You are moping on your island of self-imposed exile, and then this girl shows up.
She’s flying your best friend’s ship. The ship that Han thought he lost for ever. The ship that was stolen and passed through so many hands that he was sure he’d never see it again. The same ship that took you away from home for the first time.
She’s accompanied by your personal droid. The droid you left behind and abandoned. The droid that C-3PO was sure would never be the same again.
She holds out her hand and she’s holding your father’s light saber. The sword you were sure was lost forever. The light saber that you dropped down a bottomless air shaft on a gas giant thirty years ago. The light saber you knew you would never see again.
You look up and you see her eyes. Maz Kanata says that if you live long enough, you see the same eyes looking out of different faces. The girl’s face is different, but those eyes are the same. You know those eyes. They’re the eyes you thought you’d never see again.
And that’s when you know it.
You’re screwed.
They say sometimes the Force works in mysterious ways. Sometimes, the Force will send you little signs. Subtle clues.
Other times, the Force will just beat you repeatedly over the head with a gigantic neon sign that says: “You can’t run away from your past anymore, Luke. I won’t let you. Look, here is your past come back to haunt you. Now deal with it.”
How badly do you think the First Order fears Finn? Do you think they put a hit out on him, because he shows that brainwashing isn’t destiny, that it can be broken, that you can break free, that given half an opportunity 90% of their ranks, the tools they need to maintain control, can–
–change their mind. Strive for something better?
Jedis are terrifying, but they’re born. You either have the force or you don’t. You can kill them and they go away.
But storm trooper with a conscience is a virus that can multiply too fast to stamp out. It makes Finn the biggest threat to the First Order than any Jedi could ever be.
One of the most important lines in The Force Awakens comes from Kylo Ren: “It’s just us, now.”
In a lot of ways, the movie is about that one line. Passing the torch to these three characters. In the future, they’ll be the ones telling this story. It’s just them, now. The three of them. And even before this point, the story ties them together:
Each is introduced with their face covered–linking them visually from the start.
Each was separated from their parents. They all lost something they can’t get back, by being alone in formative moments.
Each feels a deep-seated “call to the light”. Rey saves BB-8 simply because it’s the right thing to do. No one taught her to do this, she just does it. She knows how inherently. Finn, too, chooses to save Poe because he inherently knows right from wrong. Kylo struggles to express the same knowlege, in front of Vader’s mask–he knows what’s right, feels that call. He doesn’t want to listen, but he knows in his heart what he should do.
Each needs to decide for themselves who they want to be. No one can tell them what to choose–they choose for themselves. Their decisions shape the direction of this story.
As Kylo, Finn, and Rey stand together in the forest, Star Wars has changed forever. Han Solo is gone–and these three new characters have taken their places in a new story.
They’ve picked out roles for themselves–Finn chooses to go back and fight for Rey. He’s become a hero. Rey chooses to explore the force. She’s become a Jedi. Kylo Ren runs from the “call to the light.” He tries to become a monster. Whether or not he’s succeeded–well, that remains to be seen.
“It’s just us, now,” Kylo says. And in so many ways, he’s right. It’s their story. And we’re waiting for them to tell it.
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Finn doesn’t balk at helping out, whether it’s passing tools to Rey in the Falcon or aiding Chewie with his injuries. Finn doesn’t talk over Rey or try to make choices for her. They may disagree and banter, but it’s not barbed, and it’s at an even keel. He looks out for himself, but not at the expense of others – when Finn decides to leave for the Outer Rim, he honestly tells Rey his story and how he feels about her, and asks her to come, and then accepts her refusal gracefully. He respects her decisions, her autonomy, and Rey as a person.
Obviously Finn digs this girl — who wouldn’t, she is undeniably The Coolest — and he does ask if she has a boyfriend early on, but after she says “None of your business,” he lets it go. When he could sulk or tease or be possessive or rude toward her, he doesn’t. He adores her, but is happy just to see Rey safe and well. He’s not preoccupied with romance or feeling “jilted,” where another character might resent her for it. When she hugs him on the Starkiller Base, he doesn’t turn lecherous or try to make a move. She owes him nothing, even when he risked his life to come to her aid, and he gets that! He’s not a White Knight, Friend-Zoned, or a Nice Guy. He never tries to “take” anything he wants when it comes to Rey. He doesn’t view her as a thing to take….
The parallels between Finn and Kylo Ren are the most direct (and stark) in terms of toxic masculinity. Finn seems to reject this toxicity, whereas Kylo Ren is constantly hung up on performing and proving himself strong enough. They are opposites: especially evidenced by the way they treat Rey – how they define themselves against the chief female presence of the movie.
Like Finn, Kylo Ren is also interested in and impressed by Rey. (And he also first meets her when she attacks him.) But instead of treating Rey like a person, Kylo acts out of aggression, objectification, and self-centeredness. He immediately immobilizes her, Force-faints her, and then carries her, bridal-style, to his ship: old-fashioned, exploitative, and gross. His language towards her is incredibly patronizing: “So this is the girl I’ve heard so much about…” He proceeds to insult her friends and threaten and torture her: violating her mind, using her as a tool but also relishing the show of his own power and the taking of something personal by force. “I can take what I want” is simultaneously a threat, a statement of power/entitlement, and a declaration of how Kylo fundamentally views Rey: an object, something controllable to serve his purposes. When the tables turn and Rey reads him, he is incredibly shaken by the subversion of his own authority and control, and when she escapes, he storms around looking for her in a blind rage, pursuing her with a weapon. Even as she’s beating him in the ensuing lightsaber battle, he has the gall to mansplain her own power to her: “YOU NEED A TEACHER!”
I love how this article is in direct contrast with the nonsensical idea that Kylo Ren somehow respects Rey as an equal while because Finn took her goddamn hand, he’s somehow the sexist one.
I am a Reylo shipper (much to my surprise), and this is 100% true, The interesting thing to me, as a fan and as a romance writer, is how much the Rey/Ren dynamic relies on some SUPER old-school romance tropes (the bridal carry, the “I can take what I want” (and make you like it, being the undercurrent there), etc. These are tropes that have mostly (and rightfully) passed out of favor in the genre, but make no mistake, they are/were romance tropes, and once upon a less-enlightened time, signified that A Great Romance was in the offing.
In that era of romance writing, the dynamic between men and women was very much a case of “woman tames the savage beast and civilizes him with her love/pure heart/vagina, man introduces woman to world of (sexual and/or material) wonders she’s never known before, etc.” And while if anybody pulled that shit on me IRL, I’d slap a restraining order on him, fiction a whole ‘nother beast.
The great part about the movie is that it rejects those old-fashioned and problematic tropes out of hand as being the tools of an unstable bad guy. The great part about fandom is that we can go back and play around with that–twist it, play it straight, whatever.
As someone who grew up reading books with titles like “Sweet Savage Love” and, like “The Virgin and the Viking” (I think I made that last one up), it’s an utter delight to go back and play with those ideas from a modern perspective and give Rey the upper-hand which she so obviously has.
There’s something infinitely wrong when society watches a movie about mysterious forces and light swords set in outer space and they take away that a girl displaying technical/mechanical knowledge is “too much” and “unrealistic.”
I’ve been seeing a disturbing amount of articles, posts, and comments saying that Rey is “unrealistic” for knowing tech/mechanics. One review, which I’m still really hoping was a joke, implied that Disney probably had a female STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Math) agenda or group sponser them because there really wasn’t another reason why Rey would have STEM-like skills. What’s even more upsetting is the fact that, while I’ve seen people rush to defend her force ability and fighting skills, I’ve seen no one defend her STEM-skills.
If Rey spent years scavenging material and sewing clothes, you’d expect her to be proficient in that. You probably wouldn’t even doubt anything she did with those skills. So why doubt her STEM knowledge? The comments saying that Rey’s technology and mechanic skills “come out of nowhere” aren’t exactly true. Rey has been on Jakku for about fourteen years, where she likely spent most of that time finding tech and working with machines, learning what each device did and what parts were valuable, finding and fixing things up for payment. Are you telling me that in her years and years of work experience, you really think she retained absolutely nothing? Why is it that the thought of a girl who knows tech and mechanics is able to make some so uncomfortable? In The Phantom Menace, Anakin was about half Rey’s age and a skilled pilot who was building C-3PO and, curiously enough, I’ve never seen a comment doubting his skills. So why are Rey’s skills so wrong? I agree that the writing/exposition didn’t overly explore or explain all of Rey’s skills, and I understand that the audience wasn’t shown much detail, but in a universe where there’s planet-blasting bases and music-making aliens, saying that
Rey being able to have tech and mechanic skills is “unrealistic" is downright insulting.
All of this. To add –
Not that we should need ‘proof’ to defend Rey’s proficiency in tech and language skills, but the cute little book “Rey’s Survival Guide” is perfect for it. In it she details how she spends her time studying everything about the ships she scavenges in. She keeps detailed notes and schematics. She pulls things apart, puts them back together, she learns how every part works, and what it’s purpose and value is – she has to, otherwise she won’t know what parts are best to trade for rations. She built that speeder from scratch and booby-trapped it so that no one can steal it (and calls it her baby!). She works hard at learning everything she can – her knowledge certainly didn’t “come out of nowhere”.
She lives INSIDE AN AT-AT
That is just such a great bit of characterization, she is so into technology she lives INSIDE a huge derelict machine and goes home and jams a republic pilot’s helmet on her head!
