Thread by @swankmotron

I want to talk about Kylo Ren for a minute. Mute this thread if that troubles you, whether you like him or hate him...

Personally, I'm on the fence about his redemption or not in The Rise of Skywalker. I really want to see the story unfold the way the artists behind the series decide to show us. I will wrestle with whatever that answer is when it comes.

But I keep thinking about why it might be a good thing for him to turn back to the light and find some measure of redemption and, possibly, even forgiveness.

As he's presented in The Force Awakens, Kylo Ren is pretty clearly (to my mind) patterned after the pretty toxic, entitled male behavior that we have in our society.

In TFA and The Last Jedi we learn that he's more complicated than the villain he's been presented to the galaxy as. He feels this pull to the light and works to resist it in order to continue his aims.

There's some social commentary here in Kylo. What does entitlement to a legacy do? Is he the dark side equivalent of a spoiled rich kid, willing to hurt anyone in his way? How does his fragile masculinity manifest in the galaxy? What good does it do him or anyone?

To my mind, I feel like he's a mirror to be held up to these bad qualities in society. And I think it's caused no small amount of consternation in folks watching Star Wars that identify a little too closely with Adam Driver's portrayal of this entitlement.

Star Wars at its core is a myth, a legend, a fable, designed to help each of us find some way to live a better life. To do less damage in the world and to the people around us, to lift up, not tear down.

What more powerful message could it send to have a generation of those entitled men see someone like Kylo Ren take responsibility for their behavior and come back to the light.

But it won't be enough to just make one sacrifice to come back to the light but to watch him go on a journey of self-reflection to actively try to make amends for the wrong he did.

I think one of the problems is that so many of these entitled jerks are brainwashed into that toxic behavior and they have no stories that show them how to come back and work to fix the damage they've inflicted. There's no self-reflection.

Seeing that in Ben Solo could be a powerful reminder that you can always come back and work to repair things.

To right your own wrongs.

To do better.

I have no idea if it will shake out this way.

And maybe it will or maybe it won't. But it could be powerful and helpful in a society where we need all the help we can get.

I've just been thinking a lot about my personal journey processing my own trauma and how I've inadvertently inflicted trauma on others as a side effect of that. And how much work I have to do to fix that between me and my loved ones.

It's hard. I wish there were more examples.

If some of these jerks who see too much of themselves in Kylo Ren see that there's a way to come back from that, then maybe it will be easier for them to actually turn away from their destructive tendencies and do some good.

Or maybe I'm being naive.

And here's the thing: Kylo Ren can turn back to the light and shed that name and be Ben Solo and YOU don't have to forgive him. Neither do any other characters in the universe. And he'd still need to answer for all the evil he did.

Would it add to that power if Rey rejects him and instead of lashing out at her he STILL decides to go on his path to accepting responsibility for what he'd done?

I think so.