‘Rise of Skywalker’ made Kylo Ren the most exhausting man in the galaxy

Sure, Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) is cute and all, and millions of so-called “Reylo” fans have forgiven his crimes because he ended up redeemed by Rey and won a final pre-death kiss from her, Romeo and Juliet-style, in Rise of Skywalker’s conclusion. 

But consider something the movie does not make explicitly obvious, something that hits you like a freight train when you realize it. Kylo literally caused the deaths of the entire original Star Wars trilogy trio. His father, Han Solo, in The Force Awakens; his uncle, Luke Skywalker, in The Last Jedi, and now his mother, Leia Organa. 

The last two he killed through sheer Force exhaustion. Leia died in a manner many mothers will understand, especially this time of year: trying to get her son to shut the hell up and just listen for a couple minutes.

Kylo Ren (aka Ben Solo) is, in short, the most exhausting being in the galaxy. He is also its most problematic: a mass murderer and a mansplainer who kept failing upwards. Even as a new post-Rise of Skywalker comic series sets out to redeem him, it’s hard not to see him as the ultimate example of one of the darkest forces in our present-day universe: toxic masculinity. 

Granted, at least Leia’s sacrifice worked, because Kylo/Ben says nothing more than “ow” in the movie’s final 45 minutes. The General distracted her kid with a Force connection of some sort, just long enough for Rey to stab Kylo with his own lightsaber. She then decides that was a bad idea, echoing a previous encounter with an apparently aggressive snake, and heals him. 

Kylo/Ben has a conversation with a memory of his dad, and then decides he’s strong enough to throw his lightsaber into the ocean. Luckily, Kylo/Ben did a better throw than Arrested Development‘s Gob Bluth when he tried to throw a letter into the ocean. But the moment certainly has the same energy. 

Kylo is now redeemed; he’s officially Ben again. We know this because the lightsaber scar on his face has vanished. He’s on the Light Side now, hence more pretty! He and Rey defeat the Knights of Ren and Emperor Palpatine by sharing lightsabers (remember kids, always use protection). Then he dies saving Rey’s life with his own life energy. 

Which is probably because if he stayed in the movie a moment longer, the newly resurgent Resistance would have to put him on trial for his many millions of crimes. 

Many moments in the movie mirror Return of the Jedi, and Kylo’s noble (?) death may be intended as an echo of the end of Darth Vader — who, lest we forget, was the first to save a life by “killing” the Emperor. (We must now put “killing” inside quotes.) 

But, well, there are a couple of things to unpack here. First of all, the redemption of Vader was controversial itself. Here was a man who had slaughtered the innocent and his own side alike for decades, starting with Jedi children. He was Space Hitler. He throws one guy off a balcony, and suddenly everything’s good? 

“It’s like Hitler’s on his deathbed and he repents and everything’s OK,” Alan Dean Foster, author of the first Star Wars novelization, told me. “‘I’ve murdered 8 million people, but I’m sorry.’ I just couldn’t go with that.” 

Oddly enough, The Rise of Skywalker clears up more of the problem with Vader’s redemption than with Kylo’s. “Bring balance to the Force, as I did,” the ghost of Anakin Skywalker instructs Rey during a scene where she hears the voices of just about every main Jedi we’ve ever met in Star Wars films and cartoons. 

That’s a clear canonization of what George Lucas said of the prophecy of the Chosen One, the thing Anakin was supposed to fulfill. Lucas insists he fulfilled it, in the end, by killing the Sith Emperor and himself in the process. The balance of the Force is left in Luke Skywalker. 

So J.J. Abrams undid that whole prophecy thing when he retroactively brought the Emperor back from death. He negated Vader’s sacrifice; indeed, given that Kylo is such a Vader stan, you could argue that the son never truly understood the grandfather, and maybe that means Kylo was an ill-conceived character in the first place. But that’s not even the main problem. 

Kylo Ren is just as murderous as Vader ever was. Probably more so. Vader was part of a plot to blow up a handful of planets; Kylo was part of the plot to kill an entire star system (and not just any star system, but the center of the New Republic). He cornered the entire Resistance in a cave and wanted to kill every last one of them. 

The Rise of Skywalker opens with Kylo wholesale slaughtering an entire army, one lightsaber stabbing at a time. It doesn’t make tactical sense for the Supreme Leader of the First Order to be on the front lines like that, but that’s not even the main problem either. 

The main problem is, Abrams has layered the echo of Kylo over Vader’s sacrifice without really knowing what it meant. The result is a mess. 

Kylo brings Rey back to life, but only after she finally eradicates the Emperor, which was her main goal in the movie. (Striking him down so his spirit enters her in death was part of the Emperor’s plan, but this doesn’t happen in practice, so let’s just roll with it.) Really, Kylo helped Rey achieve nothing. You could argue he gives his life for her to become a new Skywalker, perhaps, but what does that even mean? What does she do now? J.J. Abrams offers no clues whatsoever. 

Return of the Jedi offered a touching family narrative, a mythic twist: the son redeems the father by seeing the good in him, then the father saves the son. Kylo had nothing to do with Rey’s redemption from being a Palpatine. She handled that her own damn self. 

‘I can fix him!’

And for all the strong desire that fandom had for Kylo Ren and Rey hooking up, this ending doesn’t necessarily send the right message. It’s the opposite of Rey’s “coming into her own power” narrative. It’s a “see, I can fix him!” narrative. 

Rey removes the hot mess from the hot guy, conveniently right at the end of their time together! So much for the fact that Kylo effectively gaslit Rey, stringing her along with revelations about her family history as it suited his purpose. So much for the fact that he was an enormous manbaby, the greatest in the entire Star Wars saga. He’s a kid with strong opinions and a propensity for trashing his room. The rage is strong with him. 

Let us not forget that there are too many men out there who act out like Kylo/Ben — evil one moment, apparently unscarred the next. People get hurt because of this dichotomy. People stuck in abusive relationships especially. You could argue that a myth set in a galaxy far, far away has nothing to do with such domestic concerns. But ask yourself this: How many people this Christmas will reach this moment in the darkness of a theater, and decide to give things one more go in an abusive situation that really shouldn’t be given one more go? Rey stood by her man, why shouldn’t I? 

Another narrative that doesn’t need reinforcing, especially not in 2020: a charismatic white male failing his way upwards to Supreme Leadership and beyond. In The Rise of Skywalker, this man escapes justice by becoming redeemed at the last possible moment. A Galactic Senate trial, were it run fairly, would not exonerate him. Not least because he snuffed out three of the brightest lights in the Rebellion. Luke, Leia, and Han made the Senate’s return possible in the first place. 

Somehow, with some last-minute sleight of hand and help from an ally (Rey) who really shouldn’t be an ally, he manages to wriggle out of what’s coming to him in the Senate. He wins the day, after a fashion, and some of his main opponents just die of sheer exhaustion.

What’s that? Yes, of course I’m still talking about Star Wars. Why do you ask?  

With additional revelations by Angie Han.