i really put off watching this film and i'd sort of decided not to bother watching it... but i changed my mind and did, and i was surprised to find something i liked. (i have plenty of issues with this film, but i'm not talking about them in this post and they're all boring to me anyway.)
shockingly (sarcasm) what i liked was... the bad guy kylo ren (i will just have to endure the bad names in star wars, and frankly it could have been worse).
usually i like the sort of twisted and conflicted bad guy because you can see the capacity for empathy in the character, and so watching it win out in little moments even though his larger agenda is terrible, is satisfying. it's probably because it gives hope for redemption, even if redemption is unlikely. but i suppose it is that part of me wants to reach in and grab the compassion i see and expose it. so i kind of want to save the bad guy; or in the least to console myself with the twisted image of love and hate.
in the case of kylo ren's character there is a similar draw in that he is conflicted throughout the film. however, i don't really have much hope of redemption for the character (which i’m actually quite pleased about). i think that as much as he was influenced and manipulated from a young age by snoke (horribly stupid name that makes me cringe), ben solo did choose the dark side for himself. he has personal investment in this, and he is informed in his choice (unlike anakin). ben probably grew up hearing all about the force and the light & the dark side thanks to uncle luke. since he has the entire story of anakin, he is not hapless or ignorant. he *chooses* his evil grandfather as his role model/father figure: vader is who he admires and aspires to be like. it doesn’t really matter *why* he was vulnerable to this (re: a lonely child whose parents didn’t have enough time for him) because he could have drawn from anywhere to sustain himself (rey was a lonely & neglected child too). he chooses the dark side because it’s what he feels most at home with in terms of his identity.
this is exciting because it's a different sort of vader-ish character than we’ve seen in the films. the story of anakin skywalker was more one in which the road to hell was paved in good intentions (although i thought he was a bit of a self-centered little shit as a child, but never mind that!). of course, anakin ultimately wanted the power but i don’t think he really knew that (unlike kylo ren who is quite aware of how much he wants power). still, anakin was driven by what started out as arguably "good" motivations (saving his mother, saving padmé, and wanting to end the disorganized bullshit in the republic that was leading to war). he didn't want the dark side but he ended up with it. to vader, the dark side is a burden ("you do not know the power of the dark side. i *must* obey my master." are the words of a slave). this is a character who was born a slave and spends his entire life serving one master or another, unable to ever realize anything of what *he* wants (it’s the total opposite of the drive of the sith, who are covetous and desirous). luke is vader’s salvation. not only does luke give vader the strength to turn back to the good side; but in doing so, he frees his father from a lifetime of servitude.
kylo ren hasn’t been subverted by his “master” (who he sees as more of a mentor anyway) in the way vader was. anakin gave himself to palpatine so he could learn how to conquer his fear of loss, but from his point of view he was just trying to save padmé. palpatine, however, never had any intention of helping him with that and was later pleased to learn that padmé was dead (he wanted to maneuver anakin into ending her himself because it would chain anakin to him). he sadistically enjoyed tasking anakin with destroying everything he loved (the very things anakin was always trying to save). anakin didn’t know that with every task he was only building the bars on what would be his cage for the next 30 years. he even ends up trapped in a mechanical suit for the rest of his days—broken physically as well as psychologically. it’s a terrible betrayal and anakin (a moron as far as i’m concerned) was clearly duped by palpatine.
kylo ren is more of an authentic sith than vader ever was (and the first humanly relatable “true” sith to appear in the films). the dark side is not a burden for kylo ren that he must sacrifice himself to almost against his will; it’s the source of his strength and what he draws from to fully realize his identity (although like all sith he *is* willing to sacrifice himself to it in his recklessness, but that is by *choice*). like palpatine, snoke tasks kylo with terrible deeds, but there’s an important difference. kylo ren agrees, imo, that he must kill his father han solo so he can more fully realize himself. he isn’t being duped into murdering his loved ones—he is very much involved in choosing this path for himself. this is why han was always doomed. nothing he could say would have ever brought his son back in the way leia wanted. han was right when he said that he and leia lost their son forever (more or less). (i don’t know why leia was such a hopelessly sappy person in this film. not that i think she would want her son dead or not want him back, but i was shocked by what she told han to do. how idiotic.)
the relationship between kylo ren and snoke differs in many ways from that between vader and the emperor. kylo sees snoke as a source of wisdom about the dark side (as a mentor or guide) and as a way to build his skills. unlike the emperor who doesn’t teach vader anything at all (other than pain and submission), snoke is actively teaching and training kylo. i suspect this is because it’s actually the only way he can get kylo into his service. kylo wants something in return (more power with the dark side and more abilities) and it’s not worth it to him if he doesn’t get that. kylo is actually growing as a person (in a terrible way), unlike vader who was trapped in stagnation. he is using snoke as much as snoke is using him (the relationship is surprisingly more equal, or at least, symbiotic). it’s a relationship of mentor/pupil rather than one of master/slave. perhaps this is in part because snoke doesn’t have to fool and swindle kylo to the extent palpatine had to fool anakin (not anymore, anyway). kylo is actually a “worthy pupil” who is committed to the dark path and wants it of his own intrinsic motivation.
however, since this is a relationship on the dark side between two very power hungry individuals who both seek at worst domination and at best freedom to achieve all they desire, it can probably only end in one of them destroying the other. when han warns kylo that snoke is only using him, kylo doesn’t bring forth any objection. in the script it says he knows han is right. snoke is not honest. as much as he trains kylo, he doesn’t do right by him. he is still in fact manipulating kylo in subtle ways. i personally think that snoke is kind of a foolish person who underestimates his star pupil, and once kylo surpasses him and sees how foolish he is, kylo and the other knights of ren will kill him. i would really like to see this in the second movie in fact. we already know the way in which kylo uses people (it’s the same way the dark side uses its devotees): he *consumes* them. once he’s taken everything he can from a father (han) or a mentor (snoke) he sacrifices them on the altar of his own power. perhaps when he finally realizes enough of his identity he’ll even sacrifice (finish consuming) his idol: grandpa. vader’s skull/helmet is like dumbo’s magic feather until kylo can be swift and sure with his own wings.
the scene in which kylo kills han was beautifully twisted. he implores his dad to help him find the strength to kill him so he can more fully realize his dark path. he’s not killing him for emotional reasons, like hatred or vengeance, or because he believes han deserves it (even though he long ago rejected his father). no, this is a necessary step on the path he’s committed to and at his current level he’s not sure he has it in him (yet). this is a child appealing to his father to help him grow as a person (but since it’s on the dark side it is all twisted and sick—and i thought it was oh so effectively portrayed). also, he feels this is what his disappointment of a father owes him (the only thing of value left to give him). to me, this scene seals the question of whether or not kylo ren can be “redeemed.” he cannot. you can’t redeem someone against their will, not without a heavy course of manipulation (that probably no one has the means or understanding to carry out).
this also clearly sets kylo as a very different sort of person than vader. anakin was responsible for padmé’s death though he didn’t really want to kill her. he didn’t know what the dark side would do to him; he couldn’t see through his twisted illusions to truth; and he couldn’t control his temper. it was an accident, basically. later a more mature vader, when pushed to the choice of the emperor/the dark side -or- his own son, chooses to save his son. he does this because regardless of everything that has happened and how destroyed he is, he still loves (and for him, his love takes precedence). but when kylo is pushed to this same choice—the dark side or his father—he chooses the dark side. and it’s worse: he already chose it long ago. this is pre-planned. kylo’s been waiting for the day when he will consume his father at last and become more powerful as a result, for a long time. i even thought that as han falls into the abyss and kylo is filled with emotion, that he’s more mourning his former self than he is his father. he’s saying goodbye to the boy who loved his father, who wanted his father’s attention and approval, who wanted to look up to his dad, etc. he’s also feeling all his pain and conflict about this (flicker out?) that he hopes to cure by merging further with the dark side.
he wants the pain to end more than he cares about han. it’s heartbreaking to see him take everything from han in order to grow in power. the vulnerable boy who feels and hurts shows his face again and let’s han for this brief moment have his son back. he gives han everything he asks for—he takes off the helmet, he shows his face and heart… and then he feels entirely justified in consuming han into himself, and he *thanks* him for his sacrifice.
this is a creature of the dark side. it is not a redeemable creature. it’s just rather thrilling to me to finally have a “true sith” as it were. i hope the movie makers don’t fuck it up. (they will. 
another interesting piece of this is of course rey and finn (the two orphans) and how they fit into this. i hope they both fit into kylo ren’s backstory actually.
i think that rey's vision involving her abandonment on jakku and linked with images of kylo ren reveals more about the past than the future. she was one of the kids in luke's school and on the night that the knights of ren (led by kylo) killed everyone, he spared her. he even killed one of the other knights to save her. after this, he had to scramble to hide her somewhere. this is why she was left with a junk dealer. if luke or leia were behind abandoning rey, i would have expected it to be way more organized. they would have found someone to raise her properly (not a junk dealer). whoever left rey with the junk dealer on jakku was reckless and didn't have a lot of time (barely knew what the fuck they were doing). (of course, it could be that after the first order began killing kids with force abilities that rey's family actually abandoned her in haste like floating your baby down a river in the hope it will survive. but i don't think that's necessary when we can use kylo to explain it and make it more meaningful to the story that way.)
as to why kylo saved rey, i'm not sure. one possibility is that kylo and rey are related by blood. we see how hard it is for kylo to make himself kill his father in the movie. so if we imagine a 16-18 year old kylo tasked with killing a little girl in his family, it makes complete sense that he wouldn’t have been able to do it (wouldn’t have *wanted* to do it). another possibility is that whether they are related or not, he saved her because she was a child and he wasn't able to get himself to slaughter helpless little kids (unlike a certain other young man who turned to the dark side). this possibility is interesting because it could mean that rey wasn't the only one who kylo spared that night. if finn turns out to have powers with the force, it could be that kylo spared him as well.
i don't know who the knights of ren are or how they formed (before snoke or after). but for kylo to save anyone, the other knights would need to agree to keep it a secret. i think the easier explanation is that together the knights agreed about who they wouldn't kill (they were all teenagers and maybe most of them weren't okay killing little kids. or maybe they wanted to add to their order in the future and recognized the waste in killing the talented). this would explain how it's okay that kylo killed the supposed knight who was about to kill little rey. the knights had already agreed, but this one in particular went back on the agreement. he might go to snoke and reveal everything. all the knights would agree he has to die in this case, so no one would turn against kylo's leadership for killing him. it wouldn't cost any loyalties since this person betrayed all of the knights, not just kylo.
kylo ren is very personal when it comes to both the characters of rey and finn (he sees them both as *his*). in the beginning of the film, he senses finn’s total panic and unwillingness to kill innocent villagers on jakku (finn’s choice that he will not kill for the first order), but kylo takes no action in response. he keeps it to himself until it's revealed later that a storm trooper helped the resistance pilot escape. then he reveals that he even knows this stormtrooper's six digit designation. does he know every stormtrooper's designation, or just this ones? he shouts "traitor!" at finn at the end of the movie with extreme emotion. why is he taking this so personally? well… if he saved finn's life at luke’s school and hid him among the stormtrooper trainees only to have finn turn on him later (as he sees it), i can see how he'd take that personally. it's also notable that kylo doesn't kill finn in the fight at the end. he doesn't even apparently permanently maim or cripple him. it seems that his objective isn't only to capture rey but to capture finn as well? he could have done far worse than he did with finn. even his sadistic act of burning finn with the vent of his lightsaber is aimed at finn’s shoulder (where it won’t do as much permanent damage as it would if aimed at, say, his face). and i already think that kylo is evil enough to kill anyone he wants to kill—so i don’t think it’s an accident that finn is still alive at the end of the film.
the other moments of extreme emotional upset we see from kylo concern rey, beginning with how once he hears a girl helped finn and the droid escape jakku, he’s all “WHAT GIRL” upon choking threat of death. i realize it’s been a very frustrating day, but i think this moment is significant. he attaches significance to this “girl” before he really knows anything about her, which would make total sense if he happened to leave a girl on jakku years ago to hide her. if he saved finn too, and it turns out there’s this perfect alignment where the two kids he saved before (and possibly intended to use later) and the droid he wants, all come together… i can see that this turn of events would be of extreme significance to him. also, any force user knows through all the visions they have that events are always weaved together in meaningful ways. there are few “coincidences” if any at all. it must then also be frustrating that hux’s men don’t do any digging and only provide kylo the vaguest information ever.
(naturally, the choking scene harkens to vader who also found most of the imperial personnel to be blind and daft. i don’t really want kylo to do the vader thing though in the second movie unless done in the right way. we’ve seen it before so it would just be boring if repeated, and i think that kylo is psychologically perceptive enough to realize that if you scare the shit out of people or expect nothing short of perfection, that they can’t perform. in the film he tends to take his anger out on things more than people, and hopefully the trend will continue. what i could see happening is that after he and the other knights dispatch with snoke and hux, certain other officers are eliminated too? i see kylo ren as more of a mass killings sort of person anyway.)
in the interrogation scene with rey, kylo is interested in who rey is as a person. i think this is his style in general (hints of this are in the interrogation of po earlier), but i think it’s also because he’s trying to answer the question “are you who i think you are?” it’s also notable that kylo adopts kind of the role of a teacher in this scene. he wants to know rey’s innermost hopes and fears (who she is) so he can reach at her in the right way. when she tells him she won’t give him the map, he says, “we’ll see.” he is copying snoke’s style in this—earlier snoke challenges kylo’s assertion than han solo means nothing to him with a “we’ll see.” my interpretation also was that once rey begins using the force to resist kylo (he is not at *all* surprised by this btw, again supporting he already knows who she is), he seems to encourage or invite this. part of this is because kylo enjoys dominating his victim but i think it’s also that he’s allowing her the opportunity to practice and try out her abilities. he didn’t intend for her to get the upper hand on him, but blind arrogance and over-estimation of one’s abilities or under-estimation of an adversary’s, is a failing of most sith. it’s terrible that he actually repeats this *same* mistake at the end of the movie. twice in a row.
my impression of kylo ren is that he likes a more collaborative approach with the dark side. i suspect the knights of ren are kind of his knights of the round table in his dark camelot. rey and finn were people he wanted to add to the order eventually, but he knew snoke wanted everyone in luke’s training school dead so he had to keep them a secret. he doesn’t kill either of them, or seem to want to, and especially adopts a role as instructor with rey. you could argue he gave finn plenty of chances too (he held back), but he was more angry with finn for “turning on him.” although kylo ren isn’t as blind as anakin was—the interrogation scenes reveal that he is capable of clearly seeing a person without warping them to his own twisted interpretations, and can understand them *as they are*—he still suffers from a distorted vision as do all sith. rey’s friends (han, chewy and finn) are murderers, traitors and thieves according to him (*they* are the ones in the wrong—not kylo and the first order who burn entire villages to the ground and slaughter all inhabitants). in justifying what he does to himself, he allocates blame. his overpowering desires determine who is to blame.
i think that kylo's actions towards rey and finn make sense if he thinks of them as not only *his* but as two people destined for his order: the knights of ren. i imagine loyalty is incredibly important in the knights of ren. these are sith who agree to operate as one. treachery means death, but kylo is still trying to induct rey and finn, so it’s not death for them… yet. also, if this is how the knights work, it only really shows how informed they are. kylo knows that the pattern with the sith doesn’t work out often beyond one short-lived and failed regime. there’s always a master and apprentice and one eventually kills the other, leaving the “victor” to be overcome by foes. the knights of ren are an attempt to organize differently. this is another reason why i would really like to see how the first order would operate if kylo and the knights are running it, rather than snoke. to see a “true sith” who isn’t a darth sidious type (who isn’t 100% evil, though still a very bad person) and not from some ancient generation stuck in its ways, would be great.
star wars : tfa - something i like
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