Only Alive for Reylo

teenagecriminalmastermind:

soyeahso:

red-applesith:

soyeahso:

Another seriously meta line in TLJ is Kylo asking Luke sarcastically if he’s come to redeem his soul.

The question on Kylo Ren’s redemption is the biggest remaining question in the trilogy. For many it’s already answered. Some say that after the events of TLJ there is no hope for redemption. For some, it can only happen if it precedes his death. And others still hold out hope that it is possible for him to come back to the light and that atonement is possible.

Kylo has realized that Rey will not have him as he is. That her mission was to redeem his soul and without that, she is lost to him. But he has seen himself as irredeemable since before he killed his father. (“It’s too late.”) And the idea that Luke would try now, after all this time, after Rey couldn’t do it, is laughable.

And when Luke tells him no. When Luke continues to taunt him. When he tells him that his anger will not make him go away but will have the opposite effect, I think he is telling us that it is not going to be up to anyone else to save Ben Solo. His family couldn’t do it. Rey couldn’t in the time she had and she cannot be tasked with it above her mission to aid the Resistance.

This has to be something he does willingly. Even if it is ultimately inspired by his love for Rey he has to do the work, and he has to come willingly. I think that anyone who is afraid her story and agency would be subsumed in an effort to save him should have had those worries allayed by this film. She did what she could in laying a foundation (and remember her efforts were borne as much from a belief that his redemption is for the good of the galaxy as out of compassion for him) but the rest is up to him.

^ It’s the reason why I am very tired of the short-sighted argument that Rey is reduced to a plot device if Ben gets redeemed and that this scenario should not happen.

Last Jedi established that they both retain their agency, that neither was ready to compromise but also hinted that they both suffer in consequence and that they will need to compromise in order to be reunited in the future. 

And both of them were short sighted in how they interpreted their vision, and saw it as a confirmation of what they already wanted. For Rey, Kylo turning to the light could only be followed by him coming with her to the Rsistance (and oh honey that would really not have gone the way you think.) For him, he couldn’t see past his own already forming plan to usurp, and her standing by him could only mean she would stand with him to rule. In stories like these, visions, especially where someone can only see the shape of what is to come, cannot be taken literally. We don’t see their vision, and because of their bias they are both unreliable narrators. This vision is definitely a seed Rian planted that could come to fruition in the next episode if JJ waters it, whether they’re endgame as a romantic couple or not.

A couple or not, Ren and Rey are now linked. Their destinies are intertwined, but it is their individual choices that will give shape to this destiny. Like @red-applesith stated, they both retain their agency, so neither is a plot device to aid the other. 

In the very last scene, Rey and Kylo see each other through the Force bond, and Rey seems to send a message that more or less says “it’s your turn now”.  She tried to help him in her own way, but that didn’t work. So if he wants to become free of his pain and hurt and become the person he wants to be, that change has to come from him.

She is not his fix-it. She is not his panacea. She is not that plot device.

Rey has her own loyalties and causes not necessarily tied to him. She has her own shit to do and her own opinions, her own reasons to take the stances she does. And she will not simply change them in a wave of sympathy for Ben Solo. Ben Solo has to do the work to become who he wants to be.

Rey wants Kylo Ren to die and for Ben Solo to become that Ben, but she isn’t dropping everything for him and just running off like that. And he recognizes that, as much as he dislikes it.

They will influence each other’s decision’s, yes, but not in the way you typically expect.

(via drawingreylo-szikee)