ST Kylo Ren/Adam Driver Discussion Thread

Feeling the pull to the light is a weird concept, as it's harder to be light. It's much easier to be dark and evil and just say forget your problems and hurt and kill everything in your path. His "I feel it again, the pull to the light" was about the conflict he felt over potentially killing his father. He says he didn't want to kill him. But my question will always be: then why did he? Why did he kill his father? Rey even asks him this question in TLJ and he doesn't answer her, instead he brings it back around to blaming Luke for all his issues, which is fine and dandy and in character for a villain. But they want him to be redeemed by the end, so it's mindboggling from a storytelling perspective.

 

I agree. It should have been an easy decision to avoid killing Han.

As for those who oppose Reylo, these article authors also vehemently reject anything positive about it. I will find more.





https://the-swsc.com/2019/12/20/sta...er-glorifies-abuse-and-assault-against-women/

https://www.truthbeetoldmedia.com/article/2019/12/8/the-toxicity-of-kylo-ren-and-reylonbsp

 

I think that's the biggest problem - by the time they decided to go with Bendemption, the damage had already done regarding whether or not such a thing was belivable.

The small amount of sympathtic light that was given to him in TLJ can't support it, becuse it was never meant to do that to begin with.

I was originally going to say his name was Dunston, but I think I made the right choice.

 

After reading that, I'm just glad I am not part of "woke" culture that sees everything in varying degrees of offensiveness; it must be exhausting. Kylo Ren's character was hardly this terrible affront to humanity. In regards to his treatment of Rey, yes he was a jerk but his actions towards her did not come from a place of malice. When they met, he was an enemy combatant that had information that he needed. He actually started showing empathy for her after he looked into her mind. For better or worse, they were connected through the Force and their destinies intertwined and at some point they both had to come to terms with that. And of course he did ultimately give his life for her; one can't really atone much more than that.

That's how the films portray their relationship, I really don't think anything else was intended.

 

Has Disney even established how Leia feels about Anakin? I certainly hope Leia doesn't forgive Ben only to still hate Anakin in canon.

 

It's stated in Bloodline that she had not forgiven Anakin by that point. That being said, that was before Ben's turn and I would imagine that what happened to her son changed that outlook. It would be very poetic if what happens with Ben ultimately allows her to forgive her father.

 

I think that is what TFA was trying to do.

Kylo started TLJ as an underling, and ended the movie as the main villian. That was the point of his storyline in TLJ, and the sypathetic aspects used to present the false evidence of redemption also served the double purpose of ensuring that, when he assumed the latter role, he was not one-note and had at least the barest nessesery amount of depth and presonality (much more could have been done, but only so much can be put into a single film). It was'nt about making us just hate him, it was about giving us some information on where he came from and what drives and fuels his twisted worldview, which is essentially if you want your villian to be something more then a cartoon charecter (which is more or less what Kylo was in TFA).

No offense, but you seem really intent on holding Johnson responsable for things he either had no control over (the other movies) or for messages he was never sending or presenting. I'm not trying to be rude, I just don't understand it. Like if you dislike TLJ or him as a director, that's fine, personal tastes and all, but he's not some future-seeing physic mastermind who has control over other peaples thoughts, perceptions and actions.

I disagree. I think the way the movie ends it sets up their realtionship to be even more antagonistic then ever.

Firstly, you keep saying he kicked Finn out of being the "male lead," but there never was a male lead to begin with. Rey, Finn, Kylo and Poe were always co-equal in the eyes of the story (just like the other ensamble groups in the other two trilogies were), breifly joined by Rose in TLJ. Finn was never kicked out of any position, and in fact Johnson treated him far better then Abrams did in TFA by actually giving him his own subplot were he learns how to be his own man, decides to stop running and finds something worth fighting for beyond "REY!"

Secondly, why does Finn have to be in Rey's story? This comes follows the same logic as the argument earlier that someone made that he was somehow robbed by note being getting to fight Palpatine with her - why is Finn somehow unworthy of his own storyline and narrative? Why does he have to spend the trilogy in Rey's shadow? Why can't he step out of her own orbit and be his own man? Should Han have spent the entire OT playing second fiddle to Luke? What about Obi-Wan, should he have spent the entire PT as Anakin's sidekick rather then getting to go off on his own adventures and do his own thing?

Agian, you can't blame Johnson for choices Abrams (and LFL) made totally independent of him. They did'nt "have" to go with anything, that was all their own choices, and they could have easily chosen otherwise. He was'nt holding a gun to there heads, and the fact that they decided to make a jumbled, bloated, pander-fest of a film is all on them.

 

In Bloodline, at the beginning, she is very much all about Bail. There's a ceremony to erect a statue of him and she has alot of internal monologue regarding her adopted father vs bio dad. At the end of the book, she witnesses a fellow Senator get framed for a murder he didn't commit (this is after some crap goes down in the Senate) and as she watches Casterfo get arrested and carted off she begins to think about Anakin and wonder what his experience was that made him turn.

I agree. If she has completely forgiven her son at the end of TROS for killing her husband, being the reason for Luke's death, plus all of the other crap Kylo has done, it makes her look like a hypocrite for refusing Anakin especially if she knew that he returned to the light by sacrificing himself to save Luke and stop Palpatine and his rule.

However, I don't expect Disney to tackle a story with enough emotion between Leia/Anakin to make it worthwhile.

 

This has nothing to do with being "woke," lol. Hell, it does'nt even have anything to do with the fact that Kylo does bad things to her becuse, you know, he's the villian. It has to do with the fact that Abrams and Disney decided to have Rey kiss him despite what he did to her, completly out of the blue too boot. Intentions aside, it's horrible optics and sends a god-awful message, along with the fact that it's narrativly unjustified.

And yes, according to both the dictonary and the legal system of basicly every civilized country on Earth, Kylo acted with malice towards Rey - to say nothing of Poe, Finn, his parents, his uncle and, honestly, anyone else he killed or harmed.

Until the last few seconds of his life, yes.

It's also not how Star Wars works - the future is always in motion, hence "destiny" in the preset sense cannot be possible, to say nothing of fate. The destiny of Star Wars is the destiny of the real world - the destiny of personal choice, drive and ambition, not the destiny of predetermined fate.

 

I'm just saying, many people thought it worked I was giving a different perspective. I've made no secret that I didn't like most of the ST, but the Kylo/Rey dynamic was one of the parts I actually liked, even if it could've been fleshed out more.

 

Truthfully, overall I did'nt have a problem with there realtionship either - just with the kiss. And hell, I would have been fine with that too if it were actually justified.

 

I'm pretty sure, given how it was presented, that Kylo reviving her had nothing to do with their bond or one or both of them being "overpowered" and was simply something that any Force user could have done providing they A; knew Force healing and B; had enough vitiality avaliable to transfer into the other person.

While I largly agree with you, it's worth noting that while the Dyad was invented for TROS, the fact they had Force-bond was already a thing in TLJ. All ROTS did was provide an unnessesry second explanation and establish that it always existed, wereas the original intention was that it (the bond) was formed accidently when she deflected the mind probe back on him in TFA.

The same reason he tried to kill his mother - to kill the past; it's essentially that he feels that, in order to purify himself of "the light" he needs to destroy all remnants of Ben Solo, which naturally includes Han Solo.

I mean, no one was using him anyway.

...

Yeah, I'll see myself out...

 

My take is that the dyad concept was just an explanation they came up with to describe the ease at which they see each others thoughts and fears as early on as TFA. It continued and formalized their being in each others head and it was a convenient way to give Palps access to what he needed in them. More, stopping for a jug of milk, loaf of bread and a force dyad please!

 

The dyad concept made perfect sense with what was presented in TFA and TLJ.

It's one of the stronger bridges in the film for a complete story with other episodes. Imo.

A mystical connection was lightly implied by TFA, even if you don't want the romance.
TLJ emphasised this, even went too far on it being an emotional thing (for better or worse), but the connection still existing when Snoke is dead is a hint leading into IX.

 

For example, both Rey and Ren use the blue legacy saber to help each other in TLJ.

Kylo kills Snoke with it to spare Rey. He was planning on doing this before they arrive, and to ask Rey to join him anyway, apparently.
Rey and Ren are stalemated by the last two praetorian guards simultaneously.
Rey breaks free first and throws the saber to Kylo to take out the last guard.

Then when both realise the other isn't going to turn to their side they fight for it and it splits into two equal halves.

Kylo has kind of been trying to get this saber since TFA, then on Exegol when Ben doesn't ask for it anymore, Rey sends it through their bond as a symbolic gesture (him being there only to help obviously).


Plus there is the theme of shared life-force in TROS.

And the opposite backgrounds (scavenger longing for family, privileged kid trying to leave family behind).


Also some of the things Kylo says specifically about Rey can represent how he sees himself.

"Your family threw you away like garbage". - No, they didn't; they were protecting her. Neither did Ben's... his view was just twisted to the point where this is how he felt.

 

Anakin would have had to sacrifice his life to save Padme though, so the question watching ROTS retrospectively becomes if he would truly be willing to do that.

Also it may be implied this is something only a few people in GFFA history were powerful enough to pull off.
But I guess that adds credence to the "overpowered" argument.

Finally, Anakin and Padme were also (Imo) implied to have a symbiotic connection in ROTS. With Padme unable to go on living without Anakin staying pure, and the "Anakin" part of Vader's personality disappearing when he knows Padme has died and it was all for nothing.
Maybe this is an echo of that.

 

Healing aside (Force healing is nothing new in Star Wars) maybe the level of healing between Rey and Ben is only possible because of the dyad?

 

Force healing has existed for decades in SW lore prior to TROS, this is just the first time it's been brought back into canon since 2014, and five years is a fairly small gap of non-existence. In fact, it's one of the most well-established and consistently used powers. This is not something that popped up out of thin air with no precedent in SW.

As for it never being in the movies - Obi-Wan revives Luke from unconscious in ANH, which falls into the preview of healing. He does a similier hand touch with Padme in ROTS, as well as with a fallen Jedi in ATOC, which was possibly him trying (and failing) to bring them back around as well.

Qui-Gon had smoke hole burned stright through his chest (the place were one keeps their heart), there was nothing of Yoda to heal and Vader's life support suit was broken, leaving him a mass of lava burned flesh with no limbs - even if Luke know how to heal peaple at that point, he could have dumped all his vitality into Vader and I doubt he would have done anything more then heal exterior scarring, considering how badly his body was damaged.

In contrast Rey healed a stab wound to the lower corner of Kylo's waist, which he probobly would have survived anyway assuming he had chosen to get up and fly back to his destroyer rather then just lay their and Kylo revived Rey who, yes, was dead, but had only been so for around a minute or less and had'nt actually suffered any real pysical damage - it was less him healing any damage as it was him rebooting her bodily functions.

Given that Rey learned it from the texts that the Jedi used as the basis for their entire "religion" and Baby Yoda can do it on impulse despite being, you know, a baby, I think it's pretty same to say that they did know about it, and probobly used it quite often to heal what wounds were'nt too savere.

In order to revive Padme, Anakin would have to die in turn. Now, he'd probobly be willing to do that, but one would have to assume he'd know that full-out rivival is a possible application of force-healing, and there's no reason to think he does; in fact, the way in which he acts throughout the movie and the way he reacts to the Plegaius story more or less proves he does'nt.

Also, Jedi are'nt going to go around revive peaple from the dead anyway, becuse it flat-out conflicts with their ideology. Yoda and the other masters may have very well known that outright rivival is possible, but if they did I doubt they would share that knowladge becuse it violates the code in such a stark manner and is too rife for abuse.

Death is a natural part of life. Rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force. Mourn them do not. Miss them do not.

Snoke never says he created the bond. He says he bridged their minds, that's all - the very fact that the bond persisted after he died proves that their was something else going on beyond him, and the mind probe was the only place were the bond could have formed.

 

At the cost of his own life.

And given the way the movie explains force healing, that's probobly the only way to do that.

Is your sister a space wizard with magical powers?

I mean, joking aside there's more at play then medical training, hospital equipment and nursing degrees and MDs. The analogy is a bit flawed, no offense.

In order for it to undermine the plot, Anakin would have to know that reviving Padme would be a possibility. His actual actions in the film, and his reaction to Palpatine talking about Plageius having power over death, firmly proves that this is'nt the case.

No. Qui-Gon had a hole burned through his heart and Vader was a barely-alive husk of a man with intense burns on the inside (and outside) of his body, as well as no limbs, who was only alive at all becuse of a life support suit. Rey was just dead. Her body had suffered no real pysical damage and she was missing any limbs or suffering from any internal damage. She had also only been dead for a minate or so at most - modern medical technology can, and has, brought peaple back from clinical death under those circomstances, so the fact that what amounts to magic - specificly a magic that we know is based around life - would be able does'nt seem so unbelivable.

I'm not sure if your being serius or not - you think simply transfering your life force into anouther person to revive them from a very recent death would be harder then not only preventing someone from dying, be reverse-aging their entire body?

And what would even make you think that force healing could do that? The only person who revitalizes their appearence using the force is Palps, who was using Force drain, not force heal, and drawing from the combinded life force and force sensatitivity of two powerful Force-sensatives.

Becuse before TROS it had never been shown before. Like, at all.

And it's not a seperate power the healing, it's just a more extereme application of it; just like the dyad is a more intense version of a force bond and Palpatine's skyward lighting strike is a more intense version of lightning - it works under the same mechnics and principle, hence its the same power.

In canon? Yes.

Overall, no. Bastila/Revan and Kriea/Meera Surik both had bonds, and in both cases the bonds were formed accidently.

As for it and not being romance, I never said it was. I'm merely stating that its the only logical place we're it could have occured if we only look at TFA and TLJ in isolation without TROS's "it's a dyad and it's always existed explanation."

And the bond is much more then just bridging minds - the bridging would'nt have been able to occur at all was it not for the bond, as if their was no bond they would'nt be able to directly see each other as if they were present face-to-face, it would just be their voices talking in their heads, as is the case with all other examples of telapathic communcation in the saga.