Official Episode VIII - Kylo Ren Discussion Thread

i totally agree that Rey's going to be key in this somehow.
like you said: he's going to be able to do for her what he couldn't do for himself and that'll set off a chain reaction.
but i don't doubt it might require all three of them to take out Snoke.
i'm just personally averse to putting more blood on Ben's hands ~ hahaha.

 

I really hope the best for Ren.. but a some little blood drops will follow.. I am afraid (referring to his emotional status..)..Traitor!!!!

 

That would be epic. We have never seen anything like that. Ok, it would be like Order 66 with some excellent twist- the army of the FO turning against Supreme Leader Snoke.

Maybe you are right and all hope is not lost- the way the army is arranged on the poster combined with the movie tagline chose your destiny. Coincidence?

 

Its interresting that Ren is as big as a giant on the TFA Poster compared to all the others. Is this a pointer for playing THE main part till the very end of the saga or is it a reference to Vaders shadows being prolonged in person of his grandson? (perhaps both of it)

 

Well I call it as I see it Lor explained the truth about his past instead of giving up Luke's location so he had no further use of him since someone else had that info, Vader killed Obi Wan because he left him to be deep fried on Mustafar years ago that's cold in itself, anyway you made your point

--- Double Post Merged, Apr 20, 2016, Original Post Date: Apr 20, 2016 ---

Yes.
Snoke: You have become a rival!!!!
Kylo: But Supreme leader...
Snoke: You have been replaced!!!
BDT: Should I kill him now.
Snoke: Well RJ gave you chance, take it.

 

I agree, there was no frustration at all in KR's voice when he killed LST, he was very calm and matter of fact, and yes, it was a cold-blooded move. I equate that scene to the Q&A between Dennis Hopper and Christopher Walken in True Romance, where in the end, Walken assassinates Hopper very calmly after he gets no info out of him. Same thing in my mind, just a little less drawn out. KR is not as much of a bull in a china shop as people would love to believe; yes, he's hot headed and explosive, but he gets the job done, he just has a bad temper, which makes him pretty damned entertaining. KR has serious issues though, anyone who kills their father for the reasons he did needs therapy at the very least. Now, Darth Vader was professional and efficient and much, much different than "Anakin", who was an emotional whiner. "Calculating" is just another way to call someone a conniver, which I see more in KR than Vader; Vader didn't need to scheme anything and he didn't need to compete for the "affections" of the Emperor the way Hux and KR do with Snoke. Sorry for the rant.

 

must meditate on this. there really is something interesting about how hard they've pushed the "bad" side in the marketing/merchandising. i typically chalk that up to the bad guys just being cool ~ hahaha ~ but i would welcome a true subversion of the good/bad dichotomy. not sure it will happen, but there's room to hope!

i think you have an interesting perspective here. i don't agree with it, but i can appreciate the contrasts you have pointed out between Anakin and Vader, and the fact that while i don't agree that Ren is a conniver, there is definitely a power dynamic at work between him and Hux and Snoke that wasn't anything like Vader had with Palpatine (though you could argue that Vader was certainly plotting to kill Palps if he could get Luke on board).

i would also argue that Ren is less bad-tempered than short-tempered (i think there's a real difference). the only reason i point this out is because it goes back to his conflict: his essential nature is/was good but Snoke corrupted him. bad-tempered people typically don't seek out equilibrium, they just look for excuses to vent. Ren is always in a battle for self-control. he wants the conflict to stop.

and i agree he's not exactly a bull in a china shop. he is absolutely capable of focusing his destructiveness, it's just the fact of not being able to curb the destructiveness to begin with that makes him a little out of control.

 

I've felt for some time now that this is where Finn comes in. I don't really get his involvement unless he is the one who emancipates the Stormtroopers - shows them that they can take another path. That the FO stripped them of their families. If Finn oes this then that will severely weaken Snoke.

The whole "keeping the ashes of his victims" thing though is a curve ball. It stops him from being a guy that just loses his temper to someone with some serious psychopathic tendencies. You have to have a certain calm evil to do that. Killing people is one thing. You can justify that sometimes. And you can say that people lose it for a second and make bad choices. But then to go on a burn their bodies, collect the ashes and keep them in your own torture chamber...

 

Yeah, that was a bit much. It did make him sinister when they said that after the fact in the press. I didn't think think he was all that evil from the movie. As far as Finn. I always saw him as kind of a thorn in the side to leaders in the FO. To Hux, he may just be a failure. To Kylo Ren, he made the mistake of letting it go when he didn't shoot (I think of it as empathy) and that set a chain of events where he was basically taking things from Kylo Ren (He leaves with Poe, tells Rey what the droid with the map he wants is, is mentored by Kylo Ren's father and brings him to Starkiller base to take Rey away, And THEN having the conjones to be carrying the lightsaber that should be Kylo Ren's), and to Captain Phasma (making her look bad in her job, though right now she is a minor character, I am sure her revenge to Finn is coming). Finn causing some kind of revolt as far as stormtroopers could be interesting. They seemed friendly towards him at first glance when walking through SKB like they knew him, but his group saw him as a traitor (Maz Castle).

 

My personal take on the ashes thing is that it's absurd--because it's not how storytelling works. It's making up a backstory after the fact for a prop to excuse bad editing. I didn't see anything in the movie that makes the ashes make sense. Did we see Kylo doing anything like this? No. We saw him do evil stuff, like killing his father. But in no way did the story even hint at this, such as having him order the ashes of the slaughtered villagers brought to him.

You just can't tell a story on film by redacting essential character information. It's much on the same level as saying, "Oh, those two guys who attacked Rey to get BB-8? Well, she cheated their mother and they were glad to take the job from Plutt out of revenge." It just wouldn't add up with the Rey we saw on screen.

So I guess I've been in the process and have finally decided to choose that what I see on screen is canon. Not articles, not press releases, not tweets from Pablo Hidalgo, not a comic somewhere, not a comment by an actor. Those things may supplement canon, but they cannot change canon. That's the only way I can value the integrity of the art of filmmaking and storytelling.

 

okay, let's do it: let's talk about #ashgate as if it's a canonical thing.

i come from a culture where this isn't that confounding at all. i buried my dog in the backyard and then deliberately dug him up, bleached his bones, and they reside on my mantelpiece. i'm pretty sure i'm not psychotic. i just have a different relationship with the dead because of the way i was raised. and yes, pets are different from people (and especially different from people you kill), but we don't know why Ren would do this, so to judge it based on our own standards of appropriate is maybe not entirely fair.

cremation in the world of Star Wars so far as our experience of it in the canonical realm is that it's an act of honor, so there is that, first of all. to leave your enemies fallen to rot in the field is the way to dishonor them. we never see anyone exercise any sort of aftercare for the dead except Luke torching Vader. i think that's telling.

but even so there's nothing to extrapolate from this ashes business. they were supposed to be in his private room (an editing choice moved them, as @Choose Light pointed out), and the fact that he puts his helmet into them could either reinforce the idea that he feels like these are people whom he has dominated and destroyed or, perhaps, his behavior is purely masochistic: a memento mori he keeps like a proverbial albatross.

yes, this makes him no less disturbed, but it doesn't make him more disturbed. we already know he's got issues. the ashes are neither here nor there in support of that fact. you're saying that it proves he's calculating in some way. i think it's just as likely that he's ritualized his behavior as a way of controlling his emotions. because this is what you do when you need to make sense of something that overwhelms you. this is what you do to stabilize. because he is not in control.

but again, for all we know, this isn't even canon anymore.

 

Thank you, @FN-3263827, for sharing your perspective on the ashes. It's helpful to see it from a different point of view.

It's a tossup--believe the "ashes of his enemies" or the Millicent's litterbox story? Or better yet, keep it all on the same canonical level as this...

 

Finn would be the perfect role model, I agree- nevertheless they would need a masterful military strategist.

All we know Finn was working in sanitation. He had the potential at becoming the best stormtroopers the First Order had ever produced but he totally lacks experience. Hux was not given command in the first order because of his name, no he has proven over and over again that he is the greatest of generals...

But I can see Disney going that way, although it would make Finn not a believable character.

This was a bit off-topic, wasn't it...

 

I understand your perspective(s) as well, but I do not agree. KR may have a short temper, but it is also a bad temper: receiving bad news and then subsequently destroying a control console in a fit of rage then choking the bearer of bad news is a bad temper. He didn't go pet a kitten or give the guy a hug or go do some yoga, he exploded. If he truly just had a short temper, he would have flown off the handle,in this instance, as soon as he was told that his quarry had escaped capture in the MF. KR's response was "the droid stole a freighter?" A short tempered person woulda popped, he was just ramping up IMO. Then, the catalyst, our friend FN-2187 assisted in the escape: meltdown. Having a short temper or being easily angered is one thing, what you do with that anger is another. KR demonstrates his lack of self control when his temper gets the better of him on multiple occasions, which is why we like him.

 

my initial reaction to the ashes was that Ren has created this (yes, kinda bizarre) altar of accountability.
there's Vader's mask, there's his dead enemies. these are the things by which he is defining himself.

and that's the point: to give himself security in definition because he's otherwise sort of leaking all over the place.
Snoke has made him "destroy" Ben but he hasn't reconciled himself as Kylo Ren, so he needs tangible things (his own mask included) to maintain that persona.
it's part mea culpa, part proudly "look what i've done!", but most of all a security blanket.

--- Double Post Merged, Apr 20, 2016, Original Post Date: Apr 20, 2016 ---

hahaha ~ i see the opposite:

his short fuse leads him to whack the console, then he pulls himself up (get it together, Ren). "anything else?" he asks when he thinks he's managed to corrall himself. Mitaka tells him about the girl and he immediately loses his shoebuttons again. that's a short temper to me. bad temper would have been to beat on the console, beat on Mitaka, not bother to try to restrain himself at all.

maybe i'm splitting frog hairs. i just don't see his basic temperament to be bad. it's short-fused, frustrated, and occasionally rageful, but the fact that he's always fighting for control of himself tells me it's a condition of the circumstances, not his essential nature.

so yeah, we totally agree that he has a lack of self-control. i guess we just disagree about where it comes from. hahaha

 

If you want to honour the dead, you bury them or give them a funeral. You don't keep their ashes in a bowl in your torture chamber.

Ren has no respect for the dead. He has little respect for those living. As suggested in the VD, Kylo thinks his genetics puts him above others. You can see his utter disrespect for other beings when he orders the murder of the villagers.

I see no reason to believe he keeps his enemies ashes out of honour or respect. Just look at how he slams his helmet into the ashes, spilling and scattering them. For me, the suggestion is he does it for sinister reasons which muddies the character somewhat. And it suggests a character that isn't just reactive but is capable of a cold, calm evil.

 

I see what you are saying. If they could somehow manage within the story in Ep. VIII or thereafter to envelop such a helpful explanation toward enlightening Kylo Ren's character, then we'll both be satisfied!

 

i feel like you didn't read a word i wrote.
but that's okay.
i don't disagree that Ren is capable of evil--even cold, calm evil.
i'm just saying that everything we've seen in the movie and in the novel and other media tells us that cold and calculating are not part of his essential nature.
they might be part of the persona he tries to project as Kylo Ren, but he fails at that persona a lot in TFA.

i kinda doubt we'll ever hear about the ashes again, but you never know.
i am still a bit befuddled about why or how this changes anything about him, but i accept that i'm in the minority on that score ~ hahaha.

 

Such a strict teacher .

 

As you mentioned, I think the impact it has on his character largely depends on how you interpret the meaning of keeping the ashes of your dead enemies around. The essential information we don't have from the story is how Kylo Ren interprets it. Because it's not, you know, in the story, JJ Abrams!!