Is Snoke to blame for Ben Solo turning against the Jedi?

I believe it's mostly Snoke. It's gotta be him, but we still don't know enough about what exactly went down. Seeing how Snoke manipulated Kylo and Rey through the Force connection, I can see him as the puppet master in the events that made Ben turn. But obviously Ben must have had strong dark side tendencies in the first place.

This yet unknown chapter is a job for an exceptionally good storyteller. I really, really hope they won't let anyone incompetent anywhere near this.

 

The thing I wonder about Snoke is why he looks the way he does. We already know that he’s human (I think), so he’s obviously been disfigured somehow. With palpatine and Vader, they both ended up disfigured because of fights with a Jedi. Did snoke have a fight with a Jedi as well? Maybe it was luke who bested him, and that’s why he decided to turn Ben — as a way to get back at luke

 

i picked Stinkie, but i agree it takes more than the molester to make this big of a mess.
Luke, Han, and Leia all had a hand in it, and so does Ben.

ultimately the fishy-eyed toilet monster is the catalyst for destruction, but the poor kid was a walking time bomb to begin with. : o p

 

I blame a so-called adult emo-man-child: Kylo Ren; for turning against the Jedi. There is no one to pass blame. Not his parents, not Han, not Luke, no one is at fault but Mr. Ren himself. I rest my fictional case... I won't feel sorry for Ren if Rey kills him like she should. Rey should kill Kylo Ren and live happily ever after with Finn. hehe

I'm not sure of the story, but I heard that Disney asked the filmmakers of Weck it Ralph 2 to remove a cartoonish bratty (spoiled, self-centered, and badly behaved) version of Kylo Ren from their film. So the filmmakers of Weck it Ralph 2, thought that Kylo was a brat, and included him in their film but Disney asked them to remove it. Maybe someone with a little more knowledge can clear this up, my point is that Kylo Ren is viewed as a spoiled brat.

anyway I found it

The original script included a joke about Star Wars character Kylo Ren - played by Adam Driver - that Lucasfilm didn't feel too comfortable with.


Directors Rich Moore and Phil Johnston, alongside head of story Josie Trinidad, told IGN: “At one point we had a joke about Kylo Ren being kind of a spoiled child. We went to Lucasfilm and said, here’s what we’re doing. And they said, well, we’d prefer that you don’t show him as a spoiled child. You know, he is our villain, and we’d prefer you don’t do that. So we were respectful of that.”

He is our VILLAIN... please don't rehash the Vader concept from the OT with a BS redemption arc. Kylo Ren must die!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!..........

Kylo Ren: Did you come back to say you forgive me? To save my soul?

Luke Skywalker: No.

 

but @Rogues1138 would forgive (or at least feel there are mitigating circumstances in the case of Hux), so i think a lot of this is about what we bring to the story: our experiences and our emotions. none of which the film can control, though i understand it brings us to your second point:

while i agree, i would also challenge that this is the point. a lot of people don't understand someone like Ben. a lot of people don't understand how Luke could feel or do what he did. a lot of people don't see how insidiously disgusting Snoke is. maybe by the end of ix, they'll have clarified a lot of this stuff (or made it more explicit in some way). or maybe they will leave it to us to sort through the ashes to our own understanding. what i think is actually kind of brilliant (and frustrating) about the ST is that it has cast us in the role of OT Luke: to sort out the Light and the Dark (like Rey must, too). whether Ben makes it or not, there's only one right answer, ultimately. the one Luke has demonstrated time and again. this still could be a tragedy for the Skywalker family, but no matter what, hopefully it will be enlightening/reaffirming for the audience?

 

I'm biased, I'm sorry to say, because I deal with real world villains everyday. Recently, a real world villain that I supervised for 4 years got sentenced to 30 years to life. Did the Judge and jury blame the Slum Lord (Snoke) who influenced him, and manipulated him in his neighborhood? Did the courts blame his father(Han) for not being there for him? or his single mother(Leia) who worked hard to raise him?, or anyone in his immediate family? Uncle(Luke) etc., for killing rival gang members? Does the families of people he killed want him to be redeemed for what he did?

For 4 years I supervised this young man, mid-twenties. I didn't realize it, but I also supervised him when he was an adolescent. He reminded me of this just recently. He said Mr. Smith(not my real name) do you remember me? I didn't, but I lied. He said its nice seeing you again. I don't remember what I did for this young man... can't seem to recall. He had become the most notorious gang member in my jail. He ruled and controlled all the members of his gang in my jail. He turned around and addressed all the inmates in my care and said, no one touch Mr. Smith. He turned around and smiled at me. I was shocked and appalled by this move of kindness.(there is good in everyone) This inmate ordered hits every Sunday. A legion of his goons would follow him where ever he went especially the yard. Where he had his minions unleash hell on those inmates that were not with his regime. He would come to my desk and talked to me about the people he killed on the outside. He rose up in the ranks by being a hitman for his gang. Killing rival gang members. Following them when they would be alone shooting them in the head or back. He told me these stories with pride. I listened showing no emotion. He was well spoken, educated, but for some reason the gangster life intrigued him. On my tour of duty, no inmates fought, no inmates got cut, I had peaceful days because of him. I was saddened when a fellow officer told me he just got sentenced to 30 years to life. I was more saddened to hear he was moved to a jail where he got cut really bad. He was stripped of his power.

Oh wait, this is not the real world my friends?!?! My mistake!!! its Star Wars, therefore; Cool villains should be redeemed because villains, bounty hunters, scum and villainy are cool in Star Wars hahaha!!!! ( Cool Emperor Laugh)

Old Crazy Wizard Ben Kenobi: You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious.

 

Snoke and Kylo.

Kylo has had many chances to stop his madness but continues... he wants to runaway from it all because hes guilty deep down inside

 

@Fuzzball Fiction imitates real life, or writers of fiction borrow from real life. Granted Ben could have been a bit young or naive and Snoke as Leia says manipulated him. But for me, if you are strong in the Force, like Luke in ROTJ the Emperor couldn't turn or easily manipulate Luke. I think Ben has internal issues. He would not have been easily manipulated if he had a good heart like Rey or Luke.

Rey shows resolve. she loves or cares for Ben but she will not go down his wicked path. Rey has no parents to blame yet she is inherently good. Rey lived on a wicked and horrendous planet were thieves and scavengers run rampant. She could have succumbed to evil because of her surroundings. She could have followed Unkar Plutt's evil ways and become an asset in his cadre but she chose not to. She couldn't even sell BB8 when she had the opportunity to. Usually in the real world women love bad boys. she could have easily joined Ben and ruled the galaxy as a couple, but like Padme she could not follow Anakin down that evil path.

So for me, no one is the cause or blame for Kylo Ren succumbing to the dark side. Like Rey said, he is a monster. I know this is Star Wars and this is fiction but I hate real world bad boys. I was a bad boy that became a nerd. LOL I gave up so many things to survive. I gave up my bad boy friends. I supervise bad boys for a living. I forgive them for what they did, and I respect that they have to serve time. I maybe a bit biased. I'm a Correction Officer, I supervise the worst bad boys on this planet. In fact, i always love telling this story. The biggest gangster in my jail told all his gang bangers not to touch me. I don't know what I did. Maybe it was all the times I listened to his tales of killing people on the street. I don't know...

 

I think Ben Solo needed a reason to fall to the dark side because he had allot of conflict inside him. If Ben was a good person he could have Force Pushed his Uncle Luke and ask him, what the Heck are you doing Uncle Luke? Were you about to kill Me? Then Ben could have took off and used the Force to find his mom. Hey mom, Uncle Luke is crazy, he was gonna kill me. I'm not doing this Jedi training thing anymore LOL, but instead Ben went on a rampage. Like Luke had envisioned. He thought he had killed his Uncle. He killed his Uncle's disciple that wouldn't follow him, burned the Jedi Temple, and took off with the ones that would follow him.

In constrast, Rey asks Luke did you create Kylo Ren? She didn't kill Luke for supposedly creating Kylo Ren. She gives Luke a choice return with her to the Resistance or she would find Ben and convince him to return to the light because she believes there is still good in him, which she discovers is not true. Ben is lost just like Anakin. Ben's lust for power has has turned him to the dark side.

 

There is always a reason why someone gives in to evil. But it is usually due to that person's own personal flaws. The idea that Snoke was to blame for Ben's fall strikes me as cheap writing and a cop out for Ben's characterization.

 

In my opinion it's a similar scenario. Sidious played the crucial part as a manipulator who used Anakin's weaknesses - fear of losing Padme, anger and doubts. You can also say that it was love which indirectly led to Anakin's downfall, which makes him a tragic character. So again, it's a mixture of the character's weakness and a manipulator who used it. But I would say Sidious is to blame the most.

 

Okay, not SW, but I think it's season 1 of big bang theory that there's an Asian kid that is smarter than Sheldon. At the end, the Asian kid loses focus and is seen drinking with a bunch of teenage girls, to which Sheldon says something like "He's weak.".

That pretty much encapsulates how I feel about Ben. He didn't trust in his family. He goes a direction he clearly knows is dark, out of petty vengeance and rebellion. Though I could see this as a teenager, maybe, he stays on this track for more then a decade. Which means throughout all this time he never re-evaluates himself and his decisions (or he does and justifies it, which is even worse), decisions that include murder and most likely worse. To me that indicates a huge flaw in his character, his moral compass. I could understand this with Anakin, because he was proclaimed as a chosen one, but Ben isn't. Gifted, sure, but there doesn't seem to be a selfless or good intentions motivation to trick him. Unlike Vader, he has many reasons to come back once his initial rage mellows. His family is still around and love him. Anakin had no known family.

Sure, Snoke had influence, as did others, but I put the blame about 90% Ben until I learn more about Snokes' involvement. He made individual choices, listened to things he should have been able to easily identify as dark side influences. He chose this, and that's on his character. Maybe I'm a hard ass, but I tend to not give passes to people who deliberately choose to make bad decisions. I don't much care what their reasoning is. It should have been clear to Ben what he was doing was wrong, and he should have questioned himself. My conclusion has to be at this moment that he was so full of himself that he never considered the possibility that he was wrong. He did what felt good, not what felt right.

Basically, he chose the quick and easy path, despite his training, and now we're expected to take pity on him. I don't buy it.