Virgin!Kylo: Yea or Nay?

Kylo Ren's 8-Pack wrote:So...

Do we need to have a scene like this in Episode VIII..?

Yea or Nay...?

Currently this would be a lil'bit out of character.

Rey just needs to tell Kylo she doesn't believe he really has an eight-pack and he'll rip that shirt right off.

Ren is so repressed and covered up that even removing a glove would be like a shocking state of undress for him

@Saracene Unless he's really drunk to think straight

Saracene wrote:Ren is so repressed and covered up that even removing a glove would be like a shocking state of undress for him

*thinks of ben solo caressing rey's cheek after he removes the gloves* *reylo heaven*

Maybe she caresses his scarred cheek first and he returns favor, removes his glove and caresses her smooth cheeks.

vaderito wrote:Maybe she caresses his scarred cheek first and he returns favor, removes his glove and caresses her smooth cheeks.

OMFG sthap

I'm still pretty firmly in the "I think he dabbled a bit at one point" camp, but the recent PH tweets emphasizing Kylo Ren as a "collector" did make me draw a mental parallel with another movie character collector--Steve Carrell's character from The 40-Year-old Virgin.

Posting in this thread because 40-Year-old Virgin used Carrell's obsession with collecting toys and memorabilia (and not taking them out of their packaging) as a very clever metaphor for his character's virginity.

Probably a bit of a stretch with regards to Kylo, but I also could see him getting awfully upset with someone disturbing his stuff.

surprised to see many of you think Kylo Ren is a virgin....he is not...he is a man, not a boy!


stop projecting lol

I wonder whether Kylo Ren is suffering from the Peter Pan Syndrome.

People (mostly men) suffering from this disorder may grow physically as an adult but choose to remain boys on the inside. They are usually lonely, lack confidence and try to surround themselves with people who can meet their needs. They are completely intolerant towards any criticism, not bothered by their own wrong doings and instead blame others for their frailties. This disorder is normally caused because overprotective parents don't allow them to grow up.

Here are some of the characteristics of someone suffering from this disorder:

1. Excessive outbursts of emotion
2. Anger to the point of wrath
3. Happiness that turns into extreme panic
4. Frustration that leads to self-pity and depression
5. Difficulty expressing feelings of love
6. Feelings of guilt
7. Difficulty relaxing
8. Undependable
9. Manipulative tendencies

Kylo displays most of these traits. In his case, the overprotective parent is Snoke who is not allowing him to grow up and is keeping him under control. Any intimacy could potentially lead to attachment so I doubt Snoke would let him get intimate with anybody so he is definitely virgin!kylo....maybe this trilogy is also about Kylo finally crossing the threshold into adulthood.

Resurrecting this discussion in light of new bloodline spoilers. I have been a solid virgin!Kylo believer until now, under the impression that Snoke seduced him away from his family when he was a young teen. However, now Bloodline implies that he was still working with Luke until he was 23. Unless Luke was preaching the same old chastity crap as Yoda and the like did, I find it unlikely that the young attractive Ben Solo never had a love interest. Anyone else thinking along these lines? My headcanon was that if Reylo happened they'd be each other's first but that hardly matters.

if he is messed up than it doesn't matter what age he was when he turned. Something bad happened to him that stunned his emotional growth. As @panki says, it could be Peter Pan syndrome. It could be anything but point is age doesn't matter. he's stunned at any age unless somsething breaks the spell so to speak.

BastilaBey wrote:Resurrecting this discussion in light of new bloodline spoilers. I have been a solid virgin!Kylo believer until now, under the impression that Snoke seduced him away from his family when he was a young teen. However, now Bloodline implies that he was still working with Luke until he was 23. Unless Luke was preaching the same old chastity crap as Yoda and the like did, I find it unlikely that the young attractive Ben Solo never had a love interest. Anyone else thinking along these lines? My headcanon was that if Reylo happened they'd be each other's first but that hardly matters.

@BastilaBey

The timeline is such a mess at this point and we still don't know anything about Kylo's youth, but even if he turned at 23 it doesn't really change my interpretation of Kylo's character as we see him in TFA. I still see him as an isolated loner who probably didn't fit in anywhere when he was young, a mixture of self-esteem and anxiety issues and yet a superiority complex. He was still targeted and groomed by Snoke since he was born. He's still incredibly awkward with Rey. He still covers every inch of his body. And so on.

I've said it before, but even in the modern world, a person can be a virgin for a multitude of reasons that don't really have anything to do with one's level of attractiveness - one can have a religious conviction, or feel oneself above such pursuits, or have difficulties relating to the people one meets, or simply not meeting the right person and taking love (too?) seriously. Or a million other reasons, really.

I said this is another thread but Kylo strikes me as an archetypal Other. I have a hard time believing he just suddenly became that way at the age 23.

BastilaBey wrote:Resurrecting this discussion in light of new bloodline spoilers. I have been a solid virgin!Kylo believer until now, under the impression that Snoke seduced him away from his family when he was a young teen. However, now Bloodline implies that he was still working with Luke until he was 23. Unless Luke was preaching the same old chastity crap as Yoda and the like did, I find it unlikely that the young attractive Ben Solo never had a love interest. Anyone else thinking along these lines? My headcanon was that if Reylo happened they'd be each other's first but that hardly matters.

@BastilaBey

I don't think that he's ever been truly in love before, but the virginity thing does depend heavily on the timeline *and* if there were periods where he was able to extricate himself a bit from Snoke.  For example, that speculation that he might have been a pilot at some point based on @Sforza's practically guarantees some kind of sexual experience.  It's practically like a rite of passage in a secular military organization like that.  However, I doubt it really went anywhere too good, because had he had some kind of positive option in his mind, like falling in love, he would not have been so vulnerable to falling IMO.

OTOH, if he ended up with the Knights of Ren when he was like 14, it's an up-in-the-air question.  In one respect, if the KOR are like these traveling mercenary type of guys, they'll have made sure he gets some action.  It might be upsetting and alienating in that kind of setting because he is a sensitive type, but he would have been with women.  The same would be true as a big shot in the FO.  Women would throw themselves at him, but because the alienating nature of the encounters upset the light side of him, he would probably start to avoid them altogether.

However, if the KOR are a celibate military order, like the Knights Templar, he would have shunned sexual contact due to "religious" reasons.  Since I also think he is coded as a abuse victim in every way possible in Snoke's targeting of him, I think the character would be happy to shun sex, and wears the 14 layers of clothing to prove it.  When I watched the interrogation scene again recently, I saw not only how compelled he was to look at Rey, but also how he kept trying to force himself to look away ... that is until he gets into her mind and then he's hopeless.  But that initial self-correcting could speak to some kind of celibacy vow type of thing.

However, if he was really under the influence of Snoke in a serious way, in addition to a KOR vow of celibacy, I can see Snoke keeping track of him so he doesn't make any attachments that might cause Snoke's influence to wane.

Though I must say that I had this conversation with my husband, and he undermined this argument a bit for me.  We talked about the Kylo Ren's clothing layers, how Snoke is coded as an evil force pedophile and how Kylo tries to not feel and protects himself like an abuse victim would, and he agreed with all of that.  But he came up with an interesting perspective on it.  He said that as a guy, abused or not, if Snoke made him shun women (which seems to be his sexual preference if Rey is any indication), Snoke would be at risk of losing him the minute he saw a hot woman, because guys, especially young guys don't always think with their brain if you get my drift.  

Instead, he thought it would be a smarter strategic move on Snoke's part to employ some kind of aversion technique with Kylo.  It would go something like this.  A younger Kylo would start falling for some woman, start a relationship with her and just when everything is looking good this woman that he opened his heart to would reject him in the most vicious way possible, thereby just eviscerating Kylo and sending him back to Snoke devastated ... and of course, Snoke would have told him that he could not distract himself with women previously, but now he had had to learn his lesson the hard way.  But in this instance Snoke would have hired the woman as a plant and would have pulled every string like a puppet ... thereby creating a situation where Kylo's already barely-existent self-esteem would just be eliminated.

Obviously, the movie would never waste time with this kind of backstory, but at the same time this virginity question ... or maybe to state it better, the history of Ren's apparent sexual repression in TFA prior to meeting Rey, will be never answered and so none of our backstory thoughts will ever be confirmed.  But for me, if Ren is like 23 when he turns, several of the above options might work to explain things to me, with me leaning pretty heavily to him having some kind of sex with somebody somewhere, but with the experience or experiences really messing him up along the way, thus making him go into that miserable Knights Templar mode when we meet him.

vaderito wrote:if he is messed up than it doesn't matter what age he was when he turned. Something bad happened to him that stunned his emotional growth. As @panki says, it could be Peter Pan syndrome. It could be anything but point is age doesn't matter. he's stunned at any age unless somsething breaks the spell so to speak.

@vaderito

This would fit very nicely in that fairy tale aspect of things. It's just a matter of how far they take it. If he is a secular pilot and is sent to Luke later in life after having some kind of meltdown, I think he might have had some experience, though none of it good, seeing as how protective he is in TFA. It's all about the timeline *and* what he was doing in that timeline. If he was with Luke and celibate KOR and was force abused by Snoke (and if you really think about it, God knows what kind of disgusting hallucinations Snoke could put in his head ... he could make Kylo believe he did awful and repulsive and painful and humiliating things that never happened, which would actually be worse than actual physical abuse in some ways because Kylo would totally internalize his own fault in it, especially if Snoke made him the instigator in the visions), then he could be a virgin. I wish they hadn't told us he was supposed to be 29 in a way. AD plays him so much younger. He really seemed to be no more than 25 to me in the movie, and the two virgins thing works a lot better if they allow you to keep that mindset, that he's not that much older than her.

SoloSideCousin wrote:

vaderito wrote:if he is messed up than it doesn't matter what age he was when he turned. Something bad happened to him that stunned his emotional growth. As @panki says, it could be Peter Pan syndrome. It could be anything but point is age doesn't matter. he's stunned at any age unless somsething breaks the spell so to speak.

@vaderito

This would fit very nicely in that fairy tale aspect of things.  It's just a matter of how far they take it.  If he is a secular pilot and is sent to Luke later in life after having some kind of meltdown, I think he might have had some experience, though none of it good, seeing as how protective he is in TFA.  It's all about the timeline *and* what he was doing in that timeline.  If he was with Luke and celibate KOR and was force abused by Snoke (and if you really think about it, God knows what kind of disgusting hallucinations Snoke could put in his head ... he could make Kylo believe he did awful and repulsive and painful and humiliating things that never happened, which would actually be worse than actual physical abuse in some ways because Kylo would totally internalize his own fault in it, especially if Snoke made him the instigator in the visions), then he could be a virgin.  I wish they hadn't told us he was supposed to be 29 in a way.  AD plays him so much younger.  He really seemed to be no more than 25 to me in the movie, and the two virgins thing works a lot better if they allow you to keep that mindset, that he's not that much older than her.

@SoloSideCousin
Most of the people I've talked to (who haven't known the official character ages) have pegged Kylo as mid-20's and Rey as early-20's. He certainly looks much younger in TFA than he normally does.

I suspect the only reason his ages has bet set at 29 was so that he could be an "Endor celebration baby" or something close to that.

ISeeAnIsland wrote:

SoloSideCousin wrote:

vaderito wrote:if he is messed up than it doesn't matter what age he was when he turned. Something bad happened to him that stunned his emotional growth. As @panki says, it could be Peter Pan syndrome. It could be anything but point is age doesn't matter. he's stunned at any age unless somsething breaks the spell so to speak.

@vaderito

This would fit very nicely in that fairy tale aspect of things.  It's just a matter of how far they take it.  If he is a secular pilot and is sent to Luke later in life after having some kind of meltdown, I think he might have had some experience, though none of it good, seeing as how protective he is in TFA.  It's all about the timeline *and* what he was doing in that timeline.  If he was with Luke and celibate KOR and was force abused by Snoke (and if you really think about it, God knows what kind of disgusting hallucinations Snoke could put in his head ... he could make Kylo believe he did awful and repulsive and painful and humiliating things that never happened, which would actually be worse than actual physical abuse in some ways because Kylo would totally internalize his own fault in it, especially if Snoke made him the instigator in the visions), then he could be a virgin.  I wish they hadn't told us he was supposed to be 29 in a way.  AD plays him so much younger.  He really seemed to be no more than 25 to me in the movie, and the two virgins thing works a lot better if they allow you to keep that mindset, that he's not that much older than her.

@SoloSideCousin
Most of the people I've talked to (who haven't known the official character ages) have pegged Kylo as mid-20's and Rey as early-20's. He certainly looks much younger in TFA than he normally does.

I suspect the only reason his ages has bet set at 29 was so that he could be an "Endor celebration baby" or something close to that.

@ISeeAnIsland

Yeah, I bet you're right on the Endor thing ... which makes it kind of gimmicky to me and not particularly useful. And honestly, the only reason I would know is because of Pablo Hidalgo. Less than 1% of the audience is tracking him and I don't think the age is prominent in other places. I had the same reaction as your friends when I saw the movie. He was like 25 and she was like 21 or 22. She seems older than 19 to me. Maybe it's Daisy's strong voice, but I know a lot of 19 year olds. They don't have her presence or strong voice. OTOH, AD actually seemed to be playing Kylo's voice at a slightly higher pitch than he does Adam Sackler. I think I'm just gonna go with my initial reaction when I think about them and not buy into this Endor gimmick. LOL. I'm giving myself that power.

ISeeAnIsland wrote:

SoloSideCousin wrote:

vaderito wrote:if he is messed up than it doesn't matter what age he was when he turned. Something bad happened to him that stunned his emotional growth. As @panki says, it could be Peter Pan syndrome. It could be anything but point is age doesn't matter. he's stunned at any age unless somsething breaks the spell so to speak.

@vaderito

This would fit very nicely in that fairy tale aspect of things.  It's just a matter of how far they take it.  If he is a secular pilot and is sent to Luke later in life after having some kind of meltdown, I think he might have had some experience, though none of it good, seeing as how protective he is in TFA.  It's all about the timeline *and* what he was doing in that timeline.  If he was with Luke and celibate KOR and was force abused by Snoke (and if you really think about it, God knows what kind of disgusting hallucinations Snoke could put in his head ... he could make Kylo believe he did awful and repulsive and painful and humiliating things that never happened, which would actually be worse than actual physical abuse in some ways because Kylo would totally internalize his own fault in it, especially if Snoke made him the instigator in the visions), then he could be a virgin.  I wish they hadn't told us he was supposed to be 29 in a way.  AD plays him so much younger.  He really seemed to be no more than 25 to me in the movie, and the two virgins thing works a lot better if they allow you to keep that mindset, that he's not that much older than her.

@SoloSideCousin
Most of the people I've talked to (who haven't known the official character ages) have pegged Kylo as mid-20's and Rey as early-20's. He certainly looks much younger in TFA than he normally does.

I suspect the only reason his ages has bet set at 29 was so that he could be an "Endor celebration baby" or something close to that.

@ISeeAnIsland

Don't forget it also makes them the same ages as Han and Leia in ANH.  

ISeeAnIsland wrote:

SoloSideCousin wrote:

vaderito wrote:if he is messed up than it doesn't matter what age he was when he turned. Something bad happened to him that stunned his emotional growth. As @panki says, it could be Peter Pan syndrome. It could be anything but point is age doesn't matter. he's stunned at any age unless somsething breaks the spell so to speak.

@vaderito

This would fit very nicely in that fairy tale aspect of things.  It's just a matter of how far they take it.  If he is a secular pilot and is sent to Luke later in life after having some kind of meltdown, I think he might have had some experience, though none of it good, seeing as how protective he is in TFA.  It's all about the timeline *and* what he was doing in that timeline.  If he was with Luke and celibate KOR and was force abused by Snoke (and if you really think about it, God knows what kind of disgusting hallucinations Snoke could put in his head ... he could make Kylo believe he did awful and repulsive and painful and humiliating things that never happened, which would actually be worse than actual physical abuse in some ways because Kylo would totally internalize his own fault in it, especially if Snoke made him the instigator in the visions), then he could be a virgin.  I wish they hadn't told us he was supposed to be 29 in a way.  AD plays him so much younger.  He really seemed to be no more than 25 to me in the movie, and the two virgins thing works a lot better if they allow you to keep that mindset, that he's not that much older than her.

@SoloSideCousin
Most of the people I've talked to (who haven't known the official character ages) have pegged Kylo as mid-20's and Rey as early-20's. He certainly looks much younger in TFA than he normally does.

I suspect the only reason his ages has bet set at 29 was so that he could be an "Endor celebration baby" or something close to that.

@ISeeAnIsland

I am definitely one of the people who thought Kylo was no more than 25 when I first saw the movie. I was suprised to learn he's supposed to be almost 30 years old.

I also think they made Ben older so he would be a product of post-Battle of Endor Galaxy and future, starting right after the Endor celebration. Also, making him almost 30 gives him time to have a 'history' but he's still not too old to have a future?

@panki
When I read your Peter Pan theory, it reminded me for whatever reason of the video game Alice Madness Returns. Probably because if anything Kylo would be a Peter Pan gone wrong in a f***d up Neverland and the game shows Alice gone wrong in a very awful Wonderland. I am not good with video games so I got stuck in the middle of the game, 10 seconds from killing the last enemy. Wish there was a cheat code. That was 3 years ago and I haven't played since.

I am with @Darth Dingbat. I don't see Kylo as a cool pilot getting another girl every night. It's Star Wars not Top Gun. Then traumatic event and he becomes Kylo Ren. Then redeems himself and goes back to Tom Cruise? Does not work for me.

OTOH he says to Han that his son was weak and foolish like his father. Wonder what he meant. Then Adam Driver describes Kylo as lost in the world he grew up in, feeling alone and not supported by his parents. The 2 descriptions somehow clash. Just found myself an annoying contradiction, argh!

It would destroy the character for me if they went the Top Gun route because in the interrogation scene I saw a boy and his emotional turmoil does not fit the Top Gun pilot profile for me. There is too much awkwardness in him.

SanghaRen wrote:@panki
When I read your Peter Pan theory, it reminded me for whatever reason of the video game Alice Madness Returns. Probably because if anything Kylo would be a Peter Pan gone wrong in a f***d up Neverland and the game shows Alice gone wrong in a very awful Wonderland. I am not good with video games so I got stuck in the middle of the game, 10 seconds from killing the last enemy. Wish there was a cheat code. That was 3 years ago and I haven't played since.

I am with @Darth Dingbat. I don't see Kylo as a cool pilot getting another girl every night. It's Star Wars not Top Gun. Then traumatic event and he becomes Kylo Ren. Then redeems himself and goes back to Tom Cruise? Does not work for me.

OTOH he says to Han that his son was weak and foolish like his father. Wonder what he meant. Then Adam Driver describes Kylo as lost in the world he grew up in, feeling alone and not supported by his parents. The 2 descriptions somehow clash. Just found myself an annoying contradiction, argh!

It would destroy the character for me if they went the Top Gun route because in the interrogation scene I saw a boy and his emotional turmoil does not fit the Top Gun pilot profile for me. There is too much awkwardness in him.

@SanghaRen

I'm confused. Who's talking about Top Gun? I think that even if Ben was a pilot he would not be Top Gun. He would still be a nervous dude, but he probably would have been pushed into having some sex with somebody, because that's the peer pressure in the military. It doesn't mean it went well at all or that he was smooth.

@SoloSideCousin

When I hear pilot with girls swirling around, I think Top Gun. Don't ask, it's the first thing that comes to my mind I certainly don't mean to compare SW to Top Gun.

I never saw SW as having the same rules as our world so I would not transfer the peer pressure in our military to SW. It just clashes with my view of the Galaxy being far, far away. All of a sudden I am back to Earth with its (sorry to say) idiotic social rules and pressures. For all we know in this Galaxy they might demand that their men have no relationships of any sort.

Kylo already has enough to deal with his conflict light side/dark side, the weight of the legacy and the lack of support from his legendary parents. Do we want to add sexual issues? I don't know how to explain it but to me it reduces a bit the epic of the story. It's just not Star Wars to me anymore.

Maybe I am cranky today and it's not my favorite topic so sorry if I sound off.

I just can't imagine Kylo wanting to be physically intimate with anybody....he had Snoke in his head as a kid telling him he should be Vader II....then he gets sent off to Uncle Luke, possibly at the age of 8-10.....god knows what other weird stuff happened to him...I can't imagine getting laid being a priority for him....I mean, who is going to be intimate with anyone knowing an evil old creeper is watching and sensing all one's thoughts and emotions??!!?!?!?     I won't be surprised if Kylo remained chaste just for that reason!

At the most I can imagine that he had some childhood crush/first love (the kind you kiss but not much else) who might have met a tragic end.....which would have spurred him to go after Snoke.....

Darth Dingbat wrote:

BastilaBey wrote:Resurrecting this discussion in light of new bloodline spoilers. I have been a solid virgin!Kylo believer until now, under the impression that Snoke seduced him away from his family when he was a young teen. However, now Bloodline implies that he was still working with Luke until he was 23. Unless Luke was preaching the same old chastity crap as Yoda and the like did, I find it unlikely that the young attractive Ben Solo never had a love interest. Anyone else thinking along these lines? My headcanon was that if Reylo happened they'd be each other's first but that hardly matters.

@BastilaBey

The timeline is such a mess at this point and we still don't know anything about Kylo's youth, but even if he turned at 23 it doesn't really change my interpretation of Kylo's character as we see him in TFA. I still see him as an isolated loner who probably didn't fit in anywhere when he was young, a mixture of self-esteem and anxiety issues and yet a superiority complex. He was still targeted and groomed by Snoke since he was born. He's still incredibly awkward with Rey. He still covers every inch of his body. And so on.

I've said it before, but even in the modern world, a person can be a virgin for a multitude of reasons that don't really have anything to do with one's level of attractiveness - one can have a religious conviction, or feel oneself above such pursuits, or have difficulties relating to the people one meets, or simply not meeting the right person and taking love (too?) seriously. Or a million other reasons, really.

I said this is another thread but Kylo strikes me as an archetypal Other. I have a hard time believing he just suddenly became that way at the age 23.

@Darth Dingbat

The age he turned may have been higher than some assumed, but the symptoms we saw before are still there. The dress, covering every inch. The monk-like character design. The awkwardness.

Moreover, the child-grooming and abuse allusions are still present.

I'm still team Virgin!Kylo. I don't think that he is functional enough to have had a romantic relationship, and I don't think he is comfortable enough with touch to have had a physical one. He hides his face from everyone except Rey and Snoke. How vulnerable would he ever allow himself to become?