Hello and thanks for reading. Yes, there is more to this fic. I just have to figure it out. This story was supposed to head in a different direction. I may still do that plot, I'm not sure. Writing this story feels a lot like writing Ghosts of the Past because it also took turns I did not contemplate. But Ghosts turned out to be my best story in some ways, so there's hope. Usually, this sort of meandering is a sign that I need to stop writing and think a bit. So, we are pausing here for now.
Part One ends with Rey fleeing and our lovers apart. Part Two ends with Rey coming back to hatch a plan with Kylo, but our lovers ultimately going their separate ways. They are loose allies but not a couple. And now, Part Three ends with a wedding and then Reylo parting again. This time, they are both allies and lovers. It is slow, steady progress towards Star Wars Camelot, in fits and starts.
The Last Jedi left Kylo and Rey very far apart. I have no idea what Episode 9 will bring, but these two have a lot of distance between them to bridge if a romantic relationship is to occur. I had that in mind as I wrote this story. What would it take for these two characters to stay true to themselves but also find common ground? And how do you do that without one character being right and the other being wrong? Here, Kylo is the bad guy who is right about a lot of things. Rey is the good girl who is wrong about the Force and the future. I like this set up because it confuses things enough to make them interesting. Throw the fallen hero Luke Skywalker into the mix and now things are very muddy.
What makes a villain? Is it bad choices? Bad intent? Is Finn the bad guy in this fic? He certainly doesn't think so and neither does Rey. I think Finn's attitudes and actions in this fic fit squarely within the canon version of the Rebellion/Resistance. Assassination of apex characters isn't new to Star Wars. The extra incentive to blow up Death Star 2 in ROTJ is that the Emperor is there to die too and Mon Mothma is thrilled.
Is Kylo the bad guy? My Kylo never sees himself as the villain, even when he is one. In this story, Kylo is not the good guy, but he's the hero. His moral conflict is the centerpiece of the sequel trilogy and he is far more the hero than Rey is, in my opinion. And fittingly so, since he's the Skywalker. Personally, I love the idea of the sequel trilogy subverting the nice neat morality play of the original trilogy. So, Supreme Leader Ren for the win! Bring it on! Yeah . . . I know that's not gonna happen. That's why I'm writing this subversive stuff.
Mr. Blue and I have been watching the Netflix series Troy, Fall of a City. It's loosely based on the Iliad and it's full of unevenly developed characters and hit and miss writing. But putting that aside, it's full of classical heroes. These men—and they are all men—are very different from our usual storybook "good guys" and also different from the Tony Soprano type antiheroes who are all over television these days thanks to Breaking Bad and other series. Here's the point: classical heroes have no moral underpinning. They are all exalted figures—Princes of Troy, favorites of the gods, men of standing and power by virtue of birthright. Their challenges usually have no clear answer. They don't really make a Shakespearean "bad choice" from which everything unravels. They are torn between individual desires (Paris for Helen) and obligations to their subjects. They are constrained by alliances and sometimes reluctant in their duty (Odysseus and Achilles). Their path is wandering at times but meaningful from start to finish (Odysseus and Aeneas). They take part in major events at which there are a variety of winners and losers. But even if you are the winner, things might not end well (Agamemnon!). These men are tangled with one another and with the gods, often to disastrous results not of their own making (see poor pawn Paris). They act with free will and yet fate always wins the day. If you recall your Homer, you will know that the whole Trojan War is because the gods are fucking with people who are only able to make true independent decisions at the margins. A deus ex machina plot device indeed!
Poor Skywalker sap Kylo is stuck in this classical hero role too. The difference is that he knows it. He is the Force's favorite. But that doesn't mean his life is easy or good. Sometimes it's best to be beneath the gods' notice, eh? Poor Rey thought that for years on Jakku until the Force intervenes and now she is caught up in the story of the Skywalkers too. Most of Part 3 is about Rey coming to grips with that fact and attempting to exert some control and agency over the situation. She craves free will. But, of course, her will is only so free. She is a means for the Force to manipulate Kylo. For Kylo ends up repeatedly chasing Rey, trying to please her to some extent. It lures him towards the Light and towards the balance that is the Force's goal. Frankly, I love Kylo in his classical hero guise. I think that's the only way he will wind up a hero in Episode 9 without some sappy "second chance at the Light" offer from Rey.
And what about Luke Skywalker? Is Luke the bad guy? Or the victim? Maybe he's both. Luke is such a tragic guy in my head canon. Lied to by both Yoda and Kenobi and given an impossible task. Half trained at best. He finds his father and Anakin dies in his arms. Luke's story is very bleak and extreme. It's a lot like his father's and his nephew's stories. Rey's too. Being the hero with the Force pretty much sucks, as far as I can tell.
Luke is a Chosen One and I figured we needed to see him veer both Light and Dark. The idea that being caught between Light and Dark can make someone unstable runs throughout my fics. See this rambling conversation between Rey and the now forty-something Emperor Ren (who's sitting before Vader's mask, still looking for answers after all these years) from Chapter 32 of The Chosen One:
"I spent most of my early life being torn apart between warring sides of my family," he says without preamble. "Torn between the pull to Darkness and the call to the Light. Veering first one direction and then another."
"Kylo." Rey sounds very worried. "Are you okay?"
He doesn't answer.
"Vader was the same way. My uncle said that when he first met his father he could sense the conflict within him. That he could sense his father's vulnerability to the Light. My uncle said that gave him the hope that Vader could be redeemed."
"Master Luke told me the same thing," Rey reveals softly.
"Luke Skywalker was wrong. Vader wasn't redeemed." These words come out adamant. For this is the key issue his uncle had gotten terribly wrong. "My grandfather died in the Light before he could be tempted again by the Dark Side. Vader would never have remained permanently in the Light. But my uncle refused to admit that. Because to do so would have meant to admit to the variability in himself."
Kylo finally turns in his chair to face her. He raises vulnerable eyes to Rey now. His expression must alarm her. "Oh, Kylo—" She takes a step closer. Then stops.
"It never ends," he confesses softly. He needs Rey to understand this if only for their son's sake. "I give in to the Dark and I am called to the Light. But even my uncle who was so committed to the Light was tempted by Darkness. The Force is a fluid continuum. And we Skywalkers exist somewhere in the middle. All our lives we exist in temptation one way or the other. My grandfather started in the Light, fell into Darkness, and then returned to die in the Light. I too have been both Light and Dark. And my uncle . . . well, Luke Skywalker had far more Dark tendencies than he cared to admit."
So the twist in Son of Darkness is that Luke becomes the murderer at the temple that fateful night. Han and Leia worried that their son would become Vader. But they missed the risk that he might become Luke. Because in each of us—but especially in the Skywalkers—resides the potential for Darkness. Kylo says this outright to Rey a few times in Part One.
Bad guy Luke is not a new idea for me. Right before The Last Jedi came out, I wrote a short story about Rey on Ahch-To based on Episode 8 internet rumors entitled Meeting the Master. I intended it to be a full story and not just one chapter, but then the movie came out and it was not what I expected in both good and bad ways and I never went back to that fic. But a few key ideas from that little story have stuck with me and found their way into Son of Darkness: Luke as the unstable bad guy who righteously thinks he's the good guy, Kylo as the hero trying to save Rey from Luke, Kylo as the Chosen One trying to fix the mess left behind by his mother and his uncle, and the Knights of Ren as former students of Luke. Son of Darkness is essentially what Meeting the Master was intended to be. Eventually, that story should probably come down since those ideas and themes will have been dealt with in this fic.
I took The Last Jedi's plot twist with Luke and amplified it. I also tried to explain it. In my story, Luke's attack on Ben Solo is something closer to a mercy killing in Luke's mind. He's trying to save his nephew from becoming another version of himself (or his father) and ruining the galaxy in the process.
Making Luke extra-Dark is all a guise to make Kylo Ren the true hero (and not the anti-hero) of the story. Because what if we the audience are all Rey struggling to come to terms with Kylo's actions and his evolving world view? What if what we think we know about the Force is mostly wrong? The Last Jedi showed us that Luke is not what Rey expected. What if Kylo isn't what she expects either—and not in a bad way, but in a good way? This is a bit of a twist on the whole redemption plot resolution. We've already seen a reboot of the ROTJ throne room scene in The Last Jedi. The genius of Episode 8 for me is the moment when Kylo turns Rey (and the Light) down. He refuses to do the Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader redemption. That seemed so fresh and so true to Kylo's character for me. What if Kylo Ren redeems himself and not in the way we have seen before? What if redemption isn't turning to the Light but finding balance?
Sorry to any Reylo fans who want a lovey-dovey domesticated Light Side Kylo Ren. I'm never going to write that. Kylo might be the good guy, but he's not the nice guy. (Finn is the nice guy type.) I also want to keep Kylo's slightly maverick spirit. He's a guy with a chip on his shoulder. He feels misunderstood and underestimated in his own mind. He's angry and resentful but that's not all he is. Kylo is so much more. (Shades of Darth Malgus of DARKER here.) Kylo feels like such a modern hero because he is so complex. The whole point of his character is to defy the Light/Dark dichotomy the original trilogy set up. More and more, I want to see Kylo transcend all that in the end. How ironic would it be for Empire-loving, seemingly backward looking Kylo Ren to turn out to be the true revolutionary in the series? What if conflicted Kylo truly is the change agent the galaxy has been waiting for?
Anyone who reads my stuff knows that I like complicated characters who defy easy summation. People are so much more complicated than the labels we put on ourselves. But those labels are powerful. Star Wars began as a myth making exercise, so I understand the reason people reach for archetypes to understand its conflicts. But understanding the relationships in Star Wars purely through the lens of abuser/victim, hero/villain etc. is very limited. It's also usually wrong. Because guess what? Some people with abusive tendencies were victims once. Maybe even complicit ones. And heroes are not always good through and through. We are all many things, both good and bad, and that is a running theme of this fic.
A lot of readers seemed very impatient with Rey. That surprised me a lot. Here's a nineteen-year-old orphan with very little life experience who ends up at the epicenter of a galactic civil war. She's got the Force and a stout heart and a survivor's skills going for her, but not much else. Is it shocking that she doesn't immediately know what she wants out of life? I sure didn't at nineteen. Is it surprising that she is unable to commit to Kylo and accept all that he is offering to her? I don't think so. She's watched Kylo do some awful things, she's fought him personally, and a lot of what she thinks she knows about him is rather incomplete at the beginning of this tale. As Kylo's personal story (and Luke's backstory) unfold in this fic, Rey is confronted by some uncomfortable truths. Plus, Kylo's goals and Snoke's ostensible First Order goals turn out to be somewhat different as well. Kylo is not who Rey thinks he is, but it takes her awhile to figure that out. Rey is coming of age in this story, finding her way and questioning her assumed allegiances. Pushing aside the easy answers and fairytale stories to discover the true complexities of life.
Kylo is the just the latest in a series of things that have surprised and confused Rey because they are not what they seem. Luke Skywalker in The Last Jedi is the first such confounding moment for her. Luke is very different from what Rey expects and she learns even more disappointing things about Luke as this tale goes on. The Force itself is not what Rey wants it to be either. It takes her a long time to come to accept Kylo's point of view that the Force should not be understood as Light/Dark, Good/Evil. When we see Rey in the throne room trying to redeem Kylo to the Good Side, she's got it all wrong. Redemption is not reverting to one extreme or another, it's finding a middle ground. Kylo has a much more sophisticated view of things, and he has learned these truths the hard way. Namely, from seeing the excesses and failings of the Light Side and the Dark Side traditions firsthand with his uncle and with Snoke.
I wish Disney would write Rey more as a character and less as a role model. I feel like she is set up to be some allegorical touchstone for modern girls. And that's a bit of a letdown. Can we please let go of the 'perfect girl' trope? It's a trap for women to believe they must always say and do the right things and handle every situation with aplomb all while looking attractive and smiling. Strong male characters confront obstacles and changes in themselves, in others, and in the world around them. They make mistakes and move on. It makes them compelling and admirable. So . . . why can't Rey be similarly fleshed out? Why can't she be weak at times (morally or physically or emotionally) too? Does she have to be such a Mary Sue? Save me from the 'strong woman' character that is everywhere but in real life.
About the Force bond: In my mind, the Force only independently intervenes when our lovers are estranged. It's a bit of a matchmaker in The Last Jedi and it triggers again in this fic when Rey is in exile. But when Kylo and Rey are talking independently, there's no need for the Force to open the bond. Readers of my fics know that I'm not a huge fan of the Force bond plot device. It has to be used sparingly. But I like the idea that the bond is unpredictable and uncontrollable by either Rey or Kylo—like the cosmic Force itself. Whether the Force opens the bond or sends Rey a vision, it always does so for a reason. The universe is a rational place even if its rules are not fully knowable to our characters.
I have written a few Reylo weddings. My best is You Need a Teacher Chapters 11 (the civil ceremony) and 12 (the Sith ritual over Endor). But there's a silly wedding on Chandrila in His Padawan Chapter 11 when Rey has no idea that the Ben Solo she's marrying is actually Kylo Ren. And there's a Fulcrum Chapter 20 wedding with Stockholm Syndrome Rey. Snoke marries our Reylo lovers in Immune to the Light to keep things respectable (Rey is pregnant). It's not Reylo, but the best ever Dark Side wedding is Chapter 5 of Fifth Wife when Snoke seduces an unsuspecting Jedi and decides to marry her on the spot, willing or not (#metoo is not a Sith thing, naturally). Note to girls everywhere: run away if you see yellow eyes!
My Dark Side boys never have commitment issues. They are all-in when it comes to sex and marriage. It's a running trope in my stories that when one of my bad boys gets the heroine into bed, he's instantly proposing. Kylo, Snoke, Sidious—they all do it. Bed a Sith and you're likely to end up married. It's a Dark Side possessive, obsessive control thing.
That's enough rambling. There is more to come once I dream it up. Stay tuned and thanks for reading.