In Defence of Kylo Ren

[crazyjane]

Okay, so, Kylo Ren - boo, right? Hiss, right? What a bastard. Killed all those mini-Jedis, killed his Dad, didn't even have the decency to turn to the light just because Rey asked him to.

BUT HOLD UP THERE.

This kid - and he is a kid, for all that he's about as tall as a sasquatch - is BROKEN. Smashed into tiny pieces. He's the very definition of an abused child.

But how can that be, you say? He was Han and Leia's baby. He was Luke's nephew. He was a SKYWALKER, for the Force's sake. He was going to be an awesome Jedi and carry on a family heritage.

Yeah. That's the point. From the moment he was born, Ben Solo was a symbol. Child of the great heroes of the Rebellion, heir to the Jedi, and - most of all - a Skywalker. He was never allowed to be anything other than what others expected him to be. No pressure, right?

I know what you're saying - boo hoo, so people had expectations of him. So what? But think about it - you grow up with that pressure on you, and something's going to give. Especially when you keep getting told how powerful you are, and you know it's true. Especially when there's a nasty little voice whispering in your mind (GTFO, Snoke) telling you everything you want to hear. Of course Ben was going to listen. It's not like there was, oh, an EMPEROR to worry about, was there?

And then here comes Uncle Luke, who thinks the best solution to a troubling problem is to KILL IT WITH A LIGHTSABER. Hello, empathy? Remember your own struggles with the Dark side, Luke? Remember your dad? No?

Yeah, Luke panicked. And yeah, he couldn't go through with his oh-so-brilliant plan to kill Ben. But none of that matters. All Ben saw when he woke up was his teacher standing over him with a lightsaber and an expression that said YOU DIE NOW. And he panicked, too.

No, I'm not excusing Ben slaughtering baby Jedis. That was fucked. But we've already seen (thanks to the power of cinema) how little self-control he has, how easily his emotions come bursting out. Sure, we laughed in TFA when the stormtroopers ran away after they heard Kylo smashing up a room, but think about that. This kid has no impulse control. Why? It's not a Dark side thing - Vader was proof that you can be an utter bastard and still cold as ice.

That moment, when Luke stood over a child with murder in his eyes, fractured something. And Luke knows that. For all his pontificating about oh woe, the Jedi have to end, it's time, and other such mystical bullshit, the central truth is that Luke knows HE is responsible for creating Kylo Ren. (And he can't face it, but that's another post. Back to Kylo.)

So what does Ben do when his own uncle turns against him? He runs, of course. He can't go to his parents - Leia would never believe it, and Han wouldn't understand. Who does he have left? Only the one person who's said, 'I accept you', with no strings, no BAD DARK SIDE STOP PLAYING WITH THAT BEN. And so Kylo Ren is born.

When we first meet him in TFA, he's a bit pathetic, isn't he? Look at the baby dressing up in Granddaddy's mask. Look at the whiny teenager who can't take a bit of criticism, who seriously needs some anger management. Can't even make a lightsaber work properly. But look closer. This is a kid on the edge, barely hanging on to some semblance of humanity.

He's been preyed on for years by Snoke. Think about that. Every imagined slight, every sidelong glance, every tiny thing from his childhood that could be taken and twisted into rejection and fear, Snoke's done it. How often do you think Kylo sees Luke's vicious face when he closes his eyes? Everything Snoke does to him confirms what he fears most - that he's a monster.

But a powerful monster. That's the truly evil thing that Snoke does - takes Kylo's fear and self-loathing, and marries it with the knowledge that he has the power to annihilate everything. Better a powerful monster than a broken kid, right? It's no wonder Kylo embraces the Dark side.

Even then, he's not beyond saving. He's conflicted - we hear that again, and again. There's that nasty little dig of Snoke's, that he has too much of his father in him. (And where have we heard that before?) That's what pushes Kylo to kill Han Solo. Maybe if he can do that, he'll finally be damned enough that he can disappear into the monster. (And look at his eyes when he does kill his father - it's tearing him apart.)

But you know what? Snoke's wrong. So, so wrong. It's not Han Solo who lives in Kylo Ren - it's Leia. The woman who kept loving him, kept hoping that he wasn't gone forever. The woman he can't bring himself to destroy when she's a sitting duck. He's truly shocked when the other First Order fighters blow up the bridge of the Resistance ship - and he doesn't know she survived. Sure, Leia might have been only a carefully-hoarded memory, but she's his mother. Now all he has left is Snoke. The abusive father figure who thinks nothing of humiliating his surrogate son, doling out equal parts praise and contempt.

Even then, Kylo's conflicted. And Snoke, with all the arrogance of the Jedi, uses that to lure Rey into giving herself up. Kylo has no idea what's going on. He only knows that here's someone who knows he's a monster, but she's still trying to reach him. And he wants that. For all his words about turning Rey, his face and his voice are screaming SAVE ME.

So why does he take Rey to Snoke? Because he still wants Dad's approval - and maybe, if Rey will join him, it won't be so bad. Snoke, of course, just can't be gracious in victory. He commits the basic supervillain error - he tells Rey all about how he exploited Kylo to trick her into coming here. But - and here he makes his gravest error - he completely dismisses the fact that Kylo is also listening, and is suddenly face to face with the truth about Snoke. Kylo learns that YET AGAIN he's been used, that the father he's dedicated himself to cares nothing for him, and that his deepest conflicts and fears are playthings for an even greater monster than himself.

And didn't we all cheer when Kylo used the Force to turn the lightsaber, and skewer Snoke? Didn't we love to see Rey and Kylo fight together against the Praetorian Guard, especially when we could see them looking over at each other to see if they needed help? And it wasn't a pretty fight. There were no flashy spins and stylised movements. This was two young people fighting for their lives, out of control and NOT CARING.

But then - oh, but then - that terrible, crushing moment when Kylo doesn't do what we expect. He doesn't turn to the Light and join Rey to fight against the bad guys. He becomes the bad guy in truth, for the best - and worst - of reasons.

A lot's been said about his speech to Rey, that he was unnecessarily cruel - basically, negged her and expected she'd thank him for it. HOLD UP THERE. Take another look.

Kylo doesn't want to rule for power's sake. He wants order, sanity, some way of atoning for Snoke's reign. He truly thinks the Resistance is about to die, and maybe that's a good thing. All his life, he's been someone's puppet, a relic of the thinking that says JEDI-GOOD-EMPIRE-BAD. But now, he's on his own. He's killed both his fathers, and thinks his mother is dead. (There's still Luke, of course, but we'll get to him.) The only thing he needs now is Rey, but she clings to that very past he hates.

'Kill the past. Let it die,' he urges her. That's when the cruel truth about her family comes out - and let's face it, don't we think that on some level, she knew it? After all, where did Kylo get that information from? If he'd simply made it up, would it devastate her as much as it does? For Kylo, looking at Rey is like looking at the child he was, idealistic and clinging to something legendary. Better she leave that behind. 'They're nothing. You're nothing'.

'But not to me'.

Oh, Kylo.

He just can't help himself. In that moment, he's the child Ben Solo, raw with grief, abandoned by the uncle he hero-worshipped, and so very needy. And there's Rey, right there, and Kylo/Ben needs her to understand how he feels.

And he screws it up. Of course he does. For Kylo, there's nothing beyond that moment, just a vague dream of building something better than the train wreck his life has been. What matters, for him, is that he would have Rey beside him. He doesn't want to understand her commitment to a cause beyond herself, to an ideal. For him, ideals are lies, and sooner or later, those lies are exposed.

But - and here's the thing - HE LETS HER GO. He could easily have imprisoned her, but he doesn't. There's no dramatic escape sequence. He lets her go. And turns on Hux with all the anger that's always just below the surface. Frankly, Hux is lucky to escape with a bruised throat and a rumpled tunic.

And finally, there's the confrontation with Luke, who's doing a poor job of channelling Ben Kenobi. In fact, everything Luke does here is just goddamned nasty. First, his appearance - this is no weatherbeaten Jedi Master. This is Luke-the-teacher, just as he was back when Ben Solo was his most promising student. Yeah, I would have turned the full force of all those guns on him, too. Bastard.

But it gets worse. Luke doesn't try to talk to Kylo. There's no 'you don't have to do this, I sense the good in you' speech. The compassion he (and Kenobi) showed Vader is entirely gone. Luke does exactly what Snoke always did - gets right inside Kylo's head and twists.

'Strike me down in anger, and I will always be with you'. THANKS, LUKE. Way to make sure that particular trigger never stops going off. Just when Kylo has finally gotten free, up pops Uncle Luke to pound on that oldest, deepest fracture.

Of course Kylo tries. Graceless, stumbling, driven by hatred and love and grief and oh, a million other terrible things, Kylo tries to destroy the last tie to his old self. And Luke doesn't even have the stones to, you know, actually BE there. At least Ben actually faced Vader in person. Nope, there's just Kylo, making a fool of himself in front of the entire First Order. The disgust on Hux's face is amazing.

Even after his dramatic fade-to-black, Luke leaves one last nasty surprise. A vision of the gold dice that Han Solo kept after he used them to win the Millennium Falcon, instantly recognisable to the one who probably tried to play with them. Even those fade. Kylo's left in an abandoned Resistance Base, WITH NOTHING.

Kylo Ren. Child of impossible expectations, frightened boy, abused and angry teen. WHAT KIND OF A MAN DID YOU THINK HE WAS GOING TO BECOME?

Now, I don't want to believe that Kylo is now beyond redemption. I cling to the fact he let Rey go. But hey, you know what? If he's truly gone, if there's no hope, I'm okay with that too.

But never forget - he was made to be what he is now. And Snoke was only one of those who destroyed a child who might have been the brightest of the Light.

I'M LOOKING AT YOU, LUKE.