Originally Posted by
godisawesome
I kind of doubt it’s Poe’s bravado that starts him downhill for you; I think it’s more likely to be be the slowly accumulating nature of the rest of his TFA story... followed by a schizophrenic approach by the next two films that undermine.
Poe trash talking is Poe trash talking, not anything done by Kylo, and he ends up being tortured and successfully relieved of his secrets later... but it *is* the first time anything in film suggests that someone can choose to not take Kylo seriously, and TFA embraces that idea for *some* of Kylo’s characterization... and then suffers from having TLJ and TROS ignore the areas where TFA meant for him to be taken seriously, and instead trying to build off the less intimidating elements of the character, but for the wrong reasons.
TFA, for instance, never blinks away from Kylo being a violent and dangerous villain towards our young heroes, or the civilians in the movie, and wants him to be a villain who can evolve... later. Where they want you to take him less seriously is in regards to his maturity, but even that’s supposed to be a bit of a mixed bag - he can be pathetically petulant and bratty, but his petulant brattiness is tied to his murdering his father, narcissistically violating Rey’s mind, and sadistically torturing and toying with Finn.
To me, this all says that in TFA, we’re supposed to realize he’s an “uncool” villain, unlike Vader - he’s the Neo-Nazi school shooter compared to Vader’s war-veteran-gone-evil-overlord. The goal, which I think largely worked for TFA, is for Kylo to be a “Hate Sink” in the Tv Tropes parlance - someone the audience loves to hate in a spiteful and disgusted way. And for that, he can be someone the audience can find both pathetic and dangerous...
...But I don’t think that TLJ ever wanted to view him that way, and neither did TROS after TLJ tried to change the paradigm, and that wound up retroactively making TFA worse in hindsight - it’s a film actively hurt by its association with TLJ and TROS, especially regarding Kylo.
In TFA, Kylo being immature and self-centered are two vices and flaws on his side we’re supposed to reject him for.
In TLJ, Kylo being immature is supposed to make him seem sympathetic by suggesting he could still be redeemed and has just made some “youthful” decisions, and the film agrees with him being self-centered, because the film really *does* revolve more around him than Rye and certainly more than Finn.
Kylo throwing a fit and destroying a console in TFA is intentional humor because it’s emphasizing he’s a pathetic @$$hole... but throwing a fit and destroying his helmet in TLJ is supposed to be a serious and dramatic moment.
The latter films treatment of Kylo as sympathetic rejects the impetus behind his more pathetic moments in TFA - which end sup screwing over both films, as Kylo is now too pathetic to be a hero, but too “pitiable” in the film’s vision to be a villain.