“Just You”: “Can you see my surroundings? I can’t see yours. Just you.”
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Toss a coin to your artist and reblog this if you liked it!
So much of this is about the balance of opposing, yet complementary, elemental and celestial symbolism for these characters, all of which are given to us in canon.
Rey is water, and the moon. Our first glimpse of Rey’s face is when she’s taking a drink of water, and a rite of passage for her was the plunge into the pool in front of the dark side mirror with a sliver of new moon just visible.
Ben is fire, and the sun (son). Our first glimpse of Kylo in TFA is in the village on Jakku, which is ablaze. The first time we see his face, he places his mask on a tray full of ashes. He kills Han the moment in which the sun is consumed by Starkiller Base; in his darkest hour, his light literally goes out.
When Rey and Kylo reach through the bond to touch hands in the hut the two elements are in balance; there is a fire that’s just hot enough to warm against the chill of the storm outside.
In contrast, the TLJ fight in the throne room has them literally surrounded by flames, the consuming zeal of Kylo’s vision of domination. Their last duel versus each other is in the middle of a raging ocean, which perfectly reflected Rey’s mental and emotional state. Lost in the sea of her rage, Rey kills Kylo, and it’s in the rain of her regret that Ben is reborn.
All of this went into the symbolism in this piece; the balance between them as they accept their bond and become themselves as a dyad. Ben’s fire reaches out to warm Rey, as her water reaches out to renew him. His sun rises as her moon waxes. They’re sharing the most private of gazes, two halves of one whole, reaching out with a healing touch for each other.
More eloquent and informed folks have written metas on this; if you’d like a more coherent take, there is one particularly thorough one by nevernerenoughblog. There are more, of course, but that one is closest to the thoughts that were swirling through my head as I tried to compose this piece.
Huge hugs and kisses and adoration to my long suffering beta, @amphigoury-art, for being there for me no matter which fandom I’ve bounced into, and @albymangroves for always being an enabler. With thanks to @amber_amberson on twitter for her awesome spotify mixes, which I cherrypicked for motivational material. Even more thanks to @the-adam-driver-files for providing high quality references of our distinctive and unique leading man’s features. I’m not sure I quite caught him, but that’s my fault, not yours <3
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