SPECULATION The Connection Between Rey and Ben.

I did. I was like "Take THAT, you hypocrites!"
But then, I may have a little dark side myself.

 

And wait, there's more:

Luke: "I have no memory of my mother."

 

I'm intrigued by what Leia will think about her son now. She was very confident Han could bring him home and that kind of exploded in her face.
Will she abandon him now? There's probably a limit she is going to allow considering how she feels about her father.

I think there is a chance for that and it will be left to Rey to bring him back.
Though I have to say, from the beginning I saw similarities between Kylo and "Kevin" from "We Need To Talk About Kevin".
And in that his mother essentially forgives him and takes him back into her life despite the horrors he committed.

 

HAHahahahaha ~ you? nooooooooo!
i guess we all have our Dark sides. i still want to strangle Sloane.

and to try to get back on topic, Rey too will likely have her Dark temptation.
but that's something she and Ben will probably find themselves commiserating over, if anything.

 

Love that.

 

Don't make me get out the tissues!

 

unless Lucasfilm does the unthinkable and turns Leia into Mary Tyler Moore from Ordinary People, i can't imagine this happening. Leia is too strong for that.

 

Like, "yeah, Vader's daughter y'all!"

Quite possible scenario.

If you get these ones, I will cry too.

 

I too think that the unfolding of Obi-Wan's liberties with the truth was rather distasteful however I do like how sneaky Obi-Wan might be seen to have converted his error into a lesson about acknowledging the plurality of perspectives and questioning authority. (Perhaps a bit of a stretch maybe?!)

Such actions could severely challenge the student and rightfully be seen as a breach of trust but, with the right delivery, can sometimes serve as an important lesson in becoming an autonomous individual.

One example sticks in my mind about the utility of this kind of technique from a famous/infamous american educator:

Spoiler: Excerpt from "The Underground History of American Education" by John Taylor Gatto

One lesson I received at the visiting Jesuit brother [to our school] altered my consciousness forever. By contemporary standards, the class might seem impossibly advanced in concept for third grade, but if you keep in mind the global war that claimed major attention at that moment, then the fact that Brother Michael came to discuss causes of WWI as a prelude to its continuation in WWII is not so far-fetched. After a brief lecture on each combatant and its cultural and historical characteristics, an outline of incitements to conflict was chalked on the board.

"Who will volunteer to face the back of the room and tell us the causes of World War One?"
"I will, Brother Michael," I said. And I did.
"Why did you say what you did?"
"Because that’s what you wrote."
"Do you accept my explanation as correct?"
"Yes, sir." I expected a compliment would soon follow, as it did with our regular teacher.
"Then you must be a fool, Mr. Gatto. I lied to you. Those are not the causes at all."

It was like being flattened by a steamroller. I had the sensation of being struck and losing the power of speech. Nothing remotely similar had ever happened to me.

"Listen carefully, Mr. Gatto, and I shall show you the true causes of the war which men of bad character try to hide," and so saying he rapidly erased the board and in swift fashion another list of reasons appeared. As each was written, a short, clear explanation followed in a scholarly tone of voice.
"Now do you see, Mr. Gatto, why you must be careful when you accept the explanation of another? Don’t these new reasons make much more sense?"
"Yes, sir."
"And could you now face the back of the room and repeat what you just learned?"
"I could, sir." And I knew I could because I had a strong memory, but he never gave me that chance.
"Why are you so gullible? Why do you believe my lies? Is it because I wear clothing you associate with men of God? I despair you are so easy to fool. What will happen to you if you let others do your thinking for you?"

You see, like a great magician he had shifted that commonplace school lesson we would have forgotten by the next morning into a formidable challenge to the entire contents of our private minds, raising the important question, Who can we believe? At the age of eight, while public school children were reading stories about talking animals, we had been escorted to the eggshell-thin foundation upon which authoritarian vanity rests and asked to inspect it.

There are many reasons to lie to children, the Jesuit said, and these seem to be good reasons to older men. Some truth you will know by divine intuition, he told us, but for the rest you must learn what tests to apply. Even then be cautious. It is not hard to fool human intelligence.

Later I told the nun in charge of my dorm what had happened because my head was swimming and I needed a second opinion from someone older. "Jesuits!" she snapped, shaking her head, but would say no more.

tl;dr

"You see, like a great magician he had shifted that commonplace school lesson we would have forgotten by the next morning into a formidable challenge to the entire contents of our private minds, raising the important question, Who can we believe? At the age of eight, while public school children were reading stories about talking animals, we had been escorted to the eggshell-thin foundation upon which authoritarian vanity rests and asked to inspect it."

- From "The Underground History of American Education" by John Taylor Gatto (audiobook)

 

this is so typically jesuitical ~ hahahaha

and it's a great example! however:

the lesson is deliberately immediate--the point is illustrated, emphasized, and (presumably) inculcated.
we do this when we train students to discern the reliability of informational resources (media, news, etc.).

Obi-Wan telling Luke one thing, dying before explicating it, and then coming back to impart some further information without ever explaining the point of the lesson?
again, i call hockey pucks on the whole shebang ~ hahahaha

 

Fair call and a worthy retort to most of my posts!!

Yeah this is key - I'm all about the truth first but as a non-parent I exercise extreme caution around anything that could possibly undermine important authority figures or call into question a child's fundamental assumptions. (As an uncle I'm saving that kind of fun until their much older!!)

I do think this area is ripe for all sorts of interesting speculation around what may have pushed Ben to the dark.

 

I just think I should better stop posting here at all, since it seems this is just a Kylo/Ben fanclub more or less and a critical view towards him is not wished. The same as it is not wished here for Luke to have a family (also more a Han/Leia power couple fanclub here as well). Sorry, but I don't share any enthusiasm towards Kylo at all, nor do I wish him to be redeemed. That's just my opinion. Nevertheless it doesn't make sense to disturb your fanclubs here, so I will leave for good.

 

Nah, hang around. Majorities are over-rated and we need minority voices! (#WeNeedToKillKyloToShowThatKillingIsWrong)

If you find yourself taking criticism to heart here (I do on occassion) take a break and come back refreshed and firing!

 

I feel that I need to interfere on behalf on Obi-Wan a bit as I think you are being a bit harsh on the poor fellow (and I'm absolutely not not impartial to that, hahaha)...

In Obi-Wan's defence, we should remember that in Star Wars (ANH) Leia was not Luke's sister and hence we had the bizarre on the verge of being inscestuous (in retrospect) interactions with Luke as a potential love interest which in retrospect were completely and blatantly retconned by GL. (Not to mention the blatant inconsistency of Leia remembering her mother.) I suspect that GL has exaggerated his storytelling genius a bit by claiming that he had the saga mapped out in advance and I would suggest that Vader was actually not probably set up as Luke's father at all in the 1st film, thus Obi-Wan did never lie. Poor Obi-Wan was made to be a liar later to cover up for GL sort of "winging it" with the story...
Star Wars (ANH) was supposed to be a film that would have worked without a sequel.

Also, I will have to agree with some of (if not all) of @master_shaitan's interpretation. While Obi-Wan and Yoda did appear to be blatantly wrong about Vader, objectively they were actually right to think he is beyond saving and wanted to protect Luke from being conflicted for the wrong reasons...When Yoda says that to his knowledge no one has come back from the Dark Side he simply speaks of experience. He has been around for a while so I think he is correct to be sceptical...But I also think that what was important for them was that Luke faced Vader and was ready to face him and do what's right at the moment. That's why they cautioned him that he isn't ready, and they were right...

I'm not defending that in the end it turned out that they made a mistake with Anakin/Vader and believed him to be beyond saving in the end, but they did have good reason to think like that and did not have the connection of knowing how he really felt which his son had the advantage to have sensing the conflict Vader still had against all odds...
Remember, Yoda sent Obi-Wan to kill Anakin and Obi-Wan really didn't want to and tried to plead with him and failed...But he obviously deeply regretted that even when he defeated him. While their bond as a teacher and apprentice was strong and their friendship was real, Anakin really seemed beyond being saved on Mustafar. As a mentor and a friend Obi-Wan did not want to face Anakin, but he did it because he had to...So Yoda also "set" him up by testing him as a jedi. It seems a bit cold-hearted, but at the time it was the only thing to do. And remember that Obi-Wan did say this which in his heart he knew to be true.



(I think these words also work in context of what happens in the OT. But I'm hoping Obi-Wan has still a role to play and may be redeemed in this failure...)

But back to Obi-Wan's famous "from a certain point of view". It doesn't bug me. The same that Leia kissing her twin brother doesn't bug me or her remembering her sad beautiful mother. I see that Obi-Wan could not blurt out to Luke the truth at that moment when they have just met. Luke behaving like the whiny teenager that he was then could not have been able to deal with the truth then. And I don't think Obi-Wan planned to die. But when they got to the Death Star he had to follow what fate had ordained, help take down the tractor beam, and face Vader and give the young people a window to escape. It was a most honorable sacrifice and it should not be diminished. To me Han going on the bridge to face his son was very similar. Han was not entirely convinced it would work, (his conversation with Leia showed that) but nevertheless did it. And his sacrifice will not be pointless.

End of Obi-Wan is a great character with human flaws, let's not judge him so harshly, defence...

 

i feel the passion burning within you!!! hahahaha

i don't disagree with Obi-Wan believing Vader was beyond help. and i don't really criticize him for that. as i said, being wrong is just part and parcel of being human. he made an error in judgment (or two or five). i have no problem with that (just look at what i can forgive Ben for! hahahaha).

i have a problem with the retcon, of attempting to make not only his mistake but the writers' mistakes into something they're not. reassigning value to what's basically a continuity error. like you said: Luke and Leia are all making out and whatnot. whatever. it doesn't bother me because i get it--it was a mistake. just like Obi-Wan having to throw in a spackle of a line about point of view.

i'm just saying let's call it what it is: it's spackle. it's not wise or clever and it doesn't make the character better, smarter, or more perceptive. it's not a deep-seated plant for some long-game.

it's a glitch. i'm okay with that. we can move on. just like with the kissing ~ hahaha

and the echo of that in Aftermath, in the poem, is just spackle too: a way of supporting and validating an error by trying to ascribe deeper meaning.
does it work? maybe. i don't know. not for me personally. it doesn't lend credence to the original mistake at all for me. but i can be fuddy that way.

 

Precisely. These are (at least most of them) glitches. Whenever there is a failing or inconsistency in my favorite characters Kenobi and Yoda I always go into "blame GL" mode! (Half-joking)

Another example of GL not knowing his own movies dialogue and thus causing a continuity error is the "for thousand generations" VS "a thousand years" glaring inconsistency between what Kenobi says about the jedi in ANH, and what is said in the PT. Not to mention how Obi-Wan was made to be basically a liar saying to Luke that his father wanted him to have his lightsaber, but then show us that the way Obi-Wan got to have Anakin's lightsaber was not really a bequeathing scene that the OT Kenobi alluded to...

These I think should be seen as plot and dialogue inconsistencies and should not be attributed to poor Obi-Wan, the character, as his personal failings. (Just as Leia kissing Luke multiple times should not be taken too seriously...)
Lucas just failed to double check the OT dialogue for some reason in several instances and wrote screenplays for the PT that on several instances directly contradicted the OT. (Like with Leia remembering her mother!) And I totally blame Pablo Hidalgo and other people like him around Lucas who worked for him on the PT for not correcting these kinds of continuity mistakes! All the failings of the PT are basically due to people not knowing how to criticise Lucas and to object when there were glaring inconsistencies and stupid decisions...
So there is that...

But definetely, having said all that, I do believe that Obi-Wan did fail Anakin, and that's why I'm hoping he is somehow involved in this sequel trilogy in a meaningful way. He needs his own redeeming arc about having failed Anakin and the circle needs to be completed...I'm hoping that's what TPTB may be doing (among other "strings" that must be tied)...We'll see...

 

this is why it's hard for me to take a lot of discussion seriously about the meaning and implications of all of these words. having taken over from George Lucas, Lucasfilm is in the delicate position of trying to make sense of this mess in a way that straddles the line between offending the creator, offending the fandom, and offending logical sensibilities ~ hahahaha

i like the idea of the ST somehow being the final reconciliation between Anakin and Obi-Wan. i don't know if they can pull it off between Ben and Rey--if there's a connection there to be exploited in a way that can make easy and digestible sense to a broad audience. we have a lot of story to develop that connection if that's the direction they want to go in, so hopefully they are asking all the same hard questions we are. and challenging one another to think deeply and carefully about meaning and implication going forward.

 

Wow...I try to resign the real-world film-making implications on story-telling as part of my suspension of disbelief!

Maybe I've miunderstood but if not, good effort (seriously). I'd really struggle to negotiate the tricky quagmire of SW lore and it's associated discussion forums without a clear separation between the on-screen and off-screen.

Whatever is on-screen becomes legitimate fodder for investigating character motivations and relationships in my book. (I know nobody asked my opinion but...well...there it is anyway. )

 

I certainly don't know what the actual plans of TPTB for the ST are (unfortunately), but I definetely see the very great potential of having the descendants of Anakin Skywalker and Kenobi sort of join forces and thus that relationship bring a satisfying close to the circle of the saga...I keep thinking about what Colin Trevorrow said about seeing EP IX not just one film or last part of 3 films, but as a part of 9 films.
This to me alludes to how they may have approached the story for the ST when they began. To me there are telltale signs that there are certain issues that they certainly seem to have noticed, and decided to be starting points to be developed, such as the fact that Vader's dying words are for Luke to tell his sister that he was right that Anakin had good in him. (The question of Vader's redemption that if these threads are any indication is a very divisive one, even though in canon it is established without any doubt that vader was truly redeemed!).

The fact that Vader's dark past is not entirely exorcised seems to be a central issue as a starting point of the ST. One with Leia not having come to terms with her father (Bloodlines). The fact that Vader's shadow looms large and still has a malign influence - the Vader cult, Kylo's mistaken devotion to the wrong side of his legacy. To me so far, it is actually a story about two legacies - one good and one bad. Ben Solo/Kylo Ren being described as a unique individual with equal parts of light and dark. The dialogue in the beginning of TFA between Kylo and Lor San Tekka also supports such reading of a conflict of that dual legacy.

The underlying theme to me for the ST so far is the underlying need to reconcile this dramatically opposing family legacy and the duality of the Force and a focal point chosen is the young new Skywalker who many have observed looks very much like Anakin. This brings to my mind that if we want to bring balance for the saga as a whole there must be a ST story that somehow ties all the films together in a grand satisfying way, thus I feel a Kenobi is needed to make that circle indeed complete.

(In my headcanon) for example I see a scene(s) were Rey and Kylo/Ben fight back to back mimicking in some way the friendship/camaraderie that Anakin and Obi-Wan had. Ben Solo is after all the child of two very sassy characters and I will find it a missed opportunity not to be able to explore that...Basically for VIII, or the latest for IX, I see a scene where Kylo and Rey join forces to fight against a common thread on a smaller more banal scale - for example being both attacked by monsters, or having to overcome some other physical obstacle where they must temporarily forget they are adversaries in order to first deal with that more immediate threat...While they fight, they can have witty snarky banter similar to the one that younger Obi-Wan and Anakin had. A bit of "pulpy fun" as it were. And if uncle Luke is there to cool those hot heads down, I think it will make for a great fun, quite in the vein of SW. Or something of the sort. I just feel that a scene where they have to work together even if it is somewhat reluctantly at first could be a good starting point of seeing each other (and thus also, us the audience also seeing them) beyond the polarity of being on opposing sides.

That would be fresh and unexpected as Kylo/Ben helping defeat Snoke only at the end will not be a last minute afterthought (and sort of a rehash) as was with Vader, but instead Kylo/Ben joining the Light side early on will be a gradual and thus a more believable/acceptable transformation and the audience can thus be able to discover and appreciate the other qualities that the character Ben Solo may demonstrate to posses.



I personally (while I find many failings with the PT, but also think they also have some good things in them) nevertheless feel that they must still be honored and taken into account and thus in a way the ST can also serve as a healing of the divide of the fandom as well. Thus bringing Kenobi back in some decisive and meaningful way to me will be able to accomplish that.

But, we'll see if my hunch is right or completely off...

In any case. I hope we will see Rey and Ben (sooner than later) as working together, perhaps first as a semi-reluctant team, but gradually a real one. That would make for great "pulpy fun" I would say...

Another of my headcanon scene "predictions" is a scene where either Yoda or (more likely) Maz tells Kylo:

 

hahahaha ~ you make me sound so stodgy! i'm actually saying the opposite: i chalk this stuff up and don't waste my time trying to crack some deep secret code with regards to it. i just suspend all disbelief. Starkiller base? Darth Maul's spider legs? Force mumbo-jumbo. whatever. bring it on.
i can only take apart the words so far, particularly when i know they're so slapdash on some level.

where i think there's legitimate intentional meaning, i can engage in analysis.
but where it's just contrivance, i'm okay with just enjoying it and moving on.

i definitely believe that Kylo Ren (or Ben) will be joining the fight against Snoke a lot sooner than expected as well.
and i think you're right about their deliberate inclusion of the spirit/pall of Darth Vader in this new world.
also, the specific inclusion of Obi-Wan.

i can't get as far as speculating on the depth of those connections. i tend too look at the story more broadly--see the superficial themes and make conjectures based on the pieces currently most obviously in motion (like Ren or Rey). i have some thoughts about Luke, but there's still so much we don't know about him. same with how Vader and Obi-Wan might play into this bigger picture.

like you, i find the circularity of this fight to be intriguing. can Rey close the circle? is she a Kenobi somehow? is Anakin and Obi-Wan's final atonement in the "marriage" of these two characters against evil? as Anakin and Obi-Wan should have been partners in their galactic journey, will Ben and Rey fufill that now?