#reylo meta

[raisedbythetv89]

IM ILL 😭😭😭😭

She knows this will hurt him. She knows this will make him feel betrayed. She hates that she has to do this to him because she knows he’s not the monster he pretends to be but he’s still not the person he needs to be in order for them to be together.

A cornerstone of Rey’s personality is she doesn’t give up, no matter how hopeless something seems so to be giving up on her other half and leaving him with the first order is heartbreaking for her. She’s not only devastated at the loss of Ben Solo, her other half, but for what she knows this will do to him and that he will view this as a betrayal.

And we can see so clearly what it does to him written all over his face 😭 he’s so hurt and confused, he thought there was no way she wouldn’t see things his way and that she knew they belonged together no matter what so he can’t believe she’s fighting to get away from him again and just UGGGHHHH

And how initially he is FURIOUS, firing on the falcon all his big talk of destroying her, and luke and everything while she is initially just so sad this is the way things have gone but by the time we get into TROS Rey’s sadness and disappointment turns into RAGE and she is furious with him for keeping them apart and not coming back to the resistance with her.

GUH 😭 when she lays eyes on him again at the end of TLJ we see her take a few deep breaths and he looks hopeful when she does it meaning he can feel her sadness, her regret, her pain, her resolve waiver for just a moment before she puts on this mask of indifference and just looks SO disappointed in him.

While for him, once his anger burns out and he sees her again he’s just utterly devastated and filled with regret and you can see he’s disappointed with himself too 😭

The chemistry and acting talent of these two is insane but the experience of what it’s like to fall in love with someone who’s not ready to love you and how painful it is to walk away from that person when you realize it is captured so beautifully and so devastatingly I’m so heartsick about it 😭

[writingwife-83]

There was a lot TROS let us down on and so many things that could have been done better but sometimes I like to appreciate the things we got. Like, they did not have to include the detail of Rey healing the scar on Ben’s face when she healed his lightsaber wound. Absolutely not necessary to the plot. But because of that tiny detail we can imagine that when she was healing him and she got to the point where his mortal wound was no longer an issue she thought, there’s more I could give. So she gave even more of her life force to undo any traces of hurt she’d caused him in the past as well. It’s never specifically acknowledged, but it’s so perfect and makes that turning point in the plot just that little bit more meaningful. 🥺

[allgirlsareprincesses]

Do you think that Rey's story (excluding episode 9 'cause that was a shitshow) could be interpreted as a Cinderella/Ash girl story?

I hope you realize asking me this is like throwing chum to a shark 😈. But the short answer is yes, to a point.

The long answer is more complicated, so to begin with, let's consult the Cinderella bible:

According to the Aarne Thompson Uther Index, there are five primary motifs to a Cinderella tale:

Persecuted heroine, usually by family

Help or helper, usually magic

Meeting the prince, usually with true identity disguised

Identification or penetration of disguise, usually by means of an object

Marriage to the prince

Rey is abandoned by her family, which is a form of persecution, and harassed by the inhabitants of Jakku like Unkar Plutt. Thus she clearly fulfills the first item.

As for meeting a helper, there are several for her, including Han Solo, Maz, Luke, and Leia. Any or all of these may be considered fairy godparents in the way that they offer her wisdom and material help. Further, except for Maz, they all die in the course of the story, which is consistent with many Cinderella tales in which the helper dies and their bones continue to offer wisdom and comfort to the heroine.

Next, meeting the prince. I mean

To the extent that Rey is "in disguise' here, it would be the extent of her force powers, her destiny as Ben Solo's dyad mate, and her role as the heir apparent to the Jedi (chosen by the Force to wield the legacy saber), all of which are obscured from Kylo Ren when he discovers her in the forest. Further, she is grimy and covered in desert sand, similar to how Cinderella is smeared with ashes that hide her true beauty.

So now an object penetrates the disguise. This is obviously the Skywalker lightsaber, which reveals Rey to be everything listed above, especially when she calls it to her on Starkiller Base, and again when she wields it on Ahch-to.

And lastly, marriage to the prince. As many others have pointed out over the years, Rey and Ben have almost too many symbolic marriages to count in the course of the sequel trilogy. They're extremely married, the Force said so.

BUT WAIT! Go back and look at that list again. Who ELSE fits all those criteria?

It's our boy! Consider:

He is indeed persecuted by family, most notably when Luke momentarily considers killing him.

Ben's helpers are both dark and light, as Snoke/Palpatine guide him in the dark while Luke guides him in the light (poorly). But note again what I said above about the bones of the mentor continuing to offer guidance and comfort after their death. Who should appear at Ben's lowest hour but his departed father, Han Solo? With a message of love, acceptance, and encouragement, Han's memory (because in fairy tales, bones contain memory) encourages Ben to at last cast off his beastly skin and become who he always was.

Next, meeting the prince/ss in disguise. He's wearing a literal mask when he meets Rey, so yeah.

An object penetrates the disguise? Rey slashed his face with the legacy saber, thus symbolically peeling away his mask. And I've argued before that the stabbing in TROS (which I still HATE, btw) is another cutting or burning away of the beastly skin.

And lastly, marriage to the prince/ss. As previously stated, that happened. Many times.

So yes, the Sequel Trilogy can definitely be considered a Cinderella story, with but one glaring issue: Cinderella's husband usually doesn't die at the end. But that's another topic that's been done to death, so let's all just read some more fanfic and forget about it. 👑 Thank you for the ask, this was fun!

[leia-organaa]

one way to sort of ruin the experience of reading a good reylo fic for me is when the og trio (han, leia, and luke) are described in less than flattering terms. i get that their characters are often secondary, but i have always loved the og main characters and will instantly nope out if they’re portrayed to be awful rather than just complex or flawed. so even if i’m near the tail end of a fic and i see something derogatory about the og three i just feel really bad and drop the thing no matter the time invested in reading.

i also noticed that a number of reylo are also an*dalas. i am not, but that’s neither here nor there, and i do love padmé and ani individually. there have been fics where the parallels have been made, but i dunno, i feel like reylo and the sequel trilogy are really thematically a continuation from the og trilogy and not really a callback to the grandparents’ romance, because to me the og and sequels are more about family and belonging than this star-crossed lovers will ruin or save the world thing (which i think is secondary). tbh to me the prequel trilogy was also about that — belonging and otherness, the jedi order also just trying its best (i am going to cover my ears to insults to them bec i love them sorry) and ani feeling so othered that he fell prey to palpatine, despite obi wan (ult loml in the sw universe so i will not take any insult to him sitting down) also trying his damned best. it makes me sad to see the admiration for the ship but coupled with disdain for the og trio. they were all imperfect beings who were just trying their best.

[atlasshrugd]

no but the thing is, when the hero falls in love with the villain she is falling in love with the darkest parts of herself. she is owning her shadow and the owning makes her stronger. it is not about whether a ship is toxic or romanticising abuse because it’s not about two individuals. the struggle is not one between two people, just like the love is not between two people. when the hero falls in love with the villain she is loving herself. when she loves herself she is stronger, better, able to transform darkness instead of running from it. at the moment of loving, a person changes. the loved changes. and the love of the villain changes the hero. it’s all about this, don’t you see?

[artist-issues]

I just NEED everyone to agree with me that Rey's parents are nobody. We should all agree about that. We should collectively, as an audience, say, "clearly the best idea was to have Kylo Ren be a dynastic heir to the major legends of the Force who wants to throw off his family's shadow, while his rival is nobody from nowhere who wants to belong--so we're going to stick with that."

And then, what should have happened is, Rey can finish her story by being able to say, "My parents might have abandoned me, but that doesn't mean I'm worthless." And eventually Kylo Ren can say, "My family might have been powerful, but I don't have to be," and all those other things that they can bounce off of each other as great foils.

It can keep being a good story about accepting past failures and choosing to grow beyond them.

Let's just all collectively ignore Rey Skypatine because of how silly that was. I mean. If they can just ignore the setups in the previous movie, we can ignore their choices in the conclusion. Right?? Right? Tell me I'm right

[allgirlsareprincesses]

I would love if more people could listen to our analysis of the last episode on @whattheforce . We cover this question in detail. I really think the issue here is some folks on socials not understanding the difference between Beauty and the Beast and Bluebeard. Reylo is BatB, whereas the Acolyte ship(s) are definitely Bluebeard. The sexy baddie is the Predator, he's dangerous, he represents a force that is holding the heroine back, he's NOT a romantic hero like Ben Solo! He can't be the other half to either of the twins because their other half is EACH OTHER. The sisters are only whole together, so the Predator's role is only to come between them, at best to cause the awakening that allows each sister to finally claim her power.

The Acolyte ship is an evil/evil dynamic, so I would argue it's not meaningfully the same thing as Reylo. But I think they are trying to pander to it a little bit, yes, completely missing the point of what made the ship attractive. He's very violent with her in a way Kylo Ren never was with Rey which I just find really sad. That was never the draw for me personally (and strangulation is a hard line for me, which is why I don't really like Anidala, even if I ship it cosmically).

But the fact that they cast someone very conventionally attractive as the bad guy is really funny. Like we're all shallow airheads who only liked Kylo Ren because he was hot.

Really?? So is it pure visuals or do people think the characters will actually push each other in a positive direction?

I do get a little disgruntled at people's 'that's all reylo is' shit posts about finding the villain hot or finding threatening/strangulation hot or whatever. I realise these are jokes mocking antis for getting so up in arms about very standard bodice ripper tropes which have been hugely popular forever and it's fine, but that's not at all what reylo is to me.

I talked a long time ago about how I'm not really a villain fucker and don't generally like that many etl pairings. Pretty much for the same reasons I don't like rival-shipping and because, like you, I'm not into the violence. It's not a deal breaker for me if there's violence between the ship before they develop a connection, obviously, but I don't find it titillating and don't want to see the violence itself portrayed as sexual. I can't stand hate as sexual tension and etl ships are very prone to that.

I'm here for the B&tB of it all, personally. To me reylo is about hope, healing, and compassion. About two lost and lonely souls truly seeing and recognising each other when no one else did and helping one another become their best, most authentic selves. They free each other from bondage and pain.

If Ben were actually a Sexy Bad Boy or DFP, I wouldn't ship it. Him not being that is the entire reason it appeals to me. If he'd seen her as a rival or resented her in the way people often write in fics, I wouldn't ship it. He never hated her and she stops hating him as soon as she realises he's not a monster, their attraction comes from a place of sympathy and curiosity on both sides not from jealousy or covetousness--that's why they're OTP. This is among the many things tros fucked up.

[intergalactic-cutie-pie]

All this right here

NOT MY EDIT. CREDITS TO THE AUTHOR!!!

[ranticore]

The fact that I can't post my favourite ever félix.png because it contains a massive paragraph of reylo meta from someone else's tumblr post.. do u know how it haunts me

[sleepynegress]

An observation... I've noticed that when white fans get into spaces or ships with POC, they include the white ships/spaces from other media in their fanworks about the one with the POC....but it never goes the other way. Often, the white characters have a lot more lines and personhood. I'm not linking any specific art or works, but yeah... I'm not gonna ask the hypothetical because I know the answer.

I will say, I looked up Oshamir on twitter and the first artwork was a comic with Rey advising a silent Osha on Qimir and another comic by the same artist doing the same thing.

[a-manda-lorian]

I don’t know about y’all, but I have been perpetually disappointed in franchise/series endings for years now. Is fandom the problem??? Like, we all get on here and theorize and come up with bangin’ meta… and then the writers give us a steaming pile of 💩 for the actual film/show/book ending… How are the fans better at coming up with amazing story ideas while the people making the big bucks are making lousy stories??? All these things that end up in story for us to analyze can’t just be accidents, but then why do they never get fleshed out and come to a logical conclusion???

I’m just confused. Should we stop doing this, hyping ourselves up and setting unrealistic expectations on story writers…?

I feel like I’m being punked… where’s Ashton????

[raisedbythetv89]

Their first and last meetings in TFA occurring in a forest where it’s just the two of them and how the parallels between the two encounters also allow them to show how much has changed in Rey in such a short time after meeting Kylo, gaining conscious access to the force and delving into each other’s minds

His saber at her face

He continues to study her intently because he feels she’s important to him but doesn’t understand how. Showing little change in his behavior at this point but now he’s broken, bleeding and vulnerable. That vulnerability represented by him no longer wearing his mask - the beginning of the end of of kylo ren has already begun

BUT REY!!!!!! She has ALWAYS been a survivor and a warrior but masked Kylo represents her shadow aka her fear and in their first meeting the physical manifestation of her fear literally freezes her in place BUT THE DIFFERENCE IN HER FACE instead of abject terror she is now DETERMINED and looking him dead in the eyes just STARING him down and striking fear into Kylo instead

This camera pan makes Rey appear like prey as the audience and kylo both circle her in contrast to her circling kylo laid out at her feet with such a predatory gleam in her eye and very aggressive body language she’s gone from the hunted to the hunter

I MEANNN

IT’S JUST TOO GOOD

[writingwife-83]

What is your opinion about Rey's declaration to Ben in TRoS and the impact of this declaration on the two characters and their development in the film?

I would like to know your opinion on this scene. 🙂

I know I’ve ranted about this before but this is one of my absolute favorite reylo moments. Rey is broken down and raw in that moment. She’s not holding back like she had been up to that point. She’s admitting that underneath it all and despite everything that’s happened, she wants to be with him.

And I maintain that her added clarification of “… Ben’s hand” doesn’t diminish this in the slightest. All she’s saying is that she wants to be with the man he truly is. She can’t be with the him while he’s insisting on being in the role of Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, because that means he’s still on the Dark Side. She wants to stay away that, and rightly so. I’m not into all the extremes of the Jedi, but of course she doesn’t want to join the Dark Side of the Force. (I enjoy some Dark Rey hc and fan works once in a while, but I’m never going to truly be into the concept of her turning.) And of course she doesn’t want Ben to stay on that path either, seeing as it’s the source of his pain since even before birth! Of course she wants him to be free of that. She just wants him. 😭 😭

And it certainly does make an impact on Ben and his character development. (Cue yeeting his lightsaber into the ocean lol) yes part of the impact was Leia and the sudden shock and pain of losing her, but it was also obviously the realization of not only how Rey truly felt about him, but also what she was willing to do for him. The Dark Side encourages selfishness and greed, so the act of giving some of your own life force to heal and save anyone, let alone someone who is still an enemy, flies in the face of that. It probably shook him partly because he so rarely saw that kind of selflessness, and also because deep down I’m sure he felt he didn’t deserve it. And yet there he was, healed and renewed, all because Rey couldn’t bear to just let him go. I just…

[sassinake]

oh! an analysis by the excellent Missy! I haven't read this one yet!!

The Death of Love and the Lonely Soul: Eros and Psyche in a Post-TROS World

This is the first of my follow-up posts to my series on Folktale Types in Star Wars, focusing on how the Sequel Trilogy retells (or fails to retell) the Eros and Psyche myth, and the potential psychological implications for our culture. This essay will frequently reference my original Reylo as Eros and Psyche post, though I will also occasionally refer to my other Search for the Lost Husband posts (2) (3) (4), so please consider reading those before diving in here.

To explain why I had a great deal of confidence in TROS being a classic happy ending to a Search for the Lost Husband tale (ATU 425), I have to share a little bit of what I learned about how folklorists view these tale types. A century ago, the popular theory about why myths and folktales were so similar all over the world was evolutionary: it assumed there was one origin tale, and that as humans traveled, they would carry the story with them and it would be retold and adapted by other cultures. This suggested there was one ancestral tale from which all the others developed, which accounted for the recurrence of the story’s basic plot and motifs.

Since then, however, advancements in anthropological research and the increasing appreciation for folklore in the study of human psychology has debunked the old evolutionary theory. It was discovered that cultures and societies existing at the same time in history, on opposite sides of the globe and which could have had no possible contact with one another, still told the same tale types with the same motifs. Details might be changed, but every culture had animal husband tales, or animal bride tales, and so on. This led to the now widely-accepted idea that universal human psychology accounts for the similarity in folktales. Basically, all humans tell each other the same stories because we all wrestle with the same fundamental truths, challenges, and transitions. This is why the swan maiden tales can be traced to male anxiety over sexual performance or the prospect of losing a wife in childbirth, or why animal husband tales can be traced to female power fantasies of taming a mate in a patriarchal society.

Based on all this, I assumed that even if Terrio and Abrams made a typically vapid modern action flick, they’d still hit all of the main beats of the Eros and Psyche myth because that’s what would come naturally to them. Obviously, Beauty’s love will return the Beast to his human form. Obviously, Psyche will complete her journey from child to adult and take her place as the true or metaphorical mother to the next generation. Obviously, they will end the story united for eternity to signify the end of the galaxy-wide conflict and the beginning of the true peace so long sought by the heroes of the Skywalker Saga.

While this was true to a limited extent in The Rise of Skywalker, several of the reveals and the final moments of the film not only departed dramatically from the structure of the Search for the Lost Husband myth, but the movie even fails to align with the commonly more sorrowful Quest for the Lost Bride. In a cruel and baffling twist, the story erases its hero and returns its heroine to childhood in a barren underworld. There is, frankly, no historical folktale I can find that matches this pattern. Even stories featuring preadolescent children are about disassociation from parental figures, not deeper dependence. (Note: Marie-Claire and Ty Black of What The Force and Wit and Folly have done some exploration of how TROS reflects the so-called “American Monomyth.” This is a valid interpretation but for the purposes of this analysis, I’m continuing to use stories more commonly recognized by the Aarne-Thompson-Uther classification of folktales.)

Rey’s Regression and Psyche’s Tasks

As a quick refresher of where we stood in alignment with the myth by the end of The Last Jedi, Rey is the mortal woman Psyche, and her force powers are akin to Psyche’s beauty in the myth. Kylo Ren/Ben Solo is god of desire Eros, Psyche’s husband and the son of god of war Ares and goddess of love Aphrodite. In Star Wars, it is the Dark Side and dark force users who play the part of Aphrodite herself, attempting to control Ben Solo and jealous of the powerful Rey. The symbolic marriage of the lovers has unmistakably occurred multiple times, but when Rey attempts to force Ben into the light and to accept his true identity, he recoils and they are separated. She has broken the taboo of seeing his true self, and so her animal bridegroom has fled to the safety of the Dark Side, or “his mother’s house.” Finally, all of Rey’s illusions, help, and protections have been stripped away, so she must now learn how to rely on herself to obtain what she desires. When Rey discovers her own worth, independent of anyone else, she will achieve womanhood. When Ben Solo accepts his full humanity, both dark and light, he will achieve manhood. Together, they will reach adulthood.

Keep reading

[curlytheintrovert]

Why I Love Reylo (Pt.2)

(My old post for reasons unknown got deleted😭)

One of my other favorite parts of this couple is that they are atypically gender reversed. It’s one of the many reasons this ship is so intriguing and unique compared to others. Let me explain. Typically in most hetero romances the man is the abrasive, closed off one at first and is generally a prickly little shit. While the girl is typically softer, a little more compassionate and open minded. This not the case with Rey and Kylo.

Rey’s first interaction with Kylo is shooting a blaster at him multiple times in succession. Granted she does have a Force vision of Kylo at Maz’s which makes her justifiably hostile and afraid of him. During the interrogation scene Kylo reads her mind and speaks her thoughts out loud: she wants to kill him. Rey calls him a creature in a mask and angrily tells him to get out of her head. And then proceeds to spit Kylo’s greatest fear back in his face with such venom. I love how she snarls: “You. You’re afraid.”

Kylo on the other hand only defends himself from her blasts and force stops her from shooting any further. He gently says: “The girl I’ve heard so much about.” Kylo easily could have dragged her away or thrown her into the hands of the troopers beside him—but instead he makes Rey sleep and scoops her up into his arms bridal style. In the interrogation room Kylo sees Rey’s fear and says she’s his guest. He takes off his mask. Then explains things calmly—never raising his voice above a murmur. The curiosity about her is strong as Kylo probes her mind and the responses to what he finds there are emotional. I love so much how he says “Don’t be afraid, I feel it too.” It just feels so incredibly kind considering the circumstances—like that was the first little glimpse of Ben we got.

The shift that happens when Rey uses the force back on Kylo is what really sets the tone for the rest of their relationship. Rey attacks and responds negatively—Kylo gently deflects and tries to connect. If you watch throughout the rest of the films this dynamic doesn’t really change. Almost all of their force bonds in TLJ are similar: Rey being barbarous and Kylo being benign. A majority of their saber fights are like this too—Kylo plays defense, is hesitant to pull out his saber multiple times or looks like he’s doesn’t want to fight her period.

See what I mean?! Rey is hostile and prickly—Kylo is open minded and gentle.

The other gender swapped aspect is that in a way Kylo is the damsel of this pairing. He’s trapped far away, lonely and miserable, in a figurative tower. Rey fights Luke for his cause and goes to rescue and save him if she can. But I also see Kylo as an emotional damsel too. He’s so lost, and hurt and twisted. Rey offers him a way back—she’s the only one who can—and in the long run is the very reason he is able to become Ben Solo again. But it’s when Rey lets her guard down and mellows her prejudice that their relationship flourishes. Kylo/Ben is already ready and waiting to love and be loved…

Man, this pairing is complex and fun to analyze!

[awsok]

something about like. shin is the 'evil' one, she's the one sent to and trying to kill sabine. but despite being a better fighter (not to mention actually able to use the force), despite having had several opportunities... she hasn't killed her. like for all her efforts, she can't seem to go through with it.

sabine, though? I think (fighting abilities aside) sabine could kill shin. like, spur of the moment, ahsoka and/or ezra are in danger? I really think she would.

and how fucked up is that?