[ SECRET POST #5013 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5013 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 42 secrets from Secret Submission Post #718.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

85% of the trilogy has Kylo Ren making terrible life choices including patricide and embracing space-fascism, while almost everyone else expresses horror and disappointment at his fall. Then we get an ass-pull redemption that's mostly about Harrison Ford fanservice and tacking a happy ending onto a movie filled with WTF.

So no, I don't ship it, and I don't agree that it was text beyond debate from the first torture scene. But I chose to file the sequels into the "well that was stupid" box and move on to other Star Wars stuff.

[(Anonymous)]

85% of the trilogy has Kylo Ren making terrible life choices including patricide and embracing space-fascism, while almost everyone else expresses horror and disappointment at his fall... So no, I don't ship it, and I don't agree that it was text beyond debate from the first torture scene

Ehhhhhhhhh.

TLJ clearly set up as text that Kylo had complicated feelings about his terrible life choices and wasn't necessarily happy about them, and it set up that there was a connection between Kylo and Rey that was portrayed in tones that felt very, very romantic. So those elements are present in the story, and the obvious thing that is being set up is that Kylo is going to have a redemption arc and consequently get together with Rey.

Unfortunately, we never actually got the conclusion to those storylines on screen, because TROS is the worst mainline Star Wars movie so far, and they decided to redeem Kylo and have him get with Rey without devoting any screen time to why those things would happen. Which, I mean, it was certainly a unique choice...

But my point is, TFA and TLJ actually did a good job of setting up those elements. TROS just fucked it all up.

[(Anonymous)]

TLJ clearly set up as text that Kylo had complicated feelings about his terrible life choices and wasn't necessarily happy about them, and it set up that there was a connection between Kylo and Rey that was portrayed in tones that felt very, very romantic. So those elements are present in the story, and the obvious thing that is being set up is that Kylo is going to have a redemption arc and consequently get together with Rey.

That's all extremely subjective. His "complicated feelings" didn't stop him from murdering a whole lot of people, including his own father. Point to one moment he felt conflict about doing bad things in TLJ except for maybe the seconds after he shanked Han in cold blood.

Furthermore, the only textual basis in TLJ for a connection between Rey and Kylo and Kylo's eventual redemption was the direct comparison/callbacks to Luke and Darth Vader, which obviously had no romantic inclinations whatsoever.

[(Anonymous)]

SA TFA, not TLJ, whoops. I hate acronyms.

[(Anonymous)]

nayrt

The "direct callback" was to Padmé and Anakin, not Luke and Vader.

[(Anonymous)]

In TFA it was for Luke and Vader, and in TLJ it was for Padme and Anakin. Somewhere between the two, people got confused and then angry.

[(Anonymous)]

+1

Desert planet, x-wing helmet, orphan, and found light saber vs. genocidal dark force wielder in a mask.

[(Anonymous)]

DA

-Snoke berates him for feeling conflicted about killing Han.
-He takes his finger off the trigger when he's about to shoot his mother.

[(Anonymous)]

See? He's not entirely 2 dimensional, only about 98%!

[(Anonymous)]

The bar is so low.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, this. My ships are undeniably fucked up and I share a lot of them with Reylo shippers, but jfc, that bar is buried in the dirt.

[(Anonymous)]

So he's got less depth than your average Nickelodeon cartoon villain, is what you're saying?

[(Anonymous)]

The fact that Kylo Ren understands right from wrong on some emotional level, but does the wrong thing anyway time, after time, after time, isn't in his favor here. It doesn't necessarily point to some sort of magical redemption sex as endgame either.

[(Anonymous)]

Point to one moment he felt conflict about doing bad things in TLJ except for maybe the seconds after he shanked Han in cold blood.

He's constantly miserable on screen in TLJ. He's incredibly emo. That's, like, one of the main complaints by people who hate the sequels: Kylo Ren is a bad villain, because he's too emo.

His "complicated feelings" didn't stop him from murdering a whole lot of people, including his own father.

I mean.... you're right but I don't really understand the point you're making?

As a narrative construct, they were displaying the concept that the character was miserable about being evil, probably setting up for some kind of redemption. That doesn't mean that the character actually was redeemed, or didn't do bad things. It's just a signpost about how they understood the narrative, and what kinds of cues fans picked up on. The elements weren't first introduced in TROS.

(and Kylo Ren redemption and Kylo/Rey are distinct things, but doing Kylo Ren redemption makes it much more likely that you would also do Kylo/Rey)

[(Anonymous)]

He's emo when he does a bad thing that finally actually affects him. He has no problem killing literally anyone else and does so without remorse. That's not any kind of signpost for redemption--that just means he's a selfish asshole.

[(Anonymous)]

First of all, he's not emo. He's whiny little shit who throws temper tantrums when he doesn't get his way.

Secondly, sulking and throwing things because murder isn't getting you as far as you thought it would is not "feeling conflict for doing bad things." It's feeling entitled to respect that you're not receiving for the leadership skills you don't actually possess.

If the narrative was going for inner conflict in the first two movies, it failed miserably. However, we already know that the first two movies had no idea where Kylo Ren's story arc was actually going. They kept it vague on purpose, but since they didn't bother to tell the actors where the story was going either Adam Driver decided to play up the creepy sociopath aspects of the character and then had to switch lanes in the last movie.

[(Anonymous)]

Non-shippers did pick up on the premise that Kylo Ren is miserable. But miserable abusers are a dime a dozen. They're rarely willing to take the steps necessary for their personal growth to stop hurting others. So Kylo being miserable but committing to violence anyway just makes him one of a million shitty boyfriends.

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT: In TFA about the only textual relationship between the two is that Rey is newly adopted Found Family to Han and Kylo is estranged from Han. Which comes to a head when Kylo kills his father. Her interactions with Kylo are limited to 1) torture/escape, 2) watching Han kill his father (her new father-figure), and 3) unleashing jedi whoop ass on him.

Sure TLJ flirted with romantic feels, but that doesn't mean that the romantic endgame is obvious when one party in the relationship betrays the other. The heroine coming to realize that sometimes a jerk is just a jerk and she doesn't really need him is a narrative arc the company has done before.

As a non-shipper, ideal endgame for Ben would have involved reconciliation with accountability. If anything qualifies as irreconcilable differences, patricide of a shared father-figure should. Ben doesn't need cheap redemption and romance, he needs recovery. The whole Beauty and the Beast story, which is really about keeping daughters in unhappy arranged marriages, has a lot of well-justified criticism of its premise that love heals all wounds and wounds all heels. Unfortunately TROS gave us probably the second-worst version of a Beauty and the Beast ending.

At any rate, as of TFA, the Beauty and the Beast ending was just as speculative as Rey is a Secret Skywalker. That was more explicitly teased for me than a slap-slap-kiss-kiss endgame relationship.

[(Anonymous)]

DA

Rey is newly adopted Found Family to Han

I think you misremembered this part of TFA. Han was all about abandoning Rey to her fate after she was kidnapped. Finn was the one who wanted to rescue her.

The heroine coming to realize that sometimes a jerk is just a jerk and she doesn't really need him is a narrative arc the company has done before.

I can't recall this happening before in Star Wars. Could you refresh my memory?

[(Anonymous)]

Frozen and Captain Marvel, which both count since all three franchises get filtered through the same marketing wonks.