My point was TLJ left things open ended, you only see that as set up for Ben being redeemed because that’s what happened in the end, but it could’ve gone any other way. Just think of this interaction between Luke and Leia:
“I came to face him, Leia. And I can’t save him.”
“I held out hope for so long, but I know my son is gone.”
“No one’s ever really gone.”On one hand, this clearly reads as Kylo being past the point of redemption, as even Leia has given up on him, on the other, Luke only says he can’t save him, and comforts Leia by telling her no one’s ever really gone, though that leads into Han, so it could be read in a multitude of ways, that’s what made TLJ great.
If Kylo was past the point of redemption, then Luke wouldn’t have told Leia, “No one’s ever really gone.”
He then gives her Han’s dice, you know, Han, who is dead. So what did he really mean by that? That her son is gone but not forgotten? Like I said it could be read in a multitude of ways, they could’ve had Kylo NOT be redeemed in ep IX and this conversation would still make sense. You would be here telling us how dumb we are for thinking he might be redeemed.
I wouldn’t be opposed to Kylo chosing to turn after losing everything and finally seeing the error of his choices, as Sherlock suggested, but the point of TLJ was that Kylo chose not to turn good even after the ‘big bad’ in the throne was dead, instead he chose to become the Ruler of the First Order, he chose to become the ‘big bad’ and sit on the throne himself. Things could go in any direction after this.
No. That reinforced Kylo’s desire to be evil, but even then he’s left broken. This is just like in TFA, he kills Han to clear away these goody-goody feelings but it doesn’t work, it makes him even more regretful. Just because he decided to rule the First Order doesn’t mean his goody-goody feelings are gone - in fact, TLJ showed him being conflicted at the end.
Leaving him unredeemed undermines the point of his arc.
Yes Kylo is broken, divided, conflicted… the point in TLJ is that just because somebody is broken, divided and conflicted it doesn’t mean they HAVE to turn. Kylo is given the choice, and he chooses to remain evil. He could’ve kept holding to that choice all the way to the end. Leaving him unredeemed would undermine nothing.
Again, you only see it like this because that’s how it played out in the end, letting go of her parents and dealing with feelings worthlessness were key parts of her character arc, but so was finding her place in this story and wanting to be someone important.
Most importantly, she’s the protagonist, she works as a surrogate for the audience. And as such, in a metanarrative sense, she needed to let go of her parents because we needed to let go of her parents, she wanted to find her place in this story because we wanted to find her place in this story, we wanted her to be someone important, we wanted some big revelation, and so did she. Her parents being no one wasn’t just the hardest answer for Rey, it was the hardest answer for the audience. An audience who spent years specutaling where she came from, who she would be related to, where she would fit in. Like Kylo says, the fact that her parents were no one meant she had no [set] place in this story. She had no connection to anyone, she was free to choose whomever she wanted to be. Making her the grandaughter of Palpatine undoes this, now she is shoved back into the mold, the hero is the offspring of the villain, that was the easy and obvious answer, and what we’ve all seen before.
No.
People only speculated as to who she’s related to because they hoped it would explain her “powers” and wanted a payoff for what they thought was a set-up for “her parents being important”. TFA and the entire saga already explained her abilities, and TFA never set up her parents being important - in fact, Maz literally says they aren’t important.
Yes.
You just explained why her being a nobody was the right choice, so you can’t say under the same breath that TRoS making her a Palpatine was a stroke of genius. And you’ve also just laid out to Sherlock that Rey DOES care about her importance, and her place in the story:
Rey wants to learn “her place” as a way of justifying as to why her parents left her. The point of TLJ is that she refuses to accept that her parents threw her away like garbage - she literally lashes out at Kylo, denying his taunt that “[her] parents threw [her] away like garbage.” She waited all those years on Jakku, having been lying to herself that there had to be some good reason as to why her parents left her, that she is of some importance, at least to them, showing that they truly loved her and cared for her, that she is worth something. It is for this reason she convinces BB-8 in TFA that her family would be back for her… someday.
However… Rey wants to find out what her “place” exactly is. For the past decade and a half of her life, she had been lying to herself that she would realize what her importance was upon finding out who her parents were, and that if she does find out what her importance was then she would feel loved, since in this hypothetical scenario her parents did abandon her for an important reason, showing how much they care for her.
The “place in all this,” itself, never really mattered to Rey. She was only going to use it as a way to justify her parents abandoning her… so she would belong to them, feeling loved. The reason she says to Luke, “I need someone to show me my place in all this,” is, well… you see, she wants to find her importance merely to use it as a way of justifying her parents abandoning her, feeding the lie that they truly cared about her and believed that she was worth something so that lie would never die off, so, for the rest of her life, she would feel loved — henceforth pushing away her feelings of self-worthlessness.
So you can’t go contradicting yourself by saying that wasn’t a part of her arc. Of course Rey doesn’t want to be related to Obi-wan or Palpatine, that’s purely the fan speculation side of it, but she did want some big revelation about her parents that would justify being left to rot on Jakku.