*IF* Rey is a Mary Sue... then Ben Solo’s *definitely* a “Gary Stu.”

[godisawesome]

Pulling powers out of your ass is pretty much the definition of being a Mary Sue and both Rey and Ben did that throughout this whole trilogy. Need to be able to heal? Jedi can do it. Grabbing things from across the galaxy? Jedi can do it. pretty much everything JJ and Rian came up with in regards to the force was bullshit plot devices.

I would add that I think Rey suffered more public criticism for it in part because of the sometimes sexist-elements of Mary Sue criticism, and as part of the butt-hurt objections raised by the same idiots who thought “A Black Male Lead!?! A Black Stormtrooper!?!”

...The fact those guys kind of got what they wanted a bit by TROS with Ben Solo being elevated above Finn and Rey having to share the stage with him kind of angers me.

[jetengine]

Tbf of course the Knights of Ren were going to be jobbers. They had one movie to set them up as credible villains and instead we got the slowest chase ever and casino planet

[godisawesome]

Tbf of course the Knights of Ren were going to be jobbers. They had one movie to set them up as credible villains and instead we got the slowest chase ever and casino planet

I think they could have adjusted with one or two KOR in TROS in spite of TLJ’s lack of movement with them, given them some personality, have one or two be Kylo’s confidantes, and establish them as being Luke’s old students so that any survivors who got redeemed could be part of Rey’s new order.

Or at bare minimum, they could have “fed” one or two to Rey earlier, or given Finn or Poe one or two to beat, if not just have them go down against Rey, Finn, and Poe together.

Ideally, you’d have time to do something with them the more focused and clear headed your story is, both for the movie, and the ST.

But introducing Palpatine to give Ben Solo someone to be heroic against, trying to make sure Rey cares more about Ben Solo than anyone else, and trying to still finangle a way to make sure Rey doesn’t get overshadowed by Ben when you’re already doing so much for Ben... it’s a miracle they remembered to try and give anyone else a story at all.

...I think it could have worked if Kylo were still the main villain throughout the whole film and Rey treated himself as such (that just solves a lot of problems), but that would have meant ending the Skywalkers on a school shooter mass murderer patricide... so I would have just made Rey a Skywalker early on and ignore that part of TLJ in order to honor the other part (Kylo as the main badguy.)

[jetengine]

Does the Sequel trilogy try to redeem a space-school shooter effectively since we went from "Rens a POS, conflicted, but still an ass" to "Oh no look at this troubled hero"

[Aahz]

I would add that I think Rey suffered more public criticism for it in part because of the sometimes sexist-elements of Mary Sue criticism,

I think it has more to with Rey beeing the Protagonist, and Kylo being the villain during the first movies.

And (maybe appart from stopping a Blasterbolt stopping mid air) Kylo wasn't really a Mary Sue in the first movies, he was actually mostly criticized for being to weak and whiny for a villain.

[godisawesome]

Does the Sequel trilogy try to redeem a space-school shooter effectively since we went from "Rens a POS, conflicted, but still an ass" to "Oh no look at this troubled hero"

The dichotomy between the way the film and Rey treat “Kylo” vs “Ben” is one thing that I think hurts the effectiveness of the redemption. They treat the two personas as totally different personalities, far more so than how they treated Anakin and Vader. Vader pre-suit acted similar to Anakin during the Clone Wars, while Anakin post-suit acted similar to Vader in ROTJ, and Padme and Luke reflect that similarity by treating those versions of him as the same person - Ben Solo’s entire posture and personality (what they could establish across 5 minutes of monosyllabic improv by Driver) changed, and the important thing is that way Rey treats him is a 180 degree turn around from how she’s treated Kylo in both Abrams films.

Driver’s performance as Ben is good, but it’s clearly more based off a broad “heroic son of Han Solo” portrayal, rather than a “Ben Solo after the horror of Kylo Ren, grappling with the guilt, despair, and the need to atone.” His “Ow!” line-reading and his humorous shrug are a bit too light-hearted to really come from someone who knows they’re responsible for both their parents deaths, have murdered dozens if not millions of people, and that the person they’re trying to save now is someone they’ve subjected to torture twice, one time by violating their mind personally and the other time allowing Snoke to do the same and ragdolled them around the room.

He’s humorous and charming because that’s what Abrams thinks that’s the Ben Solo his fans wanted was - not a somber and sober reflection of the actual substance of Adam Driver’s screen-time, but a kind of fanfiction ideal. (More on that after the second quote.)

The other thing hurting the redemption is the way they try to cause the redemption to occur, which is for all intents and purposes sacrifice Leia (a character Kylo *did* fail to kill earlier, but who’d apparent death by how wingman he tacitly approved for, and who he tried to ordered killed by others later) to have her shout his name across space in a way that seems to have a “magical” effect rather than a character-based one... and the basically just take his character-defining moment in TFA or killing Han, and just replay it to end the opposite way.

It’s probably the only way Abrams could think to “shock” the character into the intended final form LFL desired in time to have him heroically start crowding the spotlight alongside Rey; I mean Abrams had used Han’s death as a defining moment of the character in TFA, and the Ben Solo he was in charge of creating in TROS was for all intents and purposes a complete rejection of that scene’s main idea and characterization.

And again, notice that it’s “Ben Solo” I’m talking about here, not Kylo Ren...

I think it has more to with Rey beeing the Protagonist, and Kylo being the villain during the first movies.

And (maybe appart from stopping a Blasterbolt stopping mid air) Kylo wasn't really a Mary Sue in the first movies, he was actually mostly criticized for being to weak and whiny for a villain.

Yes, Rey being the protagonist makes her more vulnerable to “Mary Sue” claims because an overpowered protagonist faces fewer challenges and has generally nonsensically positive reaction from the other characters.

...But thanks also why I think “Ben Solo” is a more severe case in TROS, and that he rears his head first in TLJ through Johnson’s perception of Kylo as expressed through Rey, Luke, and his interviews.

I mean, Villains can be overpowered, self-absorbed, and even a bit annoying and think the world revolves around them and their word-view, and as long as the hero responds accordingly and has to struggle to beat them, everything’s fine.

That was Kylo in TFA, full stop. He was at times a pathetically petulant brat who displayed something narcissism, and displayed great power when stopping the blaster bolt in mid air and manhandling Rey twice before the forest fight. He *did* end up losing to Rey, but had murdered Han Solo before that, and benefitted as a villain from having Finn be the male lead and someone he thoroughly outclassed in their confrontation (even as Finn was a better man in every way.) It also *did* take multiple injuries, a mental breakdown on his part, and him going easy on Rey for her to get her *third* wind and actually beat him, since he’d already one-shotted her at the start of the fight and had to remind her of the Force when she woke up.

Kylo was very much an adequately intimidating and loathsome villain for TFA... and he was explicitly being set-up on a “Villain’s Journey” both in universe (“It’s time to complete his training!”) and out of universe (since Abrams himself described the Villain’s Journey idea.)

TLJ is where Kylo became inadequate as a villain, where he became weak, and where his whining became a liability to the story, rather than an asset by making him someone to hate.

And thanks largely because of Rian Johnson’s pro-Kylo bias, expressed through Luke and Rey’s pre-occupation with “Ben Solo” above everyone else, even themselves.

When acts like Rey sympathizing with Kylo and prioritizing “Ben” as someone who’s soul she needs to save, and the hero the Galaxy needs, and when Luke expresses more sorrow and horror at “betraying” Ben that night in the hut than he does at the students Ben slew that same night (in the original story)... they’re endorsing and validating Kylo’s narcissism and overinflated sense of victimhood in Rian Johnson’s script and treatment of the character; his insistence that everyone can relate to Kylo Ren is bleeding through and overriding the impact of Kylo’s actions on characters and the morality of the story.

And TLJ at the same time fundamentally fails to actually progress him on his “Villain’s Journey” beyond making him Supreme Leader... but all that does with a Kylo who’s still on the same place after TFA is mean the First Order has a self-destructive warrior who’s too immature to be the head villain, which is exacerbated by Johnson also making the FO incompetent compared to TFA in spite of having more men and material this time around, and making Rey truly overpowered, since she’s now a match for a healthy Kylo without any more training.

This is why there were plenty of people who “Woobiefied” Ben Solo after TLJ - they were just following TLJ’s lead. Kylo was correctly perceived as “whiny” in TFA; TLJ introduced the idea that he was instead “charismatically broody.” Kylo’s personality flaws were “pathetic” in TFA; TLJ treated them as “pitiable and sympathetic” instead. Kylo was self-destructive in TFA; TLJ thought he was “suffering.” Kylo was portrayed as narcissistic and mad in TLJ; TLJ sees him as “consumed by dramatic inner turmoil.”

When TLJ insisted that Rey could see and sympathize with Kylo, what it was really doing was saying that Rey could look at the whiny, pathetic, self-destructive, narcissistic and mad Kylo Ren from TFA, and easily, in Rian Johnson’s mind, be convinced there was a charismatically broody, pitiably sympathetic and suffering Ben Solo consumed by inner turmoil she could free him from. Now, maybe you can argue that Rey was being “tricked” by Kylo in TLJ’s story... but considering how little effort Johnson put into Kylo changing his behavior and how little sympathetic history he revealed for the character... I think that description of Ben is a lot closer to his feelings on Kylo than not.

And that feeling on “Ben’s” characterizations even included an excuse I’ve seen trotted out by Ben Solo fans about why he was always going to be redeemed - that he was “meant” to be too weak to act as the main villain, and was thus always meant to not be threatening towards Rey, and instead an equal she could see herself making kissy face with.

And that’s ultimately the kind of Ben Solo Abrams delivered in TROS.

The only difference do see is that Abrams at least felt that Ben and Kylo and TLJ be totally different characters, because he didn’t see any of the positive characteristics in Kylo, while Rian Johns could look at Kylo in TFA and already see all of them to some extent.

[Vegeta]

Tbf of course the Knights of Ren were going to be jobbers. They had one movie to set them up as credible villains and instead we got the slowest chase ever and casino planet

They still could have been effective in TROS if they made them the big bads pursuing our heroes for the majority of the film, instead of focusing on Hux shenanigans and the new General Pryde character. All I remember before Ben Solo trashes them is a scene where they pose on top of a mountain like in a music video and then somehow capturing Chewbacca off-screen.

[Godzilla2099]

Other than a cool costume and weapon, nobody took Kylo Ren seriously.

- When he took off his mask, there were people snickering at the theater. Rey wasn't impressed and degraded him
- When he yelled "Traitor!" at Finn, the theater was laughing
- Getting defeated by a person that never picked up a lightsaber didn't help his case
- He called to Rey for help against Snoke's Guards

Gary Stu?

Be honest, this is a hail mary post trying to defend Rey, isn't it?

[Aahz]

Kylo was very much an adequately intimidating and loathsome villain for TFA...

For me stopped being intimidating when he took his Mask of.

[The Cool Thatguy]

For me stopped being intimidating when he took his Mask of.

Same. We saw that he was pretty much aping Vader

[Godzilla2099]

For me stopped being intimidating when he took his Mask of.

Likewise. That was when all intimidating credibility was thrown out the window

[godisawesome]

Other than a cool costume and weapon, nobody took Kylo Ren seriously.

- When he took off his mask, there were people snickering at the theater. Rey wasn't impressed and degraded him
- When he yelled "Traitor!" at Finn, the theater was laughing
- Getting defeated by a person that never picked up a lightsaber didn't help his case
- He called to Rey for help against Snoke's Guards

Gary Stu?

Be honest, this is a hail mary post trying to defend Rey, isn't it?

Actually, not so much as trying to make sure that no one ever pretends that Ben Solo was more than Rey, and to try and see if I can successfully argue that Ben Solo was worse in terms of overall impact on the ST.

I *only* like Rey in TFA, really, similar to how I only enjoy Kylo in TFA, and how I only find Finn’s good film there as well.

If you’re someone who thinks that Rey was already overpowered and underdeveloped and too OTT in TFA, then I may not agree with you, but I also don’t really have a problem with your opinion... unless you argue that Ben Solo “should have been the lead” or something like that. Than we’ve got a problem, because that's exactly the problem I see at the center of TLJ and TROS.

For *this* argument, I’m far more anti-Ben Solo than I am pro-Rey.

And I do fundamentally think that the Ben Solo we got, with his monosyllabic performance and necromantic abilities, should either be considered worse than Rey, or at least a distilled personification of the laziness and lack of effort a Mary Sue/Gary Sue could have.

So if you think that Rey is bad, Ben Solo is still more to blame for TLJ and TROS’s issues, and I consider them far worse than TFA. And if someone’s going to defend Ben Solo, or the plotline in TLJ where Rey thinks Kylo’s sympathetic, I won’t take them seriously, because Ben Solo gets better treatment than even Rey. I mean, for God’s sake, TLJ argued that Ben having hurt feelings by Luke mattered more than violating Rey’s mind in the previous film!

For me stopped being intimidating when he took his Mask of.

I can understand how that happens, but I think the lethal thing here was that TLJ and TROS wound up valuing that pretty boy face and luscious mane of hair more than what they’d had the character do.

There were really onyl two reactions t have to seeing Adam Driver’s face:

- Either come to hate the character more for being a pretty boy, as it emphasizes his petulant, man-child, and privileged nature as a contrasts to Vader, making him the kind fo special loathsome that you give a Professional Wrestling Heel who’s more smug and self-centered than badass,

Or,

- Find the incongruity of Driver’s face and delicately coifed hair to clash with the characters evil nature weird and off putting,

I have more respect for people who checked out at “Handsome Kylo” as a ridiculous look for a villain than I do for people who gush about him being a “Dark Prince” or who think the moment was supposed to humanize him and set him up to be a main character - if you watch a scene where a guy does the equivalent of mind rape on a young woman, and think he’s not supposed to be a creepy monster afterwards... I’m going to go ahead and say that you”re watching that scene wrong.

LFL’s key mistake was not leaning into either the first interpretation, where you’re supposed to come to hate him as you would any obnoxiously privileged and narcissistic villain or up his number of facial scars or put him back in his helmet, but instead allowing Rian Johnson to both get rid of the helmet and move the scar so it’s was less disfiguring and more roguish while acting like Kylo wasn’t a loathsome dreck.

That was what made the character get such a shallow treatment, and I blame that a lot more for the ST’s failure than the lack of commitment to a story for Rey. At least all three films kept fine tuning Rey to try and make her better. Kathleen Kennedy and LFL had Kylo act as 100% douchebag for three films, but still thought him kissing the girl at the end and going to Force heaven after being worse than Vader and having no good redemption story was necessary to the ST.

[Aahz]

I think also he just took it of way to early in the movie, I think the earliest scene where we should have seen him without his helmet was his confrontation with Han.

And some characters are just cooler if they never take their Helmet of.

[Jackalope89]

I think also he just took it of way to early in the movie, I think the earliest scene where we should have seen him without his helmet was his confrontation with Han.

And some characters are just cooler if they never take their Helmet of.

Like Vader (for the most part)? The only time we really see him without his helmet, is when he asks Luke to remove it and he's already dying.

[godisawesome]

I think also he just took it of way to early in the movie, I think the earliest scene where we should have seen him without his helmet was his confrontation with Han.

And some characters are just cooler if they never take their Helmet of.

I can agree with that, especially since that probably would have kept out the thoughts some had that it was setting up a romance with Rey to have him take the helmet off with her. If he waited to take it off until he was facing Han, it would probably have both kept the creepy element up with his torture of Rey and made the betrayal of Han hit harder.