Re: Ben's Childhood

by CienaRee Sun 19 Feb 2017, 9:33 am

SkyStar wrote:Absence of actual grandparents also probably made a toll on Ben. A lot of my friends spent a great amount of their early childhood with their grandparents while their parents were working. I did not had this option and was left first with nannies and then by myself in a result I grew up without a feeling of connections to my family's legacy.

I imagine if Bail and Breha were alive Ben would probably turn out different and he won't need a dead never seen grandparent to worship. They were not connected by blood, but judging how Leia turned out their influence could be crucial.

@SkyStar
Yeah,deffinatly.My grandparents for example used to take care of me a lot while both of my parents were working and it was especially hard fr them since both of them had a very demanding jobs(they're doctors)plus my dad was living in another town because it was a big city and he there were better opportunities for him to get a better income.
I think some people tend to to hink taht because parents love their children they're unable to be bad at parenting so they think that LF saying that Han/Leia weren't good parents imply they didn't love him at all which simply isn't true.The problem is that they weren't willing to make compromises not when it came to their marriage and not when it came to their child.I know that Leia had huge responsabilities after the war's ended and Han didn't know what to with his life and I'm sure they tried their best with their son but there's a difference betwene trying and suceeding.I think if they'd spend more time focusing on their marriage and not immediatly having a child then maybe after a few years their relationship would have matured and become less stormy and/or they should have given more thought as to whether they're ready to be parents.Things like any child of their being potentially FS and the effect Vader being Leia's father has on her or how it could affect their possible child/children,or whether they think they're ready to be parents should have been some of the things they should have discussed(issues which I think the EU did a really good job of handling since Leia didn't want to have children at the beggining and it wasn't untill years later that she finally decided she wanted to be a mother and that was only after she'd come to terms with her true origins)but it seems like they rushed into everything without thinking of the bigger pciture As I already mentioned though they weren't willing to change at least parts of their lifestyles and adapt to being married and having the responsability for taking care of the life they created and this is I believe the MAJOR problem that led to disastrous consequences. Sure,living an unconventional marriage like they do in Bloodline could have maybe worked perfeclty alright for them but when you have a child it changes everything and you must be willing to make changes and compromises for the sake of the well being of your child.I just find it very frustrating and problematic that the blame is been put on a child who didn't ask to be born or be FS for that matter.

by Macha Ren Mon 27 Feb 2017, 2:28 pm

reylo1992 wrote:Some excerpts from the upcoming book Aftermath: Empire's End:

Aftermath: Empire’s End spoilers below the cut

Excerpt 1:

Luke. She reaches for him but doesn’t find him.
The dark, now lit with stars. One by one, like eyes opening. Comforting at first, then sinister as she worries. Who is out there, who is watching us? Hands reach for her, hands of shadow, lifting her up, reaching for her throat, her wrists, her stomach -
Inside, the child kicks. She feels her baby turning inside, right-side, up and down, struggling to find his bearings, trying so hard to find his way free of her. It’s not time, she thinks. Just a little longer.
Leia.
Luke, she wants to cry out. But her words don’t come. Her mouth is sealed, a hand pressed over it. One by one, stars go dark again, winking out of existence as if by a hand slowly closing over them -
Leia!
She gasps and wakes. Han. It’s just Han. He’s by her side of the bed, rousing her, gently shaking her shoulder.
The dream recedes like a wave going back to sea.
Hi, she says, her mouth tacky, her eyes full of sleep. Her middle twists too - it’s not the baby. It’s some unseen fear uncoiling. The remnants of the dream haunt her - but they break apart like a sand castle as she sits up and clears her head, doing as Luke taught her to do.
Breathe in breathe out. Be mindful of the world, the galaxy, your place within it. Everything will be OK. The Force will be your guide.

Excerpt 2:

He is less a human shaped thing and more a pulsing, living band of light. Light that sometimes dims, that sometimes is thrust with a vein of darkness. She tells herself that it’s normal - Luke said to her, Leia, we all have that. He explained that the brighter the light, the darker the shadow.
Right now, her son is upset, tumbling inside her as if he can’t get comfortable. His light, flickering with dark. She centers herself and concentrates. The walls of the room fall away. Everything is white and then it’s black. Then she’s in the calm, airless void. As Leia finds her peace, so does her son. He stops turning…
Then he gets the hiccups.
Hic.Hic.Hic.
She sighs and it brings her out of it. But she laughs, too. Because the hiccups tickle her. They are like bubbles inside - a curious effervescence like nothing Leia ever felt before.
My son is alive. The future is bright.
…
The baby turns inside her again, troubled by something she cannot feel and cannot yet understand.

Has this been discussed yet somewhere on the forum?

It sounds creepy like hell. Poor Ben!

Source: http://bastila-bae.tumblr.com/post/157259526510/its-more-than-just-having-a-bad-seed-as-a-kid

@reylo1992

This is key.

I strongly believe that this is a direct hint that Snoke was alread interacting with Ben Solo before he was even born. Elsewhere I've argued with posters that assert that it is significant of nothing. But in good storytelling, nothing occurs without significance.

This sets up two every important elements of Ben's backstory.

He had a very strong bond through the force with his mother since day one. It sets up the fact that Leia, while not aware of exactly what was transpiring, was his protector that was capable of keeping Snoke at bay and comforting her distressed unborn child. With images like this, it is tragic we will never see the bookend of this with Leia being capable of protecting and saving her own son, thus bringing him home.

It also sets the stage that Snoke preyed on Ben Solo since the unborn child had awareness.

this is not a simple case of Leia has gas as some would like to diminish it as.

And it isn't a huge reveal. It only underscores what Leia herself said in TFA that Snoke was there "from the beginning."

It's a very tragic layer to Kylo's backstory, that he likely didn't even have agency in utero.

It gives a defeated Kylo Ren a huge reason in TLJ to flip sides. He will never find peace as long as Snoke lives. And he will never be truly free until that is accomplished.

by teltaru Mon 27 Feb 2017, 3:04 pm

@Macha Ren

It sure is one hell of a coincidence if it turns out to be one. No idea how anyone reading these would not draw parallels.

The dark, now lit with stars. One by one, like eyes opening. Comforting at first, then sinister as she worries, Who is out there, who is watching us? Hands reach for her, hands of shadow, lifting her up, reaching for her throat, her wrists, her stomach -
Inside, the child kicks. She feels her baby turning inside, right-side, up and down, struggling to find his bearings, trying so hard to find his way free of her.
[...]
The baby turns inside her again, troubled by something she cannot feel and cannot yet understand.

“So Snoke was watching our son.”
“Always,” she told him. “From the shadows, in the beginning, even before I realized what was happening, he was manipulating everything, pulling our son toward the dark side.

by Macha Ren Mon 27 Feb 2017, 3:22 pm

teltaru wrote:@Macha Ren

It sure is one hell of a coincidence if it turns out to be one. No idea how anyone reading these would not draw parallels.
The dark, now lit with stars. One by one, like eyes opening. Comforting at first, then sinister as she worries, Who is out there, who is watching us? Hands reach for her, hands of shadow, lifting her up, reaching for her throat, her wrists, her stomach -
Inside, the child kicks. She feels her baby turning inside, right-side, up and down, struggling to find his bearings, trying so hard to find his way free of her.
[...]
The baby turns inside her again, troubled by something she cannot feel and cannot yet understand.
“So Snoke was watching our son.”
“Always,” she told him. “From the shadows, in the beginning, even before I realized what was happening, he was manipulating everything, pulling our son toward the dark side.

@teltaru

Well you know, he was a spoiled little fetus that didn't appreciate the nice, privileged womb he was raised in. He totally had it coming.

Or something.

by snufkin Mon 27 Feb 2017, 4:20 pm

Macha Ren wrote:
teltaru wrote:@Macha Ren

It sure is one hell of a coincidence if it turns out to be one. No idea how anyone reading these would not draw parallels.
The dark, now lit with stars. One by one, like eyes opening. Comforting at first, then sinister as she worries, Who is out there, who is watching us? Hands reach for her, hands of shadow, lifting her up, reaching for her throat, her wrists, her stomach -
Inside, the child kicks. She feels her baby turning inside, right-side, up and down, struggling to find his bearings, trying so hard to find his way free of her.
[...]
The baby turns inside her again, troubled by something she cannot feel and cannot yet understand.
“So Snoke was watching our son.”
“Always,” she told him. “From the shadows, in the beginning, even before I realized what was happening, he was manipulating everything, pulling our son toward the dark side.
@teltaru

Well you know, he was a spoiled little fetus that didn't appreciate the nice, privileged womb he was raised in. He totally had it coming.

Or something.

@Macha Ren

The phrase "alternative facts" comes to mind with that constant line of argument. Kind of like how people will praise Leia as the best/smartest character and hating on the son she clearly loves and wants to protect is meant in defense of her (because clearly a woman like that needs Internet randos to protect her). You sort of wish that they'd just move on to openly hating on the ST the same way they seem to also hate on the PT instead of wasting everybody's time. Like just drop the pretense that you're making these arguments when it has to do with picking up on the parallels of doing a better version a certain pair of characters and their relationship.

The takeaway I'm getting from the discussion on here about the books is that everything that's published has to be consistent with the story for the ST, right down to Rian Johnson corroborating details and points with Claudia Johnson. And even if most viewers aren't going to go track down a book to get a backstory or additional information, if it's in the book it's part of the larger universe. Kind of like the standard rule about how you get everything in writing so that it's on the record. Most viewers won't know some of these details about Leia's pregnancy and Ben's birth/early childhood, but it's consistent with the story. And besides:

Spoiler:

by ISeeAnIsland Mon 27 Feb 2017, 4:38 pm

snufkin wrote:
Macha Ren wrote:
teltaru wrote:@Macha Ren

It sure is one hell of a coincidence if it turns out to be one. No idea how anyone reading these would not draw parallels.
The dark, now lit with stars. One by one, like eyes opening. Comforting at first, then sinister as she worries, Who is out there, who is watching us? Hands reach for her, hands of shadow, lifting her up, reaching for her throat, her wrists, her stomach -
Inside, the child kicks. She feels her baby turning inside, right-side, up and down, struggling to find his bearings, trying so hard to find his way free of her.
[...]
The baby turns inside her again, troubled by something she cannot feel and cannot yet understand.
“So Snoke was watching our son.”
“Always,” she told him. “From the shadows, in the beginning, even before I realized what was happening, he was manipulating everything, pulling our son toward the dark side.
@teltaru

Well you know, he was a spoiled little fetus that didn't appreciate the nice, privileged womb he was raised in. He totally had it coming.

Or something.
@Macha Ren

The phrase "alternative facts" comes to mind with that constant line of argument. Kind of like how people will praise Leia as the best/smartest character and hating on the son she clearly loves and wants to protect is meant in defense of her (because clearly a woman like that needs Internet randos to protect her). You sort of wish that they'd just move on to openly hating on the ST the same way they seem to also hate on the PT instead of wasting everybody's time. Like just drop the pretense that you're making these arguments when it has to do with picking up on the parallels of doing a better version a certain pair of characters and their relationship.

The takeaway I'm getting from the discussion on here about the books is that everything that's published has to be consistent with the story for the ST, right down to Rian Johnson corroborating details and points with Claudia Johnson. And even if most viewers aren't going to go track down a book to get a backstory or additional information, if it's in the book it's part of the larger universe. Kind of like the standard rule about how you get everything in writing so that it's on the record. Most viewers won't know some of these details about Leia's pregnancy and Ben's birth/early childhood, but it's consistent with the story. And besides:

Spoiler:

@snufkin

spoiler:

by SoloSideCousin Mon 27 Feb 2017, 5:09 pm

Macha Ren wrote:
teltaru wrote:@Macha Ren

It sure is one hell of a coincidence if it turns out to be one. No idea how anyone reading these would not draw parallels.
The dark, now lit with stars. One by one, like eyes opening. Comforting at first, then sinister as she worries, Who is out there, who is watching us? Hands reach for her, hands of shadow, lifting her up, reaching for her throat, her wrists, her stomach -
Inside, the child kicks. She feels her baby turning inside, right-side, up and down, struggling to find his bearings, trying so hard to find his way free of her.
[...]
The baby turns inside her again, troubled by something she cannot feel and cannot yet understand.
“So Snoke was watching our son.”
“Always,” she told him. “From the shadows, in the beginning, even before I realized what was happening, he was manipulating everything, pulling our son toward the dark side.
@teltaru

Well you know, he was a spoiled little fetus that didn't appreciate the nice, privileged womb he was raised in. He totally had it coming.

Or something.

@Macha Ren

This!!! They could make Ben's backstory as explicit and graphic as the most gruesome episode of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit and there would be people who not only would still think he had it coming but would also think he still deserved death no matter how badly he was abused, no matter how much his mental processing and agency was affected by the demon that started visiting him in utero and always came back. He killed Han Solo. End of story. I will never be able to get past the inanity of this kind of thinking. I got to think that in other situations that didn't touch on childhood heroes that people would be more reasonable. GL tapped into a lot of primal things, a lot of them good, but not all of them.

by snufkin Mon 27 Feb 2017, 5:19 pm

ISeeAnIsland wrote:
@snufkin

spoiler:

@ISeeAnIsland

It is! Or at least in Ben's case,

Spoiler:

by Darth_Awakened Mon 06 Mar 2017, 1:59 pm

I always find Brian's pics brilliant.

by ISeeAnIsland Mon 06 Mar 2017, 3:56 pm

With regards to Rian Johnson's Looper (which I finally just saw), we've talked quite about about the redemption arc of the protagonist, and how he evolves from loving selfishly to selflessly.

However, there's another aspect of the movie that I haven't really seen discussed (at least here) that I could see having relevance to TLJ and the ST.

spoiler - Looper:

by snufkin Mon 06 Mar 2017, 5:27 pm

@ISeeAnIsland

Spoiler:

by SkyStar Sat 11 Mar 2017, 10:11 am

ISeeAnIsland wrote:With regards to Rian Johnson's Looper (which I finally just saw), we've talked quite about about the redemption arc of the protagonist, and how he evolves from loving selfishly to selflessly.

However, there's another aspect of the movie that I haven't really seen discussed (at least here) that I could see having relevance to TLJ and the ST.

spoiler - Looper:

@ISeeAnIsland

I have noticed that a familiar theme in JJ Abrams work is the relationship with characters father. Lost was basically crammed with weak fathers, jerk fathers. Almost everyone in the main cast had dealt trough that. It even featured few patricides. Similarly, in Star Trek decisions of Kirk and Spock the decisions of their fathers shaped their characters. So it made sense for JJ to dig into Kylos relationship with father.

In case with Looper it was the relationship with mother that shaped both young Joe and Cid, so I feel like Johnson will dig into Leia and Kylo, the connection they share. This is why I hope for their reunion in TLJ. I also saw similarities with Ben, so it should be interesting.

by Sponsored content