I Want Kylo Ren to Lose!

Who was behind the mask in the end? No one (waitwhatyoudon'tlikethatOKthenhereyougoshe'saPalpatinelol)

The urge toward subversion, often through the infusion of “radical” politics, is a troublesome feature of today's genre fiction. One gets the sense that every writer feels embarrassed to be in it, as if grown-ups ought not to be writing space opera and fantasy. Everyone dreams of “elevating” the material, and of showing intellectual superiority to wider fandom. In short, everybody wants to be Alan Moore. But only Alan Moore is Alan Moore. Lesser men’s efforts at subversion and deconstruction are never so masterful. This is one of the (many) woes besetting the Star Wars sequel trilogy.

The obvious example is Rian Johnson’s TLJ, and the “Rey as no-one” revelation in particular. A subversion of the famous “I am your father” line, Johnson shows that you don’t need to be of great lineage to be a hero. Many critics have praised this decision, calling it a “radical” take on the franchise, a divergence from the old storylines which focused on the heroics of noble individuals at the expense of a wider galaxy of normal folk.

Is it though? For a start, in-universe force sensitivity must still result from some random biological fluke – unless everyone in the galaxy is now able to learn the force (which admittedly would be a glorious mess). So we still have the problem of a genetic lottery, just without the added depth of family drama.

More seriously though, this motif elides the subtlety of storytelling. All agree of course that each individual in the living world is of equal worth, regardless of whatever storied lineage one might have. But while protagonists are exceptional individuals in their own story universes, they are (ideally) accessible to every audience member. All find their own mundane struggles reflected in hero’s exceptional adventure, and their family drama in the hero’s wrestling with his lineage. Removing heritage from Rey merely drains her of already-lacking depth, only to answer a specious critique and make the most banal of social observations.

After all, the idea that merit ought to be valued over lineage is an argument Enlightenment thinkers and the rising bourgeoisie won against European aristocrats centuries ago. A radicalism in the 19^th Century, it’s a banality in our modern age. If anything, the snaring of Luke in his complicated heritage is more disturbing and subversive to us moderns, who like to think ourselves free, autonomous individuals unaffected by our ancestor’s deeds. Sure, it’s a story that’s been told before. But they’ve all been told before  – you might as well tell a good one.

With Rey thus hollowed-out, Adam Driver can steal the show. Kylo has a lineage – in characters we know and care for, as well as conflicting heritage of light and dark – for the actor to work with. Between Rey’s flawlessness in TFA, and her deracination in TLJ, all Daisy Ridley has to deal with by the start of the final episode is… being the protagonist.

However, most damaging to the new trilogy has been the neutering of evil and the dark side of the force. In the original trilogy it is a caution against things we all feel: righteous anger; the craving for power to right genuine wrongs; the rush of revenge. When Luke succumbs to anger, slashing at the Emperor and battering Vader into submission, we want him to. These villains deserve it. It’s almost disappointing when Luke refuses, and shames us for our own bloodlust, before finally triumphing through love.

In our trilogy, the dark side is merely a product of entitlement. Privilege. Ben Solo turns because, as son of a general and war hero, he feels entitled to the power owed to his maternal namesake. This is the liberation politics idea of evil, which results from the privileged elite enjoying, and jealously guarding, power over the marginalised. In other words, evil people are evil because they’re evil. The line between good and evil runs not through each human heart, but between classes and across picket lines. Perhaps this more than anything drove Rian Johnson’s mischievous erasure of Rey’s parentage, a fixation on rebuking inherited power. Far from elevating Star Wars, this thoroughly Disney-fies it. Whatever deeper moral content it had is stripped out.

And it leaves “good” with little content in itself; Johnson especially even problematizes the heroics of bravery, self- sacrifice and martial valour with Rose Tico’s antics. The infamous line “not by destroying what we hate, but saving what we love…” perhaps betrays Rian Johnson’s insecurity about his own film – he spends little screen time celebrating the Resistance’s virtues, but instead pillories Kylo’s entitlement, Poe’s disrespect toward a female superior, and (most embarrassingly) capitalist profiteers who’ve apparently funded the Star Wars this whole time.

Rey is but a walking negation of Kylo. She and the Resistance are a set of action figures arrayed against a child’s idea of evil. You’re not really meant to like Rey and the Resistance– you just hate the idea of privilege that Kylo represents. Thus the thematic baggage of wokeness has ironically hobbled the franchise’s first female protagonist.

This is a problem Rise of Skywalker seems aware of and tries to redress (admittedly in an awful rush), introducing Rey’s Palpatine blood and giving her a scene or two to chew on it. And if there have been jabs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAs0bpzBJgk in this trilogy toward the old core fanbase, perhaps JJ Abrams closes with a satire of the woke bunch in General Hux, who scornfully declares “I don’t care if you win – I want Kylo Ren to lose!” But it’s too little, too late.

The themes and family drama of the original trilogy (if not the special effects and hairstyles) are timeless, thanks of course to Joseph Campbell. Rather than advancing the IP into more mature subjects and new audiences, I fear the liberation ethos has rendered Star Wars shallower than ever, and will quickly date the sequel trilogy to the trite culture wars of our own silly times. Sadly, much of genre fiction may suffer the same fate before the lesson is learned.