ST Was Kylo killing Snoke the final part of his training?

It all comes down to execution in the end & I can imagine it being handled in a manner where the strict use of a saber & only a saber was presented by Snoke to them as one of many examples of the Jedi wanting to limit their tremendous creative potential and respective power. I imagine Snoke initially presenting less like the abusive father figure he is later & more as their friend. Same for when he initially talks to Ben Solo through the Force. I imagine him listening more and making him beleive his destiny is to pick up where his grandfather failed. Snoke would be trying to tap into more of their base desires as young people more and present this new way of life for them almost closer to a Neverland type of atmosphere where they can do more of that they want and use whatever weapons interest them & even have armor designed any way they like. I don’t know if you’ve seen Foxcatcher yet but initially John Du Pont gets the people he wants most by making them feel like they’ll get whatever they want & then of course later it all gets creepier & worse for them later. An older version of the same concept might be the Coachman in Pinnochio, who lured all of the “bad kids” to the amusement park and let them smoke and drink and fight and do whatever they wanted, which them corrupted them further (in that story they became donkeys) where they became slaves. Outside of fantasy & into real life terror groups & militia recruiting young people are known to get the new recruits high on drugs, introduce them to human trafficked “wives,” show them video content to decensitize them further and then let them play around with weapons and slowly work their way from killing dogs up to eventual captured prisoners. Alongside all of this is tremendous propaganda about how the world is being lost and how only they (whatever the group is) can save it.

Evil leaders tap into the worst of primal instinct and nurture it slowly. I can imagine Snoke doing something similar. Obviously not to the extent of human trafficked “wives” or killling dogs on screen but I can absolutely imagine Snoke trying to present what he’s offering as a more “fun and free” way of life & training than what they experienced at the Jedi temple & that each of them playing with different weapons and armor would be part of all of that projected offer from Snoke.

In truth though, a scene as easy as him opening up a giant weapons vault with some weapons that the Praetorian guard use (among many more) and the young students all staring in awe and asking if they can see some while Snoke smiles and suggests “Of course. Anything you want can be yours” and each of them grabbing the weapons they later wield except for Solo who doesn’t see any one he likes except for perhaps the old cross guard saber that’s now being shown in comics (which resembles Kylo Ren’s) is also in Snoke’s possession & that perhaps leads Ben Solo to making one of his own.

They have a 7 year time period between the temple massacre & TFA. So, there’s a lot there. Ben Solo would have been 22 initially. Some of the others could have been in their late teens.

 

But look what the weapons are... "Yeah, my lightsaber was OK, but this broken two-by-four is me!"

...I just don't buy it. I'd actually never thought about any of this until you brought it up, but now I don't think the Knights of Ren can be the ex-students after all. No offence, but the more detail you go into, the sillier it sounds to me.

 

No offense taken. We have different tastes. No offense obviously to you in turn but I wonder if any explanation for anything remaining has any chance of working for you at all? What do you think? Anything you’ve imagined that you think might happen & think could be cool? Honest questions.

The movie tells us Ben Solo took some students with him. The Knights of Ren have a variety of weapons that remind somewhat of Snoke’s Praetorian guard. All of whom also had a variety of weapons and unique armor characteristics. Both served under Snoke and were trained on some levels by him with gear provided to him (likely).

If some are ex-students then some of these people have the Force in addition to whatever weapon they seem to like. With a film left though I’m not sure it has to be any more complex than them seeing new weapons and liking them. Potentially the same reason the guard trained with their own weapons of choice too.

As for the goofiest looking weapon (which I agree is goofy looking... I think it’s a blade)



So, it would probably be used more like a shortened version of how this weapon was used.

 

The Praetorian guards are indeed obviously a variant on the Knights of Ren concept- could they be that in-story as well? Maybe Snoke had these different groups of elite warriors trained in the use of personal signature weapons and to fight against Force-users, without being Force-users themselves- perhaps he was wary of surrounding himself with that many potential rivals.

As for the students- yes, it seems as though the implication that they were the future KoR was the only point of mentioning them at all, which is why I, and I think most people assumed that's what they were. Now I'm wondering.

 

What would work best for you out of curiosity? Also, do you hope to see them back for episode IX?

 

Yeah, it doesn't really match up at all. Unless Luke hadn't yet trained them in the use of a lightsaber. Perhaps Kylo was his brightest student and was at that point the only one who had acquired the level of formation necessary to construct a blade. Perhaps that would have been part of a final ceremony for the other students? Kylo perhaps could even use this frustration and disatisfaction at Luke's slow and tedious (over careful, fearing the dark side) methods to help convince the dozen or so (or however many they are supposed to be) students to turn. I hate have to keep saying 'perhaps' when things could easily have been much clearer.
In any case, it's gonna take a lot of explaining.
As it stands I don't think the temple massacre concept has been executed at all well. It was so vague and far-fetched, I have found it a bit hard to swallow. Paper-thin story-telling that doesn't hold up to examination, for the time being anyway.

 

a.) I really haven't thought about it. It's their movie, not my fanfic.
b.) Not desperately, but I sort of think the question of "what's the deal with these guys?" needs resolution.