Rey’s vision notwithstanding, stop trying to make Reylo happen
By Buckie Wells
Adam Driver in Kylo Ren in Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017). Image is a still via Disney/Lucasfilm on YouTube.
Emotional manipulation with either good or bad intentions still qualifies as a toxic relationship. I’m sorry, but that’s never okay.
Every time I watched The Last Jedi, it became more and more abundantly clear that Kylo Ren’s sole purpose in his “visits” with Rey was to manipulate her to get to Luke Skywalker, and by association, end the Resistance.
The first time they meet, the conversation is hostile. He immediately asks her to bring Luke to him. Although he softens later in the film, it’s right after she dove into the cave and questioned the identity of her parents. Kylo Ren sees this as an opportunity to control her. More importantly, we learn in the film that Snoke orchestrated the link between them.
He not only admits it, but the narrative of the film afterward completely supports this. The entire third act is littered with red flags when it comes to psychological manipulation.
For example, one sign of manipulation is the “home court advantage.” If Kylo Ren felt some way about Rey, why didn’t he go to Ahch-To and face Luke himself? He could see where she was, and yet, he let her come to him and Supreme Leader Snoke. He awaits her arrival, brings her before his own manipulator and allows her to be tortured.
The only reason he’d allow that would be because he expected Snoke to break her. And once that happened, Rey would join the dark side with him. When Snoke fails, Kylo Ren takes matters into his own hands.
Another sign of manipulation is “undermining your faith in your grasp of reality.” Kylo Ren deliberately tries to turn Rey against Luke, someone she once believed was the hero she needed. Although Kylo Ren believes that Luke attempted to kill him, he didn’t make any efforts to understand what really happened that night (which is one of my least favorite plotlines overall).
When it comes to learning who her parents were, Kylo Ren tells her they were nobody. To make things more muddled, The Last Jedi offers little confirmation as to whether that’s the truth or not. Sure, it’s what we are led to believe she sees in that cave, but Luke saw himself as Darth Vader on Dagobah, too. Trials like these are meant to test you or reveal your fear. Just because Rey’s afraid of being nobody doesn’t mean that’s her reality. Kylo Ren only uses it as fact to control her.
And this brings us to the worst line in the film, “You’re nobody. But not to me.”
Look, this isn’t about ship wars in the slightest. It’s about Star Wars being one of the most iconic franchises of all time and putting this line out into the world to perpetuate a very awful and damaging notion. With these words, Kylo Ren attempts to make Rey rely on him for her self-worth. Here, he implies that she won’t be somebody unless she’s with him.
An audience member’s perception that this indicates romantic feelings is harrowing to say the least.
So, then, the blame falls to Star Wars and Rian Johnson. They’re responsible for these characters. Kylo Ren is a murderer who doesn’t deserve to be paired with Rey in any way, shape or form.
And on the subject of accountability? Kylo Ren has no idea what that is. He doesn’t acknowledge the darkness within him, and when Snoke dies, he blames Rey. Eventually, this fuels the First Order’s recourse to destroy her.
Next: A shipper’s guide to Star Wars: The Last Jedi
However you word Rey’s vision, it’s not concrete proof of R*ylo (if I say it a third time, it’ll happen). If it were to become so, Star Wars really did a bang-up job of selling that. Every other romantic pairing in Star Wars gets incontestable displays of affection. Pardon me if I’m not won over by the brush of fingertips, obvious manipulation and the most egregiously unnecessary torso shot of all time.