reylo-is-love-reylo-is-my-l-blog - Tumblr blog

[reylo-is-love-reylo-is-my-l-blog]

so accurate I'm screaming laughing and sobbing a lil bit

REYLOS ARE GOING IN AND OUT OF THE THEATER THIS DECEMBER LIKE - PART II

(Part 2 of 3, Part 1, Part 3)

[reylo-is-love-reylo-is-my-l-blog]

Late night ramble about Kylo/Ben.

First lets look at the actual person, then see if we can draw some Episode IX conclusions.

Ben Solo - Emotionally neglected, physically pampered, angry outbursts, emotionally volatile, highly sensitive, lonely.

Kylo Ren - Emotionally abused, physically abused, angry outbursts, emotionally conflicted, highly sensitive, lonely.

“Out of the frying pan and into the fire - young Solo has jumped.” Yoda might say.

Notice how similar the two are? At their core they are truly the same person. That really is Han and Leia’s baby boy.

We know why Ben Solo rejected his birthname: his family failed him, hurt him, rejected him and tried to kill him in his sleep.

We know what Kylo Ren is supposed to be: Vader 2.0.

We know why Kylo Ren can’t quite reach Vader level Sithdom: He’s conflicted.

Why is he conflicted? He doesn’t truly want to be in the situation he is in.

Why is he in that situation? Luke robbed him of all other options when he lit his blade that night.

Why did Luke do that? He panicked.

Why did he panic? Luke mind raped his sleeping nephew and saw the destruction of everything he held dear in Ben’s mind.

Why did Luke mind rape Ben? Ben was a school-shooter type kid, moody, dark, with outbursts during training… Luke wanted to find out what was wrong with his nephew.

Why was Ben like that? He was a pampered, spoiled only child of two absentee parents with gargantuan expectations put on him from all sides at an early age.

The knowledge of his connection to Vader was kept from him far too long and given in an inappropriate way.

His parents made him feel like he was some kind of monster. They talked about him behind his back but loudly enough to be overheard. They sent him away to be Luke’s problem. Luke tried to murder him in his sleep. Ben believes that he is a monster. It’s what his family thinks of him, it’s what everyone thinks of him, so it must be true… right?

He tries to live up to everybody’s expectations of him. His parents, Luke, Snoke, Phasma, Hux, his shuttle driver, the random stormtroopers who see him in the halls… he is trying so hard to live up to expectations… it’s too much for him, it overwhelms him at times.

The Kylo Ren identity and mask allow him to act out a fantasy, a fantasy of power, purpose, and poise… everything his grandfather was known to have had in spades but that Ben Solo lacks.

Yes, Ben is strong in the Force, immensely, but in reality he is an abused manchild who is lacking all agency and all forms of privacy… he lies to himself constantly to make his bad situation tollerable, but in fact he is just an overwhelmed boy who is frightened, abused, and powerless.

Snoke lies to him with every breath and manipulates him 24/7… he keeps Ben in a constant state of upheaval. He wants Ben to be a rabid cur… to be Hux with Skywalker blood. He constantly berates and abuses Ben for failing to live up to this expectation.

Kylo Ren is a shell, a mask, a sham. He is Ben’s shield against the pain he carries, the suffering he endures and the horrorific acts he performs on behalf of Snoke and the first order.

By nature, Ben is an introvert. An overthinker. An empath. These traits do not mix well with being an evil henchman. Make no mistake, he does want to be an evil henchman. He wants so many things that do not mesh with his personality. He wants to be respected even revered like his mother. He wants to be feared like his grandfather. He wants to be glib and gutsy like his dad… but in fact he is at the same time not at all like his family and so much like them it’s scarey.

He has some of their traits, a penchant for drama, recklessness, flying and quips…. But on a fundamental level his family is peopled by charismatic extroverts, and he is an awkward introvert.

Leia tells Han she wants their son back, but that’s not possible… their son, in her mind, is an illusion… Leia’s version of Ben never existed. She never saw him for who and what he is, she only saw him in the context of her expectations of him. As did Han, and Luke, and Snoke and Hux… all of the prominent people in his life… they look at him and see what they expect of him.

Nobody sees him for him. Nobody is privy to the depths of his pain, sorrow, loneliness and solitude. Nobody is even aware he has those feelings until Rey comes along and Forces her way into his mind’s inner sanctum.

Nearly three full decades into a life spent unseen, unknown, disconnected from everybody and then… out of nowhere, a nobody - his polar opposite - appears and she sees the things he keeps hidden from everybody (including himself to a large extent).

She sees everything he doesn’t want known… yet, she expects him to be exactly what he appears to be… an unfeeling monster… but she knows better than anyone that’s not truly who he is. She knows it well enough to pick up on the one thing she can do to actually hurt him… call him a monster.

Rey isn’t sugar n spice n all things nice, she’s fierce, fiery, and vicious. She’s going for the throat when she calls him a monster, make no mistake about that. She KNOWS how much that will hurt him and she does it on purpose. Twice.

Ben has seen into her mind, too. And in her he finds another soul that suffers as greatly as he does from loneliness, neglect, abuse and solitude. He knows how to hurt her, but he doesn’t exploit it for the petty satisfaction of hurting her. Yes, he does hurt her with it, but not for the sake of hurting her. He uses it to try to help her see that she is so much more than her parentage. She is better than them… she has risen above her lineage, while he longs to do the same but knows that he never can. He hurt her to heal her, like resetting a fracture that has begun to heal wrong. It may have hurt like hell but he did it with GOOD intentions… unlike her intentions when she called him a monster.

That’s the thing about Ben… he has good intentions… even when he’s doing bad things. His big picture goal isn’t galactic domination, unlike Snoke and Hux, his goal is peace in the galaxy, an end to a war that’s been raging off and on since the fall of the Old Republic. He is morally flexible enough to feel that most means are justified by the ends… but he is not morally bankrupt enough to support the obliteration of star systems or planets.

The connection he feels with her is a purely human connection. Two survivors who have found each other. Two lonely people who feel isolated even in a crowd but who find belonging with each other. Yeah, they have the Force, the mind bridge and all of that… but without that very real and very human connection the Force Bond would have been as useful/meaningful-useless/meaningless as Harry Potter’s connection to Voldemorte.

If the entire Resistance had been destroyed on Crait and Rey had joined him in the ruling of the galaxy his big picture goal would have become a reality. Would killing all the rebels have been a dick move? Sure. But killing the rebels would have ended the war and brought peace to the galaxy.

Would he have been Palpatine or Snoke 2.0 as Supreme Leader? No. That’s not Ben. He actually has good intentions, they didn’t. If Rey had accepted his proposal he would have had the woman he desperately loves by his side to help his moral compass point north. (Make no mistake he is in love with her.)

Rey is not by his side, though. She chose a different path. Which pushed him onto a different path as well.

I can’t say what Supreme Leader Kylo Ben will definitely be like… but I can tell you he will be better than his predecessors… because he does at least have good intentions and isn’t completely morally bankrupt. His moral flexibility (thanks dad!) Will no doubt keep the Resistance alive for a while… but his good intentions will win out in the end… though maybe not in an orthodox way.

It is my belief that the big space battle we’ve been promised in Episode IX will not be between Resistance and First Order but a civil war between Hux/Snoke loyalists and Kylo Ben loyalists who will hail him as a great leader owing to the RESULTS toward galactic peace he will inevitably (and deservingly) be credited with.

Despite her rejection of his proposal I do think Rey genuinely cares for/loves Ben Solo. I believe that in the end she will save his life at some point in Episode IX.

I do believe that his turning out to be a decent Supreme Leader will ultimately be what wins Rey’s heart over completely… though by the end of TLJ it’s clearly very close to being there already.

Leia’s death, I think, will have very little to do with Kylo’s ultimate redemption, my money is on his love for Rey being his motivation.

He will never be fully light, just as he will never be fully dark, but he will find an acceptible middle ground before the end. He will, like his father before him, always be a bad boy who also happens to be a good man…but could never be a “good guy.” Though he will prove to be a protagonist, he wont ever be the “good guy” that everybody calls for game night or pub hopping.

And that’s more than fine by me.

[reylo-is-love-reylo-is-my-l-blog]

[reylo-is-love-reylo-is-my-l-blog]

OORRRRR He has a ginormous legacy with his mother’s family. His dad’s, not so much. He has a huge legacy. Rey doesn’t at all

I love how the movie “Solo” made sure to cement that Han’s last name (and so, Ben’s) is the antithesis of a great family legacy. He didn’t have a last name, and so was given the invented name “Solo” (“alone”) by an Empire bureaucrat.

It’s almost like we’re getting spoiled at how Ben’s relationship to his heavy family legacy will be resolved—he has on the maternal side all this planetary royalty and genuine miraculous immaculate conception: “Skywalker-Organa-Amidala-Naberrie”

and on the paternal side he has a name that amounts to “No Legacy Whatsoever” — the only thing “Solo” has going for it is a (seemingly immortal) space ship his paternal grandfather had built and his father had flown, a spaceship that evaded even Kylo Ren’s attempts to shoot it down.

This is nothing that hasn’t been pointed out before, but the writers didn’t name the character “Ben Organa-Solo.” He isn’t a mix of maternal and paternal legacies, he carries only his father’s name. The answer is already there. If he wants to escape his heavy dark maternal legacy, the shadow of Vader, he only has to embrace his (lack of) paternal legacy he was named for. If he wants to be free, his last name is the key. The name that Snoke forbade to be spoken. Not the invented name Kylo Ren, not the ghost of his maternal grandfather, but his father’s name. His name is already free the way he wishes to be, he just needs to use it again, and let his nobody father’s chance influence on the Original Trilogy save him in the Sequel Trilogy as well.

[reylo-is-love-reylo-is-my-l-blog]

the backgrounds are the same

[reylo-is-love-reylo-is-my-l-blog]

imagine kylo res as hero and spoke villain and they being Ben’s family

Could you do a snippet where the hero has been captured by the villain and the hero realizes no one is coming to rescue them? And maybe the villain taunting them about it?

“It’s not that they don’t care,” the villain said. “It’s just that you’ve always cared more, haven’t you? You’re always there. You always come for them. They don’t even know how to come for you.” 

The hero’s jaw clenched. “Of course they’ll come for me.”

“Then why aren’t they here?” 

Delayed. They didn’t know something was wrong. Maybe the villain had stopped them. Maybe, maybe, maybe - but the doubt sunk cold and hard in the pit of the hero’s stomach, and the shame soon followed. Shouldn’t they believe in their friends? 

But then where were they?

“Shut up,” the hero bit out. They shoved the thought away. 

“Ooh, witty comeback.”

The hero swallowed. They wished they had a better comeback, something scathing that would sweep all of those chilly second thoughts away. Surely, they would come? And, if they didn’t, surely there was some really good reason for that? 

It’s not that they don’t care, it’s just that you’ve always cared more. 

“They’ll come. You’re just trying to make me give up.” 

“That doesn’t mean it’s not true,” the villain said, with a shrug. They circled the hero, fingertips trailing over their torso. “The sooner you realise that, the easier this will be on us both.” 

“Go to hell.” 

Shouldn’t they be just fine on their own?

“Oh, darling,” the villain stopped in front of them. “You’re already there.”

It took three months for the hero to believe it.

[reylo-is-love-reylo-is-my-l-blog]

deflecting anti bs like

Honestly TLJ has rendered antis so irrelevant that at this point I’m paying about as much attention to them as I do to a cranky toddler having a meltdown on the train: brief glance up to determine what the noise is, unaffected “oh,” plug in earphones and wait for parents to come and collect them as I continue on with my day.

[reylo-is-love-reylo-is-my-l-blog]

The adult novelization more-or-less depicts what happens in the movie (makes sense, Jason Fry spoke with Rian while writing it and apparently did minor detail edits after the movie was released) but the junior novelization has straight-up villain Kylo that's angry and manipulative. Since the official Lucasfilm stance is that any novel material that contradicts the movies isn't canon, it's probably not that big a deal, but it's also going to encourage antis, so not great news either.

Great. Well, the book is made for kids, and kids have to be reminded who the villain is, I suppose. And the author didn’t consult with Rian like Jason did. I also saw pages of the junior novelization that outright stated Kylo could still be redeemed and that Rey still wanted him back, so it’s not a total loss, I suppose.

[reylo-is-love-reylo-is-my-l-blog]

So the First Order Stormtrooper program is a lasting wound and the deliberate symbol in the sequel trilogy of both the Jedi Order and the Clone Armies’ failure toward their children. So when we look to the future to find balance for the failures in the previous movies, we may look to the First Order Stormtroopers to try to heal this wound.

[reylo-is-love-reylo-is-my-l-blog]

Even better: can you guys imagine a force bond when the resistance is making fun of him, and Rey defends him and he is so unexplainably happy, like a new puppy when it gets picked out of the shelter and taken to a happy loving home why am I sad now. Because now I’m seeing Ben as the sad abused lonely puppy that was put in the shelter but Rey can save him guys reylo has got to happen get the puppy free

fjgdoifjgoidfjg i had a dream that i was jokingly making fun of kylo ren to a friend and then i looked behind me and he stood there all sad. why do i feel like this is canon. sweet boy kylo

Omfg. Can you imagine a Force bond where he accidentally overhears the Resistance talking badly about him and Rey has to remind him he tried to kill them because he’s so sad about it

[reylo-is-love-reylo-is-my-l-blog]

Harrison on Working with Adam

He’s an absolute pleasure. He works independently with real proper ambition. He brings a lot to the table. He’s a wonderful actor and a very kind, generous human being.  - Harrison Ford

[reylo-is-love-reylo-is-my-l-blog]

You are not free until you have no need to impress anybody.

Joyce Meyer (via purplebuddhaquotes)

why did this change to “You are not free until you ask her to be an empress, not a nobody.”

[reylo-is-love-reylo-is-my-l-blog]

After a long twitter debate with antis

the–doctor–dances:

reygrets:

It’s over antis…we have the canon ground.

If you guys are Obi-Wan and us antis are Anakin… Then that means we kill you. Literally.

there is no death :/ only the force :/ 

[reylo-is-love-reylo-is-my-l-blog]

you all saw that right im not crazy?

[reylo-is-love-reylo-is-my-l-blog]

Why do I feel this is Ben about Rey.

The Addams Family (1991) dir. Barry Sonnenfeld 

[reylo-is-love-reylo-is-my-l-blog]

I can’t quit you, I can’t quit you

[reylo-is-love-reylo-is-my-l-blog]

“Kylo Ren wasn’t lost to them. Under his dark shell flickered a spark of light. He could be redeemed.”

“Their eyes met, and Rey saw in Kylo Ren the good person he wanted to be.”

“And if she wanted to save Ben, she would have to stop Kylo Ren.”

- Excerpts from Star Wars: the Last Jedi: A Junior Novel, posted on twitter (source)