#esp when Finn starts becoming kind of a character

[all-mirth-no-matter]

I really wish that instead of Michael it’d been Polly’s daughter Anna who was alive and got brought into the family business. I mean I get the point of it being Michael — he was the apprentice turned heir appointed threat, the new age to Tommy’s old ways. But how cool would it have been to see a young woman in this new era. An educated girl who becomes the company accountant, who Polly tries to protect from the surly side of the business but she’s her mother’s daughter and just can’t stay away. It would have been interesting to see Tommy navigate the same roadmap, just with a girl cousin instead, and the boatload of other complications that come with that minor detail change. I could see him being more protective, less threatened — but I’d still want to see her hungry for the life, for the power — and Tommy having to fight her the same way he ended up fighting with Michael. Only it’d be way more emotional.

Honestly I just wish there’d been more women. And imagine how angry she’d be when Polly dies. Just the dynamic all around would be so different. She’d have a different relationship with Polly, one where she sticks up for herself against her mother and acts out. And she’d be doted on by her cousins, protected, and she’d fight against all of it just wanting to be treated like one of the guys. She’d make them teach her how to shoot and fight despite Polly and Tommy trying to keep her away. She’d basically be the Ada substitute since she became like half a character throughout most of the show. Don’t get me wrong I love the main women characters who were part of the show, but it just could have been so cool if that one change had been made.

[stemmefemme]

McQueen as a Character

Watching Pixar’s Cars as an adult, over ten years after it came out, I find myself asking, “Is this really who I’m supposed to root for?” I had managed to convince myself that it has less to do with Lightning McQueen, and more to do with my love for a good underdog story. That it wasn’t distaste for the character, as much as it was distaste for the safe bet as a whole. Cars 3 almost proved this. I loved Cruz Ramirez, and was rooting for her from the moment she first appeared on screen, yet I loved Jackson Storm, the favorite, and projected winner, almost as much. So why was it that I found Lightning’s character dissatisfying? 

After asking myself this a few times, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s his character arc, or maybe a lack thereof. In Cars, Lightning starts out cocky and arrogant, he has canonically fired three crew chiefs at the beginning, and his disregard for his crew’s advice is ultimately what costs him a win and leads to the three way tie. Lightning’s character is riddled with opportunities for growth at the beginning. He has a strange resentment for his sponsors that gave him this opportunity, and the “one man show” attitude to match, and is constantly jumping the gun. He is self absorbed enough that his own trailer is filled with merchandise and memorabilia of himself. One of the major things that irks me about this movie is the way Lightning acts in Radiator springs. He brushes it off when he gets in trouble, and has this attitude of “I have better things to do than fix my mess.” He refers to the town as Hillbilly Hell, and has zero respect for the people who live there. He talks about his distaste for Rusty Cars to Mater, and when Mater asks what’s wrong with Rusty cars, he specifies that Mater is the exception. I don’t know how it works in the cars universe but that kinda sounds like casual racism? Or tokenism?

About halfway through the movie, Lightning starts to change for the better. The main reason he ever starts change is for Sally. His crush on her, and his respect for Doc after finding out he’s The Hudson Hornet are the only reasons he starts to attempt to know or befriend the other cars in Radiator Springs. His “moment of clarity” where he realizes he should be a better person is also his moment where he realizes his crush on Sally isn’t purely a physical attraction. At the end of Cars, Lightning’s growth is believable and seems to be genuine. It’s a safe assumption that Lightning has become a better person.

In 2011, there was no need for a sequel to Cars, and this shows. I personally love Cars 2, I could go on for hours about what Cars 2 could have been, and was. However, it’s not Lightning’s story. He’s the face of the franchise, yet fades into the background besides a few key moments. The first moment is the intro. Lightning has regressed some since the end of Cars. He is pushing Mater aside for Sally and only even invites his best friend on this trip of a lifetime because Sally told him to. He leaves Mater stranded in this new foreign world, when Mater had done the opposite for Lightning, and showed him all there was to life in Radiator Springs. The Tokyo leg of the WGP was Lightning's chance to return the favor, and he ultimately failed. Lightning spends most of the scenes in the first half of the movie treating Mater as a nuisance.

At the end of Cars 2, Lightning finds, and apologizes to Mater, who was the only friend Lightning had any known conflict with, as the majority of the movie is James Bondesque and focusing on Mater, Finn, and Holley(Who we deserve more of, tbh). I really don’t have any comments on Lightning besides his initial headassery because he doesn’t exist in the movie.

I Literally just think he’s annoying, and mean to Cruz in Cars 3

He’s trying his hardest to hold onto a career when he’s out of his prime, and his refusal to actually heed any of his trainers advice irks me as someone who’s coached different things for a few years

He just was like,,, dismissive of her. Her abilities as a trainer, her wants, the fact that she,,,, has feelings. Until of course he realized that he had no chance of actually beating Storm himself. (Also let’s talk about how Jackson has very clear neurodivergent coding and I’ll go on about that and how it’s damaging that he’s the “antagonist” with how neurodivergent kids could relate to him(esp in the canon book it seems) but that’s for another time.) His “development” in this is accepting his retirement and the fact that he’s not in his prime. Also the fact that his coming to terms with it was copying his mentor almost exactly besides disappearing for 50 something years.

Though his growth seems too sudden to mean anything in Cars. and his general being kind of annoying in Cars 3, maybe I don’t actually dislike him THAT much, I just hate Owen Wilson’s voice so fucking much

[gizkasparadise]

Crossroads, obvs! :D

LOL oh boy well. 

the death of kylo ren, aka it was only a prompt fill how did it end up like this:

the death of kylo ren was originally going to be like. 10 chapters max, and had a toooootally different plotline: aalto ren was going to be a plant by snoke and die within a chapter or two of his introduction (lol), rey was going to have to use the bond to kill kylo (hence the title, @ignitesthestars convinced me to make it more figurative), and it was going to end with rey being a sort of exile 2.0 from the kotor games (a wound in the force, essentially) following an ambiguously romantic chaste love story (i was trying to do something along the lines of V and Evey from the movie version of V for Vendetta)

i also…didnt think anyone would read it??? like, it was going to be my ~trippy, ~experimental art fic that would maybe get 100 hits and my itch would be scratched but then i was like oh fuck people are reading this and rooting for them lmfao iiiiiiiiiiiiii better change it

that’s why there’s kind of a big style shift from chapters ¾ to 5/6ish if you were wondering (esp re: aalto’s characterization)

so i was like okay this is going to actually have them live. UM. and from there i started kind of sketching out this trajectory of what was going to happen. i drew a lot of inspiration from the kotor games (obviously), but i also wanted to be clear that i wasn’t going for bastila/revan 2.0 (because i don’t like that ship, oops). so rey kind of became a revan/exile/bastila hybrid figure in terms of narrative, and kylo had revan elements mixed with malak

i also was kind of dying to do something with a tripped out timeline, so i made aalto an expy of leoben conoy from battlestar galactica and i added some KOTOR framing and the narrative just sort of took itself where it needed to go

UNTIL CHAPTER 12. when i was finishing chapter 11 i was like hmmmm there could be more to this if i wanted. so i asked some friends, and they were like duh do it, so i started laying out the groundwork for a sequel. i knew i wanted to continue with the flowwalking/time travel plotline, so i laid down some key foreshadowing moments in chapters 12 + 13 (the warehouse scene from stars don’t come down, the inclusion of the revan force vision, aalto telling rey the order of planets she’d visit/the order of the planets as they appear in the series, aalto’s death scene, etc.). 

chapter 13 was also luke’s death, and i debated having him die for real (so i could write some force ghost luke because hell yeah) or not. i Thought about it, and decided it would be cool if his soul, for lack of a better word, got taken out of the regular timeline and hidden somewhere else. i then drafted some bits, not really knowing where they were going, and i got stuck on the imagery of the lightsaber colors– silver, red, green. and i was kind of like WHAT IF I MADE THIS A TWIST, so that’s when i outlined in rey’s duo-colored lightsaber and her eventual time travel back to this scene. i remember getting a lot of WAIT HOW DID LUKE DIE comments and i was like :B the whole time 

i am a fan of parallels/bookends, so the story ends where it started in a couple ways. the last “before” story is what leads to the first “now” story, and ben is waiting for something/looking at engine lights just like rey was in the beginning– i liked the engine lights theme and decided the origin of it was rey watching her parents fly away – something i eventually got around to writing in…uh…the second to last chapter of the whole damn series WELP

stars don’t come down aka this isn’t kill bill but it is a little

i knew from the get-go that i wanted this to have a cast of knights of ren. most of my prelim outlining was pulling my favorite kotor villains (the sith lords of kotor 2 ft. malak) and figuring out how to translate them into new people. i developed janara and soran, and then @ignitesthestars and i developed dolari and orin together (fei actually wrote dolari first in her story making waves in the sand)

i also knew that i didnt want snoke in it that much. he kind of had to be in it, but i dont like him as a character / don’t find him interesting, so i wrote the plot around him but not with him

i knew i wanted kylo to be on a team with kes (because i wanted to play on chapter 12 of TDoKR, when he calls out ‘dameron’) and finn, because finn’s the best. initial outlines of the fic had wedge and maz playing way larger roles than what they ended up doing, but oh well

initial outlines of the fic also had rey and kylo leaving the war for a looong time (like, a couple years) and coming back at the end, but i decided that it fit better as the ending to the series (i like open endings, oops)

i wanted this fic to be about meeting in the middle, thematically. that’s why i ended up going with the two POVs this round instead of the before/now split. also as i was writing it, i realized this fic was about intersecting moments where TDoKR was about being separated. i decided to make that the Big Theme Arc of the series, with a planned final installment about them being together/united. 

meeting in the middle also had to do with kylo + rey’s character development. kylo is ben, and becomes a little bit more Light side throughout his travels. meanwhile, rey’s alone and she gets more and more like Aalto the more she chases after him / uses flow walking 

i also really wanted to practice fight scenes, so i took liberties there. obviously this is the fic with just. all the fight scenes

i wanted to use this fic to build on kylo’s relationships outside of rey / the relationships he lost when he turned on luke and the temple

i knew the ending of this fic around chapter 8 and wanted to get to it so bad but the middle parts ended up taking longer than i thought lol (it was supposed to be about the same length as TDoKR)

and i’m here aka all the foreshadowing shows up

because i had the fic outlined as much as i did / because i had set up the conclusion with all the time travel stuff, the actual plot for this was pretty much insta-written by the time i finished SDCD. which is why it got completed in like, a month lol

these were all the scenes i had wanted to write since like, midway through TDoKR but had to hold out on doing so

writing time travel fics sucks for this specific reason. I WAITED FOREVER TO WRITE REY SLICING A DESTROYER OPEN WITH A LIGHTSABER AND KYLO RIPPING IT IN HALF FROM THE GROUND

continuing the homage to KOTOR, this fic is basically a mashup of The Leviathan and Rakata Prime stages from the first game

the chapter “fire, fire” was my favorite chapter ever to write out of all the fic i’ve ever written

“and i’m here, home with you” is probably the best chapter in the series imo

all the chapter titles are song lyrics from playlist songs for the series

i really, really enjoyed getting to write out the full circle stuff i set up from the first fic – rey’s memories of engine lights and counting stars one by one by one, kylo’s are you it/ are you?, it’s just another step, etc. i wanted the fic to feel like lots of echoes to kind of riff on kotor 2′s premise 

the ending is left open for Reasons. one day i hope to get to write them :’D

[chaosslibrarian]

My first opinions of Star Wars The Last Jedi, just about an hour after I got out of the theatre. Under cut because wow they’re spoilers! THIS IS LONG so kind of detailed spoilers lol

I’m going to try to do my opinions as chronologically as I remember them, but it’s probably going to end up a huge mess after a while. I’m doing the Reylo thoughts last because... yeah wow.

Poe/Finn/Rose/The Rebellion (and some Hux)

If I start with the plot elements that don’t involve shipping I thought it was a genuinely funny scene with how Poe baited Hux, and how Hux bought it because he’s so uptight he wouldn’t be able to catch a joke unless it was his face and it was thrown at him. Even then it’s doubtful. It felt in character with Poe’s hotshot personality, and the way he talked to Kylo in one of the first scenes in TFA. 

Oh boy, here we’re already going to get all jumbled up, because to continue with Poe I think they did a great job of portraying him as the want-to-be hero who thinks he’s doing the best he can yet ends up fucking everything up in the end. I definitely think that the FO would have followed them through light speed anyway, because Hux is just that cunning and power thirsty that he would. But the Rebels would have been able to make it to Crait without detection if not for the Finn/Rose mission.

I loved the dynamic between Finn and Rose btw. Finn is the reluctant hero whose previous actions that have been based on his love for others have placed him in a seat he’s not quite sure he can, or wants to, fill. For Finn there are only two things that matter: Rey and Poe, but Rey first and foremost before anything else. When he was about to escape to her, the idea of her being out there lost esp after how he last saw her? Definitely enjoyed that idea of not all heroes being the ones who want to be heroes, but that some even suck at being heroes lol... in different ways. Poe and Finn show different ways you can be an amazing hero and a sucky hero all in one mission. Love it. Love them.

I had so high hopes for Rose as a character, and she definitely lived up to them. She saw her hero try to escape and said “fuck him” and tasered him. Her sister died for them so she wasn’t about to see anyone take off when they were needed the most. Rose’s backstory was just... yes, I loved that she was given a motivation, and that she was awkward and awesome all at the same time. Her saving Finn who was on a suicide mission was... yes. Risking her own life for him? She and Finn both love very fiercely, and I think that makes them perfect for one another. You could really tell that Kelly and John got along well on set.

From what I saw before I was expecting leaving the theatre not feeling the Rebellion’s cause being as legitimate as before. Though it did become evident that at this point it was all retaliation and both just trying to eliminate each other which is a battle neither side was better or worse for (their ideologies behind their desire to eliminate the other is what makes them better or worse). In the end they’re both killing people. It was also interesting bringing up arms dealings. A very political point to place smack dab in the middle of a Star Wars film, but a true one nevertheless. It’s easy to see arms dealers as abetting the “wrong” side and profiting off of war like that, but this is reality. They arm both sides and benefit from the perpetuation of war. This is what is happening in our world right now, and a social commentary that to me stuck out like a sore thumb in a way that I didn’t know whether I liked or not in a movie like this. I’m leaning towards like, but not sure yet. 

I’m really sad to say that I didn’t see much in the storyline for Leia and Admiral Holdo, they had some moments but it just felt like they were side characters giving the others something to bounce off of and give them their motivations and struggles to deal with. I think the one part of the movie I wasn’t at all happy with was how they did the Leia-force-pulling-herself-back-on-the-ship. It just looked weird and like a witch flying on a broom against a star sheet backdrop. You could see the wires even if they were edited out. I really wonder what they will do with Leia’s character in IX. It honestly feels like Rian didn’t really know what to do with Leia, and that’s  the one downfall of this film. 

Rey/Kylo/Luke/Snoke/Hux (Reylo!)

I think I heard somewhere before that Luke would just chuck the lightsaber over his shoulder and away when he took it, but the moment fell a bit flat for me. Maybe it was delivery, cutting, how it was written... it just didn’t fit into the scene. Not because it was unexpected, unexpected things can still fit into the scene...

Rey’s quest to convince Luke of coming back to join the Resistance, hiding who she is from him because the truth about it scares her. Slowly she begins opening up. But Luke begins making the same mistake he did with Kylo fast when he decided to teach her the very basics of the Force. It was kind of cute of what Rey thought Jedi were, and it lends credence to the idea that she took some of the knowledge from Kylo’s head IMO. 

Back to Rey vs Luke. Luke’s fear of Rey as soon as she investigated the other thing on the island, something that scared Luke, he shut her down. Instead he’d be comfortable with her powers being left out there untamed and so easily manipulated? Odd choice Luke. 

When Rey thought that Kylo had come to the island but it was just a force vision/bond instead I... loved it. Rey’s quick anger and Kylo’s exploring curiosity of what was happening. It kind of felt like a fanfic, but in the best of ways like the truly well written ones you wish you could see on screen... and I guess a fanboy like Rian is writing “fanfic” but it’s now canon (so cool!). Their slow acceptance of each other, the initial hostility and awkwardness, the anger that Rey got to unleash on him to sort through it. The different stories of how Ben became Kylo but were all the same.

In the beginning Luke did feel responsible for what he’d done, but he didn’t want to fess up to what he really had done. He had been guided by fear, even if just for a few moments, and unleashed it against a child who should’ve been given comfort and guidance... Luke did create Kylo, even if he only did so in a few seconds of fear. But Luke seeking Ben out and looking into his dreams... it wasn’t a thing of the moment. He reacted against a fear he’d already created in his head beforehand, fearing the past instead of looking toward the future and helping Ben. 

The scene where Kylo was shirtless was funny. The whole “can you cover up?” (not verbatim ofc) was so cute. Rey all flustered seeing a man we know she is conflicted about and seeing him look really damn good...yeah, I liked that scene because it pushed the characters even further and told us as an audience that they’re building towards something. Rey doesn’t hate him anymore, she might even feel some kind of attraction that she doesn’t yet understand herself... 

When Rey got sucked down into the “dark hole” and the whole mirror thing. It was creepy yet so well done. I was going “nope... nope, nope” during the whole scene because nope. That’s creepy AF well done Rian. The whole waiting patiently in line for something, following an order and just following along to get to the end felt like something the FO definitely stands for. I mean... “Order” you know? I don’t know how to best explain it right now as it’s 2am and I’m pretty tired. Might get back to this idea at a later date. 

But I loved how it was Kylo she confided in this too. And, how she knew this kind of clandestine connection she had with Kylo would only drive Luke away... and probably because she didn’t understand what it meant herself either. When she turned to Kylo with you know she’s starting to trust his word, starting to see him as a human being with complexity and struggles that can’t be placed into neat boxes of “good” and “bad”. When Kylo admitted to being a monster I think that threw her off a lot...

Then when Luke finds them, and the fight between Rey and Luke where Rey truly shows herself as a girl on a mission who will not deal with this man’s crap anymore. Either she Luke comes with her, or she goes finding hope somewhere else in someone else. 

Rey’s gullible, definitely. She was gullible in TFA, and she’s quickly learning that she needs to not take things at face value, because people have sinister motivations that she can unwittingly end up giving power to.

As for Kylo’s part of this... he’s just as starved for love and affection as Rey is. They’re both finding something in each other that hasn’t been provided anywhere else. Kylo’s curiosity at first and then calm acceptance that she was now a part of his life, and then seemed to fall deeper and deeper into this connection between the two. Their fingers touching? ahhhhhhh, once again... need to get back to this at another point. Too much to say. 

THE ELEVATOR SCENE WOW YOU GUYS

In the throne room I was on edge it was so good. We obv knew Kylo wouldn’t kill Rey because hello, but for a while I was uncertain how exactly this would go about. Kylo seemed to have for a moment been 100% onboard with the whole manipulating Rey, but then his betrayed face at this connection between the two of them created by Snoke for nefarious reasons... oh he was betrayed. But, after years and years under Snoke he now knows how to hide his intentions, knows how to conceal them under other expected feelings. 

Rey calling him Ben was a sure way of her turning him against Snoke. The whole “wanting to kill his enemy” thing and he turned the lightsaber subtly around and THEN LIT IT UP AND KILLED SNOKE was so fucking badass I couldn’t deal. Oh, and before that Snoke’s torture of Rey and how Kylo seemed to want to get up and rip his fucking throat out. 

The two of them fighting together? I don’t think I breathed for like a solid minute. It was incredible. I am... yes. Yes. I need to see that over and over and over again. When Rey threw him her lightsaber and he killed the pretorian guard?? Holy fuck. That was awesome.

And when Rey turned down his hand, because while somewhat good idea Kylo your execution of it is 100% terrible and you need to get your shit together. That struggle there. HOW THEY STRUGGLED FOR THAT SABER AND HOW IT FUCKING BLEW UP!? omg

and then Hux finding Kylo and Kylo lying because... he just helped a rebel get away and he killed the supreme leder for her?? Hmm, people might have questions about that so better not go spilling that secret to others Kylo? Hmm?

OH, and BEN! BEN!

At the end of the movie where they share that bond one last time before she pulled up the bridge? Idk if that’s her cutting him off or not. Can she do that? I think in IX she’ll struggle with that a lot.

But during the battle of Crait.... oh boy. Kylo you are a child. And Kylo and Hux trying to both have power was like watching two children bicker, but that’s what they’ve done since TFA so no surprise lol. Then Kylo’s obvious tantrum at Luke. Blasting him for minutes to make sure he’s dead (and holy crap Hux’s comment was gold). When Luke survived I understood he wasn’t actually there so I wasn’t too pressed with what was going to happen during their fight. Was quite surprised that he actually died though, wasn’t expecting that! But it was a good way for his character to go. Not murdered or lost in a battle, but being a hero (side note: I liked his arc in this movie where he got to face himself again and was given the OK to burn down the temple basically).

And Rey and Kylo/Ben talking about her parents? WOW that was so sad and so... a lot. Her parents were truly horrible, I had hoped for something more from it, but I also liked that she was a nobody because it’s hopeful in a way. That out of hardship and bad experiences you can emerge as something bigger and significant, a hero. That’s a great message for kids and adults everywhere IMO. But it was a heartbreaking scene where Kylo/Ben challenged her to search for what she knew to be true. She didn’t have the legacy she hoped she had, she didn’t have a family that missed her and would come back for her. She’d known that for a long time but it was the one comfort that she had. The dream of being something greater. But now she’s... greater. Greatest maybe. 

OTHER THOUGHTS

Talking after the movie my friends and I agreed that Kylo’s ideas of wanting the old structures to die and to create something new were actually quite... you know good, but his ways are bad. Like I touched upon before. Even Luke was on that path where he wanted the Jedi to end because it was an archaic idea of the world and needed to be changed. So Rey may be a Jedi, but she will have to build up an entirely new Jedi “order” because she has no knowledge of the one before, and she has a unique ability to make it far better than it used to be, maybe with more of a balance. She’s somewhat drawn to the dark, no? It’ll be interesting to see...

I think IX will be focused a lot on building a new kind of structure, of demolishing the old to make room for new and improved things. The size of the Resistance dwindling fast it’s going to be hard for them to keep standing up against the FO, they’ll be wholly reliant on Kylo’s weak-spot for Rey. While he seemed ready to kill her after her rejection... remember he’s got the temper of a teenager atm. He will need to cool it a little, and with his connection with Rey I think that will happen. I hope that their bond remains open and frustratingly inconvenient for both of them, when they’re both alone and that that will help with creating the BALANCE of the future.

I really really hope the next film will be about finding the balance and both of these sides trying to build up new things in the ashes of the old. Kylo doing it dark-side method at first, but increasingly Rey will help him connect with the light side of the Force, and together they will end up creating a grey sort of harmony that is a bit chaos where neither side ever really wins because they both need each other to exist.... and Rey and Kylo will need each other to exist...

Hmm, this got way longer than I intended. Way longer. Now it’s 2.40am... heh. But lots of thoughts. I have to see it again. And again.

[mara-the-cactupus]

Re your post about shipping and r3ylo.. You mentioned you could guess from marketing where they might be going, do you mind sharing what you think? I’m just curious :) esp since you’re a filmmaker

Oh, haha, I’m not actually a filmmaker; it is one of my life plans and I love picking apart stories to see how they tick, and how I could work some of those elements into my own, but I have yet to write or direct a feature.

But nevertheless…

(TLJ SPOILERS AHEAD)

…

If I were to channel my younger self (back when I idolized the most predictable plots ever, thanks to my mostly fairytale-based upbringing) I would say that this sort of yin/yang, opposites-attract, beauty-and-the-beast tale of redemption and hope would absolutely make sense.

- platonic love in Star Wars -

Now, I don’t know if this means that they’re going for a R/K romance; I would definitely prefer if they didn’t, especially given that Kylo Ren is frankly a monster, and all of Star Wars’ romances have made me cringe so far.

In fact, I loved how Rogue One ended without a kiss; the only real romance of that movie was the sort of old-married-couple camaraderie of Chirrut Imwe and Baze Malbus.

I think Star Wars works better when it’s focused on familial themes, and keeps pairings platonic; just think of how much love exists between Luke and Leia, vs. Han and Leia. Perhaps I’m misreading the writers’ intentions, but that moment when Rose told Finn that she saved him because his life is worth more than sacrificing himself to take out the cannon (maybe a lesson she learned from losing her sister?) felt similar to Rey and Finn’s hug in The Force Awakens, or Jyn Erso and Cassian Andor’s embrace towards the end of Rogue One: warm, platonic, and full of affection or comfort. The way I interpreted it, Rose was so weak that hugging Finn was out of the question, so she mustered her strength for a small kiss instead.

- opposites attract / beauty and the beast -

The K/R relationship, on the other hand, reads a lot less like that kind of familial affection, and more like two characters whose destinies and identities are closely intertwined. If Star Wars had prophecies (…does it?), they would feature in one. They are opposites: light and dark, each trying to tug the other towards their side.

This also connects to the beauty-and-the-beast archetype that we love to repeat in fantasy romances: the good, pure woman believes that the flawed, violent monster is capable of being saved, and through her love he is able to redeem himself and become fully human.

This can be a problematic trope, especially since it’s usually framed so that the woman forgives the man’s abuse; nevertheless, it provides a compelling amount of angst and pining, which often resonates strongly with audiences. (Popular examples include the Dr@rry ship, which tugs on many readers’ heartstrings due to the combination of suppressed feelings + outward antagonism; the enemies-to-lovers trope in fanfic; or Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy’s relationship arc in Pride and Prejudice.) Conflict is often more compelling than simple, honest love… and Star Wars’ most famous romance, between Han and Leia, is proof that the franchise has a fondness for this kind of love-hate tension.

- yin and yang -

Now, I am not really a hardcore Star Wars fan and so I might be forgetting something, but from what I can remember, Star Wars has never really done this kind of two-character dichotomy before, which is a little surprising given that it’s a franchise based around these very yin/yang principles of light vs. dark. If they have, it’s been between a good character and a bad character; Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, perhaps. Light and Dark are seen as opposites, and sort of by extension, good and evil/the Empire and the Rebels are that dichotomy. With Rey and Kylo Ren, there is potential for one (or both) to switch sides; Rey is untrained, and has the potential for darkness (Luke appears to be scared of her power in the trailer), while Kylo Ren is introduced in The Force Awakens as having an internal struggle that hints at the possibility of a redemption arc. They are two sides of the same coin.

(However, from what I understand, traditionally, yin and yang do not reflect good and evil. If yin and yang are two opposing forces that exist in everything, balancing them creates peace; therefore, “peace” cannot be one of the two forces, with “violence” as its opposite – and so “good” cannot be a force, with “evil” as its opposite.

This is particularly interesting when you consider the codebreaker’s point in The Last Jedi, that both sides power the same machine. Both sides use violence against the other, to restore their vision of order to the galaxy; the First Order’s happens to include genocide, but regardless of their moral purity, neither side technically embodies “peace.” So in that sense, they aren’t really opposites on the yin/yang scale.)

Despite this, Star Wars generally frames Light vs. Dark as synonymous with good vs. bad, so I suppose we can still interpret these as being two opposites of the yin/yang variety. So, for the sake of our purposes, yin is Dark/bad, and yang is Light/good.

- the Force as a midpoint between two opposites -

Luke teaches Rey that the Force is not something to be used by either side as a tool, but is instead the force that exists between all opposites – this implies that Force sensitive people are not inherently light/good or dark/evil, and make that choice individually. Rey makes this connection directly when she tells Luke that he was wrong to conclude that Kylo Ren needed to be stopped; she argued that his choice was not yet made… but our two characters view their status as Force-sensitive people in different ways:

Rey interprets this as proof that Kylo Ren has the potential to choose to join the Light side, despite his current status on the Dark side; she sees the conflict within him as a temporary state that can be fixed through his conversion.

On the other hand, Kylo Ren interprets the separation of the Force from either end of the spectrum as proof that he and Rey can exit the system entirely, “leave it all behind,” choosing neither the Light/Rebellion nor the Dark/First Order.

Kylo Ren sees that the two sides tug on each other and create endless conflict, in the same way that he and Rey tugged on the lightsaber and split it in two; he wants to resolve his internal conflict by rejecting the system entirely, and he wants to do that with Rey. Without her, he has no one.

- Kylo Ren’s reasons for wanting Rey to join him -

One of the biggest insights into the difference between Kylo Ren and Rey comes when he tells her that nobody cares about her except for him.

First of all, this statement is objectively inaccurate. Finn, Han, Leia, and Chewbacca have all shown fondness for Rey in the first film alone.

What he really means is that he has nobody who cares about him, except for her. Snoke and Hux treat him like garbage, his underlings probably hate him, he’s killed his father, estranged himself from his mother and uncle, and could never really go back and face them even if they forgave him, what with the guilt from all the people he’s murdered.

But she seems to care. What with their mental Force-Skype connection, and with her alternating between “you’re a monster” and “I saw the conflict in you” [there’s potential for goodness in you], he believes that maybe, just maybe, she might understand and sympathize with him. And he’s isolated himself for so long that he probably interprets this as love. (Hence the cringe-y shirtless scene, which I suppose was his attempt at a physical seduction…?? I guess taking his helmet off in The Force Awakens didn’t excite her enough, so he went all-in and tried to seduce her with the PG-13 equivalent of a dick pick.)

He thinks that maybe she could love him, and that would be enough, and he could leave his shitty past behind and not be alone. He acknowledges that he’s a monster, because he knows that he is; he’s just holding out hope that she will forgive him for his sins, because she keeps talking about how he can still be saved… but the problem is that while his idea of balance (the Force) is a balance between Light and Dark, good and evil, her idea of balance is the peace that will come from a Resistance victory. She wants him to resolve his internal conflict by choosing Light over Dark.

- what Rey wants from Kylo Ren -

I think that the main problem with this ship (as a possible direction for them to go; ignoring what I think about it personally) is that it’s pretty one-sided, and based on unhealthy principles. Rey doesn’t want Kylo Ren in a romantic light at all; he’s mind-raped her, killed her surrogate father-figure (who was his own father, adding to her revulsion at his morality), is a major part of the First Order that has terrorized her world and her friend Finn, has almost killed her friend Finn (remember, she doesn’t know that Finn has woken up), and failed Luke.

Rey wants to save Kylo Ren because she believes that it is the right thing to do, not because she has feelings for him. She thinks that if she can convert a major player on the Dark side to the Resistance, the First Order will be weakened, enabling a Resistance victory. She also might want to prove to Luke that he didn’t fail in his teachings.

- will Kylo Ren convert to the Light side? -

Look at what Kylo Ren does when Rey rejects his offer to go with him and leave the Resistance/First Order conflict behind: he tells Hux that she killed Snoke, then takes command of the First Order and resumes his campaign against the remaining Resistance forces. He fights Luke. Let’s be honest, even though the trailer made it look like he was going to start acting on some hidden inner goodness (hesitating when faced with shooting at Leia; the editing suggesting that Rey was asking him for guidance, rather than Luke), this film made it clear that there is only one thing that could make him turn down the Dark side: Rey.

So, what is the most plausible way to end this character arc?

Well, I see one of two options:

Rey continues to try to drag him away from the Dark side, and he accepts… but only because she has agreed to join him. From her perspective, it’s a personal sacrifice for the good of the Resistance; for him, it’s what he wants. The fight in the red room proved that if Rey is involved, he has the potential to fight against the Dark side. But without her, he immediately snaps back to the Dark like he’s a lightsaber and half of the jedi playing tug-of-war suddenly let go.

He ends the trilogy as a villain, on the Dark side. Now, while this makes sense from a real-world standpoint, I don’t know why they would have spent so much screen time focusing on his internal conflict between Light and Dark if he was just going to end up as a bad guy. Like, this took up most of Rey’s plotline in this film, and regardless of that will-she-accept-his-guidance tease from the trailer, I seriously doubt that Rey is going to turn to the Dark side.

So, since I assume they must have some reasoning behind this K/R storyline, and the amount of focus that has been placed on the two characters and their relationship (to the point of minimizing the role of Finn, who was arguably the main protagonist of The Force Awakens, or at least a co-protagonist, with Rey), I would guess that they’re going somewhere with this, and that somewhere just might be a romance. I would really appreciate it if they didn’t, though.