1. Laurie and Jo : if you don’t acknoweldge it, it won’t happen

Talking with @fairychamber I came to think about the scene in Little Women, between Jo and Laurie on the sofa with Laurie flirting with Jo and Jo using the rough pillow as a shield. I love this scene and I realized it hasn't been much adaptated in movies. I think the mini serie has it but not exactly (I'm not sure).

But I think this scene is a great scene for Jo and Laurie, a great summary and metaphor of their relationship. Jo using the pillow to reject him with subtlety and by doing so refusing to acknowledge that he IS flirting with her. Because as long as she doesn't reject him directly,  there is no acknowledgement, no commitment. The more I think about it the more I love the tension of this scene (I'd love to find more characters dynamics or scenes like that).

She can deny and doesn’t have to admit that their relationship has changed and that Laurie is flirting with her. That’s why she is so afraid of him proposing because if he does she can’t delay and deny it anymore, she’d have to face it.

In the pillow scene, she is using a pillow to keep him away, she is using a family convention (this pillow means no one goes near Jo) but Laurie who knows it doesn’t respect it, he transgresses that family convention. And he has to, in order to step up and alter his relationship with Jo. He wants to go beyond family innocent and childish love so he oversteps the conventions and try to give their relation a new direction.

There is a lot if indirect communication : Laurie’s flirt is an indirect and implicit communication and Jo’s use of the pillow is full on implicit. Jo’s strategy is to remain on the level of the pillow’s implicit so she never has to reach the flirtatious implicite, because as long as she doesn’t acknoweldge it, it won’t happen. 

N.B. I saw a video on how similar the proposal scenes in Little women of Jo and Laurie and the mini serie Anne of Green Gables with Megan Follows between Anne and Gilbert. Both heroines saw it coming but by fear of losing their current relationship and because they still hadn’t find themselves yet (Jo still felt like she didn’t fit in and Anne wanted to live her dreams and confront her illusions of a fanciful and romantic life) - and for many other reasons, like the fact that Jo don’t love Laurie and Anne didn’t know she loved Gilbert at that moment. They need to grow and are not ready yet. Like any fairy tale, the heroine has to grow before she is ready for love (Bruno Bettelhein on The Uses of enchantment sees the sleeps in Sleeping beauty and Snow white for exemple as a metaphor of the heroine hiding from love and maturity until she is ready).

This fear of confronting a romantic relationship heavily reminds me of Rey from Star wars.

2. Rey and Ben :  Ben scarier than Kylo ? Or Rey facing love/hate

Actually it’s the same with Rey and Ben : as long as she can deny it she doesn’t have to face it. That’s what the TLJ novelization suggests by :

“He advanced on Rey, the ignited lightsaber held loosely in one hand. But there was no threat in his approach. Somehow, suddenly, that scared her even more.” - TLJ novelization

I read it a few months ago, HOW DID I MISS how reylo it is ?

This is set right after the throne room scene, Rey and Kylo have fought the Praetorian guards, and are left by themselves. Kylo walks towards Rey, and then comes this quote.

In the context of only TLJ and TFA, it is still very reylo, because it assumes in a very paradoxal way that Rey is more afraid of a harmless Kylo than of a threating one, that she is more scared by Ben than by Kylo. Why ? Of course because she is more afraid of love, of her and Ben’s feelings, and because letting her rage go at Kylo, only fighting is much more easier for her.

Sounds familiar doesn’t it ?....like their whole dynamic in TROS ?

YES. Now in the context of TROS, this quote from the TLJ novel sheds light on TROS and specificaly on TROS’s Rey. I was confused by TROS’s Rey at first, and for a long time, but I like to think that this quote actually sums up her behaviour toward Ben. Each of their encounter is Ben trying to speak to her and Rey starting a fight. (Many great metas explain it very well)  

The TROS novelization is very useful too : especially the Pasaana scene where Kylo’s ship go straight towards Rey and she destroys it, almost killing him. I was wondering : did they really try to kill each other ? what were they, each of them, thinking ? The novel is very interesting on this point :

“Rey turned off her lightsaber. She hoped he was dead. No, she didn’t. She hoped...she didn’t know what she hoped.” - TROS novelization

Unlike fairy tale maiden, Rey can’t get into a protective and regressive sleep to protect herself from an adult relationship she is not yet ready for. She is confused : she wants him dead and away so she would be safe, but ....she doesn’t really of course. She is forced to face it more that she is ready for, thus the confused feelings and intentions. That’s probably how Sleeping beauty or Snow white would feel if they couldn’t stay away from the difficulty the prince is presenting to them : would they be running away but still coming back to the ball every evening like Cinderella ?

3. The non-magical form of the sleep in fairy tales : denial

So Rey’s character relies on another form of hibernation or sleep : in TROS she is overly violent. She pushs Ben away and she can because he is still Kylo Ren but also she can’t because except on Pasaana he usually just want to talk...Of course, like the TLJ novelization shows, him talking is much more scary for Rey than fighting him. Because if he talks to her he does get to her, he reaches her. And as many great metas on tumblr have said, she is much more afraid of this intimacy. While she tries to put herself into hibernation, he keeps trying to get to her. The only solution left is to maintain a distance and forge a wall of violence : this is Rey’s form of “Jo’s rough pillow”.

For those two characters, Rey and Jo, who can’t put themselves into a magical and protective sleep, not listening is the best way to stay away. Jo and Rey prevent Ben and Laurie to say their love and to reach to them, because they refuse to listen. If they don’t listen, they can’t be reached : this way they refuse to acknowledge the boys declaration of love. They build a wall (of violence to interrumpt the communication like Rey, or a physical and symbolical wall made of a pillow full of implicit familial codes like Jo) to mimic the magic sleep. And it works (but only for a time in both cases) because both Rey and Jo deviate the communication as Ben and Laurie try to start it :

Ben wants to talk as a neutral party (not ally not enemy) / Laurie flirts

Rey remains on the enemy relation / Jo uses indirect familial codes to keep him away (but it works less)

It’s about who will control the direction the conversation is taking : Rey wins because they end up fighting and not talking, but Jo doesn’t because Laurie simply ignores the indirect codes. Ben accepts to stop talking but Laurie doesn’t and Jo can’t make him stop because it would mean admitting that he is flirting. It’s important to notice that Ben is less direct that Laurie, even he doesn’t directly speaks or acts in a flirty way, he is only stage 1 : not being mortal enemies. Laurie is already stage 2 (appreciating each others, being friends) and tries to reach stage 3 (romantic relationship), so he can allow himself to be more directly flirtatious.

Why did it work less with Jo ? When we think about it, what Jo really does is using a family convention to stop a flirt, so in the end, she already has lost because Laurie makes her transpose something family-related to react to something love-related. Both of them know what the other one is doing, but they mutally agree to pretend like Jo is just acting on a familial basis, even tho they both know that she reacts to a love declaration. Just reacting to love is already playing the love game. In this implicit agreement we see the premices of Laurie’s eventual declaration of love : Jo had already lost.

After watching the behind the scene of TROS, it was said that one way to differenciate Kylo from Ben was hopeful/hopeless. I didn’t realize that, but it does add a new light on the saga for me (maybe what I’m about to say has been obvious for a long time - like 42 years - but it never struck me clearly).

The dark side is emotion uncontroled, pain, selfishness. The light side is control, moderation, giving. Works pretty well with the 3 main couples of the saga (a meta I’m working on). I still think that’s true, but there is a another perspective possible : hope is light side and dark side is hopelessness. Let’s analyse what it means and focus on what it says of Anakin and Ben’s redemption arcs.

1. “Surrender to it” :  The dark side is the side of hopelessness

A. When all is lost, “surrender to it” : the dark side’s motto

Characters fall to the dark side when they have lost hope of being good.True villains don’t even have that wish, but Anakin and Ben “surrender to it” when they don’t believe they can be good again or that something good could happen for them. Let’s not forget that Vader and Kylo, while being those persona, are in constant pain and their life is misery, they surrender to the dark side because they have lost the hope that things could change, they are hopeless.

Darth Vader lost the life he had built, his love, his statut, his friends, etc all impossible to retrieve. But in recent comics we learn that he did try and had hope to bring Padmé back, but is that the same hope we’re talking about ? Then all sith have hope, Palpatine more than anyone, but we call that ambition and it is. What is the difference between hope and ambition ? In SW at least, I think hope is something good you can do (saving someone but for the saved one good, not the idea of Vader when he tries to bring Padme back - in ep 3, Anakin wanted Padmé to rule with him on the path of the dark side, nothing says it has changed). Hope is that you can be good or that something good that you wish for could happen. The real question is what is good then ? It’s a vast question indeed but let’s say good is “what doesn’t hurt anyone”.

Kylo Ren feels abandonned by his family, feels like it’s too late and he already is a monster. It even shows in The Rise of Kylo Ren comics, that he turns when all hope is gone aka [SPOILER when the temple is destroyed, when he believes Luke is dead, his three camarades too and especially Tai the only one telling him he could come back. Tai dead, Ben “surrenders” to the dark side and kills Voe, becoming the leader of the knights of Ren], from there there is no coming back (...until Rey!). He has became hopeless and had to surrender to the dark side and he “can’t come back to [Leia] now” as he says to Rey in TROS. He has lost his family and has no hope of finding them again, and that is what differenciates Kylo Ren from Rey : she has lost her family too but she maintains the hope of a family reunion. Tho being a delusion it is ambiguous but it still kept her alive.

When something bad happen, sinking in despair is what leads characters to the dark side.

N. B. There are then two types of characters : the jedi who turn to the dark side (Anakin, Ben) and those who become ermits and exile themselves (Yoda, Obi wan, Luke). It’s not the same reaction, it seems like experienced jedi who have failed as protectors and teachers of others don’t turn dark side but exile themselves. But young characters whose own life is ruined (at a very personnal level) turn to the dark side. Yoda, Obi wan and Luke decision to exile is not so spontaneous, and Obi wan and Yoda even had time to look for a solution : they have been desperate when Anakin turned to the dark side and after order 66, but they made up a plan (to separate the twins, protect them, etc).

For Anakin and Ben, they can’t look forward and give in to despair. But sometimes they try to move on from what happened, to rebuild their life with the hope that things could get better. This is what Ben begins to do in TLJ, leading to the hesitation of the legacy saber in the throne room.

B. The case of Ben in TLJ : finding “a new hope” and reaching the neutral area

In TLJ Ben is torn apart, his attraction for the light side rises and he finds hope again : he turns to the future, he wants to repair his life, his has this HOPE that he can, with Rey, move on and “let the past die”. I always wondered why when he says this it doesn’t sound like a dark side thing, and it’s disturbingly neutral (neither good nor bad) while being the “main villain”’s big project [it’s like Palpatine main goal being not full wicked and having us think “oh maybe, yeah it could be a good idea to destroy planets and rule the galaxy with fear under a sith’s command”]. The good/evil rate of the character main goal IS the character’s position on the good/evil spectrum, that’s why Palps is full dark side and Ben in TLJ gets closer to Rey’s position on this spectrum, closer than ever while he is Kylo Ren : that’s why the legacy saber hesitates between the two. He has at this moment a hope for his future.

In TLJ, Kylo and Rey both move on this spectrum and meet in a neutral/grey area (on the spectrum below, Palps works as a control sample)

Dark side : Palps (ruling), Kylo in TFA (surrending to the dark side)

Neutral (aka grey) : Kylo in TLJ (ruling with Rey for a new order, moving on : hope of a future), Rey in TLJ (she lost hope on her family but wants to be good)

Light side : Rey in TFA (being good and hope of finding her family)

But hope is found and hope is lost for Ben in TLJ : right after the throne room scene, because of Rey’s refusal he goes full dark side back (aka trying to kill Luke and the Resistance) because he has lost what made him reach the grey area in the first place : the hope that Rey could help him move on.

In their last force bond in TLJ, after Crait, he has one last moment of hope...only to be rejected again, destroying the last bit of hope and of light side in him.

My guess is that that is why we see him so determined in TROS, he sunk back into despair but like in TLJ he still wish to move on from it with Rey, only he wants Rey for selfish reasons (just like Vader tried to bring Padmé back to help himself).

2. The light side is hope

Luke was "the new hope" of the galaxy. At the end of TLJ, his projection and implication has brought once again hope in the galaxy (as the broom boy shows us)

Ben has hope again. (SPOIL COMICS in those we may assume while he was Ben Solo that tho he felt it difficult to belong to the Jedi Academy, he had hope he still could fit in, it’s the loss of that hope for the reasons shown it those comics that makes him turn). TURNS because he believes he’s gone too far, can’t fit in and won’t be accepted. Believes it’s too late. TURNS again because he understands it’s not too late and he can still save Rey and do good, hope in himself that he is not the monster he thinks he is.

Anakin : he wants to be good and has the hope he can (and he does great until the end of episode 3). He has hope to stop being a slave and win the race in TPM, to become a Jedi and win Padme’s love in AOTC, to save her in ROTS....until one point. TURNS because he lost hope to save his mother and then to save Padme. TURNS again because he has hope to save Luke and to be good again, once again hope in himself to not be the monster he thinks he is.

Rey has the hope her parents will return. When she lost this hope in TLJ she could have went full dark side but she succeeds in the trial and stays in the light. But in TROS when the trial, like in a fairy tale, presents itself for the second time, she almost fails : learning that she comes from darkness makes her slowly lose hope in herself, therefore falling to the dark side. She doesn’t completely but she does get close.

There goes the second spectrum :

Dark side : Palps (ruling), Kylo in TFA and TROS (surrending to the dark side), Darth Vader (lost hope in life and himself, believe power will compensate his despair)

Darkish : Rey in TROS (on the process of loosing hope in herself)

Neutral (aka grey) : Kylo in TLJ (ruling with Rey for a new order, moving on : hope of a future), Rey in TLJ (she lost hope on her family)

Light side : Rey in TFA (being good and finding her family), Luke, Anakin, Ben (hope they can do good)

N.B. This meta is not about Luke so I won’t complete his journey on the spectrum (in TLJ I mean)

N.B 2 A meta about power and dark saide/light side could be a good addition to this one.

3. Hope for redemption : Luke and his father in OT VS Rey and Ben (TLJ VS TROS)

In ROTJ, it was Luke who had hope he father could be redeemed, in TLJ it’s Rey who has hope for Ben. So far it’s the same

But in TROS it changes : Rey succombing slowly to the dark side has (according to the theory I just explained) lost hope on Ben. Still can debate on why she healed him right after stabbing him (hope ? love ? regret ? no wish to kill ?). And Kylo Ren who didnt have hope, after the stabbing and healing and scene with Han gets hope again. Her compassion makes him gain hope in himself and he understands that “as long as he’s with her he is on the right path” (quote from the Making of of TROS).

So while TLJ repeats the dynamic of hope and redemption of the OT, TROS breaks it (but I think it’s a good thing). Rey has lost hope in Kylo Ren and in herself, or at least is in the process of losing it.

1- As she is surrending to the dark side, she looses hope on what she believed (herself and Ben) : the correlation is there. So far the theory works.

2- So the hope of Ben’s redemption still comes from Rey (the compassionate act of healing him, but it is not her first motive like it was for Luke or in TLJ, it is only a side effect), Leia and the memory of Han, but from himself too. Vader saves his son and it redeems him, but Ben is redeemed before he does anything, his turn is mental, it is a decision : he decides to go save Rey, and from that decision, due to his resurgence of hope in himself, he turns good again. It’s a small difference but it’s important because it’s the difference between Ben and Anakin redemptions : Anakin acts spontaneously and this good act redeems him, Ben has to FIRST forgive himself to be redeemed, his redemption is much easier, it only takes him to forgive himself and have hope in himself again, just with that he is Ben Solo again.

Conclusion

Anakin and Ben have very similar arcs but the differences are important. First, in the third movie of each trilogy : while Luke actively saves Vader, Rey doesn’t and it’s up to Kylo himself to complete this function on himself. Secondly, it takes a spontaneous action to Vader to be redeemed, while Kylo just has to gain hope in himself. Ben litteraly was his own biggest enemy. It’s not saving Rey that makes him turn, he already had, while Vader understands afterwards that he has turned. Ben’s redemtpion is a mental and psychological process, a decision, a choise consciensously made, while Anakin understands afterwards that he had turned, after his spontaneous act. Two different redemptions for two different journeys. But both show the HUGE importance “hope” has and always has had in the Star Wars universe - it’s not for nothing that the very first movie is titled “A New Hope”. The PT, OT and ST have this core thematic continuity about hope being the way to the light side, and despair and hopelessness leading to the dark side.

There are three types of characters according to this hope distinction. Wether it is to fight this despair, to find hope again thanks to someone or from within, Ben and Anakin have the most complex relation to hope and display the spectrum of intention the most extreme. On the other hand, Luke is the representation of hope in the OT and he regains that status again at the end of TLJ. Third type is Rey, she seems to be like Luke but absolutely isn’t (which is great). She is much more greyish and is always fighting to maintain her hope (in her family, in herself, in Ben), because she is aware of her weakness and choses denial to maintain this hope. That’s why it’s very intersting in TROS to see her loosing this hope from time to time, but not enough to be surrending to the dark side. Because she understood the primary lesson of Star Wars : that the best way to remain in the light side or to get to it is to have and to find hope, I think that’s my favourite lesson from Star Wars.

Others main meta

(1) Force jump/flying (TROS meets The Rise of Kylo Ren or Kylo Ren finally meets his peer in Rey) :

Expanded how? Like how the novelizations fill in the gaps and round out characterizations and scenes (which they've already done) or like how the EU carried on with the OT Trio's adventures post-ROTJ?