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sheepfilms
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RMH
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PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH
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@solitarylurker
never noticed this before i was perusing vol. 10, but whose slippered feet are these in Zero's flashback in VKM 46? there aren't any men the family is close enough to for a scene like this? new boyfriend for Ren? questions to ponder for when Kaname views the photo album...
thank you for sharing the vkm goodies from volume 10! what do you mean by the choices between volume 10 and vkm 47 being peculiar and curious? apart from the extra pages and title page redraw, isn't everything the same?
oh wow, hi, there! thanks for reaching out!
i didn't mean anything in particular regarding the volume itself when i made that comment; i was (rather cryptically, i admit) speculating more about future implications for the final four chapters of the story in light of what Hino chose to focus on with the redraws in vol. 10 and in the new chapter (47) that just released.
my thoughts are mostly nebulous right now so i'm sorry i can't offer more at the moment, but i'll probably speculate more within the next few weeks if i feel up to it. =)
vkm vol. 10 goodies
apparently, Hino added 11 new pages to volume 10, and all of them are zero/yuuki related.
chapter titles:
42: Dawn & Dusk
43: Suffering/Grieving Daughter (complete cover redraw for this one)
44: That Day
45: Happy Memories
46: You Were There
chapter 43 complete redraw (original on the left, new on the right):
the final chapter additions add three spreads to the final Zero and Yuuki scene. they remind me a bit of Night 46 in style, though they're not direct references:
it seems Hino didn't want to lose the original end-page of VKM 46, so she included it on the title page:
some curious changes Hino's made here. i'll be watching the finale chapters unfold with interest, as her choices between volume 10 and vkm 47 are quite peculiar.
curiouser and curiouser...
vkm ending in vol.11
looks like VKM is ending finally.
bunch of callbacks to earlier chapters incoming.
Concerning Babylon, I just watched the final ep and was curious about the whispers that went on when Seizaki finally faced Magase. I havent relistened to them myself, but I was curious if youve discerned them and if they have further meaning on the plot and/or Magase's character.
why, hello, there, friend!
congratulations on making it to the final episode of babylon and thank you for taking the time to leave a message here at my modest little corner of the internet!
as far as i can tell, the whispering in the final showdown is actually part of the music track they’re playing from the soundtrack–it’s track 1, Echoing (feat. Sysha)
probably the whispers are distorted on purpose; they sound that way in the clean audio version of the track as well when i give it a listen
i’m assuming this track was chosen because it’s the main theme of babylon, and thus emblematic of magase and seizaki’s cat-and-mouse dance throughout the show
unfortunately i myself don’t have any further insights into the music itself, but if you had any thoughts, i’d love to hear them!
something that did strike me as i was rewatching the showdown section of episode 12 was that perhaps in my last analysis of magase i missed a subtle component of her character which i can share with you here
i’m wondering if that while she perhaps might be subconsciously searching for “true good,” maybe in her own conscious understanding she’s attempting to prove that “true good” doesn’t exist and there is always some way to corrupt anything “good”; this would better explain her reaction to seizaki’s description of good vs evil in the end (her wicked smile smile, the “you did a baaaad thing”, the little nod with complete lack of surprise when she asks seizaki to describe evil and good, and her little knowing smile and the dismissive “then, i’m sorry but…”)
in this sense, basically, seizaki’s answer on what good vs. evil is offers magase nothing she hasn’t heard before (hence the nodding and agreement and lack of surprise), and renders seizaki as useless to her quest as all her previous conquests likely were
also, magase herself may not even understand what it is she’s truly testing or looking for; she may be running entirely on id/impulse (as evil often does) and she may not even know she is trying to find a good that is true and unbreakable
anyway, complete aside, but thank you so much for reaching out and for humoring my rambling
magase ai’s hidden quest in babylon
after finally getting up the nerve to watch the last episode of babylon, i found myself pondering the ending and sorting out the series in light of the final episode
and i found something surprising hidden within the final episode, something i haven’t seen discussed anywhere--i discovered what i feel was the (perhaps intentional) purpose of the story
for a long time now i’d been wondering if perhaps the structure of the story was meant to be less literal and more a modern “stage” to work through the idea of “what if there really was such a thing as the whore of babylon, what would that look like in a modern context?”
obviously a take such as this, and a story which explored such a topic, wouldn’t be able to use simplistic reductionist themes like “oh, magase ai was just a girl who’d been abused by the patriarchy and was getting a little revenge on the system”; instead, it takes a more visceral mythological slant, granting a child (who becomes a woman) an ability to distort and tempt the weak-willed around her without even meaning to at first, and then easily once her own malice entered the picture
what would such a character look like, and what would their effect on the world be? and what does this mean for us as viewers?
this was what i’d begun to think was at the heart of the story, but i think even that view may be too simplistic in light of the finale
as far as i can tell, all the political set up is basically a stage for the whore of babylon to act out her role--i think any “taboo” would have worked (incest, bestiality, euthanasia, murder, etc.); suicide probably was chosen because it’s more common than the other options and also removes the immediate, easier rejections that murder would entail, but ultimately the exact topic debated doesn’t really matter for the purpose of the story
instead, the topic is the excuse to crack open the veneer of the “good” and the veneer of the righteous, to expose the filth in the system (prostitution, inhumanity, greed, etc.), and to let the whore of babylon have free rein to do her thing--magase ai choosing suicide for her victims rather than some other vice is irrelevant, as i think her gleefully murdering sekuro demonstrates she’d be perfectly happy pursuing whatever vice moved her along in her quest
and here’s where the little surprise hit me with the ending--the whole damn story is a race between magase ai and seizaki zen: which one of them can find what they’re looking for first before the other is destroyed?
seizaki is obviously looking for the meaning of evil and how to separate good from evil and eradicate evil; magase’s quest is the exact inverse of seizaki’s--she is looking for the meaning of good and trying to separate good from evil
the difference between magase and seizaki, besides their perspectives, is (i think) that magase wants to find “true good”, the good that cannot be corrupted, no matter what buttons she pushes
this is why, in my own understanding, biblical themes were chosen for this story rather than buddhist ones--buddhist themes would paint magase and seizaki as two opposing forces in the world eternally doomed to face each other and butt heads, but biblical themes don’t have to have that aspect
in essence, my understanding is that seizaki was magase’s “project”--she was testing his limits to see if he could materialize “true good” for her; he was probably one of many such projects
her helping itsuki kaika likely was only a means to an end while she searched for the next appropriate candidate for her continuous project, one that had likely started when she was a child (we can probably assume the boys she drove to suicide were some of the earliest such candidates, as well as her foster uncle)
the reason i think this is magase’s true focus is because she is so deeply delighted to find seizaki in episode two; not only is she delighted, she actively pursues him in ways she doesn’t seem to with any of the other targets she takes down; his name must seem poetic to her, and the idea that maybe she’s finally found the one person who can stand as her opposite probably fills her with glee
i think her obsession with the video game in particular, and with the hero, plays into this--she knows she is the villain, but as far as she can tell, she can’t find someone to be a proper foil for her
if she is true evil, there must be true good--but where, and how can she find it? she doesn’t seem to have any trouble accepting what side she’s on, nor is she agonizing over it--she relishes and delights in it; what she appears to be agonizing over is that she doesn’t have someone who can stand against her, who can truly face her with an opposing viewpoint without ultimately corrupting under her touch
this theme is chilling and deliciously subtle, especially when the writers connect it back to the garden of eden (the beginning, connected to the end, through the temptress); if magase is representing both the tempter snake and the whore of babylon, she’s metaphorically (and literally) the embodiment of evil
the amazing thing about this, and i’m not entirely sure this was intentional on the part of the novelist but patterns happen whether humans intend them or not, is that there is no one on earth who can face evil as the embodiment of good
earth, in the biblical sense (which the story is invoking, whether true or not) is a fallen world, a world filled with those who are the offspring not only of the two first sinners, but also the first murderer (cain)
this means that wherever magase ai goes, she will never be able to find “one” person who embodies true good--biblically, only one such “person” ever existed, because all humans are fallen creatures who can only embody “true good” with divine assistance (and even then they fail)
thus, magase’s quest is far, far more hopeless than seizaki’s, because evil is relatively easy to define if you step outside of postmodernism, and it’s easy to “stop” evil, but it is not easy to “embody good”
this is why it’s inevitable that seizaki must become evil to stop evil, and by doing so he fails to become the “true good” magase is searching for
i personally am of the opinion that seizaki shot himself in the final scene, mostly because of the weight of his own failure to live up to his own principles and his understanding, at last, of what he’d allowed himself to sink to, even if it was expedient/necessary in a utilitarian sense--this story is not about utilitarianism, it is about the platonic/biblical form of “the good” and “evil”; seizaki was searching for “the good”, not expedience/utilitarianism, and he failed to embody it
and by seizaki failing, magase’s latest experiment fails, and she vanishes from the stage to begin the quest anew
what i love, love, love, about the ending is that it establishes that magase is a force in the world who will continue, forever, always searching for someone, anyone, who can embody true good and face her at last, bringing true justice and meaning to her existence
but, if she truly is the embodiment of the whore of babylon, this reckoning cannot occur until judgment day, and so this is a story about the limbo the whore of babylon is eternally stuck in, waiting for that day to come
ultimately, i think babylon’s ending is the “bad end” for the story--seizaki fails to embody the good, and magase fails to find that embodiment in him and must move on to corrupt other souls; however, as a thought piece and as a story, i think it’s such a refreshing take and i must admit each episode (outside the first one, ironically) seemed to fly by in no time at all
a critical reflection on the failings of star wars: the rise of skywalker
(the proper outcome for the final scene of TROS)
oddly, i'm not against the Rey Palpatine reveal in The Rise of Skywalker--i appreciate the dichotomy between the granddaughter of the Emperor being drawn to the light and the grandson of the heroic lineage being drawn to the darkness, and them finding each other inexplicably through the whole mess
however, the Palpatine reveal does render her taking the Skywalker name randomly at the end of the film a little on the tasteless side
if JJ Abrams had to go this route and if nothing else could be changed about it, i feel he should have at least chosen one of two endings for Rey:
she should have married Kylo Ren and together they should have taken up the Skywalker mantle; this would be a proper conclusion to her heroine's journey as she would cast off her familial link (Palpatine) and embrace her new family (the Skywalkers)
she should have embraced her "nobody" status and worn it proudly, discarding the Palpatine legacy in favor of the anonymity her parents bought for her with her lives (how satisfying would it have been for her to answer the old woman at the end with, "I'm no one," and a small, mysterious smile as she walks off into the sunset with BB8?--it’d also make it obvious that Kylo’s sacrifice was the “rise” of Skywalker)
i think either of these endings would have been a fitting conclusion to the saga as a whole, assuming nothing else could be changed; personally i rather like the nobody ending, as it fits with her found family being taken from her and her acceptance of her place in the world as a wanderer who makes her own name
ultimately, however, TROS was a waste of potential, mostly for Rey and for the saga as a whole, and at this point i'm happy to wash my hands of it and move on to bigger and better things
[9/9]
a critical reflection on the failings of star wars: the rise of skywalker
(the tragedy of Kylo Ren's easy redemption)
in The Rise of Skywalker, Kylo Ren turns back to the light for the flimsiest of reasons: a girl who for three films had snarled at him, attacked him aggressively, and judged him self-righteously told him half-heartedly that she'd have accepted his hand if he was Ben Solo
the fact that Kylo Ren could have been redeemed so easily with so little effort is heart breaking; if only his mother had given him half a chance, perhaps Rey would have never been necessary at all
the fact that it wasn't even Rey's legitimate love and acceptance, or her explaining to Kylo that he was the one she wanted, not a throne, were what helped him find his way back to the correct path is nothing short of a tragedy; there was so much opportunity there to showcase the generous fullness of Rey's heart and her ability to forgive
instead, we got a heartless Rey offering only conditional love to Kylo, and a Kylo who is so desperate for any form of love that he'd take whatever scraps Rey deigned to throw at him
the fact that he'd throw away everything he'd worked for to ultimately sacrifice himself for a girl who never gave him any more than a single moment of genuine compassion (and that was only in TLJ when she still thought she could control him) is utterly appalling on a narrative front, although it is a testament to how much Kylo wanted to love and be loved that so little was needed to instigate his personal transformation
what should have been at triumphant victory of love was ultimately hollow, for Rey couldn't even appreciate all that Kylo offered to her, nor did she ever even seem to understand the depth of his feeling
Kylo Ren sacrifices literally everything for Rey, and she can't even be bothered to appreciate any of it--not his choosing to murder his own mentor for her (for which she rewards him by demanding he save her friends), nor his casting off his empire for her (her reaction to this is almost a sense of entitlement that this was what he should have done for her all along), nor his final sacrifice of his very life for hers (for which she responds by taking his uncle's name, rather than his)
if Kylo Ren could have been redeemed so easily with so little effort, it makes it all the more tragic that his entire family simply gave up on him, when if they'd tried just a bit harder, they probably could have saved him
[8/9]
a critical reflection on the failings of star wars: the rise of skywalker
(Rey's failure on a mythological level)
the surprising twist of Rey's story after The Force Awakens was that she was on a legitimate heroine's journey, which is a journey mostly into the inner world; this was an aspect that Rian Johnson's The Last Jedi nailed perfectly, and it's the main reason that film still works despite its flaws on other analytical levels
the heroine's journey, a tragic rarity now in modern storytelling, requires Rey to confront her animus, to grapple with it, and eventually to incorporate it (or marry it in a more literal sense), all the while overcoming these challenges with wit and love
in TFA, we see her meet her animus--represented by the hulking, shadowy figure of Kylo Ren; in TLJ, she grapples with her animus--her conversations with Kylo Ren transform him from monster to man, and she is forced to wrestle with the humanity within him and the shadows within herself
The Rise of Skywalker should have completed Rey's heroine's journey, allowing her to incorporate her shadow into herself, to triumph over it by using its strength and quelling its weakness, and to marry herself to her animus, a reformed/redeemed Kylo Ren
in a properly formed heroine's journey, the heroine does not reject her animus in the end--she embraces him and accepts that he is part of her as she is part of him; her love, in essence, transforms him from a shadowy monster to a functioning part of both herself and society at large
the heroine's ultimate goal is to mend the bridges between the spiritual realm (the inner world) and the physical realm (the outer world); much like the hero's journey, the heroine must bring something of value back to her community, but the specific thing of value is different from the hero--she's not meant to slay a monster, but to integrate one, defeating it via her own set of skills
the wisdom she gains from the experience informs her as she transforms herself from maiden into matron, completing the first phase of a woman's life cycle
unfortunately, JJ Abrams didn't seem to get the memo on the core element that makes Rey's journey work, and he tries to stuff her into the hero's mold instead
the beats of the traditional hero's journey fall flat in a story like Star Wars, which has always held an element of the inner journey at its heart
even Luke's hero's journey does not end with him vanquishing his foe--Darth Vader; instead, it ends with him offering compassion to his foe, and through his compassion he reforms Vader enough for Vader to complete his own heroic arc and slay Palpatine
Abrams is so focused on making Rey into a super woman type of high priestess character, a woman so pure and moral that despite showing obvious signs of fragmentation and subliminal rage still manages to always make the "correct" decision
Rey in TROS is a Queen of Swords, a harsh woman of sharp judgment and little compassion for anything that doesn't do exactly what she wants when she wants it; these aspects would be fine if we were still in the second film, for this would symbolize her obstacles she'd have to overcome to reach her full potential, but unfortunately TROS is the third film and these are presented as admirable qualities (or, if not admirable per se, then not detrimental)
Rey repeatedly has several run-ins with Kylo Ren, her animus, who continues to open the door to conversation and understanding with her, but unlike in TLJ when Rey allowed herself to soften toward him, she remains hard and implacable in TROS
she draws a hard, sharp line between her fictional image of "Ben Solo" and the shadow of Kylo Ren who stands before her
this comes out most prominently in the scene where she and Kylo Ren fight for the final time--she is snarling with rage and absolutely incapable of conversing with him, despite having cared for him in the previous film
she goes so far as to fatally stab him with his own saber and then has the nerve, after half-heartedly healing him (while she's crying more for Leia than for him), to tell him she wanted to take Ben's hand, the subtext being that she would never take Kylo Ren's hand
lucky for Rey, Kylo Ren magically transforms himself for her because he's so desperate for any human contact that even a woman who avidly loathes him so obviously is better than nothing
however, this is no win for Rey on any genuine level--this is merely her being a creator's pet and receiving narrative benefits she hasn't properly earned
Rey shows no legitimate remorse for how far she's fallen, or for her own lack of compassion for Kylo; she never once in the film attempts to understand Kylo or reach out to him or offer him an alternative, instead continuing to make demands of him without offering anything in return
when she speaks with Luke, she's more worried about her own purity as a jedi than she is the darkness that's caused her to harm someone she supposedly cares for or her own temptation (which is never shown) of joining him as his Empress
in the end, Rey gets her wish and Ben appears before her, rescues her, and dies sacrificing himself for her; while the scene is pretty, it's ultimately hollow because Rey did nothing to earn Ben's love and sacrifice--these are entirely testaments to Ben's character and his own heart than to Rey's, as she is merely the passive beneficiary of a love she neither pursued nor sacrificed for
the enormous gaping hole in Rey's journey falls in her own inability to properly face her own shadow and incorporate it, thus healing her interior wounds and enabling her to reach Kylo Ren; to do this properly, in TROS she should have learned how to accept her own call to the dark side, as well as Kylo's, and accepted them both as having these sides to themselves while offering Kylo a way to move forward without giving in entirely to the dark
her inability to accept her own inner animus and transform it into something of worth to the community is why her journey fails, despite the success of her shoehorned hero's journey--her journey had never been a traditional hero's journey, and killing is never the proper ending for a legitimate heroine's journey; love is always the correct end to a heroine's journey
worse than failing to accept the darkness within herself and Kylo, she fails to understand that the man she loves is the culmination of Kylo Ren and Ben Solo; she is not in love with Ben Solo
Rey does not even know Ben Solo; there is no guarantee Ben Solo would have loved Rey had he met her ten years before
the man who extends his hand to Rey, the man who pushes her, the man who offers her companionship and understanding, is Kylo Ren, the very same one who offered her a galaxy because he didn't understand she only wanted him
it was not Ben Solo's light that drew Rey to him, it was his darkness that compelled her; her desire for his light comes from her inability to accept her own inner darkness, which is merely her ego wanting to remain a "good girl" for her parents rather than properly face the totality of the woman she is becoming
Kylo's darkness calls Rey toward growth and autonomy, but it also represents the danger of temptation and wrath, fatal flaws Kylo himself has fallen prey to
if in TROS Rey had properly found herself, she would be able to help Kylo see he was more than just the darkness, and help him reincorporate his light as she had incorporated the darkness he'd helped her tap into; these could have turned into deep wells of strength for both characters, allowing their bond to become a force (pun intended ;D) capable of taking down whatever villain stood at the end of their journey
but because Rey refuses to accept that the man who has been the one by her side the entire journey is the "evil" Kylo Ren, she can't complete her journey into womanhood and instead retreats into childish fantasy; ultimately she can't have a happily ever after with whatever the Kylo Ren/Ben culmination turned out to be because she never grows up enough to accept such a man (this is further emphasized when she's sliding down the dunes like a child again at the end of her journey, a subtle sign that nothing of relevance has changed)
Rey never comes to the understanding that Kylo Ren is not split from Ben Solo, nor that her own darkness is not split from her light; she never reaches the understanding that Kylo and Ben are one and that her light and her darkness are one
this inability to incorporate the two aspects within herself leads to her failure to accomplish her narrative objectives while her inability to show any form of compassion to either Kylo Ren or Palpatine clinches the deal and renders her character ultimately a sad example of a creator's pet who never achieved her full potential
as far as i'm concerned, the reason this film fails goes beyond poor plotting, poor pacing, and poor characters--it can't even get the basic mythological steps of the final leg of the heroine's journey correct, thus rendering Rey completely ineffective in the only two missions her character had: find belonging with someone and come to terms with herself and her past
it's truly a shame Abrams couldn't stick the landing on this one, because Rey deserved to grow up, learn how to express true love and compassion, marry the man she loved, bring him back into the community as an asset rather than a liability, and bring forth the next generation with him at her side
[7/9]
a critical reflection on the failings of star wars: the rise of skywalker
(Rey's failure as a fairytale heroine)
Star Wars has always had fairytale elements, although i feel the original trilogy leaned more toward myth (a la King Arthur) than the classic fairytale
however, JJ Abrams explicitly compared The Force Awakens to a fairytale, and thus he invoked the imagery and archetypes of the fairytale rather than the myth--myths can end tragically, but fairytales rarely do, especially not the particular fairytale archetypes Abrams was invoking, and which Rian Johnson continued
unfortunately, Abrams decided to toss the fairytale elements to the wayside with The Rise of Skywalker
Rey's journey up until TROS had been a classic fairytale heroine's journey; she fell easily into the archetype set forward by Beauty of Beauty and the Beast fame, in addition to Gerda of The Snow Queen, and the heroine of East of the Sun, West of the Moon
the basic set up for these journeys is roughly similar: a maiden at the dawn of womanhood encounters a beastly/boorish male and must go on an adventure of some kind to draw the man out of the beast, often overcoming magical curses and foes along the way
she always wins with compassion and love, never with force or violence; the fairytale heroine is not a "Strong Woman" masquerading in men's clothing--she is a woman of integrity, compassion, wit, cleverness, and kindness, whose love is transcendent and can heal curses, remove mirror shards, and restore true forms via faith and perseverance
this is the resonant power of the feminine, a power that is slowly being forgotten in modern storytelling, and a power Rey could have had full access to, but didn't because Abrams wouldn't allowed her to become more than a child, to take that final journey into womanhood
in TROS, Rey's love and compassion are not what transform the monster of her tale; he does that through his own love and compassion for her rather than anything she offers him
all Rey offers her monster is spite and anger, acting as aggressor in nearly every interaction and refusing to engage with him as a person she loves or even cares about--she even goes so far as to fatally wound him and hardly reacts at all to the possibility of him dying by her own hand
even when her monster returns to her, Rey gives him nothing in return; when she loses him to the pit, she doesn't even look for him, she doesn't break down, she doesn't react--instead she stoically ignores that he's utterly vanished from her side and presses forward without even reaching out for her bond with him
and at the end, in the magical moment when her monster resurrects her and brings her back to life, she doesn't even attempt to save him or stop his passing, merely passively accepting his sacrifice as if he was meaningless to her
these are not qualities of a fairytale heroine--these are the qualities of a witch archetype, and not a good witch at that
to fulfill the archetype of the fairytale heroine properly, Rey would have needed to be more loving and less unnecessarily antagonistic--why she needed to attack Kylo at every turn when it was clear he was attempting to open communication channels and was offering her no threat is unfathomable to me; the only thing i can think to explain her behavior is that she was afraid of her own desire to join his side and was overreacting, but none of this is expressed by the character
while, yes, a fairytale heroine does not have to fall in love with the main male in her story, Star Wars is not a tale like Bluebeard; it's meant to be healing and regenerative, not merely a warning about the evils of man
Rey needed to accept Kylo Ren as a person long before the final scene, and her compassion and love should have slowly, over time, helped him achieve his full potential and redefine himself as a person, as he, in turn, helped her do the same; if this aspect had been executed properly, perhaps their story would have ended on a more appropriately bittersweet, poignant, or even satisfactory note, rather than merely leaving a bitter aftertaste
[6/9]
a critical reflection on the failings of star wars: the rise of skywalker
(Rey's failure as a Star Wars protagonist)
the key element of the Star Wars protagonist is a combination of compassion and love, specifically an altruistic, Christlike compassion/love
Anakin fails in the prequel trilogy to cultivate this aspect within himself, instead descending into a self-serving, possessive variant of love that is more root chakra level rather than heart/crown chakra-based; his example and his failure are meant to set the tragic stage for what he ultimately becomes: Darth Vader, Luke's main antagonist for the original trilogy
it's important to note that Anakin's failure isn't simply a moral failing on his part, although certainly he bears responsibility for that--it's also the result of the restrictions placed on him by the stringent jedi misunderstanding of the redeeming power of attachment, love, and connection, and this ties into the faint callbacks to Buddhist mysticism that Lucas likes to dabble in, and the potential drawbacks of taking that mysticism too zealously at the expense of life
this theme, of the jedi reacting with the inappropriate response to the natural call of the "dark side", returns in the original trilogy with Luke, who is tasked by his masters Yoda and Obi-wan with finishing what they started--taking down his disgraced father Anakin Skywalker, now Darth Vader
Luke is a rebellious character; much of his coming-of-age story is about pushing back against the restrictions placed upon him (an echo of Anakin before him), and he has a good heart and a sound instinct, even if he's clumsy in execution and petulant at the wrong moments
this good heart of Luke's is ultimately the source of redemption for his father, when he rebels against his masters and willingly submits himself to his father in order to call him back to the light
Luke does become deeply tempted by the dark side when Darth Vader begins threatening Leia (Luke's sister and first love), but he is able to overthrow this temptation with compassion for the sad figure of his father when he finds Darth Vader at his mercy
Luke's abstention from violence is the heart of Star Wars and the key component of why this story continues to resonate on a mythological level for so many viewers of all walks of life; Anakin's reverse trajectory, where love no longer reaches him and he resorts to depravity and violence, stands as a mirror image of Luke's compassionate pacifism, even if the easier solution would have been violence
Luke's example, along with the essence of the jedi code, sets up the moral foundation of the Star Wars protagonist, and this is the foundation upon which Rey is set at the beginning of her journey
the problem is, Rey doesn't have any compassion in her
oh, sure, she likes her friends well enough (when she can be bothered), and she's nice (when she remembers to be), but she's quick to anger and quick to hate and quick to rejection and quick to judgment
Rey, in other words, is far more akin to a sith than a jedi in the sequel trilogy
some of Rey's failings as a Star Wars protagonist are likely due to her being a creator’s pet to JJ Abrams as well as to the current climate surrounding how female characters are written--downplaying the feminine healing, nurturing qualities in favor of overemphasizing the violent/aggressive/masculine qualities
but a lot of it has to do with the structure of Rey as a character--she is meant to be someone who struggles with deep-rooted anger and trauma, who must overcome that anger by learning how to accept the reflection of that anger in the form of her villain--Kylo Ren
the dance between Rey and Kylo Ren works perfectly in TFA and TLJ, but flops in TROS because Abrams randomly decides that Rey's anger is perfectly appropriate and not a real issue to be addressed or overcome
instead, what we receive is a Rey who is overly antagonistic, who is quick to lash out, who can't even have a calm conversation with the antagonist she's supposed to love even if he's disappointed her, who acts more like a sith with each passing scene but never seems to sit down and deal with it, and when she does deal with it (realizing she's a Palpatine), nothing comes of it--no revelation, no understanding, no sudden compassion for the sufferings of those who have been drawn to the dark side
in other words, Rey learns nothing from her anger, learns nothing from her hate, learns nothing from her experience--she's "too pure" to even grapple with the realities within herself, or perhaps more accurately too "in denial" to accept the darkness that exists both within herself and Kylo Ren and all those who fall to the dark side--that perhaps they are not merely evil, but driven by passions over which they struggle to control and through which anyone can fall
the reason the finale of TROS is so deeply unsatisfying (even setting aside Kylo's death) is because Rey does not overcome her antagonist with compassion or love, nor does her victory come through love
it would be one thing if Rey's method of defeating Palpatine was to absorb his power via her dyad bond with Kylo, draining him of his power until he's merely a sad husk of an old man, and then gently telling him she pities him as she jumps down to rescue Kylo from the pit of doom, but instead the two have a passive and unenlightening battle to the death like in any lame super hero movie, which is a sith method of victory, not a jedi's
Rey's lack of compassion for either Palpatine or Kylo in the film is what makes the film ring hollow at the end
all the triumphs of the film are Kylo's--his love and compassion for Rey are what rescues her twice, not her love for him or her compassion for him/Palpatine
i realize most people will be content with the idea that she loved Chewie, Finn, and Poe, and that's all well and good, but loving your friends is not a higher level of compassion/morality--these are not the things that make a Star Wars protagonist great
Rey needed to demonstrate a higher level of consciousness than just "if a person is nice to me, they're good; if they're mean to me, they're bad" in order to fulfill her promise as a Star Wars heroine; she needed to forgive Kylo for his failings (and through him, herself), to help him see the light, and to find a way for everyone to achieve happiness without judging them
Luke didn't spend Return of the Jedi haranguing the Emperor about how evil he was and how bad he was--his focus was always on his goal, which was to influence his father and win him back to his side; Rey should have had a similar trajectory, whether that was trying to reach Palpatine's sad old heart (perhaps an impossibility) or to neutralize him in a way where he couldn't hurt anyone anymore but would have to pay for his crimes in another manner
it's just disheartening that Rey, for all that she's painted as some saintly being, can't seem to overcome the darkness inside her or even legitimately come to terms with it before the end of her story--in the end, it is Kylo's love and some miraculous jedi ghost intervention (which, by the way, neither Luke nor Anakin ever got) which save the day for her, rather than her standing on her own and winning with the strength of her compassion and love
[5/9]
a critical reflection on the failings of star wars: the rise of skywalker
(Rey's failure to come of age)
the heart of Rey's journey is a classic coming-of-age story, and Rey utterly bombs hers
a classic coming of age story has a character begin in the innocence of childhood and, through obstacles and interior growth, slowly begin to grapple with, and later to accept, the ambiguities of the adult world
this is an aspect Star Wars admittedly doesn't often address properly, especially with its tendency to dichotomize everything into simplistic polarities such as dark/light, good/evil; however, it does have elements of establishing maturity, such as Luke learning to throw down his weapon and offer his father compassion rather than striking him down in anger, which is far more nuanced than simply executing his father out of false self-righteousness for his father's evil deeds
JJ Abrams set Rey up perfectly to come of age in The Force Awakens, and Rian Johnson chose the correct trajectory for her coming of age with The Last Jedi--all that remained was for JJ to nail the beats properly with The Rise of Skywalker to allow Rey to fully emerge into adulthood
in TFA, Rey was established as a young woman holding herself frozen in childhood, unwilling to accept the realities of life and childishly clinging to myths--both of figures such as Luke and of her parents; during the course of the film, Maz (as mentor) encourages her to begin to look forward, and her experiences with the force and with Kylo Ren force her to painfully begin to grapple with the realities of change and growing up (it's important to note that in this film Rey's hair is tied up in three childish buns, indicating restriction and repression)
in TLJ, Rey continued her journey, first in denial of what she'd faced in TFA, and soon, via the force, Luke, and Kylo Ren's involvement, coming to terms with herself both as an emergent woman with longings and desires and with her new place in the world and what she could achieve as an active agent; however, in TLJ her growth is not complete, as she is still unable to accept the dark/light within both herself and Kylo Ren, nor is she able to accept that the man she has fallen in love with and has bonded herself to is both Kylo Ren and Ben Solo as one being--these, obviously, are the "loose ends" Johnson meant for the final director bring to fruition in the final film (in TLJ Rey partially lets her hair down, appropriate for being in the middle stage between childhood and adulthood)
TROS ironically does begin with a few of these themes early on--we see Rey and Kylo Ren both attempt to stuff themselves back into their TFA molds; Rey with her three buns (rather than letting her hair down fully, as she should have) and Kylo attempting to stuff himself back into a broken mask (rather than growing a beard, as he should have)
furthermore, we see a few moments where Rey gazes on children with a wistful sadness, and she's incredibly kind to all of the childlike characters in the story, more so than she was in TFA (she was much harsher with BB-8 in TFA than she is with D-O in TROS); these are elements of the awakening maternal instinct in Rey, a more nuanced instinct from the sexual instinct awakened in TLJ; now that Rey has found the man she desires, the natural evolution of this desire leads to a wish for a family with him
these elements, had Abrams allowed them to play out to their full potential, would have likely ended in a satisfying conclusion for Rey, whether that be via a "last night together" with Kylo leaving her with his child or via a traditional (and probably more audience-friendly) happily ever after with him
ideally at the midpoint of the film, probably right after she stabs him, she would have let her hair down completely and changed clothing, a mirror of Kylo making his changes to return to her; her finally accepting that Kylo is the man she wants and that she almost allowed her foolish ego to get in the way should have been her realization on the Ach-to island
instead, she continues the film frozen in the state of regression, and she fails despite even having a vision of her actualized dark side self (a fully realized woman, though the broken aspect of woman) to accept the truth of her own wishes and commit herself to finding a way to achieve what she wants without descending to the dark side
this is probably the reason why the final scene feels ultimately so hollow and out of place--Rey doesn't achieve any of the emotional growth beats necessary to establish that although she lost the man she loved, she's attained something greater (an deeper understanding of herself, his love, a child, etc.)
coming of age stories generally aren't meant to end tragically, and this is probably another reason why the ending just doesn't work for this film, regardless of how justified a viewer may feel Kylo's final end was thematically or within the story--ultimately Rey's growth and trajectory required Kylo's presence in some way, whether via a token (perhaps he could have given her something dear to him before his death, etc) or via his physical presence at her side
the final scene might have conveyed this aspect better had Rey changed clothing and let her hair down, holding a locket with Kylo's hair or some other emblem between them (which would have had to have been established earlier on in the film) as a token of the love they share, and the love that will support her in the future
but as it is, the current version of the film does not allow Rey to achieve her growth as a woman, nor to complete her journey into adulthood--there is a deep sense of unfinished business contained in the final ending, as if Rey's journey has only just begun and now she must embark on a new quest to at last find the belonging she sought in the beginning
[4/9]
a critical reflection on the failings of star wars: the rise of skywalker
(Rey's failure on a basic character level)
there are so many dimensions in which Rey's character utterly fails in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, but perhaps the most disheartening of the dimensions is the basic character level, the lowest of all levels
before i begin, please understand that Rey is my second favorite character in the trilogy and i have been deeply invested in watching her grow and achieve her full potential; it's with a heavy heart that i find myself writing this series of critiques on how her character fails on all levels of analysis
the character of Rey that JJ Abrams established in The Force Awakens and which Rian Johnson develops in The Last Jedi is clear and well-crafted, at least in my humble opinion
her character basics are as follows:
she's a secretive person, used to keeping to herself
she doesn't trust people easily, even when she likes them
she's an information hoarder and unlikely to share anything unnecessary
she's loyal, sometimes without doing her homework
she's deeply lonely and longing for connection
she's carrying repressed anger and trauma that surfaces when she's frustrated, afraid, or under stress
she's kind when she feels safe
she can be judgmental and has a black and white worldview
she is a stoic who puts on a brave face and smiles despite her pain
many of these characteristics are likely due (quite logically) to her upbringing--abandoned on a desert world, abused and exploited by Unkar Plutt, she likely grew up unable to depend on anyone and has trouble forming genuine attachments, even when she wants to be attached
these characteristics should naturally have led to her having trouble integrating with her fellow resistance compatriots in TROS
in TLJ she was mostly isolated and could idealize Finn and the rest of the resistance, but in TROS she's been with these people for a year; she should be struggling to connect, and struggling to handle them, having many conflicts arise despite her best attempts
this is where her character should have begun in TROS, a natural outgrowth of TFA and TLJ
instead, we get a young woman who is perfectly well-adjusted and a gigantic gabby gus, a complete 180 from where she was in the previous two films (someone who kept to herself, even among friends)
rather than having her intimate moments with Kylo via forcebond (as was set up both in TFA and TLF), she blabbers to Finn about her concerns about her heritage and her relationship with Kylo
this might be an example of character growth for her if we'd seen some of this in TLJ, but as we did not, this is clearly a retconning of her character, making her more of a talker and less of a stoic who puts on a brave face despite how she feels inside
this also takes away the poignancy her relationship with Kylo brings to the table, because if she's nattering on to anyone who will listen and everyone and their mother understands her, then she doesn't need her relationship with Kylo and what was established as special in TLJ no longer remains significant
worse than her sudden transformation into a blabbermouth is the lack of stakes for her character--supposedly she's descending into the dark side, yet she doesn't seem to feel any legitimate pull to it
we don't see her longing to be on the throne with Kylo, regretting her decision to reject him, wondering if things wouldn't be easier on the dark side, wondering if her place really is on the light side--instead we just see her continuing to reject herself and her own feelings and pretending she's some saintly jedi who just needs to know her mommy and daddy love her to be perfect
she doesn't even seem to be genuinely striving toward anything other than beating her ex-boyfriend up; Kylo is the one who brings the Palpatine information to her, and the one seeking out her past--Rey is perfectly content to be passive and reject the information he brings her out of hand
she doesn't even seem to be pursuing anything other than connecting with the jedi, which is fine, but we're not given a reason why she suddenly wants to connect with the jedi; what is she hoping to learn or gain from them?
all of this of course makes her final scene with the Emperor fall utterly flat--we've never once seen her be legitimately tempted to take the dark throne for herself (perhaps if her fantasy of Dark Rey showed her in Kylo's arms, and then we had a shot of Rey reaching for it and stopping herself in horror, we would feel the desire Rey has for the throne or at the very least the man on the throne); instead, what Palpatine offers Rey is obviously of no temptation for her because she's never been shown to want a throne or power of any kind
honestly Palpatine should have offered her Kylo instead--that if she'd kill him, she could take Kylo for herself; that would probably have upped the stakes, yet that would imply Rey has "impure" desires and heaven forbid Abrams allow that for her--she must remain forever trapped in pure light of virginal sanctity
worse than Rey being stuck in sanctimonious goodness and having no stake in the story is that there also are literally no consequences for when she "strays" off the path
she thinks she killed Chewie with force lightning? oh look, Finn's there to comfort her and no one rejects her
she mind tricks two storm troopers? oh look, it's passed off as funny rather than actually addressed as a serious concern for her compatriots
she stabs Kylo as his mother dies? oh look, not only does she quickly heal Kylo, but he changes to Ben for her despite having literally no reason to or nothing changing between them that hasn't already been established previously in TLJ; if it wasn't enough for him to change then, it shouldn't be enough now (even better, Luke comes to chat with her rather than Kylo in order to make her feel better about herself!)
Kylo returns to her and their bond is used to kill him? oh, no worries, the jedi are there to rescue her and who cares about Kylo, the man who came to save her!
she loses the man she supposedly loves, who sacrifices his very life for her? oh no worries, she can replace him with another guy and take his name on top of it! who needs mourning, right?
there are literally no consequences for any of her failures in the story, and she never learns from them (unlike poor Luke)
her arc honestly seems more of a villain's arc than a heroine's in TROS, and that's an utter shame; she's allowed to get away with just about anything and not be condemned by anyone or called out for her failings, meanwhile she continues to put up her pretense of righteousness
the fact that Abrams created such a tone-deaf variant of his own character is utterly flabbergasting to me, and rather than being angered by it, i just feel deeply sad for Rey's lost potential and the narrative arc we could have had with her had a better storyteller been in charge of her ending
[3/9]
a critical reflection on the failings of star wars: the rise of skywalker
(the general failings of TROS)
at my most generous, i would say Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is a generic meaningless popcorn flick, entertaining in the moment and immediately forgettable
as the ending to a 9-part space opera, it is a failure of colossal proportions
for brevity's sake, i'll keep this to a list:
the pacing is breakneck and leaves no room for the characters to breathe or to mourn the insane amount of character death or almost-death the film throws at them
the narrative stakes are embarrassingly low, with no real tension or obstacles for the characters to overcome
the fetch quests and the failed comedic moments should have been sliced and diced on the cutting room floor to give more room to the emotional beats
the character beats often fall flat, mostly due to regression back to TFA dynamics rather than evolving from the TLJ dynamics
e.g., Finn barely talks to Rose, Rey rehashes beats with Kylo she'd already come to terms with in TLJ (Kylo killing Han, etc.), Finn returns to crushing on Rey, Rey no longer has any compassion for Kylo, Poe is suddenly a heroic leader again, etc.
Abrams failed to capitalize on the aspects of the story that actually would have created tension between the characters, such as Poe holding Rey in suspicion over her darker force abilities (the jedi mind trick, the force lightning, etc.) <-- missed opportunities matter too
a superfluous excess of new characters (some of which i would have liked had they been introduced in TFA or TLJ), all of whom should have been cut in order to give more screentime to fleshing out established characters such as Finn, Poe, Rose, and Rey (yes, this includes the Knights of Ren)
with Rey being introduced as a Palpatine, and Luke and Leia being established as having known all along who she was, an uncomfortable side effect is that they both believed in Rey's goodness/morality but both of them (and Han) feared and rejected Ben--this would have been fine if Luke had admitted to Rey they saw Ben in her and wanted to fix their mistake with her, but none of this is established; it's as if Luke and Leia have written Ben off entirely (which goes against both TFA and TLJ) and only care about Rey
the framing of Luke and Leia as a couple (although I have always been a fan of the idea that Luke never got over Leia as his first love, they are siblings, not a couple, and Luke was not Rey's parental figure--Han was); perhaps this was merely sloppy framing on JJ's part and was meant to be more about Luke and Leia as Rey's "masters" in the force, but it doesn't come across that way with her obsession with her parentage
Leia's cheap death shot being for Rey's sake rather than for her son's sake--all this time she could have reached out to him via force projection, and she only does it for someone else's sake; this just proves his point that he's unloved and unwanted
Finn's weird character arc of having no feelings at all for Rose, reverting back to his crush on Rey, and then suddenly falling for Jannah out of the blue all while maintaining some kind of romantic dynamic with Poe (i will say i found Poe's jealousy over Finn wanting to say something to Rey rather hilarious)
the criminal waste of Hux's storyline which Rian so carefully set up at the end of TLJ
Palpatine’s bizarre and unnecessary resurrection as well as the silly force battle between him and Rey
the ending with Rey taking the Skywalker name might have worked if it was executed differently, but in its current form it's utterly tone-deaf
and last, but certainly not least, my biggest general complaint before i launch into picking apart Rey’s character (a complaint which has several dimensions because it is her character that suffers the most in this film) is JJ Abrams's inability to capitalize on the Reylo dynamic both he and Rian Johnson had set up in TFA/TLJ
the intimacy between them was completely lost, as well as the nature of the force bond Johnson established, replaced with a sterile replica that placed an unnatural distance between them
my suspicion is (and this is deeply unfortunate) that Abrams had never intended for Rey and Kylo's relationship to be anything more than pure virginal heroine rejecting the hideous monster with a villainous crush (perhaps while finding him mildly attractive) until the monster sacrificed himself for her in the end; this is probably why Rey seems curiously disinterested in Kylo despite the narrative necessity of the pull between them
this is one area where i think Johnson hit the nail on the head correctly--when he read the script for TFA, he latched onto Rey's attraction to Kylo rather than her disgust, and he realized that the attraction was both more interesting and where the real diamond in the rough of the story was to be found
Rey's disgust for Kylo comes from ego and from her own desire to remain a pure little girl for her parents--falling in love with a bad/evil man is not what good little girls do
her attraction to Kylo comes from a genuine part of her which wants to complete itself and be recognized, a part that Kylo actually addresses in TROS, but which is never fulfilled by the narrative and which is undermined by Kylo "becoming" Ben Solo before Rey accepts her love for Kylo Ren--note, in Beauty and the Beast, the heroine realizes she loves the beast in his beastly form before the transformation is complete
it is not to Ben Solo that Rey is attracted--it is to Kylo Ren; her desire for "Ben Solo" in TLJ is merely her attempting to explain away her desire for Kylo Ren, and it's something that should have come to a conclusion in TROS rather than reverting back to the childish perspective of wanting only "good" Ben as opposed to "bad" Kylo
Abrams failing to truly mine this gem Johnson uncovered for him is where i personally believe the film truly, deeply fails and why ultimately it will never be all that it could have been; for Abrams, Rey's "purity" mattered more than her legitimate actualization as a woman and her coming into womanhood, and perhaps this can't be blamed on Abrams given he's not a middle aged obasan such as myself
still, a tragedy is a tragedy no matter how you slice it
[2/9]
a critical reflection on the failings of star wars: the rise of skywalker
(introduction: my viewpoint)
i've decided to write a small series of critical reflections on how The Rise of Skywalker failed to achieve its full potential (or even half of its potential)
i've only seen TROS once at this point in time, so it's possible my opinion will change with future viewings, but it's important for me to get my thoughts out now even if they change later
because this is a critical piece, there will be very little positivity, and so although i have been deeply affected by Kylo and Rey both as characters and as a pairing ever since The Force Awakens, i will not be tagging most of these posts with the #reylo tag and will instead be using a #reylo criticism tag
this is how i've chosen to cope with my own visceral disappointment, and how i wish to move forward
for now, i simply want to lay the foundations of my own viewpoint in the hope that it helps to explain why i cannot accept the film we received, even if others can find some solace in it via various interpretations or head canons
my favorite film of the sequel trilogy is actually The Force Awakens, which i think is unusual in the reylo side of the fandom (most seem to be Rian Johnson fans and to prefer The Last Jedi, but while i appreciate many of the things Johnson brought to the table with that film, i have far more criticisms of it than i do The Force Awakens)
i am a Star Trek fan, not a Star Wars fan, and so i was not expecting to be sucked into the sequel trilogy the way i was--what JJ Abrams set up in The Force Awakens between his heroine and her villain was compelling to me in a way no film within the past twenty years has been compelling, and he certainly got my attention
to see JJ Abrams return and destroy what he himself built in The Force Awakens broke my heart far more than the petty rivalry between him and Johnson even wth each of them trying to spit on what the other had established (i completely understand directorial ego was at stake and that's hard to overcome even for professionals); but for Abrams to destroy even his own fairytale that he himself nurtured is unbelievably tragic and i think truly a fatal blow for Star Wars as a brand
this is probably why although i know i should be railing at Abrams, i can't find the heart to be angry because i feel he sacrificed his own integrity as a creator for reasons i can't begin to fathom, perhaps economical, perhaps out of personal insult
this being said, although i fully accept that the ultimate failing of the narrative lies with Abrams and the writing team (and some with Rian Johnson and the position he placed Abrams in after TLJ), in the following posts i will be addressing the characters themselves, in particular Rey, which may come across as offensive to those who love them; i only ask that you please remember that i love these characters as well, and the hard edge of my criticism comes from wanting more both from them and for them
all of the posts will be collected over time in the hashtag #tros critical reflection my blog
[1/9]
quick write-up in no particular order on my feelings for Star Wars: TROS just to get the initial stuff out; will write a longer piece tomorrow
this whole damn film is a travesty of wasted potential
Rey bombed her narrative arc on all levels to the point where i don’t think anyone can save her
she utterly fails to accept the darkness within herself and Kylo, retreating entirely to her golden child “light side only” mentality, which basically renders all her growth in TLJ utterly meaningless; this has the unfortunate side effect of making it appear she only ever loved the figment of “Ben” she imagined in her mind, rather than the very real Kylo who actually did love her and showed compassion and care for her and murdered his former master for her (her not learning to accept both her own darkness and Kylo’s is such a tragedy; it seems she can only “love” Kylo when he behaves how she wants, rather than learning to accept him as he is and help him reach his full potential, as he does in return for her)
she fails to bring back the person who “still could return” and fails Leia’s last wish, which is mind-bogglingly saddening; it’s unbelievable that JJ tried to pretend Rey’s “belonging” was just finding a found family and learning about her parents--as if it hadn’t been expressly set up in two previous films (one directed by JJ!) that Rey’s “belonging” is Kylo
the beautiful chemistry between Rey and Kylo was utterly decimated and reduced to a flat “good/bad” dynamic which truly cut me to the core in a way i wasn’t expecting
the film itself couldn’t seem to breathe and kept adding ridiculous characters no one needed (D-O??? why???)
i actually really liked Zorri, which shocked me as i don’t normally like characters added in the third act; i desperately wish i could have had three films with her, or even two films with her
Ben being completely abandoned by the Jedi and his family was heart-breaking and didn’t resonate nearly as well as TLJ on this front, though i did appreciate the moment with Han, even if it didn’t its emotional beat properly
i did appreciate that Rey was actually kind to C-3PO, who has always been my favorite droid of the originals
Poe and Finn’s little bromance was rather fun and endearing, and it really makes me wish Rian had gone ahead and let them have the TLJ B-plotline together so their friendship could have been highlighted more, making this film’s dynamic more earned
literally nothing was earned in this film; all the emotional beats missed the mark and nobody seemed in-character or capable of being consistent for more than two seconds (even Kylo had eye-roll worthy moments, which is utterly unthinkable given how much care he was given in the first two films)
all the themes of the film land flat and miss the mark, as expected
ultimately i feel a deep sorrow for the wasted potential of what this story could have been, what it could have meant, and what it could have accomplished for the 9-film saga
probably write a more in-depth post tomorrow, if i’m up to it
when real life is better than all the shit endings of every damn story i read, something is really wrong