Ben's Childhood

This video touches upon some elements of what potentially lured Ben to the dark side.

that was interesting @darth dementor and pretty astute.

i've just read a little on child grooming.

this is off http://www.naasca.org/2012-Articles/040512-GroomingWillingVictims.htm

3. Filling a need
The molester exploits the child's emotional needs by freely offering love, friendship and support. Parents may even feel relieved that the child has found a responsible friend, mentor or role model or that they have found a dependable babysitter, depending on the age of the child. Whatever the parent needs, the molester is pleased to help out. Whatever the child needs or wants, the molester is happy to provide, with or without the parents knowledge or consent. Some molesters will even instigate a sexual relationship with a single parent just to gain access to her children. The greater the family need and the molester's position of trust, the less ability a child has to say, “NO!”

i know this is about sexual abuse and i'm not suggesting there was sexual abuse but it still struck a chord. i wonder if he was palmed off to snoke whilst leia was busy? and because snoke knows about the force, she would have been relieved thinking that her son was with someone who could show him stuff?

@guardienne Yep. Possibly rings a bell.

Hello,

OK, throwing my own stuff from my college years into the mix.   I double majored in literature and history, and I studied early and 19th century American lit quite a lot. Early American lit includes a substantial chunk of Puritan thinking, which is Calvinist.  And one of the big issues was predestination.

To simplify quite a bit, everyone was believed to be predestined to go to Heaven or Hell.  There was nothing you could do about it-- it was all in the hands of God.  Your acts/works couldn't change your status.  However, they COULD give you a hint about whether you were saved or damned-- someone with a godly life was probably saved, and someone with a sinful life was probably damned.  The thing was, you were supposed to be in a state of limbo, so to speak, or spiritual anxiety, because if you were SURE you were damned or saved, that was wrong.  If you felt certain that you were predestined to be saved, that was called "presumption."  If you were certain you were predestined to be damned, that was called "despair."  Both were sinful.

You can probably see where I'm going with this.  In the Galaxy Far, Far Away, the way the Force seems to be perceived reminds me a lot of this dynamic.  You're on the Light side, or the Dark.  There doesn't seem to be much of a middle ground or gray area (yet).  Imagine someone equally drawn to the Light and the Dark, two supposedly mutually-exclusive sides of the Force-- Ben Solo, obviously.  Imagine not knowing which way you're going to go, but knowing it's one or the other, and that there is no middle ground.  I wonder whether the character of young Ben Solo was supposed to be seen as controlling his own destiny, choosing between the light and the dark-- or just waiting for it to be revealed to him.

There's a true story in early American history (1600s, I believe) of one of the Puritan women who was so tormented by the uncertainty of her salvation status that she killed her children-- the fact that she could do that gave her some relief from the uncertainty, in that now she was certain that she was damned.  The duality of something so important as her state of salvation, and not knowing where she stood, was to her worse than knowing she was damned and knowing that she had killed her own children.  Anyway, just throwing it out there that even beyond being groomed by Snoke, not understood by Han, etc., maybe knowing that one is equally drawn to the light and the dark might be its own hell.  The character is a 29-year-old man and, as PH said, is responsible for his own actions, but it's interesting to think about what he came from.

@lily snape
i do wonder how the equally light and dark thing would have been brought up in the family. whether that is a concept for us or in-universe as well.

i also do wonder how much pressure there was for first-time parents who are very involved with other things to have a child who had so much potential.

i think your Calvinist assessment is so good. it's such a strange concept to me that you have to live in such limbo, it would drive me nuts. but that's why i think they need greyness in their lives. if all you have is good or bad, it makes everything so difficult.

guardienne wrote:that was interesting @darth dementor and pretty astute.

i've just read a little on child grooming.

this is off http://www.naasca.org/2012-Articles/040512-GroomingWillingVictims.htm

3.  Filling a need
The molester exploits the child's emotional needs by freely offering love, friendship and support. Parents may even feel relieved that the child has found a responsible friend, mentor or role model or that they have found a dependable babysitter, depending on the age of the child. Whatever the parent needs, the molester is pleased to help out. Whatever the child needs or wants, the molester is happy to provide, with or without the parents knowledge or consent. Some molesters will even instigate a sexual relationship with a single parent just to gain access to her children. The greater the family need and the molester's position of trust, the less ability a child has to say, “NO!”

i know this is about sexual abuse and i'm not suggesting there was sexual abuse but it still struck a chord. i wonder if he was palmed off to snoke whilst leia was busy? and because snoke knows about the force, she would have been relieved thinking that her son was with someone who could show him stuff?

@guardienne

So this is a situation that sure looks a child being targeted. In RL the person who does this is, at the very least, emotionally abusing a child.

How will SW deal with a behavior that can be fairly described as child abuse? Such predatory behavior makes Snoke so clearly "the real enemy" and not Vader wannabe Kylo Ren. On the Twitterz, @KyloRenRadio is up to "Reel Around the Fountain" by The Smiths. Opening lines -

It's time that the tale was told
Of how you took a child
And you made him old.

Han & Leia may have been overwhelmed as parents, but I bet the more we learn about Snoke "targeting" Ben Solo, the clearer the mental/emotional abuse and manipulation will be.

@AnnLouise My guess is that the "child predator" angle will remain an almost unstated theme. Those who are perceptive will understand the implications, and Disney will not have to deal with the issue directly . . .

well they surely cannot go full-on child grooming, not in that sense. just like they don't go full-on developmental difficulties on rey. it's not going to happen.

but i think you can translate it thematically into the GFFA.

i don't know if you guys have seen mysterious skin (by gregg araki (sp?), it deals with the trauma of childhood sexual abuse. it's very good if i may recommend it, and there is no actual sexual abuse visible. i think the prequels went some interesting ways psychologically, for people who know about conditioning and about slave mentality and stuff like that, it was easy to pick out how the jedi were abusing their power not just towars anakin but also towards the children they recruited. in that sense they are not different from the FO to me (i can't remember how they recruit to be honest in detail) ... star wars is kind of about childhood, right?

like, the clone arms has its origin in a father/son relationship.

i think maybe i'll rewatch the movies some day. not now but the recruitment of children into conflict... it's a thing in star wars.

i think the new films MAY resolve that and actually address it in the trio. it would be incredibly cool (not in the hipsterish sense) to do something like that. to allow war to actually enter the narrative in its real sense. - i don't think it has really so far but it looks like it's going that way.

if they wanted to give the story real emotional weight, that's where they could go at any rate.

but yes, grooming. i like how palps groomed anakin. and i think ben could have been groomed similarly, both in relation to his force skills and in terms of emotional need. at the moment i'm not sure i want to imagine all the implications of that. i also find that strangely repetitive. so, that's keeping me at the moment.

but either way, i think it can be done metaphorically.

let's take this here maybe?

SoloSideCousin wrote:

guardienne wrote:the way i'm reading the character is that he has been significantly emotionally neglected by his parents. otherwise i can't explain the scene with han very well. it is both the best thing and the worst thing that's happened for a long long time. i think repeated skyping and staying in touch and not feeling like you've been pushed away ... well, ok, but that doesn't leave too many options for him.

so, admittedly, i favour a version of events where his alienation is key. it is something that i'm sure snoke emphasises and tells him repeatedly and so on but i'm sure it was there all along. he wouldn't look for a father figure otherwise.

so, whatever 'thing' has happened, i'm not sure how i can compute it with a later age. supposedly he's trained with luke and carries on feeling neglected and also he turns to snoke a lot for DS skills or whatever. and then he is revealed to be vader's grandson and that's the bad thing?

i dunno.

i think he is very immature and that's for a reason and it's an old reason, not a new thing.

I actually have not seen anything solid that indicates Ben was skyping with his parents regularly yet. People have made reports, but it was not in the first three chapters because I read them. Also, Ben was definitely not at the forefront of his parents mind in those chapters. It could be possible that Ben is quite isolated from his parents while training with Luke. Especially if Luke is if the no attachment school. It could be a situation where he is only allowed to contact them very rarely, like in some religious orders in real life. If he has very little contact he could be faking and/or deteriorating for a long time.
@guardienne

@SoloSideCousin

i think i saw some spoiler that went into the book further but don't ask me where

i think the blank i keep drawing is luke. would he really have not picked up on that? he's a people person and he would have to be very different from the luke we know to let his nephew deteriorate like that, no?

since i no longer know what to think i turn to tumblr to allay my fears...

kylo ren - ben solo - is a child.  and I can’t imagine his temper tantrums, without the mask, would be very scary.  just the pathetic and sad scrabbling of someone who has never managed to mature into adulthood and has developed next to no coping mechanisms to deal with the things that are tearing him apart inside.

so when rey says “you’re afraid,” of course she’s talking about his fear of failing in his grandfather’s footsteps, yes - but there’s more to it, I think.  I would argue, in fact, that ben doesn’t remember a time before he was afraid.  a time before he was filled with a terrible power he didn’t understand.  before there was something dark and menacing niggling at the corners of his mind.  before he knew there was something wrong with him he couldn’t control.

(before he blamed himself for the dark thoughts snoke was teaching him to think before he even knew the man existed.  before his consciousness became fair game to one not his own.)

if there’s one thing an unmasked ben solo shows us - and rey - it’s that he wears a mask and changes his voice for a very real reason: how can he be something scary when he is only something scared?

http://thegoodlannister.tumblr.com/post/138058353930/so-while-watching-tfa-again-today-i-was-struck-by

guardienne wrote:since i no longer know what to think i turn to tumblr to allay my fears...

kylo ren - ben solo - is a child.  and I can’t imagine his temper tantrums, without the mask, would be very scary.  just the pathetic and sad scrabbling of someone who has never managed to mature into adulthood and has developed next to no coping mechanisms to deal with the things that are tearing him apart inside.

so when rey says “you’re afraid,” of course she’s talking about his fear of failing in his grandfather’s footsteps, yes - but there’s more to it, I think.  I would argue, in fact, that ben doesn’t remember a time before he was afraid.  a time before he was filled with a terrible power he didn’t understand.  before there was something dark and menacing niggling at the corners of his mind.  before he knew there was something wrong with him he couldn’t control.

(before he blamed himself for the dark thoughts snoke was teaching him to think before he even knew the man existed.  before his consciousness became fair game to one not his own.)

if there’s one thing an unmasked ben solo shows us - and rey - it’s that he wears a mask and changes his voice for a very real reason: how can he be something scary when he is only something scared?

http://thegoodlannister.tumblr.com/post/138058353930/so-while-watching-tfa-again-today-i-was-struck-by

@guardienne

SAVE HIMMM!!!!

@maria antonietta haha yes, please.

i liked the idea of him having always been scared. i sometimes wonder whether i'm seeing things that other people don't but i so agree with this.

guardienne wrote:@maria antonietta haha yes, please.

i liked the idea of him having always been scared. i sometimes wonder whether i'm seeing things that other people don't but i so agree with this.

@guardienne

I absolutely agree with this. I am just short on time for a good response at the moment.

I know there has been lots of focus Rey's origins. But I am extremely curious about what happened in the Skywalker family? What drove Kylo to the first order? I always felt he was more like a religious fanatic or a person who has been indoctrinated into a particular religion/philosophy. Since, at this time, it seems his parents do not think this way. It would seem his indoctrination took place over a slow period of time instead of something he was raised in. I hope they explore some of this in the next two movies.

@birdwoman

as the new books seems to get his age of turning closer to 23 than adolescence i'm left wondering how it all happened even more.

people do become radicalised in their adolescence pretty easily apparently, and i assume there was some radicalisation taking place. what often happens is that this is done in isolation, such as prison, it's doesn't have to be like that, of course someone can be indoctrinated when still with their family as well, isolation just makes it easier.

but if i assume some significant grooming to have taken place, i wonder why it took so long for snoke to actually pull him over to his side or why he waited or why if kylo/ben is so immature, did he revert to this state or was he always so insecure and unhinged?

at the moment this makes no real sense to me.

guardienne wrote:@birdwoman

as the new books seems to get his age of turning closer to 23 than adolescence i'm left wondering how it all happened even more.

people do become radicalised in their adolescence pretty easily apparently, and i assume there was some radicalisation taking place. what often happens is that this is done in isolation, such as prison, it's doesn't have to be like that, of course someone can be indoctrinated when still with their family as well, isolation just makes it easier.

but if i assume some significant grooming to have taken place, i wonder why it took so long for snoke to actually pull him over to his side or why he waited or why if kylo/ben is so immature, did he revert to this state or was he always so insecure and unhinged?

at the moment this makes no real sense to me.

@guardienne

My head canon for now is that he got tortured till he broke...that is why he trembles while talking to Vader's old helmet....

@panki

i'm not sure i can reconciliate it all at the moment. was it you who talked about kidnapping as well? that maybe he was kidnapped and they made it look like he left voluntarily and then his family abandoned him and all that?

it makes sense but it's bleak. ugh.

guardienne wrote:@panki

i'm not sure i can reconciliate it all at the moment. was it you who talked about kidnapping as well? that maybe he was kidnapped and they made it look like he left voluntarily and then his family abandoned him and all that?

it makes sense but it's bleak. ugh.

@guardienne

I thought he might have been kidnapped and was made to believe his family abandoned him...somehow all the scenarios that come to my mind as to why Ben became Kylo are bleak and scary....

OK, here's the breakdown of events:

Ben turned at the age of 23.
At the age of 24, Ben is supposed to be disappeared. Also, destruction of Jedi Academy. (Not mentioned if Ben was involved).
HAN AND LEIA F*** A LOT. LIKE A LOT IN THE FALCON.
Ben was an accident. An unwanted child. Also, conceived in the Falcon. OUR JOKES WEREN’T JOKES AFTER ALL LMAO.
Han and Leia were married when the cutest child happened. They had a happy relationship despite distance (Han had a ship company, Leia was on Hosnian Prime.)
Leia misses the days when Han, Ben and her lived in a house, happily.
Snoke started influencing Ben at the age of 10.
Han and Leia kept regular contact with Ben via space!skype
From Leia’s POV, Ben boo had a happy childhood. And I repeat, from Leia’s POV.

http://thirst-order-confessions.tumblr.com/post/143387947374/do-any-of-the-mods-know-exactly-what-bloodlines

vaderito wrote:OK, here's the breakdown of events:

Ben turned at the age of 23.
At the age of 24, Ben is supposed to be disappeared. Also, destruction of Jedi Academy. (Not mentioned if Ben was involved).
HAN AND LEIA F*** A LOT. LIKE A LOT IN THE FALCON.
Ben was an accident. An unwanted child. Also, conceived in the Falcon. OUR JOKES WEREN’T JOKES AFTER ALL LMAO.
Han and Leia were married when the cutest child happened. They had a happy relationship despite distance (Han had a ship company, Leia was on Hosnian Prime.)
Leia misses the days when Han, Ben and her lived in a house, happily.
Snoke started influencing Ben at the age of 10.
Han and Leia kept regular contact with Ben via space!skype
From Leia’s POV, Ben boo had a happy childhood. And I repeat, from Leia’s POV.

http://thirst-order-confessions.tumblr.com/post/143387947374/do-any-of-the-mods-know-exactly-what-bloodlines

@vaderito

I guess this person has an advance copy of the book?

@AnneNeville Guess so. Doesn't really change anything because we knew Snoke started to work on him as a child and 10 is the age when leia became aware. She said in novelization that influence started before she became aware. As @EchoBase noted, Ben was 10 and Rey was born. Coincidence? I think not.

Anyway, he was a child so that's that.

panki wrote:

guardienne wrote:@panki

i'm not sure i can reconciliate it all at the moment. was it you who talked about kidnapping as well? that maybe he was kidnapped and they made it look like he left voluntarily and then his family abandoned him and all that?

it makes sense but it's bleak. ugh.

@guardienne

I thought he might have been kidnapped and was made to believe his family abandoned him...somehow all the scenarios that come to my mind as to why Ben became Kylo are bleak and scary....

@panki

that is very true. i can't imagine him having turned to snoke voluntarily, not after what i've seen in TFA.

The way I see it, Snoke had to goad him into doing something so awful he couldn't go back home. So that would be whatever happened at Luke's. And later killing Han. I guess the latter was necessary because Snoke felt that Ben still wanted to go back home and almost did when han asked him.

vaderito wrote:OK, here's the breakdown of events:

Ben turned at the age of 23.
At the age of 24, Ben is supposed to be disappeared. Also, destruction of Jedi Academy. (Not mentioned if Ben was involved).
HAN AND LEIA F*** A LOT. LIKE A LOT IN THE FALCON.
Ben was an accident. An unwanted child. Also, conceived in the Falcon. OUR JOKES WEREN’T JOKES AFTER ALL LMAO.
Han and Leia were married when the cutest child happened. They had a happy relationship despite distance (Han had a ship company, Leia was on Hosnian Prime.)
Leia misses the days when Han, Ben and her lived in a house, happily.
Snoke started influencing Ben at the age of 10.
Han and Leia kept regular contact with Ben via space!skype
From Leia’s POV, Ben boo had a happy childhood. And I repeat, from Leia’s POV.

http://thirst-order-confessions.tumblr.com/post/143387947374/do-any-of-the-mods-know-exactly-what-bloodlines

@vaderito

This may be uncharacteristic optimism from me, but... all of a sudden the timeline makes sense to me. It didn't before, but now it clicked.

That he resisted for so long - until Snoke perhaps forced his hand? - makes me think that he was probably a good but withdrawing/introverted/lonely kid who tried very hard to handle his own problems, which were too big for an adolescent to handle. Felt like he had nobody to confide in, but subconsciously hoped they would notice and help anyway. All the while drifting further away from those he cared about, and eventually not even knowing how to tell anything to them anymore.

Who knows - that might not be the real story, of course, but it would make a lot sense to me. It's all too easy to be afraid that you'd disappoint and hurt the people you care about simply by having problems, even though the loved ones would have tried to help if they'd only been aware of the problems in the first place.

Of course, Leia made a huge mistake if she was aware of the real problem but was so oblivious to its effects and didn't even tell Han about it. I've got to admit that bothers me a great deal. Leia has always been a favourite of mine. I don't want to be disappointed in her. But I guess TFA already told me that. She knew, and didn't tell Han. It bothered me since the first time I heard it.

The story behind Ben's eventual turn/disappearance will obviously be crucial. Alas, it's a long wait.

I do not read anything disturbing in this breakdown.

I do wonder now when did Leia send Ben to Luke? At the age of ten? Or later?