Just so you know, I never intended for the dyad to be fully removed from the film. I just don’t think it’s worth placing a word to the concept in this moment so we can define it better. It’s incredibly vague what exactly it is in the movie because he’s spending half the time giving Rey a vocab lesson. Palpatine can put a proper name to it later on and give us even more added context - that’s something he’s known to do because of his familiarity with the intricacies of the Force.

Him wanting them to fight each other is the only way to explain why he is so incredibly indecisive about what he really wants in this movie. The real problem is Kylo’s line earlier: “Palpatine wants you dead”. Which is why I suggested replacing that with “Palpatine wants me to kill you”. Then, we learn the other half of that truth in this scene, that Palpatine would also be fine with Rey killing Kylo. So when he later says, “I never wanted you dead, I wanted you here, with me” that’s true, because he always either wanted Rey alive and Kylo dead, or Kylo alive and Rey dead.

I don’t oppose the rewrite about the forest at all.