gffa: I’ve been trying to get a read on Ben Solo through this comic (The Rise of Kylo Ren) and

gffa:I’ve been trying to get a read on Ben Solo through this comic (The Rise of Kylo Ren) and it’s been incredibly difficult for me.To some degree of course this is because he hasn’t had nearly as much time to explore his character that Anakin Skywalker did, who was the central figure of the Skywalker Saga and the central character that George Lucas would talk about in word of god commentary to explain him.  He’s also had The Clone Wars and two dedicated comic series plus multiple important appearances in the main ongoings and minis, as well as novels and games.  The amount of screen time Ben Solo has had in comparison–even by one of the same authors that wrote such a stellar Vader series–can’t compare.It’s hard not to compare Anakin Skywalker and Ben Solo in my mind, because so much was made of the connections between them, as the central villains who were conflicted about their paths and who got redemptions, right down to the masks they both wore.  It’s hard to separate the character arcs out in my mind, but the more I read of this comic, the more I’m trying to do that, because I think it’s just been muddying the waters for me.These three moments were the ones that left me going “????” the most in the comic and struggling to figure out how to get a read on this character.  Anakin has such a clear arc from the beginning to the end, you really understand why he does what he does, even when those decisions are awful and stupid and monstrous.But why does Ben Solo do what he does?  Why doesn’t he just tell the other students that he didn’t kill Luke?  Why didn’t he tell Luke about the voices in his head?  Why didn’t he feel he could go to his mother or father?  What happened that night at the Temple?In the previous issue, it seems like he’s implying he didn’t do it, then in this issue he says he did.  He doesn’t tell Voe that he’s not a murderer, he just lashes out, same how he did the previous night, when they ask him, “What happened!?  You couldn’t have done this!” as a way of saying, “This isn’t you.” and his response was, “You think I’m not strong enough!?” and lashing out.He shoves Voe off a cliff in his rage, the immediately regrets it.  He sends Hennix’s lightsaber flying back at him and it’s unclear how much that was deliberate or if his death was unintentional on Ben’s part.  Even Ren is like, “Yeah, but you didn’t really want it.”  But it’s unclear if that means it’s like Han’s death, where Kylo didn’t really want it but still very deliberately did it, if it’s like the villagers he ordered massacred on Jakku, or if it was an accident that he’s trying to spin into being more dark side than it actually was.Ben Solo’s narrative arc to me has been about confusion and never really knowing what’s true and what’s not.  We don’t really know what happened that night in the Temple with Luke, the different versions we get are all set into narrative unreliability by context–the dark side (by Soule’s own words even) is an unreliable narrator, Luke’s grief and depression are shown to us in the movie that he’s an unreliable narrator, and we can kind of guess that the truth is somewhere in between, but we don’t really know.I feel like that’s what I’m being left with when it comes to Ben Solo as well.  I don’t really get why he’s doing any of this.  And I’m not sure he does, either.  He seems to be just sort of flailing from one bad decision to the next, never actually telling anyone what happened, never seeming to have a clear point of view or reasons for what he does other than reaction to the extreme feelings he has.That, up to this point, it feels like Ben Solo is trying desperately to find something that will make him feel like he has an anchor instead of this wild pinwheeling he’s doing.  Even his moments of calm in this issue feel like a desperate attempt to suppress everything, rather than any kind of letting go or making peace with all of it.This isn’t the face of someone who is processing or facing anything.  This is the face of someone who is locking all that shit up so tightly that it’s going to explode on him, Tai even says that directly to Ben earlier in the issue.  He’s not facing what he needs to face and we’ve seen–here and all over Star Wars–that not recognizing those things and facing them will fuck you up, because that’s how the Force works, it’s all about the internal stuff.This feels like it isn’t about him truly believing in the dark side, but that he doesn’t really have any core central beliefs, he’s just making these really shitty choices to never actually get a grip on anything or tell anyone the truth (we never even see him make a real attempt) or face anything inside him, he’s just ricocheting from one bad choice to the next because he thinks the dark side will give him some magic answer to the chaos inside of him, instead of doing the hard work of what would actually settle him. -- source link

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