Oh of course none of this was ever the filmmaker’s intention in TLJ. That concept is laughable to me. Maybe I haven’t been clear enough. I’m only speaking from the perspective of those writing TROS. And you’re free to label what I’m doing mental gymnastics, but I’m being honest when I say that it doesn’t feel that way to myself.
On the topic of Kylo being the “big bad”, I feel that would have been a bad idea. Unless there was radical change in his character, it would have felt quite underwhelming. Adam Driver just does such a fantastic job playing a conflicted villain. Who knows, maybe he would have been capable of delivering a good performance as a purely evil character. But I have a hard time believing it would work overall, especially in the writing department. He wasn’t taken seriously enough as a villain in the first two films, and that would only leave the final one to turn things around.
Plus, I appreciate the parallels between Anakin and Ben. Anakin starts a hero, and becomes a villain in the lava. Kylo starts a villain, and becomes a hero in the water.