here’s the thing about fukcing god damn kylo ren
if it were in any way concievably possible, after TFA alone, a redemption arc COULD HAVE been great
i’m a sucker for a redemption arc and, provided it were done CORRECTLY with REAL ramifications and reparation on his end, i MAYBE would’ve been okay with it
but the problem, aside from the fact that TLJ made that absolutely impossible and unbelievable if it DID happen, the problem with him is his fandom
is he a cool character? sure, he’s got a cool evil costume and a dumb evil lightsaber and a cool evil voice when his helmet’s on. he’s got an interesting backstory being the direct descendant of such good people but feeling the same great pull to the dark that his grandfather felt. But He Is Not THAT Great
his fans take him too far. they claim he’s been abused, manipulated, they’re obsessed with his supposed godly-amazing looks (let’s be real, he’s NOT that good looking), and the biggest crime of all, They Take The Literal Canon Story And Personality Of The One Black Hero And Give It To Him Instead.
Finn is the Kylo you all want. If you would take a SECOND of common sense and literary comprehension, you would understand that EVERYTHING that you want in Kylo is RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF YOU in Finn.
The biggest, greatest tragedy in ALL of Star Wars is that the fandom SO thouroughly ignored the best, most interesting character it’s EVER had, and gave ALL his traits to the wannabe-Vader-facist-white-boy villain instead.
I’m going to quibble with this bit here:
he’s got an interesting backstory being the direct descendant of such good people but feeling the same great pull to the dark that his grandfather felt.
Honestly I don’t think he feels “the same pull to the dark that his grandfather felt,” although he absolutely thinks he does, because Anakin didn’t have that same kind of pull to the dark.
Anakin had a different kind of Fall than Kylo has. Anakin had a different kind of Fall than Kylo perceives it to be.
Anakin slipped into the Dark Side in service of something—ironically enough, one could call it in service of the Light in him, the blazing, defending, loving, righteous Light, the part of him that loved Padme, valued his soldiers, wanted slaves to be freed, and reacted to the gutting pain of loss with a desire to overpower death.
Kylo, meanwhile, followed the Dark for its own sake like it was a pretty girl he decided was perfect for him without actually knowing, shaped his own assumptions of, and fell in love with the idea instead of the reality.
For Anakin it was a tool, and for Kylo it was an idea.
Finn is much more like Anakin, for his willingness to decide a thing was unacceptable and step away from every bit of security he’s got in the hopes of making it better. Anakin does that twice, once to step away from the Jedi who have failed him, to pin everything on his hope that this is the right path (he is wrong this time), and once to step away from the Dark Side and the service of his master, knowing he may lose and die but being willing to do that to defend his son, throwing everything away in the hope that he will make a difference (he does). And Finn does the same thing when he defects from the First Order, the only life he’s ever known, burning bridges behind him and risking death in the hope that there is something better at the landing trajectory of his leap of faith.
Kylo, in comparison, just throws himself at the Dark Side like it’s a shiny thing, expecting it to fix his life for him.
