SPECULATION Kylo Ren's Secret Mission

Your thread looks very interesting.If Kylo has a secret mission then this NEW trilogy will be VERY nice to watch how did it will end.I will keep reading your thread to see what our friends has to share.

 

Great post, great idea for a thread.

 

I could imagine that Kylo wants the Skywalkers to rule the galaxy. But his mother and his uncle are both bent on being servants to the Republic, which frustrates Kylo. And the Sith had this silly rule of two, which is equally limiting. Kylo doesn't want to kill neither master nor apprentice for the sake of ruling alone, he wants both the power and autonomy the dark side offers, and the emotional comfort a family offers. But nobody seems to want to join him.

That's how I see him, anyway.

 

"Knowing where the trap is — that’s the first step in evading it. This is like single combat, Son, only on a larger scale — a feint within a feint within a feint…seemingly without end. The task is to unravel it."

—DUKE LETO ATREIDES, DUNE

There are certainly a lot of hidden agendas going on in TFA, and trying to discern what any characters true objectives are is certainly a challange. Part of the fun of the movie, I guess.

Perhaps it would help if we try and sort through what we know of the characters agendas, and the feints within feints, and then speculate further on what the hidden agendas are.

SNOKE: All we seem to really know is that he wants to crush the Resistance, and prevent Luke from bringing the Jedi threat to him, and that Kylo and the FO are tools to be used to achieve his shadowy objectives. I don't really understand why he seems to fear Luke, or more specifically, Luke and the Resistance comming together. Aftet all, Kylo managed to take down the New Jedi when he was but a mere stripling, and Luke has basically been MIA since. Time durring which the FO has grown into a massive threat. How can the Jedi really be a credible threat to him at this point?

I guess we can speculate further what some of his hidden agendas might be, but the evidence is murky at best. Entering the realms of pure, mad speculation to play with some ideas:

*Ruling the galaxy.
*Furthering his Force powers.
*Becomming/ staying immortal.
*Becomming a Force deity.
*Mastering the Force to the point the Force does his bidding, becomes his servant.
*Controlling the life and death, creation and destruction.
*Becomming The master of the living Force, and the cosmic Force.
*Finding a replacement body, or even just a good plastic surgeon. And maybe a stylist while he's at it.

Anyway, I guess well just have to ponder untill we learn more...


KYLO: We know he wants to find Luke, possibly an apprentice and finish what Vader started. We know he destroyed Lukes New Jedi, got his own bad ass, cool hat gang (KOR), and wants to increase his Force knowledge through Snoke. We don't really know why, or even fully understand what motivates him yet. There would have to be some way out reason for Luke to give Kylo the mission of destroying his New Jedi, regardless of the Snoke threat, so I'm pretty sure Kylo is following his own agenda, and not one Luke gave him, in that regard. This in an area I'm looking forward to seeing other forumites expand upon, as Kylo is such a complex character he makes my head spin.

VADER: Although not a flesh and blood character, his presence, spirit and agendas loom over TFA none the less, which is why I include him here. I think Vader's agendas, and especially what Kylo thought Vader's agendas were, will prove critical to the unfolding story. Vader and Anikin both seemed to value family and greatness. He defied the Jedi order and embraced the Sith to save his family and increase his power. Family eventually brought him back to the Light. More importantly though, what would Kylo has percieved Vader's agendas as being?

*Destruction of the Jedi?
*Bringing 'Order' to the Galaxy?
*Becoming all powerful?
*Bringing dead family members, such as his Mother and Padme, back to life?
*Ruling the Galaxy with his family beside him?
*Becomming a master of the Light and the Dark?

I guess we don't really have concrete answers on what Kylo thinks of Vader's goals yet, or even how he formed his ideas about them. Stay tuned, huh?


LUKE: There is even less to work with here, as we only have like 45s of screen time and second hand hearsay from which to judge what Luke's current agendas are in TFA. He was obviosly trying to rebuild the Jedi Order and increase his Jedi knowledge, but otherwise we are in the dark. Did Luke sense the resurgence of the darkside, and the growing threat to peace and justice in the galaxy? How long ago did he realise the danger, and what did he do about it? Does he even want to rebuild the Jedi again, after the first failed attempt, or will he do something different? What was the real reason he took off on his own, and ostensibly left his sister and the Resistance to deal with Snoke and the FO? Are the Jedi no longer the guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy? Does Luke even consjder himself still a Jedi? Well, I guess he still likes the robes, but still...

Anyway, looking forward to more bonkers theorising.

 

you beat me to making this thread, @master_shaitan; i was thinking about this last night after i posted the soup thing to the Plagueis thread.

just to clarify one point, what i intended when we discussed Kylo Ren's motivation before was not that Snoke gave Ren his "cause", but that through Snoke, he'd found a cause because Snoke connected him to and approves of this idea of legacy through Vader (at least superficially), and all of that is ratified through the work of the FO, giving Ren a structured place of belonging in the galaxy. that's probably splitting a hair, but it's an important hair because i agree that Ren's relationship with Vader has an intimacy that's clearly separate from Snoke.

sorry, this is going to be long:

there are differences in the dynamic between Snoke and Ren in the book vs. the movie. they don't necessarily contradict, but the movie does condense things to such a degree that we don't ever really see the icky groomy side of their relationship.

in their first scene, after Hux leaves, Snoke takes a moment to chat with Ren about the meaning of it all and fluffs him up (gives him the "precious snowflake" business and Ren laps it up like a dog); Snoke gets him all on board with destroying the Republic (even mentioning his mother, which Ren actually seems quick to dismiss). that all squared away, Snoke drops the bomb about BB-8 being with Han, after which he seems to revel in Ren's stupidly devoted proclamation of allegiance. and Ren does comes off as stupidly devoted:



note: the script actually uses the words "obsessed, filled up" when Ren leaves the chamber.
both book and script seem to indicate that Snoke has fired Ren up and he's happily marching off to duty.

but the film changes this up: Ren wavers (he's not so stupidly devoted, though he gives it lip service) and Snoke senses this.
he then derides Ren, who next time we see is talking to grampa Vader and freaking out.
interestingly, the film later tempers Snoke's cruelty when he threatens Ren with a "reminder".
in the book, that's the scene that shows Snoke's hand so to speak: he's not nice to Ren and you see the switchback abuse dynamic very clearly.
in the film, they've collapsed this emotional point into the single scene.

since the movie trumps the book or any previous variations on the sequencing (since we know the Vader scene was moved), what we're left with is the sense that Snoke and Ren already have a fracture between them, that Ren's loyalties are already fragged, and that Ren is actively hiding his dissent (or trying to).

couple that with his open disobedience regarding Luke, his distraction with abducting Rey, and his deluded offer to teach her, Ren looks like he's on the verge of going rogue. all that said, however...

observations:

• Ren wears his emotions pretty openly whether he wants to or not. if he was deliberately plotting against Snoke, Snoke would know.
• Ren may just be giving lipservice to Snoke by the end ("The Supreme Leader is wise"), but he's still trapped in what i've called Stockholmed thinking: he knows something's wrong, but can't reason his way to clear thinking about it because he's drank Snoke's kool-aid.
  
• Ren tells Snoke (in the snippet i posted above) that "No one will stand in our way." later, he echoes that to Vader, "I will let nothing stand in our way." is he conscious of a potential contradiction of these two "ways" or does he fully believe Snoke and Vader are on the same page?
  
• Vader is Ren's only confidant. he goes to Vader with his problems, not Snoke. probably because he knows on some level that Snoke is his problem.
  
• He definitely wants to see Luke, not just eliminate him from afar or prevent his return.

i don't think Ren has a deep well-formed agenda and even if he's plotting, i don't think it's even against Snoke (yet). having now killed his father to seemingly no end, i think Rey might push him toward more active subterfuge/disobedience. Snoke is likely displeased with him, he'll likely be punished, but he possibly no longer feels alone in the galaxy. in a weird way, that's his own awakening.


TL;DR:

• Ren absolutely has an agenda about Luke. it's not so serious/well-thought-out/traitorous that he hides it (Hux knows Ren is off-roading from the start).
  
• Ren shows throughout the movie that he's a disorganized thinker and quick to get emotional; neither trait hints that he's capable of deep subterfuge.
  
• Ren's first love is for Vader and Vader is his only confidant, but it's unclear whether he thinks what Vader wants is different from what Snoke wants.
  
• Ren's attachment to Rey seems to delimit a breaking point. it's entirely possible Ren will return in viii in much better control of his emotions and therefore more capable of actively plotting (which could force him to stand up against Snoke one way or another).

 

How's this for a bonkers theory to try on for size. Perhaps Kylo had a crush or deep feeling for Rey's Mother, who was Luke' paramour, and somehow Rey's Mother died or left, and Kylo blames Luke for this in some way. Perhaps this womans absence/death left Kylo even more loneley, isolated and vulnerable to Snokes manipulations and made Kylo lose respect for Luke. Maybe this woman had powerful force skills, but wasn't a Jedi, but was helping Luke with his search for Jedi knowledge. This might explain Rey's Force powers and her abandonment, and why Kylo feels such a connection to her. Perhaps this woman may have had grey leanings, or even a connection to Vader herself, giving Kylo the impression there were other paths besides that of the Jedi.

Perhaps Kylo is really still searching for answers about Rey's mother, and this is why having a face to face with Luke is important? And then he can destroy him afterwards, cementing his status as the most awesome Force dude in the galaxy, and exacting his revenge for Luke's failures in fegards to Rey's Mother and Kylo?

Anyway, just studid ponderings to get the brain juices flowing

 

Perhaps he would want to know Vader's last words...

Kylo: Skywalker. Before this ends, I have to hear it.

Luke: Ask, and you will know.

Kylo: Only one thing. Before he passed. What did he say?

Luke: Your grandfather looked into my eyes, and he said, "You were right."

Kylo: Liar!!!​

[Kylo rages]​

JediMasterRobert

 

given what we know of Ren's doggedness, single-celled thinking, and deep personal insecurities, i wouldn't rule out something as simple as vengeance.
Luke got away and Ren feels the need to finish him (as Vader "should" have).

i hope it's more than that though.

my offer on the altar of wild hair theories is that Ren is aware (through psychometry, or some other Force-thing) that Luke is the key to a vague vision/sense of destiny that he has about himself that probably he doesn't even understand yet.
whatever it is, it's a powerful enough pull that he's willing to risk Snoke's disapproval.

Snoke is curiously okay with Luke just staying lost in exile. Snoke may know what a risk it poses for Luke and Ren to be reunited, hence the imminent need to complete Ren's training (which may be less about honing Ren's Force power, than about "correcting" his conflicted mindset and fully weaponizing him against Luke).

 

yeah i don't think Snoke's pretending to be Vader or literally putting voices in Ren's head.
the book suggests that Vader is not literally speaking back to him, but we don't know if that's just in the moment or whether there was a time when Ren had some more literal connection to his grandfather.

wild theory: he did once, through the lightsaber. the helmet is a surrogate comfort?
what the lightsaber told him, however, has probably been grossly distorted by Snoke over time.

maybe worth noting: in the book, Ren kneels to Vader. he never kneels to Snoke.
in the movie, they show him sitting with Vader instead, which i've always thought was a peculiar choice.
it's a deliberate enough change from the book that you have to wonder.
my guess is that they're still trying to break the Sith association by dispensing with the bowing and kneeling across the board.
but also, it suggests again, a desire for intimacy on Ren's part. he wants to commune with Vader as family, not necessarily submit or "serve" him.

so yeah, like i said, my theory is that Ren believes he needs some kind of "closure" with Luke to fulfill Vader's destiny and that can only happen face-to-face. but i don't think even Ren knows what that destiny is.

 

Just a guess:
If Kylos mission at its starting point was to once posses all the force power and knowledge to become stronger as his - in his opinion - "weak" family members, especially Han and Luke to bring order to the chaotic galaxy at the end, then is entire life so far must be like a dark dream. Especially Luke must be the"weakest" misslead being in his eyes. Luke finished the only one he admires. The one that was forseen to rule the world. Luke finished Vader by simply step back, deciding not to act but also because he did not posses the force powers to overcome Sidious. In Kylos eyes being sentimental was the root of the problem and closed the door for Skywalkers to rule the galaxy.
He needs all the knowledge of snoke. He wants to overcome "weak" Luke but also Snoke at the end. And perhaps Kylo has a knew agenda since EPVII. He wants to get Rey to follow him.
That could lead to an interesting setup for a final showdown. Rey and Kylo joining for combat with snoke, but both with extremly different motivation, Rey because of Luke and Leia teached her that it is the only way to do once again what Anakin did and Kylo because he thinks that could finish a quest that Vader - in his opinion - was not able to finish.
Its even more speculation within my speculation what could possibly follow after Rey and Kylo being successful, perhaps Kylo meets his own "weakness" and will not attack Rey at he very end.

Just one possibility of thausend others .

 

My wishful thinking goes like this: Kylo wants to prevent Luke from making the mistake of establishing a new Jedi order that is just as flawed as the old one, because it isn't independent of the Republic. I don't have evidence that this is how it's going to play out, but I think it would make a great story. The more I read, the less I like even Yoda's pre-Clone War Jedi Order. This is what it says in the Star Wars databank:

The Citadel was intended as a flawless contingency for an unthinkable problem -- the stark prison was built to hold Jedi, should any in the Order ever turn against the Republic. Constructed 500 years before the Clone Wars,...​

So the Jedi Order of old had agreed to a political arrangement that could get them thrown into prison for questioning the way the Republic was working? That's a bad deal, considering that the Republic has turned into a bloated monster twice in a row. For a Skywalker to agree to such a subservient position again would be like selling out. I could imagine that Kylo felt his family should be self-employed Force-users.

Of course it all depends on how exactly Kylo destroyed Luke's new Jedi Temple, but I'm reluctant to believe that there was a massacre. If he "killed" the other students, he killed them in the same way he claims to have "killed" Ben, and in the same way Darth Vader is supposed to have killed Luke's father. Maybe Kylo burnt down the Temple with all the amassed Jedi knowledge inside, and he left a note claiming he took the Jedi prisoners to Moraband to be executed. That's all it takes. All of the other deluded Jedi students could have been mindwiped or turned into Knights of Ren, and - voila - Kylo would have freed the Skywalkers of impending servitude.

What's important for my theory to work is that I don't think Luke reacted the way Kylo had anticipated, and that's intriguing. Luke just went "no contact", and Kylo has no way of knowing how his uncle feels about him, or how much his uncle knows about what happened at the Temple in the first place. It probably sounds cheesy but I could imagine that Kylo is obsessed with finding his way back to his uncle because he wants to explain himself, and because he wants to check if his behaviour has the desired effect on Luke. All I remember Kylo ever wanting is to get to see the map to Skywalker and to finish what his grandfather started.

What I would like is if Luke actually validated the kernel of truth in Kylo's claim, and went away to do research on what the Jedi were actually protecting before there even was a galactic Republic (a "humbling" mission like Yoda's final mission in the Clone Wars). That change of perspective wouldn't turn Luke to the Dark Side as such, but it would allow him to retain the autonomy he had when he was the only active Jedi around in the OT.

As far as Leia is concerned, I'm still convinced that Kylo rummaged in Poe's mind just to find out how she was doing (but I can't prove that because the movie cuts away). To me, the fact that Kylo doesn't want to talk about his mother is the most compelling evidence that he protects this relationship from prying eyes, but I have no evidence that he'd rather rule with her than with his Force-wielding uncle. After all, Leia has been in the pocket of the Republic all her life. At the time of TFA, the Resistance still defends the existence of the Republic. This could change after the destruction of the Hosnian system, however.

 

Lots of interesting possibilities mentioned in this discussion!

I'm just imagining some potential plot twists on top of this:

Kylo Ren convinces Rey to take on Snoke together, and they do...

...but then, after they think Snoke is gone, Kylo then turns on Rey...

(perhaps it was a trap set by him and/or Snoke)

...and then Snoke resurrects and strikes down Kylo and engages Rey...

...and then Luke Skywalker comes in and helps a possibly injured Rey to retreat to safety....



JediMasterRobert

 

you always come up with such an interesting and original perspective on things!

i will be very surprised if we find out Kylo Ren slaughtered Luke's students.
there's only one website that seems to confirm this. everything else is maddeningly vague.

this is really interesting, but it would require Ren to be plotting against Snoke from the outset, which i just can't reconcile at this point. there's no evidence to support that he's capable of deep deception. i'd really like someone to prove me wrong on this because the alternatives are painful ~ hahaha

i wonder about this too!
we get no sense of Leia from the film at all, which is an interesting edit from the book (the script and the movie both cut Leia from the scenes with Kylo Ren). the first time Snoke mentions Leia, Ren cuts him off, gleefully militant about destroying the Republic. it's chilling because it feels absolutely cold-blooded. but then later, he blanches at Snoke wanting to destroy the Ileenium System. and then Han's mention of "your mother" on the bridge is what seems to make Ren cry.

so maybe there's more going on there. i do believe Leia is the key to turning him around if he's going to be turned. but i'm not convinced he has her in mind toward some plot at this point. i think he's just in denial (Ben is dead, Ben is dead) until he's confronted with his past.

i know people speculate that Poe and Ren know each other, but regardless, i kinda like the idea of him prowling around in Poe's head ~ hahaha

 

I believe Snoke is playing along for the time being. Which makes it look to Kylo as if his deception is working even if the viewers already get a sense of him being played. That's how it looks to me, anyway. Snoke simply doesn't reveal how much he knows about Kylo's role in the betrayal of Luke.

 

I love every single post in this thread. Would be cool to make cross check with what all of you brought up here after EPVIII..

Thanks for making my mourning a cool one