Lucas' Worst Fears Realised...

But were not supposed to fear and respet Kylo the way we did with Vader because as much as this kid wants to be him he is not! He is a wannabe emotional basketcase of a kid. As the audience we are not supposed to fear him we are supposed to pity him. We will have Snoke to fear and respect.

 

It doesn't take an expert. But, I'm familiar to some extent. A staff is a blunt force instrument. A sword is a flowing weapon. Far more force is needed for the staff to be effective. The grip, hand placement, hand protection, and hand mobility would be different. Distance, and reach would be different. Tactics would be different. Habits would be detrimental. And of course a lightsaber should be much different than a sword. If it's still encased plasma, which I'm 99% sure is still canon, we're looking at a near weightless blade, and a heavy metal hilt. Yeah, lightsaber training should be very important. If you were changing weapons from a staff to a lightsaber without any preparation, one could argue experience with a staff would be a detriment. The important thing is, it would not be much of an advantage.

I'm sure the stunt department knew people don't switch weapons suddenly and maintain proficiency, lol.

I've seen various theories put forth to justify the result of Kylo losing.

Let's look at what Rey has to do to even start a saber duel againt Kylo, after Kylo incapacitates Finn. She has to not be significantly impaired from Kylo's force push, she has to perform telekinesis and pull a saber, and she has to resist force aggression if Kylo decides to use it.

Let's say the odds of her not being significantly impaired from the force push are 50%. This is a deliberate overestimate as the odds of even surviving Rey's fall would likely be less than 1%. Especially when considering the impact with the tree.

Let's say the odds of her performing telekinesis on the saber are 50%. This is again a deliberate overestimate, as pulling the saber would be evident of unprecedented progression.

Let's say the odds of Kylo forgetting he has force powers, or that she can resist them are 50%. She had not resisted force aggression yet. She resisted mind domination which is far easier, but she had not resisted his force push not two minutes prior. If he's not trying to kill her, this is probably the most coherent path.

It's categorically clear that a saber duel between these two is in itself a low probability outcome.

By rather easily besting Finn, Kylo had proven himself in his current state capable of swordsmanship. Rey has no prior experience with a lightsaber, and has never fought an opponent wielding a lightsaber.

 

What is this Final Fantasy ?

 

(1) Kylo is no Sith, nor is he a fully trained Jedi. Anakin and Luke were great pilots, aided by the Force naturally, but nowhere are we informed that their other skills and talents were augmented naturally (aka, without training) by the Force. Therefore, its completely logical to say that the Force aids certain people in certain ways without much training and Kylo would have certain abilities that are more impressive (or expressive) such as mind invasion and freezing objects and people, but his saber skills may not be developed. All Force powers are not equal (See: Quinlan Vos' telepathy on physical objects).

(1.5) Although this may be worthy of a new thread: Can we really judge what Vader was able to do in a lightsaber fight? He readily beat a partially trained Kanan, and was almost beaten by Ahsoka. And ANH Obi-Wan...well....that was cute in 1977 lol. But who else did he really beat down post-Mustafar? He uses the Force to kill a battalion of Rebels in Vader Down by pulling grenade pins lol (amazing BTW) and needs Dr. Aphra's help to defeat that idiot Calamari/Grevious mash-up dude (bear with me on that, I may have to re-read that fight). OK, I might start a new thread later on this issue.

(2) In no way can we apply many logical assumptions about 'training' to this galaxy, especially at the time where few beings are being trained in the ways of the Force - only Luke and presumably Snoke are persons that can 'teach' - and we know Snoke was likely NOT taught by Palpatine or a Jedi Master, and Luke had little training. Therefore, everybody who wields a lightsaber in TFA is raw and likely not anywhere near mastery level. Considering health, Rey and Ren were a good match.

(3) The Force created life. It created a being. There's no great logical leap to the Force deciding that Rey is a being that needs to survive a fight with Ren in order to bring balance, or to find Luke, or anything. I don't make assumptions with a force that is able to create an entire being into existence like Anakin. Yes, its a cop out, but its a cop out inherently possible within the logic of how the Force operates within current canon.

Bottom line, if the Force can create life, then who are we to apply our own rules to it? It might just rebel against us, lol.

(4) Luke stops laser blasts blindfolded the second time he turns on a lightsaber - and he, from what we are told, never carried any type of melee weapon. Rey, however, did.

 

Anger, fear, hate and sadness allow easier access to the flow that is the force and the use of more powerful and deadly force abilities such as force lightening. Psychologically giving in to anger, fear, hate and sadness changes the of Force Users, causing them to become evil and wicked individual's that seek power. The more powerful and numerous Dark Side users there are, the more anger, fear, hate and sadness flow within the force, tempting even more light side users to channel dark side emotions and temptation to go to the dark side.

The Force is the Force, it's use by living beings create the light and the dark flows within it giving the Force emotion that flows between all those who use the Force.

Sith embrace the dark to gain power and deadly force abilities. Jedi train themselves to control their emotions, to use the Force for good, to avoid the negative emotions that lead to becoming psychologically evil. A Jedi can use dark powers if they channel dark emotions and learn to use the dark side abilities, but they lose themselves in the effort. They will fall to the dark side if they let themselves go to far, forever changed by the negative force energy they allow to flow through them.

When there are to many dark side users or very powerful dark side users, the force becomes unbalanced where Force users can only use force abilities by channeling anger, fear, hate and sadness. Jedi are weakened and disconnected from the force as the flow of the force contains to much evil and negative emotion.

Even though the Force had become completely dark, Luke was able to resist the evil and negative side flows in the force, and by birth right was powerful enough to use the force when other non dark users could not. Through Luke's light, Darth Vader was able to once again feel the pull of the light, enough to destroy the emperor, which Luke could not have done on his own.

Only Vader had the power to destroy them emperor and only Luke had the mental capacity to hold on to the light when the rest of the Force had become dark.

This is how I have always imagined the Force and it's Light and Dark sides. It is through emotion the Force becomes either light or dark.