Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi

Isn’t Kylo nothing more than a psychopath in the end?

He’s sorta like pre-bisection Maul.

Nah. Kylo may be straightforwardly terrible, but there's a lot of layers and foibles to how that terrible-ness is presented. Maul barely had any characterization at all in TPM; all I got from him was "silent predatory stooge".

He upped his game by both the Clone Wars and Rebels.

I mean, once he got over his bisection induced insanity and all.

So I've seen, but slimcoder mentioned pre-bisection, so pre-bisection was what I talked about.

I agree. I'll note that his spiel about overthrowing the old order and setting up something new and better with Rey isn't much different from what Anakin said to Padme when she confronted him on Mustafar. How he was the most powerful person in the Republic, how the Jedi were a relic, that he would overthrow Palpatine and they could rule the galaxy together.

Really, the most glaring difference is that Kylo did overthrow Snoke before making this offer.

Kinda reminds me of Assassin's Creed, where the Templars keep crowing about how they need to be in charge so that they can fix the world, and ignore all the terrible things they do to put themselves in charge.

There is a cycle in Star Wars. It's caused by people like Kylo insisting everything will be fine once they kill everyone who disagrees with them.

"Some people really are just beyond saving" is kind of a harsh message for such an idealistic series. Not that it isn't true (well, I think so, feel free to disagree), but...

And before anyone says anything, yes, I'm well aware the vast majority of SW villains die unredeemed. It just isn't typically a major theme or really called attention to at all, is what I'm getting at.

I think "this villain was offered multiple chances at redemption but rejected them all" is slightly different. There's nothing wrong with trying to redeem a villain. If nothing else, Rey's attempts to redeem Kylo in TLJ got Snoke and all his guards killed. But after a certain point, you need to accept that he's not going to let himself be redeemed and move on.

I suppose it would be better if there was a similar character who was redeemed, because he chose to be redeemed. I guess technically that's Finn, but his own redemption arc doesn't parallel Kylo's very much.

First time for everything. Heck, if the story had ended with A New Hope then Vader would have gotten karmic justice for "killing" Luke's father and all his other crimes by careening off into deep space to die alone after the Death Star blew up.

An undercurrent of the entire prequel story was showing how one conflict evolves into something different for the next generation. Two superpowers duking it out, the winner becoming The Empire in the aftermath, which creates La Résistance. It might have been a little too on-the-nose, but the sequels would have benefited from making the First Order either a well entrenched coalition that would have been wiped out by the New Republic if not for them weighing the political backlash to retake those systems (ie North Korea) or a mobile fleet hiding among different locations to keep ahead of New Republic forces (ie Al Qaida), as that would change the nature of the conflict. The Expanded Universe implies they are supposed to be the first, but in practice they are their own superpower acting as though they are still the Empire, complete with their own superweapons they pull out. That would have made Kylo's speech about an eternal conflict less superficial, while also making Poe's "burn the First Order down" line be less contradictory to all the anti-war themes.

Edited by KJMackley on Jun 10th 2019 at 7:35:42 AM

The tv shows play the same theme with Maul. And my memories of the old EU is a mite fuzzy, but I doubt Kylo is the first time the series has had an antagonist specifically choose not to be redeemed when given the chance. KOTOR, at least, did that iirc.

Just because a villain is sympathetic doesn't mean they have to end up as a good guy. You can give some people all the love in the world, but not everyone will take it. It's only a harsh message if you're then expected to stop trying to connect to others.

And no bit of Star Wars media worth its salt has advocated that, no matter what happens to the villain. A defining aspect of the Jedi - at least, the protagonist Jedi - is that they don't stop trying, and instead always carry the hope that they'll be able to do right by others.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Jun 10th 2019 at 9:17:14 AM

The fate I want for Kylo Ren is to have him stand in a trial.

Preferrably either an execution or life sentence.

How do you put a Knight of Ren on trial?

Why should that matter to the Rebels?

Christopher Nolan wanted to put the Joker on trial, probably for the absurdity of how you would convict someone who looked and behaved like THAT, and there is a certain interest in how he would approach that. But there are greater story limitations when dealing with someone who is a Person of Mass Destruction like Kylo. Prolonged imprisonment seems very unlikely, all the audience would be thinking is why he was bothering with this. Sadly, The Force Unleashed 2 ended with the Rebellion capturing Vader and were going to try him and execute him. The image of seeing Vader in a full body restraint was interesting, but it's hard to believe he wouldn't escape in the opening scene of the sequel.

Edited by KJMackley on Jun 11th 2019 at 1:32:11 AM

Makes me think of that argument between Anakin and Mace Windu over whether to kill Palpatine or take him to trial.

It wasn't an argument. Mace went there to arrest Palps and have him stand trial before the Senate, then Palps resisted with deadly force, murdering three Jedi. Mace in turn fought back in defense of self and others, using whatever force necessary to neutralize the clear and immediate threat. In this case, that sadly was lethal force.

Anakin obstructed justice, committed mayhem upon Mace, and made himself accomplice to Mace's murder.

Edited by TheAirman on Jun 11th 2019 at 3:55:38 AM

If I may play Devil's Advocate, Sheev was so popular that arresting him or, especially, killing him would likely give him exactly what he wanted anyway - the Jedi framed as dangerous radicals and coup plotters. I could swear I read some source or other that said Mace's plan was actually to take the Chancellor's chair himself. It should be pretty obvious why this would be a terrible thing to do.

In the end, I think all that would happen is you'd trade Emperor Palpatine for Emperor Pestage or Amedda.

Edited by HamburgerTime on Jun 11th 2019 at 4:29:02 AM

To be fair, there was the moment where Mace had seemingly won and was fully willing to kill Palpatine anyway—that's when Anakin showed up. And then when Anakin cut off Mace's arm, Palpatine immediately showed that he had been playing possum and finished Mace off.

In the novelization, Palpatine also had an audio-only recorder in his chambers, carefully worded things when the Jedi showed up to make it seem like he was an innocent victim, and then destroyed the recorder (but not the recordings) before he went full ham.

I'm not sure about Mace specifically, but I do recall mention of a time in the old EU where the Jedi had to take the Supreme Chancellor position for a brief time. They gave it up as soon as they could.

Edited by Discar on Jun 11th 2019 at 2:30:03 AM

One of the issues where continuity comes in is that in Legends (and possibly still canon, not sure) there is a contingency order calling for the arrest of the Supreme Chancellor in the event that he was unfit for duty.

Then again that's basically the same as an impeachment order, since it requires the consent of the majority of the Senate and Security Council, not just the Jedi Order.

Then we get into Palpatine's political machinations again. The Jedi have minimal real proof, and what little proof they do have is mostly that Palpatine is a Sith, which he can easily dismiss as religious differences.

~ Anakin enters room ~
Mace: "You are under arrest, my lord" ~ motions Anakin to keep at a safe distance ~
Sheev: "Anakin, I told you it would come to this. I was right, the Jedi are taking over!"
Mace: "The oppression of the Sith will never return. You have lost."
Sheev: "No NO NO, you have lost!" ~ shoots fucking lighting out of his hands at Mace ~

There is the moment later when Sheev pretends for a second time to be too weak, but Anakin is too busy mentally siding with the wizard fuhrer to do his job.

You have to think of the PR fallout for the Jedi. Mace being... Mace, I really doubt he had a plan to contain the inevitable backlash. Amedda or Pestage beats him to Space Rupert Murdoch with the story and it's all over, doubly so if they know how to trigger Order 66 themselves.

Amedda and Pestage would have been rudderless without Palpatine, though without a doubt they would have to be killed also. As well as Armand Isard, Tarkin, Krennic, etc. The Jedi would still have a pretty large window of time to act since Palpatine's faction would be in disarray without him, but they would have absolutely needed to conduct a purge to scour the Republic clean.

Edited by CrimsonZephyr on Jun 12th 2019 at 1:30:33 PM

Tarkin didn't really step into the light as a paramount political power until after the Empire rose, so he probably would have been fine: he had Sheev's favor, but he wasn't visibly in Palpatine's pocket, and I could imagine Tarkin turning that around by taking point in hunting down and prosecuting Palpatine's allies.

Come to think of it, I really could see Tarkin leveraging himself as Chancellor or something eventually should Sheev have been arrested and/or killed.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Jun 12th 2019 at 4:13:21 AM