Quote Originally Posted by anyajenkins View Post
In the context of the first two movies, I would agree, he did seem irredeemable. In the this, the extra fact that the emperor was a ‘voice in his head’ for literally years, added considerable extenuating circumstances. Like Sith induced schizophrenia, lol. That could also explain why ben’s ‘dark side’ freaked out Luke so much, because it was actually palpitine.
I don't see how Sidious manipulating Kylo explains away that much (heck, he did the same to Anakin and we're perfectly happy to let him take responsibility for his fall). We already knew that Snoke was working on him, so it's so much new info as a clarification of old info. Besides, at the end of the day, Kylo wasn't raised in the dark side, like, say Maul; he had all the options to make the right choice and still failed himself. While I think that Kylo is relatable in terms of not being pure evil and having understandable motivations for why he went to the dark side, I find the "devil made him do it" argument to not work very well and undermine the attempted redemption story (if he wasn't "really" responsible, then his repentance looses all its weight).