I've been hearing that a lot of people think Kylo was too angry and overreacting to everything too, which is interesting, because apparently they thought the same of Hayden's portrayal of Anakin when those movies first came out.
But I think both Anakin and Ben/Kylo have every reason to be as angry as they are. Anakin because of what he has been through and how hard he has worked, but all of his efforts just not being good enough for the Jedi to grant him what he's working so hard toward. He has the added pressure of prophecy sitting on his shoulders.
Is he a bit dramatic? Yes. But everything around him is too. Literally everything.
And with Ben... Well, look at his parents. Han and Leia were constantly bickering, even if it was lovingly. Look at their love story and how much they yelled at each other. Ben is also the child of not a divorce, but a rough parentage. Han couldn't bring himself to settle down and ran off to keep doing Smuggler stuff with Chewie. That couldn't have been easy on kid Ben. His mother was deeply involved in politics due to her inherited position. She was continuing to be the leader she had always been, because she had to. The Empire fell, but as we are seeing, the Dregs of the Empire didn't just vanish. She was involved in cleanup.
Then probably around ten or so he's shipped off with his uncle, this guy who is obsessed with the lost Jedi of the past. He spends years with him, trying to prove to him that he can be a good Jedi. There's a lot of pressure there. He's one of the first students in his uncle's school. Grogu chose Din. He travels around with Luke who practically raises him for some of the most formidable years of his life. But his uncle is too focused on his work as well, just like his parents were. Too focused on saving the galaxy. Bringing back what once was. The New Republic, the New Jedi.
No wonder he was sick of the past and always saying that you should kill it! The final straw being when Luke (who I believe was blinded by Palpatine who put the fear of a "shadow of Vader" into Han, Luke and Leia, feeding off their trauma) tried to kill him in his sleep. So consumed by a shadow of the past and fear that he made a mistake that started exactly what he was trying to avoid.
Ben had one of those moments like Nick Wilde describes in Zootopia. That moment of "fine. If all you can see me as is a shadow of Vader, that's what I will become."
The most tragic part about that to me is that I think Ben also feared the power he held. He probably tried to keep his head held high and maintain the legacy that came with his family. But in the long run he needed someone who could genuinely focus on him and help him. Someone who could look past a world of black and white, dark and light, and acknowledge someone more complex than that. But that's not what he was given.
So in my mind, his crash outs are justified. He's not just a whiny young man crashing out. He's a caged, tortured individual who is lashing out like an injured animal who has only known abuse by the hand that currently holds his leash. He is tired of trying to prove himself and being told at every turn that he is too much like someone else. He is never accepted for who he really is until Rey looks right past the mask of Kylo Ren and names his biggest fear.
