SPECULATION OFFICIAL Kylo Ren Discussion Thread

yeah, i dunno ~ it's all conjecture since we don't really know what the toilet-monster's plan is.
and yeah, he revolts me ~ hahaha

 

Surprised that his dad was capable of dying or surprised that he actually followed through

 

If that is a question asking me what I think (you must be typing on your phone? ), I think Kylo Ren was surprised that he didn't get an end to his conflict, or at least an uptick in Dark-side power.

 

or a plate of cookies. isn't that the gag: come to the Dark side, we have cookies?

 

You deserve a gold star for figuring that out I doubt he needed an up tick considering he survived a blast from chewie .

 

Nah, that was just his Skywalker-Solo genes.

 

he did. now thanks to @Boushhdisguise i've got grave concerns about his left kidney, though ~ hahaha

 

Lol I wonder how a kidney transplant works in SW...

 

right? fergit the mechanical hands and legs and whatnot, Kylo Ren has a mechanical kidney!

 

...that he builds using part of Vader's helmet .

 

I will be definitely cheering when they kill that monster.

Bwahahahahahaha. That must hurt, poor Kylo. Well, Ciena Ree had a liver grown in "Lost Stars" so he might have another kidney by Episode VIII.

 

i had forgotten about that! he should be just fine then ~ hahaha

 

I am the type that likes to share. I am sure some time in the Bacta tank will fix everything.

@FN-3263827 If only the New Republic Child Protective Services could have rid us of this menace. I made this for you.

 

this is the best thing ever.
now we just gotta flush! hahahaha

thank you!

 

I hear you. I just don't think the emotional component is his driver, I think it's his means to an end: "being powerful". I don't know if any of you all saw the movie "The Cell" where Jennifer Lopez has to go into the mind of a serial killer to find the location of a missing victim, but the Serial Killer's motivation dynamic was similar. While Kylo wasn't abused by his Father, the Serial Killer in The Cell was, and in his young mind, he rationalized the bad that happened to him, did so as a result of his lack of power. If he had been more powerful he could have stopped his abusive father, he could've controlled his environment and prevented himself from being vulnerable and hurt. It's bad reasoning, because power doesn't fill voids just masks them. But in a young mind, it probably seems plausible.

I honestly think something similar is going on with Kylo (that not nearly as intensely). Power is a means to eliminating him ever feeling vulnerable and weak.

Now to be clear, it's not that I think your theory has no merit... Kylo wants to control "some" emotions, the ones he sees as weakness. But I just see more convergence points on power than light side emotions.

1. Vader was obsessed with power, and Vader is who he admires. Even before he became Vader, Anakin was pre-occupied with his own power and being respected
2. One thing Vader didn't stress over was control of his emotions, quite the opposite. He routinely embraced his anger and hatred and in the Dark Side that made him even MORE powerful.
3. Vader needed the mask for survival, Kylo does not. He wears it to project an image like Darth Vader that intimidates. And what is intimidation about but power?
4. Order is the First Order's thing... Kylo doesn't seem to really buy into any of it (like Hux and the Storm Troopers) even if he goes along with it. He's focused entirely on Jedi (Luke) and Sith (ancient Sith ways and Vader)
5. "He had too much Vader in him." Han's words. Was Vader's characteristic weakness his sentiment or his desire to exert control?
6. Maybe this is spelled out in novelization but how do you explain the motivation behind Kylo's rebellion and subsequent slaughter of the New Jedi from the framework of psychological weakness and sentiment? I can make an easy construct for "power" being the motivation because it's the same one that motivated Anakin. Anakin experienced loss (Shmi), and his pathway to avoid experiencing that loss ever again, is to acquire power (i.e. the Plagueis angle). Kylo isn't interested in merely being a Jedi, he wants the means by which to acquire power so that he never feels weak again. Notice that with both Vader and Kylo, once they establish who the master is that can give them the power they seek, they destroy the Jedi they were once both a part of.

Could I be wrong in all this? Absolutely. It's all speculation. But I just see psychological weakness and sentiment as a symptom, not the sickness he's looking to cure (powerlessness).

 

actually, i think this analog is rather apropos ~ only it's entirely subtextual and the "abuser" is Snoke. this is why Ren has a violent temper; he's frustrated with things that are out of his control and feeling trapped in an uncomfortable situation he doesn't know how to cope with (which he states explicitly on the bridge).

i feel like we just don't have evidence of this in Ren. the only thing we know he wanted (and didn't get or have control over) was his parents' attention.
that's a very different motivator. Snoke has satisfied that hole/wound in his psyche and recognized/given him purpose. there may be ambition behind that, but it starts from an emotional place.

we see Ren trying to do this too. he fails a lot though ~ hahaha

we talked about this before. yes, it's a callback to Vader, for the purpose of power ~ i think it's especially for the purpose of power to conceal his fragility.

i agree that he's not interested in the temporal aspects of this; that's for people like Hux to fuss over. his desire for Order is ideological; it's not about individual planets or people, but about the whole galaxy. and that necessarily involves his position as a powerful Force-user (and therefore Jedi/Sith knowledge).

this, coming from Han is pretty subjective. we don't know what, in Ben, worried Han so much. could have been that Ben was ambitious, or it could have been that Ben was detached and cruel, or it could have been that Ben was destructive and temperamental. we just don't know.

i'm waiting for someone to produce the bodies of these alleged dead Jedi students before i can theorize an intelligent response. for the moment i can only surmise that Snoke has convinced Ren that the Jedi will be Snoke's undoing (and therefore the undoing of Ren's own destiny). and if you had a wise mentor whom you loved/trusted/depended on more than anything in the universe and for whom you would do anything--not to mention one ounce of self-preservation, it's not much of a leap to betray your own uncle to protect yourself and that person.

oh sure ~ it's all speculative. but i do think, again, where we diverge on Ren's motives is in his endgame.
the symptoms/sickness is all just fine tuning/frog hairs, all that.

 

This is priceless, @Boushhdisguise!

 

Yes, and the way that he remedies this situation, the way he gains control, is by gaining power. I'm confident killing Han wasn't his idea it was Snoke's. Though he doesn't adore his father he probably doesn't hate him enough to skewer him... he does it in pursuit of control. At least that's my theory. I'm sure if you like you could say he does the same for the purusit of psychological strength.

I hear you, I'm just using deduction to follow the logic to inevitable conclusion. Coupled with the other meta data I provided it seems like it contributes to a narrative about power. But there's no definitive proof either way.

Actually I think we see Ren embrace rage... not quite the same as hate, rage is less focused (and probably less powerful) but they are both dark side quantities I'll grant you that. Didn't Obi Wan give into rage when Qui Gon got struck down? He had Maul on his heels for a second. Anyway, as much as I like the humanizing of Kylo, I kinda want to see what he is like once he is stabilized. I'm just wondering if I can see him as terrifying as Darth Vader and having seen his tantrums, I think the Kylo Ren brand of terror just won't be believable unless they do something drastic with him (no... I can't see them having him kill Leia too)

We don't know for certain, but I believe eveything you just mentioned has at least a touch point to a "desire for control". That assessment is purely subjective, but that's my belief.

I'm not sure if I'm tracking you here... are you saying that you don't believe the Jedi students weren't killed? Before he was given his formal name, wasn't the character known simply as Jedi Killer?

And on that, finally we agree on something. LOL. Great discourse though.

 

i think we're probably just defining power/control/stability in different ways. i mean, i think we mostly agree about what's going on with the character, but you're more inclined to feel he's trying to control or have power over his environment in a broad "ruling" way, and i'm suggesting he desires control more intimately.

well, rage comes from somewhere ~ in Ren's case i'm guessing it's a nice potent cocktail of pain, anger, and hate.
i'd like to see him a bit more stable as well. i think/hope he'll come back in viii a bit more focused.
it seems like his goals ought to be clearer to him now, so there's a good chance he won't be flailing all over the place.
and yeah, killing Leia is just stupid. hahaha
but i agree he's going to do something dreadful to dig his hole deeper.

in the case of his family problem, i'd actually argue that while he might have behaved in a way that was controlling or demonstrative of being out of control, it's more likely than not he wanted some kind of control imposed on him (i.e. wanted someone to deal with the situation/him) and was acting out in an attempt to get it (psych 101).

his anger at his family is a "grudge" regarding his "abandonment". seems to me a child who wants to call all the shots doesn't hold a grudge against parents who leave him to his own devices. i think part of what Ren Ben means when he tells Han "it's too late" on the bridge is "i needed you then."

we don't know what happened to Luke's pupils. maybe they're dead. with one exception, all of the sources are vague about the "incident", and "Jedi Killer" could refer to his job of hunting down Luke or pure watercooler talk (which is how it's almost treated in the VD). while i think there's a strong chance that Ren did kill Luke's other pupils, i feel like there may yet be a twist abut this in terms of what really went down. we just don't have enough info yet.

the strongest evidence in support of this is Hidalgo calling Kylo Ren a murderer (in terms of what "broke up" Han and Leia), but Hidalgo also hates Kylo Ren and has said untoward things about him, and even this statement is vague in terms of reference and timing. so...eh? i'm holding out a flicker of hope, i guess.
but as i stated before, i can see him doing it if Snoke convinced him they were a threat.

hahaha ~ i agree!

i think a lot comes down to semantics and the question of whether Ren is out for glory or out for duty. you seem inclined to believe he's on a glory track (in keeping with the Sith mode of operation), and i think he's out for duty (trying to fulfill a destiny larger even than just Sithy concerns). when it comes down to it, a lot of the behavior in attaining either of those things may end up looking really similar.

 

And of course as we both acknowledged, they don't actually have to be mutually exclusive. It could be a little bit of both, he's a complicated enough dude to embody both.

When Han says, "He was training a new generation of Jedi, one boy, an apprentice, turned against him, destroyed it all"... that's good enough for me. Plus like I said earlier it would mirror what Anakin did when he turned. The Jedi he was training (we have to assume) are dead. Snoke refers to Luke as the Last Jedi. Could there be surviving Padawans? I guess neither Han's nor Snoke's word explicitly rule it out. Still I think his name was Jedi Killer in early script treatments because that is indeed what he did.

I honestly don't put much stock in Hidalgo. I think he is around more for narrative control than dispute resolution. He provides information very strategically so even though I think Kylo did it, if Hidalgo agrees with me, it doesn't make me an ounce more confident at all.