I'M DEAD INSIDE PLS SB HELP I CAN'T STAND IT JUST FUKC

#Don’t touch her boyfriend

"My Lady. My Alys"

Targaryen/Alys Rivers, Strong bastard witch girl

Why the ending of ‘The Rise of Skywalker’ hurts you so damn much right now

In a post from a few days ago, I wrote about how a big part of why Ben Solo’s death is causing intense grief and sadness is the success of the film’s depiction of the Reylo dynamic and Ben’s progression from selfish to selfless love. But there’s more to the ending of the film than Ben’s death, and I would say the scenes that follow and how they are framed carry the bulk of the responsibility for the emotional devastation people are experiencing right now.

Ultimately, what The Rise of Skywalker lacks in its ending is a sense of catharsis - since we see no meaningful emotional resolution for Rey, the viewer is robbed of any real sense of peace or closure. We witness Rey’s stunned shock in the moment that Ben slips away from her, but the emphasis is then immediately shifted to Leia (we are to understand that she only allows herself to fade when her son passes on, with mother and child leaving the world together). 

It’s possible to understand the reasoning behind this (by having Leia’s spirit hold on for so long, suggesting she desperately wanted to be there to guide him into the afterlife, they are clearly attempting to sell the viewer on the extent of her devotion to her child), but it doesn’t work due to the sad reality that the sequel trilogy simply never built up the relationship between Leia and Ben. It’s well known that the original vision for Episode IX was that it would be Leia’s movie, presumably giving her a critical role in her son’s redemption, and it’s clear that J.J. attempted to honour this intention with The Rise of Skywalker despite having very limited footage to work with. In a world where Carrie Fisher were still with us and able to act face-to-face with Adam Driver, convincing us of Leia’s abiding love for her only child and her renewed investment in his redemption (a necessary development, given her despondency regarding Ben in The Last Jedi), the juxtaposition of her ‘passing on’ with Ben’s would have had a much greater emotional impact. 

But as it stands, Ben Solo’s last meaningful human connection, as established over three films, is with Rey - and we never really get to see her mourn for him. This not only makes Ben’s fate sting that much more - it also shortchanges Rey herself. Ben’s joy and relief during as he held Rey in his arms were matched only by her jubilation at finally finding herself able to squeeze the hand of Ben Solo, the man she had loved and seen even when he was at his darkest as Kylo Ren. While Ben at least got to die knowing he had saved the life of the woman he loved, secure in the knowledge that she loved him as he loved her, Rey is left bewildered and alone in the crumbled ruins of her grandfather’s sin. She has nothing left to hold on to other than her almost-lover’s clothes.

When Rey returns to the Resistance base amidst the celebrations, we see her looking utterly grief-stricken as she embraces Finn and Poe. But the shots are fleeting and ambiguous, open to the viewer’s projections due to the chronic indecision that cripples the whole film - who are Finn and Poe crying for? Leia, who they had previously mourned? Snap, who only Poe had any sort of tangible relationship with? And what about Rey? Is she crying for Leia? Ben? Her own parents, now she knows they actually cared for her? All of the aforementioned? This sort of ambiguity is great when we can expect a continuation, an answer, but this is meant to be an ending. In view of that, it’s a serious problem that we don’t even know who our leads are expressing sadness for. 

This issue is only compounded by the final sequence on Tatooine. Rey travels there with BB-8 alone, undercutting the sense that she has found her family and belonging with the Resistance - she chooses to travel alone with a droid, which is a particularly striking decision when it’s remembered that Rey is shown repeatedly identifying with the suffering of droids throughout the film (specifically, she recognises how D-0 is skittish because he has been treated badly by a past owner). The decisions made surrounding Rey on Tatooine recall how she was in the earliest sequences of The Force Awakens, sledding down slops and trekking the desert with BB-8 - it really feels like she has regressed, becoming a child again instead of achieving maturity. This impression is heightened by the characters she is shown to interact with across the sequence - specifically an extremely rude old woman, who demands her name, and the benevolent Force ghosts of Luke and Leia, who gaze upon her contentedly from a distance. 

All of this creates dissonance when viewed in relation to the culmination of Rey’s dynamic with Ben, since we are seeing a young woman who has had her first great love and counterpart in the Force snatched away from her having that massive loss completely erased. Instead of giving her space to grieve and recover, Rey’s final scene is used to serve the legacies of the heroes of a previous generation. When she assumes the Skywalker name, she is also assuming responsibility for the Skywalker legacy. The Skywalker legacy is also Ben’s legacy, but the film has no apparent interest in reminding the viewer of that - there is no allusion to Ben, let alone an appearance by his Force ghost. It’s a bizarre and baffling decision because it’s essentially J.J. Abrams undermining the mythic power of his own characters. Their victories and losses are brushed into the margins of the film, sacrificed at the altar of phoney nostalgia.

I wish J.J. had made different decisions and quite simply made a different film, but he did not. However, I am optimistic. I am already seeing fans, particularly female fans, recognise the omissions and gaps in the narrative, taking steps to fill them with their writing, art and discussion. Transformative fandom has rarely been more critical than it is right now, and I’m grateful to everyone that is, to mangle a quote from J.J. Abrams’ own movie, beginning to make things right again.

deleted scene from dofp

“We were separated. He couldn’t touch me.”

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Season 8 Jonsa Fix-It Fic List

Our hands are cold, the moon sets low [Link] | @redbelles | 3,311 | The letter is short, a bare handful of words that burrow beneath her skin like slivers. She reads them over and over until they are carved into her heart, red as weirwood sap. Red as blood. Daenerys is dead. The North is free, and yours, as it should be. Take care of our family. Or: Jon and Sansa in the aftermath.

I laid my weapons down [Link] | lagardère (laurore) | 6,046 | “It is far easier, isn’t it, to be at war?” Or, how Jon in the aftermath of the Battle of Winterfell deals with the end of the Long Night.

In Love and Death We Don’t Decide [Link] | @pardonmymannerssir | 7,371 | Her siblings arrive like leaves carried on a sudden breeze, alighting upon the placidity of her life and casting wide ripples before being swept away again. Their movements are cyclic, changing and shifting like the seasons, but one thing will never change: Winterfell is home.

Come out of hiding (i’m right here beside you) [Link] | @noqueenbutthequeeninthenorth | After the death of Daenerys Targaryen, Jon Snow goes to live beyond the Wall, while Sansa Stark, the newly-named Queen in the North, marries a Dornish prince. Three years later, when Jon finally gathers the courage to return to Winterfell, he finds that while many things have changed, one hasn’t: he’s still in love with Sansa.

We set fire in the snow [Link] | @framboise | 7,536 | There is a coldness, a numbness, inside of her, a frozen landscape where her heart used to be, and some days she thinks it might choke her, that one morning her maids might enter her room to find a woman carved of ice in her place and Sansa Stark vanished.

Fashioned for Love [Link] | lizimajig | 9,082 | “What does the Queen in the North want with a common traitor and queenslayer?” he asks. He hadn’t been expecting an answer, not really, and even though his blackest parts might have thought it – wished it, willed it – he’s certainly not expecting a kiss like this, like she is a woman dying of thirst and he is the last stream in Westeros. And he leans into it; she can have every last piece if it means she lives.

Like winter we are cruel [Link] | lagardère (laurore) | 73,599 | Winter has come to Winterfell, Jon expects a war north of the Wall, and Littlefinger is brewing one inside the very castle. Alternate season 7 and 8; Sansa and Jon face the Long Night.

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Jonsa Fic Lists:

Master Fic List

Season 8 Fix-it Fics, Pt 2

Season 6 Fics

Kink Fics

Flash Fics

Follow me @tacitwhisky for Jonsa fic recs, meta, and fanfic. I swear I’m good at at least two of those.

I don’t know if something like this already exists, but I felt that I needed this so here you go XD

Just a dream.