These Bloodlines spoilers got me convinced you had the right idea, reading the novels apart from the movies. Some details throw ADF's version of events into suspicion. At what age did Ben begin to struggle? Why did he turn? Did Leia sense what was going on, or not?
The best thing about the Bloodline leaks is that I am no longer getting messages along the lines of: “Millie, you’ve got your head in the sand if you don’t trust every single implicit subtext in the novelizations as HARD CANON!”
I’m not a really well-read Star Wars fan. I don’t anticipate being right about any pet Star Wars theories. I do, however, work with creative executives every week, in a professional capacity, and I’m fairly confident in my assessment that multiple content creators would never, ever be able to coordinate the ABUNDANCE of creative content the Star Wars franchise is cranking out daily into a completely unified canon. These are people with tight deadlines and moving targets; they can’t possibly be sharing information on a level that would allow them to forge a consistent narrative. They’re not meticulously and critically checking each others’ work for conflict. And they’re not perfect communicators, either in their creative work, or outside it. That is a pipe dream.
Just as every person in fandom has their own idea of the story and characters, every content creator is working off a different idea of the story and characters…and there will be contradictions. Even just changing the frame of a story contradicts a different version; cutting a scene, adding a scene, etc. Everything contradicts everything, by nature. ADF’s Kylo is REALLY different from movie Kylo. Which is going to be different from the depiction of every other Kylo in every other piece of the “canon.” This is partly why Ao3 has so many subfandom tags for Star Wars. Want to write a story that characterizes Obi-Wan based on the Orig Trig but not the sequels? You can do that. HELL, you can write a story that characterizes Obi-Wan based *just* on Revenge of the Sith, excluding input from other movies. That’s allowed. I don’t know what the weird fandom elitism is with being *the most true* to the *the most canon.*
Sorry anon, I’m off topic. Anyway. ADFs’ Leia seems convinced that Kylo was struggling with the Dark Side from “the beginning” (which could have been infancy, or the beginning of the conflict, so really, who even knows what the timestamp on Snoke’s appearance is…?? From her POV OR his?)
Meanwhile CG’s Leia (very mild spoilers to follow) seems to have minimal concerns about her son–at least, until the “bomb” is dropped on the Senate floor.
I guess people are upset that the books contradict each other? Of course they do. There is a big secret being concealed here, something (I’ll bet) neither author was privy to. It’s something that will come out in the films, something that answers your questions. Who is Snoke? When did Ben first interact with him/her, why, how, and why didn’t his parents do anything about it?
ADF dropped a vague conversation between Leia andHan but, to me, it reads more as two parents trying to make excuses and figure out where they went wrong than any actual revelation of information about the narrative. I feel this is backed up by the tone and texture of dialogue in the movie, but we don’t know yet what the authors think about when and why Ben turned / was turned. We don’t know if, according to the author(s,) he was abused, who hurt him, how old he was, whether his parents knew, how they actually responded, how HE felt about that, how much free will he has or had, and until-what-point. We don’t even know IF he actually turned, of if he’s a spy… Maybe Kylo Ren is in cahoots with Luke Skywalker on a mission to take down Snoke from the inside! Kind of a crack theory, but I’m liking it more and more. The point is, there is a big ????? where Ben’s motivations should go. We’re all pretty excited to fill-in-the-blank, because it will tell us how to feel about him, and what to expect. But…I don’t think that blank is ever going to have just one, coherent filler. Different authors and different readers will always fill it differently. Even if episode 8 offers a really solid backstory and emotional context for Kylo…there will always be some space around the edges, and some details for which there is no singular canonical truth.
