have you ever heard the tragedy of the jedi killer

“I have never felt like this.”

Rey sighs, her lips blue, and she doesn’t know if she means this cold or this in pain. It’s an odd thing to not know about yourself. 

“Just stay awake.”

She’s slung over his back as the wind whips her wet hair around their faces. Sleep sounds excellent right now, but he keeps pinching her legs until she jerks awake. 

“Listen to my voice. Don’t go to sleep, I know it’s tempting, Scavenger, but I will kill you before the cold does if you go to sleep.”

The wind is suddenly gone. A door closed behind them. She feels his shoulders sink with a sigh of relief.

He keeps carrying her through a space that feels too silent, too still, compared to the blizzard they just escaped. She’s half-asleep when he sets her down. 

Kylo Ren looms over her, swallowing as his eyes skate over her chattering teeth, white fingers, wet clothes. He grunts to himself, shaking his head, and grabs the fabric at her throat. 

“This isn’t what it looks like.”

He tears her shirt open in a clean motion. She yelps, but it’s not like she can be colder with it gone. It’s soaked with ice water, all of her wet, from stumbling into the frozen lake when the ice underneath her gave way.

She’s too numb to care when he slides her under a set of sheets. How long had he been carrying her? Where were they?

He’s…getting naked, as well, staring at her face, shrugging of his clothes like they’re on fire. He jumps under the covers with her, banding her tight in a vice grip, but it doesn’t make sense because the panic she has over the assault never finds the dreaded encounter of him inside her. 

He’s just holding her.

“Rey,” her eyelids are fluttering closed as he pleads with her. “Rey. Stay awake. Talk to me.”

“I don’t like talking to you. You were just trying to kill me.”

“Well now I’m trying to keep you alive,” he growls, tightening his arms. She’s starting to feel, a little bit, warmed by his presence. “Tell me about your speeder on Jakku. How did you ever get that thing to start?”

“Every morning, three smacks with a wrench. Left, right, slightly to the lower left at the hood, right above the controls. I would have to straddle the hood and lean over from the seat.”

Her teeth are chattering.

He grabs at his cowl and covers her wet hair with it, rubbing roughly. 

“Mhmm. Talk to me about the weather on Jakku.”

“Colder than you would expect,” and she shivers out a laugh. Giving in, she groans, pressing herself up against him without resisting. He is warm. He jumps when her skin touches his, but presses back insistently. She feels him shiver as the blankets underneath them start to lock in his body heat. It’s slow going, he’s given a lot to her. 

“Don’t sleep,” he commands, and it’s there; the press from his mind she has avoided for a long time. She grits her jaw and lets it fill her like a spout of hot water into a bath. So much warmer, he is giving her his warmth, his consciousness…

“You could toss me out of bed onto the floor right now and have this war be over, you know that.”

She cranes her head back to look at him.

He’s meticulously picking ice out of a loose strand of her brown hair. 

He shakes his head, running his hand up and down her spine, the other trying to tuck her fingers under his arm to burrow them somewhere warm. Anything that feels warm on him, she touches, not minding for the sake of her modesty when she’s been given an ice-bath on this kriffing planet. 

“Who would I be, without my enemy? What would I possibly do with myself?”

It’s almost said like a lullaby. 

She merely gives a brief purr in response, enjoying the encroaching warmth.

“Don’t go to sleep.”

Four times Ben was there for Rey after Exegol and she didn’t know it, and one time she did. READ ON AO3

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Me: *sobs* Ahhhhhhhhhh - ha - hahhhhhhhh!!!!!!

Share in my misery, @megsann13, @the-coruscanti-blogger, @batmantaking-hobbits2gallifrey, @fromsolowithlove, @thetragedyofprinceben, @demichrising, @ruinofsilver, @catefrankie,and @itspileofgoodthings!

The lightsaber first emerges on Takodana, a growing green world, sandwiched between Han’s offer to take Rey on as a mate for the Falcon (a symbol of Ben) and Ben’s arrival to bridal carry her off in imitation of an ancient form of marriage. Rey is called to it, into her own subconscious, to explore her identity. Touching it she gets a vision and identification with Ben (which I talked about a little more in my identity meta). But then Rey runs, and Finn takes possession of it. Finn is best man, guarding the ring/symbol of shared identity and guarding the bride. Fast forward to the Forest. Ben points out that the lightsaber—the identity—is his, but Finn was given it to find/guard Rey with, the one to whom it also belongs (by virtue of it calling to her), and Finn tells him “come and take it then”. He fulfills his duty of defending the bride admirably, but is ultimately defeated. Then, when Ben goes to claim it, it flies to Rey, and he is left to stare at her in a new recognition—”it is you”—because the Skywalker identity, his identity, just flew to a girl who he shares a mysterious connection with, a bond we learn is Dyadic in nature, meaning a married one. 

So the force is like “BEHOLD FOOL ITS YOUR WIFE” and Ben is like 

*tiny voice* “my wIfE??” 

Rey brands him with a wound of love with the marker of the Skywalker identity, now a symbol both of his family and her as having lately been Force-married into it via bridal carry and force bond. But Rey’s not ready for this!! So she runs away to Old Man Luke looking for parental advice and asking him to take up his identity and take it from her. She doesn’t want to have to bear it, because she’s afraid of what it means for her—which is growing up. But Luke refuses and leaves her with it, until the marriage bond has been developed enough for Rey to feel not so scared, and she reaches out across the stars to take Ben’s hand. Then she hurries to return the marker of the Skywalker identity to him. And he takes it and gives it right back to her in yet another symbolic wedding.

Because now Ben has moved on from “my wIfE?” to

(Same picture).

And Rey’s good with that at first, but then they both panic because they’re not ready for this!! And when Rey tries to take the saber this time she can’t because it’s both of their identity now. Rey reverts back to denial and denies that the saber (and identity) is hers (denies they have a bond and they are married and she IS a Skywalker because of that) until finally, we get to the Big Moment. Rey and Ben look and see themselves, their own identity, in each other. Rey passes the saber and the Skywalker identity to redeemed Ben through their marriage bond and they fight as one, because they are. 

In conclusion, the sequel trilogy is just 

Shots like these

are literally shown

from Rey’s perspective.

Her view of Ben is intentionally emphasized throughout the entire movie because when compared to other scenes of Ben, when Rey is absent, he is not shown as gentle as this.

I highlight the word gentle here because allow me to introduce the shots of Ben when he’s not seen from Rey’s perspective.

Shots like these

Are not shown from Rey’s perspective.

There is a clear distinction between how the rest of the galaxy sees Ben and how Rey sees Ben.

So that’s why when we see this scene:

We are absolutely heartbroken because for Rey—after seeing Ben so gentle and soft—she now sees the man that the rest of the galaxy sees.

The worst part for her, though, is that she knows this is not who Ben truly is. She knows that he’s still conflicted.

He’s her love interest your honor. They have a romantic connection to each other and somehow have to navigate it while being on opposite sides of a war.

This is why Rey hesitates to take his hand—why she desperately wants to even though she knows he’s still conflicted.

To everyone else, when Ben is angry, he doesn’t get the reaction of complete heartbreak. He is feared. But Rey has seen Ben at his core, and so she could never be scared of him because she knows it’s all a mask. She knows he defends himself with a rigid outer shell to hide his vulnerability and compassion.

It’s why she even says it so clearly in TROS:

“I see through the cracks in your mask.”

It’s why we’re given hope at the end of TLJ when the bond flickers back to life and we see this shot:

Because this is Rey’s perspective, and the man she fell for is not angry anymore, but full of regret.

The last time Rey sees Ben in TLJ is a reminder that he is not truly gone, and he can still come back.

In fact, this scene reassures her that not all hope is gone.

So when she closes the door on him, it’s only a warning. A warning that she will not be as easy on him next time. A warning that he won’t be met with forgiveness right away.

Rey sets her boundaries, but she doesn’t give up because it all implies that there will be a next time—that she doesn’t intend to leave Ben alone.

She knows there will be a resolution.

reylo week 2020 → day five

Then they actually meet? And Ben stalks her like a hunting animal, and freezes her and muses oh so softly, “The girl I’ve heard so much about” like he wasn’t just rage-burning down a room and choking an officer over the mention of her because now he actually sees her he’s just kind of awed? And steady? And in an unprecedented display of confidence he sweeps her smoothly off her feet in the most story-book and dramatic way imaginable, the very embodiment of Death and the Maiden 

But then Finn freaks and chases them epically and futilely as he whisks her away in his (chariot) shuttle like a dark Lord and Finn desperately goes to Han—

And Han just waves him off because it’s actually just his son and he knows Rey’s the type of girl Ben’ll crumble in front of like a nature valley granola bar, which Ben IMMEDIATELY proceeds to do, because he gets her back to base and nO OnE Is AlLoWeD To ToUcH HeR And he just lets her sleep on that combination bed/throne while he gazes at her bathed in light, and he doesn’t want to stand because oh no, what if that scares her, he’s big and might be scary, so he crouches like a creature but in a position that makes him look suddenly much closer to a knight.

And when Rey wakes up she spots him immediately but?? He doesn’t seem threatening?? And she gulps and asks where she is and he says?? “You’re our guest”?? (Lumiere was banished from the room because the full song might be a little off-putting). He’s reassuring her, everything about this situation is orchestrated to re-assure her as best he can that he’s not actually gonna hurt her, pls don’t be scared strange girl I’m not evil and she asks for her friends and he reminds her their “good guy status” is relative, they’ve all done scary bad things too but also don’t worry, they’re fine I don’t know where they are and I don’t really care. And Rey’s fuming internally because she feels like a caged animal and she feels un-scared enough to be mad and he just? Is curious and maybe a little amused. “You still want to kill me?” And she spits boldly back that he’s just a creature in a mask. 

And he STANDS UP and TRANSFORMS and suddenly where a wild beast crouched stands a tall and radiant human prince with perfectly coiffed hair and sad eyes looking across the room at Rey and Rey is Visibly Taken Aback. And Ben moves closer to try to interrogate her, only by asking questions that he sounds really bored of and she’s like “information ok here’s the incredibly detailed specs of the droid I can ramble off off the top of my head while refusing to look at you” and the way he huffs?? The way he cuts right through the facade and gets to her truth/her heart, completely forgetting he was supposed to be looking for a droid? Then the way she does it right back and both of them are So Shook and Cannot Handle It so Ben has to run away? And then?? When they meet in the forest?? In the snow and trees and starlight, and she calls him a monster and tries to fight but he’s a wreck and if he deals with her he wants to deal with her alone so he sweeps her aside and takes out Finn and just when he goes to claim the saber?? It soars past him?? The thing that belongs to him, his identity, the heart of his true self, flies right past his face and he watches it and his heart fall into the hands of The Girl

 and he looks at her like half a dozen scattered stanzas of poetry have all crowded into his head at once

But Rey’s in “I’m small and terrified but Fight Me!” mode and he only fights to get her to a point where he has enough time in between blows to ask if she will stay with him, but he’s a bona fide  Fool And brings up the Force and the lightbulb goes off in Rey’s head and she remembers “ooh yeah, the Force, I downloaded all those files from your brain I can do that now” and absolutely Wrecks him but he doesn’t care because he knows his heart was wrecked long since, from the very moment he first gazéd upon her, 

And then the Force rolls it’s eyes and is like “Not on My Watch, kids! I knew it was a bad idea to let these two idiots fall in love AND give them lightsabers, now knock it off you two” and breaks the earth in half in between them to make them stop long enough that it can try the mind-bridge technique instead. 

I mentioned before that I wanted to talk about the dialogue in the Pasaana Force Bond scene because I actually really love it. It’s all such high key repressed, intense, romantic drama (couched in pretty traditionally romantic language too) that it works as a pretty nuanced and simultaneously slap-in-the-face re-introduction to their dynamic (and it delights my little gremlin heart.)

 I wanted to try to articulate a little more *ahem* coherently, the significance of the Exogol Force bond in terms of story symbolism. 

This is the equivalent of Ben’s moment on the Death Star for Rey’s character. It’s the moment when all her pain and knots come undone, the healing of her wounds like Ben’s are healed earlier. But placing it in context gives it an even deeper meaning, and makes it the turning point, the crux, the climax of Rey’s journey. Because this is what is going on when it happens

Rey has confessed her greatest fear. It’s herself. And confronting fear is the destiny of a Jedi. If Rey is to finish her journey, she must face herself. And just like Luke’s confrontation with himself comes is facing Vader, Rey’s is facing Palpatine. She’s been told she “is” Palpatine. Facing him is facing herself in a mirror. It’s a moment of identification. As Beauty she must face the Beast in herself and accept it if she is to overcome it. As a Jedi she must face her darkness and recognize it as herself too. She’s seen her darkness. She’s had her moment in which she realizes like every Beauty down through time “I was the monster, my Beast,” in taking up Kylo Ren’s saber. In that moment she becomes the monster, the dark thing that sought to destroy Ben Solo. And her reaction to that is horror. This moment, on Exogol, is the moment she must face the monster inside her. She “is” a Palpatine, but in despair she creeps slowly forward to become him fully. She is going to face Palpatine, face herself, but she is being consumed instead by the recognition of the monster, the dark, inside her. Before she couldn’t acknowledge it; but as she creeps forward to finally do so, it begins to drown her. 

The Monster seems too big for her; she’s full of a certain fear that it is going to swallow her up. But finally, she is facing it. She looks at it.

In Star Wars, a look is often used as a moment of identification. When Ben looks at Finn in the village on Jakku, it is identification. When Luke stops fighting and looks at Vader it is also identification; or when Leia looks at Vader as Han is frozen in carbonite. Identification is a moment of acknowledgement and realization, saying “I am you and you are me.” For Rey to look at Palpatine is for her to identify with him, to find herself in him and him in herself. Such a realization is not one she could handle. It would, quite literally consume her. 

Because this is Rey finally, finally looking at herself. She is going to look into the face of the deepest darkest parts of her, and in looking finally know they are there. The boogeyman before her is the embodiment of her fears. He is what she fears with a dreadful certainty she will find when she looks—death, darkness, decay, unremitting desire always grasping and clinging and taking from everyone around her. This is what, in the very depths of her worst fears, she believes she really is. This is what her parents saw in her that caused them to abandon her. (It doesn’t really matter in the end if they hadn’t, because all that crumbles in the face of what she believed for 13 years, alone in the desert with no one coming to help her, her fault people who loved her were dead, her fault she is alone, abandoned, a monster, a mindset Palpatine is making her relive in this very moment). Palpatine is her self-Image. He is a projection of what she thinks she is in the bottom of her soul. And in utter despair, she raises her saber and looks at herself at last.

But she doesn’t see Palpatine. 

She sees Ben.

This is the whole heart of the matter. This is her moment of overcoming. She finally faces the “monster” that’s herself, but it’s also just Ben, who she loves and accepts. And because she’s learned to love and accept him, she can finally—finally—accept herself. Because all the things she’s feared—of them all most greatly being known—are what she’s looking at now, and really, maybe, impossibly, they are not so scary after all. Because Ben’s there. He’s loved and accepted her. He’s the hope to her despair. He came back, and so she can look at, accept the dark, and step back from it too. She doesn’t have to be consumed by it. 

She can love and accept herself because when she looks at herself she sees the face of someone who already has, and the face of someone who she already has too. 

新年快乐，给大家画了一些汉服芮罗