The Maul That Is Darth Maul! Nerding Out Over All The Star Wars Hype

Archives of the Last Jedi Academy (continued: pt 2)

She projected the notes that her mother had recently transmitted to her into the space around her, casting a pale blue halo of light, the only light in the darkened room, around her. This one commanded her focus:

Source: Manoussakis

What accounts for this pathology is the false positing of the good alongside with the evil, the fact that one takes the good as simply being the opposite of what is evil and furthermore the fact that one places these two opposites side by side - presenting thus oneself with a dilemma.

But no such dilemma between good and evil can be maintained. To posit the good alongside the evil equates the one with the other, as if the good were no different from the evil except insofar as one is good while the evil is evil. It is precisely this mistake that allows for the danger of ethical relativism, that is, of the undoing of ethics, for it does not take long before one starts asking what makes the good good or by whose standards is it good.

With this idea from Manoussakis was her mother’s note: 

Foolish, deceptive Jedi. Things cannot be seen in extremes. It is not just black and white. And who defines the dark? Who defines the light? Who are they to decide? Questions I think Anakin may have pondered (and may have been urged by master Jedi to repress), but through a lens of despair, fear of loneliness and losing love, and desperation, it led him to choose the dark side, that led him to think that he had to choose one over the other, when maybe there was no need to choose but just to find balance.

As she set out to transpose those thoughts onto the parchment, she sensed Ben enter the darkened archives and stealth his way into the room with her.

Never looking anywhere but down at her work, she smirked, wondering why he moved so quietly when she knew that he knew that she could sense his presence.  Preferring to work in isolation, she wished that she could not sense him, but even if she did not have that ability, soon enough, his clumsy command of his body betrayed his stealth as he knocked into a cart of old data cartridges. His lanky body soon towered over her workspace.

Threads of these thoughts intersected. Woven in ink, onto the parchment, they then wrapped around his curiosity and drew him to the effervescent silvers, reds, violets amongst the sharp, thin black lines. The words whispered and called out to Ben, simultaneously, a then unrealized, siren prose: the Jedi created Vader. With their repression, their ancient, archaic, un-evolved beliefs, their blind belief in a definition of “good” -- just a description but no verifiably authoritative source of its definition -- was imposed on Anakin’s critical thinking. His freedom of thought, restricted. His enlightened thought, of what Jedi could be if they did not blindly follow ancient lore as law but instead developed a more evolved ethic, was dismissed. A refusal to revisit deeply held beliefs was brought to light by Anakin and they refused this call from the one they believed fulfilled their own prophecy. If they weren’t going to listen to who they believed was prophesied to bring balance to the force, then perhaps they did need to be destroyed in hopes that from the ashes a more sensible order could be established. Through this warping of Anakin, they created Vader then worked to demonize him.

He stepped away from the grasp of these words, detaching his gaze from the page. Thoughts that he had wanted to express but hid deep inside were laid out bare in the signifiers drawn on the page, released before him through her hand.

© Sheila Wright and Squire of the Knights of Ren, 2017. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sheila Wright and Squire of the Knights of Ren with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Cognitive Struggle Experienced, Simultaneously, by the “The Force Awakens” Audience and the Film’s Villain: Part 2

A Sith Scholar work-in-progress (Draft of the second section of my current research, and a bit dated)

Restraints and the Stress of Keeping a Secret

Kylo Ren is not skilled in showing restraint. His mask is literally on but figuratively off because he reveals his emotional state. We cannot see any facial expression when he is angered, but it’s manifested in physical violence.  When he first unmasks himself he shows incredible restraint as Rey refuses to tell him voluntarily about BB8. Not only does he remain calm when she refuses to tell him and gets sarcastic, he doesn’t throw a fit. He’s almost bragging about his restraint at this time Rey is restrained in a chair capable of many tortures. He tells Rey, “you know I can take anything I want.” He remains calm and uses the Force to look into her mind.  Her secrets are revealed and soon after are his. Revealing a secret releases stress. 

According to “Incognito,” if we keep a secret, we're protecting a confidence, which is what we think we want to do.  But there's an urge to spill the beans because another part of the brain knows it will relieve stress in our bodies” (Eagleman). When Ren uses telepathy, he relies on his victim’s brain’s urge to reveal a secret to extract the information he wants. He makes that urge harder to resist. Rey’s secrets about her loneliness are revealed, and she must have felt some stress relief, a release of pleasure for which she had to credit Ren. However, she never gets to reveal her secret of the map. 

(Imagine the stress of other secrets kept in this saga: secret of Luke and Leia’s parents; Anakin’s father, Anakin and Padme’s secret relationship; Finn not telling Rey he’s a stormtrooper gone AWOL; those in the film and makers of the film keeping the secret about Rey’s parentage -- all these people with extra stress from keeping their secrets!)

In return, Rey provides stress relief to Ren by revealing his secret fear that he won’t be “as strong as Darth Vader.” He is unable to remain restrained after she resists him, but he doesn’t harm her. He voluntarily, literally unmasked himself for Rey, but, under Rey’s control, he involuntary, figuratively unmasked himself. He heads in a panic, still unmasked, literally and figuratively vulnerable and exposed to consult with Snoke. He’s so distracted he doesn’t realize that Hux was right behind him, eager to tell Snoke that Ren’s the one that decided that all they needed was the girl. Ren was either completely sure that he could read Rey’s mind and get the information Snoke wanted, or something inside him wanted to delay the First Order locating the Resistance.  The latter is what Hux wants Snoke to infer. Hux wants to reveal that Ren intentionally defied Snoke’s orders. Ren’s pull to the light is, again, evident here.

Although he defied Snoke, possibly confirming his pull to the light, he still seeks belonging and approval through the dark side. His inability to get the map and letting the droid go, defying Snoke’s orders, will not get him the approval from Snoke that he so desires. To try to make things right he must retrieve Rey, but she is gone. His attempts at restraining himself are done, he ignites his lightsaber and destroys his interrogation room. He finds relief in not restraining, not holding his emotions, not keeping them a secret, as explained in Kornhaber’s article, “Darth Vader 2.0,″ “...what sets Ren apart is that “he’s full of emotion,” which at first sounds like a platitude but then seems like an important distinction—while Vader worked to conceal his conflicted feelings …” (Kornhaber). As obsessed as he is, as much as a fan he is and wants to be like Vader, his lack of restraint keeps him from being like Vader, which probably further fuels his tantrums.

Kylo Ren likely still loves his family – which is why he is so conflicted. Hearing that the droid fell into the hands of his father, knowing the resistance, led by his mother must have made certain feelings resurface. Certainly feelings of resentment resurfaced, fueling his desire to ally with the dark side, but certainly any fond memories or feelings for his parents he had resurfaced as well.

So if Kylo Ren is a humanoid, the impact of sending him away must be similar to the impact it might have on a human adolescent here on earth sent away to boarding school. Dr. Joy Schaverien in a 2011 paper in The British Journal of Psychiatry, argued that boarding schools "can cause profound developmental damage" (Schaverien). 

So one can imagine that on top of the genetic burden Ben Solo carries that these feelings he has of being sent away to the Jedi Academy are akin to those felt by children sent away to boarding school. So much is set up against a well-adjusted adolescence that it cannot be surprising that he is vulnerable, attracted to the dark side. It should not be surprising that as a young adult that he is not emotionally well-developed or balanced. He has big issues stemming from the legacy he carries in his blood and the circumstances he faced in his formative adolescent years. This is not to excuse his behavior, but it might help to explain a lot and show that there are multi-dimensions to this villain that many try to keep in a one dimensional category.

We see this manifested when they fail to get the droid from Jakku. Hux proposes to use their weapon to destroy the republic which supports the resistance. Kylo Ren turns to look at Hux as Snoke approves the suggestion. Hux knows that this hits close to home for Ren. His parents are protected by the resistance military forces, thus this is a threat to his family. And still being conflicted, this shows that it worries him.  Later, when Hux proposes using the weapon against the resistance, Ren begs Snoke for guidance to get the information from Rey. He is desperate to please Snoke but he is not ready to be implicit in the death of his parents at the Resistance base, perhaps desperate to save them as well.

When he confronts his father, who it’s apparent he has bitter feeling towards, we find out, when he reads Rey’s mind and senses her fondness for Han, he is calm, not in a rage, tearful. The scene begins with him masked, but his father persuades him to unmask himself. He submits to his father’s will by removing the mask. And now he stands literally unmasked and he tries to maintain a facade of toughness, disregard for his father in this stand-off.  However, he flinches when approached by Han. I don’t think that even at the moment they were eye to eye that Ren knew if he was going to join his father or kill his father. 

I am convinced that his words, “I want to be free of this pain.” were a genuine cry for help, a moment he was ready to ask to come home, a step towards the relief in revealing his secret that he just wants to rejoin his family. As a fan, I wanted that so much for that to be true, for this tension to result in a reunion, for Leia and Han’s son to go home so we can see them become a family again. But as a film viewer, that would have been too easy solution to this conflict; it would have been unsatisfactory. So I was fearful of what was to come next; I was yelling in my head to Han Solo, “RUN!” And although Han really could not escape, I thought that maybe Ren would attempt something but that maybe Chewie would intervene and maybe Han would just get badly hurt. I was not prepared for Ren to do what he did.

As the light changes to red, something makes him decide that he will seek the relief by making the decision to kill his father. And in igniting that lightsaber and holding it intently into his father, he face is so sinister and hate-filled. As he backs away he does sign in anticipation of a sense of relief for revealing the degree of hate he felt for his father. He had been mourning the metaphoric loss of his father for a long time, and it’s a loss that he acted to make real and permanent. But he knows deep down that he did not hate his father enough to feed a murderous rage. And he dons a figurative mask, feigning relief in making this final act to bring him to the dark side, but those dark, doe eyes keep the audience from believing that.

During the firing of the Starkiller base weapon passing by Ren’s ship (the finalizer), the camera is positioned behind him then the view is switched to a head on shot of his masked face. The glare of the weapon’s beam is reflected on his mask, but no emotion is shown.  Ren knows that this show of Force brings the First Order closer to destroying the resistance, his mother, if he is unable to track down the map to Luke. We supply the gravity of this moment as Lisa Zunshine explains with the Kuleshov Effect, where images are juxtaposed with expressionless faces, the audience supplies emotion (80). We supply the emotion of this scene--Ren’s thoughts because we know he was trying to prevent this action from happening. “What drives our interpretation of a character’s mental state are our earlier interpretations of other mental states.” (81) We know that he is conflicted, that he feels remorse in destroying the Republic – this is part of the conflict, the “light” he feels pulling him away from the dark side.

The audience is conflicted about Ren because he is the product of one of our favorite couples, and we want him to choose a path that makes them proud of him, that honors all for that they fought. The audience is also conflicted because of the ways this villain tries hard to compare to, but mostly contrasts Darth Vader. He is not the ruthless villain Darth Vader was for the audience of Episode IV and V. Compounding this conflict is Ren’s unmasking. Darth Vader was not unmasked until the very end of his life. Ren doesn’t even need a mask, but he willingly reveals himself to his enemy, Rey. 

The audience’s conflict about Kylo Ren grows because his unmasking reveals the actor’s face, and many may have worked to reconcile the other roles in which they’ve seen this actor with his portrayal of Ren. As Zunshine explains, “In film the actor adds another dimension to the character, an extra level to process.” So not only is this character the son of a favorite couple, he is also a character from another story. However, the filmmakers have done such an incredible job distancing him from his other known role. Many of the Star Wars actors first became known to the audience through the Star Wars films, but the actor who played Ren was a familiar face to many of the audience members. 

I was in the position of seeing this actor for the first time as Kylo Ren and not as any of the other characters he has portrayed. However, I have since seen him in his role in other films and the TV show, “Girls,” and I am impressed on how different and convincing he is in these different roles. Something about the films made him look very different from the character he plays in “Girls,” and I can’t quite pinpoint what those particular strategies are in the film besides his acting: lighting, hairstyle, angles, costuming, makeup perhaps. Something was done to make him distinct in this film. I wonder if the audience that had seen him in the TV show “Girls” before seeing him as Kylo Ren think that his appearance is really different between the two productions. Part of me still believes that this is not the same actor, and I want to know why, even though Adam Sackler on “Girls” behaves somewhat like Kylo Ren when he gets frustrated. As commented on in The Atlantic, “I can imagine Driver-as-bad-guy being a bit petulant and petty, not unlike his Girls character in a bad mood, or like Loki, the one successful Marvel movie villain thus far.”

My impression and assessment of Kylo Ren is compounded by this actor. As Zunshine explains, “Once the actor’s face gets factored into the equation, our mind-reading adaptations have some-thing extra to process” (85). The filmmakers and Adam Driver have done a spectacular job making Kylo Ren look nothing like the other characters that Driver has played.  The filmmakers have done an incredible job showing Kylo Ren’s many faces. Of course, there is the Kylo Ren we see with a mask. Then there is Kylo Ren unmasked, not repulsive to Rey nor the audience, actually quite attractive to many when he is interrogating her. When he rushes to Snoke unmasked, the angles are not flattering. His crooked nose and teeth are accentuated. But when he confronts them in the snow battle, he is almost more youthful, even his voice sparks of innocence, “We’re not done.” But most of all, he does not look like Adam Sackler of “Girls” or other films that this actor has been in. When he shouts “traitor” it hints of ugliness, but then during the scene he is an attractive sight. When he has Rey backed against the chasm and tells her, “You need a teacher” his desperation is manifested in an unflattering angle, but these moments that he is unmasked depicted in an unflattering light or angle are not as dominant as the attractive face, and attractiveness is typically associated with the hero, the light side, further emphasizing his conflict and pull to the light. I don’t want him redeemed because I love my dark side cupcake, but in this film, it sets it up so that result would not be a surprise.

Rey, Kylo Ren, Luke, Finn, Phasma and Snoke from freshly leaked The Last Jedi promotional images. These are such a total delight, and they take my already obscene hype for this movie to new heights.

37 years ago, instead of taking this 3rd grader to school in the morning, my parents took me to see The Empire Strikes Back! #parentingwiththeForce

Feigned Death: Rumors of Padmé Amidala’s Survival

Anyone on that planet will tell you how they grieved at Padmé Amidala’s funeral. Some know the truth. Few will admit it. She did not die in childbirth, but she knew that to protect her children that the whole galaxy had to believe that she died.

Upon her internment, she fled, hid in the outer rims and lived out of reach, in great heartbreak, out of reach of her family, her children, out of reach of him sensing her.  She lived a long life, some say even had more children and went on to help others in need, but never fulfilled, always a void, sad.

Strong rumors even spread that she made a few daring visits to her young daughter on Alderaan (fuzzy accounts exist that she visited her son on Tatooine) but that it became much too dangerous, and she had said a final goodbye to Leia at such a young age that the child would probably just hold the memory as images, nothing certain, an impression of her beauty, her heart, her longing, her pain.

“What does it matter if my grandmother had more children? They would not be strong with the Force unless she had met another Jedi as strong with the Force as my grandfather.” Ben mused.

“Wouldn’t it matter to you that you have more family out there? This stranger pushed. “Perhaps they aren’t strong with the Force, but perhaps there are more ways to be powerful in this galaxy. Perhaps they would have stories from your grandmother about your grandfather.”

She hadn’t decided if it was wise or not to hint at these stories passed down amongst her people from the descendants of the Amidalas, but it was too late to take back what she had just implied. And her intention was to remain silent no matter what his next words were because she felt like that she had just revealed the location of Padme’s descendants although she didn’t even know where that was. 

She questioned herself on why she felt the need to share all this with him, only knowing him for these few months, but she also knew the answer to the questions that she posed to herself about why she felt so compelled to share details with just him.

There is this artist whose work I truly love on an unfathomable visceral level.

This drawing is one of the many beautiful examples of their creation. For the love of all that is holy and unholy, please check them out and give them a follow! 

Link: https://www.instagram.com/mlptte

(Edit: sorry I’m not normally so blatant but their art does move me on an unprecedented emotional and intellectual scale)

Like grandmother, like grandson

If they ever made a Maul cartoon, this is how every episode should end!

Kylo Ren’s wounds go much deeper than the fearsome new scar on his face. - Adam Driver