Truthfully, I think the lightning shot would work in part because Rey doesn’t react to it. My feelings in suggesting the extra lightning are that she’s completely losing herself during that scene. As it is, she doesn’t notice or care that she tosses Finn about like a rag doll, potentially hurting him. She never reacts to him again, never goes to check on him, or to express remorse. She’s super angry that Kylo smashes the McGuffin, and then she just goes to town on him. Swinging wildly, screaming…Finn tries to pull her back from the brink and she’s all like, “Nah-uh, buster! *ker-POW!*” She basically pushes back Finn reflexively, not even “seeing” him. And she keeps going after Kylo blindly. Leia reaches out to her son, and Ben clearly feels her presence, but Rey is too self-consumed to notice anything else. She flat-out *impales* him, and then…she feels Leia finally. And she snaps out of it. She looks around, seeing what she’s done seemingly for the first time. And then she cries, seeing what she’s become - seeing how low she’s fallen. Which is why she decides to heal Ben - to atone.

So that’s my read on the scene, and I’ll defend the lightning idea as a legitimate storytelling beat, feeding into that blinding, consuming darkness that Rey is (or should be) feeling right about now.

But, that said, the Man has spoken. If it’s not right for Ascendant, it’s not right for Ascendant. Maybe I’ll add it to my version if I can get the effect to work.