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Was Ben too young to become a Jedi?

Discussion in 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' started by Porgtastic, Dec 28, 2017.

  1. Porgtastic

    Porgtastic Rebel Trooper

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    Do Force sensitive children actually know where they signed up for?
    They are separated very young from their parents to become a Jedi.
    Either by their own consent, or by their parents that doesn't matter.
    what matters is that it's unhealthy.

    Children NEED attachment and connection to grow up into balanced adults.
    The Jedi learns them to be detached, and that's not something you can already expect from a child.

    Ben Solo was never cut out to become a Jedi because he simply didn't have the right temperament for it.
    Did his parents knew that?
    Did Luke?

    A more plausible question would actually be,
    Did Ben even WANT to become a Jedi?
     
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  2. Darth Daigo

    Darth Daigo Rebel Official

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    The short answer: We do not know. Ben's motivations are still a mystery. He wants to become like Vader, but why? I guess we will only learn more about Ben and the reason for his turn to the dark side after Episode IX.
     
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  3. panki

    panki Rebel Commander

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    I don't think Ben's age was the problem....Snoke's influence was.

    The jedi order thrived for a 1000 generations despite their inducting children at infancy because those children grew up to see their fellow jedi as family and formed bonds with their fellow students and subsequently with their masters, often forming a parent-child bond.

    The reason Anakin had issues was because (1) he was already attached to his mother and then taken away hence missed her; (2) he was isolated because the other younglings envied his being 'the chosen one' and made references to his slave background (the Anakin and Obi-wan comics) and (3) Palpatine preyed on his doubts and fears from the time he joined the jedi order, meeting and mentoring him from the very beginning.

    Now coming to Ben Solo... maybe he did not want to be a jedi and felt his parents abandoned him and subsequently his Uncle tried to kill him....but I don't think the rules of the jedi order themselves are to blame for Ben's fall....the problem lay in Ben's own family not understanding him or trying to protect him from a predator (Snoke).
     
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  4. GingerByte

    GingerByte Guest

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    A Jedi cannot have attachment though. Your emotions determine which aspect of the force you tap into, which is why a Jedi must learn how to control theirs. Using the force in anger, for selfish reasons etc draws upon the dark. The whole philosophy of the Jedi is to put others above yourself and act out of selflessness, hence why they isolate their order and ban relationships.

    If I remember correctly Ben was in his late teens when he began training. He had something like 6 years under Luke and 3 under Snoke. He'd already formed attachments, and was sent to Luke by Leia in an effort to curb the darkness she sensed within him.
     
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  5. Julius Fett

    Julius Fett Force Sensitive

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    Bloodline hints that he actually joined Luke in his early teens, if I recall correctly. I’m not quite sure where you got the 6 years with Luke and 3 years with Snoke from?
     
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  6. Porgtastic

    Porgtastic Rebel Trooper

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    I assume that not every child with force powers is cut out to become a Jedi.
    If they are selected in their infancy, that makes it even more into a forced choice they had no part in taking.

    I'd like to know if they can still choose a different path (not dark) once they are adults.
    I mean look at Anakin, he wants to be a Jedi but he also wants to have a family of his own.
    That is a selfish choice I admit, but also a reasonable one.

    Don't we all want to have a family?
    Maybe Ben never had a real connection to anyone, not with his parents not with Luke, and not with his fellow Padawans.
    That probably made him unfit to become a Jedi, because he specificly needed that connection.
     
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  7. Sparafucile

    Sparafucile Guest

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    I'm not sure if it's been relegated to legends now, but there were some kids books back in the day that had to do with Obi-Wan as a youngling just before and after Qui-Gon takes him on as a padawan. In those books, and it's been a while so it's all kind of fuzzy, but I believe some Jedi's who were too weak were still trained but allowed to leave the order, or serve it in another capacity other than defenders. Not every youngling got to have a master, but every one force sensitive needed to at least learn how to control this gift/curse and it was better to learn at a young age. (an example I remember was one going to some agricultural planet to help with the force to grow crops)

    Back to Ben, he was probably too old if he started his training after getting attachments (whether early teens or early 20s). This is probably where Rey benefits since her attachments had been gone for years and she'd learned to be independent and self-reliant (and she seems to not hold a grudge against her parents). Ben on the other hand blamed his parents for some slight, real or imagined, but it's very real to him. But then again, Luke probably wasn't the best teacher. He got a crash course in his Jedi training himself and he did not have access to a whole lot of Jedi material to learn from until much later. It was really a case of the blind leading the blind.
     
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  8. HAL'sgal

    HAL'sgal Force Sensitive

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    It may be that Force-sensitive children don't have a choice. If they're not guided in the use of their abilities, they're more susceptible to the temptations of the Dark Side. They can use their gifts for good, or for evil. With great power comes great responsibility to learn how to wield it. Perhaps the problem is that he started too late, rather than too early.

    If you've ever seen Babylon 5, this is the essential problem with another highly gifted group- telepaths. To use their gifts properly, and to protect others, they have to be specially isolated, cared for and educated by other telepaths. Or else they're locked up or drugged up. And, just like the Jedi, the power of that ostensibly good & necessary organization leads to corruption and destruction.

    Which does bring up the rather interesting position of Leia in all of this. Her fears that he could turn into another Vader probably meant she kept him too close to her for too long. I get the feeling that this area might have been explored in IX, had Carrie not passed away. So it's unfortunate that we won't find out as much about that as we otherwise would have.
     
    #8 HAL'sgal, Dec 28, 2017
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  9. panki

    panki Rebel Commander

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    The jedi students had a chance to leave the order if they wanted at any point of time...and it wasn't unheard of either...even jedi masters left the order when they felt their beliefs clashed with the jedi (the lost 20)...and not all students ended up jedi knights and masters- some joined the agricultural corps, temple security corps and exploration corps.....so it wasn't like students had no choice if they didn't want to be jedi.

    We cannot judge eveyone by Anakin's experience...Anakin had the added fears of losing his mother, which made him cling to Padme all the more....his need for family and belonging rose more from fear than anything else....other jedi fell in love too in canon but made different choices. For example, Obi-wan loved Satine but chose to remain a jedi- though he admitted he would have left the order if she had asked. Similarly, Quinlan Vos was prepared to leave the order when he fell in love with Asajj Ventress in Dark Disciple...none of them felt the conflict Anakin did.

    Anakin desired the power he got as a jedi as well as a family life.....desire, power etc are a one way ticket to the dark side. The jedi are not to blame for this beyond probably stupidly agreeing to fulfill Qui Gon's dying wish to have Anakin trained as a jedi despite their misgivings.

    I wish we had more information about Ben...what made Han think he had 'too much Vader in him'? When did Snoke first contact Ben? Why did Leia feel she had to send him away? What made Luke consider him the 'chosen one'? What did Ben do that made Luke peer into his mind when he was sleeping? The answers to these questions will tell us the circumstances surrounding Ben's fall and who was in the wrong....but I think Ben was too old and too attached to be trained as a jedi. Rey has no such family attachments and is naturally inclined to help others....hence she is more suited to being a jedi.
     
    #9 panki, Dec 28, 2017
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  10. Rieekan

    Rieekan SWNN Hawkeye
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    It is not like he had a chance, Snoke influenced him already before he was born, nothing the Jedi codex could mess up even worse.
     
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  11. JediMasterRobert

    JediMasterRobert Rebel Official

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    This is a very good point. There is also the lingering question of Anakin's origin (e.g. Force-induced, something like a Plagueis experiment).


    I think in Bloodlines it was while Ben was as of yet unborn, in the womb.


    Another nice point, and I think it also demonstrates, in an ideal sense, why the Force might have "chosen" her to succeed Luke, as he, after leaving with Obi-Wan, had no attachments at the time as was all about helping others, be it his friends, the Rebellion, or eventually his father.

    In Luke's case, after TESB, the attachment aspects did play a central part with his character development in ROTJ, and that uniquely qualified him to help redeem Anakin.

    That's why I think, despite the prospect of others in the galaxy being, in various degrees, Force-sensitive, he was considered by Obi-Wan in TESB as "our last hope," even as Yoda believed "there is another" (Leia). No one else would have been able to reach through Vader to Anakin the way Luke or Leia could, given those attachments.

    Rey's natural inclination to help even non-humanoids (e.g. her immediate care for and treatment of BB-8 in TFA), reveals essential components of her character, which Luke also had in great quantity: the ability to empathize deeply while being selfless, so much as to be driven past fear to speak and act out of a pure desire to do the right thing.

    Ben/Kylo's situation is partly complicated by him drowning in his own misery, clinging to his sad version of the past even as he professes to let it expire.

    Ben has yet to "let go" and let the Force, unfiltered through Snoke's dark distorting lens, in and guide him.

    Given Snoke's early invasion of Ben's mind, Luke was already at a fatal disadvantage: he could not drive the darkness entirely from Ben. Instead, he sensed it festering, making Ben more powerful and more dangerous.

    Luke, driven out of pure desire to set things right, momentarily thought about terminating those Dark Side possibility before more suffering could become an actuality. In a moment, he gave into a fear, bought into a future not yet realized, and, even as he regained control and decided to switch off the lightsaber, it was too late: the fear of the Dark Side became a self-fulfilling prophecy, and Ben turned instantly.

    And then Ben went full Dark Side and destroyed Luke's academy. He gave himself to fear, invested himself deeper in his own despair, acted out of wrongful desperation, proceeding with thoughts which were probably often or always amplified and manipulated by Snoke, just as Palpatine had done with Anakin.

    Ben's age, his naivete, also played a role, as did parental decisions between Han and Leia. Luke was handed an impossible task, one virtually destined for failure.

    So much of this does not play out on the screen, though, and we're left to reconstruct Ben's and Luke's states of minds after the few facts we were provided on screen. The Bloodline book is actually a critical component in Ben's earliest state of mind. It could have been helpful for Leia to add in TFA, after she says, "He seduced our son to the Dark Side," "and he influenced him before he even had a chance. He wasn't even born yet."

    I think it will be interesting in IX, if Kylo is truly free from Snoke's illusory grip, how his state of mind develops. Does he begin to comprehend his wrongs? Does he go darker yet? Does he keep or ditch the First Order? Does he become his version of Vader? Will Luke play the "good shoulder angel" and coax Kylo back to Ben?

    So many questions!
     
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  12. SegNerd

    SegNerd Rebel Official

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    One of my high school English teachers once told our class that you can't really psychoanalyze/diagnose fictional characters. I guess that's an opinion rather than a fact, but I'm inclined to agree with him.

    One thing I didn't like about TLJ is that it turned Ben's fall into what could almost be called a simple miscommunication. I feel like if Luke had had one more second to just say, "Hey wait, let's talk!" the whole thing might have been avoided. Almost more like Abbott & Costello than Vader's tragic turn.

    I also feel like both characters' motivations in this moment are hard to follow. I saw a YouTube video that pointed out that OT Luke would never pull a saber on a sleeping Ben - he never gave up on Vader, right? I agree with this point. And if Ben's mind was completely "hacked" by Snoke, don't you think maybe Snoke would throw in a "Don't kill Snoke" somewhere?
     
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  13. JediMasterRobert

    JediMasterRobert Rebel Official

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    Well, I think it depends. In real life, people, "professionals" even, can and do attempt to psychoanalyze others based on very limited and questionable criteria.

    Analysis and interpretation are often as informed as they might be limited by the empirical: unless we have a "God-like perspective" (omniscience) where we completely know a character, there can be any number of errors, overlooked criteria, and false assumptions made in attempts to connect the dots as to causes and effects of human behavior.

    Each brain (and its corresponding emergent "mind" arising from the totality of neural activity, memories, emotions, etc.) being infinitely unique -- as well as the important phenomenon of neuroplasticity (the ability of the brain to literally change itself) -- does not make the matter any easier =)

    In the fictional realm, we might have a chance to take into consideration a rather fully developed character (reveled to us by a "reliable narrator") and be privy to all sorts of details, including, most importantly, a character's thoughts, feelings, and even their dreams and memories.

    We can also have stated points of information, where, if the narrator is known to be "reliable," which we could often accept as factual, until shown otherwise.

    There is actual value in trying to understand a character in the fictional realm, as it can be a rather productive and educational testing area for various theories, including all sorts of developmental psychology ideas, debates of nature vs. nurture, id/ego/superego Freudian-inspired evaluations (which, these days, are rightfully questioned), or (which I prefer) Jungian explorations into archetypal patterns, the collective unconscious, self-actualization/individuation, and so forth.

    Based on my own life-long studies of literature (which I majored in university), along with psychology, philosophy, and mythology, which I also studied and continue to study, I would say it's actually "easier" (and far safer) to assess a fictional character rather than a real person.

    With real people, an analyst often must use a variety of techniques to divine information from a patient. The analyst, in that situation, is often left to go by what is divulged by the patient (a potentially unreliable narrator), whatever can be inferred or logically deduced based on empirical/scientifically qualified evidence, the patient's case history, if any, and other case histories which have been studied by that analyst.

    For me, films, like literature, can be a potentially powerful tool to learn more about the human psyche, civilizations past and present, interpersonal communication, societal and environmental influences, as well as ourselves and the greater human condition.
     
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  14. Porgtastic

    Porgtastic Rebel Trooper

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    Maybe he saw that Ben would turn out to be way worse than even Vader in the future.
    We already know that Ben has more of a mind of his own.
    He might become the new Palpatine.

    Then again, when I look at Ben I see an insecure child that is currently stuck in some sort of Limbo between Light and dark.
    Definitely not some evil overlord (yet)
     
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  15. PrincessLeiaCB3

    PrincessLeiaCB3 The Princess that was Promised
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    I see what you did there. Spider-man represented!

    It is mentioned actually in Aftermath: Life Debt and Aftermath: Empire's End.

    And that's why I find their interactions quite interesting and for those who see Ben/Kylo as a failed villain it is way beyond that. I think his character arc - an insecure child deep inside rather than a fully Dark evil overlord - is way more interesting than having a full-fledged villain.
     
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  16. HAL'sgal

    HAL'sgal Force Sensitive

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    Hah- you give me too much credit! I knew I'd heard that somewhere but I couldn't figure it out. I've never even seen Spiderman!
     
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  17. Porgtastic

    Porgtastic Rebel Trooper

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    Not a failed villain at all, I think he's rather interesting because he is unpredictable in his ways.
    It would be boring if he was just evil for the heck of it
     
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  18. JediMasterRobert

    JediMasterRobert Rebel Official

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    I'm hoping Ben can catch himself before permanently falling into the abyss of the Dark Side.

    Snoke's comment to Kylo was particularly telling: "You're no Vader. You're just a child in a mask."

    Kylo has further unmasking to do. Hopefully he will get the chance if Snoke is truly out of the picture.
     
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  19. Porgtastic

    Porgtastic Rebel Trooper

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    When Anakin turned into Vader he completely crossed over to the dark side.
    he never doubted his actions afterwards.
    He was also completely subservient to Palpatine.
    He was the perfect slave, powerful and obedient.

    Kylo Ren did terrible things but despite that is still not fully crossed over.
    He still doubts himself and his actions.
    His rebellious wilfulness made him turn against Snoke and kill him. (assumed).
    He is now his own master, powerful and most certainly not obedient.

    So yeah, he is no Vader, but in this case that's actually a positive thing.
     
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  20. BobRoss

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    Thanks to Rey there is no longer a perfect age, training method or mentor/student relationship. Gaining forcepowers no longer follows a set of rules it is only dependent on whether the screenwriter needs the character to be powerful or not. Since buildup is no longer required Kylo would have turned evil no matter what, simply because he had to in context with the story. His age was irrelevant.
     
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