Thanks For Coming To My Pep Talk

Idk if I’m taking it the wrong way but it bugs me how in the Prequels, Anakin’s love for his mother Shmi and his wife Padme are framed as his weakness and that his emotions are what drove him to the Dark Side when it was all just natural. They took little Anakin away from his mom and then shamed him for missing her and told him to “man up”, when he was concerned for her the Jedi told him to stop caring but he didn’t and he was right: his mom had been in danger. But his tears when she died are not him being sad that she died, but that he is “falling to the Dark Side”. As if grieving wasn’t appropriate and instead a sign of evilness.

And when pregnant Padme was dying in his dreams, Anakin wasn’t taken seriously by Yoda and told to just stop caring because “death is natural”. And what did we get? Padme did die in the end. There is a reason that he was trying to keep his love to her a secret and eventually turned to Palpatine: Because no one listened to him when he was expressing concern and emotions for his family members. Palpatine seemed to be the only one to care about his feelings and the only one to give him actual advice, but Anakin his still framed as the bad guy for listening to his feelings, especially his feelings towards women, as they are essentially “corrupting his pure mind and true self”. And I don’t care that this was some kind of shitty, self-fulfilling prophecy.

Luke is told similar stuff in the Originals: that he should shut off his emotions because they are “leading him to the Dark Side” or that he should “stop loving Leia” because the other (bad) men could see this as a weakness. Yet Yoda and the other Jedi are still framed as wise and right, while Anakin and Luke are supposed to come off as bratty and impulsive. Not to mention that fear alone doesn’t lead to hatred because experiencing fear is very much needed in a human’s life to prevent them from dangers. Especially fearing for your loved ones is not, as the Jedi put it, something bad that will turn you evil.

But still, it is shown that Luke being concerned and having intense emotions is what makes him fail his training and therefore something he should stop, to be “better”. But in the end, Luke successfully brings Vader back to the Light because he was thinking of him as a father in an emotional way and this is how he managed to reach out to that last spark of Anakin that was left in Vader.

Both Anakin and Luke are actually at their best when they are trying to save their friends and family, they are determined and compassionate, not evil, because they are right.

In the Sequels though, Ben Solo aka Kylo Ren is actually framed as good for staying to his true self and emotions in the end and his love for his parents and Rey is not something that corrupts him, but what brings him back to the Light in the end. (In addition, I wanted to mention that I firmly believe that Kylo Ren is a character who is coded as mentally ill). The good relationships with women in his life is what fuels his good side, not the other way around, like in the Prequels. Same with Luke at the end TLJ on Crait, where he is fueled by giving his sister hope.

Especially in TFA, Kylo is constantly seen trying to put on an emotionless face and to deny his true feelings (”[Han] means nothing to me.”), which result in fits of rage because it is actually damaging him to mask his true self. We have seen Kylo/Ben at the end of TROS: the tantrum-throwing bad guy isn’t who he really is. He isn’t taken seriously by someone either, until Rey comes by and offers him support, what gives him hope and a reason to change. And regarding Kylo being a “crybaby who should man-up” - this is a dangerous thing to say as well. Kylo isn’t actually crying in the moments when he’s evil, but in the moments where he is allowing himself to feel his real emotions.

Take a look at the confrontation between him and Han in TFA for example: When Han approaches Kylo on the bridge, he is trying to talk him out of thinking that the “mighty Kylo Ren” whom Snoke apparantly values and teaches so well, is an illusion and that he didn’t destroy his son. Kylo still tries to be in his role until his true self breaks out: he starts crying and admits his true feelings (”I’m being torn apart. I want to be free of this pain!”). And we see that he actually is torn apart and thinking of going back to the Light side. But when he decides not to and commit the horrible act of killing his father instead, he stops crying and puts on an emotionless face,shutting off his true feelings once again, right in the moment where his father forgivingly strokes his cheek one last time.

And what happens? Kylo trying to cut off the bond with his father and telling himself to not feel a thing about the murder only results in backfiring, causing even more pain and confusion for Kylo and throwing him into an even bigger identity crisis. And he realizes that he cannot kill his mother and feels ashamed for what he has done to her life in TROS, believing that she will hate him, even if he comes back. He knew how bad his crimes were in the end.

But when he is vulnerable to Rey, actually crying out of compassion for her, he has a goal in life again: killing Snoke and starting a new order with Rey by his side. Not quite what is needed, but it is the next step in being himself again and valuing his actual wants again. No matter how much I hated how they trated the character in TROS, I will always cherish those 3 minutes of Ben Solo we got at the end.

At the end, Kylo/Ben was cherished for his true emotions and giving in to them, to his love and concern and having compassion and not to suppress his feelings because he was told that this was right. He wasn’t weak for crying, he was weak for thinking he shouldn’t.

Because this is actually a beautiful message that boys should keep in mind.

Telling boys and young men to be emotionless, to be careful with bonding with other people and staying to their true emotions on the other hand, is not a good message.

Also, for more information on this topic, watch “The Case Against The Jedi Order” by Pop Culture Detective on YouTube.

Thanks for coming to my pep talk

Like father like son

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j0233

5 years ago

But in the Saga of Larten Crepsley, he and Wester looked at each other confused. “They had never seen a deep gaze in any man’s eyes” roughly translated, but still there

*walks in*

*walks onto stage*

*grabs microphone*

*breathes in to prepare*

*looking down at the confused audience*

“Larten is bi”

*The crowd cheers as I drop my mic and enter the shadows of where I once came*

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j0233

5 years ago

It hasn't been confirmed by LF yet, but I'm still quaking

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j0233

5 years ago

REYLO!!!!!!!

Rey: “No one understands me”

Ben: “I do.”

😭😭

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j0233

4 years ago

Lol of course Christians should be loving but should we be yelled at for simply having a set of beliefs? Ya’ll attack and belittle almost no other religious group— it’s highly hypocritical. If ya’ll want “acceptance” why don’t you extend it— even to those who you disagree with?

Meet The Faces Of The “I’m Sorry” Campaign, A Group Of Christians Who Go To Chicago’s Pride Celebrations

Meet the faces of the “I’m Sorry” campaign, a group of Christians who go to Chicago’s pride celebrations every year to apologize for their past hateful actions against LGBT people. The group started in 2010 and has since moved to other cities across the world. This is what love looks like. (via the Advocate)

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j0233

5 years ago

#BenSoloDeservedBetter

Tbh, all of Ben’s scenes were powerful/meaningful and had me bawling in the thatre today, but I still think they kinda wasted his character, or better, missed a lot of opportunities with him and didn’t handle his story arc well:

-He had little screen time/dialouge (the “No one knows me”/”But I do” bit didn’t even show up??) and barely interacted with characters other than Rey, as well as being directly talked about by the other characters. Would’ve loved a short argument between him and Hux or a heated meeting between him and Finn/Poe to see how their reactions would have changed.

-Leia didn’t mention him while talking to Rey (really missed such a part), didn’t react to his redemption because she was killed off right before, but she also didn’t even do so at all as a force ghost. It’s kinda upsetting to me that she seemed to pay attention to Rey, who is essentially a stranger taking her name, than to her own son redeeming himself and dying for his love.

- Ben’s death is what bugs me the most. I get that it was him making a selfless choice, sacrificing himself for someone he loves rather than a selfish choice against and sacrificing someone he loves like with Han and I appreciate that it was essentially him finding peace and realizing whom he loves most and what makes him happy but… idk it felt so small and unimportant in the context of the movie to me. Partly because he was so isolated from/ignored by the other characters so it only had an impact on Rey, she’s the only one who knows about it and didn’t show much emotion about it to me, especially afterwards.

To add to that I’d say that he’s just kind of… forgotten after his death? It makes me so sad that he struggles, redeems himself, realizes so much, crawls in pain to his love and saves her by giving his own life, actually smiling for the first time in the whole ST and is then never mentioned again? He’s neither mentioned by any of his family members (they are there but just help Rey instead?? Since Han was just a memory/metaphor) nor honored for his redemption and sacrifice by anyone. They could’ve just made a scene where Rey mentions him saving her to anyone, finds his lightsaber and smiles (okay that might be a bit weird but I hope y’all know what I mean), buries his helmet in the desert or makes a gravestone for him or something like that. There seems to be like… no appreciation from her side afterwards which I find so, so sad and pretty ooc for Rey. Honestly made me dislike her a bit in the end.

All this is even fueled by the fact that he just dematerializes instead of simply dying, so there is no burial like with Vader, which would’ve been a moment of intimacy and honor. She could’ve kept his clothes, but probably didn’t, even though that would’ve been sweet.

They didn’t even bother to make him appear as a force ghost goddamnit! That makes me so mad!

It was just Leia and Luke. Just… having him live on with his family in peace as a spirit after all that would’ve given out at least a little bit of hope.

But no. His redemption, sacrifice and death is just kinda glossed over like it was no big deal in the end, as if it hadn’t been such a huge theme in the ST and it’s pretty ironic that Ben got more attention and hopeful support from his family when he was evil than when he was alive and good.

To me it appears that Ben was almost punished for his redemption in a way. Even if he has done terrible things, he just shouldn’t be erased after that, especially not if the focus has always been on his inner conflict anyways.

(Ugh and don’t even get me started on the fact that he didn’t get a happy life with Rey - which they both deserved - or real revenge on Palpatine and that we never got to see his emotions towards Vader…)

I mean, maybe he did imply that it was too late for him to be saved, but I call BS since to me it was just his uncertainty speaking and a parallel to TFA. His princey unmask in TFA even implied that he was still human and that he was still able to be saved. And maybe he didn’t become a force ghost because he lives on with Rey’s soul, but heck, I WANNA SEE STUFF LIKE THAT ON SCREEEN! Not in my mind or the novels or metaphors!

(And am I the only one that feels like chunks of TFA and TLJ were ignored and the Reylo conversations were kinda a bit too… unemotional and too much focused on their parents rather than Rey and Ben? I also had the impression that Rey didn’t have much “real emotion” towards Ben in this movie? Like their love was very one-sided in the final movie?)

That being said, I really do appreciate Ben sacrificing himself for Rey, his smile, their kiss and that whole thing with him coming to peace with his father’s murder, it was beautiful and helped showing that he genuienly loved her, that he was in fact deeply regretting killing Han, and it was completely erasing his “monster”-label in my eyes, but Ben still really shouldn’t have died like that. It’s just not hopeful to me.

Furthermore, I firmly believe that they didn’t kill him off because of Han or because he couldn’t be saved, but because they had to kill off the last Skywalker to close the saga, but still…

His redemption/sacrifice/death had shockingly little impact on the other characters and story and felt very unimportant/meaningless to me. (Which is also my view on Han’s sacrifice - with Ben dying in the end, it sorta felt a lot less meanigful and - I hate to say it - like a waste. Han surely went out there because he wanted his son to live, not to die and be forgotten by everyone)

In the end, I really don’t think that JJ and his team handled the ending of Kylo’s/Ben’s story well. And I’d say that even if I wasn’t a Reylo. Ben could’ve found his peace and payed for his sins without ending like that.

#BenSoloDeservedBetter

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j0233

5 years ago