Kylo Ren’s Hinted Redemption in Star Wars
The Star Wars franchise has spanned almost half a century and has also become an important part of American culture. Millions of children worldwide have grown up watching the power of the Force, Yoda’s teachings, and epic lightsaber battles.
The space opera is expected to culminate with episode nine, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, which will be released on December 20th of this year. At the same time, John Williams, the renowned musical composer of countless blockbuster franchises including Star Wars, has announced his planned retirement after the movie’s release. Thus, the runs of two enormous contributors to the filmmaking world will draw to a close this winter.
Fans, however, are not quite ready to wind down their theories. The current Star Wars trilogy centers around Rey, a Rebel Jedi-in-training, and her struggle against Kylo Ren, her equal on the dark side, and Director JJ Abrams hasn’t let many clues about the epic ending of the series series slip. So, naturally, fans like myself have been frantically speculating as to what that finale might be.
I think there’s little question over Rey’s ultimate fate in The Rise of Skywalker, seeing as she’s the trilogy’s heroine and Disney isn’t likely to kill off a main character. As for the fate of the supporters of the dark side, it has been hinted that this film will see the return of Emperor Palpatine, or Darth Sidious, the galaxy’s darkest villain, which gives any hard-core fan the chills. Thankfully, it’s been made clear that the emperor will be defeated once and for all in the upcoming film.
Despite this anticipated victory, I’m more concerned with the fate of Kylo Ren, Rey’s supposed enemy. Many fans think it’s plausible that the directors will have Rey kill Kylo in order to erase the possibility of future conflict, and equally plausible that Kylo will redeem himself in the process by self-sacrifice. After all, Darth Vader found redemption through self-sacrifice at the end of Return of the Jedi; why not Kylo as well?
When I look closer at the trilogy, however, I don’t think a redemption through death is Kylo’s most likely path, for one main reason: the characters of this trilogy break the patterns of past Star Wars heroes and villains, so their uniqueness could lead to a unique ending.
Kylo Ren, formerly Ben Solo, son of original characters Leia Organa and Han Solo, has been morally conflicted from the beginning of the trilogy, unlike Emperor Palpatine or Darth Vader—at least for the majority of the franchise. Though Kylo murders his father with ease in The Force Awakens, he balks at the order to kill his mother in The Last Jedi and also chooses to kill Emperor Snoke rather than harm Rey. This obvious moral ambiguity could allow Kylo to switch to the light side early on, erasing the need for him to die to receive redemption.
When the final Rise of Skywalker trailer was released, I was ecstatic to see a clip of Rey and Kylo destroying Darth Vader's shrine together. Filmmakers seem to be openly implying Kylo's turning to the light and denouncing Darth Vader as his role model, and thus our question becomes even more defined: will Kylo be killed off, like Vader? Or will he make it out alive, on Rey’s side, the right side, this time?
Our answer would be, “he’ll make it out alive.” However, there is one thing which stands in the way of his early redemption: Rey’s moral conflict. She is just as conflicted between light and dark as Kylo is. In The Last Jedi, Rey goes “straight to the dark” while learning to use the Force because of her longing to discover her past. In a trailer for The Rise of Skywalker, Rey is shown wielding a red saber, a mark of the dark side. These subtle hints at Rey’s darkness have made me question where her loyalties lie, and whether or not she will be able to bring Kylo to the light in time for him to escape a sacrificial redemption.
by HALEY CREIGHTON