#kylo ren who? my ass only knows jacen jaina and anakin

[atamascolily]

AND ANOTHER THING

So I’m putting together a timeline for the Star Wars Sequel trilogy based on Wookiepeedia, and I noticed some things:

5 ABY - Ben Solo born (conceived after Battle of Endor, yikes). 15 ABY - Rey born. 10-year-old Ben Solo begins training with Luke.

28 ABY -Ben is 23. He learns the truth about his heritage when Leia is ousted in a political scandal. Destruction of Jedi Temple. Ben turns to the dark and becomes Kylo.  Luke goes into exile (???). 34 ABY  [six years later] - Events of TFA. Rey is 19. Kylo is 29. TLJ picks up where TFA leaves off.

First of all, Ben isn’t a child when he and Luke have that kerfuffle; he’s a grown-ass adult. I don’t believe Luke Skywalker would try to murder his nephew, even though canon insists that he does, but I have zero sympathy for the manchild we see in TFA and TLJ who ought to know better and doesn’t. If he were Rey’s age, I’d be willing to cut him a lot more slack. 

Luke standing over him with a lit lightsaber is traumatizing, yes, but Kylo doesn’t even ask, “Hey, what the hell are you doing?” either before or after he reacts. He just blasts Luke away, sets the place on fire, and runs. (It’s unclear in the films if he deliberately kills the students or if their deaths are accidents. It’s also unclear in the films if the students he takes with him are kidnapped or if they’re co-conspirators / turn to the Dark themselves. Given how cavalierly Kylo murders people in TFA and TLJ, however, I find TLJ’s decision to suggest, “hey, you were wrong to jump to conclusions about Kylo” is... odd. Even if he wasn’t evil then, he chose to become evil. That wasn’t Luke’s doing!!! Rey is right on the money when she tells Luke that “Kylo failed you”.) 

Keep in mind that the OT never tried to justify Vader’s crimes ex post facto by saying he was misunderstood. Vader is presented as genuinely evil, right up until the point where he saves Luke, and it’s a surprise for everyone because there’s literally no warning that it’s coming. That act doesn’t undo all that’s come before. It just shows that there was room for him to be different. That’s different from what I see TLJ trying to do.

I’ve noted the age gap between Kylo and Rey before; it’s one reason why I am personally squicked by a romantic relationship between them. Though they would both be considered legal adults in the US, there’s a big age and experience gap between most 19-year-olds and most 29-year-olds, and so while a relationship could work in theory, it would likely be an exception rather than the rule. (Per XKCD, the general rule of thumb for age gaps in relationships is [half your age + 7] - so Rey is 2 years younger than the rule suggests is appropriate.) Rey is exceptionally mature for her age; Kylo notably less so--I don’t see it working out.

Of course, the age gap isn’t the only reason this pairing doesn’t appeal - the torture/mind rape sequence alone would make this a NOTP for me - but it really doesn’t help.

Also, as an aside, please note that 28 ABY was a hell of a year, and there’s barely any information about it in canon, despite the fact that it’s so freakin’ pivotal in shaping the ST’s world. There’s Bloodline, which is about Leia’s heritage becoming public (which I have not read, so I’m super-fuzzy on the details) and the Rise of Kylo Ren comic series... and that’s pretty much it.

But the reason I mention the age gap is because The Rise of Skywalker decided that Kylo and Rey were two halves of some mystical “Force dyad” (try saying that with a straight face!) and I... have some questions. Like was Kylo always one half of the dyad for ten years, just hanging out all by his lonesome until Rey finally popped into existence to “complete” him (ugh) or what? How does that even work??

(Wook says The Rise of Skywalker: Expanded Edition includes a bit about how Palpatine tried to make a Force dyad with Vader and I just...how would that even work?? Please stop, you’re embarrassing yourself.)

The only way the stupid Force dyad business could even possibly make sense is if Kylo and Rey were Secret Twins--but the age gap makes that impossible. Literally all of the stuff that the narrative uses to establish them as Star-Crossed Lovers would make just as much sense--if not more--if they were Secret Twins, but they can’t be Secret Twins because of the age gap. And I suspect the age gap was deliberate, precisely to rule out the prospect of Secret Twins in the first place because... the OT already did it? (I dunno, they didn’t have any problem re-creating most of the stuff from the OT into the ST, right down to superweapons and Emperor Palpatine, so I honestly don’t know why they drew the line at the Secret Twins thing, which would have at least made sense.)

But you know where else we see this kind of age gap?  Let’s roll over to Legends, shall we?

7 BBY - Kyp Durron born.

9 ABY - Jacen and Jaina Solo born. Kyp is 16.

11 ABY - Events of the Jedi Academy trilogy by Kevin J. Anderson: Kyp Durron turns to the dark side based on the urging of a Sith ghost, fights Luke, destroys the suns of several systems, and is brought back to the light by Han Solo. Kyp is 18. Jaina is 2. 

So there’s a slightly bigger age gap between Kyp and Jaina, but everything else maps out so perfectly between those two and Kylo and Rey that it’s just... blindingly obvious the writers were trying to have it all ways by mashing a Kyp/Jaina storyline with the Jacen vs. Jaina storyline, plus mixing in the Dark Empire plot  in for good measure. In my opinion, it does not work.

Also, lest you call me a hypocrite because I admit to shipping Kyp/Jaina on occasion, let me be clear: I don’t ship this pairing when Jaina is 19 and Kyp is 35--not only because of the age gap, but because Kyp is her teacher at that point, and that is is a major squick for me. But when Kyp is 50, Jaina is 34, she’s not his student anymore, they’ve both matured, and the creepiness equation cited above is in their favor. Context matters.

Anyway, I don’t understand how a Force dyad works, and I don’t think the writers do either, because none of their explanations make any sense. The only reason Rey and Kylo are a dyad is Because The Writers Said So. That’s it. It’s the Soulmates trope taken up to 11 because in theory everybody should have a soulmate, but there’s literally only one Force dyad ever, because they’re just That Special.

And the whole business was  even more offensive once I realized that Anakin was allowed to be the Chosen One all by his lonesome, but Rey is only complete when she’s bonded with Kylo as a Force dyad (despite someone being able to embody All of The Jedi At Once without him). What, and I mean this literally, the fuck.

Anyway, in my fix-it fic, things are a little more straightforward: Kylo tried to mind-rape Rey in TFA, as per canon, and when Rey fought back and pushed him out of her mind, the trauma triggered a lot of her latent Force powers. Each of them picked up stuff from the other’s mind as a consequence of Kylo’s unskillful digging, and it left them with a lingering connection that shows up in TLJ’s “Force Skype” conversations at unexpected intervals, which Rey believes Kylo to be doing on purpose.

Legends!Luke postulates that Rey is unable to keep Kylo out because of her own internalized self-doubt and trauma and works to change that as he works with Rey. The culmination of that arc is for her to deliberately set her boundaries and defend them successfully with skill and control, rather than pure instinct--basically, to revisit the trauma in TFA and change the ending.

[thesummerstorms]

4, 10, 11 + star wars?

Send me a fandom and a number for Salty Fandom Opinions

4. Do you have a NoTP in your fandom? Are they a popular OTP?*

SEVERAL. Like, a good portion of my NOTP list is SW and stuff I feel like I shouldn’t have to say. 

Sabine/Ezra  is probably the sanest, I just really fuckin’ hate the dynamic of “annoying ass boy wears down cool older girl by refusing to reliquish his crush on her until she magically sees he’s Worthy (tm),

Jusik/Arla  and Parja/Fi  both have all sorts of crazy ass medical/mental dependency and power dynamic issues and issues of dating/sex as obligation for care giving and really, really squick me out. In addition to which, Parja/Fi has this “let’s immediately take away the woman’s job while the guy expresses how much he wants to get her pregnant” dynamic as of O66 & 501st, and Jusik and Arla has the literal mind wipe+ the creepy to me age gap.

Rey/Kylo Ren which like, why the fucking fuck do I have to say this, TLJ was a nightmare in this regard, even if it ended up with her rejecting him. Rey is not a vessel to redeem a fucktard, and he literally tortured her.

Hux/Kylo Ren I don’t give a fuck about either of these assholes; Hux doesn’t even have a personality beyond “genocide”, and honestly a lot of the fandom seems like a hyperfixation on the only two white skinny guys available to fuck. 

Kallus/Garazeb I hate this one too. I hated the unearned redemption arc, and I generally dislike the idea of shipping a character with someone who thought they successfully carried out genocide on his entire species. 

I also have a significant list of fandom darling pairings that I couldn’t give less of a shit about (including anything with Anakin, Obi-Wan, and certain configurations of TCW characters) but that’s not the ask.

10. Most disliked arc? Why?

I’m having a hard time limiting this down to one.

Callista’s leaving Luke because she couldn’t feel the Force and (at least partially) thought she couldn’t give him Force-sensitive babies and then only showing up later after Luke’s wife was killed and then only to reveal her literal soul had been eaten by a Force-abomination to entrap Luke and give him mangst.  

Listen to me, Callista is a Clone Wars era Jedi who not only walked knowingly into her (painful) death and used her spirit + the Force to seize control of a rogue AI and stop it from destroying worlds, she’s also a CW era Jedi who later ensnared a body that wasn’t hers and found herself powerless and stranded years out of her own timeline but determined to regain her abilities and crack down on the Imperial remnant. Do you know how much potential she had to be a bad-ass standalone non-Skywalker character, terrible original books not withstanding? Especially if she slowly regained her Force powers over machinery and AI and electronics?

Etain’s entire BS death sequence, but everyone has heard this one before. She lives with Dar and becomes a Mando Force-using Rebel outside of the influence of her emotionally abusive and misogynist father in law, end of discussion Fuck you, KT.

Mara Jade being fridged for various Skywalker mangst. This is ALSO on Traviss. Fuck you again, KT.

Laranth in the Coruscant Knights series being fridged for mangst for Jax and the entire part where the femme fatale tries to seduce Jax in what is an INCREDIBLY obvious betrayal. Actually I hate this series in general for taking the awesome concept of Coruscanti noir and turning it into a mangst jerk fest with no respect for its female characters.

Fridging the Exile as a Force-spirit-battery and making Revan a (particularly dumb-ass) man fighting yet another variation on yet another Sith empire instead of using literally any of the interesting Force horror themes from Kotor 2

The way the Legacy of the Jedi books focused on making Mirta Gev look spiteful/incompetent/unsympathetic compared to Vestara Kai (who is also repeatedly described sexually from a creepy male pov despite being 19) instead of focusing on the way more interesting conflict of Mirta being friends with Jaina Solo and thrown into conflict against the Solos, who she grudgingly likes/respects in order to find the cure to a genetic virus Jacen Solo introduced to eradicate her and her family if she ever tries to return to her homeworld and her longing to go back to Manda’yaim vs that respect friendship

The whole BS with Canderous’s wife in the Revan novel

Seriously, do we see the effing pattern here?

Also, generally, the Yuuzhan Vong wars, but that’s more just that I found the books boring and hard to get into

The Last Jedi, in general.

11. Is there an unpopular character you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why?

Etain is heavily unpopular in a lot of the more misogynist RepCom circles because they see her as someone who entrapped Darman, etc, etc, but she’s my darling who I love to death. She’s a hot mess, she doesn’t really start off knowing how to deal with other people, she fucks up the pregnancy thing, but she’s also passionate, determined, tough, resourceful, and determined to make up for her mistakes

Callista is unpopular because truthfully her books were terribly written and also Callista/Luke vs Mara/Luke was apparently a major ship war back in the day, but people just fail to see that potential for a bad ass character arc and a unique exploration of the Force and what it means to be a live and have a self identity

I also really love guilty-and-conflicted-and-changing Canderous of late Kotor 1 and Kotor 2, and I feel like a lot of people either dislike or dismiss him as a token blood thirsty character with no depths

[sawthefaeriequeen]

Rise of Skywalker was okay. Not amazing as a whole (although there were moments that were), but not terrible.

(thoughts, thoughts)

-I found Poe's arc the most interesting and this is coming from someone who spent TLJ all :/// at how he was written.

-Finn's (lack of an) arc was the bitterest disappointment, sigh. You didn't even do anything with his Force sensitivity? I really liked the talk with Jannah about breaking away from First Order, at least.

-I disliked Rey a lot after TLJ, but saw a lot more of the old Rey I liked in TFA here, which was nice. I mean, I know "I just have to forget about the previous movie to appreciate this character in this movie" is a weird way to go about it but blame Disney and Johnson, lmao. Daisy is great and I wish her an awesome career after this.

-my BB8 love is the one thing that’s survived this trilogy intact :D

-the trio was…okay? Honestly I used to be so excited about all the OT3/BROT3 potential after TFA, and then it fizzled out in TLJ.  I felt like it was a bit too late for the trilogy to entirely sell me on them as the "new trio",  but what was there was fine. I'm glad the film didn't do that obnoxious MCU-type forced banter thing – I was dreading something like that. I just felt like, oh okay they're all co-workers who all have varying types of respect for each other who have a job to do, and I was glad the film didn't try  to sell me on them as suddenly!bffs cuddle pile.

-Jannah and her group and heir backstory were very cool.

-LOL Hux as the spy and why. I wish he'd lasted until the final battle because Domnhall's hamminess cracks me up and also, Hux is like the only properly villainy-villain in this trilogy.

-Master Leia! Definitely got goosebumps at the Skywalker twins dueling. Best scene maybe? At least nostalgia-wise because holy shit, now I have a filmed version of Luke and Leia training; it's like seeing a slice of the (cough, canon) EU novels come to life!

-(Yeah, I'll just appreciate the aesthetics of it and ignore how fucking annoyed I am at how they actually wrote it so that Leia left Jedi-hood for motherhood. Shut up, JJ.)

-Lando Lando Lando Lando LANDO!

-And Wedge! I whooped.

-I was annoyed they exploded Ackbar in TLJ, and now I'm annoyed they exploded Nien Nunb.

-I already saw bootleg GIFs of Leia's death beforehand so I was prepared. What really got to me was Chewie grieving.

-Luke ghost…Han ghost…tbh I just saw them as Mark and Harrison playing different characters. Like, Hank Solo and Lane Skywalker. Look, that's basically how I cope with Disney, you know, ruining all their lives.

-as someone who doesn't have any investment in sequel ships, I was amused at how they fanserviced, as many ships as possible. I can't imagine any shipper is 100% pleased, but it did give everyone a little bit of something to go on.

-also, it was SO obvious Disney was scared of Finnpoe shipping, what with Poe's suuuper awkward random "canIkissyou" at Zorii. Eyeroll.

-I mean, I don't even LIKE Kylo— at least, I dislike the story around him and how he is constructed so we are supposed to resent the original trio for ~raising him wrong – but killing him after everyone busted their asses to turn him (and Leia DIED to do it apparently) and all the movies' whoopla around coming back as Ben, is pretty lame, storywise. Just exile him or something.

-also the film treating Kylo and Ben as separate entities continues to be very silly and reminds me of the post about  Countess Boochie Flagrante.

-I actually have had Thoughts on how to fix The Problem of Ben/Kylo Ren: don't have him join Empire 2.0 and be the reason our original beloved trio's lives WERE RUINED, for instance? Maybe have him be a rogue/gray Jedi instead who broke off from Luke's Order? Tweaks like that, and maybe a going-back-into-the-Light arc would somewhat click for me. And this is just me talking about how to fix something I find quite broken in the sequel trilogy.

-(of course, emotionally, I'd take Jacen, Jaina, and Anakin Solo ANY DAY.)

-no strong emotions about the lineage except Jodie Comer (hiii, Chloe!) and the dad actor broke my heart for the two seconds of Baby Rey scenes we got.

-I will say about Palps (or a clone? Too tired to process however  that came about) coming back and the Even More Planet Destroying Destroyers  – suuuuure you didn't riffle through the EU for inspiration, Disney, suuuuuuuuure.

-Loved loved the whole grassroots feel of the Rebels, but then, I always do.

-also loved and got goosebumps during the final battle. What can I say, a good way into my heart is an epic underdog dogfight and a great storming-the-castle scene. Also "you're not alone". Holy shit.

-my strongest feeling right is that: I'm just glad that it's 1) over 2) wasn't horrible  and 3) has scenes that we can use in Expanded Universe edits hue hue hue