ST Kylo Ren/Adam Driver Discussion Thread

Alternatively, Rey was originally envisioned as a Skywalker/Solo during TFA’s production, with Kylo as her antagonistic foil and Finn as her protagonist co-lead, and her heritage being the main explanation for her power, and TFA’s script meaning to write her victory over Kylo and early Force abilities as being circumstances caused by a combination of luck, input from others (Kylo’s injuries and rough knowledge of the Force from Kylo) and the will of the Force.

Because while both the Dyad and Rey Related explain Rey having the power and having a connection to Kylo, only one would fit the purely antagonistic and horrible nature of Kylo’s approach towards Rey in TFA, the significance placed on Rey’s parentage in TFA’s story, and the sheer inability of the ST to connect it’s puzzle pieces together.

I mean, Kylo’s portrayal and the tone of his character in TFA would not happen if TROS’s endgoal was always in mind the way, even in a broad and vague sense. Kylo was built to be the antagonist in TFA, and not designed to be the last member of immediate Skywalker family or a protagonist for the audience to eventually cheer for.

TFA *and* TLJ both stand as evidence that the Dyad was a backwards-extrapolated excuse for what TROS needed; TFA is built for Rey Related with Kylo as the villain and Finn as the co-lead, TLJ is arguing for Rey Random with a Democratic Force message with Kylo as the opposing antagonistic co-lead, and TROS desperately wanted Kylo to become a protagonistic co-lead as Ben and waswilling to toss aside Rey Random without any hassle on their part.

 

I read the TFA novelization and while it may have said that, bottom line is this:

Kylo Ren is allegedly “horrified” and “weakened.”

Whereas Han is dead. So spare me your feelings Kylo.

 

Aside from the fact that I think “tempted to the light” is an idiotic concept—being “tempted” in a sane universe means the object of temptation is something bad or harmful, not the goal that moral people should attain—the bottom line is that whole narrative prioritizes Kylo’s feelings above absolutely everything in the story, including Han’s life.

There is not a “reverse” parallel of Anakin being tempted to the dark side, unless one wants to play the game of “from a certain point of view, being tempted to the light side is bad, and the light side and dark side are not morally different.” That’s not a game I will play, and I find it contradictory to Star Wars morality as a whole.

 

I actually agree with partt of the point you’re making, but to me, it applies in a different way than you intended.

Kylo is going through a full emotional breakdown after killing Han, one that makes him less powerful in terms of the passion-fueled nature of the dark side... but also exposing how both the act and his a,notions and desires for himself are still making him *more* terrible and loathsome as a person. He wants to be a coldly cruel and sadistic monster - and he has successfully reinforced that aspect in himself after killing Han... but it’s an aspect of his personality and mind, not one born of emotional passion.

In other words, he has successfully made his personal character worse, but it’s in a manner both outwardly- and self-destructive.

He’s pounding his open wound to use the pain for the dark side, so he can redirect it in a brutal Force shove against Rey. He’s spitefully toying with and sadistically torturing Finn while projecting the emotions he doesn’t want on Finn, but is so consumed and crazy about it he takes too long and ends up getting wounded for his trouble and allowing Rey to rise during Finn’s desperate assault. And helps so focused on getting what he wants and viewing things the way he wants to, that he pauses his assault on a girl he’s tortured and who’s friends he’s killed to demand she join him and get trained by him.

Kylo’s heart may not be in it... but Kylo’s mind is fully and 100% invested. He’s willfully driving himself mad in pursuit of a dark and downright demonic dream. And this is one area where Johnson’s writing reflects this fanaticism - Kylo boasts of murdering Han, even as Snoke talks about it wrecking his emotions. This is also why TROS used a magic trick to free Ben - the person we know as Kylo isn’t ever going to redeem himself. So they basically magically free this new character, Ben, which I don’t think would be that bad of an idea... except they want this Ben to be regarded as a worthy co-lead and ally for Rey, and deny him the dramatic weight of Kylo’s crimes - and an actual characterization - to do so.

He’s basically in a worse place towards the end of TFA as a person than Demona is after her fall from grace in Gargoyles: at least Demona recognizes that’s what’s happened is a tragedy that she didn’t want to happen when she says “What have I - what have they done?!?” Kylo? Kylo’s response is “Why aren’t a stronger an dmore terrible enemy now? Do I have to go kill more puppies or something?!?”

Which is why the fallout from Han’s death can’t connect to Ben’s redemption... and why it never made sense for Rey to think she saw “Ben’s” personality in TLJ - what personality Kylo displays, 100% of the time, is bluntly and clearly dedicated to being malevolent.

It never made sense for Rey to get confused about Kylo, just as it never made sense for her to not hold onto a grudge against him or be tempted to the dark side out of pure hate and fear towards him. And it’s not like TLJ added all that much nuance to Kylo’s story - his motivations were just as vague and blandly evil as they were at the end of TFA, and the one attempt at incorporating victimhood was screwed up by the dead students Soule now has to retcon into a different type of story.

 

He’s Han and Leia’s son, and as such, he should have their moral foundation to always fight for democracy and fair treatment. Unless he has given them and their teachings the proverbial middle finger and is trying to resist them, in which case I do not feel sorry for him in the least, especially if he is having a hard time resisting the morality that they instilled in him.

And every character might have a point of view, but not all points of view are valid. There are morally correct points of view, and morally incorrect ones, and that holds true objectively within the Star Wars universe. Nobody pretended that Vader’s point of view was valid.

 

Nope, they can make their own decisions, and I can decide whether their decisions are understandable or a load of nonsense. Kylo’s decisions are a load of nonsense. And that’s if I’m being nice.

And “he went down the dark path” is not “all that matters.” The consequences of that dark path for other characters also matter, or should.

 

@K2771991 I'm going to just hit the reset button on a bit of our conversation or at least my side of the conversation, since I feel like I've been a. bit more facetious than I typically like to me in my conversations with fellow Star Wars fans. (I don't really like being sarcastic with my fellow Star Wars fans, since we are all ultimately fans of the same franchise no matter how differently we may perceive things.) Hitting the reset button for me with this basically just means that I'm not going to quibble so much over the details we seemed to be hung up in debating so much as I'm just going to explain the big picture, the broad strokes, of my perception and interpretation of things.

With regard to Snoke, I do believe that it is possible that a bridge he created between Kylo and Rey's mind could endure after his death. I believe this because Snoke himself wouldn't be the bridge. He would just be the creator of it. It is the same as how a person can build a bridge between one side of a river and another and the bridge itself endures after the person who built it has died. That being said, if you find the idea that the bond was created between Kylo and Rey when Kylo invaded Rey's mind more believable, meaningful, and compelling, I'm happy for you. Personally, I find it just as unsatisfying as the Force Dyad and Snoke did it explanations, and I also find all these explanations confused and contradictory, a common problem with plot and characterization points related to Kylo in the ST. However, if you can cobble together something meaningful from the confused and contradictory explanations we get, I'm again happy for you. Likely your explanations will never satisfy me because the story as presented by the ST itself failed to satisfy me, but that is why we all must have our individual interpretations.

When it comes to Force resurrection, I personally thought we already got the most meaningful and transcendent version of it in the Force Ghosts. To me, the Force Ghosts represent a sort of spiritual resurrection, a transcendence of death that is possible only through the tranquil acceptance of it. There was to me a deep spiritual resonance in that. In contrast, Kylo's resurrection of Rey looks to me like a pale imitation of that, a mere resurrection of the flesh as opposed to a true resurrection of the spirit. The Force Ghosts are luminous beings to borrow Yoda's words, while the resurrected Rey is mere crude matter. It sort of represented the hollowness that I think the ST put at the core of Kylo's and Rey's journey throughout the ST. There was flash but not a whole lot of substance. There was sound and fury but perhaps as Shakespeare would say it all signified nothing.

I always go back to my mother's remark to me as we drove home from the theater after watching TROS together. She said, "It's like death doesn't mean anything now" in relation to Star Wars. I certainly couldn't argue with her, not after seeing Palpatine brought back from the dead with a throwaway line in the opening crawl ("The dead speak!") and Kylo able to bring Rey back from the dead. She didn't say it in any sort of awed voice--as if the ST had filled her with a sense of how life can transcend death--but a sort of emptiness as if the resurrections she saw in TROS were devoid of meaning for her. They simply didn't matter to her. They had no impact on her. Personally, I think that indifference is about the harshest indictment there can be of the ST's depiction of not only Palpatine's return from the dead but Kylo's resurrection of Rey.

Now I'm not saying that my mom and I had a reaction that was universally shared by Star Wars fans. I'm simply saying that was our reaction.On the deepest level a story can impact someone--the emotional and the spiritual--Kylo's resurrection of Rey left me feeling largely empty and indifferent. Seeing Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Yoda smiling as Force Ghosts had a million times more emotional and spiritual impact on me than seeing a resurrected Rey kiss Kylo in a rush. The resurrection of the spirit (Force Ghosts) mattered infinitely more than the resurrection of the flesh (Rey).

All that being said, if you are able to derive any sort of deeper meaning or narrative satisfaction out Kylo's resurrection of Rey, I'm happy for you. It's just once again a case where you are going to likely be unable to persuade me to change my mind on a fundamental level of how the film spoke to me on a spiritual and emotional level. That is the realm of personal interpretation where ultimately it is hard or downright impossible to be swayed by the views of others.

In return, I don't really expect that I'll change your views on Force resurrection or the quality of the explanation for the bond between Rey and Kylo. That's fine. We can agree to disagree on these matters, I hope.

 

And I personally enjoyed it when the lawyer got eaten by the T-Rex while sitting on the toilet. Because the lawyer was an ***hole. The equivalent to the Kylo discussions here would be “poor lawyer, he had the right to hate children and be a money grubber.”

“Moral claims about the real world” are part of the discussion here to the extent that people will bring their own moral compasses into how they watch movies. I see a lot of demands on the part of posters who sympathize with Kylo that we must suspend our own moral compasses and take on a separate one when watching the sequels. I have never done that when watching the PT or OT and I will not when watching the ST.

I care about characters who have done evil things when I could understand what led them to make such choices. “Pressure from being famous” does not cut it, nor does “parents worked,” nor does any attempt to throw the OT heroes under the bus, nor does “Snoke did it.” “I was a slave and my mother died in my arms after being severely beaten”? That did it.

 

Relatability. I cannot be invested in a character if I do not understand their motivations and relate to their moral framework.

I don’t care if that’s “limited in terms of writing.” I’m not obligated to like or relate to characters that I find abhorrent and/or annoying, or be silent about finding them as such, for the purpose of ‘writers writing whatever the hell they want.’