some skywalker family things i’ve been thinking about:
Ben still has brown eyes and not sith eyes
When he moves fast at all, he walks unsteadily like the helmet is so heavy that he can’t even walk properly in it
Kylo = S KY walker + So LO ?
same w/ his lightsaber fight w/ rey, he’s been injured but he also walks/runs all bent over
When he force-freezed Rey u could see her shaking bc she was trying so hard to fight it and run away ;-; my brave daughter i was aching at that part so much that was probably the part for me that felt the scariest.
did u SEE HOW SCARED AND IN AWE HE WAS WHEN SHE REPELLED HIS FORCE MIND- PROBE. like a scene earlier he just picked her up and she’s so tiny and then he tries to make her do what he wants and BAM. not today asshole. i live for that. i hope rey really teaches that garbage kid a lesson in the next movie & makes him ashamed of what he’s done.
i feel like he knew who she was from the beginning (they didn’t beat her up like they did Poe, kylo went straight from capture to the mind probe) His first encounter with Rey is literally the only time he shows any kind of restraint (well, slightly more than what happened with poe; maybe the right word is closer to “lessening of destructive, thoughtless violence”) also when leia says “there’s light in him, i know it”-- which doesn’t count as goodness YET, obviously, but the fact that he acted differently w/ rey than in other situations might be a possible precursor?)
He takes his mask off for Rey and the only other person he does this for is his dad (did u see how freaked out he was when hux showed up & saw him w/out the helmet?) However much he knows about Rey’s identity, his encounters with her are deeply personal ... maybe hinting that Rey is going to be part of the reason he turns back to the light? (more Anakin parallels?; luke, who Anakin thought was dead, was the only thing who could help turn Anakin back to the light side. m not saying Ben is anakin bc obviously they had very different reasons from going to the dark side but it does seem like some parallels are being drawn?) Now Rey, another long-lost family member, might be part of helping to turn Ben back? maybe? One thing in Rey’s favor is that she’s more of a peer and not in a mentor position like luke and leia are and he might be able to relate to her better after his long history of mistrust of authority. Also if she’s his cousin then she’s the only other person close to his age thats in his family, and he’s never known what that sort of family relationship is like. Honestly i think his curiosity about what it could be like to have a sibling figure in his life might help snap him out of it.
She calls him a “creature in a mask” and for some reason he doesn’t want her to see him that way, so he takes it off. It could’ve been to intimidate her / soften her up to him and manipulate her but lbr he looks about as intimidating & inviting as a potato without it on. Also, he’s so driven by impulse and lack of control that i’m not sure a long-planned manipulation plot is the kind of thing he’d do very well. Poe kind of teased him about the mask but Ben ignored him, but not Rey. For some reason he wants Rey to see him as a human and not a “creature” (possibly hinting that he still has feelings?  one feeling?  & a need to be acknowledged as a human being? idk.) or he just wanted her to see his nice hairÂ
Snoke doesn’t know who she is...(probably)... Ben’s keeping it a secret for some reason, he uses vague words to describe her to snoke, (“the scavenger”) even though if he told hux & snoke who she was it would probably be easier to find her.
LEIA SENSING WHAT HAPPENED TO HAN and knowing who did it
Ben’s gonna have a huge scar on his face in the next movie from rey’s lightsaber (haha asshole) but also [anakin parallels ;-; ]
he said to find her quickly because as time goes on she will only become more powerful: she is so powerful that the second most powerful force-user of the new order is afraid of her and she hasn’t even had training yet [luke parallels !!!! ]Â
there are so many luke, anakin and padme parallels w/ rey god. Her hair is straight out of what padme’s hair was like in the prequels, she LOOKS like natalie a lot; her clothes are a huge callback to Lukes ANH intro outfit; she’s a tinkerer like Anakin; she’s self-possessed and very independent like Padme. Â
ben offers to teach rey how to use the force, something that Snoke didn’t ask him to do (that we know of). He offers this because either 1., he actually wants to get her on his side bc he is so afraid of her / wants her power (like vader w/ luke) wants her on his side in order to augment the first order’s power in general; 2., he was trying to distract her, or 3., he genuinely wants to teach someone what he knows about the force. Already going against / doing things without Snoke’s knowledge, perhaps foreshadowing him rebelling against snoke, sooner rather than later? (HOPEFULLY bc im already real tired of him being absolute garbage)
“I’m being torn apart” probably hinting at being pulled at by both sides of the force. Obviously he sees killing Han as the last straw that will stop him from feeling the light side of the force’s influence. What happens if it’s the opposite, and he only feels more torn apart [ “fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering” - he probably just made his own suffering worse and it seems like it might be hinting at him being closer to the light side in the next movie, not further away like he’d planned. ] Might also have something to do with Snoke torturing him somehow? (“I just want this pain to end”--the pain comes from inner conflict obviously but it could also come from external mental conflict and/or physical pain.) idk. so many of his lines are vague that it’s hard to tell. Whereas anakin’s relationship w/ palpatine seemed more like evil teacher & evil student/sidekick, ben with Snoke definitely struck me as having master / slave overtones and a profound lack of autonomy on ben’s part.
THE PART WHERE THEY’RE AT A DRAW AND THE BLADES ARE LOCKED TOGETHER AND REY JUST CLOSES HER EYES AND U CAN SEE HER REACHING OUT TO THE FORCE AND THEN SHE OPENS HER EYES AND IS ALL LIKE U AINT SHITÂ
What is rey going to do now that she’s found her dad and will find out that Ben is her cousin, and that he tortured her? (i will drop-kick garbage baby for doing this to her tbh. or i hope SOMEBODY at least gives him a thorough spanking.) How is she going to change? All her life she’s dreamed of her family coming back to her and being happy again--how is that going to change her when she knows how her family really is, that darth vader was her grandfather too? (obi-wan voice: good job, Anakin)
i lOVE THAT LUKE HAD A METAL PROSTHETIC HAND INSTEAD OF A SKIN PROSTHETIC
More than anything i want Ben redeemed, if only for Leia and Rey’s sake. I want leia to have her son back and i want Rey to have a complete, balanced family. i don’t want them to have to put up with him being shitty for two more movies and then being hurt by him again, by either getting killed or doing more evil things. I want him to be good because we never get the complete triumph of good over evil in stories, at least anymore, the villain never completely turns their whole lives around, usually just causes a huge mess, or tags along reluctantly bc they have to, and the only relief the heroes get is when the villain is dead & stops fucking everything up, which is...hugely depressing and i really hope this franchise doesn’t go there bc tonally it would just spoil a lot of the joy, and there has already been enough pain in one movie we don’t need complete loss of hope & death everywhere for the next two.
“there’s light in him, i know it”Â
im dying
