Originally Posted by
godisawesome
That’s what the “ideal” Rey a random scenario is - focus on her, use him to show why his family shouldn’t be the center of the story/why his blood doesn’t matter.
It’s just a reaction that a lot of people don't have and have to be almost brutally shut down from reversing, repeatedly. Abrams had Kylo killing Han for the sake of being more evil... and Rian Johnson’s starting point was still “Rey should want to save his soul and kiss him!” That’s how strong of an impulse to ignore that is.
Though I would say that Rian Johnson and other Kylo Ren fans would argue it’s not “elitism” on their part, but a belief that they’re in a “family story,” so they should focus on that “family.” And to some extent? They’d be right - everyone knows a Star Wars story can exist without the Skywalkers (Rogue One, KOTOR, etc.), but they’d argue that *if* the family still has a prominent member in the leads for the story, than it’s a Skywalker Saga tale as much as a Star Wars tale, and refocus on the family.
It's why I ultimately think Rey Random, even at its best, is fighting an immense up-hill battle for a mostly redundant purpose - people know the franchise is larger than the Skywalkers... but people also want to see the Skywalker sub-story and treat it differently.
To me, as long as Kylo/Ben is getting treated as Rey’s co-protagonist and Finn is getting screwed out of that job, it’s just further evidence that the idea, whether Rey Random or Rey Palpatine, is still going to collapse under the desire to focus on the Skywalker. The only thing he can really do to help a Rey who’s not a Skywalker stay in center stage and *not* take Finn’s spot is grow more evil and die. That’s it. Rey can’t be a “transitional protagonist” to slowly pull us away from the Skywalkers by ceding her own focus and that of Finn to a deplorable Skywalker family member - she's too under-equipped to stand toe-to-toe with the family story then. She either should be a stronger part of the family story than Kylo (whether as a blood member or as an adoptee with him basically being totally disinherited and cast out of the family), or she shouldn’t be competing with the family story (so Kylo shouldn’t be Ben Solo, and the character should have to seem redeemable for something other than his family ties.)
Rey Palpatine’s ultimately just a weaker version of Rey Skywalker, conceptually, especially if there’s a decent middle generation to go ahead and again prove that blood =/= evil, and still end up subordinating her to Kylo’s story.
The big, annoying issue here is that there actually wasn’t anything in TFA or TLJ foreshadowing a redemption quest that Rey could believably pull off on Kylo - outside of valuing his parentage over her characterization. That’s exactly what TLJ was trying to do, and what TROS tried to sidestep by using Leia instead... though that just opened up another problem arising from how if Han couldn’t save Kylo, then Leia really shouldn’t be able to either.
To me, the only way Rey can stand as tall as Luke and Anakin without being their blood descendent, and that Finn can stay male lead, is if Kylo is basically made abhorrent to everyone as he checks out. Otherwise, there’s just always a straight line I see devaluing Rey as the main character and demoting Finn from the male lead for Kylo.
I wish that weren’t so. But too many creators I otherwise trust to have solid opinion in LFL (Johnson, Hidalgo, Kennedy, Soule) clearly can’t counteract their bias towards Kylo because of who his parents are.