I wonder if, one of the reasons that Rey reached a place of understanding Kylo in a relatively short amount of time was that, on learning what happened to him, she just, understood not only his loneliness, but his anger.
Rey has always come off to me as someone with a lot of barely suppressed anger (and I think this is going to finally come out in a major way in IX.) And her anger and Kylo’s anger come from such similar places.
I definitely think there’s some measure of truth in this. I think the real tragedy of the Rey/Kylo romance in The Last Jedi is that they’re connecting deeply without really understanding what the other person is saying or why they’re doing what they’re doing.
Their relationship is at its best when it is at its most pure – so when they’re admitting how lonely they are to each other, for example. There is no ulterior motive to that – they’re just two isolated youths bonding over their shared feelings of loneliness and abandonment.
And things fall apart when their divergent goals become apparent – Kylo wants Rey to want him purely for himself, all factions aside, and Rey wants Kylo to prove that he is worthy of her trust by showing mercy to her friends, wilfully ignoring the fact that Kylo considers the Resistance the enemy. They can’t be what the other person wants them to be, and that causes them to part.
Gonna be the bad guy here: this is a nice clip for promo, but man, when it happens in the film it sticks out like a sore thumb. Like in the context of the movie, and in light of the events Rey goes through to get to this point, this scene should have been cut.
Initially it does seem out of place given all the circumstances that had just happened before that point, but there’s that argument about whether this is Rey playing the part of plucky hero as a coping mechanism of some sort.
People just want abuse victims that are soft and kind and gentle, the kind of victims who validate their beliefs that “everything happens for a reason”. It doesn’t occur to these people that abuse actually damages people, that it could turn victims bitter and resentful rather than into poster-children for resilience and inner-strength. Victims don’t just exist to pay homage to your worldview that “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” as if abuse could ever be a positive or an experience to be grateful for.
honestly, im sick of the woobifying this ship has undergone since TLJ
if rey loves ben and only ben, then i’m out, because reylo to me stands for deconstruction, not reconstruction
rey is not supposed to bring ben solo back, because that kid is dead
TRYING TO BE BEN SOLO is what got him in this mess. IT AINT HEALTHY for his ass to still be ben solo!!! it’s a myth. just like the jedi have been romanticized and turned into myth – aka what uncle luke said.
he can’t undo what he has done and what has been done to him. he can’t go back. the only way is forward, as maz said.
our boy is supposed to come out of this trilogy not being kylo OR ben.
rey keeps calling him ben because she wants to connect to him on a deeper level, but what she saw in TLJ was a mixture of both and neither. it complicates matters because when he held out his bare hand to touch her? he wasn’t ben!! they were just done talking about her lowering herself into the dark pit. he was listening to her about her experience with the dark side!! that moment is fucking soft because it transcends ben solo/kylo ren. he is someone else and she is someone else, they are new together. they are making their own path.
honestly, while i do love the angsty aspect of her repeatedly calling him ben, the goal is for her to eventually stop calling him that. loving ben means loving an incomplete ghost. all this shit has to be transcended.
now, if at the end of the trilogy he still wants to go by “ben”, fine, whatever, but he WON’T be “ben solo, Good Guy” by any stretch of the imagination. he will be grey, just like rey.
so like, you can talk about benrey, but imo that’s just a nice little AU and it doesn’t fully grasp the complicated, fascinating roots of reylo.
if she doesnt love the kylo in him and focuses on a mythical ben, then yeaa…they aint gonna make it
Sometimes I can’t stop thinking about the fact that Rey possesses Kylo’s everything. She has his family’s legacy lightsaber. She had a job offer from his dad. She has his Wookie uncle as her co-pilot. She has his father’s ship. She has his mother’s affection and guidance. She had lessons from his uncle. She has his passionate, conflicted heart.
The girl owns him in every possible way. Is he angry? Resentful? Nope. He’s fascinated. In awe. Totally enamored. He’s asking her for more. How can anyone not think, how can Kylo not believe, she’s his destiny?
this is fucking everything.
she came into his life and captured him in every way possible
This is the most beautiful and accurate post ever written about them.
Did anyone else notice that when Snoke brings the lightsaber around to smack Rey upside the head with it, Kylo just casually tilts his head to the side to dodge it?
The quality is crap, but he definitely moves his head. @jxniiper
He also stays in this tense state after moving. He doesn’t immediately go back – it’s not a casual move out of the way. It’s a move of trauma, expectation. Like when you’re wincing, anticipating for the hit to come… it’s tragic.
They purposefully did a close up of his face, even going so far as to blur out Hux in the background.
(When it’s happening in real time on screen, it’s easy to miss, which is why I appreciate gif makers so much.)
You are supposed to see Kylo/Ben’s reaction to this statement. You are supposed to see what he’s feeling. You are supposed to take notice and see how broken and hurt he is.
He went for broke, and she left him, while he was unconscious. That is what’s going through his mind right now.
He’s hurting. Possibly worse than he’s ever hurt before. This is a pain worse than anything snoke could have caused him.
This is a betrayal.
A betrayal by the one person in the entire galaxy who he relates to.
Who he understands.
Who understands him.
And after the assumption that his mother is dead,
The one person left in the galaxy that he loves.
I just-
And at the very end you see his jaw start to harden and you can practically see his thoughts.
“Of course she left, she didn’t want me. Not even my parents wanted me, why would she be any different. She was just using me like everyone else. Everything was fake and I fell for it. Why would I think someone like her could love me? Im unlovable. No one could love someone like me. Snoke was right, I am no Vader, I am a weak lovesick fool who fell for a lie.”
you are NOT overthinking it, and it gets even better.
Rian is very careful about when he is framing Ben in the shots during that speech with Snoke. I made a video of that little speech so you could see EXACTLY what phrases the camera switches back to Ben (as if the camera is saying HEY HEY HEY HEY HEY pay attention) but I’m afraid of my blog getting deleted, so I’ll just have to describe it with gifs instead.
Snoke says (exact quote from subtitles): “Skywalker lives. The seed of the Jedi Order lives. And as long as it does, hope lives in the galaxy.”
The camera switches back to Ben at (2) very specific and deliberate points during this speech, when Snoke says “the seed” and when Snoke says “hope (lives in the galaxy),” Ben literally pops into frame like a daisy.
Like it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to realize that Snoke is unknowingly describing the “last living skywalker” as the “hope” and the “seed” (implying procreation as well as flourishing/growing continuation) to the actual LAST LIVING SKYWALKER in the star wars franchise. And the camera is being nearly obnoxious – Rian could have easily switched to Ben mid-sentence, but he did…………… not do that.
Snoke continues: “I thought you would be the one to snuff it out. Alas, you’re no Vader. You’re just a child in a mask.” (he is literally saying that Ben will NOT snuff the hope of the galaxy out (much the opposite), and he isn’t wrong. Just in this movie, Ben’s emotionality allows the spark of the resistance to escape and burst into flames again, let alone what will happen next movie.)
^^^ Important to remember when you’re fretting over Ep9.
What I like about Ben/Kylo’s decision after defeating the Praetorian Guard is that it shows how things like conversion and salvation are not instantaneous, clearly identifiable, clean-cut events. They are journeys, processes, sometimes nonlinear. Choosing to be good is not a one-time event, it is something you must choose again and again.
Han Solo to baby Ben in Aftermath: Empire’s End:
“Hey. It’s you and me, kid. Whole damn galaxy against us but we’ll make it through okay. I’m not always gonna be the best dad—c’mon, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing here. I can barely take care of myself. But I’ll always keep us pointed in the right direction…even if we zig and zag a little to get there. There’s your first lesson: Sometimes doing the right thing doesn’t mean following a straight line. Sometimes you gotta—” He takes his hand and gestures with it like it’s a fish swimming this way and that, left and right and up and down. “Don’t tell your mother I said that.”
Reylo Source 