My Story - Let It Unfold

That Kylo Ren is *not* Anakin Skywalker.

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.