Musings about the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy and Concepts from Various Anime and Manga
(Things that probably won't happen but are fun to write about—I need to practice writing anyway. It gets crackier and crackier with each chapter.)
Rurouni Kenshin: Reflection
As I mentioned in the previous chapter, one of the possible aftermaths of Ben's redemption is him wandering around the galaxy fixing the various wrongs he finds. This reminds me of the anime Rurouni Kenshin, also known as Samurai X, specifically its final movie called Reflection. Now this movie is something the Rurouni Kenshin manga creator did not like because it gave the characters he created a very tragic ending but there was nothing he could do to prevent the movie's release. He probably signed off the rights to his story when he agreed to the adaptation of his manga into an anime. It kind of reminds me of something. (Wink)
Anyway, if the events of Reflection will be applied to Rey and Ben's story, then this won't be something we will be seeing in Episode IX. This will be a story set some time after the events of the Sequel Trilogy. We will find Rey and Ben married but Ben mostly absent from Rey's life because of his wandering. He would still come back from time to time, though, to fulfill his husbandly duties. Anyway, during the course of his wanderings, he will contract some weird flesh-eating disease that he will eventually pass on to Rey and they shall both suffer needlessly. Instead of staying put, Ben will continue wandering, get shipwrecked on some far away planet and contract amnesia. Rey won't hear from him for a long, long time because the amnesia has affected their ability to communicate with each other through their Force Bond. Ben will eventually be found by either Poe Dameron or Finn who will bring him back to Rey. When Rey sees Ben, she will cry because at long last, the scar on Ben's face has healed, as a symbol of him finally finding the inner peace he has desperately been looking for all of his life. Ben will regain his memories but die in Rey's arms. Rey will follow him to the afterlife not long after.
See? I told you that this would be a tragic story. I remember being so perplexed by the movie because of this senseless ending they gave Kenshin and Kaoru when the ending they got in the manga was already OK. Let this serve as a reminder that sometimes, in spite of our good intentions to continue a story, maybe, just maybe, it would be best to leave it where it originally ended.