Star Wars: Could Kylo Ren really be a double agent? [Discussion]

In my efforts to understand The Last Jedi and what it means for the sequel trilogy, certain developments in the film could point to Kylo Ren’s bigger plan.

First and foremost, I do not like Kylo Ren. As a character, he’s a one-dimensional schoolyard bully and an embarrassment to both the Skywalker name, and especially his mother, Leia Organa. As far as villains are concerned, the comparison to Darth Vader ignores the significance of Vader’s journey from slave boy Anakin Skywalker to lovesick Anakin Skywalker to extremely confused Anakin Skywalker to lightsaber beast Darth Vader to Death Star plans Darth Vader to ‘Where is my son?‘ Darth Vader to ‘Hello, son‘ Darth Vader and all the way back to ‘Don’t you dare hurt my son‘ Darth Vader and ‘I want to see you with my own eyes as my final selfless act before rejoining the Force‘ Anakin Skywalker. He had six films of character development, and Kylo Ren has squandered two so far.

For the most part, my frustration is simply with Star Wars and the lack of storytelling. Not Adam Driver’s otherwise gripping performance. Though I enjoyed The Last Jedi, it neither established why Kylo Ren has ignored the light on so many occasions, nor why I should care. Despite the two and a half hours, we ended right where we started: Kylo Ren is bad, Luke Skywalker is not available, the Resistance is in trouble, and Rey’s sad.

The more I replay The Last Jedi in my mind, the more I feel Episode IX‘s burden to fix and wrap up the trilogy as nicely as possible. There are dozens of possibilities, but there’s one in particular I want to focus on now for my own peace of mind. By Episode IX, Kylo Ren’s either going to stay a villain until the last second and we spent three films doing nothing, or he’s going to be redeemed and we spent three films doing nothing. Either way, something has got to give and it’s gotta give soon.

The third option is that we’ll learn that all the “nothing” that occurred in the first two films really serves a much bigger story: Kylo Ren is a double agent. He is part of the light side and his time with the First Order is part of a much bigger plot to destroy them from within.

Let’s retrace his steps from what we saw in The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, shall we? I’m trying to go in order of when the events occurred. Also, there are spoilers if you haven’t seen The Last Jedi, obviously.

Before The Force Awakens:

First, when Luke Skywalker confronts Kylo Ren in his hut at the Jedi Temple, Rey correctly notes that Ben’s choice hadn’t been made yet. But what if he did choose? Not that he chose the dark side, but more he sensed the fear in Luke and took his hesitance as a sign of weakness to do what must be done in the future. As if he knew Snoke wanted to end them both and Luke wouldn’t be able to save Ben anyway. Maybe he foresaw the First Order’s rise and destruction, so he took it upon himself to end them first. I mean, Luke wouldn’t kill Darth Vader either and relied on Anakin’s goodness to survive, as foolish as we could take that to be. (“Foolish” also being a word that Ben uses to describe himself later.)
Plus, we still don’t really know what happened at the Jedi Temple in its entirety. As manipulated as Rey and Ben were, we as an audience might not have seen the whole thing. We deserved a full flashback after Rey’s vision on Takodana, but we didn’t get one. Instead, we receive two conflicting stories from Luke Skywalker and Kylo Ren. Luke says Kylo killed half the students and took the other half, but we didn’t see that. So what if the so-called Knights of Ren did all the killing and the reason we haven’t seen those guys yet is because Kylo Ren killed them for the senseless murder of children?
To destroy the First Order, Ben takes on a dual personality. He succumbs to the call of the dark side and becomes Kylo Ren. Further, this duality would explain why he felt so “torn apart.”

During The Force Awakens:

So if Luke won’t kill, Kylo Ren kills who he must to in order to gain Snoke and Hux’s trust. That way, he could kill Snoke rather easily and take control of the First Order without question. When he kills Lor San Tekka on Jakku, everyone is watching. It was the perfect opportunity for a demonstration. It is the audience’s first scene with him and we have no idea what he was doing before that. He could’ve spent his time reading for all we know.
He has no real motivation that we know of yet, and his extreme anger is just a mask as he overcompensates for the good side of him. More importantly, he wears an actual mask to hide his inner torment. It’s not for aesthetic or so he can breathe. It’s not even an intimidation tactic, but so no one can see him weeping in times of trouble.
After he captures Poe, he tortures him, gets nothing, and then leaves Poe Dameron alive. Why leave him alive if he has no information? Darth Vader killed plenty of people who failed him or were useless. Empire dude after Empire dude was killed for failing him. Yet, Kylo Ren doesn’t kill First Order men.
And speaking of which, his obsession with Vader? Either he’s stupid and ignoring Anakin Skywalker’s redemption (Luke was there, and so Luke could’ve easily shared this part of the story once Ben finds out his true heritage), or he’s known about it all along. When he looks at the mask in TFA and says that he will finish what his grandfather started, he meant bringing balance to the Force.
When the First Order blows up systems in the Republic, Kylo Ren watches from his ship. He could be sad and contemplative, we don’t know. We don’t see anything as he stands there watching the Republic fall. Once again, he could be weeping at the loss of his former identity, just like Anakin wept.
And, of course, the big act of TFA: killing Han Solo. So, Han Solo calls out to Ben on the bridge of Starkiller base. Ben stops, turns around, and says he’s been waiting for this moment. He could’ve been waiting for him because he really wanted to see his dad, like he really needed a moment to be a vulnerable boy in the presence of his father just one more time. He even goes so far as to take off his mask and reveal his face. He’s so tired of his mission and it puts such a strain on his soul that he wants to be free of the pain and let someone else bring down the First Order.
If that’s not the case, why not kill his father outright on the bridge? What was the point of the exchange? Well, he needed a push to continue on. That’s obvious. But to continue in which direction is not. Plus, Harrison Ford didn’t want to be in this franchise, so really, Kylo Ren just drew the short stick and had to accept the hatred while he did his “father” a favor. And what’s even weirder is that he let Han caress his face … what kind of monster allows that intimacy for no reason? The kind of monster carrying the weight of a double agent.
Why did Han really withdraw from Leia? Did he know what his son planned to do? Did he feel guilty for not stopping it?
Once Chewie shoots him, Kylo Ren moves fast enough to cut off Rey and Finn in the forest. But despite being someone we know to have raw power, he can barely take out Finn or Rey. Why? Because he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t feel compelled to kill people on the light side when literally no one is around to witness it. It would serve no purpose. Though he feels the light side in the forest that day, Rey’s connection to it is a lot clearer.

So that’s that part. As for The Last Jedi, everything Ben does is to overcompensate for his inner torment, especially since some awkward and unfortunate connection was forged between him and Rey.

During The Last Jedi:

Right off the bat, Snoke questions Kylo Ren, who says, “But I’ve given everything I have?” What “everything” is he referring to? His time? His conscience? The fact that he tore his family apart to achieve just one goal?
Then, Snoke laughs at him for wearing a mask and bullies him just enough that Kylo Ren stands up and prepares to attack before being blasted backwards. At this point, he realizes that he’s not as close to Snoke as he thinks. Because he’s made such little progress, he destroys his mask and rethinks his strategy.
He attacks the Resistance, but won’t kill his mother.
At this, Snoke opens the Force link between Ben and Rey. Naturally, Rey is angry, but Ben sees it as his only saving grace: He can win back Snoke’s trust and keep the light close to him. The first time they speak, he tells Rey, “You’re not doing this. The effort would kill you.” He knows that something is amiss and he needs to use it to his advantage however he can. Obviously, this does not equate to finding Rey or Luke’s location and killing them, but to gaining an ally in his fight against the First Order. An ally, specifically, that he can control.
Once Rey arrives at Snoke’s ship, he kills Snoke and the Praetorian guards before asking her to join him. He screams out to let the past go. This echoes his earlier sentiment to kill it “if you have to.” Why did Ben have to? It’s something he says more to himself than Rey (who very much wants to understand her past). He knows that it will be impossible for either himself or Rey to defeat the First Order if they keep letting the light deter them from this mission. He learned from Luke at the Jedi Temple and again at the beginning of the film. If Rey can’t commit, she’s useless to him. He doesn’t need her dead, he doesn’t need to capture her, but he does need her out of the way.
Afterward, he takes the First Order to Crait and accomplishes next to nothing. He doesn’t heed any of Hux’s tactical warnings as he sends the TIE fighters after the Millennium Falcon. Having just witnessed how powerful Rey is, he knows she can handle a few measly TIE fighters. He also doesn’t attack the dozen or so Resistance fighters left head on. He doesn’t push his fleet forward. Instead, he allows himself to be distracted by Luke’s Force projection. But why?
It wouldn’t be out of the question for him to have known that that wasn’t Luke Skywalker on Crait. The wrong color lightsaber, and the fact that he hadn’t aged since Ben last saw him at the Jedi Temple, should have tipped him off.
So Kylo Ren literally overdid it knowing it would have no effect. He was wasting time and ammo, all on his own volition. And he descended onto the surface just to waste more time, knowing that wasn’t Luke Skywalker.

Our best explanation for Kylo Ren’s madness has only been that he was neglected as a child, and the fact that Luke tried to kill him. But maybe Kylo Ren’s not trying to overthrow the galaxy. Maybe he just wants to earn his parent’s love. As he wonders why he’s not good enough for Leia’s attention, he decides to complete his mother’s mission all along and end the war himself.

As convoluted and silly as this theory could be, it’s Star Wars after all. Plus, it gives Kylo Ren more depth than just wallowing in anger. It explains why he let his mother live, how the Resistance repeatedly escaped from his grasp, and why Luke needed to be destroyed before giving him away.

Yes, this theory looks intricate. However, it doesn’t excuse the fact that he killed a ton of people and remains the galaxy’s most problematic crybaby. In my opinion, one good backstory elevates a Star Wars villain from a Captain Phasma to a Darth Vader.

And I’d just hate to see the sequel trilogy waste our time by making Kylo Ren so simple and unworthy of my or Rey’s attention. Hopefully, something interesting will happen to Kylo Ren in Episode IX. And I don’t just mean a redemption.