#how some people want to take misogynistic stories and instead of like. addressing and interrogating that misogyny

[mercymornsimpathizer]

something very bizarre about how, to some people, a feminist narrative is one where misogyny doesn't exist

[lovemesomerafael]

EL AMOR TODO LO PUEDE Chapter 21:  Playing Charades

GIF Source:  All-things-raul-esparza

Read Previous Chapters 1-20

If Mazie Anderson was having difficulty handling her emotions after being raped, she did a good job hiding it.  Nonetheless, she was entitled to the same support any victim received.  Which meant that, when she insisted on attending the arraignment of the man who’d attacked her, Laura went with her.  The arraignment docket dragged on and on, with little to break the monotony.  Eventually, however, the case was called and a junior A.D.A. Laura hadn’t met stood to request a very high bail.  Mazie looked the rapist full in the face and sat calmly as he was arraigned.  Bail was set at $100,000, which meant he couldn’t bond out for less than $10,000.  It was enough.  

Laura put Mazie in a cab and headed to work herself.  Since becoming a cop, she’d always hated court days because she felt like she was missing out on the action.  Today was no different.  

When she got to the station, Fin and Carisi had a goofy-looking guy in the box who appeared to be in his mid-thirties.  He was pale and sweating, but that seemed to be his normal state, because he wasn’t frightened.  He was mad. As Laura stepped up to the window into the interrogation room, she could hear him spewing venomous misogynistic slogans that sounded like they came straight off the internet.  Which they did.  “Involuntary Celibates,” or “Incels” as they liked to call themselves, had possibly been created by the internet.  They were guys who couldn’t figure out how to relate to women and had convinced one another that all women were part of a conspiracy to deny them attention, love, and especially sex.  They spent all their time on hate-filled websites with like-minded idiots, regurgitating the idea that women owed them all of those things, without them needing to be worthy of any of them.  They repeated it to each other until they believed it.  

Lieutenant Benson and A.D.A. Barba stood at the window, watching and listening.  Laura figured that, given their last conversation, it was the better part of valor not to stand next to Barba.  She took a place on the other side of Benson.  

“Incels.  I love these guys,” Laura said by way of greeting.

“You love these guys?” Benson asked, raising an eyebrow.

“They’re so easy to break. All you have to do is give them what they want, and they freak out.”

Barba kept his eyes on the interrogation as he muttered, “Define ‘give them what they want’.”

Amanda Rollins stepped up at that moment.  “Act interested.  They don’t know what to do with a girl who says yes, so they fall all over themselves and give you everything.”  

“Want us to give it a try?” Laura looked hopefully at Benson who, in turn, looked at Barba.

“We don’t really need to listen to any more of this crap, do we?”  She asked him.

“We’ve got plenty to show motive.  But we’re nowhere near a confession.  It couldn’t hurt.”

Olivia nodded. “OK.  You’re up.”

Laura turned to Amanda. “You or me?”

Rollins held up a fist. “Loser goes in.”

Laura put up her fist, they shook three times, and Laura threw paper.  Amanda threw scissors.

“Damn it,” Laura laughed, not really disappointed.  This could be fun.  “Help me get ready.”

When Parker and Rollins returned to the interrogation room door, Laura had removed almost all her makeup. She had on just enough mascara to highlight her large, brown eyes.  Instead of the chic suit she’d spent too much on, she wore a simple white sleeveless turtleneck, a skirt that came to mid-thigh and swung around her legs as she moved, and low heels.  Her hair was down, in a simple style with the front pulled to one side in a barrette, and she was wearing glasses.  The changes were subtle, but the effect was dramatic.  She looked vulnerable and insecure as she stood there clutching a clipboard to her chest.  Barba instantly wanted to protect her.

“OK,” Olivia smiled. “I’ll go pull Fin and Carisi out.”

“Don’t let ‘em clean off the table,” Rollins suggested.

“I know what you have in mind.  I’ve already briefed Fin.”

As Benson went into the interrogation room, Laura turned to Barba, addressing him directly for the first time since she’d gone to his office the night before.  Her eyes were full of mischief, something he suspected was not unusual with her.

“I could use your help.”

“What do you need?”

“Remember what we talked about yesterday?  Could you give me time to bond with him a little bit, and then come in and do your thing?”  

“Now you want me to talk down to you,” he said drily.

“Might as well use your powers for good.”  She smiled up at him.

Jesus y Santa Maria.  For a moment, he was dumbstruck as he felt the full impact of the impish, conspiratorial expression she beamed at him.  What would it be like to share plots and secrets with this woman?  Barba’s dislike of Peter Stone doubled in that moment.  

 “Fin, Carisi, I need you to come with me.  We have a situation,” Benson ordered, keeping her hand on the doorknob as though in a hurry.”

“We need to finish in here,” Carisi complained, exchanging a surprised look with Fin.

“Parker can finish this,” Olivia said.

Fin’s face fell. “Parker.  Is gonna finish our interrogation.”

“Detective…” Olivia’s voice held a note of warning.

They shrugged and stood, moving toward the door.  Laura walked in past Olivia, clutching her clipboard and standing with her shoulders hunched, as though uncomfortable.  Carisi and Fin stood and moved toward the door.  Fin gestured toward the table, strewn with soda cans and crumpled papers.  

“You can get this stuff for us, right, Laura?”  He didn’t wait for an answer.

She stepped to the table as the door closed behind her.  

“I’m Laura Parker,” she said, holding out her hand to the suspect.  “I’m one of the detectives here.”

He awkwardly touched her hand, but barely grasped it.  She clasped his softly but definitely, holding it just long enough for him to register the feeling of her hand in his.  “Yeah, I’ll just call you Stacy,” he sneered.

Laura blinked at him as she took the chair closest to him.  “It’s… It’s Laura.”

He guffawed and rolled his eyes.  “Oh, brother.”

“You’re Brian Cudahay, I know.  Is it all right if I call you Brian?”

“Whatever.”  

She smiled as though he’d granted her a favor.

“Before we start, are you OK?  Do you need anything?”  Her demeanor was kind and interested.

“I could use a blow job,” he leered.  

She looked slightly uncomfortable and turned her eyes to the table.  “Maybe later,” she muttered shyly.  “Let’s do the paperwork first.”  

That threw him.  She was supposed to have turned red and bit his head off.  “Weren’t you supposed to clean this stuff up, detective?”  He tried again to insult her.

She stood and began placidly picking up the mess from the table, tossing it in the trash.  As intended, he watched her legs and backside as she moved around, deliberately giving him plenty of opportunity.  

“At some point those guys will figure out I can do more than clean up after them,” she remarked.  

Rafael, watching through the one-way glass, rolled his eyes.  This Cinderella act is never going to work.  But those legs might.

“So, Brian, another piece of crucial police work they let me do is fill out these forms.  Can I ask you some questions?”  

For the next twenty minutes, Laura wrote useless information on a form she’d quickly printed out before coming into the room.  It was actually used for new NYPD employees to sign up for health insurance, but it gave her the opportunity to be fascinated by every detail of Brian Cudahay’s personal information, and begin to draw him out.  Few people can resist talking about themselves to someone who appears to find them enthralling, and this guy was a frustrated virgin being played by a very experienced flirt who happened to be adorable.  

Barba could feel Cudahay thawing toward her, then beginning to melt.  Cudahay didn’t even notice when she completely abandoned the charade of filling out the forms.  Soon, he was telling her about his ant farm.  An ant farm, Laura thought.  If this guy wasn’t such a woman-hating piece of shit, he’d actually be kind of cute.  

Forty-five minutes in, Cudahay was on his fourth story in which he featured prominently in some heroic role, this time finding a way to repair the milkshake machine at the fast-food place where he worked.  Laura hung on every word.  Barba smirked as he watched, shaking his head.  Poor sucker never stood a chance.  I feel for ya’, buddy.  

“I think it’s showtime,” Olivia told him.  He straightened his jacket and moved to the door.  The rest of the team continued to watch Parker carefully weave her web around the clueless Incel.  

As Barba assertively threw the door open and strode into the room, Laura sucked in her breath and moved noticeably toward Cudahay.  She stammered a bit before standing up so quickly she knocked her pen to the floor. As Barba had expected, she leaned over from the waist to pick it up, giving Cudahay the opportunity to experience her swingy skirt up close as it slid up her thighs.  Por Dios, Barba thought.  She’s shameless.  

“Oh… Mr. Barba… Are you…?”

“I’ll take it from here, Miss Parker,” he said, spreading his leather-bound folder on the table and sitting across from Cudahay in a position that took up as much space as possible.  He didn’t look at her even when addressing her.  

She awkwardly sat down, muttering so quietly only Cudahay could hear, “It’s Detective Parker.”

Had the squad not known better, they would have joined Cudahay in believing that Barba was the biggest prick in the city and that Parker was terrified of him.  

“I’m A.D.A. Rafael Barba. I just need to ask you a couple of questions about your attacks on these women,” he arrogantly tossed a set of photographs across the table.  

“I didn’t attack anyone,” Cudahay began, puffing out his chest as he took in the new dynamics in the room.

“Normally, I’d be entranced, but I’m due in court.  So let’s skip the fairy tales, hmmm?”

“Hey, man-“

Laura put a hand on Cudahay’s arm and looked up at him through her eyelashes as though trying to warn him, or protect him, or something.  She was on his side.

“Mr. Barba, I-“

“Miss Parker, please. I don’t have time.”

“Sir, I’m, um… well into questioning the suspect.  You really don’t need to stay.”

Barba gave her a look that she never wanted to see for real.  Holy shit, but that man could scowl.  

“Are you suggesting that you can do my job better than I can?”

“Oh, no, Sir, it’s just that-“

“I’ll tell you what, dickwad,” Cudahay interjected, leaning across the table toward Barba.  “Get lost.  I don’t have to talk to you.  I’m only talking to her.”  

“Her.”  The single syllable dripped with condescension and appalled amusement, but it was the raised eyebrows coupled with the slightest upturn of his lips that had Laura biting her lip to keep from grinning.  He inspected Cudahay as he would something foul he’d just discovered stuck to the bottom of his shoe.  

Cudahay seemed to think he’d won a point.  He sat straighter in his chair and lifted his chin.  Laura mirrored his posture, moving yet closer to him.  It’s us against him, she silently signaled to her new protector, Brian.

Barba’s posture and expression as he pointedly closed his folder were half disappointment, half disbelief at the stupidity of some inferior people.  It was a masterful performance that Laura thought had probably been perfected over years of doing the same thing to signal that some plea deal was too idiotic to even consider.  

“Very well,” he said quietly and with careful enunciation.  “Miss Parker can take your statement.  I’m due in court.”  

Laura and Cudahay watched in silence as he swept from the room.  As soon as the door closed, Cudahay turned to Laura.  

“Are you OK?”  He was all solicitous concern.  

“I’m, um… I’m…” she faltered, her voice close to breaking.

Outside the room, the whole squad was chuckling.

“Are those actual tears?” Carisi asked with delight.  

Barba shook his head yet again.  “That woman is not to be trusted.”  

“Y’all are pathetic,” Rollins smiled.  

Laura knew she had him when Cudahay handed her a crumpled tissue from the pocket of his jeans.  She let him comfort her, clumsy and inept, while she leaned on his shoulder.  

“Thanks for being so understanding, Brian.  I appreciate you being on my side.  You must have a lot of girlfriends.”

“There it is,” Fin laughed outside the window.

“See, I woulda gone for the puppy dog eyes right there,” Rollins weighed in.  “She loses a couple of style points on that one.”

“I feel bad for the guy. I kinda wanna go in there and rescue him.”

“Carisi, you are too soft hearted for this job,” Amanda told him, putting a hand on his shoulder.

 “Actually, Laura,” Cudahay said, trying to find the courage to put his arm around her, “I don’t have a girlfriend.  Women don’t really… like me.”

“I don’t believe that,” she responded coyly.  

“In fact, a couple of them have been real bi-  witches about it.”

With that, the story began to unfold.  For an hour, all Laura had to do was look at him with doe eyes and make sympathetic noises while Brian Cudahay confessed to four attacks on women: one more than the NYPD had even linked to him.  

The change in Cudahay when Fin came in to arrest him was blood-curdling.  That little bitch had just confirmed everything he and his Incel buddies believed about whores using sex to get whatever they wanted and denying him his rightful share.  The noxious, vindictive things he said to and about Parker were nothing new in that room, but Barba made a note to represent the People personally at Cudahay’s bail hearing.  Best if he didn’t have the opportunity to go looking for her for a while.

Laura wasn’t gloating when she came out of the interrogation room.  She was glad to have gotten the confessions.  Cudahay deserved to go to prison for what he’d done to those women.  But she wished this guy would have had the opportunity to go out and meet someone, rather than getting sucked into the self-fulfilling misery of the Incel websites.  He could’ve been OK.

Rafael could guess what she was thinking.  It was to her credit that she wasn’t taking a victory lap.  

“Hey, thanks,” she said to him.  “You were amazing.  Remind me not to get on your bad side.”

And then she grinned and held out a fist.  

Rafael Barba had never fist bumped in his life.  No one would ever have thought to suggest such a thing.  Rafael Barba did things like shake hands and clink crystal.  Yet here she was, grinning and waiting with her fist out.  Could she really have that mistaken an impression of him?  He didn’t think so.  He thought she probably had quite an accurate impression of him.  And she was laughing at him.  He should have hated it.

He grinned back and bumped her fist.

[him-e]

Ships and “Endgame” in the ST

I’m curious about are how the narrative treats Rey and Kylo’s interactions in TLJ and how Rey interacts with Finn: I just wanted to hear a counter-argument on why F/innRey wouldn’t be endgame and/or Rey/Kylo would be endgame. They’re not connected necessarily: both can’t be endgame at the same time because I don’t expect Lucasfilm to depict a poly relationship any time soon, but arguing against Reylo being endgame doesn’t mean f/nnrey must be canon or vice versa. Please don’t think I’m writing this in bad faith, I’m genuinely curious about these points and I don’t mean to disrespect anyone who ships Reylo. 

Rey and Finn’s interactions in TFA and TLJ are framed very positively. The lines of dialogue between them like “Cute boyfriend?” and “You looked at me like no one ever had,” definitely point to romantic interest to me: I don’t see why the creators would include lines like that without indicating some romantic interest was there. Finn is the first person to ever “come back” for Rey, and their experiences with each other are “firsts” that are incredibly important. They care deeply about each other.

In TLJ, they are separated for the majority of it, but you could say that separation is always part of the romantic arc, and Rey is constantly thinking about him, while Finn is constantly thinking about her. Before she heads off to save Kylo, she gives Chewie an important message to Finn. (Which could have been something like “I love you” but I don’t want to assume.) When they see each other and embrace at the end of the movie, it’s the first time Rey looks *happy* in TLJ. She looks so happy when they hug, and there’s a long hold both on their embrace and at Rey’s heartbroken expression as Finn tucks  in Rose.

In contrast, the Rey and Kylo scenes could be interpreted as Rey learning her lesson about how important Kylo is to saving the galaxy: not a “Don’t Trust Your Sexuality” lesson, which I do find a misogynistic angle to take on this particular issue, but a lesson about thinking she needs Ben Solo to save the galaxy, a lesson that she doesn’t need him. Additionally, although most of their Force bonds are weighed with attraction, she never seems to be very happy with him, and at the end, he says deeply cruel things to her (The Throne Room scene) and attempts to have her killed on Crait. 

The last Force bond tells me Rey is not budging, and, per the novelization, has no compassion for him: it would be a long, long road to have her forgive him at all, let alone build some sort of romantic dynamic even though they will probably be enemies for a significant portion of IX. (Noting here that yes, they were enemies in TLJ too, but IX can’t spend a large portion of its running time devoted to intimate conversations like TLJ did: it’s the final act of this Trilogy and the Skywalker Saga, things need to start wrapping up.)

I do think that Kylo Ren’s redemption is somewhat necessary to keep the story of the Skywalker family from seeming like a complete tragedy: it would be a pessimistic ending, in my view, if the takeaway from the ST was “Sometimes, your loved one can’t be saved, and so other people must rise to the occasion,” for the Skywalker family. But, even if I think redemption is incoming, I’m still not convinced that Kylo could be with Rey. There’s audience reaction to consider (cue the cries of people asking just how this villain is worthy of the hero), but also the narrative beforehand: although Rey seemed willing to forgive Kylo completely for a part of TLJ, the audience still remembers scenes like the interrogation (a violation of Rey and something that robs her of agency, even though she does defeat Kylo), the Snow Fight, the Throne Room, and Crait. They did tone down some of his actions in the interrogation, like touching her, supposedly, but I still feel like Kylo is an unambiguous villain in those scenes, his treatment of Rey is awful (and this is just about his behavior, not whether Rey fights him off) and then, after showing us some of his humanity in TLJ, he snaps back to being a villain, and hurting Rey, intentional or not.

In TFA, Kylo is very much an aggressor/pursuer of Rey and her triumph is in fighting him off; in TLJ, he seems like more of a tempter figure, and Rey’s triumph is not giving into his offer and finding value in herself. She doesn’t ever seem happy with him, and the narrative never shows us a scene of complete fulfillment when she’s with Kylo: he never gives her anything she didn’t have, where Finn does in TFA by going back for her. (The scene where they touch hands, especially considering the music and the fact that Luke Skywalker is the one walking in on them, could also be read as an ominous one where Rey is getting too close to the dark.)

I don’t deny that Reylo was extremely “shippy” in TLJ. But Rian Johnson, in the same interview when he said that Kylo’s perspective in the throne room was a “naked, emotional appeal” also said: “It was important to me that it wasn’t a chess game, it wasn’t just a manipulation. It’s unhealthy, and there’s much that is awful about the way that he is manipulative. From his point of view, it’s a very naked, open, emotional appeal.” So he does acknowledge that Kylo is being unhealthy and manipulative, and that’s the writer’s intent. Rey’s arc in TLJ is very much fit to a naive hero’s arc, where she trusts the wrong person and sees the error of her ways. It doesn’t mean that Kylo is irredeemable and can never be trusted again, but TLJ also doesn’t mean that Kylo and Rey should be together, and includes quite a few scenes that could be read as red flags on his end, signals to the audience that this is a bad man who doesn’t have Rey’s best interests at heart.

And then there’s the next film, which is more opinion/conjecture on my part, but I don’t think JJ Abrams is the kind of storyteller who’s interested in depicting a big epic romance as the finale of the Skywalker Trilogy, or interested in involving Rey in the Skywalker Redemption question. Han and Leia care about Ben in TFA, Rey only views him as an enemy; and when she does try redeeming him in TLJ, the answer to her attempt is a solid “No.” JJ is a Better Trevorrow to me, in some ways, where he’s good at spectacle and big, bombastic movies, and although he isn’t openly misogynistic, his movies do have some sexist pitfalls. The “Reylo” arc is on a knife’s edge as it is, and already perceived as abusive and glorifying of a villain who hurts the heroine by many people: how would he be able to execute it in such a way that the audience wouldn’t be outraged at the injustice of Kylo Ren not only getting redeemed, but “getting the girl” so to speak? (I totally think the idea of Rey as a prize is repulsive, but unfortunately the majority of people do still perceive heroines or love interests who are female this way.)

Rey not needing Kylo, and being able to ascend to heroism without him, was the end point of TLJ, and I think it would undermine that ending if in IX she did turn out to need him after all and they had to work together or she had to forgive him. The movies so far have explicitly showed that while they’re attracted to each other, he’s a toxic person who isn’t good for her. And if it is going to be romantic going forward, why would it have an “endgame” type ending? And then there’s the option of Rey being alone romantically, but still surrounded by friends, allies, and people who care about her.

And on a separate note, I just feel like there are far too many “romance” cues for F/innRey for that to not have been planned from the beginning. In TFA, those “boyfriend” lines weren’t essential, they could have been taken out without affecting the friendly-rapport feeling in their relationship. In TLJ, they didn’t have to juxtapose Rey being in tears facing Kylo to happily embracing Finn upon being reunited with him. And while there is the factor of Rose kissing Finn, they never entered into a deliberate romantic relationship or showed that the feelings were mutual: I feel like FinnRose isn’t essential to the next movie if they dismissed it, since so much of Finn and Rose’s arc could be read as them being friends or compatriots. There’s really no cues of romance until she kisses him.

I’m sorry this is much longer than I anticipated, but these are the things that have been nagging me for the past few months. I did really enjoy TLJ, and I do like Reylo and apologize if my comments came off like I was trashing the ship for no reason, but this is my honest reading of the text. I have a lot of respect for your meta and wanted to bring up these points: if you don’t want to respond to this, I’m sorry for depicting a negative opinion and wasting your time.

Don’t worry, I don’t think you wrote this in bad faith! That’s one hell of an essay, and I want to thank you for taking the time to write it and submit it to my blog. The two main arguments you’re making are a) that reylo is real but is depicted negatively and so it’s unlikely to be endgame, and b) that f/nnrey can still happen and be endgame because the romantic hints dropped in TFA must go somewhere and it makes Rey happy (forgive me for the simplification). I’ll try to address some key points.

The movies so far have explicitly showed that while they’re attracted to each other, he’s a toxic person who isn’t good for her

I don’t think that’s what the movies showed. He’s not a toxic person to Rey (Daisy Ridley has gone on record saying Kylo “nurtured” Rey in a way that even Luke couldn’t do)—he’s someone whose political affiliation and morals and ideologies can’t be reconciled with Rey’s, and THAT’S why Rey dumps him. Because he doesn’t stop firing on the Resistance fleet and instead asks her to essentially become a villainess at his side, because he’s still hellbent on being the leader of a despotic military organization, that’s why the narrative separated them at the end of TLJ, not because he’s “toxic” or “abusive”.

even if I think redemption is incoming, I’m still not convinced that Kylo could be with Rey. There’s audience reaction to consider (cue the cries of people asking just how this villain is worthy of the hero), but also the narrative beforehand: although Rey seemed willing to forgive Kylo completely for a part of TLJ, the audience still remembers scenes like the interrogation (a violation of Rey and something that robs her of agency, even though she does defeat Kylo), the Snow Fight, the Throne Room, and Crait. They did tone down some of his actions in the interrogation, like touching her, supposedly, but I still feel like Kylo is an unambiguous villain in those scenes, his treatment of Rey is awful (and this is just about his behavior, not whether Rey fights him off) and then, after showing us some of his humanity in TLJ, he snaps back to being a villain, and hurting Rey, intentional or not. 

So it actually all boils down to the audience’s reaction, doesn’t it? He’s too much of a villain so let’s not make reylo happen or the audience won’t accept it. But what the narrative is depicting—intentionally—is a hero/villain romance. The villain being a villain and yes, doing villain things including trying to hurt the hero (and viceversa, the hero doing hero things and trying to stop, violently, the villain) is exactly what defines this sort of pairings. Part of the audience will love it, part won’t, but a narrative that is afraid of pissing off a part of the audience isn’t a strong narrative.

I’m also not sure what would be the point of redeeming Kylo but still having him portrayed as a toxic individual whom the heroine should stay the fuck away from. Does this sound like an epic closure to a trilogy of trilogies whose thematic pillars have always been hope and redemption? To me it just sounds like a moralistic tale trying to half assedly appeal to tumblr discourse.

The “Reylo” arc is on a knife’s edge as it is, and already perceived as abusive and glorifying of a villain who hurts the heroine by many people: how would he be able to execute it in such a way that the audience wouldn’t be outraged at the injustice of Kylo Ren not only getting redeemed, but “getting the girl” so to speak? (I totally think the idea of Rey as a prize is repulsive, but unfortunately the majority of people do still perceive heroines or love interests who are female this way.)

You’re talking as if the audience is a hivemind and universally agrees with the intra-fandom, white-feminist, tumblr-specific “Reylo is abusive” wank. But the majority of the audience is actually moderately fine with Reylo, and most of them will be overwhelmingly okay with it if IX has something that tops the praetorian guard fight in terms of iconic jedi/sith marriage alliance. A good 80% of the general target audience for SW is people who don’t engage with fandom the way we do, they couldn’t care less about reylo or f/nnrey or any other ships for that matter, they just want to see a good story and be entertained for three hours and pew pew space battles. The people who will be “outraged” if Kylo “gets the girl” are only a tiny niche if you consider the star wars audience as a whole.

Also, it isn’t Kylo getting the girl. It’s Rey getting the boy. TLJ made sure to put her perspective front and center—it’s she who pursues Kylo, she who catches him in a state of undress, she who gets the eye candy, she who ruminates on his backstory while also delving deep into her own. It’s her point of view, her feelings, her attraction, her choices, while Kylo remains relatively passive for most of the time, waiting for her (to show up in a force connection, to come to the Supremacy, to take his hand). 

The scene where they touch hands, especially considering the music and the fact that Luke Skywalker is the one walking in on them, could also be read as an ominous one where Rey is getting too close to the dark

oh, no. No, no, no. :)) The Force theme plays during the hand touch. (the /ominous/ music you hear before is actually some notes from Kylo’s theme, iirc). And the point of Luke’s arc in TLJ was that he was wrong about Ben, wrong about trying to murder him, and especially wrong about going into exile for years, and after this scene he finally decides to face his demons. He’s not the wise mentor whose perspective can be trusted. His perspective is as flawed as everyone else’s. And he is actually the one who is depicted in an ominous way in that scene (barging in, hand raised to destroy the hut in a gesture that reminds intentionally of what Ben did the night he destroyed the jedi academy).

And at no point Rey got too close to the dark. She only got close to Kylo. She was never tempted by power, or knowledge, or violence, or any of the traditional pitfalls of the dark side. Her only instinct was to help, and save someone from himself. If compassion and love are a path to the dark side, then we should rewrite the Sith code, lol. No, Luke was wrong, he learned his lesson, and by the end of the movie he went to face Kylo Ren fully knowing that he wouldn’t be the one who’d turn the monster back into a man this time, but that someone else could.

Rey not needing Kylo, and being able to ascend to heroism without him, was the end point of TLJ, and I think it would undermine that ending if in IX she did turn out to need him after all and they had to work together or she had to forgive him.

It’s not about “needing”, or “having to”. It’s about wanting. Rey not needing Kylo (and likewise Kylo not needing Rey) is something I’m thankful TLJ established, because it actually lays the basis for the healthiest kind of relationship, the one where you love someone without depending (materially or emotionally) on them. This puts all the emphasis on personal choice, rather than necessity, and I think fits extremely well with the main themes of this trilogy. Rey realizing that she doesn’t need Kylo was beautiful and I’m sure the narrative won’t backtrack on it, but I still think she’s going to be with him in the end, not because she “has to”, or “can’t live without him”, but because she wants to.

And I think this doesn’t undermine Rey’s agency at all, on the contrary, it elevates it.

Re: the proposal speech being manipulative but also genuine according to Rian, please refer to this and this. 

Re: Rey being “unhappy” with him, uhm. I see this argument tossed around all the time and it annoys me big time. Right, she was SO unhappy that she ditched Luke to run to Kylo and try to save him as soon as she got a Force flashforward of his being at her side. What an ugly vision she must have seen, right? Careful not to confuse “raw emotions for an enemy whose pain resonates deeply with mine, as I’m also fighting a war” with “unhappiness”. Rey wasn’t unhappy in TLJ anymore than she was in TFA—she just stopped pretending to be fine, as she met someone who made her dig under the surface of her plucky heroine facade and confront her own demons and feelings of abandonment, and who brought his own demons and feelings of abandonment to the table, which Rey felt intensely for.

Happiness, conversely, isn’t always a sign and guarantee of romantic love, and the idea that love always makes you feel happy is generalizing and shallow, especially when it’s more about looking happy than anything. “She looks so happy when they hug”. Uh. So? I have a best friend who is truly the only person in the world who can put a smile on my face when I’m feeling down and who I can be completely myself with, and I would even say she’s the MOST important person in my world aside from my own family, and YET, I’m not in love with her. Nor should I try to be in order to stop suffering or be generically “happy”. Friendship is friendship, and love is love: both are equally important but they’re not the same, and they fulfill different needs. (mind, this is not me dissing friends-to-lovers tropes, which I like a lot, or saying that friendship can never evolve into romantic love, just that the kind of comfort and happiness true friendship offers isn’t necessarily the best basis for a romance, especially when there aren’t any obvious signs of romantic/sexual attraction.)

Speaking of which, and moving to the pro-f/rey part of your submission… I think most of the confusion re: f/nnrey being “obviously” romantic in TFA comes from the assumption that an “endgame” relationship needs to be portrayed as unambiguously positive since the start. Yes, Finn and Rey’s interactions in TFA were overwhelmingly positive—almost too positive, which in mainstream fiction doesn’t bode well for romance. Central romances, especially of the “epic” kind, are generally bumpy (or downright antagonistic) at first. And by “at first” I don’t mean the first five minutes of interactions, as in f/nnrey’s case: I mean at least the first act of the story. Translated into the context of a movie trilogy—it amounts to the first movie, give or take.

I just feel like there are far too many “romance” cues for F/innRey for that to not have been planned from the beginning. In TFA, those “boyfriend” lines weren’t essential, they could have been taken out without affecting the friendly-rapport feeling in their relationship. In TLJ, they didn’t have to juxtapose Rey being in tears facing Kylo to happily embracing Finn upon being reunited with him. And while there is the factor of Rose kissing Finn, they never entered into a deliberate romantic relationship or showed that the feelings were mutual: I feel like FinnRose isn’t essential to the next movie if they dismissed it, since so much of Finn and Rose’s arc could be read as them being friends or compatriots. There’s really no cues of romance until she kisses him.

funny how you’re saying that f/nnrey had “too many” romance cues not to have been planned from the get go in the same breath as you also argue that finnrose isn’t irrevocably romantic and could be easily dismissed in IX. Finn and Rose have a complete romantic arc in TLJ. Complete with a kiss. Whereas Finn and Rey only have a “boyfriend” line (which could be very well foreshadowing of Rey getting a “boyfriend” in TLJ, which she did, lol) and everything else is about deeply caring for each other and being each other’s first real friend (she looked at him like no one ever had, he came back for her when nobody would). Friendship tropes, I’ll concede, can sometimes be confused with romantic tropes, but why do the tropes used in TFA f/nnrey speak of romance more clearly than what Finn and Rose had in TLJ?

My opinion: they don’t. And if it seems to you like they do, it’s probably because you want them to see that way. Which is okay, as long as you’re aware of your bias. What really tips the scale from “could be romantic” to “oh no it’s definitely romantic” is the usage of textual, unequivocal romantic tropes and situations like Rose kissing Finn on the lips against a beautiful beaming ray of light or, well, Rey accidentally walking on a half naked Kylo and being very confused. 

Those are facts, not hints.

And this isn’t Game of Thrones with its three hundred parallel storylines and red herrings or a 14 seasons-long CW teen drama, it’s a three-movie space opera that needs to be as closely knit and narratively solid as possible, it can’t afford doing a back and forth between romantic storylines, which at this point (following your logic) would be THREE, and two of them should be dismissed or ended badly in the last movie for the third to be endgame.

The main couples of this trilogy as established by TLJ are Finnrose and Reylo. F/nnrey having any sort of romantic development at this point would only confuse the audience and unnecessarily complicate the narrative, which is already complex enough as it is. 

In TLJ, [Finn and Rey] are separated for the majority of it, but you could say that separation is always part of the romantic arc

Not for the entire second act of a trilogy, the one where (statistically in the SW movies) the pairing makes the leap from platonic (or antagonistic) to romantic. 

and Rey is constantly thinking about him, while Finn is constantly thinking about her. 

…were they? I mean, they probably were and it’s fine to headcanon it that way, but we weren’t actually shown any of it on screen (it was just handwaved at, with Rey trying to make contact with Finn, and Finn trying to leave to find Rey in the beginning) and this is important, storywise. It means that their dynamic is already established; the narrative trusts the audience to remember that they’re friends, they care about each other, they have an unbreakable sibling-like bond à la Luke and Leia, and there’s no need to remind us that they care about each other or introduce new developments in their relationship, which was fully formed by the end of TFA already.

Before she heads off to save Kylo, she gives Chewie an important message to Finn. (Which could have been something like “I love you” but I don’t want to assume.)

Again, it’s fine if you want to headcanon it that way, but one half of the pairing having the revelation that she loves the other offscreen (and no payoff for that at the end of the movie) is a really bizarre way to establish an endgame romantic pairing, if you ask me.

Re: the residual “romantic” cues in finn/rey—I think, if there were any (which in itself is debatable, but still), it’s probably because the finnreylo dynamic was originally conceived (by JJ) as some sort of lowkey love triangle, and then scrapped (still by JJ) in favor of a completely platonic bond on the f/nnrey side. Thankfully, Rian threw any possibility of a wacky love triangle out of the window by introducing Rose and letting Finn have his OWN romantic storyline rather than being reduced to a third wheel or cannon fodder to some stupid romantic conflict for reylo (which has no shortage of conflict on its own anyway, lol).

You also make it sound it deceptively easy to dismiss Finnrose as some sort of failed experiment or brief but ultimately irrelevant digression in the path that leads to the f/rey romance. It’s not. Rose is an important character, whose feelings matter, and she’s EXPLICITLY, textually in love with Finn. There’s no way to work around this fact or pretend it didn’t happen or argue that they’ll magically turn into platonic coworkers or *compatriots* (?). Finn’s feelings might be less clear but that’s why we still have a whole movie to go. But they already kissed, which as I said is far more definitive storywise than a line about a cute boyfriend or a kiss on the forehead.

Finally,

it would be a long, long road to have [Rey] forgive [Kylo] at all, let alone build some sort of romantic dynamic even though they will probably be enemies for a significant portion of IX. 

It wouldn’t be a long, long road to have her forgive him, it would be a very short and simple road, because TLJ already did the bulk of the work in this sense, and made Rey deeply care for Kylo and, even more importantly, understand where his rage and hurt come from. The romantic dynamic is already established, it only needs to come to fruition, which is incredibly easy to make it happen since (to your admission too) they’re doing Bendeption anyway. To be frank, Kylo only needs to choose to ditch the First Order and maybe make ONE selfless act to redeem himself, even in Rey’s eyes, especially in Rey’s eyes. Nothing he did on Crait was worse than what he did on Starkiller (his body count is even shorter!), and it took Rey approximately 5 days to believe in his inherent goodness. I don’t think she’s changed her mind on that. I think she knows he isn’t in the right place to change his views yet, and is fully ready to fight him if need come, but she also doesn’t hate him, as the novelization also confirms (whereas, post tfa, she thought she did).

yes, they were enemies in TLJ too, but IX can’t spend a large portion of its running time devoted to intimate conversations like TLJ did: it’s the final act of this Trilogy and the Skywalker Saga, things need to start wrapping up.

Actually, it can. TLJ did it and managed to have TWO other full fledged storylines (including another romantic arc) running parallel to the reylo one, an identity/redemption arc for Luke AND an epic climatic battle in the end. 2 hours and 45 minutes are a LONG time to develop a dynamic to its fulfillment. And what other loose ends or main conflicts does this trilogy have to resolve yet, other than Ben’s relationship with Rey (and reconciliation with Leia, hopefully)? The only reason you think IX can’t spend time on reylo is because you don’t see it as a crucial part of this trilogy. But it is.

TL;DR; in my opinion f/rey doesn’t have enough set up to be the endgame romance (not even considering TFA alone), and with Rose’s introduction they kind of sealed the deal. Having Finn and Rey be involved in romantic threads with two other main characters only to undo those threads and put them together in the end actually requires more work (narrative-wise) than letting their respective romantic storylines evolve to their natural conclusion in IX. Pre-TLJ I said that both f/rey and reylo can be “canon”, and both are, the former as a friendship (the most important one in this trilogy) and the latter as a romance. I just don’t think they’ll be both romantic in the end. There’s potential in that to explore in fanfiction (just like there was potential in, say, Luke/Leia or Obi Wan/Padmé or even O/bikin), but it’s an extremely unlikely (and messy) direction to go for the canon story.

Hope this clarifies my opinion on the issues you raised, and that I didn’t sound too dismissive of your points. If so I apologize in advance.