I personally just dislike the idea that Kylo had to die to atone for his sins. He was a young man. Should he feel regret about his choices for the rest of his life? Absolutely. But he should channel that into doing positive things for the galaxy.
Vader was a completely different circumstance. Living in his body was a living hell, and he had already spent the other half of his life trying to be a good person as a Jedi. He was also old enough for his death to not be so tragic.
Yeah, while I bemoan Ben’s death a lot, at least it was Ben’s death and not Kylo’s. TROS would’ve been truly awful/irredeemable in my eyes if he hadn’t been redeemed to some degree lol. I’m like, hey, we got his redemption in a really good scene with Han, we got him absolutely fucking up the knights, we got the Reylo kiss! Did I want him to talk with Anakin? Of course. Should he have lived? Absolutely. Why didn’t he have a single line of dialogue (ow)? No clue. But it could’ve been way worse :S
Thanks for mentioning the Anakin ghost. That’s the other thing I’ll be changing in my edit of the novelization. While I absolutely adore the Han interaction as well, I’m putting a lot of focus on Kylo worshipping Vader’s ambition. So there has to be some sort of point in the story where Anakin tells him how much he wishes he could go back and never have made those terrible decisions.
I’ll probably make my own thread soon outlining all of these details.