadowed actually turned out to be "Ren" - the previous leader of the KOR - in the end.

Tai looked like he might get through to Ben but Ren kills Tai before we see if Ben could turn back.
So part of Kylo's motive for killing Ren is hatred for what Ren does... and by extension hatred of himself.

He is then Kylo though, and kills Voe with little hesitation.

Seeing him "bleed" the crystal was cool as well. I didn't know it literally involved his own blood.

 

And the Kylo one too. From what I see he was likely the most dedicated actor on the board to the trilogy, whatever mess the writing or the direction took.

I think @NileQT87 changed my mind to the fact that on the DS he did go for the kill in the end. If he hadn't, Leia's sacrifice wouldn't have any meaning either. If we work our way backwards, Leia would have intervened in the dessert. I don't know what the purpose of that test was.
With my martial arts background, the whole training thing makes sense to me and it's reasonable to accept by anyone that if you train someone in 'martial' then your attacks will have to be somewhat realistic. It is there to develop certain reflexes. I think that Rey was also well-aware of this fact, Kylo's no-kill policy toward her. I mentioned before that in her fighting skills she often plays catch-up to him. Leia maybe a good teacher and we can give her the benefit of doubt of a decent fighter but surely hasn't got the pratical skills to match Kylo - even if he wasn't her son. To me that was one of the most interesting sub-stories / tensions that developed throughout the ST. It is fascinating to note that whenever he can, Kylo chooses life over death - without holding back however, when it serves his purpose.

Poor Tai!

I identify so much with this side of Ben's character. Being better than your peers, having to deal with certain expectations can be very demanding and exhausting as a child. Having to hide being better just so your peers get a chance, without being given the time and space to develop to your best abilities is frustrating. If you find no-one to relate to, you will find no-one to turn to when you have problems. I think Luke would have had more success with Ben on a 1-on-1 tuition format. I don't have an issue sympathising with the fact that with his non-traditional background, Ben did not hit traditional developmental milestones. He had excelled at some things, above his peer-group but remained behind on others. And that's how we get a fantasy world with larger-than-life heroes and villains and characters of all sorts. Ben would have been a great smuggler, like his dad, had they let him be. I also don't think he's a natural leader - like Anakin -, not like Palpatine, Snoke or Leia and Padme. He's happy to do the legwork but I guess he was thrust into the leadership role and learnt to deal with it.

I can also understand Luke's bitterness later in life that the starry-eyed younger version of himself wanted to prove that he can restart the Jedi Order, bring back peace and prosperity to the galaxy. We are lucky to have the 20/20 hindsight to know where that leads to down the line though.

 

Narratively it’s also just unsatisfying storytelling. It makes Kylo an insufferable protagonist of his story. Good villains have agency. “Ben” doesn’t kill someone before we learn if he can turn back. He chooses not to turn back by killing someone. The framing of the discussions around this character is morally upside down.

 

Just to be clear, you are aware Kylo isn't the one to kill Tai right? It was the previous Ren leader... who Kylo then kills. He however kills Voe to solidify his decision though.