#*insert statement about it not excusing his actions because antis can’t understand the difference between explaining and excusing*

[pendinganchor]

people really think steve and billy were fighting over lucas??

babes

they we’re fighting because steve lied to billy about 1 knowing his 13 year old sister and 2 her whereabouts. and her whereabouts were the middle of the woods in the middle of the night in a stranger’s house that didn’t belong to steve.

[benperorsolo]

I'm trying to understand different perspectives on TLJ, so I wanted to ask: how do you think people arrive at the "Kylo was emotionally manipulating Rey" interpretation in TLJ? Do you think that could've been the writers' intent? There's a Rian Johnson quote that makes me think there may be some basis to it, regarding the Throne Room, where he describes the proposal as "unhealthy" and "manipulative." I don't see it that way, but now I wonder if I may be mistaken.

I definitely don’t think manipulation was the writers’ intent. I know which quote you’re talking about, and I think it’s important to consider Rian’s whole statement. The proposal, from an objective perspective, is unhealthy and unintentionally manipulative. But it’s also important to note that Rian continues in that quote to say that Ben was, from Ben’s own perspective, being sincere:

“To write these characters, I always have to get inside their heads. I tend to step inside and have the most generous reading of any character’s motivation possible,” says Johnson. “I’ll say this – the moment when Kylo makes his appeal for her to join him, and Adam captured it so well in his little please, it was important to me that it wasn’t a chess game, it wasn’t just a manipulation. It’s unhealthy, and there’s much that is awful about the way that he is manipulative. From his point of view, it’s a very naked, open, emotional appeal. It’s his version of, ‘I’m just a girl standing in front of a guy’… (x)

So, Rian outright says that from Ben’s POV, his plea is not (read: was not consciously intended as) manipulation. 

Ben is still entrenched in years of abuse and the mentality of the Dark side. Because the Dark side is about selfishness and self-aggrandizement, it’s a given that his judgement is skewed. Ben can be both sincere and sincerely wrong. But the crucial thing here is that although Ben’s judgement is being poisoned by the Dark side, Ben was not consciously trying to manipulate Rey. This doesn’t make it better objectively, and Rey was right to say no. But it does mean that Rian wrote the scene with the intention of actually sympathizing Ben and his broken attempt at reaching out to Rey, not removing that sympathy by implying Ben is some puppet master cunningly pulling Rey’s strings. It’s a very complexly written scenario and I admire Rian for including it.

In general I find the idea of Ben being a manipulative person to be laughable. Nothing in canon suggests that he could manipulate his way out of a paper bag. Ben is nothing if not bluntly honest– the only person he’s ever managed to lie to is really himself. When Rey, for instance, wakes up in the interrogation room and asks where her friends are, Ben promptly responds that he has no idea: instead of, I don’t know, lying and saying they’ve been captured to use as leverage to get Rey to do what he wants? And when Han reaches out to Ben on the bridge, he has a total breakdown. In response to some people accusing Ben of manipulating Han, JJ says:

Snoke is, as Han says, using him, and I think that somewhere, Ben knows this. But I think that he can’t accept it. Deep down, he has gone too far… But I don’t think, in this moment, that this is a put-on. I think that Ben is legitimately going to give up.” (x)

So TFA already establishes Ben as an honest character, or at least a character who has never demonstrably manipulated anyone. In TLJ, this trend continues. During the first force bond, Ben straight-up tries to mindtrick Rey into giving up Luke, which is about the least subtle thing he could have done. He didn’t try to seduce her, or befriend her, or play mental games with her. He point-blank just tried to get it out of her. 

Even when it comes to the Force bond itself, Snoke himself says to Rey that ‘I stoked Ren’s conflicted soul. I knew he was not strong enough to hide it from you.’ I don’t even think this is an ambiguous sentence– Snoke straight-up admits that Ben himself wasn’t acting during the bond. And not only was Ben not acting, but that Snoke counted on Ben’s guileless honesty and conflict to attract Rey’s pity and compassion. Ben himself was the opposite of involved in some sort of manipulative scheme to bring Rey in to the FO.

So honestly, when no canon thus far even vaguely supports the idea of master manipulator!Ben, I don’t think it makes any sense to suddenly assume that Ben is deliberately chessmastering Rey during his proposal. And Rian says as much. He didn’t write it with that intention. 

My opinion for the reason why this (bad) interpretation crops up is the same reason why lots of nonsensically bad Ben readings crop up. There seems to be some sort of trend in assuming that if a character is a villain, then all villainous actions are equally fair game. So if a character is a villain, he is also necessarily manipulative, and abusive, or sexist, or whatever. But the thing is that villains, when well written, are also full characters. And they exist as characters first. Ben might be the antagonist, but that doesn’t mean you can shove any random vice onto him and say it’s in character. Ben is quick to anger and acts out against his pain in selfish ways. But he isn’t manipulative, just as he isn’t sexist, or some random MRA/incel/insert whatever woke talking point here. But antis don’t really care. He’s evil, right? So that means he’s also a master manipulator, and a r/pist, and an abuser, and whatever.

But more frankly, antis make up this manipulation excuse because it’s the only thing coming between them and being forced to humanize Ben and accept the real possibility of Reylo. Both of which they will refuse to admit at all costs.