My question of the day is for Star Wars fans specifically because well, this is a Star Wars blog so yeah. I’ve been all over the internet in search of the fandom answer for this question because I wanted someone to be able to dissuade me from answering that question with a resounding “No” or to at least give me something more than “but he’s so pretty” or “but Reylo” or “but it’s Star Wars”. Truth be told, nothing is set in stone, but I’m also not oblivious to the fact that this is Disney and Star Wars and Lucas made this franchise to include children, their dollies and their pets.
I’ve had this debate with a friend of mine who is a HUGE Bendemption fan in the fandom. We have butted heads a couple of times on this topic because well, she likes to push the whole “but it’s Disney and what is wrong with you and Lucas will NEVER let a story like this end on a bad note”. She’s probably right, but to hell, if I’m going to admit that 🤣 If someone is going to change my mind about this, they need more ammunition and a much MUCH bigger gun to win this argument.
So why do I NOT want the last episode in the Skywalker Saga to end on a good note? I mean there’s a time and a place for finishing things off with fluffy cats, multiple rainbows, parades and unicorns flying overhead. This is the third episode in the ST, and so far we’ve had The Force Awakens (Rey gets powers), The Last Jedi (they murder Luke), and here we are at episode IX without a title (still). So if we take into account the previous episodes, the Resistance is at the end of its tether, and the FO is very close to dominating the entire universe. Does it seem that wrong that they just can’t you know, win? If Rey and Kylo Ren are “two halves of the same hero” like two faces of a coin, then the balance has already been achieved, and it doesn’t really matter if tyranny exists. IF one of them were to kill the other, well, there would no longer be balance in the force. So for equilibrium to exist in the Force, either they both live OR one of them dies and another takes their place, OR they both die. If Ben Solo gets redeemed, there will no longer be balance unless another dark side force user takes his place.
There is, however, one more alternative that I would actually be okay with, and that is if Rey falls to the dark side trying to rectify what is wrong (by attacking Kylo Ren), and Ben stays his hand and chooses not to fight her and in that act, finally comes back to the light. A balance would still be achieved but Rey would be the enemy and Ben would then become the last of the Skywalkers to be a Jedi.
And for me, it is just a little bit too much of a stretch to expect that everyone will just forgive Kylo Ren for the crimes he committed in the First Order’s name; killing innocent people – too many to count, killing his own father, killing a family friend, torturing numerous resistance fighters including Rey and the list goes on. It’s NOT just about Patricide (although that is a huge deal in itself) but multiple instances where Kylo Ren has done something really, really bad. If he was tried in our court system today, they’d throw the book at him. But because it’s Star Wars and Disney, Ben MUST be redeemed or fans everywhere will revolt. Well, I am pretty sure that’s already happened, and those people got laughed out of the fandom. If you look at this entirely out of the SW universe, it seems like a ridiculous thing to even consider let alone want for a character like Kylo Ren.
*EDIT – I read through this again and figured that there would be only one situation that I can think of where Kylo Ren MIGHT be let off the hook and that is if we were to look at his acts in the context of a war. The war between the FO and the Resistance is still a war and people die – however I keep seeing this whole WWII thing where they hunted down war criminals for crimes against humanity namely genocide. Is Kylo Ren as bad as say, Hitler? Probably not but do you think Kylo Ren wouldn’t push the button to destroy an entire planet if it meant winning the war?
PS -> I ADORE Kylo Ren, so if you think this is a post about character hate you’d be wrong 🤣😁
darksiderconfessions.blog 
Agree to disagree but that’s the fun part about fandoms, hearing so many awesome points of view! 😀
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Did we talk about that already? I think you’ve already told me your reasons for wanting Kylo redeemed – I know its not a popular opinion but I’ve never felt like he deserved to be forgiven. I think Rey is too forgiving just like Leia said but I understand that. I just can’t forgive him lol.
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I don’t know if we have or not but yeah I’m rooting for redemption for Kylo 😊 I think it would finish out the saga on the right note, I mean even Ani was redeemed at the end and we all know he did horrible things. And it’s not the Disney factor so much as the fact the Lucas based his stories off of archetypal characters and morality plays so the themes running through them are similar to fairytales, and we can’t judge fairytale characters the same as we judge real people. In the real world of course we would turn our backs on these people but in fairytales everything is heightened, they’re teaching tools so everything has to be larger than life or we wouldn’t care and we wouldnt learn. So what better way to show that you can make mistakes and learn from them to better yourself and your life than through a character like Kylo?
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I understand but isn’t that the same theme in every fairytale though? Shouldn’t Disney do something just a little bit differently? I am pretty reserved about the fact that they won’t but it’s a shame that every fairytale has to end with a hero winning, a villain redeemed and a princess finding her prince 🙂
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Well I don’t go into a romance movie expecting horror, or a comedy expecting tragedy, so knowing that this is a fairy-tale I’m ok with them using themes and characters that I’m familiar with. I mean, I like fairytales for a reason so that’s why I seek them out in other forms of media. But again, that’s completely just me, so who knows, they might throw a curveball at us and hey, I’ll have to adjust to it 😀
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Right, yeah so true although I do really enjoy going into a film and being completely surprised by it too. I’ve written reviews about movies that totally took me by surprise either because the story was not what I thought it would be or the hidden meaning kinda blew me away or because of a twist that was entirely unexpected. I think as consumers we are spoiled for choice and in some ways that can be detrimental. We’ve either got too much going on, too many good movies or books to read or see or the complete opposite, not enough good tv shows or movies to watch. I find that recently, it’s harder to find something that is a perfect balance of all things and what I read or watch falls either in the “wow that was crap!” category or the “wooooahhh that was amazing” category. With Star Wars, I am so biased about what I see but not in the way some fans are like I won’t hate on something or go overboard about something else. I find Star Wars always delivers in one way or another which a lot of other movie franchises don’t for me. Does that make sense? I always seem to find value in a Star Wars film somehow, Even with Luke being dead now, at first I was really sad about it but now I have a lot of mixed feelings about what they did with him. I’m neither sad or annoyed or angry, I am all three at different times or sometimes all at once lol. I haven’t really felt that way about any other franchise.
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No you make perfect sense, things might not always go the way I hope or expect them to, but Star Wars always delivers a powerhouse of a movie and I haven’t been disappointed yet! 👏👏👏
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[…] I saw this post over on Carl Milner’s blog and decided it was probably worth mentioning as I’ve mentioned other possible Episode IX titles in previous posts. The last one I posted about was “Star Wars: Son of Darkness” and I really liked this mostly because my headcanon for the ending of the Skywalker Saga is pretty dark and very unpopular 🤣😂😆 (Tara knows all about it lol). […]
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