How much involvement do you think Snoke had with Kylo abandoning the Jedi Order?

The picture I have crystalized for my personal use is, until someone dissaproves me, this:

Some Jedi who were trained by Luke Skywalker mutinied against Luke in one single critical event.

I call this event Renegade event. In that event some Luke's Jedi , led by the most promissing Luke's apprentice, Ben Solo, turned on a dark side, killing the rest of Lukes pupils.

It was a massive batle with many dead, and victorius side was Kylo Ren and probabaly 6 more Jedi who were only left alive, on his side, seen on this picture.....look how many dead around.



The Knights of Ren emmerged from that critical battle-event of mutiny (Renegade means rebel, outcast one who changes one alleagance and faith for another alleagence and faith).

Mutinied Jedi Knights , became Knights of Renegade, Knights or Ren, and pledged their alleagence to Snoke.

The one who designed all of this obvisously was Snoke. How this happened, its left to see.

 

but we do know that Snoke was influencing Ben from an early age.
"From the beginning," Leia says in the novel and script.

i think there are elements of this that are possibly true (like the KOR being independent of Snoke, and Ben having some sense of destiny beyond the FO, and maybe taking the other students with him).

i think Snoke needed Ben to fight Luke. Snoke can't do his own fighting, he needs a powerful FS to do his dirty work.
you raise good questions about opportunity, though, so i'm curious to what other people think.

 

That would set Ben Solo / Kylo Ren on a similar character arc as Anakin, showing Ben to follow in his grandfather's footsteps before he even recognized it.

As we know from the Prequels, Anakin felt he was destined to be more, anxious to move on, take the trials and become a Jedi Master, and he felt Obi-Wan, who did not consider him ready yet, was holding him back.

Anakin's pursuit of power -- ultimately that over life itself -- was enunciated in his exclamation to Padme:

"One day, I will become the greatest Jedi EVER. I will even learn how to stop people from dying."​

Snoke, like Palpatine, using that carrot of "power," lured Ben to believe he could become as (or even more powerful than) Darth Vader.

Ben, perhaps was very much like Anakin, being headstrong, prone to outbursts, eager to prove himself and to gain more power.

The difference is Anakin had a very specific reason for his pursuit and fall to the Dark Side: his fear of losing Padme.

Ben/Kylo does not seem to have a reason so far other than to gain more power. Perhaps it is for a reason yet to be revealed (e.g. toppling Snoke, as often Dark Side apprentices in the past eventually sought to replace their masters).

Throughout his fall, anakin had forgotten the simple yet essential lesson Yoda had imparted early on: "Fear is the path to the Dark Side."

While it's yet to be demonstrated how young Ben was lured to the Dark Side by Snoke, we do know, as an adult, Ben was indeed fearful -- as Rey soon discovered when she tapped into his mind during Kylo's Force interrogation: "You're afraid you'll never be as strong as Darth Vader."

Perhaps in Ben's case things started out more in terms of ability + confusion. Perhaps, like Rey, he was a Force prodigy, quickly catching up to his teacher (Luke) and eventually of the mind he could surpass him.

Luke, being a Jedi and keenly aware how dangerous such haste could be (on top of Ben's likely unnatural, for a Jedi, drive for more power), would have tried, as Obi-Wan did (and before him Qui-Gon Jinn) with Anakin, to keep the padawan focused.

Eventually Palpatine stepped in and exploited both Anakin's eagerness to learn and become more powerful as well as Anakin's fear .

Snoke might have adopted a similar approach with Ben, perhaps even (against Leia and Han's will) revealing Ben's grandfather was Darth Vader.

Imagine a young and confused Ben Solo confronting Luke Skywalker on that matter after just having heard the truth about Anakin:

Ben (angry): Is it true?

Luke: What is it, Ben?

Ben: My grandfather!

Luke: Anakin?

Ben: No! Vader! Darth Vader! Lord of the Sith!

Luke (stunned): But... how? Who told you? Who --

Ben: It's true, isn't it?! Isn't it?! You lied to me! All of you! Lies!

Luke: No! It wasn't like that! You have to believe me. We were going to tell you.

Ben: When? When?!

Luke: When you were ready. For the burden.

Ben: Burden?! I've always been ready! You held me back! All these years! But it's different now. I have a new teacher! Snoke knows my powers! He told me everything!

Luke: Where is he. Please, Ben. I must speak with him at once. This is all --

Ben: I'll never tell you! I hate you! All of you!​

So, perhaps unlike Luke, who internalized his grief at learning the truth, Ben lashed out instead, unable to contain himself because he was sick of being constrained and Snoke offered a faster path to the power Ben sought: the Dark Side.

Then Snoke likely went on to give a very distorted account of Vader's fall, reducing Anakin's redemption to something Snoke considers utterly contemptible: sentiment.

It's ironic that, in luring Ben, as Snoke did, through emotional manipulation (and disinformation), that he appears to want Ben/Kylo to achieve a state of non-feeling, such that Ben/Kylo felt, at the mention of the Millennium Falcon and his father, that he had to assert, "He means nothing to me."

So, looking back, Ben's emotional build-up, before his final turn, would have given him all the potential energy he needed to escape the gravity of Luke's teachings and the discipline of the Academy. All Snoke had to do is use his so-called "wisdom" to catalyze that emotional reaction brewing in Ben, and the rest took care of itself through Ben's unmitigated rage.

At the heart of Kylo Ren's crossguard lightsaber was a cracked crystal, and the outflowing energy of its blade was frenetic, crackling with raw energy, barely contained, and was therefore a perfect symbol for his predicament.

JediMasterRobert

 

Actually, it's Han that says Ben has too much Vader in him. Leia says it's Snoke who seduced their son, and she never should have sent him away because that's when she lost him. We have two differing perspectives on the same events! Which do we believe, or do we believe a little of both?

I tend to think that Snoke got to Ben very young. I didn't read the novelization, so I don't know what it says, but to me it seems as though Snoke has been waiting in the shadows for a long time to find the right tool. He found one in a child who could wield both the Light and Dark sides of the Force and set about insinuating himself into his mind and heart. This is the reason Luke's training of Ben failed, IMO--because the seed of doubt and darkness had long since been planted. Pure speculation on my part, though.

 

perhaps since before he was even born.

 

Gah! You freaked me out again, @FN-3263827! C'mere, Snoke, you child-molesting predator...

Also, Leia, what were you thinking, not telling Han?!?!?

 

i'm going to posit again that Ben's desire is not--nor ever has been--power in and of itself.
he has power. so much of it he doesn't know what to do with it.
he seems to me motivated by legacy and a sense of destiny, which is less about power than about his place in the galaxy.

it just happened that Snoke offered that to him and it happened to be through the Dark side.

Luke probably would have tried to teach Ben that he was one small piece of the larger universe; like all life, bound in the Force.
Snoke probably convinced him that he was more than that--something extraordinarily special.
Ben wanted to be special--needed to be special--in order for his life to make any sense, so he was easily turned.

Like Rey, he wants a place of belonging ~ and he thinks he's found it with Snoke and the FO.

--- Double Post Merged, Mar 9, 2016, Original Post Date: Mar 9, 2016 ---

i hate that fishy-eyeballed freak. hahaha

and yeah, i gotta admit, that doesn't seem too smart to have kept Han out of the loop. surely she told Luke?

 

Well, Luke does have the qualities of understanding, and probably patience at this point in his life too. Maybe too much understanding? Maybe he needed more of the Yoda approach to training Ben.

 

would be curious to know ~ given Ben's temperament, he probably needed a much stronger hand.
and yeah, I can see Luke being too rational with someone who doesn't seem capable of much rational thought.

Snoke is likely very direct in his instruction and that's probably something Ren/Ben responds to.

--- Double Post Merged, Mar 9, 2016, Original Post Date: Mar 9, 2016 ---

yeah! i have all those questions too.

was Snoke just in Ben's head all the time? rooting around in there and planting rotten seeds?
and was Leia aware of this skeevy intrusion?
or was he ever a physical presence to any of them?

 

This reminds me of a question/thread I created that posed the question: How did Snoke know that Ben Solo had Skywalker blood?
Now it has become apparent that Snoke and Leia knew each other, whatever that means. Does this mean that Snoke wormed his way in with Leia and co. and learned that she was a Skywalker and thus her child would have the power of the Skywalker bloodline? Or did they simply know of each other, as enemies would? It sounds like Snoke had been around for a while and that Leia knew he was a bad influence. But why couldn't she and Luke do something about him then? Or was he literally doing all this from an unknown location through the Force?

I can't really add anything to Kylo's motivation outside of what @FN-3263827 has stated above. But what I would say that could link to this is that for me, Kylo definitely has a hidden agenda that he believes he is using Snoke to achieve. Whether Snoke actually is aware of this and is playing Kylo, I do not know. But I think Kylo's goal is to get to Ahch-to either to face Luke (for some reason) or he wants to get to the Temple for the same reason Luke did. There is something there. And I imagine it links to Vader in some way. I think this motivation could perhaps be the reason behind, as @FN-3263827 points out, Kylo having a need to be something special - do something special. Just re-reading the novel and Kylo's desire to get to Ahch-To is a big deal. It's outside of what Snoke is commanding and Hux makes a huge point of this.

It would probably be helpful if I could put forward an idea for what this thing actually is that Kylo desires to find on Ahch-To or get from Luke. But I can't. This First Temple thing is a mind-boggling mystery box.

That's all I have.

 

I agree with this. When I wrote...

...I probably should have elaborated on the "does not seem to have" part to say instead "has not demonstrated or shown himself to have..." even as I suggested "a reason yet to be revealed."

We haven't been given clear insight directly into Ben's mind, only hints of it. Nearly all the major details we need to have any firm sense of anything in this movie have been kept in J.J.'s so-called "mystery box."

This is why so many discussions of The Force Awakens remain speculative and entertain numerous hypotheticals -- which can be fun and interesting, but not necessarily helpful when we're trying to establish some simple facts which we can add up to establish some sense of Ben's true personality.

The Force Awakens is a polynomial equation!

JediMasterRobert

 

So Ben Solo was born 1 year after the Battle of Endor , just one year after Palpatine and Vader Died.

And Snoke has already watched the Ben as a little kid.

Somehow I think Snoke was under the disguise Old Master, that character has been introduced recently in Star Wars rebel series. Old master is unknown Force user, its hinted he is from the Dark side, however he secretly advised the rebels duting the Empire, and helped them.

Everyone is sure Old Master is Darth Maul.
But what if The Old Master character in fact is a Snoke?


Did Lea actualy personaly met the Old Master who was a sort-of ally (the enemy of my enemy is my friend) ?

 

but like @master_shaitan pointed out, these aren't merely hypotheticals. we do know for a fact that Kylo Ren is off-roading regarding Luke. yes, we don't know why, but that's a fact demonstrated in the film.

we also know that his big fear is not being as strong as Vader, which isn't the same thing as powerful.

we also know that Ren is totally subservient to Snoke to the point of practically whining. if his goal was merely power, it seems like he could take it (and he even says so). he barely tolerates Hux, but sublimates his will to the "good" of the First Order (for the most part). he appears to have totally bought into the cause.

yes, there is way more in the mystery box than outside of it at the moment, but i think power-hungry Kylo Ren is a questionable read on an obviously complex character.
when Han confronts him on the bridge, he doesn't say: i want to rule the galaxy! he says he wants to be free of this pain.

 

Leia says (in the movie) that Snoke seduced Ben to the Dark Side, which would indicate that Snoke had a large part in Ben betraying Luke and the Jedi.
Leia also says that she lost him when she "sent him away," something which she greatly regrets. When did she send him away? Why?
In the novel, it says that Snoke knew that Leia's child would be strong in the force, and that was "always" watching him "from the shadows, in the beginning" before Leia even realised what was happening. Leia also says that she thought she could shield both Ben from Snoke's influeces and Han from the truth of what was happening with their son. It's heavily implied that Leia sent Ben away to Luke because of Snoke's growing influence over Ben, and not just because of his strength in the Force.

Exactly. Throughout the movie, we see Hux and Kylo in competition for Snoke's praise... but Kylo also has an agenda of his own which ultimately results in his numerous failures (fails to get the map from Lor San Tekka/Poe Dameron, fails to get the map on Takodana, loses Rey).

 

Not knowing why is what I think contributes to the hypotheticals surrounding Ben/Kylo.

I cannot honestly say I know Ben Solo or Kylo Ren at this point because he is a very complex character, masked even when unmasked.

Until there are things known beyond doubt (e.g. why he turned, what he wants, if he will be redeemed), speculation seems necessary to delve into his psychology, while is fine. It simply delays us from having a firm sense of who he was / is / wants to be, etc. I hope we get to learn more about him in VIII and IX.

"Strong" is a word requiring more context in Ben's case and is something, at this point, open to interpretation -- physical, spiritual, Force-wise, psychological, etc., so we need more information to learn what is meant by that.

I agree, and I did not intend to imply that, as I would not recommend such a simple read on someone as complicated as Ben.

I believe he shares some of Anakin's characteristics and story but is still multi-facted and uniquely rendered as to eliminate simple one-to-one correlations between the two characters.

Yes, and there's that key line he says:

" I know what I have to do but I don't know if I have the strength to do it."​

JediMasterRobert

 

absolutely! Vader just Force-choked inferiors who got in his way. Ren and Hux are apparently equal in authority in the FO and they clearly hate each other. but even though Ren threatens him, Huz threatens him right back. Hux isn't afraid of Ren and won't hesitate to tattle on him or show him up in front of Snoke.

a power-hungry Ren would hardly tolerate this, i think, but Ren eats the humilation.

i would just point out, again, that the choice of the word "strength" tells us something. Kylo Ren is weak and he hates his own weakness (Ben was "weak and foolish like his father"). Snoke rides him for his weakness as well.

we get a lot of this throughout the movie and book.

we never actually get any discussion of power.

could mean nothing ~ could mean everything. either way, i agree that speculation is the spice of waiting for concrete answers ~ hahaha!