#Most importantly I fear that a good chunk of this is me over romanticizing the situation/them as a person

[misskamelie]

I want to go back..... I miss them I miss them I miss them.....

[roxannepolice]

I think the Benlo dumbass yea/nay comes down to a couple things. First is that it's pretty apparent that he's the actual 'mystery box' JJ and co intended for this franchise (seriously, the way it's currently set up his plotline is the only one left beyond just general evil smashing). Second is the time smash of the trilogy means we're basically watching his worst weekend ever, he starts of reasonably competent at the beginning at it goes downhill from there (cont)

so team good guy can make it out alive (and not gonna lie, STs habit of literally gutshotting its villains so the heros can make it out rather than actually have them do something heroic against a villain not kneecapped is starting to piss me off the more I think on it, this gos for the FO in general too). Third thing is fandom trends. A lot of fandom (not just reylo, bendemption) has a very big investment in him being a Big Emotional Brute.   Kylux fandom basically settled on Smart but Uptight/Emotive but Dumb (with flashes of animal/force intuition) pretty early and that’s a go to migratory fandom favorite. It also plays into the Reylo as power fantasy thing. Basically there’s a large undercurrent in shippers for him that Kylo a Big Emotional Dumbass so Rey/Hux/Insert Reader need to take control and assert power over him in some way. For antis its Kylo is a Big Emotional Dumbass so he needs to be put down. Point is a very large portion of fandom gets their jollys from it and so there’s no real push to challenge or question it. Third is that (and I think you may have touched on this before) the narrative contradicts itself. The text says that Kylo and Rey equals, the symbolism says this, very large chunks of extra materials say this, the gave Snoke a monologue for fucks sake.But the actual contents of the story don’t, like at all. Rey is superior in every way, morally, physically, force powers, and yes, actually capable of being stable on her own. And that’d be fine if the narrative didn’t insist on telling me they’re equals and that Rey has darkness in her, really, please believe us yes she never acts on it or does anything questionable ever but it’s there we swear. If they are equals as the text insist then yes, Kylo is presumptively good at something an should be able to get at least some of his shit together on his own either to be a credible antagonist or start on the path to redemption by his own. If he isn’t as the actual content of the story says so far, then yeah hes either gonna mope like a bunch of people want or just continue to be a nonthreat. As far as redemptionist goes, I honestly think it’s ‘he’s too dumb, so he can live.

I think you hit a jackpot here, anon - it’s not simply about Kylo Ben, renperor or no renperor, it’s more about the movies being appearently unable to make up their mind whether FO in general and he in particular are the most terrifying threat the galaxy has ever faced, self-conscious evil incarnate, or a bunch of very naughty children with very dangerous toys - and more importantly, how the narrative is going to deal with them in the end, by executing them all like political mad dogs or letting them have their ice cream the moment they promise to behave, like no-longer-naughty children (add to this that for many idiots the outcome will serve as the ultimate advice on the symbolised real world threats). Disney-LF basically took angels and demons, made the former as cool and invincible as the Gauls and latter as laughable and incompetent as the Romans in Asterix - and then packaged it all in Apocalypse Now (Jr.) depictions of violence, at least when used by the bad guys.

I guess it’s meant to fit into the theoretical approach to of the way media should - because they sure as hell don’t - present real word political threats. In a situation when fear becomes maybe not the most dangerous but arguably the most widespread weapon, fear is the exact thing villains should be denied. However, the problems are that a) it results in a bad drama in a text which should be about good drama first and foremost dammit and b) there’s a difference between fearlessness and arrogance - and the sequels appear to be gravitating towards the latter. Take the Crait showdown and imagine that it really was only about saving resistance, for example. What you get is Luke being too morally pristine and above everything to even bother to show himself up in person only taking advantage of his stupid incompetent nephew’s cowardly trauma that he was perfectly right to inflict to let the heavenly army of angels get rescued by immaculate Dea ex machina Rey and escape. Honestly, if that really is the story we’re getting then I understand why some people were upset by the way Luke died - he might have as well disappeared up his own ass.

On the other hand I kinda agree that if renperor will get an individual redemption - which again, I find highly unlikely and poor storytelling - then it can be only thanks to his incompetence. Maybe that’s his sort of fourth wall redemption - kids have been revelling in the dark side for over thirty years, maybe it’s time to take away the glamour. In a way, renperor’s miserable incompetent but survived downfall could be a fourth wall Rocky Sullivan redemption.

Educational as that would be, that still puts the audience in position of spectators on a 3R-jedi auto da fe and I did not expect a spanish inquisition. 

TBH, the main reason why I can’t see much sense in making renperor completely incompetent is that I can only see two ways to rationalize (because as far explaining is concerned, I’d allow the possibility that D-LF have no idea what they’re doing) why the sequels are serving a shakeaspearan family drama with a Dostoyevski-esque victimized villain on the one hand and a pseuo-politicized popcultural jerk off orgy on the other. One is that all of drama, romance and dark romanticism must be presented as rejectable elements of decadent classist culture so that the new men and women of United Soviet States of Galaxy Far Far Away know which unhealthy coping mechanisms are right and which wrong.

And the other is that the sequels are essentially kid-friendly full blown happy end East of Eden as told from Aron’s perspective - with Cal being prelabelled as the bad child on account of being like his mother just as Ben was prelabelled as the bad child on account of being like his maternal grandfather. This is why it’s so gut wrenchingly annoying for me to watch Luke teary eyed praise Rey and Leia look with pride at Poe during Crait - they both give me very strong Adam Trask feels, with Aron not even being his son, to put salt on the wound (ba-dum tss). On the other hand that’s also why I can’t agree with the Poe as Gaston or resistance is just as evil as fo take - it’s not as simple as being good on the surface and bad on the inside. Aron’s life is morally superior to Cal’s - the problem is that his goodness is… conditional, putting it mildly, while Cal’s need to be loved and ability to love back is limited mainly by his pain and resentment. Returning to renperor’s competence, East of Eden’s storyline makes me believe him wanting to do something right and actually succeeding, or at least apparently, temporarily succeeding, to do so is the plot twist that would drive the narrative in the most interesting place - this would essentially be Cal being successfull at his business. On the one hand it brings out Aron’s (reistance’s) uglier side - morally superior to his brother as he is, he doesn’t really deal well with that superiority getting undermined - and on the other assures Abra (Rey, though I believe she’ll be more stubbornly reverted than to ease into this easily) that Cal is in fact a good person. But most importantly, the moment Adam rejects his “evil” son’s “sacrifice” showing it to be inherently immoral, it’s the ultimate rock bottom for Cal, precisely because he was hopeful and had reasons to believe he’s finally doing something right. This is what I imagine overthrown and finding out his rule wasn’t as rosy as he wanted to think renperor would feel like - what in Darth Plagueis’s name does his great-grandpa want from him, what is that destiny that everone has been forcing him into his entire life until he finaly snapped and decided to create it on his own? The decisive difference, though, would be that while Cal still had a deeper pit of villainy to forcefully push himself into, Kylo Ben won’t really have much more to accomplish in that direction anymore.

I will be really, really surprised if epix doesn’t show us uncontrolled darker side of Rey and will kick like a spoiled brat insisting it’s because good storytelling is another thing to be rejected in USSGFFA well maybe not online but I sure as hell will think so. If that’s the case, then the dramatic axis of the sequels is essentially between balance (Rey) and imbalance (Kylo Ben), which renders exemplary death of the latter more dramatically justified than redemption - but also makes the entire trilogy impossibly empty because, with all the apparent outwardly factors being against Rey and in favour of Ben, it would essentially say that some people simply are good and others simply are evil - which isn’t what Star Wars have been telling us in the least.