Kylo's Mask and the Ashes

MissG wrote:I think everybody needs to calm down, I didn't even blink an eye when I read that info, seen worse villains redeemed.

Also as a couple of people pointed out "enemies" could be anything, even objects and JJ being his usual self is toying with the fans with his words.

Besides it's not all of his victims, it's definitely enemies, otherwise he'd take Lor San Tekka and Han.

That said I find it quite interesting that Reylo hasn't had a bad day since the movie came out, yet plenty of ambiguous comments on Kylo's redemption, where might it all lead...

@MissG

Yeah, I read it this morning like, okay that's an interesting factoid, and moved on. Honestly in that interview I was paying MORE attention to the fact that Kylo Ren was always going to remove his mask for Rey from day one. I thought this forum would be grabbing onto that like white on rice. I had no idea that people would be so up in arms over the ashes comment. It didn't phase me at all - Ren has done much, much worse things in TFA, the worst one being AFTER he meets Rey. If killing his own father in front of Rey isn't going to stop me from shipping these two, neither will this.

vaderito wrote:LOL, some people are so upset about this, they want to leave fandom.

@vaderito

But can you blame them? I can understand that many people aren't bothered by this at all, but it DOES paint a different picture of Kylo from the character we actually saw on screen. It is new information that can make an impact on people's opinions. And of course, the antis are having a field day now.

I'm not leaving the fandom myself, I'm just really tired of this kind of thing. Like I said, I feel like they're deliberately stirring stuff like this to keep the debates going.

Darth Dingbat wrote:

vaderito wrote:LOL, some people are so upset about this, they want to leave fandom.

@vaderito

But can you blame them? I can understand that many people aren't bothered by this at all, but it DOES paint a different picture of Kylo from the character we actually saw on screen. It is new information that can make an impact on people's opinions. And of course, the antis are having a field day now.

I'm not leaving the fandom myself, I'm just really tired of this kind of thing. Like I said, I feel like they're deliberately stirring stuff like this to keep the debates going.

@Darth Dingbat

He killed people who he thought deserved to die (murders, thieves, traitors) and keeps their ashes for whatever reason, as an example or reminder or whatever. just because they were his enemies, it doesn't automatically mean good people. They are bad from his POV. And, as said already, keeping ashes is medieval thing, goes with his Knightly image.

I also don't see how it paints a different picture. he killed his father. hello, that's more messed up than keeping someone's ashes. we don't even know why he does that - to mock, out of respect, something else. Who cares? The worse his fall the sweeter will his redemption be.

I'm not leaving the forum myself, although my frame of mind has been shifted. I dunno what it is but I found it creepy.
Fine, if Kylo wants to keep remains of his grandfather, he's disturbed and to be fair ashes are something people keep anyway in their homes after a loved one leaves them and people talk to the ashes. If Kylo needs to be reminded of his evil self that was the whole point of him talking to the mask in the first place. He asked it to show him the dark side. Does he also talk to the ashes? I doubt it.

Darth Dingbat wrote:

vaderito wrote:LOL, some people are so upset about this, they want to leave fandom.

@vaderito

But can you blame them? I can understand that many people aren't bothered by this at all, but it DOES paint a different picture of Kylo from the character we actually saw on screen. It is new information that can make an impact on people's opinions. And of course, the antis are having a field day now.

I'm not leaving the fandom myself, I'm just really tired of this kind of thing. Like I said, I feel like they're deliberately stirring stuff like this to keep the debates going.

@Darth Dingbat

The character we saw on screen is not the Kylo from the past.

I didnt blink because when I read that I drew a clear line..that is from Kylo before TFA, not Kylo from TFA..

The kylo we meet is unravelling from that

They are trying to hammer it in that Kylo is obsessed with history and a relic hunter/collector, like a OT fanboy (so meta...) I don't understand the point of keeping ashes of his enemies; that is creepy. That doesn't even sound like SW. It doesn't change how I feel about Kylo and his redemption, what I don't like about it are the implications of it from the character's creators. Stuff like this makes it sound like the most important thing to them in creating Kylo is only to make a villian that surpasses Vader,  like some lame *** fanboy would want. It's like JJ thinks keeping the ashes of enemies sounds  like a 'cool villian thing' without much thought into a story behind it. Is there a purpose behind the ashes? If so, I would like to know as I'm very interested in Kylo and his motivations. Why just drop that info in a magazine interview like, 'check out this creepy cool villain fact' with no context.

As others in this thread have already mentioned, if the layered, nuanced and conflicted Kylo we saw in TFA is just one of JJ's 'twists' and that guy becomes Kylo the creepy collector who completely surpasses Vader with his horrific villainy forever, then that is a huge **** you to the audience. Because they chose to make Kylo a legacy, they have a certain responsibility to that legacy's memory. If their whole point with Kylo is to make this a horrible tragedy of how Leia and Han's son becomes the most shocking villian in SW history, I may be done with SW forever. I mean, what can they do next? Have Kylo kill Leia? Keep her ashes? Wait, maybe Rey Skywalker and the battle for Anakin/Vader's legacy? If so, then I'll feel like I misjudged the whole ST when I thought it was going to be a compelling story.

With that said, I think Kylo will likely get "worse" before he gets better, meaning we will see him more evolved/dark, for at least some period in this trilogy, but his pull to the light will remain. I understand the idea of seeing a evolution of a villian and all, and I think we can get that (to a degree) and still get a redemption. Kylo just has to be a different kind of villian (not like Vader as that would be boring). I am expecting some anguish, but ultimately, a different kind of villain evolution, where Kylo finds his way and balances his true self (the light and dark), not destroys himself. I'm not interested in seeing a tragedy that is better suited to a psychological thriller than SW. I will keep hope as I do believe deep down that we are onto something and SW is about hope at the end of the day.

Im pretty sure the Kylo who emerged before TFA was awful..absolutely awful, he was young and stupid and followed Snoke like a god and believed what he was doing was the right thing, and he kept it as a trophy of the moment he first triumphed over his enemies. But the Kylo we meet is not that person anymore..he is starting to break free from snoke and go against his orders, he meets Rey and then it just completely snowballs and he is utterly seduced by the light.

The fact he slams his helmet into the ashes is symbolic in itself. that evil part of him, that façade is dying.


heck Drogo from Game of Thrones does this yet people still ship Dany and him..Kylo is a grey area character.

I think with any new kind of info like this there'll be a day of intense discussion and some of us will feel very differently from others. It's in keeping with how the character is at the beginning of TFA - he kills someone brutally in the first few minutes of screen time. Some will say keeping these ashes is a blocker to redemption but I agree with those who say it pales in comparison to patricide. It's creepy and unsettling yes, but that's the point. This man wants to make himself into a monster.

Little_Boots wrote:I'm not leaving the forum myself, although my frame of mind has been shifted. I dunno what it is but I found it creepy.
Fine, if Kylo wants to keep remains of his grandfather, he's disturbed and to be fair ashes are something people keep anyway in their homes after a loved one leaves them and people talk to the ashes. If Kylo needs to be reminded of his evil self that was the whole point of him talking to the mask in the first place. He asked it to show him the dark side. Does he also talk to the ashes? I doubt it.

@Little_Boots

I to find it creepy, and EDIT, who uses his mystery boxes aka storytelling fan bait.  At first I believed that the romantic hints in the movie was fangurl bait, but became convinced that there was an actual romantic/redemptive arc to the story. Now this makes believe that it was ALL BAIT.
EDIT... THAT.IS. ALL.

spacebaby45678 wrote:

Little_Boots wrote:I'm not leaving the forum myself, although my frame of mind has been shifted. I dunno what it is but I found it creepy.
Fine, if Kylo wants to keep remains of his grandfather, he's disturbed and to be fair ashes are something people keep anyway in their homes after a loved one leaves them and people talk to the ashes. If Kylo needs to be reminded of his evil self that was the whole point of him talking to the mask in the first place. He asked it to show him the dark side. Does he also talk to the ashes? I doubt it.

@Little_Boots

I to find it creepy, and EDIT, who uses his mystery boxes aka storytelling fan bait.  At first I believed that the romantic hints in the movie was fangurl bait, but became convinced that there was an actual romantic/redemptive arc to the story. Now this makes believe that it was ALL BAIT.
EDIT... THAT.IS. ALL.

@spacebaby45678

But if it was ALL bait (the romance thing) wouldn't it look ridiculous when all 3 films are created? Kylo is still going to carry Rey, he is still going to get up close and personal, he will still remove his helmet for Rey while everyone else has to ask, he will still look awe struck when she pulls the saber, I mean it can't ALL be bait.

Or else he was just thinking "Gosh you will look so nice in my ash tray"! *shudders*

Little_Boots wrote:I'm not leaving the forum myself, although my frame of mind has been shifted. I dunno what it is but I found it creepy.
Fine, if Kylo wants to keep remains of his grandfather, he's disturbed and to be fair ashes are something people keep anyway in their homes after a loved one leaves them and people talk to the ashes. If Kylo needs to be reminded of his evil self that was the whole point of him talking to the mask in the first place. He asked it to show him the dark side. Does he also talk to the ashes? I doubt it.

@Little_Boots

Boots, the ashes are from a time before TFA..when we first meet him he murders someone within the first 10 minutes of the film...then he is pulled to the light (senses Finn) and everything before that moment is the past and not an indication of who he will become. When you first meet a character they do not end up exactly the same as they are at the start. The Kylo we first see is the closest thing to a true villain Kylo we will ever see, I sure of it. That starts to unravel almost immediately when he senses Finn.

The answer was delivered almost by happenstance when director J.J. Abrams was talking with Entertainment Weekly about deleted scenes from the film. “Sometimes bits and pieces of one scene end up being something that you use in another scene that you didn’t expect,” Abrams explained in a recent interview. “That’s always kind of fun, when you realize that something you’ve shot actually has a use you didn’t expect.”
Asked for an example, Abrams pointed to the scene in Starkiller Base where Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren is interrogating Daisy Ridley’s Rey and finally takes off his mask. The moment where he puts his mask down into that table of ash was meant for an early sequence.
“The backstory is, that that table has the ashes of the enemies he’s killed,” Abrams says. “That moment was actually shot for, and meant to be used in, the scene where he was talking to the Vader mask.”
In other words, that table of ash was originally in Ren’s private quarters. And the fact that he incinerates and preserves the remains of his foes adds a new, eerie dimension to his Dark Side nostalgia — and hoarding tendencies.
It also means we almost saw Driver’s face much earlier in the film, when he stares into the molten mask of Vader and vows to finish what his grandfather started.
“He originally had his mask off the first time we shot that scene. Then we reshot it with his mask on, but we had that shot which I loved and thought was so cool of the mask being slammed down into that ash,” Abrams says. “So that shot was stolen from the scene that we had changed and put into the scene with Rey.”

I'm not too worried. For one thing, we know Kylo Ren, to put it mildly, is not a nice guy. He has done horrible things. Keeping the ashes of "enemies he's killed" sounds like the behavior of a wanna-be Sith who fancies himself a great warrior. And from the bolded items above, this also sounds like something JJ thought looked really cool, so it was inserted into a different part of the movie.

Gemini wrote:

Little_Boots wrote:I'm not leaving the forum myself, although my frame of mind has been shifted. I dunno what it is but I found it creepy.
Fine, if Kylo wants to keep remains of his grandfather, he's disturbed and to be fair ashes are something people keep anyway in their homes after a loved one leaves them and people talk to the ashes. If Kylo needs to be reminded of his evil self that was the whole point of him talking to the mask in the first place. He asked it to show him the dark side. Does he also talk to the ashes? I doubt it.

@Little_Boots

Boots, the ashes are from a time before TFA..when we first meet him he murders someone within the first 10 minutes of the film...then he is pulled to the light (senses Finn) and everything before that moment is the past and not an indication of who he will become. When you first meet a character they do not end up exactly the same as they are at the start. The Kylo we first see is the closest thing to a true villain Kylo we will ever see, I sure of it. That starts to unravel almost immediately when he senses Finn.

@Gemini

Well, I suppose you are right. It was just a big shocker for me to be honest. Wasn't expecting it.

The Kylo the cutting room floor is less important than the one on screen.

I think I am just looking at this whole thing with "realistic" goggles on or something. I should just look at it with film goggles on.

Little_Boots wrote:

Gemini wrote:

Little_Boots wrote:I'm not leaving the forum myself, although my frame of mind has been shifted. I dunno what it is but I found it creepy.
Fine, if Kylo wants to keep remains of his grandfather, he's disturbed and to be fair ashes are something people keep anyway in their homes after a loved one leaves them and people talk to the ashes. If Kylo needs to be reminded of his evil self that was the whole point of him talking to the mask in the first place. He asked it to show him the dark side. Does he also talk to the ashes? I doubt it.

@Little_Boots

Boots, the ashes are from a time before TFA..when we first meet him he murders someone within the first 10 minutes of the film...then he is pulled to the light (senses Finn) and everything before that moment is the past and not an indication of who he will become. When you first meet a character they do not end up exactly the same as they are at the start. The Kylo we first see is the closest thing to a true villain Kylo we will ever see, I sure of it. That starts to unravel almost immediately when he senses Finn.

@Gemini

Well, I suppose you are right. It was just a big shocker for me to be honest. Wasn't expecting it.

@Little_Boots

I dont even think its all of his foes, its probably from a time in his life where he felt it was a monumental achievement in his life, probably when he was young, impressionable and stupid. Probably the moment which he felt solidified him as Kylo Ren. Its a trophy of that moment, a security blanket that he desperately needs to remind himself of what he thinks he should be. Becoming Kylo Ren was probably an incredible feeling for him originally, this is clearly not the case by the time we meet him in TFA..the man is miserable and being torn apart, killing his dad made it even worse..he probably thought that it would work again like it did when he was younger but it really didnt.

Mythology essentially has a  spiritual component. That is something GL has in spades. and JJ for all is good taste in design, casting and slick directing tricks does not have.

Gemini wrote:

Little_Boots wrote:

Gemini wrote:

Little_Boots wrote:I'm not leaving the forum myself, although my frame of mind has been shifted. I dunno what it is but I found it creepy.
Fine, if Kylo wants to keep remains of his grandfather, he's disturbed and to be fair ashes are something people keep anyway in their homes after a loved one leaves them and people talk to the ashes. If Kylo needs to be reminded of his evil self that was the whole point of him talking to the mask in the first place. He asked it to show him the dark side. Does he also talk to the ashes? I doubt it.

@Little_Boots

Boots, the ashes are from a time before TFA..when we first meet him he murders someone within the first 10 minutes of the film...then he is pulled to the light (senses Finn) and everything before that moment is the past and not an indication of who he will become. When you first meet a character they do not end up exactly the same as they are at the start. The Kylo we first see is the closest thing to a true villain Kylo we will ever see, I sure of it. That starts to unravel almost immediately when he senses Finn.

@Gemini

Well, I suppose you are right. It was just a big shocker for me to be honest. Wasn't expecting it.

@Little_Boots

I dont even think its all of his foes, its probably from a time in his life where he felt it was a monumental achievement in his life, probably when he was young, impressionable and stupid. Probably the moment which he felt solidified him as Kylo Ren. Its a trophy of that moment, a security blanket that he desperately needs to remind himself of what he thinks he should be. Becoming Kylo Ren was probably an incredible feeling for him originally, this is clearly not the case by the time we meet him in TFA..the man is miserable and being torn apart, killing his dad made it even worse..he probably thought that it wouldwork again like it did when he was younger but it really didnt.

@Gemini

I see what you mean and I have jumped the gun a wee bit. The ashes good be "bad folks" but never the less its very creepy. It wasn't stated in the film so that makes things better.
The folks against Kylo will be having a field day I am sure of that.

spacebaby45678 wrote:

Little_Boots wrote:I'm not leaving the forum myself, although my frame of mind has been shifted. I dunno what it is but I found it creepy.
Fine, if Kylo wants to keep remains of his grandfather, he's disturbed and to be fair ashes are something people keep anyway in their homes after a loved one leaves them and people talk to the ashes. If Kylo needs to be reminded of his evil self that was the whole point of him talking to the mask in the first place. He asked it to show him the dark side. Does he also talk to the ashes? I doubt it.

@Little_Boots

I to find it creepy, and EDIT, who uses his mystery boxes aka storytelling fan bait.  At first I believed that the romantic hints in the movie was fangurl bait, but became convinced that there was an actual romantic/redemptive arc to the story. Now this makes believe that it was ALL BAIT.
EDIT... THAT.IS. ALL.

@spacebaby45678

I don't know what I believe, but the trolling doesn't inspire much confidence in me, that's for sure.

I honestly thought - still think - there's so much beautiful symbolism going on here, and a gorgeous, epic story arc waiting to happen.

My biggest problem isn't with those ashes; the information isn't even canon because it doesn't appear in any of the canon sources. My biggest problem is that I've started to have serious doubts about JJ's mystery box storytelling. At first I thought it was just frustratingly coy, now I wonder if the story itself will turn out to be disappointing after all - half-baked, genre-confused and decidedly non-epic.

My problem with the trolling and messing around is that it's actually making those people who want to look more deeply into things - and give even fictional characters the benefit of the doubt before the whole story is told - feel like idiots. Even if it's just temporarily... it's still feeling like idiots.

And if it later turns out that "heh heh, those were actually the metaphorical ashes of Ben Solo, so his enemy's ashes from a certain point of view" or something, it's just... eh. Trolling for the sake of trolling?

This rollercoaster is getting old really fast Now I can guess what levels of frustration people must have felt about the Khan debacle.

Maybe the ashes are connected to Kylo telling Han, "It's too late"?

It could be Kylo tells himself that every day, "it's too late", whenever he sees the pile of ashes in his room.

Perhaps that's why he keeps them? "I can't give in to the light. I've killed too many people. This is who I am now. It's too late."

Remember when Snape did some bad things....the choices he made were pretty bad...then he turned it around..this is not ruining the story, dont worry guys,

Guys, we're never going to hear anything about these ashes again. J.J. just threw out that bit of trivia haphazardly to kill the commonly held "Vader's ashes" rumour. Ultimately though, they were destroyed in Starkiller Base when the sun was reborn, and will never be seen or mentioned again.

Kylo interrogates, tortures, and executes people as a part of his job within the First Order. We already knew that. The Visual Dictionary depicts Kylo's torture instruments, his shackled chair, and discusses his interrogation techniques. Killing Han was not Kylo's first attempt to rid himself of light. He's been trying to denounce the pull, to feel the power of the darkness alone, for years. According to the Visual Dictionary, "as [Kylo's] power rises, it eclipses his past life leaving the young man further isolated. Kylo Ren aspires to build immunity to the light side – to succeed where Darth Vader and his sentimentality once failed."

So he tortures and murders in a vain attempt to become wholly dark, to stop the two opposing sides of the Force from tearing him apart. He burns his enemies and uses their ashes to hold his monstrous mask. Every evil act that Kylo Ren performs is done with the intention of banishing the light from his soul. Well, I think it's made pretty clear that not one of his past sins has had the desired effect because the guy still feels that pull to the light. He's still the same scared, lonely, little boy playing dress up in his grandfather's ill-fitting, unbecoming clothing.

Patricide was Kylo's last resort, but even after selfishly killing his own father, the darkness refused to shroud him. He was weakened, shocked, horrified. If that didn't work, nothing will. We've seen Kylo at his worst. No evil deed could ever surpass killing the father who died loving him. In upcoming years, as he evolves, we'll see him at his best.

Not sure why anybody would feel uncertain because of Pablo's Tweets. He's just said things we already know (i.e. evil acts are a choice, but so is redemption). It's a personal path that has absolutely nothing to do with the other characters. I've said this myself about a dozen times.

Why are people pretending that Kylo isn't still a villain? He was the major villain of this movie, even if he was one of the big focuses. He's not a tortured anti-hero, he's a broken, selfish anti-villain. Kylo has been trying to cast aside his origins for a long time. I kind of doubted killing Han was his first attempt at ridding himself of the pull to the Light. He seemed to be on his last leg in The Force Awakens, done with trying and failing to avoid the Light. I discussed this in my redemption essay. Kylo is a very tortured individual, pulled apart by two sides of the Force, not some misunderstood anti-hero going about good things the wrong way. We're talking about a man who talks to inanimate objects expecting them to respond, who kills his own father in the hope of ridding himself of the Light once and for all.

Can we please acknowledge other important aspects of the interview? Abrams CHOSE not to include this idea, even if it's still the "backstory" of the ashes. He was literally just talking about it because someone asked, and he though the shot was interesting. Do you think he would be discussing it if it was supposed to be important to Johnson's movie? Because I don't. In fact, it tells me the complete opposite, just as much as Abrams saying early plans of Jedi Killer included a more Vader-like incarnation. If Abrams is willingly talking about something, it's not important.

Why did they choose not to include the explanation of the ashes? Maybe to heighten the impact of Ren removing his mask in front of Rey (which he clearly states was always in the plans).

I can't handle the negativity. It couldn't care less about the interview, but these ridiculous, over-the-top reactions to a piece of omitted characterization actually get me down.

Might just be denial but I'm not buying it. From what I've seen of him in the movie (and read of him in the novel) he's more like no-BS-kind-of-guy. Tekka doesn't want to talk? Well damn you *cuts and leaves*. Takodana - no droid in sight? Meh, let's take the girl instead then. He's even fast at interrogating (minus with Rey, he exchanges a few more sentences with her than with Poe).

Besides, why in the world would he put that mask in the remains of people? It's just disgusting from a hygiene perspective as well.

I've calmed down a bit now. I jumped the gun way too much. Meh