How Ben Solo Became A Martyr
If anyone were to pull me into a Hollywood studio office or lunch at some see-and-be-seen L.A.-area restaurant (personally, I like The Ivy) and ask me, a lifelong t.v. and movie viewer, what should show runners, directors, writers, and anyone who has a creative say in a production avoid doing, one thing I would say is, “Don’t unintentionally make a character a martyr.”
I don’t mean the sense of being a martyr in-universe but being a martyr to the audience.
First I should define what I mean by “martyr.” In a Christian sense, it’s a particular kind of saint who suffers and dies a horrible death for his or her faith. In a secular sense it can describe anyone who suffers and/or dies horribly for a cause or that suffering/death calls attention to a matter of injustice. This can also be applied in a more colloquial sense, such as when anyone suffers in some way or tries to use the impression of suffering to elicit sympathy.
If anyone at Lucasfilm is wondering why there’s a tribe of people on social media doing Ben Solo hashtags, making pins, and putting blue butterfly emojis on their handles, I’m here to tell Lucasfilm it’s because you guys made Ben Solo into a martyr to the audience.
First, they made Kylo Ren/Ben Solo Han and Leia’s son/Anakin and Padmé’s grandson. This makes him an easy investment for fans who have loved those characters for decades. The killing Han Solo part might have made a certain segment of longtime fans so angry at Kylo they not only couldn’t forgive him but they didn’t even want him redeemed but others could see how the death clearly affected him which elicits sympathy and compassion.
Second, they got an extremely talented, charismatic actor to play Kylo/Ben. Adam Driver refused to play Kylo as a one-dimensional mustache-twirling killing-machine villain. He added subtlety, nuance, and humanity to the role, all the while captivating the audience. That he’s also sexy didn’t hurt. As bad as Kylo could be, we also see the soft underbelly, the hints of the real Ben Solo hiding behind the persona. He managed to create the kind of hero we’d been hoping to see in the ST within a short amount of time and practically no dialogue. That’s extraordinary. Driver took Kylo as seriously as he takes any other role. He could’ve been making a bunch of other Oscar-nominated movies instead and we all know it. Getting him was a gift and some fans out there think it was ultimately kind of wasted.
Third, if TFA hinted at Kylo’s humanity, Rian Johnson made it entirely the point of Kylo’s arc in TLJ. When Kylo destroyed his helmet, Johnson was able to let Driver go nuts with a script that treated its characters like human beings instead of caricatures. While Kylo was still capable of evil and all-around bad guy-ness, we also saw someone who could be gentle and caring, a tortured young man struggling with deep remorse, a lonely soul who can only find connection with someone who’s supposed to be his enemy, and sometimes, a hero. Those pleading puppy dog eyes and trembling lips did a lot to elicit sympathy from filmgoers. That he’s also sexy didn’t hurt.
Fourth, both the films and ancillary material showed Ben was subjected to abuse and suffered greatly for the mistakes of his elders. Ben was targeted at conception and suffered with voices in his head most of his life. A kitchen droid tried to take him out. His parents were too busy doing whatever to really give him the attention he needed, even though Leia was aware some outside force was after her son. His parents ultimately feared him and his emotional freak outs. Han and Leia shipped him off to Luke’s poor man’s version of Hogwarts, leading to some deep abandonment issues. Luke almost killed him in his sleep. The very popular The Rise of Kylo Ren comics series basically acquitted Ben of everything he supposedly did leading up to his fall. Then Kylo is verbally and physically abused by Snoke. This has created a tremendous amount of sympathy for Ben, especially by those who have struggled with any number of real-world problems. They identified with him. Hollywood as of late has coded a lot of villainous or antihero characters as having mental illness or being neurodiverse or having addiction problems as well as enduring physical and verbal abuse. I get that writers want to enrich these characters and make them relevant to a modern audience and that actors like the challenge in playing them but I also think Hollywood is being a little irresponsible about it. Not only is it potentially stigmatizing it also seldom has a solution to those characters’ arcs other than death. How is someone living with bipolar disorder or autism finding a kindred spirit of sorts in Kylo/Ben going to feel about the constant message that such a life isn’t worth living? Ben just suffers and suffers and suffers and gets nothing for it.
Fifth, we’re presented with material depicting Ben’s youth. Ben, when he’s not getting the stuffing kicked out of him by life, is quite lovable and as a child, adorable. At least with Anakin Skywalker, we’re supposed to appreciate the tragedy of a good person who was loved falling to the Dark Side. With Ben it makes us love him 10x more and at the same time make us even more upset they unceremoniously killed off that darling little moppet who played with butterflies, ran around the house naked, and begged his daddy to come home.
Sixth, it didn’t seem like Ben was sufficiently loved either in the films or by Lucasfilm. Or, to put it this way, whatever gestures Han, Leia, or Luke tried to throw Ben’s way were cases of too little too late. I always wondered why, if Leia knew Snoke was manipulating Ben, she didn’t go out to find the mo-fo and kill him? I would! Leia tries to reach out to Ben in TROS but in the movie it comes off as her distracting him so Rey could inflict a fatal wound. In fact, the weird thing about TROS is it feels like Leia was trying to take out Ben all along: the distraction, ensuring Rey takes up her “Jedi path” which Leia knew full well this would somehow lead to Ben’s death, and finally her disappearing the same time he does. It’s weird! Han tries to save Ben but he’s a muggle who’s no match against his unstable son gifted with magic powers and lightsaber abilities. Luke apologizes in TLJ but never had anything to say to his nephew again. Adding insult to injury, the Blue Ghostie Exposition Scene From Hell establishes Luke and Leia as resigned to Ben’s fate all along, kicking their flesh and blood to the curb for a surrogate more to their liking. It’s horrible! The worst is of course his soulmate barely reacting to his death. In the end nobody cared. He’s like the kid who cleans up his act, gets good grades, gets into a decent college, and his family couldn’t care less. The movie abruptly kills him off and it’s on to cheering and celebrations. Nobody remembers or speaks of Ben and he’s not seen again in any form. Four-five months after the film has come out, there’s no official Ben merchandise or collectibles. It’s like “Ben Solo? Don’t know him.” You just know that every time the Star Wars social media team has to mention him or post something with him in it, they’re muttering under their breath, “Oh God, here it comes again.”
So they got a number of fans to empathize with Kylo/Ben and hope for his redemption as well as a chance at happiness after a lifetime of abuse and suffering, only to kill him off in a sudden and graceless manner. There’s no payoff for Ben or the audience. He’s just…gone. To us it doesn’t seem right. It seems cruel and unjust. But fans are also a tenacious lot so they’re hoping Lucasfilm will realize it made a mistake and correct it. In the meantime, Ben lives on in our fan fics, edits, fan art, and fan merchandise.