Q&A: The Importance of Understanding Visual Motifs
Kylo Ren's very specifically not a Sith, though.
So, this is a fabulous time to discuss how to properly code your characters in fiction when working within a genre that calls for a very specific forumla. Star Wars is a series that runs on visual motifs as a quick and easy way to communicate information to their viewers without having to explain anything through dialogue. The Empire in the Original Trilogy is very carefully color coded with that austere black on white, as are the lightsabers, blue and green versus red, and they work their way down to the style of dress. The Original Trilogy are carefully managed to communicate not just good and evil, but Bad Samurai versus Good Samurai in a classic early Western film style from the Golden Age of Hollywood. There are six movies, two trilogies, prior to Kylo Ren’s appearance that explicitly visually code anyone wielding a red lightsaber as a Sith Lord. In the films, the Sith are the only ones who wield that lightsaber color and the only ones who dress the way Kylo Ren does. In Star Wars, the visual motif and color choice is a means of storytelling and taken a practice taken from Eastern filmmaking where these sorts of visual motifs are more common. The Original Trilogy and the Prequels are all serials like Flash Gordon, they’re designed for the viewer to absorb information quickly as possible and jump in in medias res without much effort.
You’re not going to rewrite six previous movies spanning thirty years that have heavily influenced pop culture overnight or just because you want to say they’re not. The Star Wars films are a genre by themselves, and if you don’t follow the formula then you start throwing the audience out of the narrative. Saying Kylo Ren is not a Sith is like trying to say Indiana Jones isn’t an archeologist, that Luke Skywalker isn’t the hero, and that Vader isn’t a villain. There’s a genre here far older than Kylo Ren, and he’s in serialized mythic storytelling whether his creators like it or not. If you’ve explicitly giving your character all the trappings of the Chosen One and then trying to insist they’re not really, even when relying on narrative structures centuries older than your story. If you say you’re writing a fairy tale, you’re beholden to it because that’s the promise you made, even when attempting to subvert expectations.
Kylo Ren is a Sith because he’s visually coded to be a Sith in his character design, he looks like a Sith, he has the trappings of the Sith, and no time was invested to show how he’s different or he’s following a different philosophy. The choice to have him worshiping Darth Vader was probably also a mistake. He’ll be held to the Sith standard because that’s the narrative position he’s occupying. He’s the Bad Samurai of the Star Wars flick, which is the same as the Bad Samurai of a Kurosawa film, just like Vader, Maul, and Dooku. He even has an evil mentor patterned in the style of the Emperor. He’s different? How?
I mean, yes, he’s more whiny and he doesn’t have a Darth in front of his name, but he’s filling the narrative position of the Sith Lord. He takes no pains to differentiate himself in TFA from the others, outside being rather bad at being a Sith but that really just makes him a bad villain.That’s Kylo Ren though, and, ultimately, he doesn’t matter for those of you writers out there except as a cautionary tale about character archetypes and genre expectations.
Here’s what this means for you: if you want to subvert expectations, you need to understand the expectations and constraints your genre places you under. You need to grasp the kind of story you promised to tell your reader when they sat down to read your story. You need to understand that even when you’re deconstructing, your story still needs to be the kind of narrative you promised your audience.
Now, you might figure that doesn’t matter but, for the rest of us who don’t have the advantage of picking up a Superman level franchise which ensures success with millions to billions of ticket sales based on the name brand and fan nostalgia alone, it is very important. You don’t want to lose your audience based on false or broken promises, and it is hilarious to say an your audience should pick up your story without expectations. The aisle in which your book is set, the kind of agent you query, the blurb on the back of your book, the first chapter all build expectations. You’ve hundreds of writers who came before you, who laid the groundwork, and created the rules; especially with genre fiction. If you want to break audience expectation then you need to do the work, and that starts by understanding the genre you’re working with.
Bad advertising can kill your career before it ever gets started. You can’t just put out whatever and expect results. You’ve got to be 1970s George Lucas Star Wars, not the Prequels or JJ Abrams Star Wars circa 2015. You’ve got to get your audience to trust you, and this is why understanding the tropes and narrative devices which you’ve absorbed for most of your life by watching, reading, and listening to narratives. You have to understand the tools you’re using, like the character design for Kylo Ren. He looks like a Sith Lord, and a in Star Wars film the visual presentation is all it takes to make him a Sith Lord for your casual audience. He wears black robes, and uses a funky looking red lightsaber. He’s a Dark Side user, which for the casual audience that only watched some of or most of the previous six incredibly popular, ground breaking, culturally defining films is synonymous with Sith. He’s a Sith.
If his creators wanted him to be something else, they needed to define him as something else by more than just his name and visually show him as that something else. Like wielding a double bladed lightsaber that was half red and half blue to show he’s conflicted, or one that was purple, or some other color used to visually represent a grayish Force user struggling with the Dark Side. Slight coloring changes via the lighting just doesn’t do enough to bridge the gap because Star Wars is not subtle. There’s no luxury for half-measures.
Anakin Skywalker dual wields a pair of sabers at the end of The Clone Wars against Count Dooku who wields two sabers. This is a deliberate choice, because throughout the film itself the dual sabers were uniquely associated with Dooku, who is a Sith. They’re labeled an aggressive form of combat. In the final fight, they actually visually represent Anakin embracing his inner aggression/anger as he shifts into fighting like his enemy, and for a brief moment they’re the same. After all, the same weapons are what make a duel a duel. This is the same as when Vader hacks off Luke’s hand on Cloud City, and Luke gets a prosthetic at the end of the film. The symbolism doesn’t fully take effect until Luke hacks off Vader’s hand in Return of the Jedi while wearing the black glove, and we’re shown his realization of how his action brings him one step closer to becoming like Vader. This realization is what causes him to take a step back and fully commit to his path as a Jedi.
These are all visual motifs carefully used by Star Wars directors to depict character growth, character arcs, character personalities, and direct the tone of major plot shifts. Star Wars is really great for learning how to effectively use symbolism to communicate broad ideas and characters without having to waste time on general exposition. However, the trappings are what make the characters. You’re beholden to them. You can choose what to do within those archetypes, that box is where subversion and deconstruction happen, but you shouldn’t ignore your genre tropes.
