ST The TFA 'shipping thread/Debate arena

It's definetly Poe/Rey.

Something in the novelization says that she liked his face or something like that.

 

Which means very little except that, she thinks that he has a nice face. Also, that scene is not in the actual film, where they never talk to/interact with each other directly in any way.

 

Thrawn082 Kay, I see your point that he treats her differently, but to understand whether its cos he has warped views on how to relate to people or if it's simply to throw her off, I think depends on his age when Leia sent him to Luke.

Yes I've been pondering this since you posted. Either way, I think we're agreeing Reylo is too creepy to work and currently unsubstantiated, right?

 

If Rey stays on the light side definitely, it would be like Leia going out with Jabba (with a prettier face).

However if she goes dark ... well even then, i have a hard time seeing them getting along, and it's easier to ship her with any other Bad Guy (like Hux). But at least it's plausible in that case...

 

If she goes dark for an extended period of time, I would feel useless if I was finn. Do all this stuff to boost her self-esteem and then boom! she changes teams.

 

Sure, but someone has to bring her back at some point, right ? (or at least try)

Plus we could alsp get a pretty interesting combat beforehand (both the "two former lover fighting each other", and the "gifted one gone wrong against the weaker but earnest one")

 

As a side note for anyone that wishes to debate about the marketing aspects of the film please see this thread I just put up in the VIII and IX section of the board.

http://boards.theforce.net/threads/...-how-that-will-affect-the-franchise.50038344/

My only request. Please keep shipping only to the idea of how the series will be marketed, not a fight between which side is right. This isn't a discussion about pairing, its a discussion about how characters and story are used to sell the product. Thanks.

Again we Poe/Rey fans have very little to use on anything because of Oscar not having a lot of screen time. I will however say this, the fact that Leia already likes and knows Poe is a plus for the Poe/Rey ship due to the fact that she already trusts him and would trust him with Rey (weather or not she's her daughter or niece or just adopted into the family), which is something he has over both Finn and Ben right now in that aspect. Poe isn't coming with baggage as it were, and since Rey has a ton of it he could easily be the one that she leans on as he's got his head already screwed on right and the two of them share a lot in common in regard to ideals and goals.

 

Although the movie doesn't have any Rey and Poe scenes in it, one very important thing they have in common is their mutual bond with little BB-8.

 

Some stuff I gathered on Kylo pertaining to why he is "Kylo".

Some people have said they don't know whether he was brainwashed or anything that would help towards redemption. But this sounds like he was already going dark, Snoke just gave him a nudge.

 

Moved from Finnrey thread:

I don't think complexity is the problem with Reylo. I don't think antagonist/protagonist romance is the problem with Reylo. I think Reylo is the problem with Reylo. It doesn't make sense with these specific characters.

First, let me address complexity. Obviously couples can be complex. Complexity can cause conflict which can make a relationship have compelling highs and lows. I doubt many would argue that complex romances in fiction are a bad thing. However, Reylo isn't just complex. It is non-existent. To overcome that nonexistence, it would not just take complexity. It would take writing a romance from scratch, because there wasn't a single actual narrative seed placed in TFA of real romance between these two characters. That takes "complex" to an entirely different level.

Next, we have antagonist/protagonist. This is not uncommon in fiction. I would even call it mainstream. Forget the obscure references that come out of Reylo like Buffy/Spike (who are from a very niche show that the vast, vast majority of people never watched a single episode of and was never a huge ratings hit). How about Batman/Catwoman, Basic Instinct, or the Thomas Crowne Affair (love that one)? In terms of fiction, there are countless mainstream examples. This can be something done in a compelling way. But, the comparison doesn't work here, specifically.

Kylo Ren isn't just a bad guy generally. He is a bad guy specifically to Rey. He isn't doing evil that doesn't affect Rey while she fights for good. He hurt Rey, specifically. He targeted her. He murdered her father figure in front of her. He kidnapped her, tied her to a table, and mentally assaulted her against her will while she cried. I can think of a well known book that involved actual rape between the leads of the love story - Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. There, it was definitely rape, and yet Ayn Rand went out of her way to have the woman like it. It was weird and it is definitely a (well, one of many) controversial aspect of the book. But in general, that is not a common way to tell a love story, even in gothic literature. Regardless, TFA didn't go out of its way to tell the audience that Rey was into it. She wasn't portrayed as curious about Kylo Ren. She wasn't strangely unafraid of him. She didn't display begrudging respect. She hated what he was doing to her and she cried. Then she fought back, escaped, ran away, and was tempted to kill him when he next attacked her and she rendered him defenseless.

Antagonist/protagonist romance still has to have some kind of magnetic pull between the two characters. Rey feels zilch, other than unadulterated disgust, for Kylo Ren, which she more than once communicated to him. Then, put aside what he did to Rey specifically. The movie went out of its way to tell us that Rey viewed Han Solo as a father figure. If they were building a Reylo romance, it wasn't good foreplay to have Rey, surrogate daughter to Han, watch Han approach Kylo Ren defenseless with open arms and extend nothing but love and forgiveness, just for Kylo Ren to slaughter him. That's not an antagonist doing random bad because he has some reason that the protagonist can't help but sort of empathize with even though she disagrees. That is the antagonist murdering in cold blood someone the protagonist cares for with zero compelling motivation. Going back to the complexity point, that's more than complex. It would be simply bizarre to put those two characters together after that. I haven't seen something that extreme in any gothic romance, and I'm not totally ignorant of the subject. There is absolutely no way Disney thought they were planting seeds of future romance when they included that scene. If anything, I think they were making it clear that these two characters are enemies and Kylo Ren is one bad, evil mother trucker.

If they want to tell a complex gothic romance, they could have had Kylo Ren grey. They could have given him a motivation to be with the FO that was somewhat realistic, that didn't involve him murdering his father. He could have felt it was for the greater good, and then simply walked away from Han when Han asked him to come home. He could have taken Rey in a less abusive way (i.e., in the heat of battle while having no other options to find the map), and then not strapped her to a table against her will and tortured her. He could have expressed genuine regret at her discomfort and assured her he only wanted the map. Instead of throwing her against a tree to knock her out in a fit of rage, he could have been shown to be actually trying not to hurt her. If any of those elements had been present, I could much better understand the idea of a gothic type romance here, because there would be real evidence of JJ writing it in.

 

Yeah that brainwashing stick never really stuck with me either. Kylo Ren is given options and he chooses the dark side consistently.

 

They made it very clear that was Kylo's choice to murder his father. Kylo's motivations were believing that killing Han would make him stronger and proving himself to Snoke. He wasn't manipulated. He made a conscious choice in that scene, fully understanding the consequences. Kylo asking Han for permission supports that further. He got it. He knew it was messed up. He's just that terrible of a person. I don't understand how that scene can be romanticized.

Usually grey bad guys are doing something bad because they think it's for some greater good, or have some understandable self-motivated agenda. There wasn't any arguable greater good here. Sure, some people speculate that maybe he had to for some secret agenda (no evidence for that whatsoever, but for the sake of argument I'll address it), but that misses the point that the SW universe treats family loyalty above any greater purpose. Vader gave up his mission for Luke. Luke was willing to sacrifice his mission first for Han and Leia, and then for Vader. Anakin switched teams for Padme. Darth Maul even maintained loyalty to his brother through his darth run. Kylo Ren? He switched teams because he felt like it and then he murdered his dad because he thought it might impress his boss (or hypothetically because it would help him in some greater mission somewhere, unique among saga dark siders).

 

Let's look at the simple fact

1. Kylo is a Murderer, Psychopath,.etc....

---> If "Reylo" = Couple: No. Maybe Kylo's one-sided love or obssession.

---> If "Reylo" = Redemtion for Leia's son and also honor Han's sacrifice: Fine, it will be a good plot twist.

2. Finn is a Coward (betrayed First Order because he saw his teammate died), Liar, Loser (was beaten in every battle).
Finn was marketed with a Lightsaber to misdirect, so Disney could hide their "true Hero" (they didn't even include Rey figure in toy box set very classified ). He is a Janitor, not Jedi, people realize the truth Even Luke didn't have that worst start point .

---> If "Finnrey" = Best friend, Brother-Sister's love: That's fine, no problem here.

---> If "Finnrey" = Couple: No. You think the mass audience (not counting that huge Reylo's fandom from Western to Asia ), families, children (those who spend thousand of dollars for Star Wars's merchandise, stuff, ..etc...) want their new beloved fictional heroine end up with a "Coward, Liar, Loser"??? Even in Disneyland attraction survey, people only choose Rey & Kylo as the new Star Wars's characters they want to see most Maybe in next episode Finn will become strong, beat some Stormtroopers, that's good for him , but it won't affect much on people's point of view.

If Disney really want to pair Finn with Rey, they will never let him appear to general audience and casual moviegoers that way Or maybe Episode 7 is just a big test to help Disney find out which couple will enhance Star Wars's worldwide box office

So, Poe is the best candidate here (from light side, has good profile, handsome, charming, talented actor) and Disney won't have to afraid of losing worldwide box office, that why they are going to give him more screen time.

 

The only way I would accept Reylo was if Ben never fell or some other form of AU story.

 

You post as if Star Wars is a dying franchise that's struggling at the box office. TFA was a massive hit in the States and Overseas. As far as Disney CEO Bob Iger is concerned, TFA exceeded expectations at the box office.

We agree on Kylo's situation. Poe and Rey didn't interact in TFA at all, so that's not going to happen. Especially considering Rey will be separated from Finn and Poe for a period of time in VIII, so that's even more lost screentime to build a Rey/Poe relationship. As far as Finn, he was a liar and a coward at the beginning, but he grew to be a brave hero as the movie went along. People loved Finn/Rey's relationship in TFA and their chemistry was one of the most praised things about the movie. I don't know about you, but there's more things to love about SW other than a love story. No one's buying a ticket to a SW movie just to see the love story. The notion that a Finn/Rey pairing would lose box office numbers but Poe/Rey wouldn't is honestly offensive. We all know what you're really trying to point out.

 

Mod Edit:

This is just about the biggest Disallowed word I've ever seen.

 

Disney don't care about what the nerds on this forum thinking. Money is their one and only Love.

Reylo = imposible.

Finnrey = lose world's second-largest box-office market.

At least we still have Poerey. No one have problem with Oscar Isaac, and he is having more screen time now. Thank God.

 

So now we're on citing the racism of china as the reason finnrey won't happen. Aren't the chinese fairly chauvinistic? Didn't really stop disney from not canning rey. If you piss of your american market, well china won't matter. What else?

 

Why would Finn/rey lose money in China? You'd have a better argument if Rey was played by a Chinese actress, but she's not. SW barely had any relevance in China prior to last year, so it's not as if a poe/rey pairing would all of a sudden skyrocket SW popularity in China.

 

Yikes! Isn't Oscar Isaac like 40 years old? I want Rey and Kylo because I want that story. If there is a romance and it is light...it should be Finn and Rey.

Also, you guys are just upsetting people with your constant/weird posts about the box office and China. You should stop posting about it in the shipping threads.

 

Oscar is 36, and Daisy is 23 (so 13 year age difference). Not inconsiderable, but not insurmountable either. I mean there's 14 year age difference between Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher (he's currently 73 whereas she's 59), yet they still did the Han/Leia thing. And there's a LONG and still ongoing track record of Hollywood doing movie romances between younger women and there considerably older co-stars (Margot Robbie has had two in the last couple of years for instance).

So the age thing itself isn't the stumbling block necessarily. The fact that Rey and Poe have yet to share ONE direct scene together, and presumably won't do so for at least the first part of Episode VIII either, is.

And I'm also sympathetic to the notion that Rey currently lacks the emotional maturity and experience with both romance (she seems to have had NONE up until this point) and social interactions, to be a viable romantic foil to Poe (who seems much more confident and worldly). By contrast, Leia seemed very comfortable interacting with people, and was in many ways a natural-born leader, despite her youth. So her and Han felt like a much more equal relationship.

 

We probably didn't see the same film, because for me Finn is anything but a coward :
_ i've seen a man escaping ... a terrible organisation that slaughtered innocents civilians : i don't consider that cowardice, i call that having some moral standards.
_ he volunteered himself for a suicide-mission on the most dangerous place for him, without any second thoughts, just so he could save Rey.
_ in the snow, he had the opportunity to run away from Kylo Ren, but instead choose to fight a battle he knew very well he couldn't win (his earlier defeat against a mere stormtrooper was there to establish that). Why ? because it was the only way Rey had a chance to survive.

Sure, he may not have great powers or abiilities (at least not yet), but he definitely have the heart and the guts of a hero, and that is the most important part.
(and being able to face much more powerful monsters without any power only makes him even braver)

So, yeah, i don't think that many people would be offended if they saw Rey going out with a man that risked his life twice for her, and and got heavily injured in the process.

As for his setbacks, sure he got more than his share, but isn't it a trademark of heroes to stand back up and grow stronger after a good beating ?

 

If there is one thing I've learned in my many years of (mostly doomed in canon) shipping, it's that debate is an endless circle of (mostly) hell. Sure, there's fun to be had along the way (occasionally) and people can spark some deep discussion with their reasoning for supporting certain ships. But we all have our different life experiences and reasons for seeing what we see in certain relationships. The world of shipping in fanfiction will continue to spin, regardless. When it comes down to what will actually be canon in the movies, that's another matter entirely.

First of all, Rey doesn't need to pair up romantically with any of the existing male characters. It's perfectly possible for her to have a satisfying/interesting character arc without it. But if she is going to end up with one of them, there's all to play for at this stage as far as I'm concerned.

In the original trilogy, the attraction between Leia and Han was in the mix pretty much from the get-go. The less said about Leia's flirtation with Luke, the better! I saw no such romantic spark of interest from Rey towards any of the young male leads in TFA. With Finn, it was the forming of a deep friendship, with a few hints from his side that he found her attractive. She is affectionate towards him as a friend would be, but there is nothing to suggest she's falling in love with him. Poe, she barely interacts with at all, so judgement is reserved on that one. When it comes to Kylo (and I'm a reylo shipper, I make no bones about that) she shows fear, curiosity, disgust, hatred, basically, the whole spectrum of negative emotions. But I saw a lot of chemistry between Adam Driver and Daisy Ridley. Their scenes together were some of the best in the movie. The sparks were literally flying, especially in their lightsaber battle. Rey and Kylo definitely share a connection, the true nature of which is yet to be determined.

As a reylo shipper, I don't see Rey ever reciprocating any romantic feelings Kylo Ren, as we know him so far, might have for her. If he is able, through his own choices and actions, to become Ben Solo again (and survive the process), who knows? I get that some are fiercely against any redemption for Kylo, but we've only seen one movie of a trilogy. If he continues his descent in episodes 8 & 9, well, that's another matter. But it makes Han Solo's death even more tragic if his only child (assuming Rey is definitely not his daughter, and he has fathered no other children outside his relationship with Leia) dies with no shot at redemption.

 

The issue for me is if they change the relationship narrative midstream and switch the focus to Rey and Poe, with NO setup and no time to really flesh out their motivation for getting together, it's going to seem really contrived and artificial. So if they go that route they NEED to resolve Finn-Rey in a manner that doesn't reflect poorly on either character, which is difficult, considering these two have been thru alot as a pair and audiences have invested emotionally in their journey together. So there needs to be an equitable and mutual understanding that they, as a couple, wouldn't work. Otherwise, either Finn comes off as foolish and pathetic, or Rey comes off as cold and shallow. They are the two main leads, so it's very important that the audience remains emotionally invested in both of them. On top of that they basically have to start from square one and build Poe and Rey's emotional connection and attraction from basically nothing, which would take away time from more important story beats. Considering that Finn and Rey's chemistry was absolutely fantastic and most people loved their interactions, and 2 billion worldwide and 900 million domestic proves this, why is there a need to scrap a good foundation and go off in another direction? There isnt.

Also.. I'm not sure how Rey adds anything to Poe as a character. He's already loyal, brave, highly skilled, and motivated for the Resistance's cause. In Finn's case, Rey is the reason he rejects his fear of the FO and embraces the hero's path, he becomes better because of his concern for her. And Rey sees his conviction to her and is stronger and more dedicated to protecting him from Kylo. Their emotional bond is what anchors them thru their adversity. With Poe there's less emotional investment in a sense because we never get a true feeling that hes is at a disadvantage. He's literally a superhero throughout most of the film. So they need to shape him a bit as a fully formed character, give him a few flaws or a few more obstacles that he needs help to overcome. Otherwise he lacks an arc that would make a pairing with Rey compelling and really interesting.

The other issue is that Poe-Rey would relegate Finn to odd man out status, it worked with Luke because it turned out he and Leia were related, and he had his Jedi path to pursue. Rey and Finn obviously aren't related, and to this point he's not been shown as FS, so you'd have to give him his own journey, possible LI, and story path that people could invest in. Otherwise there's a danger he becomes ancillary, and considering he's been marketed as a lead, that's problematic.