Kylo's feelings for Rey and his loss of control at the end of TLJ
For being someone who seems to lose his temper so easily, Kylo is incredibly calm when dealing with Rey.
She’s always so aggressive with him, she already tried to shot him twice at first sight, she always calls him horrible names (“monster!” “murderous snake!” “you will pay for what you did!”), but he never reacts. And not because he’s not listening or because her words don’t matter to him, because he still remembered how Rey called him a monster in the forest and he even remembered her eyes when she called him such, so clearly it’s something that deeply affected him. But he doesn’t call her names back or try to hurt her.
That’s even more interesting: he never tries to harm her. In the forest, he was mostly defending himself and he never went for the kill; he keeps saying to other people that he will kill her, but whenever he had Rey in his hands he never tried to do anything like that. He does underline her poor origins, but I don’t even think he realizes how hurtful it can be because as a prince, he really has no idea how to treat people.
The only times he loses his temper is when he knows he’s about to lose her. But don’t get this the wrong way: he doesn’t force her to stay. He just loses his temper because he’s frustrated she doesn’t understand the potential of their joined forces (“you’re still holding on! let go!”). But he doesn’t get violent about it. It’s always Rey who starts the fight and leaves at the end.
Which brings me to the controversial ending of TLJ, which some people considered the end of reylo, of the force bond and everything. I’m talking about Kylo’s behavior from the moment he wakes up in the throne room up to when Luke leaves the battlefield.
The first thing that hit me about those ten (twenty?) minutes of the movie is how dramatically different Kylo acted in comparison to the rest of the movie. He had been mostly calm, collected, silent even during the most tragic moments (attacking Leia), but of all a sudden the “tantrum kid” we saw in TFA comes back at full force and he takes a series of unreasonable decisions, so unreasonable that even Hux side-eyes him with utter confusion more than once. I’m not gonna list them all, but the weirdest one was certainly deciding to fire all the FO weapons against Luke. A single man who was WALKING towards them without protection or anything. Hux’s face was literally a “what the fuck?” for the whole thing.
Why would he do that? There’s more than one reason. In my opinion, Kylo starts losing it the moment Rey refuses his hand. From that moment on, he starts falling back into his hole of isolation and darkness. The only person who seemed to understand him up until then is suddenly turning her back (AGAIN!!) on him and even tries to fight him! He’s back to level 0 and he doesn’t like it.
Plus, he just killed Snoke. He already killed his father and hasn’t recovered from that emotional wound yet (“your soul is split in half” as Snoke tells him). The only other person he looked up to was Snoke and he ended up killing him FOR REY. And then, even Rey, the person he did all of this for, abandons him.
Kylo is no new to betrayal, as we learn throughout the movie. Luke tried to kill him in his sleep. His own uncle tried to kill an innocent kid in his sleep. Is there anything worse? You don’t recover from that kind of trauma that easily.
I think those last minutes of the movie up to Luke disappearance are the result of that. It’s just too much for Kylo. He loses control and Luke seems to know that. That’s why he lets him vent out his frustration on him and at the same time he seems to reassure him (“I will always be with you, just like your father”).
After Luke leaves, Kylo seems to calm down. And that leads us to the last scene we see of him and Rey, where they force bond once again and Rey closes the door of the falcon on him without saying a word, expressing her disappointment in him, and he just lets her go and looks at her with a longing and the knowledge that he’s taken all the wrong choices. (But, in my opinion, also with the knowledge that he can still change path!!)
In conclusion, there’s no reason to think Rey and Kylo went back to the start or that their bond is broken or that Kylo is completely lost. I think that instead, we had a really great character development and this movie laid foundation for what could be the greatest love story in the SW cinematic universe.
amandla
titsay
vaporwave
