Finn - Don't listen to the Hyperbole

My guess is what they did for Rey in VII they'll do for Finn in VIII. That's why they're are hints and foreshadowing but no explicit affirmation of FS.

 

You mean when literally everyone sees the shots whizzing across the sky? There wasn't any hearing to that. Everyone knew what was happening. Not sure where you're getting that from.

Because nobody can just not have that personality? There's nobody who would finally get out into an actual battle scenario and decide "man, maybe killing innocent people isn't so cool?" If anything the Force would have made him more evil if I go by your reasoning. People can change without having superpowers.

With the bravery, sure, but again, that doesn't equate to him being a Force user.

 

I think he will learn the ways of the force because the idea that anyone can, not just the ones who are born into it is a powerful message. It's important, empowering, and in line with the themes the creative team is pursuing.

 

What part of he was conditioned as an infant do you not understand?

He's not just some random on the battle field. He is literally supposed to be mind controlled into being a ruthless monster in combat. In other words, with nothing but the evidence presented to us, we can deduce that his situation is inexplicable.

And in a story about mystical energy fields. . .

 

Clone troopers were genetically developed and raised their entire lives to fight for the chancellor and the republic. Some of them defected after order 66. Unless Snoke or Kylo Ren is literally in complete control of all their minds all the time, they can change their minds and determine for themselves what to do, and they can do it easier than clones could. He had also never been in any actual battles as stated previously, so it's not even like he's been slaughtering people constantly then all of the sudden decided it was wrong. He never truly did it in the first place. Refusing to do something terrible and switching sides doesn't make him Force sensitive.

 

Clones are a terrible example. They needed surgery to remove their neural chips to even begin to think about defying order 66.

And if you paid attention to the movie FO conditioning is seen as an alternative to cloning because of it's effectiveness.

You can't just look at bad stuff and decide it's "not for you" as a ST. This is all established when Hux and Phasma talk to each other about the oddness of Finn's defection.

 

There are 3 "hints" that he could be "Force Sensitive".

1) He broke his mind imprinting.

While it was suggested that this has happened with others before it does appear that he was the first to ever do this and then run immediately after a "single offence". They seemed genuinely surprised it happened. Since he had been brainwashed to be a Stormtrooper from birth, then we can assume that he is the first of a large amount of people in the last 20 or so years. Yes, this might not be due to the force, but it does make him extremely unique. There has to be something different about him than all the others.

2) Ren paused because he sensed something in him.

Sith's do not "sense" potential betrayal. They sense disturbances in the force just like the Jedi. Ren did not notice Finn behaving strangely (he was not even looking at him) but he still instinctively sensed something wrong and turn to directly face him and contemplate.
The other thing was that Ren knew his code number "name" for some reason.
I doubt Ren would memorise every stormtrooper serial number or recognise them with their masks on, and I don't think he just knew it by chance. Again, not definite proof of force sensitivity, but still very curious.

3) He held his own in a Light Saber battle for a little while against a trained Sith.

There is a reason that it is not common for non-force users to use light sabers in battle. Afterall, you would think they would be very handy for your "Average Joe" for close combat situations.

It's because you are more likely to chop off your own limbs or kill nearby allies than kill your enemies without the force to "guide" your movements (or at least years of intense specific training).

And even if you did, going up against even a weak Jedi or Sith would be utter suicide without the force to help you.

You would not even land a blow.
In a single move a blindfolded Jedi or Sith would predict your swing and wouldn't even bother to block it, just dodge and slice you in two. It would be a 2 or 3 second battle max.

The fact that not only did Finn manage to engage Ren for a little while but also actually land a blow indicates that Ren was not able to predict his movements. Only a force user could do that.

Finn had no chance of winning the battle against a trained lightsaber wielder, however it shouldn't of even looked like a duel at all for even a moment if he was just a normal guy.

This is the strongest indication of potential force sensitivity in Finn in the movie.

Not definite... but it is certainly possible.

 

Of course it's explicable. He's a human being, not a robot. This movie is about him finding his individuality despite being conditioned since birth. He doesn't need to be Force sensitive to leave the First Order; he just needs a conscience. This was his first combat mission. It didn't sit well so he ran. He went from being a soldier with a serial number to an individual with a real name.

 

That's not how any of this works.

Stormtroopers are mindcontrolled. This is stated many time over.

 

I absolutely believe that Finn is force sensitive. When he gets the bloody hand and starts freaking out, the audio cue is the same as when rey has her awakening during her and kylo's force struggle. Finn also hears the screams from the hosnian system, which causes him to look up and see it. Some try to say that the screams were coming from Maz's castle, but the people were only just coming outside as Finn was running up. It wouldn't shock me if the first teaser for VIII has the first shot where Finn wakes up from his coma.

 

I think Kylo just sensed fear and regret thats why he looked at him and didn't do anything. If he was a force user he would do something about it in my opinion

 

....."boy"?

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 25, 2015, Original Post Date: Dec 25, 2015 ---

exactly. He wouldn't concern himself with storm troopers while phasma is on the scene. He sensed a vergence in the force.

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 25, 2015 ---

I'm sure he senses fear all the time being on board the Finalizer. He stopped in his tracks and turned his whole body to focus on Finn.

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 25, 2015 ---

its interesting.....seeing people deny there being any possibility as to Finn being FS, regardless of some very deliberate cues. Meanwhile, we explain away Rey's haxor powers with "she was trained and then mind wiped"....

 

One of the privileges of being my age

 

Really disagree with this, there's, at least, one major hint he is force sensitive when the Star Killer weapon fires, I analyze it here. Forgive me if this seems like self-promotion, it' s just easier to point to the long write up I did about Finn already.

For those uninterested in going to the article. If you noticed when the Star Killer weapon fired, Finn heard the noises of the people dying and explosions of the weapon BEFORE it happened. The weapon's beam was still traversing through space when Finn heard the disturbance in the force similar to Obi-Wan on Alderaan. Also, these noises weren't coming from Maz's castle, because when it finally cuts to them, Han and them are just coming out of the castle and nobody is making a sound. Also, when Finn starts to hear the noise, the two aliens he was loading the ship with go into the ship without paying any attention to the noise. They don't even come back out either.

When I saw those sequence of scenes and him sensing the deaths and destructions of the planets BEFORE it actually happened, I was wondering why everyone, minus a few people here and there, kept missing that scene when they deny Finn any proof of force sensitivity in the movie. This also happened at the same time, if not in conjunction, with Rey's vision when she touched the light saber.

 

You might as well stop trying to convince people. It's quite obvious that a lot of fans don't want him to be force sensitive because they have it in their minds that there should or can only be one Jedi in this trilogy despite the fact that there were multiple Jedi in the prequel trilogy and multiple force users in both trilogies. Finn having nearly vague moral victories seems to be fine with some people. I find that kind of sad in a way because it's probably some of the same people that wanted Rey to be shown to be powerful and heroic have a problem with it when it comes to Finn. All this after the speculation in the promos that Finn was going to be the Jedi and we already saw how mad people got over that. It's also funny because there are people lending credence to the idea that Rey is not only "the Jedi" of this trilogy but that she might even be more powerful than not only Luke but Anakin "The Chosen One" Skywalker himself.

 

That emphasized portion in your statement is why I can't stop I guess. It just really bothers me. It's really a double standard going on. I just can't help but wonder if years and years and years of mind-numbing storytelling is the culprit or if it's just something else. When I say mind-numbing, I mean everything has to be spelled out ala Finn using the force to pull a blaster to him or push Ren back or something. Can't be subtle, because everyone finds easy ways to explain that away. I could go on and invoke how Boyega stated he was told his character was the star of the trilogy, but it's plausible, like you sort of hinted at, that after backlash, some of that was relatively changed. Dunno.

It just bothers me that some of this seems to infect Finn fans as well. Over in the Finn discussion, people who are supposed to be Finn fans spend most of their time tearing down the character. If everybody, or what seems to be the majority, hates Finn then why should anyone in production continue to care about his character? I guess that's my biggest worry.

 

I think the Finn posters with the lightsaber shots etc. were as a red herring - he's a highly trained stormtrooper who is out of his depth fighting force users. He isn't force sensitive and I reckon he's more likely to adventure with Poe than Rey in future episodes.

 

Highly trained hardly.

 

I guess that's my worry too. By the way I hope I don't come off as hating the character. My main things are that I wish the writers had given him some more tangible victories in 7 to draw more people to the character since he's supposed to be a co-lead and that I hope they improve him in that regard in 8 and 9. As a matter of fact the more I think about it I'm fine with him improving over the course of the trilogy instead of giving it all to him in one movie like they did Rey because when you do that where do you go from there?

 

I wouldn't consider your criticism as hating the character. We may disagree on it, but it's constructive. I do believe Finn should've probably won to that Storm Trooper, and I think that's where a lot of people's angst and misunderstanding originates from in relation to Finn's overall characterization. However, I get it when I think about the contextual storytelling grounds of his character. Finn was not supposed to be the Marty Stu of the show and I don't believe Rey was a Mary Sue either.

I generally believe people are drawn to Rey because despite what everyone says or wants to believe, Star Wars was built and survives on the concept of the Jedi. There may be those who like the rogues, the troopers, and the non-Jedi, but it's pretty evident the Jedi element is what carries Star Wars, therefore since Rey has shown to be going the way of the Jedi, she becomes more interesting. Poe had victories, but you don't see people rallying around him too much because he had all of about two-three major scenes. It wasn't his time, but to prove my point, I did a quick search on Poe. He has several "Official" threads that didn't go anywhere as of December 20 something. It appears that, despite his victories, Poe is not getting that much love other than some extremely stretched fan fiction that I won't go into.

Don't take any of this as me saying you don't have a point about Finn's lack of clear victories. I do agree that if they were there, maybe I wouldn't feel the need to be on defense as much. Heh.