Can Kylo Be Redeemed?

Saracene wrote:

guardienne wrote:there’s been a lot of effort made especially from the side of adam driver, to establish that neither dark side nor light side are that different, that their perception of themselves is basically the same. that kylo ren isn’t a villain.

@guardienne

Their perceptions of themselves may be basically the same, but the movies clearly don't want the viewers to perceive them the same. I think your idea is interesting, but I don't quite see it working in what's essentially a very black-and-white universe with a very clear divide between the good side and the bad side.

Even R1, which made some attempt at murkier morality, can't really get away from that simplistic view; yes the good guys can be flawed but they're still, unquestionably, the Good Side and the Empire is still without a shade of doubt the Bad Guy.

@Saracene

I'm not sure I quite agree with this.It's possible to show the humanity in people who're on the bad side  while also showing people from the good side doing reprehansible things.Just because one organization is evil and the other good doesn't mean all of the people on either side  would be good and evil or that by showing three dimenional characters on the side of evil organization in this case the Empire  makes her less evil. Even if these people are truly awful human beings in their mind they believe that they're the good  because most people(at least in my opinion) don't go around doing awful things for the sake of being evil usually they convince themselves that they're doing it for the greater good eventhough the acts they commit are disgusting and terribale(Kylo is a good exmaple of that eventhough I don't believe he's a bad person) and I think viewers would appreciate this kind of complexity which is why villians and anti heroes are getting more popular and beloved by fans once you see the humanity in a character it's hard to view him or her  as simly one deimnsional villian which is also one of the reasons why I think Kylo is so hated by some.
Rogue One has shown that the actions of some Rebels can turn what is  in theory a rightious cause to free the Galaxy from tiranny into a completly different thing and is in danger of becoming the enemy they're trying to destroy just like it happened with Anakin.The same analogy can be made for the Empire as well.As the prequals show many were happy when the Old Republic was transformed into an Empire because Palpatine promised them secuirty and peace but he and other people in charge of it made it into something evil and corrupted.
Interestingly I've read many interviews with actors playing villains and when they're asked how they can portray a villain and usually their answer is  that they try to not  thinking of them as evil people and instead search for something that makes them more thick and human because they can't allow themsleves to think fo their character as an evil person.

@cienaree

i feel that if they are wanting to depict a GFFA version of religious fundamentalism, they have to show that there are reasons people adhere to certain beliefs / sides of the force. and that they made sense to them at some stage.

@CienaRee I agree that it's possible to show humanity in people who are on the bad side, I just don't think that's what SW does.

Kylo is sympathetic, but he's a special case because he's a Skywalker and a son of beloved OT characters. Also, there's an expectation that he'll eventually turn on his side, much like Darth Vader who was the other character on the bad side allowed humanity. Then we have Bodhi and Finn, two former bad-siders who, again, reject the bad guys and join the good guys. The common pattern is, yes you can have humanity for the characters on the bad side, as long as they betray it at some point and come over. I can't think of any example where these movies lend humanity to the characters on the bad side who never abandon it.

Saracene wrote:@CienaRee I agree that it's possible to show humanity in people who are on the bad side, I just don't think that's what SW does.

Kylo is sympathetic, but he's a special case because he's a Skywalker and a son of beloved OT characters. Also, there's an expectation that he'll eventually turn on his side, much like Darth Vader who was the other character on the bad side allowed humanity. Then we have Bodhi and Finn, two former bad-siders who, again, reject the bad guys and join the good guys. The common pattern is, yes you can have humanity for the characters on the bad side, as long as they betray it at some point and come over. I can't think of any example where these movies lend humanity to the characters on the bad side who never abandon it.

@Saracene

Finn is not the big baddie target. It was a rightful decision, still easier

Saracene wrote:@CienaRee I agree that it's possible to show humanity in people who are on the bad side, I just don't think that's what SW does.

Kylo is sympathetic, but he's a special case because he's a Skywalker and a son of beloved OT characters. Also, there's an expectation that he'll eventually turn on his side, much like Darth Vader who was the other character on the bad side allowed humanity. Then we have Bodhi and Finn, two former bad-siders who, again, reject the bad guys and join the good guys. The common pattern is, yes you can have humanity for the characters on the bad side, as long as they betray it at some point and come over. I can't think of any example where these movies lend humanity to the characters on the bad side who never abandon it.

@Saracene

I can think of two Imperials who are inherently good yet don't betray the Empire....Rae Sloane from Breaking Dawn/Kanan comic/Aftermath books and Ciena Ree from Lost Stars (who would rather crash the destroyer in her command rather than let it get into rebel hands).

Similarly, we have Saw and his men on the rebel side who tortured poor Bodhi when he tried to help them and slaughtered Agent Kallus's colleagues which led him to hate the rebellion, as he recalls in SW Rebels...so again not so nice people on the good side.

While some of these characters haven't come into movies yet, I think Disney/LF are increasingly showing good and bad characters on both sides of every cause...and the best example of their message is in an award winning short story TK-436, where a regular farm boy becomes a staunch imperial and stormtrooper because the rebels kill his little sister.....and he is finally killed when his unit kills an innocent person unconnected to rebels or imperials..... as he is dying, he realises the dead person's child has killed him and will grow up to be a rebel.

i've felt for a long time that 'going good' is a betrayal indeed to whatever drove ben to the dark side. if the motivation is flimsy here, it'll make him someone whose allegiance is easily swayed, someone who will turn on anyone if it suits his purpose. because he wants to go home to mum, because he wants all the nookie with rey, or whatever.

these options have already been presented. if they are dangling going home again, it'll be muchly repetitive and to me pretty ... redundant.

this is a man who rejected going home at great personal cost. he rejected turning on his order at great cost to himself and others. he may be an idiot (and there is probably a case to be made here) but i don't think he's presented as someone who swaps allegiances at the drop of a hat or when challenged.

this is precisely why it's a challenging story. if you want him to do that, what kind of stake are you going to present in the story? the potential death of his mother? well, that's going to look massively morbid now. rey's potential death? someone who wanted to kill him and whose allegiance is to someone who potentially harmed him? well, i'm thinking, it's not bloody likely you can believably present these.

just my $ 0.2.

it's true so far the dark side/space nazis have kinda got a bad rap. i don't know how that can be solved believably within the story. i don't think the rebellistance will be shown to commit atrocities, i think the rebels will firmly stay on the *good* side, but i'm guessing the dark side wwill be explored as a source of power. we have already seen his command of the force, we don't know what his purpose is with the dark side, but my feeling is that he's got a purpose and it's very mightily important.

@panki I know that the SW media outside the movies portrays the Imperials in a more nuanced way, but I see them as almost a different entity to the film series, where the writers tend to have more freedom because the books, TV series etc. are way more niche than the movies. For the vast majority of the GA audience, SW begins and ends with the films.

Saracene wrote:@panki I know that the SW media outside the movies portrays the Imperials in a more nuanced way, but I see them as almost a different entity to the film series, where the writers tend to have more freedom because the books, TV series etc. are way more niche than the movies. For the vast majority of the GA audience, SW begins and ends with the films.

@Saracene

The point I was trying to make is that this trend might have started in other media but it is making its way into movies......at the end of the day, you have to admit that Saw Gerrera (one of my examples) did end up in a movie seen by the GA....he portrayed a rebel on the good side who did bad things....definitely more nuanced than "the empire is all bad" and "the rebels are all good".

Another example of things from other media making it into movies are force groups other than jedi or sith.....we'd been seeing them in TCW, Rebels, books and comics a couple of years before they made an appearance in RO on Jedah....I remember bringing up the topic of other force users months before they were even discussed in RO and again was met with the same reaction of other media differing from movies and what the GA would understand since they only watch the movies etc....yet here we are, with characters like Chirrut and Baze being from a group linked to something from TCW. ... similarly, it is only a matter of time before we see other examples make it into movies as well (rumors of Ahsoka and convorees appearing on Ach-to being another possible instance of TCW and Rebels crossing into movies).

So I believe that what appears in other media isn't for a "niche" market....these are ideas introduced there first and subsequently find their way into movies....a sneak preview of things to come rather than something just for a small crowd of fans....its like getting passes to an early viewing of something before the GA gets access to it....and since RO was so well received, am sure we'll see more of this trend in later SW movies.

panki wrote:

Saracene wrote:@panki I know that the SW media outside the movies portrays the Imperials in a more nuanced way, but I see them as almost a different entity to the film series, where the writers tend to have more freedom because the books, TV series etc. are way more niche than the movies. For the vast majority of the GA audience, SW begins and ends with the films.

@Saracene

The point I was trying to make is that this trend might have started in other media but it is making its way into movies......at the end of the day, you have to admit that Saw Gerrera (one of my examples) did end up in a movie seen by the GA....he portrayed a rebel on the good side who did bad things....definitely more nuanced than "the empire is all bad" and "the rebels are all good".

Another example of things from other media making it into movies are force groups other than jedi or sith.....we'd been seeing them in TCW, Rebels, books and comics a couple of years before they made an appearance in RO on Jedah....I remember bringing up the topic of other force users months before they were even discussed in RO and again was met with the same reaction of other media differing from movies and what the GA would understand since they only watch the movies etc....yet here we are, with characters like Chirrut and Baze being from a group linked to something from TCW. ... similarly, it is only a matter of time before we see other examples make it into movies as well (rumors of Ahsoka and convorees appearing on Ach-to being another possible instance of TCW and Rebels crossing into movies).

So I believe that what appears in other media isn't for a "niche" market....these are ideas introduced there first and subsequently find their way into movies....a sneak preview of things to come rather than something just for a small crowd of fans....its like getting passes to an early viewing of something before the GA gets access to it....and since RO was so well received, am sure we'll see more of this trend in later SW movies.

@panki

You are spot on, Panki, Pablo has already confirmed multiple times on Twitter that ideas and plot points introduced in Rebels tie-in with what we see in the movies. The examples he's pointed to so far were in relation to Rogue One, and there were things back in season 1 that fed directly into that movie. There is no reason to think we won't see this happen with Ep VIII and beyond. It is like with the Marvelverse and other long-running movie and TV franchises where you don't have to have seen/read all the supplementary materials to get what's going on, but it adds more depth and layers to it and gives fans easter eggs to spot if they have.

@panki I take the point with Saw, but the idea that the good side is not perfect is not really new. The PT I think made it clear that the Jedi stuffed up big time and the Republic was broken in a way.

My point is, while the movies made it clear that the good side is not perfect, they haven't yet extended the same complexity to the Imperials/FO, other than the characters who at some point were on the bad side but then abandoned it. "The good side is not all good" is there, I grant you, but so far there's nothing in the movies to counteract "the Empire is all bad". The characters who betray the bad side can't really serve an example.

I'm with @Saracene on this. The Empire/FO as portrayed in the films, are very very clearly evil. Nothing morally grey about them. They got Death Stars and Starkiller Bases, and everyone in them looks like a poster child for the annual National Socialist picnic.

In the opening crawl for TFA we have 'the sinister First Order' and the 'brave Resistance'. I mean it's hard to go with the morally grey argument once you've started off your movie with that.

As @Saracene said, the good guys being 'morally grey' is nothing new. In fact, it's almost guaranteed these day to get the audience on the side of your main characters (we love gritty good guys). So while the Rebels/Resistance are shown to be doing things that could be construed as 'bad' the Empire/FO has yet to be shown doing anything that could be construed as 'good'.

Plus, as far as Saw goes, most people I've talked to are shrugging off Saw's torture of Bodhi because it was done with the aim of defeating the 'evil Empire' and anyway Bodhi didn't suffer any permanent damage and he ended up helping the Rebels, so Saw's actions weren't too bad. Cassian's killing of that guy in the beginning is generally taken as a 'mercy killing' because the 'evil Empire' would have done much worse to him.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I'm just not feeling the 'Rebels are not entirely good and the Empire is not entirely bad' line.

Saracene wrote:@panki I take the point with Saw, but the idea that the good side is not perfect is not really new. The PT I think made it clear that the Jedi stuffed up big time and the Republic was broken in a way.

My point is, while the movies made it clear that the good side is not perfect, they haven't yet extended the same complexity to the Imperials/FO, other than the characters who at some point were on the bad side but then abandoned it. "The good side is not all good" is there, I grant you, but so far there's nothing in the movies to counteract "the Empire is all bad". The characters who betray the bad side can't really serve an example.

@Saracene

I agree that they haven't shown "good imperials" as yet in movies....but they've just shown a "bad rebel" in movies barely one month ago and "good/decent imperials" have only made their way into canon around a year ago (Lost Stars novel) ....we have not seen enough of the FO in episode 7 to know what kind of people are part of it, except for some of the leadership like Hux, Phasma, Snoke etc...something that hopefully will be rectified in episode 8. (I honestly thought characters like Mitaka didn't give out evil vibes)

If concepts from other media were introduced into movies shortly after they first appeared, I would have agreed with you but I gave an example of how different force users were in other media around before information about RO came out...and the idea was shot down as being something in "other media" and not something the GA would get.....but now the GA knows that there are guardians of the whills and other force user groups that lived on Jedah from a movie....technically, other force using groups were first discussed more than 2 years before the idea made it into movies....it didn't just appear shortly after appearing in other media in a movie.

Similarly, regarding Vader's castle on Mustafar in RO..... in season 1 of Rebels, Kanan is being taken to a place on Mustafar by the Chief Inquisitor  for interrogation and it is supposed to be a place where "jedi go to die".... so while it wasn't called Vader's castle, the place existed in other media before it came into movies. Also, the fort itself (sans the tuning fork tower which Vader added later) existed at the time of the Clone Wars and appears first in the Dark Disciple novel as the home of the members of the Black Sun. Similarly, the chief inquisitors attempts to mind probe Kanan in the same episode is identical to Kylo's interrogation method in episode 7 (and funnily, there is a foreshadowing of Rey's interrogation scene there as well when Kanan resists the mind probe and his first line is a forceful- You...are afraid....(the rest of the sentence is different) and he glares at the inquisitor just like Rey does to Kylo....and this happened back in early 2015 on Rebels)

Also, legends had "good imperials" so its not something newly introduced.... the biggest example I can think of is Soontir Fel and his son Jagged Fel who married Jaina Solo .... neither defected to the rebels side, both had the respect of the rebels and new republic but remained imperials...... and Jagged even ended up as leader of the imperial remnants.

So while you could still turn out to be right, I think this discussion is still premature as we don't have enough information about the imperials and FO in movies as yet to classify them as "only bad guys". I would wait till at least episode 8 to come to a conclusion on this as good imperials exist in other media and the concept could very well get extended into a movie if the story calls for it.

I tend to agree with @Saracene too. Many people have praised Rogue One for its greyness. I personally saw grey but not in such an obvious way that the GA will question the morality of the supposed Good Side. I have yet to hear, outside of here, from someone who watched R1 and gushes about the blurring between the supposed good and bad sides. I think most people are still quite litteral. They know that Jyn & Co will deliver the plan that will get the Deat Star destroyed, which is considered something heroic so all the rest is swept under the rug.

I see the blurring in books and in SW Rebels and I hope that it will be in VIII too, but apart from Rey potentially doing a trip to the Dark Side and Luke not being that innocent - and of course Kylo and his story -, which is accepted as a typical Force issue, I wonder which FO employee could be shown as a good person while still working for the FO. Certainly not Hux or Phasma. Stormtroopers have the excuse of having been taken as children and brainwashed. Of course, we have to wait and see, but with all the existing characters and plot lines to explain, I could see VIII brush over it and leave it for the more dedicated fans who will read books and watch shows. There's only so much you can cram in a movie and I have the feeling that too many grey characters would turn the movie into a psychological drama.

i'm glad i kicked off more discussion here.

the point of what i was writing about morality, however, was that it becomes obsolete to the person because it's imposed from an external source.

so, to me, discussing the evilness and goodness of characters is imposing that very morality i was criticising earlier in a redemption narrative.

if you're looking at the saga so far, we have a lot of 'grey' morality already (and i'm leaving rogue one out of it because i can). there is ambiguity in motives present in the jedi order, a discrepancy between their actions and their teachings. this is blatantly obvious. lucas also managed to invest the beginning of the empire with a resemblance of logic by suggesting that dictatorships usually signify stability (and they do).

i'm less invested in the OT morally (i'm sorry i've not seen those films as much) and i understand that the specific coding is done to possibly enable reading a simplistic moral universe. and i cannot deny that the same thing has happened in TFA what with the WMD destroying a bunch of planets and the FO abducting children and whatever else you wanna throw at them, i'm game.

it's not the question whether i think their motives can be construed as ... morally sound. i'm not interested in defending them at the moment.

what i am interested in (i guess) is how we and the characters construe meaning. and there may be people wearing black there who do things i disagree with and people in beige who do things i disagree with. and i think it would be very exciting to examine that space where our agency is reduced because of our circumstance, where any choice is a bad choice. but where we have to carry on.

i think evil exists in the GFFA and it is miasmic, it clings to you and you have to struggle to break free from it. but wearing black by itself and wielding power doesn't mean evil. it's an attribute of some characters.

this is all about what i would like, i have zero authority over what the story will be. but i feel that so much deconstruction has already gone on in TFA, so much has already been subverted, that the dark side is going to be next. it's not that i expect the FO to survive as it is and to continue their destructive business, but i'm expecting a measure of understanding of their motives.

i can't at the moment write myself out of some of the contradictions anyway. but i think the challenge has already been posed.

guardienne wrote:i'm glad i kicked off more discussion here.

the point of what i was writing about morality, however, was that it becomes obsolete to the person because it's imposed from an external source.

so, to me, discussing the evilness and goodness of characters is imposing that very morality i was criticising earlier in a redemption narrative.

if you're looking at the saga so far, we have a lot of 'grey' morality already (and i'm leaving rogue one out of it because i can). there is ambiguity in motives present in the jedi order, a discrepancy between their actions and their teachings. this is blatantly obvious. lucas also managed to invest the beginning of the empire with a resemblance of logic by suggesting that dictatorships usually signify stability (and they do).

i'm less invested in the OT morally (i'm sorry i've not seen those films as much) and i understand that the specific coding is done to possibly enable reading a simplistic moral universe. and i cannot deny that the same thing has happened in TFA what with the WMD destroying a bunch of planets and the FO abducting children and whatever else you wanna throw at them, i'm game.

it's not the question whether i think their motives can be construed as ... morally sound. i'm not interested in defending them at the moment.

what i am interested in (i guess) is how we and the characters construe meaning. and there may be people wearing black there who do things i disagree with and people in beige who do things i disagree with. and i think it would be very exciting to examine that space where our agency is reduced because of our circumstance, where any choice is a bad choice. but where we have to carry on.

i think evil exists in the GFFA and it is miasmic, it clings to you and you have to struggle to break free from it. but wearing black by itself and wielding power doesn't mean evil. it's an attribute of some characters.

this is all about what i would like, i have zero authority over what the story will be. but i feel that so much deconstruction has already gone on in TFA, so much has already been subverted, that the dark side is going to be next. it's not that i expect the FO to survive as it is and to continue their destructive business, but i'm expecting a measure of understanding of their motives.

i can't at the moment write myself out of some of the contradictions anyway. but i think the challenge has already been posed.

@guardienne


So much YES!!!! I am convinced that Kylo's story is going to be something where "agency is reduced because of our circumstance, where any choice is a bad choice. but where we have to carry on," and I wouldn't be a bit surprised if Luke's story and Rey's and some of the Resistance stuff has this too.  But it is imperative for Kylo, because otherwise there can be no "recovery" or "rebuilding" or "surviving or living on" for that character IMO,  He will just need to die for his "sins" just like Vader.

I also believe that there will be more and more subverting of expectations.  The new creators want to put their on stamp on the franchise.  They don't do that by living in GL's shadow.  Further, KK does seem to be very open to all kinds of thing if you read articles about him.  Maybe it's all Hollywood BS, but when she says that if a sequel isn't going to do anything new that there is no point for it, I tend to believe her.  Love or hate Rogue One, we never had a member of the Rebellion killing an informant point blank before.

P.S., @guardienne, you may hate or love Silence, but I can't wait for you to see it because I want to discuss it with you! :-) Talk about a miasma of no good answers.

@solosidecousin i'll have to hold off sitting in judgement over silence until the beginning of march but i'm very much looking forward to seeing it.

i think when you look at the films we have, you could say that TFA was written to drive home the same messages that we already have, but drive them home more viscerally? so, from that pov, i understand that there is good and evil and so on, but i'm not interested in that (haha) i'm interested in how you calibrate your own values and ethics. and that would be a more visceral investment in good and evil for me.

from my pov, the way the force has been presented, having two sides with opposing moral values, that's a kind of institutionalisation. you are told how to feel and when and why. it's dogmatic religion. and a more visceral investment in this would be to explore the actual spiritual dimension of what the force is and to allow us to feel it (or not, which would be a different kind of thrill altogether, to only have the characters report on it). so, i love lucas and i think he had good ideas but they weren't very visceral and that would have been my brief to the new people.

In light of the new Snoke article in EW, I am dredging up this old thread to share an interesting interview I just heard where Sarah Silverman talks with a former white power leader turned peace advocate, Christian Picciolini. I was struck by how much of the language he uses is similar to what Adam Driver and now Andy Serkis have said.  He describes having good parents who had to work very hard, leaving him feeling neglected and lonely.  Then, he has a moment in his early teens where a neo-Nazi leader recruits him in a vulnerable moment. At the end of the clip, he says, "...compassion is what changed me."


I am sort of hoping that TLJ will provoke some mainstream thought pieces on the topic of compassion and redemption.

LadyHa wrote:In light of the new Snoke article in EW, I am dredging up this old thread to share an interesting interview I just heard where Sarah Silverman talks with a former white power leader turned peace advocate, Christian Picciolini. I was struck by how much of the language he uses is similar to what Adam Driver and now Andy Serkis have said.  He describes having good parents who had to work very hard, leaving him feeling neglected and lonely.  Then, he has a moment in his early teens where a neo-Nazi leader recruits him in a vulnerable moment. At the end of the clip, he says, "...compassion is what changed me."


I am sort of hoping that TLJ will provoke some mainstream thought pieces on the topic of compassion and redemption.

@LadyHa

That's why they keep hinting about terrorism. I saw this amazing Ted Talk from a Swedish Muslim woman who fights Islamic extremism and works to bring young jihadis back, and she says that all these young guys have the same thing in common. They are isolated or neglected. They don't know their place in the world ... and then some older man preys upon them, acting like he is providing a home, a family, a father figure, a place, when these kids are just cannon fodder for these evil old men's ambitions. You see the same thing with gangs where kids' parents are never home due to working long hours or where the parents just aren't present for any reason, and you see the same technique used with extremist groups across the board. What makes it worse is that these predators seem to have a kind of radar as to who is vulnerable and who is not. Ben was vulnerable.

Hi Everyone,
Thoughts on how Kylo/Ben redemption could go down in IX have been shared over on the 'Reylo’s possible offspring' thread. I think this is such an interesting topic!
So, I thought I'd start a thread for this topic. It is going to be a major part of the story unfolding in IX (err if he gets redeemed.. ahem.. ) and I can see this will be a topic we will likely wish to revisit over the next two years.


Okay - this thread assumes Kylo/Ben will be redeemed! How do you see this playing out?
Will he live? Will he die?
and.. do you think he needs to pay for his crimes?
If so, how?
What ideas are out there about how this could all play out?

Are there any questions you have about his redemption that you'd like to explore and discuss?

[I will get back here later and quote and reply to the comments on the other thread here as soon as I can.. but just wanted to get the ball rolling..]

This is really hard, and I don't think I have the imagination to come up with the actual redemption arc. However, that's not going to stop me from speculating. Where's the fun in that?

So, I've read a couple of essays about redemption arcs, and the one that stuck the most was Ohtze's. Her point was that we need to be prepared for pain. However, "paying for one's crimes" does not have to be linear. And that, in my estimation, is a good thing.

If the filmmakers can demonstrate that Kylo has already suffered for his crimes (even before he committed the worst one - patricide -) then we may be able to get away with Kylo surviving the trilogy relatively unscathed (read: alive and with Force powers intact.) He's also going to have to make some sort of sacrifice (I could see the kiss of life coming into play very easily.) I can also see him continuing to atone for his sins by exiling himself and swearing off using the Force for violence.

In my "white picket fence" world - he and Rey spend the next 30 years running an enlightened Jedi school where they teach Force-sensitive beings to be balanced. I'll deal with whatever they give me, but I'd be equally happy with them roaming the galaxy in the Falcon, helping people where they can. I also have a pesky headcanon that our nerdy Ben Solo actually wanted to live more like his father. He's not a politician like Leia...and he's no Jedi either. Perhaps part of the reason Han disappointed him was that Han let him be taken away to train as a Jedi when he really wanted to do something else entirely...like be a pilot like his father.

That said - I think he's going to have to burn the FO to the ground. That will help. And get rid of that ginger jerk.

Hello and thanks Mods for finding an existing Rememption thread and moving mine- much appreciated! I look forward to going through this thread and responding in time

I'm going to crosspost something I put in the "babymaking" thread (lol), because I think it's more applicable here:

I think it could possibly end like this. After the big climactic scene in the end, Rey and Kylo part ways. She tells everyone that Kylo Ren is dead (which would be true from a certain point of view). Then we skip ahead to 1-2 years later and close the movie with an emotional reunion after Rey and Kylo spent some time apart doing their own stuff. Everyone cries into their popcorn, fade to black, the end Smile

@Saracene

...

I think this is extremely likely, but I'm not discounting the possibility that it's longer than 1-2 years. If we're talking realistic levels of atonement here, a combination of a Kylo who suffers a lot during IX, plus sacrifices something (like his powers) for the greater good, plus acknowledges that he's responsible for the evils he committed (though I do think this will be mirrored by a Rey who realizes just how terribly others had a hand in creating Kylo Ren), *plus* self-imposed exclusion from society for the purpose of reflecting and healing (not "punishment") before he and Rey reunite for a happy ending... I mean, that's basically as close as you CAN get to ideal atonement for the purposes of moving forward, even in our society. So anyway, I think it could be as long as 10 years, to mirror the lengths of time that Rey and Luke spent on their own in the first and second movies, respectively. Come to think of it, if we're talking reverse Anidala here, between Ep. I and II, Anakin and Padme didn't see each other for 10 years, yes?

I mean, if this was the case, they wouldn't have to spell out that it was exactly 10 years (or whatever), they could just establish that a suitable amount of time had passed through visual cues until she realizes it's "time" and she goes to him (I think she will instinctively know where he will be).

As a sidenote, if this is supposed to be a metaphor for adolescence, the volatility of youth, and growing up, a longer passage of time would put Rey squarely at the average age for a woman's sexual peak (ie. the age for mind-blowing sex and prime baby making).