I just realized that Ben’s desperation for Rey to join him during the Proposal Scene ripples through their Bond so strongly that she feels it too.
See how he jerks his head when he says “Please”, and after a second or two, she jerks her head in response? She is mirroring him.
Ben is sending her all the anguish and longing he’s feeling, and she literally experiences emotional whiplash due to their Bond. She knows exactly what he’s going through because she feels it too.
In the Interrogation Scene, they shared loneliness and fear. In the Proposal Scene, they shared desperation and longing. And they’ll continue sharing their deepest, most vulnerable emotions with one another in Ep. 9. *cough LOVE cough*
Guys, this degree of emotional intimacy couldn’t scream “PREDESTINED LOVERS” any louder if it tried.
RIP my heart
hey op i think you crushed my heart thanks
@mysonkylo There’s nothing like some good ol’ murder in the morning ;_;
Homegirl did mark her territory, didn’t she? Property of Rey of Jakku
It says MINE on all his body.
That ‘naked’ scene is so symbollic on so many levels (besides being gratuous and getting Rey hot, aware of him as a man, flustered and awakened) – he’s exposed (as in nothing to hide, no lies), he’s exposed (as in vulnerable – naked flesh, no armor, no barrier), he is ‘visibly damaged’/scarred (always a stand-in for emotional wounds/scars they leave behind – they talk about his father’s murder and Luke’s attempt at murder, the most traumatic events to date), he is scarred (as in flawed – that body is nearly perfectly sculpted, but blemished => human), Rey gets to see the extent to which SHE left an impact/permanent mark on him – even where it doesn’t show when he’s dressed. So much going on!
@toawaterfowl and @garden-of-the-black-cat, as usual, thank you for your comments! She just did not know she was marking him… Interesting thing is that she marks him visually, but he has also marked her, except that it is more subtle: in the way she moves, fights, uses her power…
@clairen45 I do agree! I was thinking along those lines – he literally ‘takes’ her Force-virginity as ‘they discover the Force together’, so Rey is transformed by it, and she is also transformed visually (new outfit, new hair-do) due to the attraction and discovering womanhood through their relationship.
Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren says this to Daisy Ridley’s Rey at the turning point of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, in an attempt to coax her away from saving her friends and the rebellion—“Kill it, if you have to”—and toward starting over, with him.
Please, yes. Let it all die. Let the black-haired, pouty, linebacker-breasted fallen angel join hands with Jedi Sporty Spice and start a new world. Let them veer into some weird and gloriously unpopular galactic side road. Let Princess Leia go, before we have to watch another ghastly ghoulish CGI exhumation. Let Luke Skywalker go back to yellow-haired representations on moth-eaten Sears twin-sized sheets. Let Chewbacca go back to his family and Art Carney. Let no more billion-dollar trilogies of nostalgia choke out another generation’s attempts at new culture. Let the rebellion go, let the Empire—or the First Order, or whatever—go, let the Force and the Hero’s Journey and the old world and the old religion and the old serials and the whole gangrenous Hollywood system go, and just let these two fine young humans—or aliens, or whatever—make sweet love upon the firmament and give birth to new stars on the face of the deep. Yes, yes, yes, ’tistime.
The saddest spoiler from The Last Jedi Novelization
Ben Solo is a person who is willing to settle for almosts and not-quites when it comes to compassion, because he has absolutely none of it in his life. A reasonable facsimile of kindness is better than nothing at all.
He feels as though his family has kicked him to the curb, and the one person he dared to take a chance and care about about had also abandoned him. All he is left with is a hollow sense of thanks that she didn’t end his miserable life.
Ben heard his family calling him a monster when he was a child. This was hammered home when he woke to his uncle’s lightsaber poised at his neck.
People don’t love or care about monsters. Monsters don’t deserve compassion or forgiveness. They deserve death.
So Ben is thankful she didn’t kill him because that’s the closest he has had to getting the benefit of the doubt since he was a child.
This is the mindset when your worldview is hardwired by rejection and trauma.
You settle for scraps and factory seconds. Because when you are seen as a monster, that’s the only compassion you feel that you deserve.
That said. I look forward to Episode IX and am hopeful that the unconditional love that Rey could offer him would be transformative for him. If she is brave enough to love a monster, perhaps that could be the catalyst he needs to find the strength to love himself.
Because let’s face, he deserves more than almosts and not-quites.
So a poster on reddit who has the audiobook for TLJ, made a post listing the music that plays during certain scenes. The Rey and Kylo ones were particularly interesting:
When Kylo Sees Water on His Hand – End notes of Anakin’s Dream ROTS
Rey in Mirror Cave – Anakin’s Dream ROTS and first notes of Across the Stars AOTC
Rey Before Snoke (probably the elevator scene)– Padme’s Ruminations and Star Wars Theme
Fight Over the Lightsaber – Han Solo and the Princess ESB
Rey Contemplating Waiting for Kylo to Turn – Across the Stars AOTC
So they use Han and Leia’s theme AND Anakin and Padme’s theme for Rey and Kylo!!!
@corseque is someone in the fandom that I have mad respect for, as I’m sure all of you do as well! She made a video with every instance of The Force Theme/Binary Sunset musical leitmotif composed by John Williams, as it used across all 8 saga films. It’s 30 dang minutes long and a thing of glory – and she sent it to me with a request for some meta. I’m using this video as my main reference point. Here is her original request:
“I put together 99% of the times the Force Theme (Binary Sunset)* plays in all the Star Wars movies, including The Last Jedi. Since this music is used in interesting ways during Rey and Ben’s scenes together (the fight on Starkiller, the hand touch, the decision in Snoke’s Throne Room, etc), I wanted to edit all of them in one place for easier comparison reference, mostly so I could tempt tumblr users @enjoyallneednothing-blog and @reylo-musings (and anyone else who has more musical knowledge than me) to look through this and answer this questionasked me by @superkeenstarwarsbean:
“I heard something interesting in the scene where Ben and Rey touch hands. The three notes played with the left hand in Across the Stars plays softly and lowly under the force theme. Or at least something very similar. It’s hidden and hard to hear but there is definitely three notes played in much the same way its played in the prequel love theme.”
In this video, the hand touch is @25:31. As far as I can hear, this playing of the Force Theme sounds different than any other time the Force Theme is used in all the movies (I put them all together here just so people could easily check my work and correct me if I’m wrong).
interesting – the Force Theme seems to be used sometimes as romantic music during a few of Anakin and Padme’s scenes in the prequels, even when the Force is not being referenced or used. also interesting – how many, many times this theme appears in TLJ, especially compared to TFA.”
I want to answer the question of @superkeenstarwarsbean AND properly celebrate the awesome power of this theme, and I’m so sorry, but I really don’t think I can do it justice in one meta. So I’m breaking it up into three parts! The Force Theme in the Original Trilogy. The Force Theme in the Prequel Trilogy. And the The Force Theme in the Sequel Trilogy. I will get to the original question in the Sequel Trilogy segment – and I plan on having them all done by the end of this week, so not a huge wait I hope! 🙂
It’s entirely possible that this is John Williams’ most well known and beloved piece of music – and that’s saying a lot. Can you remember the first time you saw the scene in Ep IV: A New Hope, where young Luke gazes out at the binary sunset, and the questioning french horn swells with strings and harp into a mystical theme of longing and struggle? I know you do. Cuz I do. I remember that shit like it was yesterday.
In his comprehensive catalog of John Williams Star Wars Leitmotifs, Frank Lehman labels this theme “Force/Obi-Wan/All Purpose.” We’ll get in to why the Force Theme is sometimes used in an “All Purpose” manner, but I really hate when I see it described as being used “like wallpaper.” That’s a common theme in criticism of The Last Jedi score and essentially, I think it’s hogwash. Balderdash. Poppycock. You get my drift.
This scene above is actually the second time we hear the Force Theme – the first time is a brief statement as Leia gives the Death Star plans to R2-D2. The music segues into Princess Leia’s theme as we get the wide shot of the Princess and Artoo in the hallway. As New Yorker Music Critic Alex Ross notes:
“Something more substantial happens in the celebrated scene in which young Luke Skywalker looks longingly toward a horizon lit by twin setting suns, dreaming of a life beyond the desert planet Tatooine. Williams writes a melancholy, expansive G-minor theme for solo horn, which is soon taken up by full strings. Akin to the noble C-minor melody that Wagner writes for Siegfried, this leitmotif represents not only Luke but also the mystical medium known as the Force. Buhler points out that the music is heard before the Force has been explained; thus, in classic Wagnerian fashion, it foreshadows the not-yet-known. This may be the point at which “Star Wars” steps out of the adolescent-adventure arena and into the realm of modern myth.”
But what’s actually happening with this iconic theme? Why can it be used in so many different scenarios and work SO WELL for what’s happening onscreen, and in our character’s inner worlds of emotion? Or as Richards says, “Emotionally, the theme ranges from the gentle poignancy of cues like this that can bring a tear to one’s eye to a brash militarism that can rouse the spirits and make us root for the good guys. So what is it that gives this theme its emotional qualities and makes it such a perfect fit for what we see onscreen?”
I’m putting the rest behind a cut because it got way, way long 🙂
I’m seconding the love for @corseque and also @enjoyallneednothing-blog as the queen of deciphering the music of this trilogy and we do not deserve her. This is brilliant. I love how The Force theme is the emotional resonance that ties together the whole saga.
That last force bond scene has so many levels my small brain can’t even comprehend it properly.
It starts off with Ben dismissing his soldiers, pushing people away to be left alone.
Meanwhile, Rey is welcoming everyone onboard the Falcon and making sure everyone got in okay.
Kylo kneeling down to find this very representative thing of his past, lo and behold Rey is there, on the ship in which those ‘dice’ came from.
Ren, the most powerful man in this damn galaxy right now, is in a Knight Kneel TM in front of Rey who once again, has the higher ground. (The way it echoes TFA is beautiful).
Both Rey and Ren who probably at this point realized that their bond was fake and so was anything that came with it suddenly realize it was real. Well, I think Rey always thought it was real… it was Ren who thought he was tricked when Rey didn’t stay with him.
And now this manic high is super low again because this is his fault. He could blame everything else on his family, snoke, whatever, but THIS ONE, was his fault. The bond was real. And now it’s closed off from him.
She ends the movie with friends and family, he ends it alone. And no one is left to blame but himself.
And his final shot is him bowing his head while the dice fade away.
IN A MIND TRAIN NOTE: Wait. DID LEIA LEAVE THOSE DICE FOR BEN TO FIND BECAUSE THAT’S MY HEADCANON NOW.
I just got back from Solo. I LOVED it, and I’m pretty shook about that pairing. Guys, this movie has significant implications for us Reylo shippers. I am dying to share this meta with you because this movie provided a treasure trove of parallels and insights.
**************Spoilers below!!***************
The romantic pairing of Qi’ra and Han Solo has huge implications for Reylo. Why? This relationship- which I’m going to call Qi’rolo – is both an echo and foil to Reylo.
It’s not a perfect inverse, just like Anidala is not a perfect inverse of Reylo. But it has many, manyelements that echo Reylo, and other elements that inverse it.
Let’s just go over a few of the similarities.
Similarities between Qi’ra and Ben
1. The girl (boy) who initially fell to darkness due to forces beyond her (his) own control.
Qi’ra was captured by Lady Proxima’s henchmen while she and Han were attempting to escape Corellia. When she reunites with Han years later, she states that she “never got out” of the cycle of trafficking / exploitation by criminal overlords in fact, she now works for an even more brutal crime syndicate. She feels very much resigned to her fate.
Compare this with Ben, who has been manipulated from birth by Snoke, neglected by his parents (who didn’t mean to hurt him, but neglected him nonetheless), and then pushed over the edge by Luke trying to murder him. Two characters with little choice but to turn to the darkness, at least for their initial fall.
2. The girl (boy) under the influence of an evil (disfigured) overlord.
Qi’ra’s relationship with Dryden Vos is strikingly similar to Ben’s relationship with Snoke – the manipulation, demand of unquestioning devotion, etc. Dryden even inappropriately touches Qi’ra, just like Snoke does with Ben. Both of these dynamics are meant to evoke extremely unsettling, predatory undertones.
3. The girl (boy) who felt it was too late.
Think about Qi’ra telling Han that she has done terrible things to survive, and that she doesn’t want him knowing what she’s gone through. She tells Han that they can’t simply run away together after the job is done- that it could “never happen.” The subtext: “it’s too late.”
Similarly, “It’s too late” is exactly what Ben tells Han in TFA. He repeats it again the TLJ novelization when he senses Leia (“It’s too late to be sorry, mother.”). Interestingly, however, Ben never tells Rey it’s too late. He seems to cock his head at her as if to say, “I wish you were right [that it isn’t too late], but it is,” but he never says the words aloud. I think that’s hugely significant, because of course, it isn’t too late for Ben when it comes to Rey. She is the only one that can inspire him to choose a different path.
4. The girl (boy) who killed the evil overlord to save her (his) beloved.
Qi’ra repeatedly expressed concern that Dryden was going to kill Han if they didn’t succeed at the mission. Her concern about the threat to Han’s life was emphasized throughout the film nonverbally as well, thanks to Emilia Clarke’s fantastic expressions.
Qi’ra is no Hux. She wasn’t lurking in the corners with a knife up her sleeve so she could stage a coup and ascend to power. She killed Dryden to save Han.
Similarly, we all know that Snoke got turned into sashimi (to quote the lovely @cosmo-gonika) after he tortured Rey and intended to kill her.
5. The girl (boy) who assumed the place of the evil overlord after killing him, falling further into darkness.
Qi’ra and Ben both kill their respective masters when Han and Rey’s lives are threatened. They then proceed to “double down” on their dark path – Qi’ra by contacting Darth Maul and stating that she has resumed Dryden Vos’ place, and Ben by assuming Snoke’s mantle in the Throne Room (though he desires to co-rule with Rey).
There is a key difference in this parallel, however: Qi’ra continues on her dark path reluctantly. Again, thanks to Emila Clarke’s beautiful acting, we can see that she agonizes about her decision from the instant Han leaves in the elevator. It’s not a choice she makes without regret or sadness.
Ben, on the other hand, chooses to become Supreme Leader willingly. He has a brief moment where he is overwhelmed by the enormity of it all, but then he steels himself and asks Rey to join him. And recall RJ’s quote from the commentary: “I wanted to bring him closer to being the villain that he wanted to be in The Force Awakens, to some point.” This was a choice Ben made with full and free agency.
This distinction is important because Qi’ra is resigned to her fate- a fate that she knows is not a good path. Ben, on the other hand, thinks that he is choosing the right path by ascending to the role of Supreme Leader. He’s in for a rude awakening in Ep. 9, and his revelation that this is not the path he should have chosen, or one he wants to continue on, will be key to his redemption.
Similarities between Han and Rey
1. The boy (girl) who clung to his place of birth.
Han literally says in the film that he’s been away from Corellia too long (when he’s still looking for Qi’ra). Compare to Rey: “I’ve already been away too long.” Both Han and Rey have yet to accept that a simple truth: what they left on their home planet is never coming back. (Qi’ra for Han, and parents for Rey).
2. The boy (girl) who wouldn’t give up on his (her) fallen beloved.
“There’s nothing you could have done that would make me change the way I see you.” (not an exact quote, but it’s the gist of what Han says to Qi’ra when she tells him that she’s done horrible things, and is afraid he’ll look at her differently if he knows). Alden gives such a beautifully impassioned delivery of this line, too. He really wants Qi’ra to accept this truth, but she fails to internalize it in the end.
This line is quite similar to what Rey says to Ben in TLJ: “It isn’t too late.” Also, recall Daisy Ridley’s quote about what she finds so admirable in Rey: “She really sees the glimmer in Kylo, that there’s some good there. And she goes with it, and I think that’s pretty wonderful.” Rey remains hopeful for Ben, and willing to see the good in him, despite all the terrible things he’s done. (He isn’t there yet, but he will internalize this truth in Ep. 9- i.e., that it isn’t too late for him.).
3. The boy (girl) whose plea for his (her) beloved to leave their dark path was rejected.
Han is anxious for Qi’ra to leave Dryden Vos and resume their plan to run away together as soon as they first reunite. Qi’ra resists, Han persists.
In their heartbreaking parting scene, Qi’ra lies to Han- assuring that she will be right behind him, and join him and Chewie to leave it all behind. Instead she communicates with Darth Maul (revealed to be another “higher up” in her crime syndicate) and plans a rendezvous with him, thus leaving the planet- and the potential of a new life with Han- behind.
In TLJ, Rey may be the one who “leaves,” but only after Ben rejects her plea to turn back to the light. Rey comes to Ben on the Finalizer to take him home with her and fulfill the vision she saw– so that they can “start a new Jedi order and never be alone again” [TLJ storybook.] But Ben rejects Rey’s entreaty to abandon his path of darkness and destruction.
Next, the differences- and these are important.
How Qi’rolo differs from Reylo
1. Qi’ra and Han are lovers at the start, and part as sad, reluctant strangers. Reylo are enemies at the start, and will end together as lovers and partners who know each other more intimately than anyone.
Many brilliant Reylos have said this all along: if a couple starts out in love, or falls in love relatively quickly in a Star Wars film / trilogy, we should be worried. Qi’rolo now joins Anidala in that tradition.
It’s honestly a very good thing for us Reylo shippers that Reylo had a rocky start in TFA, and ended apart in TLJ. Transformation and separation are always part of Star Wars romances. It’s clear that Reylo is headed towards union, not divide.
Also: a key theme in both of these canon romances involves the extent to which you really know the other person. Remember when Beckett questions whether Han really knows Qi’ra as well as he thinks he does? The uncomfortable truth about Beckett’s character in Solo is that he’s often right, even at his lowest, dirtiest (morally speaking) moments.
Han no longer knows Qi’ra– she is no longer the same person he grew up with. He seems to accept this at the end: Qi’ra has fundamentally changed from her experiences, whereas he has remained “one of the good guys” at heart.
Compare this with Ben and Rey. In TLJ, their dynamic was propelled forward by Ben challenging Rey’s assertion that she knew everything she needed to know about him, because she, in fact, did not really know him.
But as their Force bond grew stronger throughout TLJ, it became harder from them to “hide” their true selves from one another- they saw each other’s thoughts, emotions, pasts, and futures. When they finally unite in Ep. 9, their partnership will consist of two people who know each other more intimately than any normal lovers ever could.
2. Han grew up with Qi’ra. Rey and Ben first meet as adults.
When I caught this plot point in Solo, I thought of the original script that George Lucas was rumored to have written for the ST – in which Ben and Kira (Rey) trained together at the Jedi temple, and Ben spared her life when he destroyed it. So Kira (Rey) would have seen “through the monster” after Ben fell to the dark side, and always believed that he could return to the man he once was.
I’m so glad that they changed Rey’s backstory, because it’s much harder for someone from your past to “bring you back” when you have gone through enormous hardship and transformation. You can never fully go back to being the person you once were.
Qi’ra is the perfect example. After she and Han finally reunited, Qi’ra wasn’t– and couldn’t be– the same bright-eyed girl who wanted to escape from Corellia in a shiny new ship and run away with him. That was simply a future that she no longer envisioned to be possible for her, even though Han desperately wanted it to be.
Rey has the best chance of accepting Ben for who he can be – for who he chooses to be – precisely because she looks at him with a fresh pair of eyes, completely unbiased by the heavy shackles of his past (i.e., his legacy as a Skywalker – Solo, his former life as Ben Solo, etc.). So Rey will ultimately succeed where Han could not in saving her beloved.
3. Qi’ra is still beholden to another master (Darth Maul). Ben has no more evil overlords to manipulate or terrorize him.
The fact that Qi’ra kills one master (Dryden Vos) to serve another (Darth Maul) reminds us that, like Darth Vader, she is still very much a slave on her dark path. She makes choices, to be sure- but she is still operating with less than full autonomy. She still is doing what she thinks she must do. It’s not about what she wants or freely chooses to do.
In contrast, Disney /LF did something incredibly brilliant by killing off all of Ben’s “masters” (past and present) at the end of TLJ. To quote RJ in his director’s commentary:
“I wanted to bring him closer to being the villain that he wanted to be in The Force Awakens, to some point. With Kylo, I knew I wanted to kind of, by the end of this film—he’s not Vader, but he has come into his own as a sort of villain, but hopefully one that you now have, and that maybe more- as importantly, that Rey now has- a level of understanding of.”
In order to complete the arc into (literary) adulthood- in order to earn redemption- Ben must realize that the path he freely chose was a mistake, and that he no longer wants to pursue it. He can’t be a victim anymore to his parental figures’ abuse (Snoke), neglect (Han and Leia), or critical mistakes (Luke). As he transitions from (metaphorical) adolescence to adulthood, “it’s just him now.” He must determine the kind of man he wants to be without the influence of any masters, past or present.
In sum…
Guys, Solo is a gift to Reylo shippers. The parallels are incredibly strong, and when it comes to the issues and character arcs that killed Qi’rolo, it’s clear the Reylo dynamic is headed in the precise opposite direction.
Not only is Reylo going to heal two broken hearts, end the destructive conflict that has plagued the galaxy for thousands of years, bring balance to the Force, and make Anidala right– it’s also going to fix the problems of Qi’rolo, too.
What a ship, you guys.
*****IMPORTANT!! If you reblog this, please use one or more of the following hashtags: #solo spoilers #sw spoilers #star wars spoilers #spoilers
**final note: please check out my reblogged reply to @clairen45 for a discussion of how Qi’rolo (which I’ve since learned is also called Hanqira) actually makes HanLeia even more emotionally moving andpowerful.
I already typed out this post and deleted it accidentally fml
DISCLAIMER: idk if these numbers are 100% correct and i’m only okay-ish at math let me live
OK SO I was writing fic as one does and I need to calculate the distance between Coruscant and Xa Fel, and while staring at the Star Wars Galaxy Map, I realize that there is a way. You know that “real world math” bullshit your math teacher told you you’d use? Well, here it is.
While calculating the distance of the two planets with the use of the distance formula, I suddenly wondered how far Rey actually traveled to meet up with Ben over near Crait. Turns out, quite a lot.
So the formula in question here is the distance formula aka
Great, right? *Insert war flashbacks to geometry class here* ok no i know but stay with me here. In case you don’t know, you need to input the numbers of two sets of coordinates to find like any line distance. Great formula, really. Right, so what’s next?
Well, the coordinates of Ahch-To and Crait are (-9774.08, -5568.55) and (3720.76, -11167.14) respectively. Input that into the formula and you get this lovely set:
Ugh, yes. Now, don’t get me wrong, I can’t do math. That’s why I have my handy dandy Desmos calculator do it for me. And what do we get from Desmos? 14610.096393. Long decimal, perfect. But that’s only in parsecs, so it doesn’t give us lightyears. If only—
YES. To calculate lightyears, all you have to do is multiply your parsecs numbers by 3.26. 14610.096393*3.26=47628.9142412. Even longer decimal, less perfect. Let’s round to 47,629.
So Rey traveled approximately 47,629 lightyears to get some dick from her space bf. (And failed RIP maybe next time)
And that is how math fits into Reylo. You’re welcome.
Reylo Source 