A question about SW reception: Why donât you think a lot of casuals as well as media analysis/pop culture figures see Reylo as romantic (or even a romantic possibility) or donât consider that this will be relevant for the final film? Iâve noticed more Rey parentage discussion recently and the obvious âShe wonât be a Skywalker because that would mean she was intentionally written to have romantic tension with a relativeâ input is just coming from Reylos. Even I didnât âseeâ it until I read meta.
Iâve covered this pretty extensively in this post, but the tl;dr is: Reylo is a female-centric romance in a franchise that is neither specifically female-centric nor romantic. Itâs a monster romance, a good girl / dark & broody love interest female power fantasy in a franchise that is nominally âfor everyoneâ (which means: for everyone as long as they adopt the perspective of a teenage male viewer), and people have no idea how to respond to it. In particular, a lot of neutrals and casuals struggle to accept that Reylo might be âtheâ plot of the sequel trilogy because this type of romantic arcs are so central to the story only in the romance genre, so they keep thinking / hoping / expecting that the sequel trilogy has some other ace up its sleeve, some other big reveal that will finally explain what the damn plot is.
That said, a lot of the reylo denialism among big name bloggers and media outlets is straight up clickbait strategy and pandering to their own fanbase/target readership. When you know your readers spent the last 4 years mocking reylo as a bizarre fandom phenomenon and would rather deepthroat a cactus than be caught reading a reylo-friendly article, you just keep doubling down on How Rey Can Still Be a Skywalker Despite Common Sense and Narrative Economy and Breaking News, JJ Abrams Thinks TLJ Was A Mistake!, because thatâs simply easier and more convenient.
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for my ally is the force, and a powerful ally it is. life creates it, makes it grow. its energy surrounds us and binds us. luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. you must feel the force around you; here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere, yes. even between the land and the ship.
"With one second left until total shutdown, K-2SO chose to mentally simulate an impossible scenario in which Cassian Andor escaped alive. The simulation pleased him."
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Hey! I love your analysisâ of Reylo. Theyâre my favorite. I have a loaded question (hopefully youâve never been asked) â when do you think both Rey and Kylo became PHYSICALLY attracted to each other? And when do you think Rey became ROMANTICALLY attracted to Kylo, because I think we can all agree after killing Han Solo and their fight on Starkiller Base, she was, and rightly so, hostile and angry. Sorry if itâs a stupid question but you just seem to go really in depth with details. :)
ok so I noticed a very similar ask is already making the rounds on here, but since I started writing this post before I saw it, youâre getting mine too, yay.Â
First: physical vs romantic can be a false binary. Some people donât experience a difference in physical attraction vs romantic attraction. On a literary level, and especially in the context of a space opera/fairytale geared towards a young audience, the distinction might be entirely redundant: the two spheres coincide, as the sexual element is never explicit in fairytales, and the romantic interest is often a stand-in for both. You donât get a point where the characters are âonlyâ physically attracted to each other in this kind of stories. Â
Second: going from hating someone to falling in love with said someone is a pretty standard romantic trope. Itâs juicy, itâs sexy, and itâs all about CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. In enemies to lovers stories, the initial hatred is not an obstacle but part of the romantic build-up.Usually there isnât âoneâ turning point where the relationship dramatically changes, but many. Itâs a gradual evolution.Â
With that said⊠I believe a degree of attraction was always there on both sides (Kyloâs side being a bit more self-evident than Reyâs, though Reyâs part is interesting as well, more on that later). The romantic feelings, on the other hand, are still a work in progress. They still havenât acknowledged them.Â
Letâs start with Kylo because itâs easier.Â
1) Kylo is VERY attracted to Rey since the beginning.
Our boy is very transparent when it comes to Rey.He instinctively recognizes that thereâs something special to this girl, and heâs drawn to her like a moth to a flame.
^Â He looks her up and down. Adam emphasizes this gesture with a blatant head motion because heâs wearing a mask and he canât be subtle about it. Which means he was probably asked to be unsubtle.
^Â He gets in her personal space immediately after that. Thereâs really no need to be this close if he wanted to simply mind probe her.Â
This is especially interesting because the way this scene is edited we donât see how he got so close that heâs practicallyâŠwhat, sniffing her neck? Whispering in her ear? So I guess the final cut was rather toned down compared to the raw footage of this scene, and itâs for the better, since Rey is immobilized and terrified and in no position to give consent to this closeness. (tbh, I suspect he was originally meant to touch her or cup her face in this scene, and they cut it because they wanted to make sure that Kylo never touches herâaside from bridal carrying her into his ship. See also how he touches her during the interrogation in the tfa novelization but not in the movie. This is an excellent decision in my opinion. Itâs crucial that Kylo doesnât cross that boundary without Reyâs consent, so it makes it all the more poignant when he touches Reyâs outstretched hand in TLJ. Yeah, donât tell me this wasnât all planned.)
This attraction isnât conscious on Kyloâs partâhe seems to be completely clueless about it. Both Rey and Kylo are coded as very immature for their ages, both because theyâre supposed to have a coming of age arc (which in true sw fashion overlaps with a heroâs journey), and because theyâre emotionally stunted as neither had a ânormalâ adolescence (for different reasons).
^ more unnecessary closeness and heâs also blatantly looking at her lips and neck here. I wonât go in deep into the interrogation scene because thereâs too much to dissect, but yeah, the whole thing is Kylo being ridiculously fascinated by Rey and not knowing what to do with it.
But this is also where he starts going deeper into her⊠ahem, poor choice of words, sorry. I mean he looks inside her mind and heâs enraptured. He sees her loneliness, her fear to leave the place where sheâs bound in a forced state of childhood, he sees the island of her dreamsâand her affection for Han, which immediately triggers a cascade of unpleasant feelings for him. In short, this is where he connects with her emotionally (although forcibly) and where it stops being just curiosity and attraction and becomes something more, on a deeper level than just the physical, for him.
(casual reminder that this is a space opera so yes, Kylo can see a kaleidoscope of Reyâs inner world and HOPELESSLY FALL IN LOVE WITH IT in the span of 2 minutes of mind probe. This isnât to be taken literally.)
As she slips out of his grip just when heâs starting to know her, Kylo LOSES HIS SHIT. He gives in to a childish temper tantrum at the sight of her empty interrogation chair, and when she shows up again at Finnâs side, he sees red. This is very possessive/jealous coded behavior.
THEN REY SUMMONS THE LEGACY SABER AND HEâS LIKE:
^ Heart eyes, motherfucker. I think at this point our boyâs fallen HARD. He still doesnât know, of course. But itâs clear that this momentâthe whole duel with herâleft a huge impression on him. Later in TLJ, he tells Rey that she has âthat look in her eyes, from the forestâ, which, wow, someoneâs been thinking about Reyâs eyes A LOT and memorizing that particular expression and romanticizing the shit of of it.
Verdict: Kylo immediately finds Rey attractive but has probably no idea why he feels that way, and starts making a lot of irrational decisions in order to take her with him and make her stay. By the end of TFA, heâs already caught a variety of Feelings. They will only intensify in TLJ, but the foundation, both in physical and emotional terms, is already there.
2) Rey. Rey is more complicated because sheâs our protagonist/main pov, sheâs femaleâfemale attraction is depicted differently than male attractionâand most importantly sheâs in a situation of disadvantage for most of TFA. Due to her limited agency she is forced to react rather than act, and sheâs constantly in a fight or flight mode.Â
This, of course, makes her (subtle) attraction hard to notice and problematic to discuss, but weâll get there.
^ Her first reaction to a full masked Kylo Ren is blind terror (with reason: Kylo chases, immobilizes, and then threatens her with his lightsaber). But remember: per the novelization, âshe has seen this man before. In a nightmare, in a dreamâ. This already introduces an element of ambiguity: why this distinction? Was the dream pleasant? Kylo is, at this stage, the physical manifestation of a shadow that seems to be haunting her (in her subconscious, but also in the force vision she had minutes before). It isnât as much repulsive as it is scary.Â
Soon enough, she starts conversing with the shadow. Once the initial terror fades, she regains composure and starts demanding answers, even as tied up to a chair as she is.
The unmasking is a crucial moment.
^Â This is when Rey sees Benâs face for the first timeâthe prince underneath the beastâand it confuses her. Itâs where she loses her combative attitude and has to regroup for a minute. She blinks, she breathes in, her eyes wander across his figure.The novelization states that itâs because he looks so average (LOL, sure) and not monstrous at all, but beyond the surface reading, this already tells us that Rey took time to register Kyloâs facial features and find them strangely unthreateningâeven familiar. She definitely doesnât find him repulsive or odd-looking.
From this moment on, she has trouble looking at him. Sheâs constantly avoiding his eyes or stealing short glances at himâhe turned from creature into man, and sheâs suddenly hyperaware of his closeness and her restraints. (this is where most people feel uncomfortable with that scene, because itâs dripping with ambiguous tension). Then she finds Kylo in her mind, she fights back and locks eyes with him again, this time unafraid. She chooses to look into the monster and while she turns the tables on him, invading his mind, she finds herself âinexorably drawn toâ⊠something. His fears? The novelization leaves this unsaid, but the choice of words is interesting. Sheâs not merely pushing him out, or defending herself anymore. She finds something that intrigues her in there. That draws her in.
This scene is where they truly reveal themselves to the otherâKyloâs humanity and weaknesses, and Reyâs powers and strength. It leaves them both shaking and bewildered. Itâs a sort of initiationâfor both. To each otherâs force powers, but also to the attractive power each has on the other.
Then comes another turning pointâHanâs murder, which Rey witnesses from a privileged perspective.
^ Thereâs a sort of softness, but also enrapture, in her expression here. Sheâs completely sucked into this scene, all but forgetting she could shoot Kylo from where she is and end this at any moment. No, what sheâs seeing is another side of Han, but also another side of Kylo Ren.
It goes back to when she was first introduced to the story of Ben Solo.
See? Raptured. Camera zooming in on her face. Light spheres floating around her as Han tells her about the boy who destroyed it all. This is a magical moment, the cinematography is telling us.Â
On some level, even before meeting him in person, sheâs drawn to him. Remember, this is a fairytale.
By the forest scene Rey is horrified, angry, exhausted, grieving. In the span of two days she was forced to grow past childhood, cut her umbilical cord to Jakku, and enter a scary phase of transition into adulthood, which Kylo is, like it or not, a big part of. Now sheâs seen him murder his own fatherâhe is a monster with a human face, something that seems to enrage her even more. The following duel is more of a discovery of her own powers (and potential darkness) than it is about Kylo (whereas for Kylo itâs definitely about Rey), but in the end she canât bring herself to kill him. Again, this tells us more about who Rey is and what is her inner conflict than it does about her relationship with Kylo but⊠itâs something. I think on an instinctual level, even at this early stage, she recognizes something in him that resonates with her. His loneliness, his anger, his misery perhaps.
Verdict: at the end of TFA, Rey is mostly angry and scared of Kylo. All her actions revolve around getting the hell out of dodge, keeping Kylo out of her mind, and punishing him for Hanâs death. Understandably.Â
But sheâs also curious. This man confuses her. He shows up in her subconscious, and heâs inextricably linked to her understanding of the Force, and her first experiences with it. Itâs a sort of imprinting.
TLJ is when the really meaty part begins for Rey. In broad terms, TFA was Kyloâs romantic/sexual awakening to Rey, and TLJ is Reyâs to Kylo.The peaceful, safe setting of Ahch-To and the fact that through the force bond they can communicate but NOT hurt or manipulate each other draws Rey out of her fight or flight mode, allowing her to explore on her terms Kyloâs character, and all the questions and doubts he arouses (heh) in her.Â
In their first force bond interactions, Kylo is calm and collected. In the other scenes heâs had so far heâs a hot mess of boiling rage and hurt (just minutes before, he smashed his helmet and launched an attack to the Resistance in which he thinks his mother perished), but with this girl who slashed his face in half and left him bleeding like a pig in the snow, heâs quite the soft spoken gentleman, lol. I think heâs been thinking a lot about Rey, he came to terms with his fascination for her, and now he wants to make Rey think about him too. He tempts and taunts her, from a place of relative knowledge/wisdom (or so he thinks). Reyâs the one who is in emotional turmoil.Â
^ Initially, she tries to stick to her feisty heroine script, and she still has a lot of genuine rage and disgust for him, but mostly she canât make sense of him. She feels insecure in what she knows (not just about Kylo but also about Luke, the Force, her role in this, everything. Nobody is telling her anything!), so she overcompensates with knee-jerk aggression and a false display of confidence (âI know everything I need to know about you!â).Â
She also calls him âmurderous snake!!!!â, which is hilarious and very revealing. IDK about snake symbolism in the GFFA, but here on earth, and especially in western culture, snakes symbolize insidious seduction, and thatâs certainly the authorial intent behind this choice of words. By saying this line, Rey is framed as the quintessential virtuous maiden trying to resist (sexual) temptation, that biblically goes hand in hand with knowledgeâwhich is exactly what Kylo offers.Â
On a subconscious level, I think she already recognizes Kylo as a seduction.
^ This is the first thing that throws her off balance. She was probably expecting some angry shitty warped-moral-compass rebuttal, instead he quietly agrees that heâs a monster, while also âcoming into the lightâ to let her see his face better. To make her see him. During the whole conversation, and part of the following force bond scene as well, Kylo is almost morbidly insistent to share with her the details of his past (âDid he tell you what happened? Did he tell you why?â). He wants her to see him, ugly as he is (in a spiritual sense). Â
At this point, Reyâs sexuality is GETTING ANSWERS AND FIGURING SHIT ABOUT HER ROLE IN THE FORCE. And Luke (the biblical âGodâ of the island) is giving her none of that, other than hippie lessons about how the Force is a superior power blah blah and you better not fuck with it blah blah donât go in the dark wet hole and remember that the Jedi arenât supposed to intervene in mundane shit, blah.
I actually think the deleted fish nun party scene is important to understand Reyâs state of mind entering the third, and crucial, force connection. The point of that lessonâat least the way Rey understands itâis teaching her inaction and second-guessing her instincts. Luke is projecting his own disillusionment on her. Heâs telling her to stop believing in heroes, when what Rey actually needs is believing in herself as a hero. She comes out of it feeling more frustrated and humiliated than ever. Depressed, almost.
Kylo, instead, gives her answers. Not definite answers, but something that propels her into action. He tells her, âdo this and this in order to become the person youâre meant to beâ. He strokes her ego. He talks about her destiny. He echoes and validates her suppressed anger and frustration. He digs up a painful truth about her family, and encourages her to face it. Even as she demands to know the reason he murdered his father, he makes it all about her. First, he made her see him; now heâs making her see herself through his eyes.
And, of course, heâs half naked through the entire thing. This is the first time Rey is confronted with something textually (as in, not simply existing in the subtext) sexual. The shirtlessness is obviously here for a meta reason too (to loudly communicate the romantic undertones of the dynamic, to symbolically strip Kylo of his layers, and to give the audience an eye candy) but even Rey the character is aware that this has to do with sex, someway.Â
^ Thatâs why she stutters and averts her eyes. This is the unmasking 2.0, only this time the sexual implications are in the forefront. In a pg-13 format, of course, but still largely readable even for children.
This is where Rey starts wondering if they could actually touch. Gee, what a coincidence.Â
The shirtless scene is a huge turning point where the romantic build up becomes, for a short while, glaringly sexual. It would be easy to say that this is when Reyâs physical attraction is born, but thatâs an oversimplification. Everything in this movie and in the movie before has been building to this. Kylo Ren has been at the forefront of Reyâs thoughts since Starkiller. She has a powerful psychic connection to him, talked about him with Luke, wondered about the reasons of his patricide, questioned his backstory, exercised frantically to blow off the steam of their encounters.Â
This isnât when Rey first begins to feel attraction to Kyloâitâs where sheâs first faced with the reality of it, and us with her.
And facing this reality is, in part, what prompts her to go into the dark side caveâthe one the older male authority figure forbade her from going, the one in which she already subconsciously expects to walk a threshold. The threshold of knowing what happened to her parents, the question that sheâs been avoiding for so long, that kept her bound to Jakku, to a version of herself who never grew up past childhood because growing up would make the years and years of abandonment painfully real, rather than just notches on a wall.
The cave scene has all the markings of an archetypal rite of passage into adulthood (and womanhood). The water, the near-drowning experience, the visions, the multiple selves, the mirror. Rey goes into it fully understanding that however it goes, it will imply a loss of innocence. Thematically, itâs a direct continuation of the other loss of innocence sheâs just experiencedâthe sexual one, with Kylo.
Rey doesnât get the answer she hoped for, but one that forces her to mature and come into her adult selfâitâs time to take responsibility and be the hero of her own story, because the adults she were waiting for are nowhere in sight. So she comes out of the cave as more mature⊠but also desperate for human connection. Or rather, for connection to a specific someone. She feels âreliefâ when she senses Kyloâs presence in the Force inside the hut.Â
And when she sees him, she thinks again of touching him.
In the movie we donât get how the conversation started, and the novelization doesnât delve into details either, and boy what would I pay to know what sparked Reyâs confession. But we can imagine. By this point, Rey already feels a kinship with Kylo, and her distrust and skepticism for him has eroded. She sees her own loneliness in him. She feels they were both betrayed by parental figures on some level. Sheâs made the mental connection that if Vader was brought back, then Ben could be too, by someone who loves him. Their force connections have been strange but they also gave her the chance to discuss stuff she would have otherwise bottled up. Heâs physically attractive to her. He doesnât judge her for going into the darkness. And when he tells her what she needs to hear the mostâthat sheâs not aloneâshe makes that leap and reaches out to touch him.
Itâs an olive branch, a comforting gesture towards someone she feels is just alone as she is, but itâs physical contact she seeks. She could have offered her sympathy in any other way, yet she chose to reach for his hand. Remember, sheâs been thinking about touching him for a while already.
Kylo, after a moment of confusion, responds by taking off his glove. This is such a loaded gesture in terms of its romantic/sexual meaning that Iâm still in shock it actually happened. Heâs baring himself to her, so that this contact happens without barriers. His skin is not covered in first order leather when he touches hers. This is the real him.
^ And then they have their visions of the future, and that One Perfect Tear falls down Reyâs cheek and Luke blows up the hut and this is where my analysis can stop because by this point itâs completely obvious that our girl has FALLEN HARD, and since sheâs the *shoot first, ask later* type, she hops on the Falcon to get her boy back before she can admit to herself sheâs stupidly in love with him.
Rey saw a vision of herself with Ben Solo at her side, and sheâs so blinded by the beauty of it that making it happen as fast as possible becomes her number one priority.
But feelings for someone donât change overnight so radically. If sheâs so massively affected by that vision, itâs only because her romantic attraction for Kylo has been building up at a consistent pace since the start of the movie, getting her to a point where she spontaneously sought an intimacy with him.
Itâs the same for Kylo. Rey literally ships herself to him, but heâs no less reckless than she is in barreling into this promise of a future idyll. When Rey gets on the Supremacy, he already knows this has to end with Snokeâs death somehow. He doesnât know how to do it, but he will. He will sacrifice his master to be with her, just as she did.
If you asked either of them if theyâre in love with each other, I bet they would stare at you with uncomprehending eyesâitâs like they lack the basic lexicon to understand their feelings, let alone verbalize them. So Reyâs like âsave the fleet because itâs the morally right thing to do!â, and Benâs like âjoin me to rule the galaxy!â, and theyâre both like, âyouâll stand with me!â. Theyâre trying to express the love they already feel but theyâre doing it in non-romantic terms, because thatâs all they know.
(gifs are credited with the â ^ â - click on it and reblog the op!)
Why do you ship Reylo? Or, more accurately, what first interested you about Reylo and what do you find compelling about the ship that keeps you engaged in the fandom or rooting for it in canon?
What first interested me about it:
itâs the only thing that actually took me off guard me in a movie (TFA) that was otherwise really cute and engaging but also really, really safe (and predictable). Before watching TFA, I thought I had spoiled myself on every major development: Starkiller Base, Hanâs death, Lukeâs last minute apparition, Rey and Finnâs playful chemistry⊠I went to the theatre expecting two hours of harmless entertainment (which I got), the good guys being good and the bad guys being bad, a nostalgia trip at best and an uninspired but ultimately innocuous rehash of the original trilogy at worst⊠but what I actually did was stumble on a gorgeous and completely unexpected hero/villain ship, the kind that had sadly been lacking in my fandom life for years, at least since the good old days of True Blood season 2. No early review or spoiler had prepared me for that. (no early review or spoiler had prepared me for Rey and Kylo interacting at all, which in hindsight is h i l a r i o u s, and few mentioned how fantastic the character of Kylo Ren was. So not just Reylo, but everything surrounding Kylo was a pleasant surprise to me.) Bottom line: I went to see the movie with several expectations, but Reylo wasnât certainly one of those. It wasnât even something I knew I needed in my Star Wars. It just happened.
like, when i say itâs the only exception in a movie that plays it safe, I mean it. Just look at the interrogation scene, and all the pearl clutching it caused. Name another thing in TFA that sparked so much discourse.
itâs also the only dynamic that wasnât ripped, one way or another, off similar relationships in the OT or PT.
curiously enough, Reyâs parentage wank is also one of the main reasons that got me looking more and more into Reylo. Like most people, I walked out of the theatre fully convinced Rey was a Skywalker and precisely Lukeâs daughter. Predictable, but also so typically Star-Warsy, and back then I had no reason to believe theyâd go for subverting the audienceâs expectations. But Reyâs being a Skywalker meant that sheâd necessarily develop at some point some sort of *personal* dynamic with local evil cousin (/brother?) Kylo Ren, a prospect I immediately found more interesting and narratively compelling than whatever relationship she might establish with her presumed deadbeat father, Luke. Were Rey and Kylo going to have a Micheal/Lucifer sort of dynamic, were they going to battle over their âdivineâ legacy? were they going to feel sympathy for each other? would they see each other as family at all? It didnât take me long to realize I was actually more into this than into any other aspect (or dynamic) of the sequel trilogy, and it was all downhill from there.
all the post TFA fan theories concerning Rey and Kylo meeting in the middle and what that could entail for the Force plot (a new balance? Grey Jedi?)
yin/yangâopposites attract dynamicâenemies to friends (to lovers) = I CANNOT RESIST
theyâve seen each otherâs deepest FEARS
THE STARKILLER DUEL!!!
What keeps me interested in it and makes me root for it in canon:
theyâre complicated. Their relationship is complicated. Nothing about them is a simple âgood girl redeems bad guyâ scenario. Neither of them is willing to accept compromises to pull the other to their side, much less win their heart. Theyâll move mountains and cross galaxies (and defy their own masters) to save the otherâs life, but theyâre not going to give up on their ideals, and if thatâs the price to pay theyâre fully willing to fight each other to death. They both understand each other deeply, on some instinctual, spiritual level, and donât understand each other at all. The kinship and intimacy they feel when theyâre in each otherâs brain and soul dissipates when they try to communicate in person, in the same room, and itâs like theyâre talking two different languages. They both want the best for each other, but they disagree on what âbestâ is supposed to mean. This is all very fascinating to me.
theyâre real equals. In the Force, and in terms of narrative weight. See: the lightsaber tug-of-war. (and how interesting it is that in TFA Rey was able to both have exclusive control on the legacy saber and defeat Kylo, while in TLJ they both controlled it to the point that neither of them was eventually able to claim it for themselves?)
I, obviously, root for Kyloâs redemption. I believe Rey will have a huge part to play in it.
lonely eldritch Force children with too much power and too much responsibility on their shoulders, finding solace in each other and crying at the barest glimpse of a bright future together
none of the other options for Rey (or Kylo) interests me. Not even celibate!Reyâas I abundantly discussed before, itâs not the idea of Rey having a platonic/celibate happy ending with no romantic attachments per se that I reject (Iâd be fine with it if the context was different), but the fact that, for it to happen NOW, Reyâs feelings for Ben should be inexplicably reduced to some weak sauce *I only care for your well-being as a friend and Iâm happy to see you go on your merry way and possibly never see you again* pseudo-platonic thing. The way I see it Rey is super fiercely covetous of having Ben at her side, for her own selfish reasons and not just to win the war or because she has a good samaritan complex. Call it love, call it passion, call it passionate friendship, call it force bond shenanigans but⊠donât tell me sheâd be perfectly happy without him.Â
speaking of which, THE FORCE BOND. Sensing the otherâs presence at your sideâbeing able to talk and even touch each other across entire galaxies, feeling what the other feels, but only for a handful of minutes each time, before the vision fades like mist between your fingers and youâre alone again. Dude. Itâs the most beautiful trope EVER.
I need to stress it again: the Force is connecting them.
what we saw during the praetorian guard fightâKylo and Rey fighting together in perfect synchronicity, like the force-bonded warriors they areâkept me awake for many many nights. I want more of that.Â
I do believe that a Rey/Kylo alliance / friendship / partnership / romance is not just the heart of this trilogy but also the only satisfying endgame for it, at least for the Force side of the plot. A new concept of balance thatâs the result of Light and Dark finding harmony and healing the wounds of the past is imo the only way to give the Force a happy ending that doesnât feel like a rehash of the OT one (the Light wins = the Darkness is destroyed = the Jedi were right and the Sith were wrong). Also, consider: the PT ended with the triumph of the Dark Side, and the OT with the triumph of the Light. Itâs not that much of a stretch to imagine that the ST will end with a combination of the two, or perhaps with a subversion of the whole dark/light dichotomy.Â
they havenât kissed and I live for the day they will
(I also live for the day they fight again and thatâs the beauty of this ship: itâs a win-win situation no matter how it goes, and them being sworn enemies is almost as good as them being lovers. almost)