Tag: poe dameron

Hamliet’s The Last Jedi Reactions

Featuring Things I Was a Fan Of,  Predictions for IX, My Schadenfreude Salt, and Things I Was Not a Fan Of.

Under the cut for spoilers!!

Things I was a fan of:

  • Rose. Just. Rose. I loved her character and her arc. Her pain over Paige and her fangirling over Finn, and how she learns heroes aren’t perfect. In the end she’s the one who delivers the story’s moral: they win by saving each other, not by stopping then. (Can you say: foreshadowing. They’re going to defeat the First Order in the end by saving Ben Solo, not by stopping Hux.) Also I really don’t think she is going to die.
  • Finnrose. The moment she crashed her ship into his to save him I was like AND THAT’S MY SHIP.
  • Leia using the Force. FINALLY. 
  • REY AND KYLO’s interactions. All that angst. That fight where they team up. Goddamn. That scene was everything I wanted and more. 
  • Speaking of Rey and Kylo, that was like Pride and Prejudice in Space.
  • Snoke is an abusive creep and that coding was not subtle. 
  • The
    characters were very complex and I loved that gray morality’s been
    introduced in Star Wars. Good and bad isn’t clear, and I appreciate
    that.
  • The backstory for Kylo was so sad and it isn’t completely told yet. Luke, what have you done?
  • Luke’s death was beautifully done. He wasn’t killed. He was at peace. 
  • The film was genuinely surprising in its twists and turns. 
  • The ACTING was INCREDIBLE.
  • The Finn stan within me is appeased with his arc. He starts the movie wanting desperately to reunite with Rey, and he does and it’s beautiful (THAT HUG YO), but whereas Rey was his only tie to the resistance, at the end that’s expanded, and he’s finding that the cause matters to him, and Rose matters to him, and all those people. Seeing a character who was denied that growing up find love and belonging and hope with Rose and Rey and Poe cements Finn as my favorite character in this trilogy. 
  • Poe went from being a minor supporting character without an arc in TFA to having possibly one of my favorite arcs in TLJ.
  • Admiral Holdo is a Boss Ass Queen. 

Predictions for IX that may change:

  • Hux
    will be the final villain and it will come down to conflict between him
    and Kylo Ren, which is fitting on a symbolic level because the sequel
    trilogy is all about the children, and Hux and Kylo are not subtly coded as the dueling children of Snoke. Hux and Kylo are now forced to be
    “adults” thanks to Kylo killing his father figure in Snoke and his
    literal father in Han, but they hate each other, and that conflict is
    not over.
  • Luke Force Ghost will take on the role Leia would have had in saving Ben Solo.
  • If Rey ends up with anyone, it will be Ben Solo. However I don’t think
    the odds look great for him surviving the series (though it’s not completely off the table) so… sigh. I’m really tired of the redemptive death trope. Give me
    them
    antagonists who have to suffer to earn redemption and live knowing that
    many will never forgive them, but have to earn it every day, prove that
    they’re really repentant. The one thing that does give me hope is that
    if Disney ends the Skywalker line like this I think that’s a dumb
    marketing move, so Rey and Ben may get together midway through IX and,
    well, yeah. Or maybe he won’t die; see below.
  • Kylo will be redeemed. The vision Rey had and him
    finding the dice, plus Luke telling Leia that no one is truly gone,
    basically seal it. I’m not worried about his redemption.
  • Leia will presumably have… died off screen or be MIA (like if Ben does live, maybe the end will be him visiting her… wherever she is or something in IX? Idk).

Now time for my schadenfreude salt:

  • I’m
    really glad the Rey’s parentage brouhaha has ended. 
  • I’m really glad the Reylo theory and the Force
    Bond idea panned out. I remember being skeptical myself of the Force
    Bond because I thought it was too “out there” but I’m glad I was wrong.
    The Reylo community has been trashed by other fans and called “snobby”
    and “delusional” for predicting how the story would go in terms of Rey’s
    parentage, Rey and Kylo’s relationship, etc, banned from Jedi Council Forums, I got death and rape threats,
    and whoops, we were right. I feel I’m allowed a bit of satisfaction over
    this. Suck it antis.

Things I was not a fan of:

  • I wanted more from Snoke and feel he was kind of wasted as a character.
  • The pacing was kind of jarring. On one hand it felt long and on the other it felt rushed at the same time. 

reylorobyn2011:

the-reylo-void:

the-reylo-void:

Lesson that I had to have repeatedly hammered into me years ago when I was in the hospital stabilizing from an overdose and told the mental health coordinator that I’m not an only child so my life didn’t matter:

There is no “replacing” a child that you’ve had ripped away from you.

Gentle reminder to people either despairing or crowing that Leia has replaced Ben with Poe.

I have several anons in my inbox feeling very hurt over this particular plot element due to issues they’ve had with their own families, and as someone who’s very much been there, it’s breaking my heart.

No one can replace you. Your families would not be better off without you. You matter, and you are loved.

Remember what Leia said about Ben? “You think I want to forget him? I want him BACK.” She may be mentoring Poe, they may be important together both personally and in the fight against the First Order, but there is no one in the galaxy who can replace the son she carried and loved and lost. That’s a void that NO ONE will be able to fill.

So take heart. Leia is still Leia. She’s a general, a former senator, a tough-as-nails princess who can keep her eye on the big picture and fight the hardest battles, and she undoubtedly has a fondness for the impetuous pilot who helps her keep the Resistance together.

But he’s not her son. He’s not Ben. And I don’t think she can ever forget that, the depth of that loss, and I can’t imagine there is a single atom of her that doesn’t still, even now, regret losing her son, or want him back.

Thank you @the-reylo-void for saying this