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truthbeetoldmedia · 5 years

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The Toxicity of Kylo Ren and Reylo

It’s no secret that the newest villain of the Star Wars franchise, Kylo Ren, is a polarizing figure. In fact, there’s a large fanbase that don’t think of him as a villain at all (despite confirmation from cast and crew). If you take issue with that statement, look at the marketing: it’s Rey, Finn, and Poe at the center of the franchise. Not Kylo. Instead, he’s framed as a misunderstood underdog that is undeserving of the criticism he faces.

Now, that’s not to say that Kylo Ren can’t be appreciated as a character. It’s completely possible to appreciate him as a character and not as a person — after all, thinking someone is interesting or well-written isn't an endorsement of their behavior, or a claim that they deserve the benefit of the doubt.

People can be drawn to characters for all sorts of reasons. A lot of people enjoy rooting for the villain simply because they’re a villain. You can appreciate a character's potential, or their personality. It could even be as simple as thinking Adam Driver is good looking, or appreciating his portrayal of Kylo, with that being the reasoning for being drawn to that character.

Despite all of this, there’s an interesting (and troubling) phenomenon happening with people who have decided to “stan” Kylo Ren — not his potential as a villain, or because Adam Driver is talented, but the character himself, so much so that there is a fundamental misunderstanding (or willful ignorance) of his actions and motivations.

I’m not apprehensive to call this kind of fanservice toxic, because that’s what it is. There’s something really unnerving about stanning someone who has commited genocide, runs labor camps, and has direct, not-at-all subtle parallels to Nazism.

Ignoring Canon

The main theme here is that Kylo is somehow “misunderstood,” and not only that, but deserving of a full redemption (and a girlfriend in the form of Rey, but I’ll get to that in a bit). The narrative and what we know about Kylo in canon is a stark contrast to how fandom sees him. There’s this image of him as a down on his luck, unloved, victimized person who has been wronged by the people in his life, which simply isn’t true.

Kylo is the ultimate example of privilege. He arguably has the coolest parents in the world in the form of Han and Leia. He was, at the time of his turn to the dark side, being taught by Luke Skywalker (his uncle). From the get go, he had the support and resources that we rarely see someone have in the Star Wars universe.

And for those who like to counter with the argument that Han left Leia and is somehow a deadbeat dad — he did so after Kylo killed the entire group of Jedis Luke was instructing and abandoned his family willingly. You can dislike that decision all you’d like, but it had no bearing on Kylo’s turn to the dark side.

A more fitting criticism would be towards Luke, who admitted that he sensed something disturbing in his nephew and briefly thought about killing him. I’ll admit that this is fair enough, but for Kylo to react with murdering numerous Jedi students and then immediately joining the space fascists? I’d say this side of him has been lurking under the surface for a while.

Also consider — was Luke wrong? Dude literally built a device specifically to commit genocide.

This romanticization of a hard life that never existed is even more disturbing when you consider that there’s another character whose backstory fits this narrative: Finn.

Finn’s storyline is what certain fans desperately want Kylo’s to be. Finn was kidnapped at a very young age, forced to become a stormtrooper and was embedded in the hateful doctrine that Kylo is such a fan of. Despite being raised in that toxic environment and being indoctrinated with propaganda from such a young age, Finn — of his own volition, before he met Rey or Poe or anyone else — made the decision to resist and break free of the Empire.

He did this because he felt it was morally correct, at great risk to himself and his well being. He’s been in that environment for his entire life, so he knows exactly what happens to traitors. Despite all of this, he does it anyway.

Unwanted and Unearned Redemption

There’s also this strange need to advocate for Kylo’s redemption, something that is very clear he doesn’t deserve or want.

I’ve noticed a lot of fans who are desperate for his redemption call him Ben — his given name — which is both hilarious to me and makes no sense. He literally chose to change his name to Kylo Ren. He doesn't want to be Ben anymore, and he’s made that very clear.

Leia and Han clearly wanted him to abandon his position in the First Order and come home during The Force Awakens. During his showdown with Han towards the end of the film he’s given a shot at redemption, which he rejects violently by murdering his own father. After this happened it was speculated that this was a sacrifice Kylo had to make to rise up in the First Order, or to prove to Snoke his loyalty to infiltrate the First Order better and ultimately turn against it.

This was pretty easily disproven in The Last Jedi when he also attempts to kill his mother, Leia, who barely manages to survive. At the end of that same film, he’s also responsible for the death of the definitive hero of the franchise, Luke Skywalker.

If the theory about Kylo proving himself to Snoke was true, the tendency to murder his own family (and consequently the people offering him redemption after all he’s done) would have ended with Han.

After all of this, he’s given yet another chance to redeem himself, this time by Rey. He turns down this opportunity like he did the others.

As mentioned before, even without his violence towards those who want to help him, his actions are enough to completely eliminate the possibility of redemption. He’s overseen and advocated for genocide. He’s a member of an actual fascist organization. At this point, there’s no plausible way that he could be redeemed, nor should he be.

Romanticizing Abuse

This leads me to the discussion surrounding Rey and Kylo, or “Reylo,” an incredibly convoluted and twisted way to look at romance.

Reylo fans desperately need Rey to be the one to “save” Kylo, a textbook example of an abusive and toxic relationship. This is the Star Wars version of “She can change him,” making Rey the bearer of Kylo’s emotional labor when he has no interest in changing at all.

It’s not Rey’s responsibility to bring about his redemption. A true redemption needs to happen organically, of his own volition, and not because he’ll get rewarded with a girlfriend if he does. And, let’s be honest, it’s not a realistic expectation. If he only changes for Rey and not because he realizes that genocide is morally wrong, that’s profoundly disturbing and also selfish.

Here’s some advice: if someone says they’ve changed only for you and because of their love for you, that’s a red flag. They aren’t changing for reasons that are morally correct, or for anyone’s benefit; they’re changing because their feelings and their feelings alone matter. If Kylo changes because he loves Rey, that is a self serving act for his benefit only.

Further, what happened to Kylo torturing Rey in The Force Awakens? He kidnapped her, holding her captive, and entered her mind without consent. That’s as clear a metaphor for abuse you can find, and that’s not even my only example.

In The Last Jedi, Kylo attempts to persuade Rey to join him on the dark side. He tells her that she’s “nothing,” but not to him. To him, she matters. This is very commonly touted as a romantic moment, but the emotional manipulation is more than obvious.

Kylo doesn’t care about Rey. He says she’s “nothing,” that none of her friends care about her, that she’s worthless to them. By tearing her down then building her up by saying that she’s not nothing to him, he’s enforcing the idea that the only way she can have significance is with him.

I don’t even mean “with him” in the romantic sense — he pretty transparently only wants her on the dark side for her power. Kylo is a terrible jedi, and he’s witnessed Rey’s prowess a number of times. He only wants her power and skill, not her as a person.

He murdered her father figure, Han, in front of her, and nearly killed her best friend, Finn; he’s tortured her and manipulated her — it’s never been more obvious that he doesn’t care about her at all.

If anyone knows anything about abusive relationships, this is the first thing that abusers do. They alienate their intended victim from their friends and family, ensuring that they alone are the only source of comfort. It ensures that if things ever get bad, the victim has nowhere to go and no one to turn to but right back to the abuser.

What message would it send to little girls and boys if Rey were to end up with Kylo after all of that? Deal with his violence and manipulation long enough and he might change? If I have to spell out why that’s dangerous, I don’t know what else to say.

In addition — what does this say about how people view Rey? Do you really want her to be with someone who has tortured her, betrayed her, and manipulated her? The answer is that people who want Reylo to be together only care about Kylo, not Rey.

Toxic Masculinity

Despite these specifics, the general acceptance of Kylo’s behavior is surprisingly rampant in fandom. His actions aren’t simply excused, but romanticized. He has obvious anger issues, control issues — that scene in the beginning of The Force Awakens when he lashes out and destroys the control panel with his lightsaber? That may as well have been a shot of an abusive, angry man throwing around furniture and punching walls because he has no emotional control.

Sure, people like Kylo. They’re allowed to. But there’s a clear difference between liking a character and blind endorsement of that character's actions. I know plenty of people who like Kylo as a character, but the difference is if they meet someone like Kylo in bar or see one of his outbursts, you’d call the fucking cops. You wouldn’t ship him with your best friend. That's the dividing line here.

Kylo Ren is a direct parallel to real-world men who lash out because they’re filled with anger and frustration that’s turned into something truly ugly. They lash out at the people who are willing to help, all because they feel themselves robbed of things they think they deserve. Kylo wants power, he wants control, and he cares about nothing else.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker hits theatres internationally on December 19, 2019.

#Star Wars #The Rise of Skywalker #Kylo Ren #Reylo

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corellian-smuggler · 7 years

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The thing is that every single choice made in the movie was a deliberate attempt to obliterate the original trilogy. Luke Skywalker, the hero we all were waiting for and have loved for decades, the man who no matter what never lost hope or faith or gave up on his loved ones or his family or stopped believing in the Light? Whose entire character arc CULMINATED in his statement, “I am a Jedi, like my father before me,” was entirely unrecognizable. Instead we learn that despite the events of the OT, he almost murdered his nephew in his sleep—an act so disgracefully out of character that I literally CRIED. Instead of the hero we all know and love, they wrote that into the script explicitly to give Kylo Ren a more “sympathetic” back story—so they literally cared more about getting the audience to sympathize with and excuse the actions of a fascist murderer than they cared about the legacy of and integrity of Luke Skywalker, without whom they wouldn’t even HAVE a franchise to screw up. In addition to this, Luke has turned his back on his sister—not even willing to help her when she’s begging for him to come back or when he learns that Han Solo is dead, despite the fact that one of his defining qualities in the OT is his outright refusal to abandon Leia and his intense love for and loyalty to her to the extent that it’s the threat against HER—not against the galaxy or against himself—that causes Luke to almost lose control of his anger in ROTJ. They LITERALLY threw away the Skywalker legacy; Luke literally throws away the lightsaber like it’s pathetic, worthless garbage. This moment was not only significant within the context of the film—it had powerful implications for the audience. It was literally saying, “this lightsaber and all it represents is trash.” It was taking something we treasured—Luke’s journey and triumph—and spitting on it in front of our faces. What was the whole point of the original trilogy, of Luke’s story, if this is how the new film treats it? And add to that that he is portrayed as a grumpy, isolated, selfish coward too absorbed in self-disgust and self-absorption (as a result of the WILDLY out of character act of wanting to kill his nephew, by the way) to care about his family, or to try to at least RIGHT HIS WRONGS. He was dedicated to protecting the galaxy and now his own angst matters more to him than the fact that he alone had the power to stop the First Order from blowing up planets and enslaving and everyone, and as a result of his vanity and cowardice, that is exactly what happens. The new republic capital system is obliterated and, as the crawl informs us, “the First Order reigns” and now his nephew has become the next Emperor. Kylo Ren’s corruption just by nature of his existence in the story as a member of the Dark Side is already against the very point of the original trilogy—it’s basically blasphemy—but to try to insinuate that it’s partially Luke’s fault, and then that he doesn’t even try to make it right? There are no words for how disgraceful that is. And our hero whose greatest victory was that moment of becoming a Jedi at last spends a good hour telling the audience how stupid he was, how the Jedi should end, how he’s a failure and how we should not look upon him as a hero or hold dear his journey to our hearts. The film mocks him and does everything in its power to mar the beauty and goodness of the original trilogy, bending over backwards to say, “Luke was a blinded, self-absorbed fool and now look where he is.” This was deliberate. They invalidated the original trilogy on purpose.

And even at the end of the film when Luke finally tries to help, he is still out of character the entire time, telling Leia that there’s no hope, that he won’t try to save her son—even though supposedly (though I will never accept it, it is an Untruth) it’s Luke’s fault that her son fell. And then, after buying time for his sister to escape, Luke dies an old, broken down man who had lost his faith and his purity of spirit and his dedication to his family, alone as a hermit after having spent years in self-imposed exile so he could have a pity party and let the galaxy crumble and his sister suffer. Don’t be fooled. Rian Johnson and Lucasfilm knew that this was not Luke Skywalker. Anyone with half a brain can see that they systematically stripped him of every single thing that made him Luke Skywalker, right down to stating that he could find peace in death finally now that he’s had purpose, indirectly telling us all that he’d been a failure until then and that the events of the original trilogy, which the audience had been told throughout the course of the film were a farce—were inconsequential, and that the only path left to him was to sacrifice himself to just barely try to “redeem” himself for being such a failure and a coward and a piece of shit.

This is all, of course, in conjunction with Han and Leia’s son being a cold-blooded and deranged killer who embraces and represents EVERYTHING that his parents and uncle fought to destroy. This is in addition to Han and Leia’s love story being entirely invalidated, as well, with their marriage ending in estrangement and misery, with JJ Abrams stating in interviews that the two of them were incompatible and never have worked out. This is in addition to Han’s whole arc being ignored and him being reduced to a selfish smuggler again—his son is running around being not only a Space Nazi but basically the right-hand Space Nazi and is singlehandedly murdering countless people in the name of the First Order and his wife is all alone and in constant danger fighting a war with no help and trying to get their son back, and Han Solo just decides to traipse around “swindling people” and reverting to little more than petty crime instead of wanting to help or protect his wife or find Luke or do literally anything about what was happening. This was done despite the fact that Han was selfless and brave at every single turn of the OT, and that his whole story was about devoting himself to his friends and risking his life to save them and admitting that he’s not an apathetic criminal but a hero who is willing to go toe to toe with Vader himself to protect Leia, to save the galaxy, to do what’s right. And they stripped him of that entire arc and painted him as selfish and wrote his relationship with Leia as futile and miserable and resulting in the monster who is destroying the galaxy.

Leia has now lost EVERYTHING. She lost her entire PLANET in the OT, and found a family and solace in the man she loved, in her brother, in her friends, and in the freedom and democracy she almost singlehandedly brought to fruition, and they ripped all that away from her. They destroyed the New Republic and also made it a point to DISCREDIT HER, to let us all know that the no one was even taking her seriously about the First Order anyways. They made Han leave her side even though her safety was his top priority from every single moment in the OT as soon as they met. They cast a black shadow on her marriage to let us all know that they were doomed to fail and suffer, and then they killed Han Solo to serve Kylo Ren’s story just like they sacrificed Luke to that same story, ruining Leia’s life further in the process. They made her son be evil. They made Luke abandon her so that she didn’t even have her brother there by her side, and then they killed him too. So Leia has NOTHING. They made it a point to tell us that not one single person in the galaxy was willing to come to Leia’s aid when she uses her personal code to send a distress signal. They even stripped her of her NAME. No no no, this isn’t Princess Leia. She’s GENERAL ORGANA and you’d better accept it.

Let the past die, because we’re murdering it.

That’s what the sequel trilogy has done. They have deconstructed every single victory the OT had, made the heroes miserable at every chance they got, stripped them of all the best qualities of their characters, systematically undid every single part of their happy ending, and then even took it a step further to not only make it so that they didn’t win, but to make it seem that their actions—what had until now been victories—were actually “vanities” and indirectly blamed them for every single bad thing that’s happened since. Rian Johnson and Kathleen Kennedy and Lucasfilm did everything in their power to ruin the original trilogy to such an extent that it is IMPOSSIBLE that it wasn’t deliberate.

These movies are not Star Wars.

#TLJ spoilers #sw negativity #notmystarwars

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taeray · 7 years

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I’ve seen Star Wars The Last Jedi twice now. Here’s my thoughts. Sorry it’s long, but I just have to give the glowy character review that’s been nagging at me.

Some people don’t like seeing so much Kylo Ren, but I don’t mind it actually. He’s an accessory to Rey’s story. We get to see unequivocally why he is who he is and then see him choose the dark side even when he has the chance to leave it behind. In my opinion, the question of who he is and what he wants seems answered now. He is Kylo Ren. He doesn’t want to be Ben Solo anymore. Sure he killed Snoke, but after seeing how Snoke emotionally manipulates him, berating one moment and then praising him the next, Ren turning on Snoke made perfect sense. Snoke did not win Ren’s loyalty with any need, he beat Ben Solo into submission by playing on his fears and feelings of inadequacy. That kind of emotional abuse usually yields one of two outcomes: stockholm syndrome level loyalty or unadulterated hatred. Ren turning on Snoke was inevitable. Rey just presented someone new for Kylo Ren to latch onto and focus all his need for validation. The moment she didn’t give him that he turned on her and was ready to blast her out of the sky and kill everyone she’s ever cared about.

I believe Ben Solo is dead. Kylo Ren killed him, along with his past, just as he intended.

Onto the next polarizing character: Luke Skywalker. He might not have been exactly what people were expecting, but I actually found him to be pretty believable. He’s not a hopeful farmboy anymore. He is an old man now; an old man who fought so hard to save his father, who tried so hard to continue the ways of the Jedi, lost his nephew to the dark side which is almost worse than losing him to death, inadvertently ruined his sister and best friend’s marriage, and inadvertently brought about the death of his best friend at the hands of his nephew.

Luke. Skywalker. HATES. HIMSELF. He blames himself for every bad thing that has happened to his family since Ben Solo turned to the dark side. And so he ran away. Just like Obi Wan did, just like Yoda did, just like Han Solo did. He gave up the fight, just like all of these strong men in his life did. It’s no wonder after seeing their examples that he finally gave in himself. He went to the island to die. Rey helped save him.

As for Rey. I don’t believe she’s out of character. She’s a good person. This is a girl, who when told Finn lied to her about not being part of the resistance, didn’t even blink. She just asked him not to leave. Many a person would have locked onto the lie and been done with him after that. But not Rey. She loves deeply, forgives easily, and she gives people many chances. When she found out that maybe, just maybe, Keylo Ren could see that a mistake was made and that he could come home, she gave that hope a chance.

And she didn’t do it for herself. She did it for Ben Solo, whose pain she got to feel herself. She also knew how deeply Luke was hurting. She could heal that hurt by bringing him back. Even more she hoped he could help save the rebels, people who saved her life and were taking care of Finn. Anyone who tries to boil it down to a crush on Kylo Ren is missing so many layers to her choice to try and save him. It doesn’t matter if the fans saw him as irredeemable, Rey needed to try for the sake of so many people other than herself.

As for Poe, I loved his arc. We had no real clue as to who Poe Dameron was after The Force Awakens. He had what, maybe ten minutes of screen time and it was almost never just Poe. No one can say he was out of character. Just out of fanon character. I personally loved seeing Leia teaching Poe, and the only way to teach him is to show moments of failure. The perfect student who does nothing wrong is not a character who needs their story told. It makes for a boring tale. Poe got a ton of screen time trying, failing, and learning from the Princess herself, clearly being groomed to take her place one day. If Poe did everything he was told and simply executed Leia’s orders, we wouldn’t have needed to see so much of him. Not to mention there is a massive leap to make between being a soldier and being a leader. Leia was groomed from a young age to be a leader since she was a princess. Poe has clearly been a soldier from a young age, but now it’s time for him to get out of the headspace of soldier and into the headspace of leader. Two very very different jobs.

That leads me to address Holdo and her choice not to tell Poe her plan. She obviously confided in those she trusted because they were executing her orders. It’s not like she was fueling the transports herself or even walking around the ship giving those orders to the grunts. She was giving the orders to people on the bridge and those orders were then being passed down the chain. She just didn’t confide in Poe, because being a soldier means following orders and he did not follow Leia’s orders. He was in the hot seat, had just been demoted for refusing to listen to his commanding officer. He was being punished. He had been removed from the circle of those who needed to know. Following her lead was a chance to prove that he could follow orders. Pretty normal military protocol. He failed to just follow orders for a second time, and Leia not only sided against him for it, she stunned his butt. I found that to be a wonderful progression for Poe and in the end he learned the lesson he needed to learn.

On the other side, the story of Finn is one of my favorites. He proves time and time and time again what a good man he is. I don’t care what some say, his wasn’t a tale of learning to be unselfish. That guy doesn’t have a selfish bone in his body. His tale is one completely solidifying him as the hero, the man, the best dude in the movie. Was he going to run from the rebel ship? Yes, but not for himself. Not by a long shot. He was going to make himself look like a jerk so he could protect Rey, his best friend and the person he would literally face his deepest fear for. Only Rey could make him go back to the First Order in The Force Awakens. His story in The Last Jedi shows him going back and facing the First Order for something other than Rey, proving there is more there than a potential love interest storyline. The moment Rose mentioned the tracker, Finn was ready to go to Snoke’s ship to shut it down. He didn’t have to be asked.

He’s just an amazingly good man. He is the moral compass of the movies, and he does not have to spend time with any potential love interest to further his character development.

Plus he’s just so darn loveable that anyone that spends more than five minutes with him begins to adore him. He’s the hot girl of the movies.

As for Rose, I love her. She’s loyal, she’s emotional, she’s capable, she’s strong, but she’s not exactly a fighter. Rose is everything women should want to see in a strong female character that is not stereotypically strong. I didn’t find her writing cheesy or corny and I don’t care if her character encroaches on any ships. She is a wonderful addition to the cast and I’m excited to see what will happen with her next.

All in all, The Last Jedi was amazing in my opinion. I enjoyed The Force Awakens, but The Last Jedi has already sucked me into seeing it twice in theaters and I’m pretty sure I need to see it at least one more time. I think it really showcases who the main characters are (Poe, Rey, and Finn), and gave each of them a chance for some storyline away from each other and the shipping wars going on in the fandom. Each one of them grew a little bit in the short time they were apart, and now they are ready to be the faces of the new rebellion. People in the universe aren’t going to be looking to the Skywalkers anymore, they’re going to be looking to the military commander, the jedi, and the heart of the rebellion to save them.

Bonus moments that made me squee:

-Poe and BB-8′s multiple romcom reunions where they run into each other’s arms scenes

-Poe being immediately bambuzzled at the thought of Finn being naked

-Adorable Finn and Rey experiencing new places and things (Finn at the casino and Rey with the rain)

-”If you see Finn tell him–yeah tell him that.”

-BB-8 being the true badass of the movie, his father R2D2 would be so proud

-Luke being the true, dramatic hoe we love and not only force projecting himself halfway across the galaxy, but force projecting himself in a new outfit, with a clean haircut, and then brushing fake dirt off his fake shoulder

-Leia proving once and for all that not only is she force sensitive, but she is possibly one of the most badass force users to ever live

-Women EVERYWHERE! Women in tie fighters, women working the computer consoles, women saving the day and destroying dreadnoughts, women with blasters ready to make their final stand. Just women women women in Star Wars, kicking butts and taking names. It was absolutely beautiful.

-Star Wars cementing the fact that even if a bad guy and his fascist bs seems like a joke, he can still be insanely dangerous when he gets people to follow him

-Rey and Kylo Ren wailing on Snoke’s dudes. That lightsaber fight was absolutely amazing and beautiful and so well choreographed.

-FINN AND REY’S HUG! BEST MOMENT OF THE MOVIE!

#star wars spoilers #the last jedi spoilers #finn #rey #poe dameron #leia skywalker #luke skywalker #kylo ren

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rubyvroom · 7 years

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with his hindsight of having brought someone as consumed by evil deeds like Darth Vader back to the light. Does it really make sense that he would not think he could do the same for his nephew? This is the issue most people have. Its not that people can't change but given Luke's experiences, that scene makes no sense except that Rian couldn't think of any other reason to try and shift blame away from Kylo.

I think it makes sense, actually. Forget Rian Johnson for a minute and think about the time that has elapsed since the original trilogy. Bear in mind that I’m not in the fandom and have no desire to be, this is just my uninfluenced read.

Anyway, take it back to just after ROTJ. Luke watched the Empire slaughter literally millions of people. He watched the Galaxy rebuild from this for decades. His sister’s home planet was destroyed and he probably dealt with her grief over that. His father’s shadow has lingered over the entire galaxy for years and years. A certain subset of people are lionizing his evil deeds and talking about bringing back the empire. They want to literally undo everything Luke and the Rebels originally did and make all of those deaths meaningless.

When you get older, here’s a couple things that happen. You start thinking about the choices you made when you were young. You start really feeling the losses you have witnessed in your life and wondering if they could have been prevented. You think a lot less about individual heroics and more about how to plan for the future and protect as many people as possible (a big theme of TLJ overall). The purpose of the original rebellion was not to save Darth Vader, it was to overthrow the evil Empire. Yes, Luke made it a personal mission to save his father. He did save him, in the end. But what did that do for all the dead people? What did that do to prevent the empire from coming back? Apparently nothing, because it’s all happening again. Was one soul really worth the death of millions? Even your father’s? Even your own?

Now Luke’s been tasked as the sole custodian of the entire Jedi legacy and surely one of his main goals is to keep these young students from turning to the dark side of the force. And here’s his nephew worshipping Darth Vader. Asking all these questions about him and the empire and was-it-really-so-bad and yada yada. All the while growing immensely powerful and showing every evidence of actually wanting to bring back Vader’s genociding ways. He’s not just an average kid who reads about serial killers or whatever. He’s Darth Vader’s grandson with means, motive, and opportunity.

We don’t get a lot of specific details about what Ben was doing that alarmed Luke so much, or how long Luke tried to work with him before things came to this point (it could have been years for all we know) but my read is that this is basically a Hitler As A Baby premise. Luke has the opportunity to potentially prevent many, many deaths by stopping an extremely powerful Sith from joining a bunch of Empire wanna-bes. If someone had killed Anakin before he became Darth Vader, how many lives might have been saved? And if Ben Solo went on to kill even one person, isn’t that a death Luke might have prevented, that he would blame himself for if he sat back and did nothing? Now think of the number of people we watched Kylo Ren kill in the movies alone, including his own father. Just hold that in your mind while you think this out.

Whether it’s the right or wrong decision to kill Ben Solo at that point, do I believe that Luke Skywalker would be tempted? Absolutely. To prevent more deaths, to prevent Ben going the way that Anakin did, to stop the Jedi ways from being used as a force for evil in the universe again, he was tempted. It makes sense to me that he would be tempted to do it after what he saw became of his father. You can even think of it as his own Dark Side temptation moment, depending on how you think of the Force and the whole Light/Dark thing.

But Luke passed the temptation. He didn’t do it. He was ashamed of the impulse and if Ben hadn’t woken up and seen him he would have gone on trying to teach the kid and turn him to the light.

(This is why Luke later wants to end the Jedi altogether - because people with access to that kind of power will be tempted to misuse it, the Jedi training doesn’t effectively train people not to misuse that power and if preventative murder is not an option (and it really shouldn’t be) then maybe the Jedi way is not the best way to use the Force.) ****

Now, did Ben Solo pass that same temptation moment? At the same turning point? Because he is totally justified in feeling betrayed there, and would even have been justified in killing Luke in self-defense. But he did a lot more than that. He slaughtered all the other innocent students, burned down the temple, and went on to join the Space Nazis. So fuck him. Luke didn’t force Ben Solo to become Kylo Ren. “Fuck it, I’m gonna be evil” is not not something he can blame on Luke. Every single thing he did from there on out is on him, and he proved to be an evil little shit.

This gets reinforced when we get another turning point for Kylo Ren in the throne room. He could have done a Vader there. The movie fakes us out that this is what he’s doing. He kills the emperor/Snoke and it looks like he’s doing it to save Luke/Rey. This is where the movie could have gone, oh, he just needed somebody to BELIEVE in him because he’s just MISUNDERSTOOD and that will turn him good! But the movie doesn’t do that. He doesn’t then embrace the light. He does the opposite. Vader didn’t try to convince Luke to turn Dark Side and take up the Emperor’s throne and keep going. And Kylo didn’t kill Snoke to save Rey. He wants the throne himself, and he can use Rey’s power to keep it. He tells Rey to rule the galaxy with him as fascist overlords and goes about trying to murder absolutely everyone, including Rey, for the rest of the movie. And Rey thoroughly rejects him, turns her back on him, and shuts the door on him. It’s done. He’s not redeemable, he doesn’t want to be redeemed, he blames his mistakes on everyone else and wants to go on endlessly revenging himself on innocent people because he’s sad or something. He’s a monster. A pathetic monster. He doesn’t get any more heroic shots or moments after that because it’s been proved he doesn’t deserve them.

I guess where I part ways with your interpretation the most is that I don’t think this movie favors Kylo Ren at all. Rey in the Throne Room scene is doing exactly what Luke originally did - but this time it doesn’t work. And Old!Luke knew that would happen because of the hindsight of his years and because he saw Kylo fail at the Jedi temple. All of the lives and bloodshed he has caused are his own doing, and he needs to be stopped, not saved. If anything, the movie repudiates what Luke originally did, which is what people are *really* mad about, I think, even if they don’t exactly know it. The actual question that nobody’s asking yet is whether Darth Vader was worth saving in the original trilogy if it endangered the rebellion to do it. Much more interesting question imo.

But anyway - to your last point about shifting blame, Luke also gets the last word on this in the movie. Face to face with Kylo Ren, Luke explicitly apologizes for the mistake he made - the moment he was tempted to kill Ben Solo before he had actually done anything evil. That is always treated as a tragic mistake. But he also says, explicitly, that he is not trying to save Kylo Ren, and he rightly does not blame himself for the evil things Kylo has done. The movie ends on this beat, that every single evil choice Kylo made was his own doing, and he needs to be stopped, not saved. Then he doesn’t physically beat Kylo Ren in a lightsaber battle, he uses his Force powers in a way Kylo never imagined doing and could not detect to distract him long enough for the rebels to get away, and also, to humiliate Kylo Ren in front of the entire First Order. He proved he was an immensely more powerful Jedi with greater control over his emotions who doesn’t even have to kill or even physically face his enemy to defeat him. He says he knows Rey will carry on the Jedi legacy and she is stronger than Kylo Ren. The next generation of heroes – Finn, Poe, Rose, and Rey – will use the lessons of the previous generation to defeat the first Order.

The next movie’s almost pointless after this except we get the pleasure of watching that play out.

… I did not intend to write so much about The Last Jedi and I think I’ll stop there. I hope that at least explains how someone could plausibly read the opposite intentions out of that scene, when taking the movie as a whole. As an aside, I was also upset when that plot point was raised until I saw how it played out later in the movie, which made me feel differently. The movie doesn’t excuse Kylo or have Rey redeem him with her goodness or whatever like I was afraid it would, it does the opposite. And in the end I thought it humanized Luke a lot for me, although I certainly understand how making him more flawed would upset some fans of the character. But I don’t think it’s an impossible character progression at all.

**** this little bit is another thing they did in the movie that I loved - Luke’s explanation of the Force implies that maybe it could be open for anyone to use, and the Jedi way of limiting its use to select special people is wrong. This interpretation is supported by the revelation that Rey isn’t descended from Jedis, as well as the little boy at the end of the movie. There isn’t a secret special bloodline that makes the superest force users, maybe this was all a Jedi construct to keep a monopoly on use of the Force as a Jedi thing. Maybe they’re the DeBeers cartel of this universe. This interpretation probably violates fandom lore of some kind and let me reemphasize that I do not care about that at all.

#the last jedi spoilers #star wars spoilers #spoilers #the last jedi #star wars #sorry that asks go up without tags initially and I hope nobody saw anything they didn't want to

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whentheynameyoujoy · 7 years

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Kylo Ren Is Getting a Zuko Redemption Arc, and This Reylo Shipper Is Anything but Thrilled by It

If you’ve been around for the past two years and participated in discussions about the Star Wars sequels, you might have encountered people who said something like this:

„Boy, this Darth Vader look-alike sure resembles Prince Zuko, doesn’t he?”

It’s certainly a flattering comparison since Zuko’s story features what is generally considered one of the best redemption arcs ever portrayed in any medium. For those who happen to be unfamiliar with Avatar: The Last Airbender (well first, what the hell is wrong with you, stop reading this and go watch right now, it’s awesome), here’s a spoiler-heavy summary:

Prince Zuko is the crown prince of the Fire Nation, an authoritarian regime which has been waging war and genocide on the other elemental nations for the past 100 years. Mutilated and banished by his tyrannical father at the age of 14 for speaking against a military plan that would see a division of young recruits cynically sacrificed, Zuko spends the next three years wandering the world with his uncle Iroh and trying to “restore his honor” by accomplishing the impossible task given to him by his father: capture the Avatar, a lost godlike being, the last airbender, and the only one who can defeat the Fire Nation. After the Avatar actually resurfaces, Zuko relentlessly pursues him which includes things like repeated kidnappings or burning down a village. Then, circumstances beyond his control force him to stop the pursuit and go into hiding. During this time, he’s forced to see how the war has destroyed the lives of ordinary people. At a moment when he finally starts to come to terms with the idea of being an unimportant exile, he’s faced with a crucial choice: either join the Avatar, or help his psychotic sister Azula and get everything he’s been trying to achieve. He chooses Azula which results in Avatar’s temporary death and Zuko’s return to the Fire Nation where he’s hailed as a hero. However, the victory feels hollow: he’s rejected by his beloved uncle who feels Zuko lost his way and chose evil; Zuko’s inner turmoil remains as he’s starting to realize he’s made a horrible mistake and his father will never love him no matter what; and finally, he cannot reconcile the idea of his nation’s greatness with all the suffering he’s witnessed around the world. At last, Zuko realizes he’s been trying to destroy his true compassionate self in favor of becoming someone he doesn’t want to be anymore. After confronting his father, he joins the Avatar, helps him end the war, reconciles with Iroh, and devotes the rest of his life to righting the wrongs his country committed.

As you can see, there’s a LOT of similarities between Zuko and Kylo Ren, both story and character-wise. In fact, there’s so many of them it sometimes feels like Avatar must have been playing in the background when J. J. Abrams was developing the character of Kylo Ren:

Both Zuko and Kylo Ren start their respective stories as clear antagonists, yet it soon becomes apparent they’re complicated people with complicated motivations;

Both are commanding, domineering, and wear their emotions on their sleeve: they’re impulsive, hot-headed, arrogant, and socially awkward;

Both have a penchant for making stupid decisions that sabotage them;

Both have the exact same plethora of psychological issues, be it mommy and daddy issues, or severe anger-management issues;

Both are privileged people of high standing: one is a crown prince, the other a member of the most important bloodline in the galaxy;

Both struggle with feelings of inadequacy as they compare themselves to those more accomplished than them (Azula in Zuko’s case, Darth Vader in Kylo’s);

The lives of both are controlled by an authoritative father-figure who doesn’t care about them (Ozai for Zuko, Snoke for Kylo);

Both have people on their side of the conflict who are trying to usurp their position (Hux in Star Wars, Azula and Zhao in Avatar);

Both have close relatives who physically harmed them (Ozai burned Zuko’s face, Luke seriously considered killing young Ben);

Both have close relatives who try and fail to turn them to the good side (Iroh and Han Solo, respectively);

Both hunt down a vanished, almost mythical enemy who’s perceived as the only threat to the regime they’re propping up (Aang and Luke, respectively);

Both do many highly questionable things to achieve their highly questionable goals, some of those things being downright identical;

Both mirror the hero and feel profoundly connected to them;

Both are constantly struggling with their understanding of right and wrong and feel like they’re being pulled in two opposing directions;

After being pulled closer “to the light” and becoming morally greyer, both are offered to join “the good guys” and both refuse; both are soon plagued by this decision and are written off as a lost cause by the people most important to them (Iroh and Rey, respectively).

Assuming that the parallel continues to hold up in Episode IX as it’s done until now, it’s not inconceivable that Kylo Ren will eventually make a deliberate, unprompted, principled decision to leave his role as an antagonist despite the developments in The Last Jedi. Just as Zuko at the end of the second season, Kylo Ren is now in a position where he wasted all the good will others were willing to extend to him. Instead of choosing what he perceived as second best, he dug in his heels on the side of evil in order to get what he thought he wanted; yet if the ending is anything to go by, his inner turmoil rages as strongly as ever, even though he’s now literally the most powerful person in the galaxy.

Additionally, the sequels have been strongly hinting at a redemption arc since the very beginning with the deliberate comparisons between Kylo Ren and Darth Vader. I mean, if Anakin “The Genocidal Fascist Child Killer” Skywalker could be redeemed, then why not Ben “Linkin Park Blares Whenever I Enter The Room” Solo?

It goes deeper than that, though: for two movies now, the series has been implying that the general understanding of what it means “to maintain the balance of the Force” is not only seriously flawed, but may be actually THE cause of the in-universe strife. Up until The Force Awakens, “the dark” and “the light” have essentially served as a shorthand for “good” and “evil”; to restore balance simply meant eradicating evil. Yet in the sequels we have a conflicted antagonist who constantly feels the calling of the light, and an equally powerful protagonist who has a natural connection to the darkness (it’s also worth noting that due to her passionate nature, Rey is a horrible candidate for becoming a member of what is an order of celibate monks repressing their basic humanity). Furthermore, Luke’s inability to accept the darkness within his nephew due to his own simplistic worldview of “pure good fights pure evil” pushed Ben away and solidified his turn to the dark side. Kylo later suggests to Rey a complete rejection of the past, both of the Sith and the Jedi, which is echoed by Yoda’s destruction of the Jedi sanctuary and his claim that the Jedi have nothing to teach Rey.

As shown by the events of the past eight movies, neither good or evil can be permanently done away with, and if they try, it will have destructive consequences (see the resolution of the throne room scene in TLJ).

Thematically, it simply makes no sense for Kylo Ren and Rey not to meet somewhere in the middle and usher in a new future where a more yin-yang interpretation of the Force is accepted.

So all is good and well, right?

Yeah, about that…

(cut into two parts due to length)

#meta #kylo ren #rey #atla #zuko #star wars #tlj spoilers

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stormofteacups · 7 years

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The Last Jedi: a spoilerific response to a friend’s review

SPOILERS

Direct discussion of plot points in the movie!

Ok ok ok ok

Let’s jump in

“Luke Skywalker’s character is turned on his head. The film starts with Luke throwing his beloved lightsaber off a cliff, which shocked everyone in the theatre.”

That was not Luke’s beloved lightsaber. That was his father’s lightsaber. By holding on to that lightsaber, OT Luke was holding on to an idea of who his father was. When confronted with his actual father, he refused to let go of that false idea and so paid a price, by having it cut off.

Think about that. Keep that in mind. It’s very important. This is a theme that very specifically plays out at the END of the film.

“He is an eternal optimist in return of the jedi, even succeeding in turning his father from the dark to the light. Where others gave up on Vader, Luke remained hopeful. Luke remained true. Given all of this, we are supposed to believe that he almost kills one of his own students because he sees the dark has overtaken him? Surely not more than Darth Vader, surely not more than the absolute darkest version of a human being (seriously, the imagery of darth vader is just brilliant). Luke’s failure and reason for his exile does not align with his character at all, making his behavior shocking and surprising, but not interesting.”

I agree with you that Luke betraying Ben is just so out of character. It’s the part of TLJ that I struggle with the most.

I have a hard time accepting that a character who chose to believe in “Crazy Ole Ben” Kenobi on Tatooine, who chose to believe in sassy, snotty Princess Leia (and god I love how she gave no fucks about every lame ass dude she met), who chose to believe in the about-to-not-even-exist-anymore Rebellion, who chose to believe in cynical and selfish Han Solo, who chose to believe in the lingering goodness of Darth Vader and was proven right in every instance of holding faith, would then have a lack of faith so profound that he would, even for a moment, consider murdering a boy. Especially his sister’s boy.

BUT

I CAN accept that his betrayal of Ben WOULD utterly destroy Luke. I do believe that a man whose character was based on faith, optimism, and hope would be so completely shamed and broken by that moment, that he would shut himself off and abandon the other person most hurt by his actions, Leia. I can accept that, I just have a very hard time with the caveat that Luke would ever do that to another person.

You could say that this goes back to the OT with the lesson that doubt and fear lead to the dark side, and I have a tangential rant about that stance (what up Jedi temple that includes alters to both light and dark with literal and thematic examples of how one must have the other to be functional), but yes, it’s a desperately weak plot point, from where I sit, but there it is.

And I’m rolling with it because that plot point folds into the themes and overarching messages of the film. So ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

“We know nothing about Snoke, we know nothing about how he came to lead the first order, we know nothing about his haggard appearance, and so many great possibilities died with that character. How was he trained as a sith with all of them dead? Where are the knights of Ren and his connection to Snoke? How did he come to lead the First Order (as the SUPREME COMMANDER, not just a high ranking member of the empire like Vader). Snoke’s death surprised everyone, but that’s it. A moment of subversion that does nothing to serve the story.”

Snoke was always uninteresting and unimportant. Just like the emperor was always uninteresting and unimportant in the OT. They were plot devices. They were something to point to and shout “absolute evil!”

Let me let you in on a secret: absolute evil is not interesting. It never has been and never will be.

What is interesting is the struggle against evil. It’s the choices you make. It’s your compromises and / or sacrifices. The evil is not the story. If you’re looking at Snoke for compelling story, then you’re looking at the wrong thing. The reason Kylo is compelling is specifically that he is NOT absolutely evil. There are still choices for him to make. We fear for Rey BECAUSE of the choices she could make. Snoke already made his choices, Ya boring.

“The First Order as a lazy, uninteresting antagonist for the rest of the series. “The First Order Reigns” indeed.”

The first order: did you need to know more about the empire in order to understand and enjoy the original trilogy? Nope.

Maybe we get more about the first order in another movie, maybe we don’t. I do think there could have been room in these last two movies to discuss how and why an organization like that could rise, but honestly, the simplest answer is to look at our current political climate and say to yourself “Just look at all these rich fuckers literally taking healthcare away from sick children. Look at all these myopic, racists shit bags pretending Jesus was NOT a brown refugee. Look at all these nazi / fascist motherfuckers angry that the world doesn’t belong only to them. God Damn it, white people.”

That’s really all I think there is to the empire and the first order.

“Leia being a superman in space is one of the worse things I’ve seen in the movies. This doesn’t have much impact with my overall thesis but I have to mention this. Leia is out in space for a long time, we know she is strong with the force, but there could’ve been so many other ways to show this other than this scene. ”

And why, exactly, can’t Leia be Superman in space?

Listen, I didn’t like having them give me the moment of intense grief (but to be honest, I started crying when I saw ‘GENERAL ORGANA’ in the scroll) and then snatching it away like that. I feel a scene like that would have been MUCH better served later in the film, but they needed Leia to remind us to forgive ourselves and each other; to smile and remind us that you never fuck up so bad that you can’t try again. But again, WHY can’t Leia be Superman in space? Why? Really think about it? If you JUST didn’t like it, then okay. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ you like what you like.

“Finn’s entire story was unnecessary and should have been cut. Why are we, as an audience, supposed to care about this story? It does nothing, doesn’t expand anything about the characters, other than being able to see Finn fight his old boss, but the whole story turns out to be a red herring. Rose (Finn’s companion throughout this story) was introduced without fanfare, and we are supposed to feel connected to her at the end when she saves finn, but I have trouble remembering her name. She had a sister that died, and she was sad. That’s all I got. I feel that you shouldn’t introduce a new character into an ongoing series if you won’t do anything significant with development. Finn’s partner and the admiral were both throw away characters. Compare this to someone like Lando, who is introduced in Empire Strikes Back but steals the show in his direction. We get a full fledged character, interesting and flawed, and all in one movie. It can be done, it was just done poorly in The Last Jedi.”

About Rose:

The fact that you know what her name is, but you insisted on calling her “Finn’s partner” is something I want you to think hard about.

The fact that she had SO SO SO SO SO SO MUCH MORE screen time in TLJ than Poe EVER got in TFA (and let’s remember that Poe was both a literal and figurative throw away character in TFA) and yet you talk about her like a throw away character while never referring to Poe that way is something that I want you to think about.

Anyway

About the “Finn’s entire story was unnecessary and should have been cut.” thing:

It wasn’t Finn’s story. That might be where you fell out of step with the movie and the beats felt wrong? It was not his story. It was Rose’s story, through which Finn grew.

As far as the criticism that Poe, Finn, and Rose had a pointless plot line...well, yes and no. The fact is, they all should have had faith in the leadership of The Resistance.

The plan to launch the transports and WHY maybe could have been shared with more people, but they were being tracked through hyperspace, something that was supposed to be impossible, so it is reasonable that they would keep their last, desperate plan on a strict need-to-know basis. Poe had been demoted through his recklessness, Finn was barely known to anyone in Resistance, and Rose was a maintenance tech. None of these people would be on the need-to-know list.

Their ploy was hurriedly conceived and executed without any consultation with others, because they lacked faith in their leadership (and this included General Organa, who would have been instrumental in putting that leadership into place). Their plan was not a great plan. Basically, what I’m saying is...they fucked up. They set themselves up to fail and then they failed. Sometimes people fuck up and they fail.

And here’s the thing, everyone who keeps calling the Rose/Finn plot a red herring is right! Their story line serves a bigger narrative purpose than this one movie.

What does this movie tell us, over and over? We are the spark.

Rose and Finn inspired people along the way. Most obviously, they inspired the children in the stables. Those kids will tell the story of how they helped the Resistance to their friends and family and anyone else who will listen. Others will remember the wild stampede and subsequent freedom of the racing animals and will feel their own desire for freedom and rebellion reflected in that act. Those sparks will catch. The flames will spread. Rose, Finn, and Poe failed in what they set out to do, but they accomplished something else. They sparked hope.

Why are we talking about Lando? We got a new Lando, that was Benicio del Toro.

“That leads me to this next part. Admiral whats-her-name that takes over the resistance capital ship is a terrible character all around. When she sacrificed herself at the end for the fleet, there was no emotional impact at all (even given how great the cinematography is during the suicide scene). The director should’ve let Ackbar go out this way, why try to make us attach to some random admiral we know nothing about? Ackbar has history as a character, has a weight to character. Having him go out the way the admiral did would have made a great impact, and seen a great character go out in a very satisfying way. Instead, he is thrown out without fanfare and replaced. The only distinguishing feature of Ackbar’s replacement is that she had purple hair and argued with Poe. Which brings me to another not only throw away character but throw away plot section.”

About the Admiral whose name you also will not deign to use (can you tell I was real offended by this thing? Listen, if a character didn’t work for you, okay, but considering the OT had TWO NAMED WOMEN, and the ONE MEANINGFUL WOMAN in the prequels who apparently freed her planet from corporate oppression just to die of sad about her boyfriend is such a monumental bummer! And also I don’t think A SINGLE STAR WARS MOVIE HAS PASSED THE BECHDEL TEST????? I just think maybe you could be a touch less disrespectful and dismissive, please? Especially because):

Hey, yo! Did you pick up on how the establishing shot of Admiral Holda addressing the fleet echoes our most recognizable images of Mon Mothma addressing the rebellion? ADMIRAL HOLDA IS SUPPOSED TO REPRESENT THE ORIGINAL TRILOGY. HER SACRIFICE IS A SYMBOLIC END TO THE ORIGINAL TRILOGY FOR THE SAKE OF A NEW STORY. ITS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT MOMENTS OF THE MOVIE. THEMES HAPPEN.

THERE IS DEATH AND DECAY AND THEN THERE IS NEW LIFE.

SPEAKING OF:

Remember Luke’s dad’s lightsaber? The one he tried to throw away at the beginning of the movie? The one that Rey keeps picking up and holding on to as a symbols of who and what she thinks the Jedi are? Did you see what happened when Rey tried to pull a Luke Skywalker and redeem the dark side user she felt connected to? It blew up in her face and broke. I feel like that’s pretty important, you know? Because themes.

“What I lament most is the missed potential. We have been given fantastic explorations of the Star Wars universe in books and video games, some great explorations of the Light and Dark side that give a more nuanced view of the Star Wars universe. Luke even starts to mention the Hubris of the jedi, which I hoped he would elaborate on more and go into why he thought the jedi were wrong. I also hoped he would go into why we avoid the dark even though the jedi are wrong, I hoped Luke would explain how he came to these conclusions other than one student that fell to the dark. I hoped so much for so much more. There was a real opportunity here to make this exploration part of the main saga, but we instead get subversion for the sake of subversion, surprise for the sake of shock. There were some great things to build on from the previous film, but those are tossed aside for the sake of surprise.The Star Wars saga is worse because of the director’s decisions, and I’m sad it happened that way.”

The lament of potential: hey, I get it. I watched Vallerian. I GROK the lament of potential, but I think I have to agree with Davis that this seems more about personal expectations built up over the last two years. And also, the potential isn’t dead, you know? We’ve got a whole other movie coming with Rey and those books and her new found self determination.

There is not a loss of potential. There is more to see and do!

#star wars #the last jedi #star wars: the last jedi #sw tlj #star wars tlj #tlj #spoilers

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sidesonsides · 7 years

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I tagged this as anti reylo if it ends up in the reylo tag peep the tags it doesn’t say reylo. skip it and it’s the Tumblr taging system that’s messing up.

Anyway I saw some reylos being like.

“You don’t want Kylo ren to have a redemption just because he killed han solo. And you all like han so much even though he’s not that great you’re just mad he killed your white boy fave! so give Kylo a chance at redemption with reylo!”

But I’m like wasn’t han the first person to offer Kylo a chance to come back to the good side and instead used it as a chance to help strengthen his bonds with the sith so ???? Also white boy fave? Honey as if Kylo ren isn’t also white a boy??? And he’s a shippers fave and if someone killed him shippers would be just as salty maybe even more????

His father wanted to help him and he decided to double down with the fascist regime and killed his dad.

And Kylo is an antagonist in tfa so not liking him makes sense? The Reylo argument is literally “oh you don’t like this character just because he killed another his father a character some of you know better and has decades of information and content coming out about them that could have possibly endeared you to them. So you’d be sad if they died because you got to to know them through all the info.

But this new character that has harmed all three of the new main trio one way or another, harmed his own subordinates for petty ass reasons, killed other inoccent people, and the piece of resistance killed his own father an iconic character that people loved while han was unarmed and reaching out to him,

you thinking Kylo Ren is undeserving of a redemption arc where Rey is his girlfriend and is in love with him despite the fact he’s hurt her and the people she cares for is you being closed minded and hating the idea of anyone redeeming themselves and changing their horrible habits and you only see things in black and white, you can’t grasp how complex of a narrative that would be.

Never mind the fact that Kylo is a murderer who’s made his bed with the villains and done horrible things, the people he’s hurt will jump at the opportunity to help him redeem himself. He’ll be welcome backed with open arms and legs.

It’s not like he could have a redemption that doesn’t revolve around him hooking up with rey, like darth Vader who is arguably a better written character, does the same stuff Kylo does when he finally came to his senses died for his mistakes and didn’t get to live with his kids, but he makes the right choice to protect Luke and is redeemed all without a new girlfriend.

Why would Kylo get a redemption in which he’s all buddy buddy with the main trio and dates rey. Not to mention the fact that Rey has nothing but contempt for him so far, going off tfa, not the new movie pv, because those things can lie.

But if you find this post again and a million shot to 1 reylo happens in the next movie.I’ll let it go. But this is my 2 scents on the bullshit.

#star wars tfa #star wars #anti reylo

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corellian-smuggler · 7 years

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THE LAST JEDI SPOILERS REACTION - SPOILERS BELOW

So as you may know, I made the enormous mistake of seeing The Last Jedi in theaters Thursday night. I don’t know what on earth I was thinking, because TFA left me angry and upset and all of the promo leading up to this film was horrific. But I reasoned that I would need to at least be informed--being on tumblr with everyone inevitably arguing about it and without having seen the film would have been miserable. I also wanted to see the movie without spoilers so that my opinions wouldn’t be influenced prior to viewing. But also, despite having very low expectations, I couldn’t help but have just the TINIEST hope that maybe it wouldn’t be quite as bad as I was anticipating? Maybe at least I would be able to enjoy the storylines of Rey, Finn, and Poe? Maybe Luke’s role wouldn’t be THAT bad? And of course, I wanted to see Carrie Fisher in her final film.

As a result, I found myself in the theater with my twin brother, reasonably pessimistic but just the tiniest bit--despite myself--hopeful.

I have never suffered so much during a film in my entire life. There were multiple moments that made me consider getting up and walking out.

If you don’t want spoilers, DO NOT CONTINUE READING, because I am about to detail exactly why I was so upset.

1. The blatant assassination of Luke Skywalker’s character. Yes, he dies at the end of the film, but they killed him long before that. I don’t know who I was supposed to be seeing onscreen, but it was NOT Luke Skywalker. I’m starting with this because it was, in my opinion, the biggest, and most inexcusable transgression made by Rian Johnson (though don’t worry, there are multiple very close runners-up!). I started crying because of what was happening in front of me. First of all, the fact that Luke’s “first instinct” upon sensing the conflict in his nephew was evidently to ignite his lightsaber to kill him is without fail the most disgusting obliteration of a character I’ve ever witnessed. Who wrote this script??? Did they just not ever watch the original trilogy? The entire point of Luke’s character was his REFUSAL TO GIVE UP ON PEOPLE, and his UNWAVERING DEDICATION TO HIS FAMILY, and his INSISTENCE that his father could be saved. Did they miss the fact that even though Vader had ALREADY murdered countless innocent people and served the Emperor and aided in the establishment of a tyrannical, oppressive fascist regime, Luke’s IMMEDIATE reaction was “I won’t fight him, he’s my father, I have to save him.” Did they miss the part where Luke chose to THROW AWAY HIS LIGHTSABER rather than give in to fear and hatred and violence, even if it meant his father killing him? Even if it meant the rebellion’s demise? Did they miss the part where Luke’s FAITH--in humanity, in his family, in the Jedi and the Light Side of the Force--IS THE ENTIRE PURPOSE OF HIS CHARACTER?? THE ENTIRE PURPOSE OF STAR WARS?? THE ENTIRE POINT OF THE ORIGINAL TRILOGY?!?! THE TRIUMPH OF FAITH, WITH LUKE BEING THE VERY EMBODIMENT OF IT????? And for some reason I’m suppose to sit there and believe that Luke’s first impulse in sensing the “conflict” in Ben--his own nephew, who hadn’t even done anything bad yet--was to KILL HIM??? To kill HAN AND LEIA’S CHILD?!?!?!?! What the ever loving FUCK kind of travesty is that? Character assassination doesn’t even seem an adequate term for what this is.

And that’s just ONE PART OF IT. There’s also the fact that his nephew and Snoke are running around DESTROYING THE GALAXY and BLOWING UP PLANETS and Luke is THE ONLY PERSON IN THE GALAXY WHO CAN DEFEAT THEM, and he DOESN’T CARE. Rey literally shows up and tells him that Leia is begging for his help, that there are two powerful Dark Side Force wielders that they’re powerless to fight, and that Han is DEAD. And Luke doesn’t fucking care. Sorry, but a Luke Skywalker who doesn’t race off to help his loved ones is not Luke Skywalker at all. Once again, this is 100% entirely and completely incompatible with all three films of the OT. Add to that the fact that Luke spends the entire first 2/3 of the film bitterly sneering at himself--about how stupid he was, mocking the very notion of Luke Skywalker as a hero, shitting all over the Jedi, calling himself a vain, ignorant failure... It honestly felt like a personal attack. It was literally the way that angry, dangerous male Star Wars fans who insist that the rebels were terrorists and glorify the Empire and say that the Jedi were no better than the Sith talk about Luke: with spite and disdain and cruelly irreverent, angry scorn designed to cow and hurt the people who think of Luke and the rebels as heroes. Except it wasn’t some reddit post. It was happening onscreen and coming out of Luke’s own mouth.

I honestly, truly do not understand how any fan of the original trilogy could ever think that Luke Skywalker would be tempted to murder his nephew, or turn his back on the Jedi, or be unwilling to go to Leia after learning Han is DEAD, or just not care about the fact that without his intervention, billions of people would die or be enslaved. I was literally crying tears of fury and horror and disbelief and grief. And then, what? He has 5 seconds of remorse and uses the Force to project himself across the galaxy to buy time for the resistance, and then he just? Dies?

What the fuck was the point of having him be in the movies, then? What was the point of including him in the films if all that they wanted him for was to destroy his legacy, make him out to be a coward, rip every single thing that was ever true about Luke Skywalker to shreds, and then give him a quick “redemption” and kill him off like he was nothing? He just fucking dies off on that island after years of hiding from his problems, and even at the very end insisting to Leia that he won’t try to save Ben, that he’s not a hero, that he’s nothing? I am just, so angry that my anger is the only thing standing between me and utter devastation. I literally watched Rian Johnson murder Luke Skywalker and piss on his grave. He did everything in his power to kill any notions that anyone had of Luke Skywalker as the hero he is.

2. Kylo Ren apologism. This was easily the second biggest thing I had a problem with. First and foremost, the fact that they had the AUDACITY to write off his fall to the Dark Side on LUKE SKYWALKER OF ALL PEOPLE. They were so desperate to make him “sympathetic” and “relatable”--and to contrive some bullshit reason for Luke to be in exile--that they decided to make LUKE be at fault?!?! It wasn’t enough that they had to imply in interviews that Han and Leia were “neglectful,” now they also have to tell us that Luke was trying to murder him? First of all, that still doesn’t excuse mass murder, let’s just be clear on that. NOTHING they could have written would have been a valid excuse for what Kylo Ren has done. Nothing would make it “ok” or understandable.

So once again, the writers have gone out of their way to make one of the OT heroes look like a piece of shit for the sake of the new characters, no matter what a disservice it is to the original trilogy, to the fans who love it, and to the characters who MAKE Star Wars STAR WARS. I literally wish I could look Kathleen Kennedy and Rian Johnson in the eyes and demand that they try to explain themselves. I wish I could look them in the eyes and ask how they could have EVER thought it was acceptable to suggest that Luke “failed” his nephew, that he tried to kill him. I want to ask them to explain to Star Wars fans why they thought it was ok to sacrifice Luke Skywalker to the Kylo Ren storyline--to destroy Luke to create that monster.

And that’s not even speaking of the fact that they are literally asking the audience to sympathize with a fascist murderer. Half of the movie was trying to get viewers to “rethink” what they thought they knew about Kylo Ren, to see that it wasn’t his fault, that it was awful LUKE who tried to kill him, and what would we have done? Kylo Ren aids in blowing up billions of innocent people. He orders the death of a whole village of innocent people. He serves the supreme overlord of a paramilitary organization bent on conquering and enslaving the galaxy. He might not be officially Sith, but he IS the Dark Side, which is, in case the writers forgot, a PERVERSION of the Force and pure EVIL. How DARE Rian Johnson, in a reality where we turn on the news daily to find school shooters (which Kylo Ren has done), terrorist attacks (which Kylo Ren has participated in), rapists (which Kylo Ren has symbolically done), racists (Kylo Ren aids a racist military regime), and entitled, wrathful white pissbabies (which Kylo Ren is), and ask us to SYMPATHIZE with the embodiment of ALL of those things??? How can he dare expect us to have empathy for this man? And at the expense of LUKE SKYWALKER?

And then there’s the fact that not once, but TWICE Kylo Ren is referred to as “just a boy,” first by Snoke and then by Luke. Funny, Kylo Ren was a grown man when he destroyed the Jedi Order, when last I checked. But please, tell me again how he’s only a CHILD, just like society does every time any twenty/thirty-something white man rapes/kills/shoots people. Snoke also says that Kylo Ren has “too much of Han Solo’s heart” in him. Now, granted this is coming from Snoke, so it was most likely just to manipulate and torment Kylo Ren, but nevertheless, as it was consistent with the near constant theme of infantilizing and humanizing Kylo Ren, it ENRAGED ME. Kylo Ren has not one single SLIVER of Han Solo’s heart in him. If he did, he would never have joined the Dark Side, or the remnants of the Empire. He would never have murdered countless people in cold blood. He would never have participated in a genocide. He would never have tortured innocent civilians. He would never have KILLED HIS FATHER or have ordered his army to KILL HIS MOTHER. Kylo Ren is NOTHING like Han Solo.

The forced romance with Rey and Kylo was absurd. First of all, I swear to you there are countless shitty fanfics that did this exact same fucking premise of the Force connection--right down to the lack of clothes--so literally we were fed bad fanfiction. Kylo Ren tortured Rey, killed her mentor before her eyes, mortally wounded her only friend, terrified her, invaded her mind while taunting her that he could take whatever he wanted and could invade all her private thoughts and feelings in a scene heavily coded as a metaphorical rape, and almost killed her in the last film. And yet, we’re supposed to believe that because, oh, that’s right, LUKE APPARENTLY TRIED TO KILL KYLO REN, that just excuses all those things Ren did to her and now she has romantic feelings for him? Someone please call up all the women in the world who have been beaten or raped and tell them about something traumatic that had happened in their abuser’s past; they’ll be sure to have romantic feelings for them then!!!! The scene where he had his shirt off?! As though he’s some desirable heartthrob eye candy, and not a WHINY, ENTITLED FASCIST DARK SIDE MURDERER and the VILLAIN of the franchise???? It was sickening.

And yet, I’m not even sure what any of it was trying to accomplish? They went through all that trouble to woobify him and make him “sympathetic” (*derisive snort*), but then he still ended up succeeding Snoke as the new Emperor 2.0 and establishing himself as DECIDEDLY evil, even heartlessly ordering the death of his own mother, and Luke AND LEIA now both said that he can’t be redeemed. So what was the point of all that woobification??? Because now rey will try to redeem him in IX? Yeah, hard pass on that, thanks.

Someone please explain to me why they are literally plot point for plot point giving Rey Luke’s exact story, but also at the same time ripping that story away from Luke as though he hadn’t already done it all before?

3. Rey as a result was entirely unlikable in the film. I went from enjoying her character in the last movie despite all the film’s flaws and the fact that they destroyed Han, Luke, and Leia for her sake, to simply hating her. She came across as ridiculously stupid--walking straight back into the custody of the First Order mere days after having escaped, because now she’s in love with the man who violated and tortured her and killed her father figure and blew up multiple planets? Wtf? And not only that, but what had been a feminist achievement--a female protagonist of a Star Wars film--was turned into a young woman “understanding” the pain of a fascist murderer and “fixing him” with her love. But failing? So again..... what was the point? To make Rey look stupid? Well, they succeeded. It basically just felt like Rian Johnson getting away with putting his own weird sexual fantasies onscreen as much as he could get away with.

4. Finn and Rose were entirely irrelevant. Finn was BLATANTLY demoted from co-protagonist to supporting role, and his side-plot with Rose was so sloppily done that it was obvious his character was an afterthought at best. But we know why that is (racism. It’s because racism). Their little side-trip to casino planet was visually incompatible with the rest of the Star Wars films, rushed, poorly executed, and, above all else, entirely pointless. They accomplished literally nothing and would have died had it not been for Whatsherface Holdo. And that kiss at the end was so out of nowhere that I was literally in disbelief. They’d literally only known each other for a few hours, and yet somehow we’re already having talk of “saving what we love” and kissing???? It was so uncomfortable and fell so flat and was so obviously only included to shove Finn out of the way so that Rey could want Kylo Ren and try to soothe his Man PainTM. Because, once again, racism. Finn’s entire sequence of waking up, by the way, serving as cheap, demeaning comedy at his expense, was weird and unnecessary. Someone please explain to me why they needed to have him walk around base naked and squirting water all over the place? What even was that? Another moment that didn’t feel like it belonged in a Star Wars movie. Oh, and his being framed once again as a traitor and a deserter for trying to get off the ship in the escape pod. Uh, hey so, pretty sure Finn isn’t ENLISTED and therefore he wasn’t DESERTING, first of all, and second of all, pretty sick of this trend of making the heroes look like cowards while trying to make the villains look like victims.

5. Just general bad writing, mischaracterization and sloppy work. Literally nothing happened for the whole movie. The resistance ran away from the First Order for like two hours of screen time while Luke milked alien animal titty and sneered at Rey and refused to help his sister. Then the resistance almost escaped but didn’t and had to keep running away. Then the resistance almost escaped again but didn’t and had to keep running away again. And then they again were almost safe but weren’t, and finally had to run away for good. It was so underwhelming that I literally couldn’t even believe it was approved. Who signed off on this? The whole thing was just a ship running away from another ship with lots of mentions of “almost out of fuel!!!!” and then getting in a different ship to keep fleeing.

Also, Leia did literally NOTHING in the whole movie except almost die, slap Poe in the face, stun Poe, and look sad. So? K cool. Also they made it a point to say that they were broadcasting a distress call with Princess Leia’s personal code “because people believe in Leia,” but then they said the distress call was received and ignored by their allies. Indicating that no one actually believes in or cares enough about Princess fucking Leia to go to her aid. Because they just really had to drive in the knife that the OT characters are irrelevant and sad distortions of what they once were. Oh, and as a result evidently the First Order was able to blow up multiple planets and no one else in the galaxy tried to stand up and stop them from trying to take power?

Poe for some reason was characterized as this trigger happy, impulsive, irresponsible hothead who blundered around a lot and almost got the resistance destroyed multiple times and then this was never resolved. He just kept blundering until the end when Rey lifted the boulders for their escape. So, AGAIN, making the heroes look bad for no reason.

That Holdo character was so dumb I don’t even understand????? Why couldn’t she just tell the resistance what the plan was???? Literally they were all on a ship running out of fuel and thinking she was planning to just keep running til they ran out of gas and all got blown up. That entire nonsense situation wouldn’t have happened if she had just told the people whose lives were in her hands that she wasn’t just giving them up for dead. And if she was planning to die herself anyways, why didn’t she lightspeed at the First Order sooner? And how did a collision at light speed not obliterate the entire ship? How the hell did Finn and Rose walk away from that? So sloppy, so many plot holes there.

All that build-up to Snoke and he was irrelevant and now dead. They literally just presented us with the half-baked Emperor rip-off and then said “nah JK” and disposed of him. He was entirely pointless. Why not just start off the trilogy with Kylo Ren as the Supreme Leader, then, for all the effect that Snoke had (none) on the story?

Rey went “straight to the Dark Side” while meditating and was sneaking around with Kylo Ren and Luke didn’t trust her motivations at all, but then Yoda just appears and says that Rey already knows everything she needs to know about being a Jedi without Luke needing to teach her (um, what? how? Two days prior she didn’t even know what the Force even was?) and then that’s just magically resolved and she’s just now somehow all good to take up the mantle of the last jedi in the galaxy? Despite her overt foray into the Dark Side, which was seemingly without remorse? Despite the fact that she legit didn’t have a single second of training other than Luke telling her “the Force binds all living things and the Jedi shouldn’t have fucked with it”? Also, how could she do a Jedi mind trick without trying? How could she levitate stones without training? How could she best Luke with no training? Entirely inconsistent with the previous two trilogies, as was every word that came out of Yoda’s and Luke’s mouths. And then Snoke calling her a Jedi? SHE WASN’T A JEDI!!!!

Leia saying “I changed my hair” as her first words to Luke? What the hell was that? I understand that it was a nod at what Han said to her in VII, but it was out of place and wrong. She should have run to him and hugged, like she did every single other time they reunited in the OT.

The whole thing about Luke’s death being at peace seemed like they needed Rey and Leia to explain it to the audience, because otherwise no one would get it because it made no sense. Also the way they lowkey implied that Luke had finally gotten “purpose” with his death, as if he hadn’t already had purpose BEFORE when he was SAVING THE WHOLE GALAXY???? As if Luke needed to be redeemed???? Why was I given a story in which Luke Skywalker, the HERO, was in need of a redemption? And am I to understand that he just, exerted himself to death? Uh, ok......? Where’s that meme of Padme saying “Guess I’ll die” when you need it?

Also why was the ancestral Skywalker family lightsaber calling to Rey if she’s not related to them (assuming that Kylo Ren was telling the truth)? Why was she seeing Luke in her dreams? Because she’s “The chosen one”? Didn’t we already HAVE a chosen one? And speaking of that... wasn’t that supposed to have brought balance to the Force? And it... didn’t?

I’m glad that Luke legit asked who the fuck Rey was to be the one to be sent to him, because that made literally no sense whatsoever.

The scenes were cutting all over the place and felt choppy. The pacing was rushed and the plot forced in many places. The tone was all over the place. The humor was inappropriate and fell flat. It visually did not look like Star Wars. In fact, I felt like Rian Johnson did everything in his power to give us a movie that was as un-Star Wars-like as possible.

6. Somehow also an awful rehash of Empire Strikes Back?? If you were paying attention to the plot, it’s not hard to figure out that they were trying to subtly give us Empire Strikes Back in disguise. Film starts with the evacuation of the rebel--oops sorry, resistance base. Proceed to have two of our main heroes being pursued by the Empire across the galaxy, while the Force Sensitive Protagonist is off trying to persuade the Exiled Jedi Master to train her, and he doesn’t want to. Then she ventures into a Dark Side cave and has a disturbing (and just weird?) vision. Then, while Secondary Heroes try to outrun the Empire First Order, she convinces the Exiled Jedi to train her against his best judgment, but she has More Force Visions of her friends of the man whose dick she seemingly wants to suck and so she Leaves Exile Planet to go have a Confrontation with the Evil Force User where she learns a revelation about her parents and is invited to join the Dark Side but Makes An Escape. Then more fleeing from the Empire First Order. Then she rejoins the other lead characters in time to Escape Again, with some slight deviation from the plot--jumping ahead for Luke to die à la Yoda at the beginning of ROTJ, just as she reached her “Dagobah” a film early, as well.

They literally tried to sell us the exact same movie--but they used the same template with all the wrong actual content. They made a cheap knock-off of ESB and filled it with a Luke Skywalker in disgrace, a protagonist flirting (in more ways than one) with the Dark Side, the normalization of the Dark Side, and the destruction of central Star Wars themes.

So, all in all, they are simply reselling the original trilogy but also undoing the original trilogy and assassinating Han, Luke, and Leia as they go. I left the theater the instant the credits rolled. The ONLY positive thing I can say about it is that Mark and Carrie (RIP, she was hard to watch) gave good performances, even though their characters were ruined. I am heartbroken and obviously very angry. I am aware that this was supposed to be a review but became instead an angry rant, but I am as unapologetic of that fact as is Rian Johnson for what he’s done. In my opinion, Star Wars is irrevocably destroyed. The damage following VII was considerable, but this film just really took the cake. This is not my Star Wars, and I will never make the mistake of seeing another Star Wars movie again.

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corellian-smuggler · 7 years

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you must never have been a victim of abuse or neglect if you don't feel sympathy for ben who was neglected by his parents. do you know what it would be like as a child to know you ALWAYS came second to your parent's cause? just because Han and Leia were good heroes in the movies doesn't mean they would have been good parents. Leia by her own admission always put duty first above everything and Ben knew that she prioritized the New Republic over him. Han couldn't sit still and resented settling

down and prioritized his restless spirt and wanderlust over Ben and wasn’t around most of the year but was wandering around the galaxy (Bloodline). Carrie even admits Han and Leia neglected Ben. I don’t know how anyone could watch the original trilogy and think Han and Leia would be a good couple or good parents. They’re not bad people just much too different with different priorities, even Carrie admits this. Leia can’t stop fighting for the cause and Han couldn’t sit still. Their relationship was dysfunctional with having to spend months apart because they fought too much when Han was home (Bloodline) that isn’t healthy? They fought all the time in front of Ben and then Han would leave and storm off (No matter how much we fought I always hated seeing you leave) and wouldn’t come back for weeks. This had a terrible impact on poor Ben. BELIEVE the victims when they tell you their parents were abusive. Believe Ben, or you’re prejudiced against abuse victims.

Ok. Three things, here:1. The fact that you sent me these messages on anon indicates to me that you don’t have the conviction, courage, or integrity to put your own name to your words and accusations. I also think you knew this was way out of line and exemplary problematic behavior, otherwise you wouldn’t have been compelled to send it anonymously.

2. You know literally nothing about my life or experiences, and then you have the nerve to accuse me of “prejudice against abuse victims”? I don’t advertise my personal situation on my blog because it’s private and because I shouldn’t have to justify my opinions about a fictional character with personal trauma in my own life. Believe it or not, you don’t have to be an abuse survivor to watch a movie and identify an evil shithead. However, for the sake of proving you wrong, I’ll have you know that it is precisely BECAUSE I know the reality of parental abuse and neglect that I am so entirely unsympathetic to this bullshit character. Guess what, anon? I suffered through 2 decades of neglect, verbal abuse, and emotional abuse. I feared for my safety in my own home as a child. You want to talk about neglect? You want to talk about a five year old alone in a house at night with no adult supervision because her so-called guardian was passed out drunk with a lit cigarette in hand? You want to talk about being a victim of violent rage? Because guess what, I lived through that and I’m not a murderer. I lived through that and I didn’t decide to stab my father in cold blood or join a fascist terrorist organization or kill BILLIONS of people just because I had a terrible childhood. The notion that Ben Solo committed genocide and patricide, in addition to countless other unspeakable crimes, all because his parents supposedly fought when he was young and were “busy” running the galaxy is the least sympathetic scenario on earth. Neglect does not explain or excuse mass murder. Child abuse is a terrible thing and my heart goes out to any suffering children, but everyone has something scarring in their past. It’s not a free pass for mass murder, and Kylo Ren gave up his chance for my sympathy when he displayed a complete lack of morality and empathy, when he demonstrated a tolerance for slavery and an approval for oppression, when he actively sought out the Dark Side, when he joined a fascist organization building a superweapon designed to obliterate billions of people at a time, when he participated in a genocide, when he destroyed the entire Jedi Order, when he murdered an entire village of civilians, when he abducted and tortured a civilian girl, and when he killed his father who was trying to help him all because he wanted to be like Darth Vader. He lost any chance of sympathy from me when he–a grown man–threw literal temper tantrums over not getting his way, when he spat in the face of forgiveness and redemption and love, and when he acted throughout the entire first film of the new franchise out of hatred, greed, selfishness, and ugly entitlement. That is not sympathetic to my mind.

3. I have to admit I don’t think you understand the difference between reality and fantasy. Where in the new canon does it say that Kylo Ren was neglected or abused? Please provide a direct quote from a book, comic, or movie that states explicitly that Han or Leia abused or neglected their son. Because last time I checked, Han having a job that required him to travel does not mean that he was neglectful or unable to settle down. Leia having a career in politics does not mean she didn’t pay enough attention to her son. Does that mean that from your perspective, any parent that is in the military and must spend time away from their family, or who has a political career, or goes on business trips, or a cause that they’re fighting for is neglectful of their child?

“Leia by her own admission always put duty first above everything” Where is this admission? Where in the new canon movies, comics, or books does it state that Leia put her duty above her family? Please provide the full citation.

“Ben knew that she prioritized the New Republic over him.” Please provide the direct quote from a movie, book, or comic–including publication, and page number where applicable, that states Kylo Ren felt Leia prioritized the New Republic over him and that that’s why he’s an unrepentant killer.

“Han couldn’t sit still and resented settling down and prioritized his restless spirt and wanderlust over Ben.” Oh, really? He resented settling down? Please provide the direct canon quote from an official canon installation that explicitly proves this. Please provide the evidence that says he “prioritized his wanderlust” over his son (reminder, in case you forgot: having a job that requires travel doesn’t mean you’re abusing your child…..)

“Carrie even admits Han and Leia neglected Ben.” Last time I checked Carrie Fisher was an actress and not an authority over the canon, and her words or interpretations of the situation do not make them “true”. She also called Kylo Ren Hitler, so…. are you sure you want to stand by her opinions? Or perhaps you’re also a Hitler sympathizer, like you are a Kylo Ren sympathizer?

“Their relationship was dysfunctional with having to spend months apart because they fought too much when Han was home.” Hi, yes, I’d like the receipt for this one, too please. Where does it state in the canon that Han and Leia frequently spent months apart because they were fighting?

“They fought all the time in front of Ben and then Han would leave and storm off and wouldn’t come back for weeks.” ??????????? Please produce this imaginary scene from a book or comic wherein Han and Leia argued in front of Ben and then Han left for weeks afterwards.

“BELIEVE the victims when they tell you their parents were abusive”. First of all, where in the new canon does Kylo Ren claim his parents abused him? Please provide the objective and indisputable evidence. Second of all, you do realize that Kylo Ren is not real, don’t you? This isn’t a real-life case of someone claiming they were abused. This is a work of fiction, and in this work of fiction it quite frankly does not state that Kylo Ren was abused, and therefore his abuse is not a canon fact.

And finally, I’d just like to ask you what movies you watched and thought were the original trilogy, because it doesn’t seem to have been episodes IV-VI. Last time I checked, the success of Han and Leia’s love story is one of the three major triumphs of the original, completed saga. And beyond the fact that Han and Leia demonstrated a million times over that they could and did commit to each other, that they put their loved ones above EVERYTHING else, that they were willing to put each other’s happiness above their own, that they were willing to sacrifice for one another and for others, that they believed in each other, that they trusted each other, and that they supported each other–AKA, they were a good couple who loved and cared for each other– they ALSO proved again and again and again that they weren’t just good heroes, they were good PEOPLE. The entire point of the original trilogy was that Han, Luke, and Leia were GOOD PEOPLE. And good people don’t abuse children.

#I can't???#even believe???#this GARBAGE??????#maybe don't make blind assumptions about people???#also SHOOK by the rhetoric #that anyone who doesn't feel sorry for Mr Fascism #automatically hates victims of child abuse #because that's just STELLAR logic #unreal

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