leia: ben no
han: ben no
luke: ben no
anakin’s ghost: ben no
phasma: lord ren no
hux: kylo no
kylo: KYLO YES
obi wan’s ghost: fuck this shit im so fucking done with this fucking family idk what did i expect well good luck hux
So I’m dressed as ending-fight-dead-inside Kylo, and a Leia walks by me. I mumble “sorry mom” and she turns. I realize she’s with a Padme, who turns with her in perfect sync.
“Damn right you are” the Leia yells. “Of all your grandparents, why not be like Padme?”
“I was a queen at 14,” the Padme boasts.
“A queen at 14 Ben! What have you done?”
At this point I have sunk to the floor. Padme puts her hands on her knees, bends down and keeps yelling. “You know what your grandfather thinks is a good pickup line? Complaining about sand. Is that all you got Kylo? Pickup lines about sand?”
Another Leia grounded me for 20 years
And when I said “Sorry Dad" to a Han he really nonchalantly said “It’s alright, sorry I wasn’t there for you”
Anakin Skywalker was born a slave. He was a slave for the first nine years of his life. At which point, he was taken away from his mother, and tossed into a environment that he was ill prepared for, with a master who lacked sufficient training to properly guide a Padawan who differed so far from the standard model, and for more than a decade, nearly constantly gas lighted by one of the most evil and manipulative men in the entire galaxy, while looked down on with suspicion and distrust by the head of the order he’d given up everything to join.
Despite all that, before Anakin had his final mental breakdown and decided murdering children was a dandy way to spend an afternoon, he still managed too…
Successfully complete more than a decade of Jedi training.
Help win the first battle of Geonosis.
Become an incredibly successful general.
Train an amazingly competent Padawan.
Be a semi-functional husband (though the health of his marriage is a whole other topic).
Become one of the best pilots in the galaxy.
Shape the course of the entire war.
Anakin’s mental breakdown was a result of more than a decade of neglect by, and in some cases active hostility from, members of the Jedi order, combined with repeated emotional traumas, and an active, vicious campaign to deliberately destroy his mental and emotional well being by Palpatine.
Anakin didn’t fall to the dark side, so much as he was shoved over the edge.
Now, let’s talk about Kylo Ren.
Kylo Ren grew up with parents who loved him. They may have made mistakes, they may not have been perfect, but anyone who watched the same movie I did and says that Han and Leia didn’t love Ben are full of shit.
He had a master who would have loved him like a son, because this is Luke, and this is Han and Leia’s kid. Luke, say whatever else you want about him, is all about family.
Now, I don’t know what lies Snoke told Ben. I don’t know what he whispered in Ben’s ear. But I know this.
Ben didn’t hold his mother in his arms after she died from weeks of torture. Ben didn’t spend years in the meet grinder of The Clone Wars watching his friends die around him. Ben didn’t watch the order turn on the Padawan he trained and loved like family and cast her out. Ben didn’t spend years of his life enduring the dismissive suspicion of Mace “never to be sufficiently damned” Windu. Ben wasn’t having nightmares of his wife and child dying in childbirth, and losing everything he loved *again*.
Ben fell to the dark side because he was having some emo fit about his mom sending him to boarding school.
He slaughtered his fell Padawans because he was having a snit fit.
He destroyed his parents relationship because of a temper tantrum.
He murdered his parents friends, entire villages… He murdered worlds, because his parents disappointed him.
Then, he looked into his father’s eyes. The eyes of a man who loved him, who forgave him, who offered to do anything to help him, and he stabbed him through the heart.
Do not compare Anakin Skywalker to Kylo Ren. Anakin Skywalker was a human disaster, but when the moment came, when he stood on his bridge, Anakin chose his family. He chose to try one last time to be the man Qui-Gon, Obi Wan and Padme believed he was. He chose to be the man his son believed he was. Given the choice, Anakin chose to be a father to his children, even if it was just for a moment.
Anakin Skywalker was a human disaster, but Kylo Ren is garbage.
Ok I love all the Kylo Ren jokes (human trashbag, complete monster, Emo Teen) but like
According to the novel Ben was ten years old when he left home to train with Luke, and fifteen when he destroyed Luke’s Jedi temple
So that means Snoke tempting him to the Dark Side would have involved a lot less offering untold cosmic power; and a lot more child-grooming, and subsequently absconding with a preteen boy
Idk about you but that skeeves me out
Oh noooooo
for bonus:
He had trouble believing what he was hearing. “So Snoke was watching our son.”
“Always,” she told him. “From the shadows, in the beginning, even before I realized what was happening, he was manipulating everything, pulling our son toward the dark side.”
We don’t know the details for sure, but if the movies go with this, Snoke was definitely grooming Ben from … infancy, pretty much.
There’s also that scene where Snoke tells Ben that he’s trained other people, but nobody like Ben because he’s special. D: D: D:
On a completely serious note, it actually 100% explains the tantrums. When you’re groomed from a really young age (and are hurt at a young age), your maturity in dealing with stressors can be developmentally delayed, and your ability to deal (in general) becomes extremely… fragile. You don’t develop proper coping mechanisms at a critical stage in your development, and even if you’re removed from the stressor your inability cope with them can affect you all throughout your adulthood. A lot of people lash out in anger, because lashing out in anger is what children do. They never really developed past that (mentally), which is kind of why Kylo/Ben acts like he’s 16 when he’s closer to 30. Honestly its pretty tragic.
eirenical17 