Marion Norindale Books

I don’t know whether it was posting over the holiday weekend, or the fact that this post’s previous title might’ve been misleading; but I’ve decided to repost this bad boy from last week with a new title and an updated intro.

People likely hear “Star Wars” and “bad boy” in the same sentence, and worry that the author is about to make some sort of a pick-me argument about how Kylo Ren is somehow a decent character and a swoon-worthy (blech) partner by Rey’s side.

But fear not! In fact, I’m here to challenge that assumption with every fiber of my being.

Kylo Ren may have begun as an excellent villain with a compelling arc; but ultimately, he crumbled into a bland romantasy “bad boy” whose atrocities were retconned in an attempt to mold him into your run-of-the-mill toxic asshole male lead.

While, on the other hand, Anakin Skywalker’s character arc took the idea behind the “bad boy,” dissected it with an insightful and scathing eye, and carried his toxic behaviors and possessive tendencies into their actual, logical conclusions.

The Star Wars prequels carried the trajectory of the stereotypical “bad boy” to its actual conclusion, while simultaneously plotting the accurate and tragic course of a radical extremist.

Meanwhile, the sequels succumbed to popular, misogynistic media tropes, sabotaging a potentially relevant and clever examination of modern extremism through the character of Kylo Ren.

* * *

In order to properly understand the arcs of both Anakin Skywalker and Kylo Ren—and how each either succeeds or fails to inspect both extremism and the “bad boy” phenomenon—we must first take a look at the way people fall victim to radical right-wing extremism nowadays.

There are two main paths we’ll be examining here: failed protector and failed potential.

Failed protector usually goes something like this:

• A man is expected to look after his family.

• He learns about threats to his family. These threats are usually either entirely fabricated (queer people want to do vaguely “evil things” to “normal people”); or based on some semblance of truth, but exaggerated and/or twisted for propaganda purposes (such as manipulating one’s fear of violent criminals by scapegoating the wrong group for why they happen).

• People dismiss or misunderstand the man’s fears. To carry on with our example, they try to insist the wrongly blamed groups are actually innocent of their alleged crimes; or that the man’s methods to protect his family are “dangerous” and will “go too far” (such as arming himself to take personal action, or advocating to harass and possibly even displace the scapegoated groups).

• The man learns about extremist ideology that panders to his desires. The people he watches and/or meets with validate his concerns, and offer him paths of action that align with what he wants to do. In most cases, these people harbor their own agendas—usually to earn money and political power from the people they’re appealing to.

Meanwhile, failed potential usually looks something like this:

• A man (typically a young one, but not always) either feels personally that he’s failing; and/or he’s perceived by others to be failing in some way, even if he doesn’t agree with that conclusion. This can range from a failure to fulfill societal pressures (such as not succeeding at traditional patriarchal norms by being the breadwinner, marrying an obedient wife, and having lots of children); to a more legitimate collapse of potential (such as refusing to put in the effort to get a job/do a job well, or a lack of effort to interact with and/or respect the people around him).

• The man hears about ideologies that excuse his behavior and frame him as the victim of his problems. For the first option above, he hasn’t failed at becoming a husband and a father because he isn’t putting in the effort to get to know someone and be a good partner—it’s because “feminism is destroying women,” or “real” men are being “ridiculed” and “ignored.” For the second option, people just aren’t appreciating him and his talents (usually for similar sexist reasons).

• The man’s friends and family may hear about what he’s gotten into, and express concern for him, which he interprets as rejection and scorn.

We also have to take into account some more unique circumstances of the neo-extremism movement:

• The man hears about the “valiant” and “manly” extremists of the past, who used sexism, coercion, and outright violence to get what they wanted. They represent everything the man wants to become. He now believes he can only fulfill his potential by returning society to the “proper” way it once was.

• Because the man didn’t live through the extremists’ atrocities, it’s easier for him to ignore or even rationalize their actions.

Anakin follows the path of the failed protector, while Kylo Ren began to follow the path of failed potential.

* * *

Even though the society we see set up in Star Wars doesn’t strictly follow Earth’s gender norms, Anakin is still expected to fulfill the role of a traditional protector.

In particular, he becomes a Jedi, who’s expected to be a calm, collected, and all-powerful guardian of peace and justice in the galaxy. He needs to be strong enough to save anyone required of him, and smart enough to negotiate any conflict. He needs to repress his negative emotions and channel the positive ones into a general, unconditional compassion for his fellow people. Having a romantic partner or even a close friend is dangerous, because anyone could be threatened at any time—and it’s Anakin’s duty to let them go and move himself on.

Especially after being forced to leave his mother (Anakin’s first protector, and the first person he felt he could really rely on), then losing her to a violent death, Anakin is more scared than ever about losing the people who mean something to him.

But, of course, those people are constantly being threatened. When the Clone Wars break out, every Jedi Anakin knows is thrown onto the front lines, while Padmé is targeted as a popular politician. No one knows when the war will end or how ugly it’ll get—just that lives will be lost.

And by now, Anakin is willing to do anything to ensure everyone he cares about makes it out alive.

I want to note that Anakin’s relationship with Padmé wasn’t just special because of its romantic connotations. While that’s certainly a motivating factor when it comes to human emotions, their relationship wasn’t just about romance to him—it was one of the very few places he felt completely free to be himself.

Obi-Wan was a dear friend and a father/brother figure to him; but he didn’t understand Anakin’s struggle with his emotions, nor how hard it was for him to devote himself to the completely self-sacrificing mindset of a Jedi. Anakin’s constant irritation at his master’s lectures isn’t just played for jokes; it’s representative of how their bond, no matter how close, always had a rift in it.

With his mother, Anakin could express any emotion he had. She helped him to learn how to channel his happiness, cope with his sadness, and work off his anger. He was just a regular kid, going through the motions, never chided for being as human as he was.

But as soon as he joined up with the Jedi, Anakin’s very nature, as normal and innocent as it used to be, became a liability. Suddenly, he was wrong—too old, too passionate, too angry.

And Obi-Wan, as much as he cared about the boy, didn’t know enough to really be able to help him out.

The lectures likely reminded Obi-Wan of time spent with Qui-Gon and the other Jedi masters—a little annoying in the moment, but heartwarming in hindsight, as they had helped to shape him into the man he was.

But he had no idea that Anakin was taking them in a completely different way—as a constant reinforcement of how broken he was.

So when Padmé came back into Anakin’s life, suddenly, here was a candidate for a close companion who didn’t abide by the Jedi’s rules. Someone who could really, truly understand Anakin as he’d hardly been understood before.

I like to poke fun at Padmé for her somewhat cavalier reaction to Anakin’s confessing about killing the Sand People—but the point of that scene is to show how her reaction wasn’t like what Anakin would’ve expected.

Obi-Wan, or anyone else in the Jedi Order, would’ve chastised Anakin for losing control. While they would’ve been sympathetic to the pain of his loss, they never would’ve let that overshadow how Anakin had acted violently and irresponsibly.

But Padmé doesn’t think that way. Padmé acknowledges how hurt Anakin is, using the assurance “to be angry is to be human.” It’s actually a pretty good sentiment (not to justify murdering an entire village in your grief-fueled rage, of course)—but for Anakin, it does so much more than just offer him a morsel of comfort.

He thinks he has to be better than human. He’s been taught “normal” people are, in a way, beneath the Jedi. He’s supposed to be above reacting to his emotions—above being, simply, a human being. And he thinks that’s how Obi-Wan sees him—as some lowly human struggling to achieve the mastery of the Jedi.

But Padmé doesn’t. She sees Anakin as human, which isn’t a problem for her in the least. She still feels with all her heart—and she doesn’t see why Anakin can’t as well.

All that to say, Anakin’s reaction to learning Padmé is in possible danger isn’t just about him losing a romantic and sexual partner. It’s about him losing the one person he’s had since his mother who doesn’t make him feel broken or less than everyone else.

So when Anakin starts having dreams about losing her, he won’t accept it. He’ll take any alternative that anybody offers him—even if that involves treading down a dark and dangerous path.

Because, in Anakin’s mind, the Jedi are the ones unfairly dismissing his concerns. When Anakin goes to talk to Yoda in Revenge of the Sith, Yoda simply tells him to train himself to let go of everything he fears to lose.

If Yoda had given that advice to somebody raised in the Order since infancy, it would’ve come off as an undeniable truth, laced with the underlying comfort that so long as the Jedi work to selflessly serve the people of the galaxy, then they’ll ultimately perform enough good that the sacrifices will be worth it.

But Anakin only hears a rejection and a dismissal of his concerns—and that the people he loves aren’t worth fighting to save.

Luckily for his paranoia, and unfortunately for the fate of the galaxy, there is someone out waiting to assuage his fears and give him exactly what he wants.

* * *

Now that we’ve been over Anakin’s descent into extremism, it’s time to address the other side of my initial claim: how he embodies the most accurate form of the “bad boy” trope.

Typically, the “bad boy” ends up winning over the girl (no matter how vitriolic or violent he was to her beforehand), because she’s the one special (and typically “pure”) woman who can heal his tortured heart. The message is always a resounding “work really hard to fix a problematic romantic partner, because change never comes about because the person who needs it makes the decision to turn themselves around—but because your romantic and/or sexual love was able to ‘cure’ their toxic habits and personality traits.”

I’m not claiming that all male main characters who the authors define as a “bad boy,” or who come from a romantasy or a dark romantasy novel, are headed down the path to violent extremism. (I’m also not saying some of them definitely aren’t.) But many MMCs defined as such embody most, if not all, of the traits ascribed to potential extremists—to people like Anakin and Kylo Ren.

They’re possessive, paranoid, obsessed with strength and dominance, and often also extremely stubborn and dismissive of other people’s suggestions and opinions. If they want something, they’ll stop at nothing to get it. In the case of the “bad boy,” they won’t stop pestering, teasing, and toying with the FMC to win over her affections.

(I guess Anakin gets some points for not coercing Padmé into that relationship—she dove just as willingly into that shitshow as he did.)

Both Anakin and the “bad boy” MMCs have dark and tortured pasts, as well as damaging habits that resulted from their traumas. Typically, meeting the FMC helps to encourage the MMC to change, because the promise of romantic and sexual love is enough to coax him into completely overhauling his behavioral patterns. And his significant other is always the exception to the violence, as the pure and perfect idol who inspired him to change.

But in reality, that’s not how it works. A man who feels prideful but disrespected, strong but undermined, and needy but denied of his desires, isn’t going to be soft, kind, and complacent with anyone—even a woman who promises him much of what he wants. He still doesn’t respect her; she’s just one of the many objects he possesses. If she steps out of line, he won’t listen to her opinions or reexamine his values. If she turns on him, she’s just as bad as any of the rest of his perceived enemies.

After hearing about his atrocities, Padmé attempts to appeal to Anakin, as the one person he’s closest to. But by the time she gets to Mustafar, Anakin has finally been granted what he so desperately desires—the strength to harm anyone he wishes, an outlet for his anger, the destruction of the Jedi who so terribly belittled and disrespected him, and a way to save the only woman who really understands him.

And what does Padmé do?

She expresses shock and horror at what he’s done. She pleads with him to give it up.

What happened to the woman who told him his anger was justifiable? Who kept the secret of their love, because she believed in it just as much as he did? Who made him feel good enough, strong enough, and appreciated enough?

The final nail in the coffin is Obi-Wan’s arrival—but, to be honest, his appearance just hastened the inevitable. If Padmé had refused to stand by Anakin, then he would’ve begun to view her as the enemy anyway.

And now she’s become just as bad as the people he’s been attempting to destroy. So Anakin doesn’t hesitate to try and destroy her too. He feels some regret about it; but even possessive MMCs are capable of feeling a sort of grief over losing the objects of their desire. If Anakin had really regretted hurting Padmé, then he wouldn’t have moved to do so in the first place.

* * *

In contrast, Kylo Ren’s character arc lays the foundation for a timely, scathing introspection of the pipeline for modern-day extremists; but in The Last Jedi, it veers into the sexist territory of a typical “bad boy” romantasy.

To reiterate, Ren’s extremist arc follows that of failed potential.

We don’t get a lot of his backstory (also the fault of The Last Jedi), so we can only extrapolate on where the source of his pressure came from.

But it’s not hard to imagine. He’s the nephew of the last of the Jedi and the master in charge of a brand-new generation of protégés. Ren’s own parents were a war hero (and a superb smuggler) and a highly intelligent and respected politician. It’s not hard to imagine the expectations placed upon him since he was young.

I’d like to believe Luke, Han, and Leia would never have put such a burden upon their own children; but even if they hadn’t gone out of their way to do so, then the people of the galaxy would’ve viewed the entire Skywalker family as paragons of strength, cleverness, virtue, and heroism. Ren was likely raised as a celebrity of sorts. And, as one of the first members of the new and highly understaffed Jedi Order, he and the other initiates would’ve been expected to protect and guide the broken remnants of the galaxy.

So we assume Ren began to crack under the pressure. He never felt skilled, strong, or smart enough. The public was always expecting more from him; and perhaps his own family was too, in their own ways. Maybe his parents had talks with him about grades without realizing how personally their son was taking it. Maybe Luke subconsciously expected the boy to have a stronger connection to the Force because of his heritage.

Enter Snoke. Allegedly, he’d been speaking to Ren ever since he was young (I have no idea how). But we can easily assume he was telling the boy everything he wanted to hear—that he was smart enough, he just wasn’t respected; and he was strong enough, but he just wasn’t being allowed to release his strength in “real” and “meaningful” ways (i.e., through the use of the dark side via his anger and hatred).

As Snoke is gathering up Imperial remnants and scraping together new recruits, he tries to paint the failed Empire in a much more welcoming light: that of a valiant and ordered society ruined by the hotheaded rebel upstarts. The Empire was the perfect place for misunderstood young men like Ren to fit in. Under its rule, Ren’s strength could be expressed through unchecked rage and brute fits, and the masses made to respect him no matter who he’d failed or pleased.

As Ren had never grown up within the Empire, he didn’t understand how horrible the regime really was. He never saw the deaths, the torture, the poverty, and the fear. He never saw the billions of innocent lives they systematically ruined. (Though I do wonder how he rationalized the destruction of his own mother’s home planet.) He just saw what he wanted to see—a bold and shiny brotherhood of strong people who weren’t required to answer to anybody.

The Force Awakens sets up the story to explore these themes and more, capitalizing on the concerns of the audience of its time. Ren idolized his grandfather Darth Vader for his battle prowess, never once pausing to reflect on the lives the man had brutally ended. The Republic dismisses the idea that the First Order could be a threat; since, even though they don’t agree with their ideology, the idea that such a terrible regime could rise again felt impossible and distant. It’s been thirty years without any trouble, and certainly everyone remembers how horrible it was to begin with!

But the galaxy’s gotten soft, assuming the Empire will never rise again simply because they’re too afraid for it to do so. They don’t worry about the influence of the Order on people like Ren; because no one understands what’s going through his head, and just how far he’ll go to get what he wants.

Realistically, Rey wouldn’t have been able to pull him back. Just as not even Padmé—Anakin’s lover, confidant, and the mother of his children—couldn’t have saved him, no one could’ve urged Kylo Ren to turn back unless he’d made the decision to change himself.

But The Last Jedi torpedoed any chance at continuing the storyline begun in The Force Awakens, instead insisting that Rey had suddenly and inexplicably formed an infatuation with Ren, and that all he needed was the love of woman to coax him into being a better person.

Do we really need to discuss why Rey wouldn’t have felt any sort of a pull towards Kylo Ren? Even if she’d known he’d once been Ben Solo, all she’s seen of him is his violence and selfishness. He helped the First Order rise to power. He tortured Poe, then kidnapped and interrogated Rey. He murdered his own father for no other reason than to prove he was committed to evil. He tried to kill Finn (and, as everybody seems to forget, he tried to kill Rey herself?!)

Just as you wouldn’t watch a news reel on a profiled serial killer who was once a nice boy making cookies for his neighbors, and go “damn, I wish I could get to know him better! Maybe we could be friends,” so wouldn’t Rey do the same with Kylo Ren.

But why does she?

I’d like to disclaim that neither I nor God have any idea why Rian Johnson and the writers of The Last Jedi did what they did. It’s possible they had no idea how heavily they were playing into damaging and sexist tropes, and were merely copying the format of popular romantasies to gain a different kind of audience. It’s also possible they did know, and just didn’t care. But it’s not my place to say.

Regardless, taking Rey and shifting her character arc from “woman coming to terms with the trauma of her past and forging a new path forward” to “woman who becomes the dose of femininity needed to cure a violent man of his sins” was a terrible mistake.

Just as tragically, Ren went from a well-crafted interrogation of the modern-day extremist pipeline to the tired and toxic trope of “any damaging man can be redeemed, so long as we absolve him of any accountability for his actions, and place the majority, if not all, of the responsibility of his change on the love and grace of a woman.”

(Also, why is everyone so willing to ignore that Rey is nineteen years old while Kylo Ren is thirty-one? Does no one find that as concerning as I do?!)

* * *

In conclusion, the reason Anakin’s ghost wasn’t in the sequels was because he would’ve smacked his grandson upside the head while yelling “come to your senses, you goddamn nerf-herder!!”