ARCHIVE: Rey and Kylo - Beauty and the Beast, Scavenger and the Monstah, Their Bond, His Love, Her Confused Feelings - 14

Mrs Ben Solo wrote:

MeadowofAshes wrote:Sorry to go OT here, but have Rey, Ren, and Luke from that poster been discussed as the Holy Trinity anywhere? Luke is looking very Angry God, Ben would be the Son, and Rey is the Holy Spirit who serves as the conscience and comforter.

EDIT: The triangular layout of the trio is what caught my eye.

@MeadowofAshes

I have seen a lot of chat in other Star Wars circles about Luke, Rey and Kylo being some version of The Clone Wars Mortis trilogy but nothing about the Holy Trinity so far. I guess the two concepts are similar. It is a while since I watched those particular episodes so maybe a rewatch is in order.

@Mrs Ben Solo

I enjoyed the Mortis arc and have seen a fair bit of comparison to that as well. Interestingly, there's a comparison to be made between Mortis and the HT as the Holy Spirit is now seen as feminine in some circles.

Mrs Ben Solo wrote:

FrolickingFizzgig wrote:

SoloSideCousin wrote:

FrolickingFizzgig wrote:

ISeeAnIsland wrote:

MeadowofAshes wrote:

ISeeAnIsland wrote:

MeadowofAshes wrote:

Birdwoman wrote:Wasn't there a rumor at one point Rey will be emotionally hurt and go back to Jakku?

@Birdwoman

I don't remember if that rumor involved Rey going back to Jakku (I know several of us here have said it'd be hilarious for Finn to have to go back with her at some point ). But Daisy did say Rey would be put through the emotional wringer.

@MeadowofAshes

Daisy flat-out said that she'd be "emotionally injured" in an interview a few months ago. (I think it was the "My dad made a porno" podcast, but it could have been the Mtv podcast that she did roughly around the same time.)

They Rey-is-so-jaded-she-returns-to-Jakku came from a reddit leak that had some other, plausible-sounding stuff (at the time). I haven't re-visited it since the poster/trailer release, though, and I've found that a lot of those early leaks/spoilers (from non-MSW sources) that had some plausible bits have since been de-bunked (or mostly de-bunked) by more recent info.

@ISeeAnIsland

Emotional injury doesn't make sense coming from anyone but Ben, to me. She has no strong connection to anyone else in the film and they are the central dynamic. That lends itself to "seeming betrayal" ending.

@MeadowofAshes

TBH, that's my gut feeling.

Which would mean that she'd at least have to start developing some trust for him in order to be betrayed.

I mean, I guess it could be something to do with her parents or Luke, but they'd have to build up something about Luke in order for him to hurt her. As far as her parents go, if there's something shocking there, either Luke or Kylo would have to be the ones with knowledge who drop the bombshell, or she'd have to find out from a vision.

Given that it sounds like (at this point) she doesn't really interact with anyone onscreen other than Luke, Kylo, and Chewie, that sort of limits the options there. And in the interview, the interviewer asked the question, "Does Rey get injured?", and she immediately replied, "Emotionally or physically?" and then answered "Yes," without getting more specific. Given that she went straight to the "emotionally injured" thing, I think it's a safe guess that the "yes" would apply to the "emotionally" bit that she specified.

@ISeeAnIsland
You guys could definitely be right, but I do think it's also very probable that Rey will experience some kind of emotional injury from Luke being such a disappointment. Think about it. She has a strong attachment to the idea of him. He's been hyped up by Han and Maz and likely Leia (off-screen), and she's been told that it's up to her to bring him back into the fight. His saber called to her, he's Force Sensitive and very powerful just like she is so there's probably something of a need for explanation in Rey, explanation and advice she thinks only Luke can give. Not only that, but her expectations are going to be huge, and Luke's probably going to crush them in a matter of 45 minutes. Now, I do think that "crushing" is going to have something to do with Kylo and what really happened 7-8 years ago to make Luke go into exile. Her whole world is going to be flipped again when she realizes that Luke might not have been the great light hero and Kylo--the dude she's probably going to be dead-set on villainizing at first--is not all dark evil warlord.

@FrolickingFizzgig

I agree with this. Her positive expectations for Kylo are non-existent, and I expect that they will remain that way for a while. IOW, I think that she is going to be very tough on Kylo in terms of giving her trust, even if she starts falling for him, probably especially if she starts falling for him. He already hurt her when he killed Han. She'll be very emotionally "on guard" with him.

OTOH, she acts like a little kid when it comes to these "good" and legendary figures. Luke is an icon for her, as Han was, as Leia will probably become. I also think she will put the Resistance under this childlike veil of "good".  But then a series of things are going to shatter those childlike illusions. Luke is a mess. Kylo's story is a lot more complicated than she thought, maybe to the point where Ben might have been victimized to some extent. The Resistance might do something ugly, a la Rogue One moments.

I am almost positive that the spoiler where Rey ends back on Jakku was the same one where Luke does something big and terrible that not everyone agrees with, leaving her not knowing who to trust.

If this is true, she may eventually turn to Kylo at the beginning of IX because he might actually seem the most honest and she cares about him now ... OR ... think about what AD said in that interview about "it depends on what your definition of alive is." What if part of what Luke does includes the updated version of "frozen in carbonite"? After a whole movie of getting to know Kylo, Rey may have a problem with that.

@SoloSideCousin
Exactly! And to me, that's what the poster absolutely SCREAMS. That Rey will find herself caught in the middle of an incredibly polarizing conflict between two Skywalkers, both of whom will shatter her expectations in some way. She thinks she knows the whole story--that Luke was good and Kylo was evil, but there will undoubtedly be more to it, something will come out that will shatter her beliefs, and she won't know where to turn.

Like, in the poster, she's just one small, young woman, but her light is reaching out to both of them and will eventually bring them back together. And actually, thinking about this made me realize why I'm iffy on "dark Luke" theories. It's more likely to me that he'll be all-around too light, maybe even a little like the Jedi Council with the emotional isolation and the meditation. Rey can therefore be the bridge between the light and dark who brings about a new kind of Force user alongside both Luke and Kylo?

@FrolickingFizzgig

I am also sceptical about just how "dark" Luke will be if at all. I'm envisaging it more as a kind of 'people get more right wing as they get older' kind of thing whereby his youthful idealism has evolved into something more hardline. The spoiler about Luke telling Rey she has to kill Kylo seems so at odds with Luke as we knew him in the OT (like when he tells Obi-Wan "I can't kill my own father!") I'm having trouble seeing it as anything other than a test he sets for Rey. If Luke has truly reached the stage where he feels Kylo has to die, it seems harsh he would ask someone else to do it. I guess that alone would be enough to send Rey into turmoil because it was one thing for her to be on the brink of it in that moment on Starkiller Base before the ground split, but it's quite another for her to go up against Kylo (possibly with more knowledge and understanding, and maybe some compassion) and have to kill him.

Something is going on with Luke, we know that much, and it's possible it predates Ben's fall. But with Rian Johnson being such a fanboy of Luke's, I'm just not sure he would want to completely upend everything by having Luke go to the dark side.

@Mrs Ben Solo
I also feel like dark!Luke is similar to Reywalker in that it's another means of taking away the stakes of Ben being the fallen Skywalker heir. Like, so what if Kylo fell? Luke did too! And immediately it becomes all about Rey redeeming Luke or something. Dark Luke is just not as interesting as pathologically Light Luke, imo. It doesn't have the same weight as Luke potentially repeating the errors of the individuals who aided in pushing his father over the edge, but with his nephew instead. The latter just feels right to me.

FrolickingFizzgig wrote:
I also feel like dark!Luke is similar to Reywalker in that it's another means of taking away the stakes of Ben being the fallen Skywalker heir. Like, so what if Kylo fell? Luke did too! And immediately it becomes all about Rey redeeming Luke or something. Dark Luke is just not as interesting as pathologically Light Luke, imo. It doesn't have the same weight as Luke potentially repeating the errors of the individuals who aided in pushing his father over the edge, but with his nephew instead. The latter just feels right to me.

@FrolickingFizzgig

It's funny because the same people who were arguing elsewhere about the Jedi (and Luke) being right and everyone else being wrong said that if the Jedi had a problem is was them not being good (light) enough. But as you alluded to, there's as much danger in a person going too far into the light as there is with someone going too far into the dark. Too much light is blinding and leaves them in the same predicament as those who trap themselves in the darkness. I'm sure I've likened Luke to the High Sparrow in Game of Thrones at some point and the comparison still stands IMO, although I hope Luke isn't that far gone.

Mrs Ben Solo wrote:

FrolickingFizzgig wrote:
I also feel like dark!Luke is similar to Reywalker in that it's another means of taking away the stakes of Ben being the fallen Skywalker heir. Like, so what if Kylo fell? Luke did too! And immediately it becomes all about Rey redeeming Luke or something. Dark Luke is just not as interesting as pathologically Light Luke, imo. It doesn't have the same weight as Luke potentially repeating the errors of the individuals who aided in pushing his father over the edge, but with his nephew instead. The latter just feels right to me.

@FrolickingFizzgig

It's funny because the same people who were arguing elsewhere about the Jedi (and Luke) being right and everyone else being wrong said that if the Jedi had a problem is was them not being good (light) enough. But as you alluded to, there's as much danger in a person going too far into the light as there is with someone going too far into the dark. Too much light is blinding and leaves them in the same predicament as those who trap themselves in the darkness. I'm sure I've likened Luke to the High Sparrow in Game of Thrones at some point and the comparison still stands IMO, although I hope Luke isn't that far gone.

@Mrs Ben Solo
Exactly! And it's not even just people saying "hey, maybe Luke went dark!?", it's also insanely frustrating to see that Luke is also being toted as the ONLY potential choice for the (pardon the term, I know you hate it) "grey" Jedi founder. I've been reading around the past few days and it's like nobody can theorize about anything except Luke being the one to show Rey that balance is what needs to be achieved between dark and light. WTF? The trailer has Luke sporting #ExtremeView#2 to Kylo's #ExtremeView#1. The Jedi have to end? Those sound like the words of a man who has found balance and serenity and is ready to share it with his new student?

A lot of this is coming from YT comments btw. They also included a ton of people in total denial that it was Mark Hamill saying the Jedi had to end in the teaser, convinced instead that it had to be Benicio Del Toro's voice because no way would Luke ever say something like that. Luke's getting all three rolls here: falling to the dark side, being too pure for this world AND being the only candidate for founding the "new, grey order".

I don't think it's too far-fetched for people to think he went a bit out there, especially with some of the concept art. The one that has the demonic face appear over his comes to mind. He may have been tempted. I personally think he might be conflicted, not fully one way or the other. I don't think he's 'grey' either. Not the traditional fandom sense.

It's an interesting though probably unintentional comment on Luke possibly getting swept up in being a holy leader or followed by acolytes that his fans on the Internet are unwilling to contemplate that the ST isn't about him. Or that rather, the ST will continue to show the character grappling with the spiritual path he's been trying to follow as part of a lifelong evolution. I have a really hard time trusting certain political leaders who seem to have set their entire philosophical and political belief system in to place when they were 23 years old and haven't changed it. Same goes for fictional characters, especially one that gets described in messianic terms.

Speaking of fans on the Internet arguing in the comments about how the character and his path should be orthodoxic, this was a pretty genius observation about what's more likely to happen

THE BROTHERS BLOOM was about a brother Bloom who wanted out of the Brothers Bloom, and ended up completely dismantling the organization.

LOOPER was about a Looper who wanted to stop being a looper, and ends up completely dismantling the Looper organization.

Luke and Ben clearly both don't want to be Jedi.

(that's the money quote, the rest of it descends into typical Onion type of silly joke comments)

FWIW, I don't think that there's going to be a Dark Luke scenario in terms of Luke getting all DS. That's more likely Ben and also whatever his relationship with Rey turns out to be. But "going too far into the light" is exactly what I was thinking from that passage Claudia Grey wrote for Bloodline about him being 'beatific' in his conversation with Leia about their biological father. It fills a need he always had from the beginning, to have a heroic parent he can admire and look up to. Like @SkyStar's earlier observation that the way Luke is presented via Leia's POV, we may see somebody who internalized the idea of his father as a saint/martyr in order to cope with the trauma and guilt over what happened. Which could have eventually led to trouble in the decisions made not just about how Ben was to be mentored/trained by the elders in his family who were all too traumatized by the patriarch to acknowledge/get past it and in trying to continue the Jedi tradition.

Interestingly enough with the comment at the panel about Carrie Fisher's work with Rian Johnson on the script, if you watch Bright Lights, one of the biggest themes is about the family coming to terms with trauma being played out in public and how to get past it. Debbie is very much presented in the stoic/square jaw just move forward because otherwise it'll destroy you, versus Carrie who works it out via humor and openly talking about it. And the scenes they included with her and Eddie Fisher really hit you in the gut when she tells him that she wanted to be funny and clever starting as a child because she thought that would get his attention and make him want to stay. So it'd be a surprise if the movie turns out to have her input in the script, but not digging further into those themes.

Helix wrote:I don't think it's too far-fetched for people to think he went a bit out there, especially with some of the concept art. The one that has the demonic face appear over his comes to mind. He may have been tempted. I personally think he might be conflicted, not fully one way or the other. I don't think he's 'grey' either. Not the traditional fandom sense.

@Helix

I can't find the version with the demon face from the concept art book online, but people mentioned he was always at his most interesting when conflicted. I feel like the characters at the far end of the spectrum end up being the least interesting. Palps is fun, but not particularly interesting. The concept art paints himself almost like Kylo in a way, conflicted and thoughtful. That's not necessarily guaranteed for the movie, but I think it shows some consideration.

I think it's interesting to consider if he's '''grey'''/ conflicted in a way that's harmful. He can't find that perfect balance and he's disillusioned by both sides. Kylo isn't tempted by the dark, it's the light that tempts him and he's just trying to prove to himself he's dark. Rey is tempted by the dark as we saw in TFA. Maybe Luke is being tempted in ways by both and it's damaging him? He thinks the Jedi need to end, but that doesn't mean he thinks whatever Snoke/Kylo is is good. I think he might not be able to find what he wants on each side, he might think they're both too extreme, but he can't find the perfect balance. Maybe that's something Rey, Kylo and Luke have to find out together.

Reynak wrote:I don't think many people would consider friends more important than true love. After all, most people build their own family and/or share their lives with the person they love and choose as a partner and companion for life. And who are Rey's friends now? Only Finn and Leia because she doesn't even know Poe. Leia would be happy if Rey chose Ben and loved him. And how long have Finn and Rey been friens? For two days? When Finn decided to leave for the Outer Rim he saw no problem in leaving her, so I don't think she would renounce true love to see Finn more often. This is not what most people would do.

If Rey wants something in her life she cannot have with Ben, I would understand it if she chose to leave him, but not for Finn. Finn will have his own love and family one day. If she wants to be a jedi, she won't share her life with Kylo but I don't think she wants to be a jedi, she wants a family.

@Reynak

Exactly.
Finn is Rey's only real friend at this moment, but Finn is going to find Rose, and be something important in the Resistance. When they meet again he'll have a wide circle  of friends and family substitutes. Who will Rey have? Not Luke, who according to Daisy is going to disappoint her.

Re: Rey leaving with Kylo, she'd be doing more than saying goodbye to her friends, she'd be basically saying hello to a life of social isolation because her boyfriend is a criminal facing prison or execution if he's ever recognised and caught.

I guess it's a romantic notion that two people can be a world to each other, but it's not the one I subscribe to. IMO you need more people and purpose in your life than your significant other.

The question is....
Will Rey belong with her friends? If she loves Kylo, it may make her something of an outcast among the Resistance fighters. Many of who will probably play a large part in restoring whatever of the galaxy's left post FO.

I don't really get where the whole "Kylo is going to need to be punished" thing comes from. Dude is probably going to be instrumental in saving the whole galaxy. If we need a real life parallel, here in the US, we've got a handful of politicians who are rumored to be in the process of flipping on Trump in exchange for immunity. Assuming that Kylo helps to take down Snoke like we're all expecting, I'd think that would buy him immunity in a GFFA legal system, or at the very least, some semblance of leniency.