The Psychology of Kylo Ren

Well, within ROTJ Vader's resolution really makes sense. He was portrayed to be in a really bad place, being under the emperor's thumb. I just never understood how his authority and self-esteem got so eroded between ESB and ROTJ.

If we got the same asymmetry of power between Snoke and Kylo in TFA and episode VIII, I would be really disappointed. At this very moment, I still feel Kylo is gambling. He wants to get something out of his association with Snoke, and he is trying to withhold information from him - such as what he feels for his mother and what he knows about the girl on Jakku. I don't see Kylo as a guy who is personally interested in initiating large scale physical violence like Hux is.

Instead, I'd like to see psychological warfare between opposing viewpoints, and you don't need to reconcile these viewpoints in the end in order to achieve balance. Kylo could supplant Snoke as a kind of dark impulse mastermind. The eternal spoiler personality.

 

i guess i didn't see Vader have his self-esteem get eroded. in TESB he tells Luke "hey, let's overthrow the Emperor and rule the galaxy together!" because they're alone in that moment. in ROTJ he still wants that, but the Emperor is sitting right there so he's gotta play it out. i think he loses the fight because ultimately he can't bring himself to kill his own son and he despairs at Luke becoming Palps' prodigy (it's a no-win situation for him). as for the authority, he was always subservient to Palps, so that was never an issue for me.

the relationship between Snoke and Kylo is real different. from my perspective i don't see Kylo having any agency (at least not in TFA). he's a puppet who's been largely brainwashed into believing that Snoke's agenda is his own even though he can't reconcile it in his heart. i see him taking his first steps in rebelling against Snoke by withholding information perhaps, and i agree he's not interested in the military aspects of whatever they're doing. i think Snoke has just given him a place at the table and, like a dog, Ren's accepted it thankfully because he doesn't know any better. but i suspect that's going to change.

so we can definitely agree that it's going to come down to some psychological warfare (and probably literal warfare) between these two. and we can disagree whether that should result in balance or closure ~ hahaha.