Finding Vader's helmet was the start of Kylo's fall to the dark side?

Do you guys think this may be the moment it all started to change for him? I thought to put this in my force back thread but I want this discussion to be based more around what triggered Ben to start changing.

A traditional trope is this:

Tv tropes wrote:.   Sometimes even the All-Loving Hero and the most valiant Knight in Shining Armor are at risk of going insane, or over to The Dark Side, if a parent or grandparent was a Villain by Default or member of an Evil Race. This inevitably leads said character into a Wangsty existential crisis that comes completely out of left field, since they rarely ever struggled against villainous impulses before this revelation.    

It would explain why he seems fine in bloodline in his 20s but suddenly something changes if he discovered his link to Vader,

If he and Luke were hunting around for things when training, do you think they stumbled upon this helmet?

My theory that he had a vision through this helmet has been longstanding right from the start. Originally I thought snoke was manipulating him through it and only recently realised it may be Vader.

Pablo recently tweeted that sith can't be force ghosts because they attach themselves to he material world, if Vader was to be attached to anything it would be that helmet right?

If this is the case,

What do you guys think kylo saw here? It seems like Vader seduced him by showing him the power of the darkside and also made kylo feel like he needs to finish whatever he started as Vader?

Do you think we as an audience will ever see what kylo once saw through the helmet?

I think maybe he didn't see it again because you only get a vision once through these things which may explain kylos list for further relics.

Wasn't there a rumor about how they'd thought of doing a split force ghost for the dual identities/personas between Vader and Anakin? There has to be some explanation that has to be part of his backstory. Either part of whatever Luke was up to with LST or with the KoR. Especially if they make the point of showing that Rey has scavenged a Rebel alliance helmet and wears it at the moment when she hears BB-8 calling for help.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTQymiNApa8

According to Star Wars Minute, the Kylo Ren Darth Vader helmet explanation is buried in Delilah S. Dawson‘s short story The Perfect Weapon, published in November as one of those “Journey to The Force Awakens” tie-ins. (As Peter correctly predicted.) It hinges on Bazine Netal (Anna Brewster), the character who rats out Finn and Rey to the First Order at Maz Kanata’s fortress. She’s the humanoid one on the right, below.

snufkin wrote:Wasn't there a rumor about how they'd thought of doing a split force ghost for the dual identities/personas between Vader and Anakin? There has to be some explanation that has to be part of his backstory. Either part of whatever Luke was up to with LST or with the KoR. Especially if they make the point of showing that Rey has scavenged a Rebel alliance helmet and wears it at the moment when she hears BB-8 calling for help.

@snufkin

Not really a rumour, but concept art in the official book. There's no way to know if that still has anything to do with the story or if it's just part of the larger light/dark dichotomy theme that's present in much of the concept art.

I assume they wouldn't give out big spoilers in the art book, but who knows...

Gemini wrote:Do you guys think this may be the moment it all started to change for him? I thought to put this in my force back thread but I want this discussion to be based more around what triggered Ben to start changing.

A traditional trope is this:

Tv tropes wrote:.   Sometimes even the All-Loving Hero and the most valiant Knight in Shining Armor are at risk of going insane, or over to The Dark Side, if a parent or grandparent was a Villain by Default or member of an Evil Race. This inevitably leads said character into a Wangsty existential crisis that comes completely out of left field, since they rarely ever struggled against villainous impulses before this revelation.    

It would explain why he seems fine in bloodline in his 20s but suddenly something changes if he discovered his link to Vader,

If he and Luke were hunting around for things when training, do you think they stumbled upon this helmet?

My theory that he had a vision through this helmet has been longstanding right from the start. Originally I thought snoke was manipulating him through it and only recently realised it may be Vader.

Pablo recently tweeted that sith can't be force ghosts because they attach themselves to he material world, if Vader was to be attached to anything it would be that helmet right?

If this is the case,

What do you guys think kylo saw here? It seems like Vader seduced him by showing him the power of the darkside and also made kylo feel like he needs to finish whatever he started as Vader?

Do you think we as an audience will ever see what kylo once saw through the helmet?

I think maybe he didn't see it again because you only get a vision once through these things which may explain kylos list for further relics.

@Gemini

Well it seems Vaders's helmet was recovered in a psychiatric ward with an old stormtrooper

Darth Dingbat wrote:

snufkin wrote:Wasn't there a rumor about how they'd thought of doing a split force ghost for the dual identities/personas between Vader and Anakin? There has to be some explanation that has to be part of his backstory. Either part of whatever Luke was up to with LST or with the KoR. Especially if they make the point of showing that Rey has scavenged a Rebel alliance helmet and wears it at the moment when she hears BB-8 calling for help.

@snufkin

Not really a rumour, but concept art in the official book. There's no way to know if that still has anything to do with the story or if it's just part of the larger light/dark dichotomy theme that's present in much of the concept art.

I assume they wouldn't give out big spoilers in the art book, but who knows...

@Darth Dingbat

Ah thanks! So the collateral book gives the backstory and ties it in with how Rey & company get ratted out for showing up at Maz's place. Kind of ties in with the set up of the artifacts collector turning out to be central to both the big mystery and eventual tragedy in Bloodline, doesn't it?  At least without the vision part but definitely the "padded room" part:

This Disney Short Story Reveals How Kylo Ren Got His Hands On Darth Vader's Helmet - See more at: http://www.techtimes.com/articles/120874/20151231/disney-short-story-reveals-kylo-ren-hands-darth-vaders-helmet.htm#sthash.GCnEPkxL.dpuf

Turns out that this alien is a mercenary named Bazine Netal and she has quite a history with the First Order. And one of her jobs was to run a secret errand, most likely for Kylo Ren, before the events in “The Force Awakens.”

In “The Perfect Weapon,” a “mysterious figure” hired Netal on a secret task to pick up a package. The message was even delivered by a droid set to self-destruct after she received it – very "Mission Impossible"-esque. The mission takes Netal to a galactic psychiatric institute, located on a far-flung planet called Vashka, where retired Storm Troopers were sent to
spend the last of their days.

The package she needs is on the corpse of former Storm Trooper Captain Jor Tribulus – who happened to be present during the events at the battle of Endor. Before the successful retrieval and delivery of the package to the mysterious client, Netal's quest was filled with betrayals and some run-ins with giant insects that have overrun the defunct retirement home.

“As she traced her fingers over the silver metal, her black lips finally gave a real, true, wide smile. This was it. The case. After all that had gone wrong, she had the loot,” the moment when Netal gets her hands on her bounty is described.
Although she never actually opens the case to see what she is risking life and limb for to retrieve, “The Perfect Weapon” certainly sheds light, not only on one of the biggest questions in the “Star Wars” universe, but also helps to introduce a really bad-a** character.

Some theories also suggest that the package she retrieved might have contained Luke's light saber and not Darth Vader's helmet. And the mysterious client might have been Maz Kanata and not Kylo Ren. However, even though we are never explicitly told what is in the package, we feel that there are enough clues that it is the helmet and not the blue light saber.
So the mystery of how Kylo Ren got his hands on Darth Vader's helmet can finally be laid to rest, thanks to the exploits of whom we hope will be a soon-to-be famous figure, at least in the new expanded universe, named Bazine Netal.

This is an old post from tumblr I remembered from back in TFA first came out... While I am not a pagan, I find the meta's perspective on Ancestors and relics to be relevant to this thread but a couple of others...


Kylo Ren and Ancestor Worship

This is my obligatory “I am sick to death of MFers mocking Kylo Ren talking to his grandfather in TFA” post. (this started as a reblog from @firstorderforceuser but I wanted to talk about ancestor worship and Paganism in a little more depth.

Hi, I’m Heather, and I’m a Pagan. Here’s a fun fact about many Pagans: a lot of us engage in some sort of ancestor practice. This involves: having an altar, having artifacts from your ancestors’ lives, including items they used or cherished, and talking to them. I have my father’s ashes on my altar; I have my grandfather’s freemason jewelry. It is an actual spiritual tradition, y’all, and it is not limited to Paganism.

When Kylo talked to Vader’s shrine in the theatre, I saw a mirror of my own spiritual practices. In fact, if you really wanna know, his ancestor shrine is what made me root for him. YES GOOD TALK TO YOUR DEADS, Kylo. He didn’t have to take the helmet off although it didn’t hurt any. :-P

YOU COULD NOT CODE THE DARK SIDE AS PAGAN HARDER IF YOU TRIED: magic, moral ambiguity (oft associated with witchcraft), meditation/trancework, the willingness to alter reality in conformity with personal will, and ancestor worship. Individually you can find these in other faiths or spiritual practices, but the presence of them all together says Dark Sider = Pagan = Villain.

But H, Kylo didn’t even know his grandfather!

Guess what guys, people who practice ancestor worship can and do work with dead they knew, dead they never knew, and some even work with dead who aren’t blood related.

To be honest I never thought Kylo talking to his grandad's helmet was one of his 'weirder' traits - all of us have, at some time in our lives, spoken to pictures of dead loved ones, or cherished objects that belonged to them. If anything i found it sad that the mask was all Kylo had to talk to,

I get that it might be like hamlet where dude talks to skull of dead father but then the dialogue suggests that Vader has shown him something? The power of the dark side. And he says to show it again as well

Gemini wrote:I get that it might be like hamlet where dude talks to skull of dead father but then the dialogue suggests that Vader has shown him something? The power of the dark side. And he says to show it again as well

@Gemini

That's interesting because could it possibly be Snoke? Or is it in Kylo's head?
Or just wishful thinking on his part? Because Anakin Skywalker would never destroy his only grandson like that - I'd love to see his force ghost come back at the end and confront Snoke!

Just a random thought with the helmet. If Snoke is old enough to have seen it all, including Vader's trajectory and is molding an impressionable descendent into a new version, you'd think he'd also know that the whole trigger/backstory has to do with a girl. The ancestor brought down the order he belonged to and his masters because of a young woman he fell in love with. 'Ol Snoke outta be awfully concerned about reports that his apprentice has suddenly taken to chasing after a girl and tried to sneak her on board SKB instead of following the mission.

motherofpearl1 wrote:

Gemini wrote:I get that it might be like hamlet where dude talks to skull of dead father but then the dialogue suggests that Vader has shown him something? The power of the dark side. And he says to show it again as well

@Gemini

That's interesting because could it possibly be Snoke? Or is it in Kylo's head?
Or just wishful thinking on his part? Because Anakin Skywalker would never destroy his only grandson like that - I'd love to see his force ghost come back at the end and confront Snoke!

@motherofpearl1

I used to think it was snoke but then realised that Rey has a vision through a relic too. Which makes me think kylo has one through the helmet.

Pablos comment about sith being unable to be force ghosts because they attach themselves to the material world got me thinking that some part of Vader stuck to that helmet. No anakin in sight. There's that split personally Vader/anakin force ghost from the concept art too.

I think I mentioned this somewhere before, but the short story "A Perfect Weapon" may explain the backstory on how Kylo got Vaders helmet, and it only takes place just before TFA, so he couldn't have had the helmet for long.

Also guys

Remember Pablo simplified what "finishing what started" meant

Pablo said that it means killing Jedi

I think the answer is in the film as to what triggered this.

"Show me again, grandfather, the power of the dark side and I will finish what you started"

He discovers Vaders helmet, gets a vision from snoke or Vader showing him power of darkside and also Vaders mission which is killing a bunch of Jedi.

He then goes and kills all of Luke's students (Jedi in training) after seeing this.

Because that mask caused something, a seduction or crisis in Ben I think.

Now was it Vader or snoke?

Because snoke wants all the Jedi gone, this would indicate that snoke pretended to be Vader and put this forth to Ben.

I'm really hoping Kylo didn't 'murder' the Jedi at the temple,not just because it would be another 'evil' deed - and he's already committed patricide - but it would be a complete rip off of RoTS.

And there's this.......

Anakin's eyes turned yellow post Padawan massacre- Kylo's eyes are not yellow.

Cuz he's not a sith?

Didn't think of that!

This article will probably be of interest, I've seen similar things discussed here with acolytes of the beyond, an object being imbued with the dark side etc.

http://makingstarwars.net/2016/09/you-seek-knowledge-the-potential-importance-of-darth-vaders-melted-helmet/