Now each Star Wars Trilogy had one featured hero who has the dominating story arc. Classic trilogy it is Luke, prequel trilogy we're following Anakin, and sequel trilogy we're with Rey. Luke's story is a fairly straight forward hero's journey. Anakin is a forced story of the rise and fall of a hero. Rey is more or less back to the basic hero's journey.
Other characters get their stories told, but most of them are not that well played out, with some characters really getting the screwed over.
However, there is one character storyline that to me stands out as the best and that is the story of Ben Sols/Kylo Ren.
The only child born to Leia and Han Solo, legendary heroes of the rebellion, nephew to Luke Skywalker and grandchild of Darth Vader. So before he was even born, the whole weight of the universe was on his shoulders. The insane amount of stress of being a child in the that family, with that legacy being forced on you, would be unbelievably unfair. There was no way he was not going to be viewed as the hope for the future.,
So we jump to his Jedi training years where we know Ben was caught up in the struggle between the light and dark sides of the Force. His Uncle trying to train him and most likely filling him with the idea of taking over and become a Jedi Master himself, and Snoke filling him with the promise of power and control, something he most likely was desiring in his life more than anything. He would have been very much caught between two worlds. Then Luke sensed the growing darkness in Ben, and most likely feared the idea he might be creating a new Vader, Luke made a huge error in judgment that made those fears come true.
Unlike Anakin's fall to the dark side, which felt forced in every way, I very much believe Ben's fall.
But then he is still very much caught between the two words still, having some real, believable inner struggles that we see played out through all three of the sequels as he tries to figure out who he is. And like any person he doe so back and forth in his struggle for self. His anger works and while he does have the family trait of being whiny, this is the first time it feels justified. With both Luke and Anakin, they were annoying when they got whiny, but Kylo was doing it as he was dealing with his inner conflict. most likely more angry with himself than the universe.
In The Last Jedi, one of the most well done, brilliant scenes was when Kylo took out Snoke, showing he was more powerful than his master and had control over that power. He had succeeded where Vader had failed and was now the master.
His anger towards Luke at the end of the film felt very much justified and real. Luke had failed him and now he had proven himself, claiming the control in life he never had before, that he could easily and rationally blame Luke for denying him.
Then we jump to Rise of Skywalker and we find that Kylo Ren is not fully satisfied with his new found power and control. It's not what he was hoping for. He is haunted by the actions that brought him that power, as seen in the brilliantly done scene of him speaking with a vision in his head of his father, who he had killed. His inner struggle never went away, even after achieved what he thought were his goals.
The guilt and revelation of what he had become pushed him to his redemption as he sacrifices himself to prevent the Sith from rising again.
Nothing of his story felt forced to me. It was a fully told story that was well acted with believable motivations and reactions. The story arc just works on so many levels.
It is sad that so any characters got cheated out of a story arc of their own, but out of the few we got, Ben Solo/Kylo Ren's was I personally feel the best of them.
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