A major inconsistency I hated in TROS was the fact that they wrote Ben and Rey as symbols of the dark and light instead of the gray area in between. Instead of balance.
For one, they made Ben seem like he wanted Rey to turn to the dark for good when literally in TLJ he admitted that he wanted to leave the ways of the Sith and Jedi behind and start a new order with her.
He was drawn to her how she was already. He didn’t want her to come to the dark side. It was never about Jedi vs. Sith. He wanted Rey as Rey from Jakku. Completely herself.
Rey was able to see that Ben was more like her than she realized—not the monster that everyone made him out to be. She went to Ben because she loved him for who he was. Again, it was never about Jedi vs. Sith.
Ben was the bad with the good, and Rey was the good with the bad. They both saw in each other that they were alike in this way. They could understand one another—two people that were tied to opposite ideologies that didn’t quite fit them completely. So they completed each other instead.
This was so important in the dynamic of Reylo on both sides. It was about both of them loving each other for who they truly were despite what other people expected them to be and despite what side of the war they were on.
For Rey, it was clear that she was going to deal with the pressures of being the last Jedi, upholding the expectation that she was 100% good and pure when in reality that wasn’t true.
For Ben, it was clear that he was “destined” to become the next Vader, that he was supposed to uphold the expectation that he was 100% evil and corrupt when in reality that wasn’t true.
Between both Ben and Rey, they were meant to understand each other and relate to one another with the loneliness that those expectations led to. In the end, both of them were misunderstood on opposite sides. The line between them wasn’t of separation, but of connection. They were mirrors of each other, somewhere between dark and light. They were literally the balance.
The arcs of both their characters got messed up the moment TROS decided that Good vs. Evil was all black and white. No gray. The importance of Ben and Rey’s relationship was ruined in my opinion because they literally symbolized the gray. Everything became about Ben wanting Rey to be dark with him, which—and I cannot stress this enough—is so out of character considering the fact that this man was quite literally betrayed by both the light and dark side of the force by the end of TLJ. He wanted nothing to do with either side. Rey suddenly only wanted light side Ben’s hand even though she had failed to resist her own darkness multiple times and was let down by the legend himself, Luke Skywalker.
They were both let down by the sides they served, the people they thought would be there for them. Suddenly that important fact got erased, which in turn erased a huge part of Ben and Rey’s relationship with each other.
The force bond wasn’t about intimacy anymore—a.k.a important conversations because a relationship literally NEEDS communication—but instead became a filler for pointless lightsaber battles that got Ben and Rey nowhere as far as development.
Instead of Palpatine being used as a greater evil, in which the light and dark would work together in order to defeat him, he was used as an asset for the FO when in reality he should’ve been a threat to both sides of the war.
If you kept Ben and Rey in character from TLJ, chances are they would’ve teamed up the moment they learned of Palpatine’s return. It’s not like they literally did this with no hesitation when it came down to Snoke. It’s just the truth. There’s no way you can tell me it was on point for them to have fought about this, or fight each other while knowing they’re the two most powerful people in the galaxy, a literal fucking dyad, that could take down Palpatine together.
And yes, Ben did want to kill Palpatine with her, but again, at that point he wouldn’t have cared who he was siding with in order to get that done (because fuck the old ways of the Sith and Jedi, right?). And Rey wouldn’t have cared either. They should’ve put two and two together like, “damn we’re both basically leading the opposite forces of this war, maybe we should team up so we can get rid of Palpatine ahaha. Also we have a bond that he doesn’t know about and we could totally use that to our advantage rather than FIGHTING each other.”
A villain like Palpatine, who had experienced firsthand what it’s like to be betrayed by his own apprentice *insert clown face emoji* wouldn’t have wanted anyone on his side at this point. He literally raised armies from the dead that were blindly loyal to him, ready to obliterate anyone in his way. He’d been able to survive on his own without anyone’s help. The man was doing just fine.
Sorry that got a little off topic (as most of these rants do), but in the end, it sucked to see that Reylo didn’t develop the way it should have.
Reylo was about acceptance. These were two people who should’ve hated each other, who should’ve wanted to change each other, but they didn’t. Reylo was about how relationships are never perfect—how it was never the idea that the person we fall in love with should be this “dark side” or “light side” version where they are everything we want and nothing we don’t want. Reylo was about humanity and compassion. Empathy. It was about moving on from the past and becoming a better person. It was about choosing redemption, not deserving it. It was about the place in between light and dark, which is how every person in this world is. We’re a blend of good and bad, a mix of right and wrong.
Reylo was about balance, and they took it away.
2087
titsay
areudirty
stormborns
