The second comic from the series The Rise of Kylo Ren is apparently all sold out according to the writer, Charles Soule on Twitter. I loved the sneak-peek we were given by Marvel on Twitter so much I had to make some sort of edit from the images.
Here is a quick motion art graphic I made from the cover. I’ll probably do more but we’ll see how I am for time.
Here’s the new cover with art by Will Sliney and colours by Guru-eFX
Image edit one:
And the animation. I particularly thought of Ben at this moment using the force and the light probably for the first time against opponents that were genuinely dark side force users. You can see the determination in Ben’s face, he isn’t going to give his enemies an inch! Also, the art is particularly good, it actually looks like a young Adam Driver.
I had this image in my head of an edit I wanted to do with both Kylo Ren and Ben Solo which started off as something like a “Who did you become?” post which I’ve done before with other characters. But then I looked at the image I had made a little longer and came up with the edit below. The concept stems from Kylo Ren being Ben Solo and Ben Solo is Kylo Ren. Even when Kylo Ren was at his worst, in his darkest hour (from The Force Awakens when he killed his father), to the moment he turned his back on Kylo Ren and became Ben Solo once more. The force was there, it was always there, flowing all around him, flowing between Kylo Ren and Ben Solo and within them. Even though they are one person, Adam Driver was so masterful at portraying them as two separate people and that’s how I came up with this edit. I wanted to show the force flowing between both of his persona’s, and just as he was two different people, darkness and light, I wanted to show this in the flow of the force, both red for darkness and blue for light.
And in the end, the force would never betray him as the force was always there both in his darkest moments and his most heroic.
So it’s officially 2020 now and I wanted to kickstart the year with a beautiful animation with art by shuploc.tumblr.com. It’s one of the most beautiful pieces of Ben Solo that I’ve seen and I just had to animate it! I added the blue lighting to signify Ben’s turn to the light in the final act.
And I mucked around with this edit I did some time ago and changed the lightsabers both to blue signifying Ben and Rey’s Dyad in the Force. I also changed Ben’s lightsaber as well (otherwise it would have looked weird with a blue crossguard lightsaber).
redemption [ ri-demp-shuh n ] noun an act of redeeming or atoning for a fault or mistake, or the state of being redeemed. deliverance; rescue. Theology. deliverance from sin; salvation. atonement for guilt.
SPOILERS FOR THE RISE OF SKYWALKER BELOW!
I’ve seen a lot of fans talking about Kylo Ren’s redemption. I’ve seen bloggers on prolific sites confirming this. But I don’t agree. If you look at the dictionary meaning for redemption, it is an atonement of guilt. I don’t recall seeing a scene in The Rise of Skywalker that shows or implies that Kylo Ren is atoning for his past sins – his father’s murder, the murder of thousands of innocent people throughout the galaxy and the list goes on. That’s because Kylo Ren didn’t atone, and just because he reverted to Ben Solo does not confirm his redemption. Adam Driver has also confirmed in various interviews, the most recent with EW, that he doesn’t feel Kylo Ren needed to be redeemed. This would have me believe that Adam Driver was not playing the character of Kylo Ren as someone who needs redemption or needs forgiveness for the things he did.
Kylo Ren Edit by Me 🙂
What I did see was Kylo Ren become Ben Solo. The one scene I do consider the closest thing to a redemption arc is the scene between Kylo Ren and his father, Han Solo. This was the highlight of the film for me. It was a scene with very few words but was the most significant turning point in Kylo Ren’s character development, where he made the conscious and willing decision to turn his back on the dark side and his dark side persona, Kylo Ren. When Ben Solo turns towards the tumultuous sea behind him, he throws his lightsaber into the ocean. This is the closest we ever see Kylo Ren get to his redemption, but it’s still not an admission of guilt for past transgressions. And Ben’s interaction with Han Solo was a memory, not an interaction with a “force ghost” as many have said.
I do, however, firmly believe that had Ben Solo lived, there would have been time for him to atone or to at least ask for forgiveness from the people he hurt the most. With Leia’s death, we know that she still loved him as she was reaching out through the force to him in the final duel with Rey. But again, this is not a confirmation of redemption. As Leia dies, Ben’s final opportunity for true redemption dies with her.
I have spent a lot of time creating graphics, edits, GIFs etc since seeing The Rise of Skywalker so I’ll be uploading them all here. I’ve had to start adding watermarks to the GIFs I make again because I’ve seen way too many of the edits I’ve made credited to someone else. I just know that is what will keep happening until I start using a deterrent so back to adding watermarks, sigh.
Here’s an edit I just made, and I actually quite like this one:
“WhenIlookatmyself…allIseeisyou“…
And other edits I made using the same images using lyrics from a song I really like that kind of speaks to me regarding Rey and Ben/Kylo Ren’s complicated relationship. The song is “Broken Pieces” by Apocalyptica
I have some spare time before I jog off to work, so I started making this image edit and then it kind of evolved into this edit with the poem I wrote the other day, and now it has become this:
I haven’t written much poetry over the last few years mostly because, for me, poetry was a way to express feelings I haven’t felt in a long time. Sometimes I would just write poetry because I was inspired, but most of the time, it was a way of dealing with aspects of my life that were too painful to deal with any other way.
Today, I felt suddenly inspired by a GIF set I saw on Tumblr – these two GIFs to be precise:
On Tumblr, people were talking about how you can see the shadow of the dark side of the force go over Kylo’s face and then, gradually, it leaves. You can see this in the second GIF. This makes a lot of sense because, in that scene, Kylo is very close to blasting his mother and everyone else on the ship to smithereens. But he doesn’t. The pull to the light was still too strong for him to kill his mother. This would lead me to believe that Kylo had a much stronger bond with Leia then he did with Han as a child, well, it’s possible.
So here’s the poem:
You are not the cruelty of the shadows
You are the light that once shone upon my cheek
But fall you did, and for a time, you lost your way
And although you stumbled and you let the darkness in
The light was still a part of you
Gently resting in the recesses of your soul
Waiting for a kindred spirit
To pull open the doorway to your heart
And let the light reside there once more
