#the mustache makes me biased i think lmfao

[punkbeetleart]

If u guys hc jake english w a british accent do u think hed sound more like mumbo jumbo or xisuma

[benperorsolo]

Another interpretation that I think is interesting but doesn’t quite feel right to me, is the interpretation of Kylo’s character as a subversion of the “manipulated villain/Vader arc.” The argument is Kylo was set up as used and manipulated by Snoke in TFA, but TLJ killed that by showing Kylo is responsible for himself and chooses evil, and made him a clearer villain. I think TLJ does show he’s responsible for his actions, but I still can’t see TLJ as showing how truly, decidedly evil Kylo is.

I’d say your instincts are 100% correct. (Clearly I’m a biased source but.)

The claim that Anakin was manipulated more by Palpatine than Ben was by Snoke is…frankly laughable. One can argue that Palpatine had groomed Anakin since he was a teenager or young adult, but Snoke was canonically in Ben’s head and has strongly been implied to have been since when Ben was in the womb. The math doesn’t seem too complex here.

And besides details like that, from purely comparing the OT with the ST, to suggest that Kylo Ren has more agency and is deeper into the Dark Side than Vader is…lmfao. In the OT, Vader is barely even regarded as human until ESB reveals that he is actually Luke’s father, and even then this revelation is played as horrific. It’s only in ROTJ when his humanity is ever discussed or brought up as a question, and Vader shows pretty much zero signs of conflict until Luke is literally being tortured before his eyes. Compare this with Kylo Ren, who has been shown as sympathetic and conflicted from act one of the first film, whom multiple people insist there is still good inside of, whose family desperately forgives him and wants him back, who is shown being tortured by his master (not so with Vader), whose identity as Ben Solo is made a paramount part of the character and adds immense stakes to his redemption, as well as immense humanization– it’s not a contest. I’m not saying that Anakin is less woobie than Ben all media considered, but not everyone reads all media. If you’re strictly comparing the trilogies in which they act as villains, Ben absolutely is more woobified than Anakin. Anakin is a straight-up villain. Ben is an anti-villain at worst and inches very closely to being an anti-hero.

I always laugh at people who think the point of TLJ was to show that Kylo Ren is now a cemented, remorseless villain because the point of Crait is the exact opposite. I just answered an ask on a similar topic so I’ll requote it here:

The ST has had two chances to make Ben ascend into mustache twirling villainy��� the murder of his father, and Crait. Yet after each of these actions, Ben doesn’t get more empowered in the dark, he gets less. Every time, the narrative frames these technical ‘victories’ as spiritual losses.

After Ben becomes Supreme Leader of the entire FO, the actual Big Bad, he ends the film on his knees. Like a sinner, like a penitent. The dice –Han, and Han’s heart within him– is what he’s lost. Rey –love, light– is what he almost had. Now he has neither, even though he’s gotten everything he claims he’s wanted. And it’s not framed as what he wants. It’s framed as defeat.

You get the drift. The point of Ben becoming his own master at the end of TLJ is not for him to be a remorseless big bad. It’s so that Ben can achieve everything he thought he wanted –all of the power in the galaxy, the ultimate goal of the Dark Side– and realize that it’s meaningless. It’s empty. It does not quiet his conflict or his soul. That way the onus of Ben’s redemption is entirely on Ben. It’s not because he was trying to get the girl or because he was tired of being manipulated by Snoke or anything else. It’s because he had everything, and gave it up. And that’s how we’ll know his turn is genuine.