Relationships and The Rise of Skywalker

 

I still can't write about The Rise of Skywalker.

It's hard to write about a movie that changes years and years and decades of your lived experience. I've tried more than a few times, but just... can't. I think I'm still processing it. Part of it is that there are several experiences that the sequel trilogy brings up for me that are so inherently uncomfortable to write about that I've not yet steeled myself for the journey. And it is going to be a journey, writing it down. The Sequel Trilogy is one of the truest and painful things I've ever watched, and I'm still more than a little scared to tie all the pieces together. But there is one thing that jumps out at me. And it's the scene where Palpatine finally corners Rey.

See, contrary to what a lot of people think, Rey has a very clear arc. She's alone, and she needs to belong to something greater than herself. She needs relationship. Like all of us, she craves it. And is afraid of it. Every last decision point in Rey's arc has to do with allowing herself to belong, to be in relationship with those around her. And that's how she finds Finn, The Resistance... and Ben.

All of Star Wars is grieving. All of Star Wars is the process of accepting frailty. And Rey cannot avoid Ben Solo. Throughout the course of our lives we may run into people that we just have to deal with, no matter how much we'd prefer not to. Folks who ship Reylo and those who hate their relationship both make a grave mistake: they assume that erotic connections (and it is clearly erotic) are positive or negative. 

Frequently it's both.

Actually, it's always both.

The only thing that matters about Rey and Ben is that, no matter what they do, their actions always cut to the heart of what the Other is going through. They may run and hide and do all sorts of terrible things, but at the end of the day the Other sees through them. And they remain linked. No matter what.

So then we get to Exegol. Rey is outplayed. The very type of belonging she's been afraid of turns out to be valid: she's Palpatine's "grand-daughter", directly descended from Palpatine in a twisted funhouse mirror of horror scenario that only Palpatine could have cooked up. Her entire existence is upended by that alone.. .and that's before she looks up and sees the friends she does actually belong with. They're dying. She's already lost her family once, she's not going to do it again. So she agrees with Palpatine's sick and twisted plan, because at least she can save her family this time!

And then she sees Ben.

And she knows, better than anyone, possibly even Ben(!), that he's finally himself. Adam Driver's acting here is the best in all of Star Wars. Point blank. Without a word Rey sees Ben and knows he's here for her, and that she can rely upon him. Of course she can see this, she's been able to see through Ben from the very start, it's why he's where he's at now! And so she goes with it. They finally achieve what the two of them have been yearning to do since this whole thing began: to actually belong to each other.

When Rey dies the decision is easy for Ben. Without Rey to relate to there is no Ben, not in the way he needs to be. Without Ben to relate to Rey wouldn't be who she is either. So Ben compromises. He puts his soul, his life force, into Rey. Rey comes back, but she now has the person who helped define the core of who she is with her, forever. Ben Solo lives on. And so does Rey.

And they're forever changed.

Failure and The Last Jedi

There's a story I tell people, from time to time. I try to be proud as I tell this story. I try to let the pleasure that thrills through my frame as I tell this story overcome the other feeling that I get. No matter how many times people tell me I shouldn't feel what I feel I feel it. And that's all there is to it.

I was six when I saw Darth Vader's mask come off. I remember that day as if it was yesterday. I was sitting in Tucson, Arizona. It was stupidly hot, and my hair had bleached to a pure white because of the sun. I had been having nightmares of Darth Vader, the monster in black. And when that mask came off... it's one of the most important moments in my life. Always will be. That moment, when I saw what was under the monster's mask, defined me in ways I am still trying to unpack, years later. I saw a sick, old, happy man, who was relieved to finally see his son as he wanted to, who finally had returned to himself. Luke had returned his father to himself.

I don't know why, but I understood all of that, at six. I knew what Star Wars was trying to teach: that the folks we battle are their own people. And they needed love just as much as we do. That's all I needed to do. Love them.

And yes, I missed the part where Luke had to defend himself against his father. Luke had killed hundreds of people to get this point. I missed that too.

I didn't say I had completely absorbed the entire point, right?

When I was eight all the friends I thought I had came to me with sticks. They told me these sticks represented their friendships with me. 

They snapped the sticks with a laugh and threw them away like you'd chuck away a full diaper.

I'd no clue this was coming. I begged for an explanation. I got none. I begged. I pleaded.

And the next five years I tried to make them understand I still loved them. If it worked for Luke it would work here, right? Right?? Through the fists that pummeled me and insults and constant harassments (I couldn't even walk down my street without being attacked!) I pleaded. There had to be an answer here. I just didn't understand. Maybe if I could understand what had happened, what I had done, they would let up. Things could change then. The masks could come off and I could get my friends back. 

Of course it didn't happen. The problem was far too complex for a child to work out. And, as it turned out, it wasn't even a problem a child could do anything about to begin with.

My mother finally put me into Muay Thai, to force me to start fighting back. I didn't want to. Somehow I still believed that, if I could just figure it out, it could all be over. And I wasn't wrong. That's the tragic part. But, because I couldn't figure out what I needed to know, I thought the problem was with me. And so I resisted the training as hard as I could, until one day I flew into a rage and pummeled my teacher, who laughed and took every single blow I could offer with my tiny twelve year-old frame.

That's not the part that haunts me, however.

We're getting there.

A few months after this bout of rage I had an altercation with one of the kids in the neighborhood, who attacked me merely for walking down the sidewalk. I dealt with her swiftly, throwing her onto the hard concrete after repeated warnings to leave me alone. So all of a sudden the attacks on me stopped.

They went after my six year old brother instead.

I heard about it, gritted my teeth, and waited. I knew I would catch them soon.

I was right. I didn't have to wait too long. One day I was coming home and saw my brother, with one of my oldest "friends" about to attack him. And, as I looked at my "friend", something changed. No longer did I see the person who had given me his extra Army coat when I didn't have one, so that way I could play Army with him. No longer did I remember the kid who, after breaking that stick, had apologized and tried to remain my friend, until the peer pressure grew so great that he snapped like that stick.

I just saw a fat kid. Who I hated. I saw someone who just needed to be broken. To hell with what I remembered, with what I knew to be true. The subjectivity that I had learned to try and give to each and every person I met vanished. The only thing that mattered to me now was that he had spent years hurting me, and was now going to try and do it to my brother too. There was no hope for this fool. And I was going to end him. Right here, right now. My brother needed me to. I needed to protect my brother. And so therefore my "friend" would die.

"Leave my brother alone."

"Why? Why should I?"

"Because I'll kill you if you touch him. I will make it hurt. I will make it last a very long time. And all I need to do, to get off the hook for it, is if you attack him. I can claim insanity. They'll let me walk." I was shaking with pure bliss. I knew, at the moment, it would work. I could carve up this fat kid who had hurt me and I could do it to the others, too! Years and years, for no good reason. I wasn't threatening my "friend", I was promising him.

Oh, this kid was going to die.

He wasn't very smart.

My hands were twitching with anticipation. Finally, something inside of me said. Finally. I can end it. I can get his blood on my hands and just enjoy it.

My "friend", however, was much smarter than I gave him credit for. He looked at my shaking hands. There must have been something in my eyes, because he looked at me a minute. Blustered. And backed away.

I was so disappointed. I was honestly a bit in shock. It wasn't going to happen.

And then my brother came running up to me. He was relieved. And scared. And I realized, to my shame, that I had failed. I had failed something inside of me, something I should have respected, even if it meant my death. And, as I realized a few short months later, I would have preferred that to what I felt as I sat, alone, in the woods, away from everyone else. I could have just walked up and pummeled my "friend" and it would have been fine.

But that's not what I did.

I just saw flesh. And wanted to rip it open.

I am still trying to figure out how to deal with this reality, of a failed interiority that may as well be the ripping open of the sky. I'm 33. What I just wrote about happened when I was 13. I still haven't fully recovered and it's twenty years later.

So Luke's moment of pulling out his lightsaber? On his own nephew? Oh, absolutely it's possible. It was inevitable. You don't go around thinking your own family is a threat to itself, see that get fulfilled, and not react. Luke is a good person, he can't not do it. What a lot of people see as a failure of writing fail to see what destroyed Luke is what made Luke great in the first place. What made Luke a good person turned on him and almost destroyed him. That's. Freaking. Normal. Humans.

It was this fear of self, the fear of the kind and selfless person that he was, that drove Luke to Ach-To. That fear turned to resentment of the forces that Luke perceived had shaped him. Folks who agree with Luke's rants against the Jedi in TLJ or who are offended by them  completely miss the point of why they're there. Luke is declaiming responsibility for himself, as folks in that situation are liable to do. He's blaming forces that frankly had nothing to do with his failure with Ben. Luke failed because he's Luke. No ideal is going to be able to stand up to such pressure. In anyone.

See the moment?

Where he grieved, and then it vanished? And then Luke vanished?

Luke knew what he was, at that point, and accepted it. And thus he passed on. Every time I see this scene a part of my soul twinges, hard. I want the feeling that just coursed through Luke. And it still eludes me, decades later. 

Luke failed. It's not a rational decision, and failures of such nature are frequently far too much for someone to handle. They happen to you, for humanity is fundamentally flawed and cannot help itself. If I'm on my second decade of not forgiving myself Luke doing so so swiftly feels like nothing short of a freaking miracle, at least to me.

It is a sign of strength to be able to forgive yourself on that level. No other moment of triumph will ever be able to equal it. To be able to look your own weakness, your frailty, in the face and accept it is more powerful than anything you can begin to imagine.

And Luke got it.