#for when they - being it justified or not - did wrong by ben skywalker

[darlinghowl]

han blaming himself for ben turning to the dark side and saying he knew leia could only see ben when he looked at han so he had to leave. luke blaming himself for creating kylo ren because he could sense the dark side in him, that he’d already given himself to it, and so he knew he needed to kill him to snuff it out but couldn’t, but ben woke up at the wrong time. both of them trying to bring kylo back, trying desperately to get ben back. i’m so fucking upset that we didn’t get to see more of kylo as ben but also i wouldn’t trust the stupid fucking fandom to be normal about him if we did. like i want to know more about what pulled him to the dark side i want to know if it was inherent in him or if maybe the pressure of being a skywalker was too much and he was afraid to try to live up to it and that made him susceptible but also i want to acknowledge that no matter what his state of mind was, none of it can justify him eventually giving everything over to the dark side. he killed and tortured so many ppl. he committed genocide of entire planets. like he killed his dad and it was for nothing. his uncle died in his quest for revenge trying to stall him and he still stayed the course for the dark side. his mom dying is what eventually got to him but by then it was too late to try to amend anything with them, so i rlly feel like any redemption wasn’t going to land the same way i feel like anakin’s in the original trilogy didn’t either. but i’m just so curious abt everything leading up to that point and why it happened Ugh

putting look at us now by daisy jones and the six on my hanleia playlist even though it was technically made this year bc the show is set in the 1970s. cheating but also i’m fucking insane over “we unraveled a long time ago / we lost and we couldn’t let go / i wish it was easy but it isn’t so” hanleia deserved SO MUCH MORE than they fucking got i’m still SO upset

[superhero--imagines]

A/N: Kylo is basically a superhero right?

* It probably starts at adolescence

* When he’s still a teenager, studying under Luke Skywalker

* You’re probably a princess or a noble in another planet

* He sees you in dreams, at first

* Your back is usually towards him

* You’re in a meadow together, the sun is high, it’s warm but not unpleasant.

* A (white dress/ tunic) pooled around you

* He’s hesitant, he’s not one to disturb someone after all

* But he slowly inches closer to you

* Your nimble fingers, are taking the flowers from the meadow and weaving them together

* They’re nice hands, Ben decides

* It’s after a particularly heavy footstep, the numbing crunch that follows, that you notice his presence

* Dreams like this are always welcome to you

* They’re peaceful and relaxing

* You’re always alone, so when you hear the crunch of broken grass and flowers behind you, you turn

* You think it might be an animal

* You turn with a smile already curling into your lips

* So excited to make a furry friend, even if it’s only in a dream

* Instead you see a rather tall boy, in a simple white tunic and pants

* Inky black hair, and dark eyes

* He reminds you of an ancient god you heard existed long ago

* Hades, your mind whispers

* The smile stays on your face

* You’re so beautiful

* And with a gasp Ben’s pulled out of the dream

* His breathing’s hard, and he’s clutching his chest

* He doesn’t understand what just happened, but he knows he can’t tell anyone about it

* You wake up as well, your eyes open to the sight of your ceiling

* Well that was weird, you think, falling back asleep.

* From then on, it becomes sort of a frequent thing to see each other in dreams

* Ben’s incredibly hesitant to talk to you. He knows this isn’t just a dream at this point, it’s something more

* You think it’s a dream, and that your mind has created this gorgeous man for you to cope with loneliness

* So you approach him without reserve

* “Hold still for a second” you say

* Placing the flower crown on top of his head

* “It looks good on you!” You grin, Ben blushes

* It takes a bit but he starts to open up

* “You’re doing it wrong” You tell him

* He’s sitting beside you, attempting to weave flower crowns

* “You have to go over then under” He nods, fixing the stem

* When he’s done the crown is a little crooked, but he’s still proud

* He places it on your head, heat creeping into your cheeks

* “Now you can properly be the (queen/king) of the meadow.” He says with a grin, the heat on your face intensifies

* “Does that make you my king?”

* “Perhaps” he mumbles as you laugh at his matching pink face

* Ben never tells you about training to be a Jedi

* You never tell him about your status either

* Then all at once it stops

* The dreams are gone for years

* You feel a bit lonely, but it’s for the best

* You think of it as a sign of your growing maturity

* Ben is Kylo now

* And he misses you, when he sleeps these days, it’s just a dark void

* Perhaps it’s for the best, he can’t immerse himself in the dark side with you still in his life

* Then something strange happens, into your adulthood, you hit your lowest point

* Maybe it’s a heartbreak, maybe a parent dying, the rise of the first order

* But it’s probably because you’ve witnessed the injustice of your current king

* And you wish to take your place on the throne

* But you’re lost, you don’t know what to do

* You’re searching for something, a light to guide you

* And you see him, at the end of the hallway

* He looking down, at something in his hands

* He’s even taller now

* Bigger too, a wider frame than that of the boy from the Meadow you remember

* But his inky black locks remain the same, just as his gentle dark eyes do

* It’s a split second, realization for Kylo Ren

* He’s looking down at his helmet, and then he feels it

* Something shifts in the force

* And then he looks up, to you

* You’re just as beautiful as he remembers you

* Your hairs up, pulled out of your face

* A red (tunic/dress) adorning your figure, the end of which pools around you as you look straight at him.

* You look around, no one else is here, where did he come from

* But Kylo states straight at you

* Why now? Why after all this time?

* Just when he thought he was finally coming to terms with the darkness inside him

* “Is this real?” You whisper, or has your mind finally shattered from the stress.

* “I’m not sure” He whispers back, he thinks about you often, more often than he would like to admit

* It wouldn’t be the first time he’s imagined you in his chambers

* Then he sees the tear stains on your face, the red of your eyes

* “You’re upset”

* His voice is gentle, it’s so gentle, you almost break out into tears from the sound alone

* “Who hurt you?” This time his voice is louder, with an edge

* Your head snaps up

* Even though he has that look in his eyes, the softness in his behavior is not gone, as he kneels beside you

* “I hurt myself”

* And it’s true

* You are your own greatest enemy

* You are so kind to everyone

* But not to yourself

* Kylo knows that to be true, even when you would spend time together in the meadow

* There were time where he wondered why you always doused your own spark

* He doesn’t know what to do

* So he sits beside you silently, not daring to touch you, as you weep

* “What’s your name?” You finally ask

* “Ben” the words leave his mouth before he can stop himself

* He can hardy tell you he’s Kylo Ren, he justifies to himself

* “And you?” You smile as you tell him.

* From then on you start seeing each other whenever you please

* “How was your day?”

* Kylo’s washed his face in his chambers faucet

* He just had a conversation with Snoke that did not go well

* “Fine, and you?”

* Oh fine, just planning to rebel against your king to claim your right to the throne

* “Average”

* You catch him losing his temper once

* His lightsaber runs through the monitors, sparks flying everywhere

* “You really shouldn’t do that you know” he freezes when he hears your voice, turning around slowly

* He expects to see you afraid, finally seeing him for the monster he is

* Instead you’re sitting on a chair, a bemused expression crossing your features.

* You stand, taking long quick strides to him

* You reach for his hand without second thought

* You’re planning to show him where he hurt himself

* But instead you gasp

* A Tremor runs through you, you see things you know you aren’t supposed to

* A beautiful man and women holding a baby, an island with children, a lightsaber, a black mask

* Your touch is warm, he’s almost surprised

* As warm as a pleasant day in your meadow

* He feels love and admiration

* But also a chill

* The social ladder, high society, tea parties where you were ridiculed, an inept king, a rebellion festering in your soul

* He never would have thought his sweet meadow (queen/king) would be capable of such thoughts

* A part of him is almost proud

* He frowns when you pull away

* “Make sure to treat your hand” you mumble before vanishing

* He doesn’t see you for months after that.

* He tries to use the force to see you

* But he’s just met with the void

* An awful thought creeps into his mind

* That maybe you perished

* The universe was at war after all

* But he still keeps hope that you’re fine, even if you don’t want to see him, you’re fine somewhere in this universe

* It’s months later

* You did it, you could no longer stand the indulgence of the noble class, and started your rebellion against the king

* His head is on a stick in the plaza, as you take your seat on the throne

* Truth to be told being a ruler is hard work

* You do your best, increasing taxes in luxury goods, awarding more noble titles, purging the system

* But you’re beginning to wonder, if there’s any good left on this planet

* “Your highness,” your advisor kneels in front of you, “the First Order wishes for an audience”

* You sigh, just what you needed

* In addition, you haven’t heard from Ben in some time

* Not even when you were at your lowest during your rebellion

*Not even when you took the throne, so happy that you ached to tell him

* Not that it makes much difference now that the first order is here to take over your planet

* Perhaps he was just a figment of your imagination

* You sigh as you enter the hallway that commander Kylo Ren is waiting for you in.

* He gazes at you through his dark mask

* You gaze at each other, unsure of who should move first

* Kylo moves first, clicking the sides to remove his helmet, at which you curtsy

* When your eyes meet his face once more, you’re greeted by a pair of inky black hair and gentle brown eyes

* “Your highness” He says, a corner of his mouth quirking up ever so slightly

* You simply smile

[frumfrumfroo]

Saw an argument presented that the Skywalker saga is actually about violence vs nonviolence, and not about redemption; because redemption is 'a given' in SW. They also state that Rey is the main character, not Ben, and the ST is basically about her choosing the Jedi way and following the nonviolent path. Rey's character to me has never read as non-violent/ non-confrontational, so this reading of the ST doesn't make sense to me. Would be interested in your thoughts as you have good insight

SW is about compassion (’love people, that’s all Star Wars is’- George Lucas), but you’d find yourself tied up in knots fairly quickly trying to argue it preaches non-violence. All of the aspirational characters use violence and they are not condemned by the narrative for doing so. The moral line which it is never okay to cross is murder (you are never justified in killing anyone in cold blood for any reason whatsoever- no one deserves to die), but armed resistance to tyranny is celebrated. And armed resistance to tyranny will result in casualties among those who fight to preserve it. Those deaths are considered so morally acceptable that it gives no one any pause whatsoever.

Star Wars does not allow its heroes to ever kill or attempt to kill a humanised character without it being a very bad thing, but it is 100% okay with them killing faceless mooks by the thousands. If it were about non-violence, this would not be okay. The story never questions that use of force can be necessary, in fact it condemns complacency and neutrality, it only insists that violence isn’t the answer and will never solve the problem. Or it did, until TROS told us that violence is the answer.

Rey never learns a single lesson about non-violence and never chooses a non-violent path. In this movie she explicitly trains to be a warrior intending to use those skills, endeavours to be worthy of a ‘legendary’ weapon which is revered in spite of its history as the sword Anakin used to mow down children and murder Jedi, the Force is changed from pure Being and an expression of one’s spiritual connection and relationship to all life into an inherited superpower you can charge up to fight bad guys, and she never chooses selflessness or compromise or non-violent resolution of any kind. Rey is the aggressor in every single fight and the story has no problem with this.

Luke threw down his sword in RotJ, Rey picks up an extra one because to really defeat evil you need two lightsabres.

The Jedi way is not non-violent, it is the judicial use of violence. Leaving aside the prequels and their entire plot, Yoda and Obi-wan tried to manipulate Luke into killing his father without him ever knowing the truth. They told him there was no hope for Vader and violence was the only answer, that pragmatism must come before love and love would not be enough to help anyone. It is Luke who rejected that and chose a third option. It’s Luke who consistently refuses to sacrifice people when his Jedi masters try to teach him it’s necessary.

It’s about redemption (and by extension the idea that it is never right to sacrifice someone else) not pacifism because these choices are personal and are about our attitude to individuals. The previous films never condone passive martyrdom. Luke doesn’t lay down his life and the fate of the whole galaxy at Anakin’s feet because ever fighting is bad, it’s because killing his father is bad. It’s because the ends don’t justify the means and he believes love is stronger than fear- he’s willing to die to save Anakin, to avoid becoming him, to show another path is possible, not to avoid fighting. He has faith his grace will change the outcome, it’s not suicide to avoid impurity.

He rejected the terms of the argument Palpatine set out, he rejects Palpatine’s worldview that power and pragmatism are the only means of victory. And he’s vindicated and the impossible tide turns because this is an idealistic story about absolute right and wrong. Luke could not win with might, his attempts to use might ended in total failure or becoming the very thing he was fighting against, he wins with right.

But Rey’s path of growing in conviction and forging her own identity so she could have the same kind of faith Luke had and thus the same kind of spiritual power (strength in the Force is about FAITH not training) was abandoned so she could ~train~ in fighting and lifting rocks. Because apparently now it is about who has the coolest lightsabre skills, the biggest muscles, and the highest Force Power Level. She doesn’t take a third option like Luke did where he is neither victorious because he was mightiest nor is he a pacifist sacrificial lamb; she gets a power up, then she kills the bad guy with violence and she’s suddenly a sacrificial lamb out of nowhere (with NO AGENCY) solely so Ben can take her place on the altar and DIE.

There is no good message to dig out of this movie no matter how hard you try or how much charity you give it and the idea that Rey became a non-violent hero in it is frankly laughable.

[kncrowder88]

I like that many of the complaints I see pull on stuff from books and comics and such and how the movies dont answer any questions (which if you've read things you got your answers right?) ..... where as me who has not gotten to read a single SW comic or book and has just seen the shows and movies has .... no problem filling in info.

Leia is able to save herself because .... oh yeah in The Clone Wars a Jedi also goes out into space, utilizes the force, and fights droids.... without any sort of protection covering his body and blatantly states "I can withstand the pressure for a brief time". Now, I have always - and still do - take that as him using the force not because of his physiology. He doesnt go out with anything protecting his body. At all. So, yeah, Leia surviving space merely told us shed been trained and used her powers. And given that she is actually NOT 100% alright she was reaching a point of being out there to long. She didnt pull herself back fast enough .... but she managed to react fast enough to do what she can and I wouldnt be surprised if part of why she was how she was is she was trying to save others .... not herself.

Rey .... I see many question how she got so good with a lightsaber so fast. Well, I mean, she grew up in a planet where defending yourself was needing. No one seems to go "how did Luke learn to fire a blaster" because it's kind of obvious his situation on Tattoine makes it a necessary thing to know. Yet, somehow no one really questions how Anakin -the slave child who would have limited leisure time - knows how to pod race? (Seriously, no one seems to question that and just accepts hes one with the force or whatever .... but hey). I seriously saw an article talking about a force power Rey has that could be vital and explain a lot and so many commenters were simply going "mary sue", powers never seen (open the article and it mentions places the powers have been seen lol), plot armor, etc etc etc .... like it's a surprise and they dont already know about what the article is talking about. It's the power from when she touched the damn lightsaber and she saw things. Its talking about her ability to see the past .... which again if you watch The Clone Wars we see one of the Jedi in that has something similar .... so it's not some new thing more she HAPPENS to have it and they are bringing it to the big screen.

Basically, what I'm getting at is all these people who are complaining are doing so largely because everything they enjoyed about Star Wars was dubbed not canon (at least from what I see) .... which .... um .... as someone who is also a Trek fan this is why I only count original media type as canon (i.e. visual vs written. Star Wars is movies so movies and tv shows is canon, books and comics and games are all secondary canon - even if Disney says the book is canon my brain wont take it as canon because they didnt put it into the medium in which Star Wars was presented to us from the get go).

If you want to complain that you still have questions before the FINAL movie .... good. You should. If everything is answered then there would be no need for that movie. Hell, with the OT I had questions. I was laughing at father and leia bit and not believing it because at no point did they ever imply that possible (they kissed okay how the fuck are they related, I dont care if grew up apart you dont do that then just ignore that). There was a lot of questions I'm just saying and the prequels opened more questions. But guess what everything is being wrapped up and as I rewatching the movies and shows things are making a bit more sense with these movies out there. Because if Palpatine is back then that fucker clearly had some plan in place in case he got defeated because honestly how did he not prepare for Anakin Skywalker, Mr. devoted to family, not to turn on him?

But yeah .... anyways .... my point is people how so many reasons to hate that I think a lot of it is a mix of Disney cut their favs out, Disney being .... well Disney, and Rey/Leia/etc doing stuff they dont want to put a stamp of approval on because then they have to thank Disney

[fuckyeahcharmcaster]

Post 666 on this blog

How about commemorating it by analyzing a recent Twitter thread by none other than Geoffrey Thorne, writer of the much-maligned (and deservedly so) “Couples Retreat”?

Immediately a falsehood - McDuffie never ran Ben 10 and Thorne never pitched/wrote for it. 

It was Ben 10: Ultimate Alien (the rebranding of the series Ben 10: Alien Force) that McDuffie ran and Thorne pitched/wrote for. He should have used “franchise” rather than “show”.

REMEMBER THIS. It will be important later.

Hoo boy, here we go....

1. Given which episode it was, I wouldn’t call that “lucky”.

2. It seems like Thorne is definitely the guy behind the alleged spin-off Dwayne McDuffie proposed to the network. In regards to that I respect his passion, but not much else.

3. OK, some context is needed here: he is calling himself a “Charmcaster shipper” because this entire thread was sparked because one of his writer buddies who works on Supergirl was getting a lot of grief from Kara/Lena (”Supercorp”) shippers about how things have gone down on that show. But the problem is that this makes no sense - you cannot be a “shipper” of just one character. What he is describing is being a Charmcaster fanboy, NOT a “shipper”.

…..Where do I even START?

1. First off is the most glaring part: Thorne has completely re-arranged the order of events in his mind. The episode which making explicit that Charmcaster was evil and crazy, “The Enemy of My Frenemy”, aired BEFORE his episode, not after. Also, it wasn’t even separate by “a few weeks later”, it was literally just one week. I can’t believe he got this so wrong.

2. “There was much back patting when my Charmcaster episode came out”. HUH? I sure as Hell don’t remember much in the way of back-patting; most people were disgusted by it and also still upset about the previous episode. This is flat-out revisionist history on Thorne’s part.

3. I truly believe that Charmcaster being “straight-up evil and not a little bit crazy” was NOT meant to be the take-away from “The Enemy of My Frenemy”, which is why it ended in the way it did. But because what Charmcaster did in that episode was fucking genocide, that’s still exactly the take-away many viewers took away from it, and if even Thorne has come out and admitted that it was his take-away from it too, then you KNOW that episode fucked up.

4. “These were adults, mind you�� - aaah, so in spite of him previously throwing shade at live-action folks throwing shade at animation because it was seen as “kids’ stuff”, suddenly he’s throwing shade at adult fans of an animated series for being emotionally affected by it. What a fucking hypocrite. I guess the millions upon millions of adult viewers who were outraged by what befell Daenerys Targaryen of Game of Throne are justified because that show is live-action, but there’s something wrong with adult viewers if they have a problem with this?

5. The biggest insight here: there really wasn’t any communication between the writers of UAF...and what’s more, Dwayne McDuffie didn’t bother tightening up the scripts enough to make them consistent, nor apparently did he tell any of the writers crucial information they probably ought to know when writing their episodes. Why was Charmcaster’s behavior so different in “Couples Retreat” compared to where “The Enemy of My Frenemy” left off? Because Thorne didn’t know about that episode. Why did Kevin suddenly act hypocritically scornful toward Charmcaster in “Couples Retreat” despite empathizing with her at the end of “The Enemy of My Frenemy”? Because Thorne didn’t know about that episode! Heck, it was clearly McDuffie who put in lines like “Charmcaster killed us” in the final script, since that little detail took Thorne completely by surprise when “The Enemy of My Frenemy” aired. I hate to speak ill of the dead, but Dwayne McDuffie SUCKED when it came to this franchise!

Thorne then talks of rude fan harassments he got afterward, and on this count I’m actually siding with him because that kind of crap is never acceptable. But then he gets to this, which he claims was an email response he gave to a certain belligerent fan before blocking them:

Oooooh, now he’s doing the number thing! Convenient!

1. Maybe not intentionally, but you certainly have been spreading several falsehoods. 

Also, you actually used the “Internet Tough Guy” routine? Really?

2. Solid point, but I do question just how many kids were “amused and excited” by the stuff that UA, especially in its second season, did. I especially question how and why a creepy, dysfunctional, possibly ephebophilic relationship is supposed to “amuse and excite” children.

3. HIGHLY presumptuous. Not every show has the same effort put into it, and even on shows were effort is clearly being put into one or more department, other departments may suffer. Game of Thrones is one such example: the writers there admitted to not giving a crap. No matter how stellar the acting, music, design, effects, etc. were the whole way through, the writing suffered more and more and it ultimately decimated the positive view of the series.

4. OK, I will personally agree with that statement. Others, however, may not.

Case in point, this excerpt from the South Park episode “Free Hat”:

George Lucas: These are my movies. I made them, and I have the right to do whatever I want with them. Stan:  You're wrong, Mr. Lucas. They're not your movies. They're ours. All of ours. We paid to go see them, and they're just as much a part of our lives as they are of yours. Kyle: When an artist creates, whatever they create belongs to society.

For the record, I believe there is truth to be found in both arguments. I think the ideal stance is somewhere in the middle, where creators are allowed to be held more accountable by the public for the things they put out but are also not controlled and told what to create by fans. Sadly, at the moment I have no idea how such a system that would enable this would work.

I post this last part because the replies it got from two Supercorp shippers are hilarious:

In one ear, out the other. I almost feel sorry for the guy. Almost.

But that does bring up a good final point: while the fictional nature of fictional characters should absolutely never be forgotten to the point where real people are being hurt (the Star Wars franchise has plenty of horror stories where that has happened) and it certainly sounds like there were some verifiable nuts who went after Thorne, there’s a difference between that kind of insane harassment and customers being able to use a platform to call out the creators when they feel like a huge disservice to characters who mean a lot to them has happened. Simply asking for some basic consistency and integrity to be maintained with fictional characters, or asking for creators to stop stringing fans of characters along with false promises like queerbaiting, is not unjustified. Again, I must bring up South Park here.

Kyle: I think... they are real. It's all real. Think about it. Haven't Luke Skywalker and Santa Claus affected your lives more than most real people in this room? I mean, whether Jesus is real or not, he... he's had a bigger impact on the world than any of us have. And the same could be said of Bugs Bunny and, a-and Superman and Harry Potter. They've changed my life, changed the way I act on the Earth. Doesn't that make them kind of "real”? They might be imaginary, but, but they're more important than most of us here. And they're all gonna be around long after we're dead. So in a way, those things are more realer than any of us.

Fictional characters matter to people in ways that are real. Fiction can change the world.

And I don’t believe asking that those characters be treated well is a crime of any sort.

[aion-rsa]

Cruella: Does Every Villain Need a Sympathetic Origin Story?

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Clearly this isn’t your parents’ Cruella De Vil. This isn’t even your Cruella De Vil. However, there is something fiendishly charming about seeing Emma Stone charge into a ballroom and light her black and white dress on fire, revealing a chic red number beneath that would do Scarlett O’Hara proud. If fashion is a statement, Cruella is here to say the villain has just arrived!

Yet one can’t help but shake the certainty that by the time we actually learn the plot of Disney’s Cruella reimagining, Cruella will be in anything but black and white, or fiery red. Rather Cruella is obviously posturing to take a sideways approach to an old classic. But then again, that increasingly feels like the only direction these Hollywood redos know: the sympathetic origin story for an iconic villain.

To be clear, we’ve only gotten a glimpse of Stone as the new Cruella, and she looks absolutely fabulous in a black leather coat and cane, purring, “I’m only getting started, darling.” There’s a wildness about this interpretation befitting our current era where Harley Quinn is the hero of her own story, and Wade Wilson now leads a Disney franchise. Nevertheless, when I watch Cruella on the edge of tears in the trailer, barking defiantly that she is CRUELLA—and seemingly embracing an unfair reputation that other characters may be placing on her—a nagging question persists in the back of my head: Do we really need a sympathetic Cruella De Vil?

The trend of supervillains getting intellectual property-expanding sob stories is nothing new, be it at Disney or anywhere else in Hollywood. Maybe 25 years ago when folks liked their villains big and outlandish—think Glenn Close in Disney’s previous live-action remake of 101 Dalmatians—it was novel to see the antagonist become a tragic protagonist. But like everything else with modern blockbusters, that all changed a long, long time ago with something called Star Wars.

Back in 1977 when the original Star Wars movie was released, many audience members left the theater giddy about the world George Lucas created. In a galaxy far, far away, every pop fantasy of the mid-20th century—Wizards! Knights! Princesses! Samurai! World War II ace pilots!—was thrown into a massive cauldron that seamlessly blended these elements.

Luke Skywalker’s galaxy felt like a real place of exotic, lived-in locales, all of which captured that dirt-under-the-fingertips, tactile quality so rarely seen in fantasy stories. Sure the characters might be archetypes, but they came with histories which gave their fantasy space battles human density. Old Ben Kenobi fought in the Clone Wars with Luke’s father Anakin, who was “a gifted pilot.” But what exactly was a clone war? And why was there more than one of them? Also, what did a Jedi’s “more civilized age” look like for Luke’s papa?

For more than 20 years, no one knew the answer to those questions, which made them all the more intriguing, and the “lore” of this fantasy evermore mythic. Then came Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, the first modern blockbuster prequel devoted to filling in the gaps left by a beloved classic’s mysteries. That movie’s problems are numerous, but at its core the most persistent, lingering issue may still be the reveal that Darth Vader was once a blonde haired little boy with the emotional range of Beaver Cleaver. Of course everyone knew in the abstract sense Vader was once a child… but did they ever really want to see it?

Additionally, did anyone really want to learn Anakin Skywalker’s reason for turning to the Dark Side is because of a bratty streak that followed him into adulthood? Probably not.

Nonetheless, all three Star Wars prequels made massive amounts of money and rather than becoming cautionary tales of what happens when you attempt to explain away all the mysteries of a beloved character, they were the first steps toward a modern staple of media regurgitation where seemingly every mug, pug, and thug would get their own sympathetic redo.

Since then, we’ve learned on screen that Spider-Man’s arch-nemesis Venom, is really a well-intentioned bloke caught in a bad romance (with his alien space buddy), Batman’s arch-nemesis the Joker is really just a Travis Bickle clone with mommy issues, and Maleficent, the reigning empress of badassery in the Disney Villain canon, was really just a woman scorned by Sleeping Beauty’s toxic father. Even Hannibal Lecter became a victim in Hannibal Rising, and the Wicked Witch of the West starred in the most popular Broadway musical of all time… where it turns out she was the hero in a conspiracy with the Scarecrow to pull one over on Dorothy.

To be clear, some of these spinoffs and reimaginings work quite well. Even if I personally am a bit chagrined at Todd Phillips’ Joker being nominated for Best Picture, Joaquin Phoenix’s sad sack killer clown created the space for a riveting performance that reminded mainstream audiences that movies can still be for adults. In another comic book movie, Magneto’s heartbreaking backstory in the Holocaust was expanded in 2011’s X-Men: First Class, which made an already relatively complex supervillain just that much more compelling in Michael Fassbender’s hands.

Overall, however, this approach has left something to be desired. And to get back to Cruella, her remix as a misunderstood tragic heroine appears to owe most of all to Maleficent. In 2014, Disney made a killing when they cast movie star Angelina Jolie as their very best big bad, a character so evil in 1959’s Sleeping Beauty that she was willing to knockoff a princess simply because no one sent her a party invite. That’s cold. And it’s wickedly entertaining. Hence why Maleficent scared and captivated generations of children.

Some characters are just too good at being bad.

The marketing of Maleficent leaned into this with a melancholic cover of Sleeping Beauty’s Tchaikovsky-inspired theme song, “Once Upon a Dream.” Now in a minor key, the new version sung by Lana Del Rey promised a scarier, more menacing version of the story, which was then confirmed by Jolie’s wonderfully devilish laugh. The big bad was finally going to have her day at the ball.

But when the movie actually came out, we learned that Maleficent was an enchanted fairy who’d been wronged. In the end, she didn’t hate Elle Fanning’s Princess Aurora. In fact, she loved the little royal and tried to save her from the curse she herself cast in a fit of justified anger. Ultimately, the sorceress adopts Aurora as the daughter she never had after disposing of her now abusive father. That’s certainly an interpretation. I guess.

It also proved massively successful in the short term, opening at a staggering $175.5 million in its opening weekend worldwide, and grossing $758 million total. Those numbers also exclude merchandising and home video revenues. If you want to know why we’re getting the punk rock Cruella, look no further.

However, did a lot of folks really like Maleficent? It made all the money in the world based on that devious marketing campaign that promised a shocking tell-all about Disney’s closest approximation to Lucifer, but by the time a sequel limped into theater five years later, relatively few seemed to still care about the misunderstood, freedom fighting warrior fairy Jolie played. Maleficent: Mistress of Evil ostensibly continued the good fight but flopped at the box office with a cume of $491.7 million, barely more than half of what its predecessor made. (Don’t cry for Disney though, as Avengers: Endgame, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, and remakes of Aladdin and The Lion King in the same year made Maleficent 2 look like a clerical error.)

What this whole sputtering franchise reminds us though is that some characters are better left bad, and the mystique of the unknown is an end unto itself. While I enjoyed Phoenix’s take on the Joker, there is little argument the character was even scarier with a PG-13 rating when he manifested out of thin air, like Beelzebub, in The Dark Knight. Or to take a step away from just villains, was Han Solo really any cooler when you learned how he got his name in Solo: A Star Wars Story? Or could you have gone your whole life without knowing thanks to The Hobbit movies that Gandalf and Galadriel were kind of, sort of, just maybe friends with benefits?

The allure of Cruella De Vil is right there in her name: She’s a cruel devil. How could she not be when her entire ambition in Disney’s classic 101 Dalmatians is to skin puppies for their fur coats? Finding out she used to fight the power before hoarding it may make a lot of money, but it doesn’t make her necessarily more compelling.

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[myreyloheartisshowing]

Here’s the Thing(s)

So, I’ve mentioned a couple of issues I had with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, but this is the first time I’ve really sat down and tried to articulate everything that rubbed me the wrong way about this film. 

Now, was this movie entertaining? Yes. Much explosion, many lightsword, guau. And, honestly, I walked out of the theater feeling generally okay. 

And then I thought about it a little. And then a lot. And then spent days obsessing over the devastation I was feeling. And why I’ve been unable to even venture onto AO3 and browse through fanfics. 

So, here’s a list, starting from the beginning. I may be missing a few things, but these are my hot takes. Please note that this has detailed SPOILERS:

The opening scrawl just gave too much away. It gave us the entire plot of a movie that never preceded TROS. You could have taken literally 2 minutes to actually show Palpatine’s broadcast instead of just tossing us into Kylo Ren’s acquisition of the (first of many) McGuffin(s). 

The reintroduction of Palpatine as the Big Bad. J.J. Abrams could have gone so many interesting directions. Explored the implications of a fanatical, fascist regime that is basically (as Zorii Bliss later alludes) enslaving the children of the universe. Highlight the dangers of power vacuums and the machinations of power-hungry generals.

The dialogue between Palpatine and Kylo Ren. My first level ESL students could have written a better exchange.

The fact that Palpatine, ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS, demands Rey’s death. Not “bring her to me and kill her in front of me so I can enjoy the death of the last Jedi,” but rather “I’d really love it if you just killed her out of my sight and maybe spaced her corpse.” 

The reintroduction of the McGuffin(s)

WHERE THE FUCK IS ROSE???? WHY IS SHE SIDELINED? (oh, right. pandering to fanbros)

Having Rey stare longingly at children before receiving an ancestors’ (i.e. fertility) necklace, and then never actually taking this symbolism any further. In retrospect, this feels like the sort of meta foreshadowing that I so enjoyed from The Last Jedi, but it’s completely wasted in the end.

The Force Bond - rather, how Rey seems to have totally regressed back to her complete and utter abhorrence of Kylo Ren. Now, part of this could be contributed to good old-fashioned feelings of rejection (Kylo Ren rejected a life as Ben Solo with her and it fucking hurts), but really it just seems like an attempt to erase the emotional nuances gifted to us by Rian Johnson. 

The convenient fall into a pit where they conveniently find a SECOND McGuffin which will, presumably, lead them to the COPY of the FIRST McGuffin (for fucks’ sake). And the convenient appearance of an enraged and hurt sand worm that Rey heals for the sheer purpose of setting up the idea that she “gave it a bit of” her “life force” (i.e., making it totally believable that, instead of utilizing Force Healing, she’s making use of a life force transfer, again trying to justify an ending that the majority of fans HATE). 

The THIRD McGuffin, which is the guy who can unlock C-3PO’s ability to decipher the stupid dagger.

The introduction of Zorii Bliss, a character whom I view as a blatant attempt to: a) be a sex symbol and pander to more fanbros; and b) prove that Poe would never even remotely entertain romantic feelings for another male-character. I don’t really mind Poe’s (surprise!) background as a spice runner, but I’m a little confused on the timeline. Like, was he doing that when he was still a pilot of the New Republic, in the early days of the Resistance?

I’m torn over the Force Bond scene in Kylo Ren’s quarters. On the one hand, he’s spent an unknown amount of time searching for his space girlfriend, only for her to appear in his rooms (perfect fanfic plot). On the other hand, their interaction, again, feels like an emotional regression.

Rey Palpatine. How lazy. How stupid. I really liked the idea that a simple nobody from Jakku could move the universe. That a non-legacy character could become the future of the Jedi. That a simple scavenger from Jakku could be one half of a powerful Dyad. Lazy, Lazy, Lazy. And clear pandering, yet again, to the whiny fanbros.

The idea that Rey’s parents SOLD HER to “protect her,” and again establishing that it was because Palpatine wanted her, inexplicably, DEAD. 

The fact that Palpatine more than likely got freaky when he was Emperor? The implication being that it was, more than likely, rape, is huge and very alarming. And the fact that my space babies never got to roll around in the sand but Emperor Palpatine got laid instead?

That Hux was the spy and he did it just to stick it to Kylo Ren? Honestly, I just loved the HCs that made Hux much more intelligent. But I do, however, believe he could have been that petty. 

THE DAGGER CONVENIENTLY HAS A COMPASS that points to the exact location of the Wayfinder on the wreckage of the Death Star. Like, do you realize this means that whoever made the stupid dagger did it after the destruction of the Death Star. UGH. Lazy. Lazy. Lazy. 

I have nothing to say about the fight on the Death Star except that I wish they had made it more obvious that Rey was wrestling with the Dark Side after the revelations of her past, her encounter with Dark Rey!, etc. Otherwise, it just feels like more retconning of the wealth of emotions brought about in The Last Jedi. 

Surprise! Palpatine didn’t want Rey dead, he just wanted to possess her body???

The fact that the Knights of Ren really only ended up as a side note. I would have loved to see more.

All the sacrifices made by the legacy characters - Han, Luke, Leia - are cheapened by Ben’s Death. Those three characters spent their last breaths hoping to reach Ben Solo and bring him back to the light. And, admittedly, it did happen. But for him to die? 

Oh, and the fact that both Luke and Leia apparently knew about Rey’s heritage and just decided “hey, this girl has the potential to dive deep into the Dark Side, but we’ll guide her through it” even though they completely gave up on their own flesh and blood ... Even though they were aware that Ben had been manipulated by Snoke (Palps 2.0) from the womb ...

Rey doesn’t mourn. Not one bit. Nothing. Literally the other half of her soul is gone and Ben Solo is never thought of again. 

Rey lives out her day on Tatooine, regressing to the little girl in the desert once more (they even show her sliding down the sand dune). No family is around her, no hint of communication with Finn, Poe, Chewie, anyone. 

This movie tried to do so much in so little time. It was filled to the brim and the quality suffered for it. J.J. so obviously tried to pander to fanbros and appeared to be directly retconning many of ideas and threads from The Last Jedi. There also appeared to have been no cohesive storyboard for the Sequel Trilogy before they started production of Episode VII. And it shows.

That’s just what I’ve managed to remember from the film. 

Now, in the interest of fairness and balance, there were things I enjoyed:

The visuals. Gotta love good old-fashioned space fights

Finn is FORCE SENSITIVE!

Jannah and the other ex-Stormtroopers. There’s so much potential there.

While I was acutely aware that Leia’s scenes were leftover bits from other films, I thought that her inclusion in the film was very tastefully done. Her final sacrifice to reach Ben was quite moving. 

The droids. The moments with C-3PO. Just. I love them all so much. 

Poe’s fed-up attitude with C-3PO. Much needed humor. Much needed.

While I HATE that Ben Solo died, I also liked the implication that he thoroughly gave himself over to heal Rey. It’s a direct mirror image of Anakin. I like this symbolism. I really, really do. It was just poorly executed.

The Dyad. Again, this had so much potential, I just think it was completely and totally wasted.

The fight on the Death Star

That Rey didn’t kill Palpatine by taking the offensive. Instead, she lived up to the Jedi spirit of defense over attack.

Rey’s lightsaber at the end.  

[bb-8]

I felt I fit in with the Reylo community because I liked Reylo (duh). But it was never really all about Reylo for me. Star Wars is a lot bigger than these two characters. Now, that doesn’t make me more or less of a fan, but it’s true. But because everyone hated Reylo I gravitated towards that community.

I also love Anakin, the prequels, Ahsoka, The Clone Wars, all of my clone bbys, Rebels, the Phoenix Squadron, Thrawn, Resistance, Rogue One, rebelcaptain (!!!), Solo, porgs, Dr, Aphra, all Vader content, Ventress, and most canon books (and even if I didn’t love those, they still added to my enjoyment of the franchise).

But a lot of people from those separate fandom divisions hated Reylo and I didn’t want my fandom experience to be filled with people sending me hate or wishing death upon Reylos in casual text posts. So yeah, Tumblr stopped being fun and spent a lot of time lurking on Reylo Twitter.

My opinions differed from a lot of the fandom. I was never as sure of canon Reylo, I was never a big believer that there’d be a happy ending. And I kept those opinions to myself because I’m not going to piss in anybody’s cereal because that’d be rude of me.

But now, at the end of the Skywalker saga, I feel like I’m going through a break-up with involvement in that fandom. The amount of negativity is...rough. And a hive mind has really adopted the anti mindset to justify why Tweeting #jjabramsisoverparty and ‘Jar Jar Abrams’ is okay (yet Ruin Johnson is still bad...you see the hypocrisy?). 

This isn’t like Game of Thrones. Stop comparing it - it’s not even close. Don’t even go there. Nope. Not everything has to be explained in one film - the ST made it very clear that politics and the stuff that requires exposition will be explained in books or in additional content and they’ll tell the ‘meat’ of the story on screen. So go pick up a comic and a book, this seems to be how Disney is moving. Bloodline and Resistance Reborn are great additions. The Rise of Kylo Ren comic is a must-read.

Let people enjoy content. This isn’t to say don’t ever complain or criticise, but do so in a manner that is respectful to others and understand that peoples’ opinions may differ from your own. Negativity bums people out. Don’t bum people out, we have enough of that in the fandom. So for the ~positive~ side of the fandom to become loud and hateful without having seen the film yet then it just makes everything so...sad.

There’s always fanfic and fanart; there’s always ways to spread what you love instead of spreading what you hate. There will always be movies you enjoy more than others. 

The Rise of Skywalker spoilers under the cut

Yes, the story was about Reylo. Yes, the story was reverse Anidala. Yes, Kylo’s story was Anakin’s in reverse. 

That’s why what happen happened. Anakin couldn’t let go of his selfish love for Padme to save her. Ben truly finished what Anakin had started by using the light, not the dark. His revelation was the same as Ventress’ saving Vos’ life: completely embracing the light and being at peace with himself. So at peace with himself that he confronted everything and accepted everything about himself, which allowed him to move on. This isn’t cruel and hopeless, it’s about love and acceptance. 

Like, I related strongly with Kylo on a lot of levels. And after reading the Rise of Kylo Ren comic today where it’s clear that he’s been groomed I think it enforces the opinion that Kylo has never done anything wrong in his life ever. Which I totally get why the fandom goes in that general direction (myself included, he baby). It’s frustrating to spend years defending a character to an audience who won’t listen and you end up just saying ‘nah, he’s never done anything wrong in his life’ because it’s exhausting to explain emotional abuse to an audience who won’t listen. But...he has been dark. He’s not perfect. He did need a redemption. It matters to learn what got him down that road, but the point is that when we met his character, he was on that road. 

I am okay with drowning in my angst a bit. I love Wondertrev. I love Rebelcaptain. I love starcrossed ships. I wish there were more happy endings, but I can also get behind watching 70 angsty fanvideos to Sleeping At Last and reading 300K words of a fix-it fanfic to prolong my fandom experience.

I’m upset, too, and I’m in mourning, too. I really am. BUT Star Wars was never just about Reylo to me. I had been hoping that Ben would finish what Anakin started would refer to saving the woman he loved from the beginning. And that’s what Reylo was to me. I mean, yeah I wanted a happy ending. But I’m also content with what we have and what it symbolises. It just sucks that everyone is yelling too loudly.

...I also really feel that there are going to be more and this isn’t the end of the story. 

[ariainstars]

Skywalker Men - The „X“ Factor in the Equation

Recently I have heard and read quite a few interpretations of the Star Wars sequels; and regarding its conclusion, there seem to be two major theories.

1.  Kylo Ren will pay for what he did and end in a terrible way, making the way free for Rey as the heroine who will save the galaxy, and who maybe also will turn out to be a Skywalker / Solo / Kenobi after all. 2.  Kylo will be Ben Solo again and Rey will be the one who brings him back to the light.

But we know that this is the Skywalker saga. As Luke himself said, “This is not going to go the way you think.”

The two above-mentioned developments are, each in its own way, the most logical and straightforward ones, depending on whether you see the protagonist as Kylo Ren the villain due to his crimes, or as Ben Solo the hero undercover / the victim due to his uncle’s betrayal and Snoke’s manipulation.

But when you are dealing with a Skywalker, you can be certain only of one thing: the unexpected. Because the Skywalker is always the X factor in the equation.

Every Skywalker man is a hot emotional mess. Their impulsiveness is one of the major factors of the saga, urging the plot on. And that’s not wrong in itself: if they make a spontaneous decision reaching out to someone, it turns to be the right thing in the end. It’s when they make things only about themselves that they fail. 

With characters like Obi-Wan, Yoda, Han or Leia to name a few, you usually know where you’re at. Their personalities are well-defined and you can foresee what they will do from a mile away. Han sometimes is spontaneous too, but his actions are dictated by slyness, not by rushed emotions. Being Anakin’s daughter, Leia is hot-headed too, but due to having been raised a princess even if she takes sudden action, she never loses her sense of responsibility and always thinks of the common good.

With a Skywalker, you are definitively always in for surprises. They often don’t do what they are expected to do, whether from us viewers or from the characters around them. 

Skywalkers usually do not explain or justify themselves. They do not speak about these spontaneous acts, which leads both viewers and the figures around them wonder about their motivations and to judge them, depending on whether we or they see them as the heroes or the villains (or, occasionally, as the fools) of the story.

Prequels

Anakin Skywalker’s very existence is a mystery. He is the most powerful Jedi of all and comes from the humblest beginnings. His mother is not even aware of how she got pregnant with him.

It is 9-year-old Anakin who brings the Naboo Battle to a closure, destroying the droid’s control station which was orbiting the planet. All he did was to “stay in the cockpit”.

On his mother’s death, Anakin lashes out for the first time. His anger and grief are understandable, however it is as terrible as it is unexpected that it will push him so far as to kill the entire tusken village.

Knowing the original story we were of course aware that Anakin would marry Padmé; however to the Jedi, this was unthinkable because they would never have guessed that a Jedi would dare to oppose their strict code. Even Obi-Wan did not know for years, until on realizing that Padmé was pregnant he finally put two and two together.

Anakin’s marriage may seem foolish, immoral or romantic depending on your point of view. In any case, it’s crucially important because without this marriage, the two children who will later bring down the Empire would not have been born.

Again, as viewers we did know that Anakin would turn to the Sith. But the Jedi did not see it coming and they could not stop him. Obi-Wan was shocked on finding out that the one who had killed the Jedi younglings was indeed his former apprentice, saying over and over to Yoda that he could not believe it.

On Mustafar, Padmé almost succeeded in convincing Anakin to leave everything behind him and come back with her. It is interesting that she still had the power to do that (thus proving that there still was good in him) despite the horrible things he had done.

Would Obi-Wan have suspected that Anakin would survive Mustafar, a quadruple amputee burning in the lava? Assuredly not. That’s why he left him behind. We can only imagine his reaction on finding out that Lord Vader, Palpatine’s right hand and the scourge of the galaxy, had been built from Anakin’s miserable remainders.

 Classics

Luke proves right away to be a true Skywalker when he learns that Leia is about to be executed. He is in terrible danger on an unknown space station and he has never met the girl in person, but he immediately feels that he has to rescue her.

Darth Vader is Moff Tarkin’s subordinate. But the suggestion to let the rebels leave the Death Star in order to track them down comes from him - a risky tactic that proves to be fatal. Not being a Skywalker, Tarkin would certainly never have come up with such an unexpected idea.

Despite the protests of both his mentors, Luke rushes to Bespine because he feels Han’s and Leia’s distress. To Obi-Wan and Yoda, both straightforward characters, the obvious thing for him to do would be to stay on Dagobah and complete his training. But as usual, Luke follows his heart.

The probably most unexpected plot twist in movie history: “I am your father.”

Not only is the fact in itself totally unpredicted, it’s that Vader does tell Luke at all, in an attempt to keep his son with him. Knowing the truth, Luke can no longer hate Vader. From this moment on, he is lost to the Dark Side.

When the Falcon first escapes, Vader does what everybody would have expected him to do: he chokes captain Needa to death. On its second escape, he just exits the bridge wordlessly. The encounter with his son seems to have shaken him more than he thought.

Why is Return of the Jedi the quintessential Skywalker film, the peak of the classic trilogy? Because so many things happen that no one would have foreseen.

Luke tries to solve matters with Jabba the Hutt diplomatically. Any kick-ass action hero would have entered his cave showing his strength and skills right from the start. Luke only grabs his light sabre at the very last moment.

Darth Vader, the cold-blooded killer, the most iconic villain, is still salvageable? “There is still good in him, Leia.” No one but his son could have realized this unexpected truth.

A decision that is controversial in the eyes of many fans to this day: Luke’s decision to give up fighting.

Palpatine has done his utmost to corrupt Luke, trying over and over to create enmity between father and son. Luke refuses to be separated from his father once more: he proclaims himself to be a Jedi “like my father before me.”

His loyalty is ultimately what brings the Empire down.

Although it costs him his life, Vader destroys Palpatine in order to rescue his son - another spontaneous decision taken at the very last moment, so unexpected that even Palpatine, who knew him so well and for so long, did not see it coming.

Sequels

Adult Luke is normally a calm and self-controlled person. But on sensing his nephew’s power, he is overwhelmed by a sudden moment of panic, and he draws his light sabre because he fears the loss of everything he loves.

Kylo Ren has no qualms killing innocents and torturing prisoners. But as he interrogates Rey, he is surprisingly gentle.

We see Kylo interact with Han on the bridge: his words to Snoke “He means nothing to me” were obviously false, he does feel something for his father. Yet he commits the patricide. He does the unthinkable, believing in Snoke’s words that this will finally end the conflict inside of him pushing him to the Dark Side for good.

Kylo would have had the opportunity to kill both Finn and Rey who are untrained with the light sabre. But he only wounds Finn (despite calling him a traitor, too) and lets Rey go unscathed.

After his terrible deed, we would expect Kylo to now be the ultimate villain. But as we see his face again a few days after the patricide, he is obviously deeply traumatized.

On her visit in the cave, Rey is confronted with her loneliness. The only person who offers her companionship and empathy is the alleged villain.

Ben does not speak with Rey about his intentions. He kills Snoke when he was least expecting it, taking both Snoke and Rey entirely by surprise.

Again, surprise: Luke is not really on Crait, he’s a Force projection. He uses his nephew’s anger against him in order to save his sister and her resistance, and to end the battle on Crait without spilling one drop of blood. A move that is as cunning as it is compassionate.

After the battle, Kylo would still have the time to send someone to go after the Falcon and shoot it down. But despite his assertion to destroy everything he just remains back, crying silently.

Now about the theories for Episode IX.

Being the last of the Skywalker family Kylo Ren / Ben Solo is, again, the X factor in the saga’s equation. Like with his grandfather before him, we know too little about his background to really know what we’re at. We see the sequels more through Rey’s eyes, which is why we tend to mistake her as the protagonist; hence the above mentioned two main theories for the saga’s conclusion.

Kylo is not predictable. He will most certainly make a few decisions no one would have reckoned with. As Lor San Tekka said right from the start, he cannot deny the truth that is his family. All we can do is hope that he will act for the right reasons.

What makes everybody wonder about the Skywalker men, is the same over and over: what do they want after all?

One would expect the protagonist of an action saga, of a hero’s journey, to do what action heroes usually pursue: save the world, kill the villain, get the girl. One would expect a Jedi to always do the right thing and a villain always to do evil. It is admittedly irritating when the protagonist takes unexpected turns over and over.

Knowing the Skywalkers, what I believe they ultimately want is belonging. They are fiercely loyal, but it can literally drive them out of their minds if their loyalty is not requited. And unfortunately, their power often makes people mistrust them, using them at times, but not really requiting their services with trust and appreciation. Snoke’s downfall came due to the fact that he showed his apprentice lack of respect, a huge mistake Palpatine never made with Vader.

Anakin had to give up his mother and his wish of becoming a pilot. He did all he could to suppress his emotions in order to find belonging with the Jedi, to no avail: they never trusted him. When he feared to lose the only ones he did belong to - his wife and unborn children - he lost himself. Only when his son proclaimed his loyalty to him did he turn and find belonging again.

Ben Solo, too, originally had the wish of becoming a pilot. He did struggle to become a Jedi, but he got unsettled when his parents sent him away from home and pushed over the edge when his own uncle seemed to give up on him.

Luke is the exception because he is so deeply human, and so accepting of other people’s humanness, that people can’t help but trust him. Luke is always more a human being than a Jedi. He does employ his powers but they do not define him as a person.

So, if we try to guess how the saga will end, we must not ask ourselves what Rey will do.

Will she kill Kylo Ren, making him pay for his crimes?

Will she save him with love and forgiveness?

I don’t think that’s the right question to make. The question is: what will he do?

Kylo committing some other horrible, unpardonable crime? No actual surprise there after the patricide.

Ben helping / saving / joining Rey? No surprise there either, after all the times he reached out for her.

If the Skywalkers were not the way they are, their saga would not be half as captivating and the plot twists not half as fascinating. Who wants to follow a story where most everything goes as expected?

With a Skywalker guy, the only thing to be expected is the unexpected.

Let’s keep our hopes up and tuned.

P.S. I did write a few meta’s about my own theories for Episode IX, you may want to check them out. Yes, I know, I’m a bloody tease. Guilty as charged. 😉

[skywailer]

I will start this by acknowledging: The Rise of Skywalker and the Star Wars saga are, of course, works of fiction.  None of the characters are real.  However, like any work of fiction- good or otherwise- the story and the characters are meant to be a commentary on the real.  And, up until now, I believed the commentary was one of hope and redemption, and healing.  I believed in the story, and the characters, because I saw myself and my friends, and my family in them.  I saw the love and the tragedy, and the hope.  I want to see it again but, to do so, there are some things that need saying.  There is a conversation that is in desperate need of being had.  And it will get personal, very fast.  Right now.  Because the most meaningful stories and conversations are meant to be personal.  So, here it goes.

I am the abused and the abuser.  My mother physically abused me as a child, and psychologically as a teenager.  Eventually, the final stage of her abuse was distance- pushing herself away from me so she could not cause me any more pain, not realizing that was just as damaging as all the other forms of abuse.  Her signs of remorse and love were shown in giving me a dog, then two, then three- animals who would love me no matter what, and who would come to my defense if ever she thought to strike me again.  They were my responsibility, my family, and they saw me at my best and my worst, and I loved them for loving me unconditionally.  They were the ones who comforted me when I cried myself to sleep.  Storm, he was the first of the three.  He and I were inseparable.  I loved him, so much, for always choosing me.  He loved everyone, but he would always lie beside me on the sofa, in bed, and follow me every time I moved away to go somewhere else.  He was everything good in my life, everything kind.  Even if he didn’t like other dogs very much, he loved humans and he loved me most of all.  Me.  When I didn’t believe I could ever be loved.  And I swore, the day he died, I would go too.  My responsibility would be finished, purpose complete, family gone.  And so I would be gone too.  

He was everything good in my life, everything kind.  And I loved him for it.  And I abused him.  When he did something “wrong”, or growled at me for cutting too close to the quick on his nails or to his skin when I cut his hair, I would physically lash out at him.  When I wanted no one near me after a beating from my mother, or another round of psychological warfare, he would come to comfort me and sometimes I would choke him.  A few times, I would kick him, or shove him away from me on the bed or sofa- knowing he would fall to the floor.  I once threw one of my other dogs, Rain, against the wall in my anger and pain.  And part of me wanted them to die, so I could finally be free.  I wanted to be free from love and longing and pain.  I wanted to be free of life, and be gone.  And if they died, of old age or by my hand, then I could finally just fucking go.  And I wouldn’t feel guilty about committing suicide, because I deserved to go.  I was a monster.

In the end, I moved away from home and kept myself away from my mother and my dogs.  I was not there for when Storm passed, and that will always be a weight I carry for never being there for him in the end, to tell him how sorry I was and how much I loved him and to comfort him as he comforted me so many times.  I don’t know if I have the courage to go back and see my mother or my dogs again, even after reconciling with my mother this year.  I don’t know if I’ll ever be comfortable having a child, knowing who I can be.  Who I am.  I am the abused, and the abuser.  

So, imagine the hope I felt in seeing a character like Ben Solo on screen.  At first, in The Force Awakens, I was hesitant to invest myself in someone who felt so much like me; I hated myself, and I didn’t deserve a good life- so why would he get one, either?  But then I watched The Last Jedi, and I had such hope.  There was so much love in him, in Rey, and between them, and between Ben and his mother.  The source of his fall came to light, and his ability to change and protect who he loved also came to light.  There was the promise of healing, redemption, and rehabilitation.  Then, The Rise of Skywalker gave healing, gave redemption, and then Ben Solo died.  He got his small moment of happiness, of love, after years of self-loathing and self-destruction in a war between light and dark, and he died before he could live a better life.  

As I watched him finally smile, I already knew he was going to die.  I knew it the moment he clawed his way out of the pit and went to Rey.  I knew it again, for certain, when he smiled.  I knew that relief, that happiness, that peace of mind, was to justify his dying.  He died at peace, knowing he saved what he loved.  He died at peace.  His responsibility finished, purpose complete, family gone.  So, he was gone, too.  And led into the Force by his beloved mother, who he never got to reconcile with in life.  And I watched him and Leia fade, and I thought: yeah, that makes sense.  And then I watched him fade completely from the story, erased as Rey was not depicted mourning him, as Rey went on to take the Skywalker name while the Solo name vanished along with Ben- no force ghost to be seen.  And I thought: yeah, that’s how life really works.  And then social media got to work calling it a satisfactory ending, saying Ben deserved to die, saying he had to pay for his sins, saying I wouldn’t have cared so much if he wasn’t physically attractive (thank you Daniel Jose Older), and I know: no, that’s not right.

We were sold a fairy-tale, a hopeful ending to a 40-year story of tragedy upon tragedy, of abuse upon abuse.  We were sold a story that would come full-circle.  And they did come full circle, right back to Rey as Shmi in the Tatooine desert, the virginal mother of Skywalker.  Except, she is alone, without her soulmate or her belonging.  She carries on her back two legacies of pain and death.  The Skywalker and Solo bloodlines are gone.  Anakin Skywalker’s wrongs and pains are never fully healed because while Ben Solo, his grandson and heir to his legacy, saved the love of his life… he never got to be with her and raise a family in the way his parents and his grandparents could not.  The cycle of neglect and abuse is not broken, just buried. Just like his story, which is being misinterpreted/slandered by LF creatives and re-written by supplementary works to shape him into a flat, one-dimensional villian he never was.

What is hopeful about that ending?  What is hopeful about telling a story in which an abused child grows up to repeat the cycle of abuse, finally manages to break it, and then sacrifices his life for love… only for people to smear the story with their inability to forgive and heal?  What is hopeful about communicating to so many that, even if they break the cycle of abuse, they will still die hated and unforgiven?  

I’m trying my best not to let such thoughts and beliefs and misfortunes impact my own personal healing process.  But we were promised a fairy-tale.  A story to tell children about love and belonging and family.  Instead, we got a brutal reality.  And I get art is supposed to reflect reality, but it is also supposed to build upon it and create a nourishing dialogue.  Nothing DLF has chosen to do during and after the release of The Rise of Skywalker nourishes a healthy dialogue or a healing process.

[threadsketchier]

Do u think the Original Trilogy would have as successful had Vader and Luke not been related? I don’t think it would have been or maybe depends on how the story would have Ben crafted but honestly the plot twist was a gold mine

Yeah, the OT is a major exercise in “flew by the seat of my pants and still mostly pulled it off” unlike a certain corporation ahaha *cough* but it’s hard to say.  There’s a number of things the OT did that were quite progressive, but this particular plot point, even if well done, might not have become as appreciated until now.  Because there’s still a powerful message in someone showing mercy to an evildoer that isn’t related to them and has personally wronged them.  That would take a tremendous act of personal compassion and virtue when Vader is nothing more than Anakin Skywalker’s true murderer.

However, it’d be more difficult to justify Vader being inspired by Luke’s example to overthrow the Emperor, because he has zero ties to him.  He’s just the son of the man he murdered - why would he listen to him now when he obviously didn’t pay heed to any good example Anakin may have set for him in the past?  And Vader’s motivations for turning to the Dark Side would have needed to change from wanting to save his wife, since the twins were not born from him - if he was motivated more by jealousy of Anakin, or lust for power, etc., he may have still needed some tragedy in his backstory in order for there to be a reason for him to be vulnerable to Luke’s compassion.  (Perhaps Vader is still the one who was once a slave, whereas Anakin had a more normal upbringing, causing Vader to resent him as he rose through the ranks of the Jedi while he remained “held back” and constantly chastised for his “failings” due to suppressed trauma that’s never addressed by the Jedi Order’s philosophies - and this becomes the point of connection where Luke meets him, because he’s humble and understands that no one deserves that kind of treatment.)

There’s surely a lot more I could poke and dig around in this rabbit hole, but TL;DR, this resolution might not have been as popular in the early 80s.  The Luke we did get, being the son of Vader, already bucked the trend of macho heroes who solve their problems with violence - viewers might have thought him weak for sparing Vader’s life, even if it still brought about the end result of destroying the Emperor.  But it’s probably something more people would be writing reams of meta about now.  ;)

[atamascolily]

AND ANOTHER THING

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

7 BBY - Kyp Durron born.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[thevagueambition]

I was tagged by @antirococoreaction to talk about five male characters I love

(God, only five? However will I choose between my boys >_< ?!)

This is most certainly not going to be a literary as your offerings, lmao. When it comes to literary fiction I mostly like Kafka and Kafka, by the nature of his writing, writes thoroughly unlikable characters.

This got way too long bc I’m incapable of not gushing about my faves when given the chance lol 

Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender

It is my enduring opinion that if you want to see a redemption arc done right, look at Zuko’s arc in The Last Airbender. He’s a scared, abused kid who managed to build up personal morals in a system that discouraged them, and was harshly punished for daring to voice them. He’s someone who always wanted to be good, but struggles with defining what good is, given that his culture and upbringing has taught him one thing, but his heart (and his uncle) tells him another, and his new experiences reinforces that. After he figures out what “good” looks like, he’s always held accountable for his past actions. He makes amends, and he accepts it, for the most part, when people aren’t ready to receive them. His anger issues, as well as how he sees himself as someone who had to be hardworking because he isn’t talented (however far from the truth that may or may not be in reality) are also aspects of him that appeal to me and indeed that I relate to. 

Anakin Skywalker from Star Wars

My love for Anakin is not dissimilar to my love for Zuko, though the quality of the writing in question certainly is. I love an edgy boy, is what I’m getting at, I guess :’D More seriously, Anakin’s story is ultimately one about control, which is a subject that interests me quite a bit. Anakin is never, at any point, really in control of his own life. He’s never really truly free. He’s born a slave, he joins the Jedi Order and he becomes Palpatine’s apprentice. He always exists within rigid systems of control, until his very lasts moments with Luke before he dies. With how Palpatine essentially groomed him, thinking of Anakin as equally a victim of Palpatine and a perpetuator of his (metaphorically speaking) abuse is also interesting to me. Certainly his clearly distorted thinking (eg convincing himself he can’t trust Obi-Wan, for instance) is also hugely important to his appeal to me. Also? He’s SO EXTRA I can’t with him lol 

(That’s your LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEM you turned off, Anakin!!! I know you’re depressed and dissociated and also The Drama but damn!!!!!!)

Nicodemus Ravens from The Shamer Chronicles (Skammerens børn)

The Shamer Chronicles is a series of Danish fantasy books for kids, and probably the most popular books of that type (particularly the first book, The Shamer’s Daughter). Nico is a major character, though never a POV one. 

Nico was, essentially, abused by his father for not living up to the male gender role. He didn’t want to learn to use a sword, he didn’t want to kill, and his father hated him for it. As a result, he’s a teenage alcoholic and profoundly at war with himself. He constantly have other people telling him narratives about who he is/should be: first, he’s the younger son who should bring his father glory, then he’s the heir unfit for the throne, then he’s, depending on the political position of the character in question, either a monstrous murderer who must be killed by the glorious leader or the rightful heir to throne, a hero ready to bring war to his enemy and liberate his people, then rule them in benevolence.

Nico doesn’t want to be any of those things. He knows who he is, is stubborn about it, but also can’t shake the belief that his relative pacifism is really just cowardice. I’m just going to quote one of my favourite scenes here (forgive the translation, it’s my own, I don’t have the official one at hand):

“[...] They want a hero, I think.”

“Is that so bad? It’s better than being a monster, at any rate.”

“You think? Have you noticed how often heroes die in battle? Of course everyone mourns them afterwards and write beautiful ballads about them, but the heroes remain dead. Stone-dead. And I’m in no hurry to get on my white steed and start slaughtering people until someone better or luckier than I sticks a sword in me. No, thank you.”

He looked both obstinate and shameful, as if he thought he really should get on his white steed and all of that. I could understand why he didn’t want to die, and yet… Well, I think I’d always expected him to return to the Lowlands to fight Drakan at some point.

“What do you want, then?” [...]

“I just want to be me,” he whispered. “Is that so terrible? I just want to be Nico and not a lot of other people’s hero or monster.”

Anyway there are Two Crimes when it comes to Nico: the fact he isn’t gay in canon and how so many adaptations turns him into the Generic Fantasy Hero he’s a very conscious subversion of in the books (the other principle male character is essentially someone who’s hurt by toxic masculinity as someone who buys into it, while Nico ofc is hurt by it because he doesn’t/can’t, so the series certainly had an opinion about it). 

Albus Dumbledore from Harry Potter

Dumbledore is, to me, someone who chose what was good for the world over his own happiness. He chose to be the one to dirty his hands, the one two make the terrible decisions, do the terrible things, that were necessary in the battle against facism. There is something very brave and admirable about that to me. It’s not that he never did anything wrong, he certainly did, but again, I think he was very aware of the terrible things he was doing, and part of the reason he keeps everything so close to his chest is because he doesn’t want anyone else to have to make those decisions, to have to feel that blood stain their hands. Dumbledore loves the people in his care profoundly, he loves Harry profoundly. And it kills him to have, as Snape puts it, “brought him up like a pig for slaughter”. 

Whether something is morally justified and whether it’s necessary to prevent evil are two different questions, and I don’t think Dumbledore feels particularly justified, but I do think he does what he perceives to be necessary to prevent facism. And hates himself for the decisions he takes along the way. And all of that comes back to, to some extent, his survivor’s guilt over the death of Arianna and the profound wake up call that was Grindelwald 1) turning on his family 2) being a very violent fascist, rather than just a theoretical one like teenage!Dumbledore was. In his mind, Dumbledore is already condemned for what happened when he was 18, so it’s better that it be he who takes the terrible things upon himself than an “innocent.” It’s better that he try to atone. Dumbledore is working towards a redemption he never (to his mind) arrives at. 

In regards to his sexuality, Dumbledore was certainly written with the trope of a “tragic old closeted gay” in mind, but of course JKR never made anything much canon aside from his “flamboyant” sense of style (that the movies have ROBBED us of >:( ) and hobbies, so to a certain extent, I get to ignore that homophobic intent. In the books themselves, the only thing you can really read between the lines is that Dumbledore was in love with Grindelwald, not whether it was 1) reciprocated 2) acted upon, so with only the canon, we also get to mitigate some of the Implications of “Dumbledore dated Wizard Hitler for a while”.... 

I mean I do Love Mess(tm) so Dumbledore having that terrible wake up call is certainly also part of the appeal for me. Personally I enjoy the interpretation that Grindelwald deliberately manipulated Dumbledore’s feelings. 

Captain Flint/James McGraw from Black Sails

BE GAY DO CRIME BE GAY DO CRIME BE GAY DO CRIME BE-- *coughs*

As you might guess from my description of Dumbledore, a lot of the reasons I love Flint are similar to why I love Dumbledore (and Solas, but we won’t go in to Solas rn lol). Flint is also someone who chooses to do the terrible, necessary things, who chooses the fight over his personal moral cleanliness. In a more obvious and extreme way than Dumbledore, certainly, but the principle is essentially the same. Of course, Flint’s fight is personal in a completely different way from how Dumbledore’s is. Flint’s fight is simoultaneously his revenge, a fight against the corrupt system that ruined his life and a fight for something better. Dumbledore is defensive, Flint is offensive. 

The self-integrity he has is truly amazing. He’s cast aside by everyone but Miranda, and yet he never starts thinking he has anything to apologise for. To ask for a pardon would be to ask for forgiveness, and he doesn’t think he needs to be forgiven. Not for loving Thomas, not for anything he did while he was still English. He perceives the reality of the situation, he sees what is right and what is wrong, and he knows that he is the wronged party. He stares at the behemoth of the entire social structure of his world and says: No. You move. I am not in the wrong. England should apologise to me.

Flint is my angry gay dad and I love him. 

I tag (as always, completely optional ^^ ): @teddy-stonehill​ @thebearmuse​ @andvaka​ @solitarelee​ @gallifreyanathearts​ @sinni-ok-sessi​ @melle93​ @papanden​ @seimsisk​

I feel a bit dishonest leaving Grantaire off of this list, lmao, but I talk about him enough as it is. 

Other honorables mentions go to: Enjolras (Les Mis), Captain Jack Harkness (Doctor Who/Torchwood), Solas (Dragon Age), Fitzwilliam Darcy (Pride and Prejudice), Kim Kitsuragi (Disco Elysium), Harry Potter, Remus Lupin (Harry Potter) and my soap boys Robert Sugden (Emmerdale), Richard “Ringo” Beckmann (Unter Uns) and Ben Mitchell (Eastenders). 

[alpha-centari27]

The Thoughts and Reflections of Someone New to Reylo and the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy

This is a really, really long post and contains spoilers.

Please be polite and respectful if you choose to comment and / or reblog.

Ok, so before I get too heavy discussing my thoughts and reflections there are a few things I want to make absolutely clear.

- People can ship whoever they want.  And it is perfectly fine for people to disagree and have differing tastes and opinions.  Obviously some ships are better supported by canon than others.  And there are shipping relationships that are toxic, but people ship it anyway.  I think a great non-Star Wars example is Harley Quinn and Joker. 

- I have delved deep enough into the reylo tag and other related tags to get the sense that anti-reylo are claiming a moral high ground.  “As a ship reylo is wrong and therefore anyone who ships reylo is a horrible person.”  And my simple rebuttal to this is--no, that’s not how this works.  If someone ships reylo this by itself is not sufficient evidence that someone is a horrible person.

- Based on everything I have read about TROS Ben Solo’s story arc and character development could have been so much more than what it was on screen in TROS.

- Having said that a lot of other characters were short changed by whoever was pulling the strings and making the decisions: Rose Tico, Poe Dameron, Finn and Rey and arguably Leia, Luke and Han were short changed by some of the decisions made in TROS and earlier in TLJ and TFA.

- Being part of a fandom should be fun, so can we all agree to chill out, relax and be civil?

Moving on...now that hopefully I have cleared up any preconceived assumptions.

I am relatively new to reylo and the sequel trilogies.

The first time I watched The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi was only a few weeks ago.  Some of the cable channels have been doing Star Wars marathons to get people pumped and nostalgic to pay for a movie ticket to The Rise of Skywalker.

One of the cable channels was doing yet another Star Wars marathon last night, so I again sat down to watch The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, but this time I watched the films with more awareness of the various critiques, criticisms and elements that have been deemed problematic.

I also went to the trouble of jotting down some notes.

This post is kinda all over the place, but I am going to go over my notes and observations and a main topic I want to look at is:

How Rey’s relationships and interactions with Finn and Kylo Ren differ and what sort of implications does this have.

Since stepping my toe into the reylo tags and other related tags I have NOT been able to fully articulate where I stand on whether reylo is toxic, Kylo Ren / Ben Solo is abusive, whether Kylo Ren / Ben Solo is worthy of redemption and to what degree Kylo / Ben being abused and manipulated excuses his actions.

I have to confess that the more parallels and similarities I see between Kylo Ren and Anakin / Darth Vader the more uneasy I feel about shipping reylo.

Regardless of my opinion people are free to do what they want.  If shipping reylo makes you happy, who am I too badger you into doing otherwise?

Me, writing out this long post is an attempt to flush out my thoughts at the present.

Watching the movies again I was struck by how different Rey’s interactions were with Finn and Kylo Ren.  There is a sequence in The Force Awakens between Rey and Finn that reminds me of the throne room sequence between Kylo Ren and Rey when Kylo offers his hand and asks her to rule beside him.  ((Please pardon me for paraphrasing and not having all the lines of dialogue memorized.))

Rey and Finn

At Maz’s place when Han, Rey and Finn are trying to arrange transport for BB8 to the resistance and / or get another ship to avoid detection by the First Order.

Maz looks into Finn’s eyes and remarks that he looks like someone who wants to run away.  Maz tells Finn that there is a way out.  That there are some beings that will arrange transit to the outer rim and exchange for work.

Finn approaches the beings and tells them not to leave without him.

Rey is frustrated by this.  How can he just leave?  What about BB8?  What about the resistance?  I believe this is when Finn comes clean that he is not actually with the resistance.  That he is a stormtrooper and he is not going back to the First Order and wants to stay as far away from them as possible.

Finn asks Rey to come with him.  To join him.  Rey says no.  And I believe Finn tells Rey to take care of herself.

There are no hurt feelings on Finn’s part.  He doesn’t try to persuade or manipulate her to change her mind.  He simply wishes that she takes care of herself.

Here are a few other bullet point items I want to highlight.

- Kylo Ren force pushing Rey into a tree and Finn coming to her aid and kneeling beside her reminds me of Anakin choking out Padme on Mustafar and Obi-Wan Kenobi going to Padme.

- Finn’s main motivation for going to Starkiller base was to rescue Rey.

- Rey clutches & hugs an unconscious Finn who fought and lost to Kylo Ren.

- After Starkiller base is blown up and Rey, Finn and Chewbacca are in transit.  Rey plants a kiss on Finn’s forehead as he lies unconscious.

- When Finn wakes up in The Last Jedi the first thing he says is, “Where is Rey?“

- Finn’s motivation for trying to get away in an escape pod is basically keep Rey safe.  Finn thinks the fleet is doomed.  If Finn can to an escape pod and reach safety, Rey will be able to find him and she will be safe.

- I want to say that there is another time that Rey hugs Finn.  Maybe this is when Han, Finn and Rey first find each other on Starkiller?

Finn is not a perfect person.  He does lie to Rey about being part of the resistance.  In terms of being an honorable, moral and ethical person I think it is quite clear Finn is a better person than Kylo Ren / Ben Solo.  

But in real life and in fiction people can be attracted to and fall in love with horrible people.  ((I suppose right here my own words are a damning statement against reylo.))

Some observations I made from watching The Last Jedi

- When Kylo Ren and Rey have their first force skype call.  Kylo’s first reaction is confusion.  And his second reaction is to reach out with the force to try to manipulate Rey to bring Luke Skywalker to him.

- When Rey pushes Kylo Ren to explain why he killed his father, Han Solo--I find it curious that Kylo deflects the question and starts talking about Rey’s parents and how they threw her away.  Given the plot twist in TROS this now makes Kylo look like a manipulator and a liar.  In the best case scenario Kylo was telling a version of the truth that is incomplete.  I suppose in a way Kylo does indirectly answer Rey’s question by saying, “Let the past die.  Kill it if you have to.  That’s the only way to become what you are meant to be.“  This could be read as manipulative and an attempt to push Rey to the dark side by killing Luke.

- I’m still not sure what to make of the 2nd force bond scene.  The connection is terminated and Kylo Ren is wiping his face with a gloved hand and we see...water?  Kylo Ren’s tears on his glove?  There is a wave of water crashing against some rocks in front of Rey just before Kylo is seen wiping his face.

- When an unconscious Kylo Ren wakes up in the throne room.  It is just Kylo Ren and Hux.  It’s quick, but it looks like Hux reaches into his coat to draw a weapon and shoot Kylo Ren.

- What did Rey tell Chewbacca to tell Finn?  I’m sure someone knows, but I just need to do some more digging online.

- Kylo Ren vs Luke Skywalker.  Near the very end of the fight Kylo Ren says, “I’ll destroy her [Rey] and you and all of it.“

- Overall I’m just surprised how often Rey is brought to tears throughout these movies.  It’s understandable because of what she is going through and what she has been through.  Someone must have counted how many times Rey cries and how many times it was with X or Y character and what they were talking about. 

Rey and Kylo Ren: The Throne Room

Ok, so let’s sum up the events leading up to Kylo Ren’s proposal.

Rey is brought before Snoke who tortures her for information about Skywalker.

When Snoke gets the information he wants AND it becomes clear that Rey is a true Jedi who will not serve him, Snoke then orders Kylo Ren to kill Rey.

Kylo Ren spares Rey and kills Snoke.

Kylo Ren and Rey fight off the guards together.

Kylo gives his speech about letting old things die.  What stands out to me is Kylo does NOT specifically mention the First Order.  Snoke, Luke Skywalker, the Sith, the Jedi, the resistance all need to die, but not the First Order.

Rey pleads with Ben not to do this.  Not to go down this path.  Which is reminiscent of what Padme said to Anakin on Mustafar.

Kylo / Ben says, “You’re still holding on!  Let go!”  ((Holding onto what exactly?  The resistance?  Hope?  The Jedi path?  The light side of the force?))  And once again Kylo / Ben talks about Rey’s parentage.

“You’re nothing, but not to me.  Please.”  For a while I have interpreted this as Kylo Ren / Ben Solo being honest and blunt to a fault, but seeing and listening to this again in it’s full context this does read as Kylo Ren being manipulative. Breaking Rey down, she comes from nothing, she is nothing, she has no place in this, but hey why don’t you join me and have a seat right next to me on the winning side. 

Final Thoughts:

- At the very least Kylo Ren’s conduct and behavior are red flags.  Regardless of the extent that Kylo Ren was manipulated and abused his behavior and his interactions with Rey in the TFA and TLJ are troubling to say the least.  There does come a point when someone cannot use the excuse of being abused to justify their abusive behavior.  “Ok, so you were abused and learned some bad habits and coping mechanisms, but here is the thing your actions are causing real harm to another person and that is not cool.”  It’s hard and it’s difficult to change those habits and people will slip up on the road to recovery.  I think we also need to recognize the complication that Rey and Kylo Ren are at war on opposite sides. 

- I think there was descent chemistry and a connection between Rey and Finn, but I feel like that gets de-railed at the end of TLJ when Finn is tending to Rose and Rey is interacting with Leia. 

- I think Rey and Finn is a lot less problematic than Rey and Kylo Ren / Ben Solo.  Just compare the throne room scene to the interaction between Finn and Rey at Maz’s place.

- Do I still ship reylo?  Here is how I will answer the question for now.  As flawed as Kylo Ren / Ben Solo is I do like him and find him to be a character I can relate to alongside Rey.  I have not seen TROS in theaters and don’t think I will waste my money going to see it.

I would have LOVED to see a happy ending for Ben Solo instead of a variant of Darth Vader’s redemption and death.  This has already been done, why not do something different?  Isn’t this ending more hopeful?  You know instead of Han, Luke, Leia dying in vain to save Ben. 

I would have LOVED if the people making TROS put more careful thought and consideration into Ben’s story arc and character development.

Fitting with the theme of: finding the balance, not everything is black and white, there are a lot of grey areas / ambiguity, etc.

I would have been fine with some sort of ending where Ben faces some sort of punishment for his crimes and he is neither condemned to death or is completely pardoned without consequences.

I am very curious to know what political scientists and psychologists would say about sentencing someone like Kylo Ren / Ben Solo for war crimes.  In the comics that have been released so far it seems like Ben Solo is much younger when he is turned to the dark side and taken in by the First Order.  I think in TROS it’s revealed that Ben’s current age is 30 and he was 23 when he joined Snoke and the First Order.  At age 23 Ben Solo is considered an adult, he is not a child soldier.  “But he was being manipulated before he was even born.“  I hear you...unfortunately I don’t know how or if that would factor into Ben Solo’s being charged with war crimes.

Right now, I am in favor of ignoring the mess that is TROS and replacing it with fanfiction where Rey and Ben Solo are able to live a health and happy life.  And perhaps some day they will rebuild a new Jedi order that strives to accept and learn from the mistakes of the past.

- Is Kylo Ren / Ben Solo worthy of redemption?  I think in order to answer this question we need to ask, what does it mean to be redeemed?  What does someone have to do in order to be redeemed or atone for their wrong doing? 

I think the short answer is it’s complicated and everyone has different opinions.  Some people are probably of the opinion that Kylo Ren / Ben Solo is beyond redemption.  There is nothing he can do.  He can never do enough to make up for what he has done.

I think the more complicated answer is it’s a long process and not everyone will forgive you--heck maybe no one will forgive you. 

And whether you are punished or not punished is an entirely different matter. 

There are things Kylo Ren / Ben Solo has done that he can never take back.  Kylo Ren cannot bring Han Solo back from the dead or any of the hundreds or thousands of people he has cut down.  The fact Kylo Ren has murdered even one person is probably reason enough in the eyes of some people for why he can never be redeemed.

Kylo Ren / Ben Solo turned toward the light and toward Rey.  In my opinion I think this action could be considered an act of repentance, but falls short of redeeming / atoning for all his past sins.  I think full redemption / atonement is a much more lengthier process.

Ultimately, I think this is a question worth pondering for ourselves.

[greencrusader13]

My impressions on The Rise of Skywalker (Spoilers below the cut)

So I just got back from seeing The Rise of Skywalker, and I thought I’d share some of my initial impressions on it. Still need some time to digest a lot of it, so my overall opinion is probably still quite malleable. 

The Good

The cinematography - as it has been for the entire sequel trilogy - was great. There are so many shots that look so cool and are a delight to see.

Rey and Ben continue to be very interesting characters, and their Force bond was without a doubt one of my favorite parts. The way their realities blend and mix despite being in different locations is done very well, and used with some sincerely interesting consequences. Adam Driver and Daisy Ridley give solid, believable performances.

I can’t quite think of another movie in the post-Disney era that references the EU quite to the extent of this one. If you’re familiar with it, you’ll probably catch several little easter eggs here and there.

The story left few unanswered questions. Whether or not you like the answers is another thing altogether, but we did get answers.

The Less-Than-Good

Movie had a slightly rushed beginning. Similar to Rogue One, the second and third acts are much stronger than the first.

Story decisions I didn’t quite care for, which will be elaborated on below the cut.

Similar to The Force Awakens, too much of the movie felt like it was trying to stand on the shoulders of the movies that came before it. Criticize the prequels and The Last Jedi all you’d like, but damn if they didn’t try to have their own identity. Lando could’ve been easily swapped with someone else and little would’ve changed. It felt more like they were just going “oh hey that’s Lando. Remember him?”

Rose got frickin’ sidelined. Her actress deserved better than that.

My biggest problem with the sequels hasn’t changed: it still feels like these movies are products rather than something that has a reason to exist. There’s an egregious lack of macro story, and I really shouldn’t be lost when I ask what it’s trying to say. The movies never really justify their own existence.

From here on out I’ll be discussing SPOILERS, so proceed with caution.

The Good - Spoilers

Leia’s death was perfect. It was done in a respectful manner that served the story and matched her characterization. It was kinda touching, actually.

YELLOW FRICKIN’ LIGHTSABERS ARE NOW PART OF THE FILM CANON

Rey hearing all the voices of the Jedi that came before her was really nice. I’m not one who’s seen The Clone Wars or Rebels or anything, but from what I understand characters from that could be heard among the voices. I particularly liked hearing Qui-Gon again; he was my favorite part of The Phantom Menace. 

Little detail, but I thought they did a good job with the VFX for de-aging Luke and Leia during that one flashback. Granted, the lighting was dark so there wasn’t much detail to be seen, but from what we did see it looked pretty good. Nothing in the uncanny valley.

Poor Hux, but I laughed when the typical “wound me so they don’t buy my betrayal” trope backfired horribly on him. Also loved that his entire motivation for assisting the Resistance was “f*** Kylo Ren.”

Ben Solo doffing his Kylo Ren look in favor of something simpler really added to his redeemed appearance. Also loved seeing a more Jedi side of him.

The Neutral

This topic is divisive from what I’ve seen, but I’m chill with them introducing Force Healing into the canon as something Jedi can just do. It’s been present in games as a mechanic all the time and I believe some other sources as well, so it doesn’t contradict anything. And what I believe Anakin sought was the ability to spare someone from death outright with no cost to the self. I dunno. I think it does raise some issues, but nothing that can’t be explained. Besides, I already used it in my SWTOR fic, so I’d be a bit of a hypocrite to take issue with it.

The Less-Than-Good - Spoilers

Okay, let’s get it out of the way: I hated that they killed off Ben Solo at the end. Poor guy deserved his redemption at the end. I know some people don’t regard him very highly, and that some people have a more punitive approach to wrongdoings, but I’m not about that. If we’re talking TvTropes, this should’ve been a Redemption Earns Life moment, not a Redemption Equals Death one. Plus the Skywalker bloodline has officially died out now, which really sucks IMO. I’d seriously be okay with them retconning his death somehow and bringing him back. Hell, let’s pull a Star Trek and make Episode X: The Search for Ben Solo.

Rey being a Palpatine felt so tacked on it wasn’t even funny. It felt more like they rushed into trying to find someone important to relate her to so they could address that looming question about her parentage, but even then I liked what they were going for in The Last Jedi where she was no one important, and that destiny doesn’t require you be tied to someone already prestigious. 

Enough celebration endings. It’s been present in four of the nine main series movies. Feels too repetitive at this point.

Minor gripe, but when Anakin spent his childhood enslaved on Tatooine, and Luke grew up wanting to leave the desert planet behind, it feels wrong leaving the last living memory of the Skywalker family buried there. You’re just ditching them on a place they never wanted to be.

Overall, I’d rate the movie a 7/10. I had fun seeing it, but I doubt it will leave any lasting impressions besides just being another entry in this saga. Go see it if you like Star Wars, but once should be enough.

[iabsolutelyresentthiswebsite]

Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker (SPOILER-LITE Review)

Y’know, I would absolutely love to post a non-spoiler review, but to be quite honest, I don’t give a flying unholy rat from hell what I do right now. This movie is only worth seeing if you are determined, after The Last Jedi, to see the cremation of the beloved franchise.

Review starts under the cut.

As 99% of you know if you followed my blog two years ago, I absolutely detested The Last Jedi. I was able to pick out and critically explain many, many things wrong with the movie, as many others were as well. If you want, you can /tlj-hate or /the-last-jedi-sins on my blog to find all the sins to see what I’m getting at.

My expectations going into this movie were so low they were actually in hell. Like Satan was having a good time with them. But somehow, my expectations weren’t even low enough because Disney dug even deeper than hell and found I guess the fuck where Palpatine was hiding for 30-40 years.

Let’s start by saying this: The movie was utter trash, nothing made any sense, and the plot was DAMAGE CONTROL FROM THE LAST JEDI.

Like, honestly, I can’t tell where the damage control ends and the actual vision for the movie begins. 

There were some interesting elements that, if The Last Jedi didn’t exist, may have actually been cool and make sense. The score was awesome, as per usual. John Williams is a musical deity. There was a cute new little droid, whom I love and would adopt as my son.

But other than that, the movie was 100% damage control. 

The backlash from The Last Jedi, everything very justified because the movie single-handedly, corrupted beyond repair the future of this franchise. I blame this movie on The Last Jedi, namely on Rian Johnson and Kathleen Kennedy who allowed that abomination to hit theatres. Their mistakes, short-sightedness, and selfish masturbatory anathema they dared allow enter Star Wars main canon forced JJ Abrams, a decent- not good- director, into excusing, explaining, and atoning for their sins. There is not a chance in hell I will ever believe that THIS is what JJ envisioned when he wrote The Force Awakens. 

So, Rey is a Palpatine...even though there was no precedent for that. But honestly, I couldn’t give a damn less who her father, grandfather, or second great-cousin thrice removed on her great uncle’s side is or was or would be. I don’t care anymore. 

But she’s a Palpatine, which is so objectively a consolation prize and backtrack on “your parents were nobody- filthy junk traders” and she has this grand prophecy (a la Anakin Skywalker) that she would strike Palpatine, whom is hiding in his galaxy basement playing with and creating damn starships to make the Final Order- his next project, down and become one with him, giving him another body to transfer his life energy into like he’s always done since the beginning as he’s- oh yeah!- every. fucking. Sith Lord. Ever. Oh yeah, and our good Sheev insinuated that he created Anakin Skywalker (is his father), thus making her indirectly related to Kylo Ren and the Skywalkers. 

I’m sorry, what? 

I think I just had an aneurysm. 

How damn MANY FAN THEORIES ABOUT HER PARENTAGE ARE YOU GONNA TRY TO FIT IN???

Like holy damn. So, she’s a Palpatine, a Skywalker-relative, and oh, Snoke is really Palpatine’s body clone because Palpatine just changes bodies every now and again.

THESE. WERE. ALL. FAN. THEORIES.

They KNEW we were mad about her not being related to anyone, mad about her not being a Skywalker, which she was intended to be, and mad Snoke’s presence literally meant nothing. I think Disney forced JJ to go on Tumblr or AO3 to find a few great theories and throw them into a soup just to make us happy.

Binch, you didn’t make us happy. You made us even madder and made yourselves so WEAK. You can’t even stick to your guns and make a decent movie? I wanted her parentage retconned like any normal person did, but w-what did you do? It’s like they tried too hard and not at all at the same time. 

You can’t make everyone happy and sacrifice your movie for it. Make some course corrections and adjustments, yeah, but they built this movie solely for damage control. It’s honestly disgusting.

Moreover, many, many, many people were pissed with the missed chances with Kylo’s redemption arc and they did it, but...at what cost??? I mean, if he wasn’t redeemed, Rey would have been fucked and Palpatine!Rey/Kylo would have reigned supreme forever. But they made it make no sense. Kylo!Ben found out at the very beginning of the movie that none of his interactions with his supposed grandfather, Snoke, or any other Sith Lord were not genuine and that he was being manipulated and controlled like a fucking puppet to bring Rey to Palpatine. He discovered early on he was a TOY to Palpatine...and he allowed it. 

Are you for real? 

This Kylo Ren, who I am supposed to believe is fully descended and pledged to the Dark Side and by the movie’s own admittance, sought to destroy anything/anyone questioning his power, is allowing himself to be a playtoy for this crusty-ass dude hiding in his grandparents’ basement? 

But honestly, I can’t with that. 

The biggest damage control that I can think of right now after a 9 hour shift at work and heading directly to the theatre to watch 155 minutes of prolonged Chinese water torture is this: REYLO.

So, they maybe sorta had a thing for each other? I mean, Rey kissed him after he brought her back to life by transferring some of his life energy into her after she died (????????????????????????????????????????????). They like made out a bit and then Ben died, lol.

Okay, so now we have Reylo as semi-sorta-canon. But it was beyond forced. It truly, truly, truly felt like JJ just needed one last demographic to please and just said, “Fuck it. Have ‘em lock lips.” They really just threw it in there for y’all Reylos, so congrats.

The most awful part about that is...I have always hated Reylo, but because this movie was so damn bad, that was honestly the only scene I even sort of liked. And I now have the unquestioned KNOWLEDGE that they are in fact 1st or 2nd cousins once removed. They are related and I liked that they kissed. 

I feel so dirty that that is the one thing I could half-way tolerate from this movie.

Honestly though, I am done for tonight. More to come at a later date.

Rest in Peace Star Wars (1977-2019)