Amid the BARE WHITE TREES, ONLY TWO LIGHTSABERS – LUKE’S
BLUE AND REN’S YELLOW-RED – ILLUMINATE the FLURRIES OF SNOW
as Rey and Kylo Ren BATTLE HARD.
She seems to be, impossibly, STRONGER THAN HE IS for half a
dozen blows – until he FINDS HIS STRENGTH and FIGHTS BACK –
MOVING FORWARD and PUSHING REY BACK, into the forest.
Suddenly a COLOSSAL CHUNK OF THE FOREST RIGHT BEHIND REY
DROPS AWAY! Rey is suddenly fighting on the EDGE OF A
MASSIVE, BRAND NEW CLIFF!
See that first gif? He deflects her saber, which was aiming to stab him.
In the second gif, she turns her back to him and he just follows without attempting to strike.
The third, fourth and fifth are the same: he lands hard strikes onto her lightsaber, but only her lightsaber. She loses balance more often than not, yet he doesn’t take advantage of it.
Would you, being a strong Force user and trained in lightsaber combat, pull your punches? Wouldn’t you take every chance you get to cut your enemy down if that’s what you’re going for? Would you stop and chat with your enemy, offer her guidance, if you wanted her dead?
Whether if it’s because he’s intrigued by her or he realises she’d be a powerful ally, he’s not going for the kill.
Must it be written in crayons to make it more obvious?
So it’s probably no secret that the tales of King Arthur influenced the original trilogy. Probably not the same degree that Kurosawa films influenced the OT, but certainly any story about a boy receiving a Very Special Magic Sword will inevitably be traced back to King Arthur. There’s also some more amusing and possibly unintentional similarities, such as the boy’s best friend totally stealing the affection of the girl he fancied, and then there’s a revelation that the girl he macked on was actually his sister…
There’s been some discussion of how that influence has been magnified in TFA, with some scenes, imagery, and characters playing far more direct references to the legends. Which is where Kylo Ren comes in.
If there is a single character in all of western AND eastern literary history that is the biggest contributor to Kylo Ren’s creation, it is Mordred.
Firstly, presuming you already know who King Arthur is, you may heard of Mordred. He wasn’t always that important a character in the oldest versions of the stories, but with the resurgence of interest in the romanticised versions of King Arthur, Mordred has become a fixture. So bearing in mind there is no straight ‘canon’ when it comes to King Arthur, we’ll be sticking to the most common modern interpretation of the tales, and the most likely to have influenced the writing on Star Wars.
So who was Mordred?
The facts vary according to source, but all agree that he is the betrayer who kills King Arthur. Most modern interpretations put him as Arthur’s son, or his nephew at the very least, and cast him in a sympathetic light of increasing complexity, as he’s treated more as a victim of fate than a truly evil man. He’s usually depicted as wearing black, either falling under the influence of black magic or a practitioner himself, the posterboy of Oedipal complexes (especially in versions where he marries Arthur’s wife), and is usually treated as the dark counterpart to Arthur or Lancelot.
The design of Kylo’s lightsaber, and even this particular sequence that appeared in the trailers (but not in the film) is a very deliberate attempt to get audiences to link this character to Arthurian legend. We see a black-clad warrior striding through a snowy forest – quite a romantic landscape and not typical in sci-fi – who then ignites what amounts to a magic broadsword. Whether you realise it or not, your cultural understanding of these kinds of images will be subconsciously reminding you of a medieval black knight. Why do they want you to see him this way? Because straight away Kylo Ren has the weight of all the sentimental value we attach to things like the tales of King Arthur. He’s not just a villain, he’s a black knight. This is a key part of his physical design, the same way Vader was designed to resemble a samurai.
This is what Star Wars does. It’s folklore, fairytale, fantasy and sci-fi, and Kylo Ren is the embodiment of all these pieces of the Star Wars vocabulary that draws the film together and makes people feel like, yes, this is a Star Wars film.
The influence of King Arthur on the character archetypes is ultimately cemented within the film itself with this scene.
In which the chosen one pulls the sword from the snow.
The implication here is that the lightsaber resists Kylo’s call and chooses Rey instead. Whether or not this is technically accurate (as its ambiguous if it simply goes to Rey because she is the stronger of the two), this scene is intended to make you think that sabers are more than just tools, that they have masters, and they choose that master. See also: the wand chooses the wizard.
This is more than just the hero snatching a sword out of the villain’s hand – this is where the roles of the hero and the villain are cast. Rey is Arthur, of the Once and Future King variety – the hero who rises from low beginnings who wins the sword not with strength but with pure heart, and inherits all the destiny that comes along with it.
Kylo, the betrayer, father-killer, and a literal Knight (of Ren) is Mordred. And he’s the tragic victim of fate version of Mordred. The one who was betrayed at the moment of birth. The one who was so feared as a child that his parents took steps to change him, and perhaps unintentionally caused his descent into darkness by pushing him away.
Also of note is that Rey is not the only Arthur in TFA, and Kylo Ren conducts his betrayal of a paternal figure not just once, but twice.
Le Morte d’Arthur gives us the romantic source on Arthur and Mordred, ending with Mordred breaking up the Knights of the Round table and killing Arthur in battle. This is precisely what Kylo Ren does in TFA, in events eluded to but not shown, as Han describes how a boy betrayed Luke, destroying everything he’d worked for (and presumably killing Luke’s other apprentices. ie. his knights) and driving Luke into exile on an island that bears no small resemblance to Arthur’s final resting place on the Isle of Avalon.
^ Avalon and Ahch-To.
Luke’s death is metaphorical, and leads to his transition into more of a Merlin-like figure – the sorcerer who, having been betrayed, is locked away within a prison of stone/cave/tree, awaiting the day he will return. As an aside, it’s interesting that so many people believe Luke is standing over a grave on the island, for whether true or not, Luke is in mourning for the death of the person he was and the people he lost.
This leads back to Rey taking on the mantel of the Arthur, back to the Once and Future King version of Arthurian Legend, the deconstructed version, wherein the young Rey meets her Merlin who will now guide her through her trials on her way to becoming King (in the sense of finding herself, completing her evolution from child to victorious, self-possessed woman who has set right all the wrongs and won the respect and loyalty of others). But you can expect Luke to take a more active role in the upcoming films as he becomes a powerful mentor and adviser, but like Merlin is crippled by guilt for his past mistakes. He, more than anyone, will want Kylo Ren redeemed, because he’ll view it as his own errors that caused Ben to become Ren in the first place.
Honourable mention also goes to Maz Kanata, a nice lady who lives by a lake and guards Luke’s lightsaber until it’s needed. Whose last name is an anagram of a japanese word for sword.
^ An illustration of Finn complaining that he doesn’t have a weapon.
So as you can see there’s a pretty staggering number of references within TFA to Arthurian Legend, which may well continue over the trilogy. You can also see how the archetypes blur and merge. Luke is Arthur and Merlin. Rey is Arthur and Morgan le Fey.
Why Morgan le Fey? She’s probably the most fluid of all the Arthurian characters, as evidenced by her staggering number of name variations. In early tellings she’s just a powerful enchantress and healer who hangs out on Avalon. Later on she gets more interesting, becoming apprenticed to Merlin and harbouring a very dark nature. Unfortunately she also becomes victim to misogynistic retellings over the centuries, which depict her as promiscuous, sexually aggressive, vindictive and jealous, and is often combined with the character of Morgause in which case she’s also guilty of banging her brother and birthing Mordred. Feminist interpretations of the character, such as in the Mists of Avalon, have influenced most modern depictions, but to reduce her to the basics, le Fey is a very powerful woman who was mentored by Merlin and turned to the dark side, yet reconciles with Arthur in the end. She thus becomes a likely basis for Rey’s character going forward: as we’ve already seen Rey taste the temptations of darkness towards the end of her fight with Kylo. Future films will almost certainly delve into this side of her character in a big way, especially if this concept art is anything to judge by.
^I think that’s Kylo of the Opera groping her tits or something, I dunno.
The relationship between Mordred and Morgan le Fey is almost always characterised as a close one. If they’re not mother and son, they’re related by blood some other way, and work together to bring about Arthur’s demise.
Rey will almost certainly rise above it all in the end and come out more of an Arthur than a Morgan. But what about Kylo? His path isn’t so clear. Mordred, in every version ever told, always succeeds in his destiny and then dies. Yet Kylo has not only succeeded in literally killing his father and metaphorically murdering his uncle, he’s still very much alive and facing down a new incarnation of Arthur.
Redemption MAY be in Kylo’s cards. We expect it because Vader was redeemed, and we want it because he’s the son of two beloved heroes. But we may also be looking at the beginning of a total downward spiral into abject villainy, where we have already witnessed his rejection of redemption; when he murdered the father who offered him his chance to return home. If this is the case, Kylo is a straight up Mordred, no question. He will be pulled down by his fate and it will destroy him. He may never accept redemption and fight the light all the way into death.
HOWEVER, he’s also the last Skywalker. (Rey is unlikely to be Luke’s daughter, based on the evidence presented to us.) If he dies, that’s the end of that family as Luke and Leia are now a little too old to give us more, yet we hear there are 10 additional films in the works. Will the Skywalker dynasty be put to rest in favour of new characters? Or is it going to continue partially through a redeemed Ben Solo?
Let’s posit that it will, for the sake of argument. In which case, like the other characters, Kylo will begin to blend into another archetype, and I posit that it will be Morgan – Merlin’s fallen student of the dark arts who merely thought he was fighting for what was right, who reconciles with his family and teacher and in the end goes in peace with Arthur ie. Rey.
John Williams’ soundtrack for The Force Awakens is a grower, and it becomes much more impressive when you really sit down and listen to it. My appreciation has also been sharpened by the rather marvellous Star Wars Oxygen podcast, which is a must listen if you have even the slightest interest in the music of Star Wars.
With this post, I want to consider the piece on The Force Awakens soundtrack titled ‘The Abduction’:
This theme mostly consists of tragedy-laced renditions of the characters’ themes – Kylo’s theme is prominent in the first half, and Rey’s theme is stressed in the second. What’s most intriguing, however, is that there’s a cue from 1:26 to 1:35 that sounds highly reminiscent of Tchaikovsky’s ‘Fantasy Overture’ from Romeo and Juliet:
While I love music profoundly, I have virtually no ear for it for its technical composition, let alone the vocabulary to describe it. As a result, I find it very difficult to drill a musical piece down to its specific components. Speaking generally as a layperson, however, I’m fascinated by the similarities in tone between the two pieces – both are marked by tragedy and threat, but more intriguingly you can hear traces of sweeping romance. You’re often taken by surprise by these transitions, which swell and overtake you before you’ve even had a chance to properly register that they’re happening.
While that kind of tension between drama and romance is entirely befitting for Romeo and Juliet, it seems nothing less than bizarre as an accompaniment to an abduction. ‘The Abduction’ is mostly a dark piece, laced with appropriate dread and tragedy, but the cue between 1:26 and 1:35 belies that. While it has a darker aspect, it mostly strongly resembles the build from 13:54 to 14:05 in the Tchaikovsky piece. The progression in both pieces is similar, but while Williams’ music gives way to a tragic twist on Rey’s theme, the build in the Tchaikovsky piece climaxes with a full burst of what is perhaps the most famous of all love themes (trust me – you’ll know it even if you think you don’t).
So, in the Williams’ piece you have a tentative build towards love and light that ultimately collapses into despair; in the Tchaikovsky piece, you have an irrepressible build towards a beatific outpouring of love and romance. For a few seconds ‘The Abduction’ almost seems to promise the same fulfilment, and that’s what makes the musical reference so interesting. It promises something with its use of a familiar swell, and its failure to deliver on that promise is striking because of how famous its musical antecedent is.
We can’t use musical analysis to predict how the plot will unfold, but I certainly don’t think this use of musical language will have been unintentional. Williams is famous for drawing inspiration from the classical masters, and there is a precedent for Tchaikovsky-inspired love themes in his Star Wars compositions. What will really interest me will be seeing if ‘The Abduction’ – or at least the tensions the piece suggests – will be revisited in VIII.
I’m certainly not the first person to remark on this, and I would be most interested in hearing other people’s views. Specifically, do you think I’ve isolated the correct sections in both pieces? Let me know your thoughts, and I’d welcome people’s additions/elaborations.
I would like to use this as an opportunity to consider what Kylo and Rey want – not necessarily in relation to each other (though that comes into play – patience!), but more in relation to their general goals, dreams and ambitions.
Rey is easier to pin down, since her goal is clearly stressed – she wants to be reunited with her family, and more specifically than that she wants someone to return for her. This is the dream of an abandoned child who was left to fend for herself in a desert and starved of love as much as nutrition.
Kylo is more difficult. He has many short-term goals that come and go over the course of The Force Awakens, but the real driving force behind him is probably his craving for power. Most importantly, however, is the fact that he appears to crave power because he presently possesses so little of it. For all his extraordinary skill in the Force, Kylo is beholden to his emotions and the systems of power that constrain him. He is straining against his leash, and the only time we see the leash snap – in the forest duel – is when he is at both his most terrifying and his most pathetic.
So, you have two people who are defined by an absence – an absence of love, reassurance and warmth in Rey’s case, and an absence of power and control in Kylo’s. It’s difficult to think of these respective lacks without considering the place that they come from.
Rey was only five years old when she was abandoned, and her daily struggle to survive is motivated purely by the faintly flickering hope that her family will return for her – she has suffered extraordinary trauma, and her actions are motivated by her hunger to overcome her hardship. She has the innocent hope and optimism of a young child, having remained frozen in that state in order to survive.
Kylo’s timeline is less solid, but we know that his parents, to an extent, failed him: his mother was too busy to care for him, his father too consumed by wanderlust to stick around. This, understandably, left him feeling betrayed and resentful. As a child, he will have been acutely aware of his own powerlessness, incapable of keeping his parents with him despite his talent in the Force. And while his parents undoubtedly loved him – Han’s response to seeing him again conveys as much – Kylo almost certainly perceived their lack of attentiveness as an absence of love. This feeling, naturally, will only have been compounded when he was sent away to train with his uncle. That event, however well intentioned, was the culmination of a childhood marked by rejection.
The difference between these goals, then, is their nature – Rey’s goal is very clear and specific. Her desire for someone to come back for her, to be reunited with her imagined family, is solid and becomes her anchor throughout struggle and hardship. Her dream is fulfilled – by proxy – when Finn returns to Starkiller Base to save her. At last, someone returned for her – Rey’s primary emotional struggle is resolved.
Kylo’s goal, by contrast, is abstract – he craves a state of being rather than something external to him, as Rey does. And because of that, he is left unfulfilled. Instead of feeling more powerful after killing his father, he feels weakened. And with that development, all of the tenuous certainties that have formed his framework for existence fall apart. Snoke had filled the role of surrogate father in Han’s absence, but Kylo’s faith in him has disintegrated by the end of the film – Snoke’s guidance was not forthcoming, his tacit command that Han Solo be murdered proven pointless after its hollow fulfilment. By the end of The Force Awakens, everything that had ordered Kylo’s world is gone: his father is dead, his master proven false, his ideology revealed to be hollow.
Rey is afforded something like happiness in The Force Awakens because she is the hero – her struggle and hope are rewarded with kindness, love and affection. Equally, Kylo ends the film broken because he is the villain and is thus deserving of punishment – his path is proven wrong, his cruelty marked by a scar.
But what’s really interesting here is that their journeys are both so clearly only beginning. While Rey is rewarded in The Force Awakens, the fulfilment brought about by Finn’s returning for her is transitory – she has to leave her friend and travel to Luke in pursuit of her destiny. And she doesn’t find a warm embrace waiting for her on Ahch-To – only a long, penetrating stare from a broken man. There is no true resolution for Rey, with her story ending on one of the most literal cliffhangers imaginable.
And while Kylo finds no trace of fulfilment, his ending is more clearly defined than Rey’s. By the end of the film, everything he had clung to is gone – going forward, he will have no choice but to find a new ideology and develop a new system for ordering his world. And I’d wager that his new goal will be securing Rey for his cause. Rey represents what Kylo has always lacked – something solid to aspire towards, a flesh-and-blood person to envisage by his side. She can be achieved in a way that some mythical state of mind cannot.
And while I expect this new goal to give Kylo focus, I expect Rey’s trajectory to go in the opposite direction – I can see her certainties falling away, just as Kylo’s did in VIII. And while Kylo will want Rey, I can see Rey being left adrift by what she will discover about her past – most specifically, her hallowed dream of a loving family will be dashed.
And that vulnerability, I think, is what Kylo will seize on to seduce her to the dark side, as she once threatened to seduce him to the light.
What do you make of this? What goals do you believe the characters had, and what do you imagine their goals will be moving forward?
Spot-on as usual, and I completely with everything as usual. Just wanted to add that both Rey AND Kylo share the need/desire for their family to come back for them – and for just about the same amount of time too. Ben Solo ran away to join the Dark Side when he was still just a teenager. Kids run away from their family usually for one fundamental reason – to be found. It’s a test of their parents’ love. If they run away and their parents come find them, it proves that they care. Ben never got that. He ran away and Han and Leia (well, maybe Han moreso) were like “WELP, he’s gone for good I guess!” Did they even TRY to get him away from Snoke? We don’t know for sure, but judging by Kylo’s statement to Han that he’d “been waiting for this moment for a long time”, my guess is no? My guess is, like Rey, Kylo had been waiting 15 years (literally half his life) for his family to come get him. 15 years before Han finally showed up on Starkiller Base and asked Ben to come home. “Too late” indeed?
Ok… So, I don’t know if anyone else has noticed this or if they have commented on it. I apologize in advance if I’m writing about an aspect of the movie that has already been covered. I have seen a lot of interesting posts analyzing the posters, the costumes, and so forth, and I thought this would be an interesting contribution to the discussion.
Anyway, I noticed while looking through pictures of The Force Awakens that scenes involving Kylo Ren and, in this post, Kylo Ren and Rey, the background and/or surrounding objects are red and blue – the colors of their respective light sabers that represent the light and the dark.
Using the photos above as reference…. In the first image, Rey and Ren are on opposite sides as the earth splits apart. They are surrounded by a mostly blue forest, but there is some red visible at the bottom of the frame, where the gap is widening. In the second, Ren is surrounded by a completely blue forest, his red saber almost – if not the – only spot of red. In the scene where Ren uses the Force to choke his subordinate, both blue and red are present. In the scene where Ren speaks to the Darth Vader mask, which is not featured fully here, there is mostly blue with little red beans here and there.
In this moment of vulnerability, Ren is feeling the pull of the Light stronger than the Dark, whereas the scene with the messenger features him against a red background, mirroring his rage. In his confrontation with Han Solo, there is more blue than red, at first. When Ren chooses to murder his father, almost the entire frame goes red, for this is the most evil act Ren will commit in his lifetime. Interestingly, however, the frame depicting Ren doubled over after being shot show a background that is a perfect balance of blue and red. (This is the last picture featured)
In the interrogation scene with Poe, which is not featured here, the scene is almost completely red. In the interrogation scene with Rey, both are present – but blue is the dominant color. While the ceiling is red and some of the surrounding machinery have red lights or buttons or whatever, the one frame of Ren standing very close to Rey has a completely blue background. I know that a lot of this is a no-brainer because -duh – the pictures are right there for everyone to see.
But I wanted to say that, looking at these photos, I’m reminded of what Maz said to Rey when she said that the Light is and has always been there. The Light and the Dark do not merely represents sides of war – they represent energy. The constant shifting of blue and red in Kylo Ren’s frames show his conflict between the Light and the Dark. And it seems to significant that blue is such a dominant color when Rey and Ren are featured together. The use of color is such great storytelling on its own because the shifting colors give insight to the characters and their moods and relationships if you happen to find pictures that illustrate this concept but are not featured here, feel free to add them!
I’ve seen lots of people talk about Kylo’s similarities to his father, and I think that has distracted from the fact that he is clearly much closer, in terms of his temperament, abilities and background, to Leia than Han.
Think about it – Kylo possesses his mother’s fondness for putting down others (”I recognized your foul stench when I was brought on board”/”They’re obviously skilled at committing high treason”), inherent sense of superiority, and irrepressible desire for control and command (”you do as I tell you”/”I want that map. For your sake, I suggest you get it”). In all of these ways, Kylo clearly emulates the precedent set by his mother. Beyond a fleeting physical resemblance, I see almost no similarity to Han, to the point that I will be writing a separate post on how their relationship is mostly defined by distance and separation.
There are many memes doing the rounds concerned with ‘Disney Princess Kylo Ren’, and it’s not hard to see where they come from. Kylo has the regal bearing you can only properly possess as someone ‘of the blood’, and in this sense he clearly has more common with Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan than the smuggler Han Solo. He self-identifies purely through his mother’s bloodline, finding purpose and meaning in two things: his Force sensitivity, and his relationship to the prophesied chosen one, Anakin Skywalker.
In relation to this, it’s worth considering Leia’s attitude to three things, namely her royal status, her Force sensitivity, and her bloodline. While it’s little more than a running gag, The Force Awakens makes it crystal clear that Leia has no interest in being known as a ‘princess’ – she identifies solely in terms of her military rank, and is almost always addressed as ‘General Organa’. This follows on from the seeds sown by Marvel’s Princess Leia, which has Leia effectively give up her royal title and responsibilities to dedicate herself entirely to the cause of the Rebellion. With regards to her Force sensitivity, Leia’s skills appear to be latent – she can receive messages and experience things through the Force, but she cannot actively wield it as Luke can. This does not necessarily point to a lack of ability, but rather a lack of interest – if Leia had trained as a Jedi, she would have probably had just as much skill and potential as her brother. Finally, we have the question of Leia’s attitude towards her lineage. I’m not well versed in the expanded canon beyond the films (I welcome further information, if I’m missing anything), but my understanding is that we currently know very little about Leia’s feelings about her birth parents. She knows that Vader is her father, but unlike Luke she shows no sign of forgiving him – nor does she have any reason to. She was tortured by Vader, and he restrained her as she was forced to watch the complete obliteration of her planet. While her feelings about Vader are likely to be greatly elaborated on in Bloodline by Claudia Gray, I feel safe in proposing that Leia is likely to reject Vader as any kind of family member, irrespective of his redemption.
So, with all this in mind, what do we have? Personally, I think we have a mother and a son who are mirrors of each other. They are the same in that they have the same royal lineage, the same power and the same ancestor. But the mirror I’m talking about is distorted, projecting back another set of choices and perceptions: Leia rejects her royal title while Kylo considers it his destiny to rule; Leia ignores her power while Kylo feasts on his; Leia abhors her lineage while Kylo reveres it.
And I think this underlines the real tragedy underlying the relationship between mother and son. They both, in many ways, represent the same potential. The difference between them is how that potential was channelled. Leia was unaware of her power until she was a grown woman, whereas Ben evidently latched onto his Force abilities when he was still only a child. And while Leia met Vader and had every reason to hate him, Ben only knows Vader as a series of stories – Vader is most likely constructed in Ben’s mind as an amalgamation of second- and third-hand accounts. He is figure of nightmares, but also something to aspire to – a monolithic embodiment of power and strength that Ben probably viewed as the encapsulation of everything he lacked but longed to possess. However much his parents will have stressed Vader’s evil, Ben evidently listened more closely to accounts of his power.
And it’s worth thinking about how unsettling this must have been for Leia. Watching her own beloved child – her only child – gradually slip towards the darkness, attracted by the legacy of the monster who both is and is not her father, must have been devastating for her. Leia took a desperate gamble in sending Ben to her brother, and it’s a gamble we know she lost.
Hi there guys, how ya been? i’ve been working a lot, on school, on my book, which hopefully I can share with all of you soon. But for now let’s have fun with another Meta on two protagonist story structure and how it applies to TFA. This was originally going to be a meta about a bunch of different stuff, but I ended up talking about this subject so much, I just wrote about this in detail. We’ll be going over more of these elements when the movie comes out, but for now, here’s what the meta boils down to.
There are three main characters, two protagonists, and one hero.
Now let’s explain what that means.
Two Protagonist Story Structure
The two protagonist story structure is fairly simple. Your two protagonists, not main characters, have to have the same development, and go through the necessary steps of development. My meta’s are not perfect, so there may very well be some problems with this. Every time I write one of these I want everyone to know I do not consider my words and thoughts to be absolute. Having said that, let’s dive in friends.
There are seven key steps to story structure.
1. Weakness And Need 2. Desire 3. Opponent 4. Plan 5. Battle. 6. Self Revelation 7. New Equilibrium.
We’ll get more into this in the meta I write when the movie comes out on blu-ray. For now we’re just going to skim these for context. A character needs to hit these key points to qualify for protagonist.
Reylo Source 