#bring back ben solo
I decided to challenge myself to redraw my first ever Reylo art and see how my art has changed in the last 2.5 years.
Which version do you prefer?
Prints of both available in my red bubble shop
Be With Me
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I’m in an angsty mood, so have some angsty reylo.
Prints, stickers, and other stuff available on my Redbubble shop. Link in blog description.
~Powerful Light and Powerful Darkness~
If only we could’ve gotten to see Ben Solo in all his redeemed grey Jedi glory. Should I do a companion piece of Rey next?
Prints, stickers, and other merch available on my redbubble shop. Link in blog description
In the World Between Worlds
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Prints and other stuff available on my Redbubble shop. Link in blog description.
I spent 11 hours on this one
“Reylo” and The Problem With the „Beauty and the Beast” Trope
It’s been bothering me lately how many Star Wars and Reylo fans are bitterly disappointed not only with the sequels as a whole, but with the fact that the saga did not end with a grand love story.
There are many stories where the guy needs a woman to show him the way, to push him to become a better person. Some are very popular. But in all honesty, I don’t like them much, and for a reason.
Because when you look at the bottom line, the problem with this trope is: the woman does not need the man. He needs her. They guy, for one reason or another, needs to mature, to be redeemed, to make amends, to change in some way. The female is by his side to help him or not; but in any case, she is coded as the “reward” expecting him if he does undergo the change.
While there’s nothing wrong with this in a romance, it’s not realistic. A relationship or marriage can’t work if there is a massive power imbalance; and the more in a story the girl is coded as Good and the guy as Bad, the more improbable they are to find balance together, because even if he changes, he will have a bad past behind him and she won’t.
In Disney’s Beauty and The Beast, the narrative works rather well because the Beast is not a criminal, a killer or anything like that.
Which is totally different when we come to Reylo. We are dealing with a guy who has committed massive crimes, not least the horrible sin of patricide. Even if he does regret and change in the end, that doesn’t wash the blood from his hands. The fact that he was trapped, influenced mentally and in a bad place from birth is tragic but it does not make anything undone.
Now we could argue that by the end of the story, Rey needs Ben to save her life. He does - but Rey is unconscious. Does she even realize that he is dying because he gave her his life energy? I don’t believe so. There is nothing that suggests she does. The novelization says that she kisses him out of “gratitude”, but she assuredly was grateful because he had come to rescue her from the Knights of Ren and to assist her against Palpatine. And when he dies, she is completely taken aback, so I would assume that she is not aware of what actually cost him his life.
Many Reylo fans have argued and discussed how “Reylo is / must be Reverse Anidala”. The trouble is that the odds were against this narrative from the start because Rey did not need Ben. And all three movies show us again and again that she doesn’t, while he is the one who pursues her. The only time she went to him on her own was to convince him to help her against the First Order in order to let the Resistance win. But Ben / Kylo made it clear that he cared about her, not about the Resistance.
I have argued repeatedly that Anakin wasn’t a bad husband, meaning that if Ben had turned out to be a good partner, that wouldn’t have atoned for Anakin’s sins.
In Anakin’s and Padmé’s case, too, the man needed her, but she did not need him. Anakin needed Padmé to stay in balance within himself, and he knew it. Padmé knew it too, but if she had not married him, or if she never had met him, she wouldn’t have been worse off. Here life merely would have taken another turn.
I agree that for the curse of the Skywalker family to be finally lifted, a healthy union between Rey and Ben could be the key. But for a balanced relationship, she would have to need him the way he needs her; or better, both ought to mature enough so that they can love one another more than they needone another. However, as we leave them in The Rise of Skywalker, both of them are very far away from equality and maturity. Ben changed considerably within the course of the sequels; Rey didn’t go through any major character trials.
So, again, I see that the happy ending never was in the cards for the sequel trilogy. Rey is the one who still needs to face herself; while he must find an aim in life that gives him purpose, because his tragedy was knowing that he was not really needed by anyone.
I don’t know what Disney has in mind with the characters, but I have thought so for years and I still do: Ben’s salvation is not romantic love. To become Anakin’s foil for good, the only road for him is fatherhood.
Bring back Ben Solo!
