"Kill the past" makes perfect sense for Kylo's character though. His past has done nothing but given him pain. Parents abandoned him, his uncle tried to murder him. Building on his past doesn't help him because the people responsible didn't try to help him until it was too late. I know y'all hate giving him any credit but stop calling him a dumb ass because you can't see his perspective
The point I was making was not that Ben’s perspective is not understandable– the point I was making was what the point of The Last Jedi, the film, is; what commentary on Ben’s actions the film provides. Which is that Ben’s perspective and method of dealing with his problems is not seen as correct by the narrative. Just because I can see Ben’s perspective doesn’t mean I have to agree with it; that is entirely why sympathetic villains exist in any media. He is portrayed as sympathetic but ultimately wrong. His current perspective is shown as one that is causing him agony and which in fact is hampering his true potential; it is something he needs to overcome to be who he was meant to be.
Killing the past has also brought Ben nothing but pain. This is the entire conceit of TFA and TLJ. Ben does not become stronger by killing his past, and the entire notion that Han and Leia literally abandoned Ben and that their love means nothing is ridiculous in a Star Wars movie, which is all about the redemptive power of familial love. To cheapen Han’s sacrifice by acting like the narrative is going to make it a null and void act of ‘too little, too late,’ is to nullify everything SW stands for, especially sacrificial love. His murder would not even have been a test for the Dark Side had Ben not loved him. And to act like Ben does not love Leia is frankly quite ludicrous, after the entire scene where he tears up sensing her in the Force and cannot bring himself to hurt her.
Ben is in fact called out for trying to kill his past during the very first scene:
…which culminates in the symbolic act of trying to ‘deny the truth that is his family’, to kill the past, which was Ben’s murder of his father. Which ended with this:
These are an unambiguous indictment of Ben’s attempts to kill his past, which was proceeded by this:
A reminder that no matter how much Ben tries, he cannot kill his past –he cannot kill Ben Solo, son of Han Solo– because he is still Han Solo’s son, because the past does not die. And when he tries, his spirit is split to the bone. He suffers.
And this motif is capped off twice in the third act, here:
Which then finishes with Ben on his knees in a mine, triumphant in might but utterly defeated in spirit, because he tried to kill the past, and now he is utterly, completely, alone.
The point is not, ‘Does Ben’s attempts to kill the past make sense for his motivations.’ The movie goes to great pains to make Ben sympathetic. The point is, does the narrative of The Last Jedi support Ben’s attempts to kill the past?
And it does not. The murder of his father leaves him in spiritual agony. Luke remarks that Han will never leave Ben, and that if he tries to kill Luke (kill his past), Luke will always be with him as well. Leia gives up hope and says her son is gone, is in the past, and Luke refutes this statement. The narrative gives zero indication of supporting Ben’s perspective. Not in an, ‘is he sympathetic way.’ In an, ‘is he right’ way.
And extended canon backs this up 100%. Anakin also tried to do the exact same thing as Darth Vader, as did the fallen Jedi who shed their identities and became dark side adherents after the fall of the Jedi Temple.
Anakin had just as much reason to ‘let the past die.’ The Jedi Council had separated him from his mother and forbade him from seeing her, then proceeded to use him for their own political agendas, forcing him to marry in secret. He had killed his wife. His mother was dead. There was nothing for him in the past; it has ‘caused him nothing but pain.’
Except that is just straight-up not how SW works. The narrative, across the board, consistently, for every character who tries to ‘kill the past’, be it Anakin, Ben, or the Inquisitors, is that it is impossible. The past cannot be killed, and to deny the past is to blind yourself, to fool yourself, and to hamper yourself to your true potential. Ben is wrong because the narrative sets him up that way. It is only when Anakin embraces the past –his son, and the true identity of Anakin Skywalker that his son represents– that he saves his soul, and this is basic, basic Star Wars logic. It is only when Ben embraces his past and his true identity that he will save his. And I’m going to post this again here:
‘You are fooling yourself’ if you think you can kill the past, and ‘it will always come back’. That is the thesis that the director himself wrote the script having in mind, and it is the thesis that contextualizes all of Ben’s actions.
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