Aside from MEEEE (lol) I would start by just browsing through my followed accounts https://twitter.com/reylosource – I don’t follow a ton, but the ones I do are all quality =)
I don’t follow a ton of accounts both on twitter and tumblr, because I like my timeline to be familiar – but I follow the #reylo tag on both so I can see all the good stuff as I want to. So I’ll RT and engage with a lot of random stuff, because I just like seeing people engage with Reylo on twitter (hence my bio).
No I have no idea! But I imagine it’s similar to stuff other groups use, just a way to narrow the tracking – like on tumblr, the general tags vs specific tags (edits, fanmixes). Since the movie, the Reylo hashtag on twitter has been delightfully active, however I imagine if you wanted to identify others with perhaps a common language, that might be the best way to do it.
So it’s likely it’s just their way of identifying and tracking stuff from within their subgroup! Neat, I hadn’t noticed before. =)
Kylo is 10 years older than Rey canonically, so they’re not twins. He’s 29, she’s 19 – almost 20.
The reason Rey knew how to pilot anything much less the Falcon was because she scrapped together and fixed a flight simulator in her AT-AT and learned how to fly using that. You learn about it in one of the books (I think several mention it).
She sees Kylo in the mirror cave because the cave is showing where to find her answer – her identity is not something it will show her, because she already knows it (who her parents are). But she sees Kylo because he’s her future, not her past. And within him lay some of her answers – because he’s the one who will stand by her side in the future, and also the one who gets her to admit and come to terms with the fact that she’s from nothing, but that doesn’t have to define who she is.
Sooooooo yeah =)
We know JJ liked the Knights of Ren (obviously, he created them), but I just don’t know if he’d pull them back in for the 3rd movie.
I’ve always headcanon’d (as most of the fandom) that the KoR were the fallen Jedi apprentices – TLJ seems to support that, as Luke mentions that Ben left ‘with a handful of students’. And we know that essentially they did errands for Kylo/Snoke – across the galaxy, gathering Jedi relics, maybe killing force users, etc. to eradicate them.
However we haven’t seen them outside of the forceback shot of Rey’s in TFA, there were maybe 5-6 of them and they didn’t really have lightsabers, they had all sorts of odd weapons.
It’s possible that the Praetorian Guards ended up being the KoR/Jedi students, who knows.
What I do know is that it is unlikely we see them in the film – I sense that we might get some explanation and backstory in a novel or comics perhaps – maybe even a TV show.
I think it’s far more likely that we’ll see a FO army that Kylo is struggling to maintain control of, and Hux possibly being a little rogue with them – striking places without permission, etc. which leads into a big conflict in the end.
So I don’t think it’s likely that we see KOR in the movies, or Rey joining them. I think it’s pretty clear that Rey is going to move the Jedi forward – but take them back to their roots. Which, as pointed out, are far more rooted in balance than we’ve seen them previously.
OH GOODNESS, what an entry into Star Wars! Delightful.
So some would recommend the machete order, some chronological order – it kind of depends on where you are with SW honestly. Like the machete order chops it up so that the big twists/reveals aren’t spoiled while also maintaining the ‘good’ in star wars (cause if you start with the prequels it’s like..oof, a little hard to maintain interest for some – understandably).
But honestly if you’ve seen TFA and TLJ, I would just start with the prequels and go through them, yes even the Phantom Menace.
I recommend this with the huge caveat that they’re not very good. So just kind of be prepared to not have them feel like TFA/TLJ, they’re GOOD in the sense that they really expanded the universe and dove deep into a world where the Jedi were common(ish) and all over.
So with that in mind, my personal suggestions –
There are a multitude of books that are considered new-canon now, but I think the list above will keep you quite busy. It’s important to note also that while there are decades of expanded lore and books, most o f those are not canon now – when Disney purchased LF they created their ‘new canon’ as it was a big mess TBH. So a lot of the stuff that you see sometimes mentioned in metas/speculations might be from the ‘Legends/Expanded Universe’ – mainly because we know that they’re pulling certain things from there and making it their own in the new canon.
So anyway, I’d start there and see how you feel =) There’s also another TV show (Rebels), but ultimately the list above will give you the best feel for the world as a starting point.
oh boy.
OKAY SO, those of you know I was never big on the whole ‘Ben Solo’ thing – I liked imagining who he WAS, but I didn’t like the idea that once redeemed he’d just be Ben Solo again. I was on the side of ‘he’s Kylo Ren and whomever he evolves into he’ll never go back to being Ben Solo so stop calling him that’ – but my goodness the movie changed that stance thoroughly.
I think…Ben Solo is quiet, but traumatized and emotionally unstable just like Kylo Ren, meaning he still carries that darkness, those outbursts. We see it in TFA when he attacks inanimate objects instead of people – that’s a really important distinction that they made in his ‘tantrums’.
I think he’s troubled, but kind. Honest and blunt, definitely a little awkward around people.
Desperate to fit in – throws himself into the hunt for Jedi relics, writes and muses about the philosophy, all in an attempt to fit what he thinks Luke and his mother/parents want. Because he knows, has always known, that deep down inside he’s not Luke – there’s something inside of him that’s dark, and scary. And it’s not just Snoke, who was trying to get to him even in Leia’s womb, it’s the Force in general – he has such a great power, a prodigy like Rey, but the Force is both Light and Dark and when you have great capacity for one you have it with the other. And so I think he sees Luke as this great, mythical, pure Jedi and wonders – angrily, probably – why he can’t be more like him.
So I think he also has cultivated a superiority complex based on that, his parents, his upbringing (nobility), his ‘rightful’ place in a destiny that the Force has shown him, etc. and this is all stoked and turned into flames by Snoke.
I think he’s always been alone, if not physically then emotionally separated from those who were supposed to care for him.
I think Kylo Ren is…all those things, but suppressed through years of abuse, manipulation, dark side use, emotional trauma, etc. by Snoke & religious (FO) fervor. He found someone – Snoke – who gave him a place, told him a grand story about how he was the next coming of Vader – a LEGEND in the galaxy. And Kylo found a place where his skills were to be applauded rather than feared, where he could ascend to rightfully rule, yadda yadda.
So when we see Kylo Ren ‘turn’ or become Ben Solo, we’re not so much seeing a new person – but we’re seeing the persona lift up. We see it with Rey. Ben’s curiosity, studious nature, he’s very calm with her, his honesty – and we see his compassion for her. He listens to her worries, really listens. To what she needs: to not feel alone in this effort, with this Force power. And he gives it to her freely, no strings. That’s Ben Solo.
I really loved their scene too, I thought it was so appropriate and heartbreaking at the same time. I didn’t want them to fight, so what I got was so much better (even though they kind of fought sort of).
Luke was giving the spark time to escape, and finally facing his mistake – Kylo. He never apologized, never explained, and he got his chance. Kylo definitely would have killed Luke without a lot of remorse (like Han’s death had caused), because to Kylo, Luke literally tried to kill him in his sleep. That’s traumatizing and no one did anything to explain afterwards (that we know of, Luke just ran off basically).
So yeah, I think Luke took the opportunity to not only save the resistance, but to just…apologize and be with Ben in his last moments. Whether the apology was accepted or not, it was genuine, and dying in that way means that for sure he’ll be a Force ghost like Obi-Wan and Yoda, which means that he can be there in times of need, for Ben or Rey.
I think it’s a little cruel what happened, but it was the only way to ensure that he could both apologize and save his nephew from further bloodshed and put him way beyond redemption. It was beautiful in a way. I intend to write a lot about Luke’s story in a forthcoming meta.
Kylo is…complex, of course, but it goes so much deeper than that. I know Ohtze is writing a big ol’ meta about it and has a LOOOT of similar thoughts of mine, so I’ll kind of hold off on diving deep here about it until that comes out.
But, in general, they are and have painted a picture of someone who has been deeply emotionally and physically traumatized by most of the people in his life at various levels, but most significantly Snoke and Luke.
When Rey rejects him in such an aggressive way, it triggers him and you immediately start to see the reaction to it each step of the way.
The entire final act is just a series of Kylo being fucked with by all of the triggers he has (not intentionally by them, but in the narrative) – Rey’s abandonment, the Falcon (Han), Luke showing up…he progressively gets more deranged and there’s a REASON for that. It goes far far beyond a childish ‘I didn’t get my way’ attitude, this is emotional trauma from someone who has never dealt with it.
And this isn’t excusing his actions, but they’re showing it to us so that we understand them – his behavior – a little more. We can somewhat sympathize with him in some respects – the way Rey does.
Anyway, this was a bit more than you asked for – but to wrap it up, again don’t freak about antis as there’s no winning with them. At all. We’ve seen it proven time and again that Disney gives no fucks about their cries.
Yep. “She had seen this man before, in a daydream, in a nightmare.”
The FORCE ITSELF wants these two to be together, jfc. Like, sending Rey dreams and visions of Kylo/Ahch-To/etc. – Kylo’s IMMEDIATE interest in her. The force bond, the balance, the fact that the force is CLEARLY GETTING ANNOYED AF WITH THEM BOTH TIMES THEY FIGHT – THE GROUND SPLITS IN TFA, THE FUCKING LIGHTSABER EXPLODES IN TLJ AND KNOCKS THEM OUT.
Like, regardless of whether or not Snoke just manipulated it, I’m pretty sure the bond was there and created in the interrogation scene. There’s a REASON it has been so prevalent in fandom these past two years, it’s not just fangirl speculation.
Kylo was curious, not sure what it was or how it came to be – force bonds are rare and ofc in their era all the knowledge (or a lot of it) was lost. It’s possible that Kylo believed Snoke was the one who created and manipulated it, but I’m of a mind to believe that Kylo knew deep down it was real – that it was Force-given. There are hints about it, but I think Kylo is a big believer in the Force and it’s ‘ways’, so for something like this to exist…he knows it’s for a reason.
But he was so emotional traumatized by Snoke that, when she rejected his offer, he lost it – second guessed himself again and got severely triggered.
Anyway, yes the force bond was likely a natural occurrence from TFA. If Snoke had anything to do with it, it was mostly a manipulation of Kylo’s emotional state to make him more vulnerable when it happened.
Heya – so in the first page (literally as I opened it) of The Last Jedi Visual Dictionary, there is a small image:
And there is an image elsewhere at the END of the book that’s the same thing but has scrolls with ‘Jedi Insights’ wrapped around it too. I might take more pictures later.
Anyway, so THIS is the box that you see in the flashbacks briefly with the lightsaber in the hut. And it’s important for you to understand the context too:
Paper, ink, all of that was EXTREMELY rare and not used at all in Star Wars universe. Particular attention is brought to that fact (that it’s rare) in Bloodlines. So the fact that Ben practiced the art of writing on scrolls and calligraphy is really interesting, and speaks to his scholarly/soft personality.
Calligraphy is ‘fancy handwriting’ so that’s also why you have that joke kind of thrown around, but ultimately…
When I saw it there, I immediately got very sad, because of all the memories and images you start thinking about with Ben Solo in his wooden hut, far away from the temple where he studied, writing down insights and philosophical musings about the Jedi. And then you have Luke, who saw that his heart was full of darkness still. And it’s just…idk, really sad.
Reylo Source 