The Fate of Ben Solo

This is a great post.

Star Wars doesn't equal real life, nor do I want it to. In the Star Wars universe, justice is focused upon religious and spiritual ideals, so if you focus upon wanting crime in Star Wars to mirror real life, you disconnect yourself from the story and miss out on the bigger picture.

I just can't imagine Luke giving up on Kylo. If he does, it will tarnish the legacy that was his father's redemption. Obi-Wan may have failed with Anakin, but he redeemed him through Luke. Likewise, Luke may have failed with Ben, but he has the chance to redeem him through Rey. I think Rey will be the one who will instigate Kylo's redemption, but to do this she will have to let go of her hate and anger. Letting go of hate and anger is the key message I envision Luke teaching Rey.

And it would be great if some of the teachings from Taoism (an ancient Chinese philosophy that has quite similar teachings to the Jedi) were preached by Luke to prepare Rey to face Kylo. Within the following Taoist quotes, I have replaced the word "tao" with the word "force". I can easily imagine Luke sharing similar words with Rey:

"Those who wish to embody the force,
should embrace all things.
To embrace all things means first
that one holds no anger or resistance
toward any idea or thing, living or dead, formed or formless.
Acceptance is the very essence of the force.
To embrace all things
means that one rids oneself of any concept of separation;
male and female, self and other, life and death.
Foregoing antagonism and separation,
one enters into the harmonious Oneness of ALL things."

"Practice undiscriminating virtue:
take care of those who are deserving;
also, and equally, take care of those who are not.
When you extend your virtue in all directions
without discriminating,
your feet are firmly planted on the path that returns to the force."

“When the greatness of the force is present,
action arises from one’s own heart.
When the greatness of the force is absent,
action comes from the rules of “kindness” and “justice”.
If you need rules to be kind and just, if you act virtuous,
this is a sure sign that virtue is absent."

"If a person seems wicked,
do not cast them away.
Awaken them with your words,
elevate them with your deeds,
repay their injury with your kindness.
Do not cast the person away;
cast away their wickedness."​

Let's say Kylo is defeated by Rey using her anger and he is punished with a life sentence. Chances are he will only feel regret because he has been caught. If he were someday to escape, he most likely would resume in killing. In this case, you can inflict the most severe punishment imaginable onto Kylo, but if he hasn't learnt the reason as to why what he did was wrong, then what good has the punishment done? If people are only good because they fear punishment, then are they really good to begin with?

 

Thanks for the Tao Force quote! The Force/Jedi philosophy definitely has Eastern underpinnings, which you demonstrate very well. I'm still exploring the idea of how in Star Wars movies, individual justice "trickles up" to affect societal/galaxy-wide justice. The research involved in watching all the movies over and over is very in-depth.

 

Kylo ren killed solo. There's no coming back from that. I believe he';ll survive this triology, but he'll end up like vader did, being half robot, after suffering so many injuries.

 

Thanks @FN-3263827.

 

It would be very odd for Luke to not do what he could to redeem Ben considering what he learned with his father.
Luke knew there was light in his father as Leia sees it still in Ben.
Luke saw that love redeemed Anakin. It would be crazy for him to not impart that lesson onto Rey so she can try and bring back Ben.
And why is this Rey's job? Because she is the new hero of this trilogy. It is her task to redeem Ben and destroy Snoke (probably through Ben).
Everything else is just noise that the other heroes can deal with.

 

Well, A New Hope; the most fun and enjoyable installment in the franchise would probably be rated PG-13 if it was released today . In the original theatrical cut Ben is shown being cut in half, and Luke's parents are burnt to a crisp by Imperial Stormtroopers.

 

yep.

(if you want to read all the explanation: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076759/parentalguide )

 

It depends on how far gone he is. Whereas, Anakin was befriended, persuaded and eventually mentally enslaved by Sheev, Kylo seems to have undergone less subtle and more drastic brainwashing. Where Anakin had 'free' thought, Ben has more fanatical cult beliefs. Where Vader had complete obedience and control, Kylo Ren has a false sense of power, as the two arms of the First Order: the mythical and the militaristic intertwine more than they did within the Empire.

Receiving a visit from Anakin's force ghost is the most realistic and easiest way to set him on the path to redemption. Anakin can cast doubt into his mind.

 

We don't know how Ben fell to the Dark Side. It actually sounds as if Snoke was around from the very start and warped his mind long before Sheev got his hands on Anakin. The Sith Order was itself a cult, a cult of the Dark Side and the power it provided. Kylo Ren is no different from Vader in this respect - both sought to join the Dark Side cult to get more power for X amount of reasons. And Vader was as much as lap dog for the Empire as Kylo is for Snoke and the FO.

Luke has even more reason to believe that Ben can be redeemed for he watched Ben grow up. He trained him. He would've seen the good Ben. And he would take what Leia says about him seriously considering how the Jedi rejected his views on the good in his father.

I don't see a visit from Anakin as being helpful for Ben's redemption. He views Anakin as separate from Vader. He views Anakin as a failure and Vader as the success. What would potentially help redeem Ben is in both realising the Dark Side is a curse as much as it is an provider of power and in having an unconditional love for someone he is willing to give up his own attachments for. This is what happened to Vader.

Now, Ben has already killed his father so that relationship won't redeem him (although it has potentially sowed the seeds for it when Kylo found it didn't empower him).
His love for his mother might remain but at the same time he left her already and has gone against her.
He obviously doesn't have much love for Luke and his uncle failed to keep him on the right track.
That leaves Rey. Now, if she ridiculously turns out to be his sister then you can see how that would help in this respect (but be awful in so many others).
Being his cousin does not seem a strong enough pull back to the light.
So that for means suggests that the strongest reason is for Ben to fall in love with Rey and to realise that this love is far greater than the Dark Side.

 

The Sith cult operated differently though. Members had more personal freedom and cared little for the people within it's empire.

That's up for debate. The canon novelisation states that Kylo's act of killing his father weakened him, allowing him to lose against Rey. This would suggest that Kylo Ren still has his doubts about Snoke.

 

Snoke should have just as much, if not more, doubt in Kylo after he was defeated by Rey.

From the TFA novel, Snoke has already sensed that Kylo has compassion for her. This is where Kylo's training should come in - Snoke must have been prepared for the consequences of asking Kylo to kill his father. What originally may have been regret and compassion upon killing him, Snoke will train Kylo to remove these feelings and instead transform them into hatred and anger and a source of power that he can use to draw upon. Snoke needs to eradicate these feelings immediately, which is what I think he will do and I expect Kylo to be more powerful in Ep VIII as a result.

However, Snoke's doubt in Kylo could be where Benicio Del Toro could come in. Snoke may want a no-nonsense, trustworthy backup in case Kylo succumbs to the light.

 

That may be the case, but that seems like a very risky strategy on Snoke's behalf since Kylo seems to want remove all light within himself and not fail where Vader did. Each test Kylo has faced should eventually lead him to confront and destroy Luke. If there is any sign of light within Kylo, Luke may capitalise on it. Snoke should be aware of this since he knows all about Vader's redemption.

On a separate point, what I think could be interesting for EP VIII is having both apprentices (Rey and Kylo) being taught diametrically opposed teachings by their mentors to show the contradicting views of light side vs dark side. On one hand, you could have Luke teaching Rey to let go of anger and hate to use compassion as a source of strength. On the other hand, you could have Snoke teaching Kylo to let go of compassion to use anger and hate as a source of strength.

 

Snoke's line about Kylo being made of both the dark and the light is indeed interesting.

" It is where you are from. What you are made of. The dark side–and the light. The finest sculptor cannot fashion a masterpiece from poor materials. He must have something pure, something strong, something unbreakable, with which to work. I have–you.” He paused, reminiscing. "

Some people seem to think this suggests Snoke cares about the light and wants to use the light going forward. However, I don't see it that way as nothing from TFA suggests Snoke is interested in the light. To me, what this line suggests is that Snoke is comparing Kylo to a created being, made of the force itself, and hinting at the source and origin of his family's great power with the force. The line "he paused, reminiscing" indicates something Snoke has done in the past that he's proud of that relates to where Kylo got his power from.

 

It's just a conjecture, but he might have said that to Kylo in (first ) order to make him think he is strong/unbreakable and to make him regaining confidence in himself, while Snoke is well aware that it is wrong...