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Post #1324612

Author
Broom Kid
Parent topic
Does Kylo really deserve to be redeemed? Did he deserve to be Reys love interest?
Link to post in topic
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/1324612/action/topic#1324612
Date created
11-Feb-2020, 2:10 PM

I don’t see why Kylo/Ben’s story should matter only in respect to Rey’s. Even if you say Finn’s story in TLJ is supporting, he’s still having a story of his own with its own meaning, separate from Rey’s. These movies have never been about just one character’s story to the exclusion of another.

But I didn’t say “to the exclusion of another” nor did I say that Finn’s story is feeding Rey’s. I said Finn is a supporting character - I didn’t say he doesn’t have his own story arc. Kylo’s story primarily matters in respects to Rey and Finn’s in TFA (and Han and Leia’s, but they’re OBVIOUSLY supporting characters, where Finn is more like a co-lead in that movie) and not so much on his own. It’s the same in TLJ - his story matters most as a reflection on Luke, and as a potential mirror to Rey’s. But his primary utility as a character is to catalyze their actions/reactions. He’s the fuel for what our heroes our doing. He’s not a hero, or even an anti-hero. He’s the villain still.

Villains in these sorts of stories are often catalysts firsts, characters second. Vader is a great example of that - he’s a catalyst primarily that grows into a character just in time for his death to provide the final piece to completing Luke’s arc in that story. It works wonderfully. Kylo is a catalyst with some of the strongest characterization in Star Wars period, villain or not, and it’s great (And Driver makes a meal out of it, and should have been nominated along with Hamill for Last Jedi). But the transition into being a character for his own sake first and foremost never quite happens. If it was going to happen, it would have happened in the third movie, and Abrams couldn’t figure a way to make it work, and so it didn’t. It just didn’t work. And part of that is because for Abrams, character motivations are often secondary to AUDIENCE motivations. He often has characters do things so that their decisions resonate in that sort of “Oh, I recognize that reference” metatextual level before they work on a character level. He absolutely relied on “that’s just Star Wars” a LOT to paper over his bad decision making. That worked for him on TFA where the stakes were lower and the arcs were only beginning. It can’t carry any of the weight he needed it to as an ending, because he’s not doing the work. He’s relying on shortcuts and the faith that the audience will carry the water for him.

I disagree that Last Jedi makes it a fait accompli that Kylo’s getting redeemed, either. it’s ambiguous still. There are things you can point to in the text and performances that supports either read. But structurally, Kylo’s failure on Crait serves Luke and Rey’s story more than it serves his own, and that’s good. That’s honestly how it SHOULD work for a good villain in a moral fable like this. That’s not a failing or a shortcoming. That’s making a choice as a storyteller to maximize the punch you want to land at the end that makes the point you’re trying to make thematically. Kylo’s story is primarily supplementing both Luke and Rey’s arcs, because those are the two most important ones in the movie. That doesn’t mean the other ones (Finn, Rose, Poe, Holdo) don’t EXIST. Just that they’re not AS important on a character level as nailing Luke and Rey.

Stories can’t be everything to everyone at all times, and you have to make decisions on what you want to emphasize and why, and you have to have very good reasons for making those decisions and placing that emphasis. If you’re going to make your villain a hero in the third act, you have to figure out a way to make it work and matter to your MAIN hero in a way that rewards THAT character’s arc. If you can’t do that, it’s not going to play right, and The Rise of Skywalker is a good example of that storytelling failure. Vader’s redemption worked because it was Luke’s greatest reward. Kylo’s redemption doesn’t because it’s not Rey’s ultimate goal. Return of the Jedi keeps hammering home that Luke is going to the Death Star to turn his father. That’s his goal. He wants his dad back, and he’s going to save him. Maybe the biggest failure of Rise of Skywalker is that it never solidly explains WHAT Rey really wants in that movie, and it never settles on a solid answer. “That’s just Star Wars” kinda fills in a lot of those blanks. And a big part of that failure is that Kylo’s redemption is presented as what Rey really wants - but Kylo’s redemption ISN’T why she’s on Exogol. It’s not why she’s on Ahch-To, either. So what is it doing, and what purpose is it trying to serve at the end of a story that is, by that point, obviously Rey’s?

There’s no good answer, becasue “That’s just Star Wars” isn’t enough, and it’s all Abrams has.