Is Reylo a Bad Romance?

[Winter]

Yes.

Let me ask you something, why does Rey fall for Kylo Ren? I mean the first 16 minutes of their interactions in the film is just Kylo trying to torture, insult and manipulate Rey and on Rey's part she tries to kill him. Hell, the first thing she does when she sees Kylo in Both The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi is to try and SHOT him. Rey even says that she HATES Kylo, to his face and that he is a monster to which Kylo completely agrees. And then, in their next scene together RIGHT After that bit I just mentioned, Rey is making lovey eyes at Kylo and attacks Luke because he MIGHT have hurt Kylo and goes to try and save/redeem him from Snoke...


youtu.be/Q5lMOAF5qmE

Like there is no explanation for this. In one scene, Re says that she hates the man who killed one of her child heroes and hurt her best friend. In the next scene "He can be SAVED through LOVE!!!" and never brings up the fact that this is the guy who murdered someone offering the hand of friendship and nearly killed someone trying to protect her and has done NOTHING to indicate that he's interested in turning over a new leaf.

Just to compare TWILIGHT had a more believable reason for Bella to fall for Edward. First they can't stand to be around each other, then Edward tries to mend bridges and then saves her life which exposes his superhuman strength and then Bella finds out, promises to not to keep his secret and finds his true form beautiful and even excepts him for his past sins because she shows regret for what he did. It's BAD but it's SOMETHING! It shows that the two have a rough start but they put aside those issues to try and get to know each other and spend most of the first and second act getting to know each other (in theory at least) and only AFTER that do they get together.

Reylo doesn't even have that. They learn pretty much nothing about each other. The few things they do learn about each other only lowers their opinions about each other and then... they're in love.

Now, there is a deleted scene in The Last Jedi that helps explain why Rey would be suddenly so angry at Luke and why she could be vulnerable to Kylo's manipulations... But it wasn't included in the movie and STILL doesn't explain why she would be in love with him and want to redeem him all of the sudden.

Luke Hero Worshiped his father, Adora was in love with Catra ever since they were little, Raya sees Namaari as a kindred spirit, Beast Boy saw Terra as a friend and was clearly crushing on her since minute one and again Edward had to be willing to be nice to Bella and to save her before she grew to like him.

When someone says, "Why can't this romance be as well written as Twilight" maybe it's time to look at the romance and ask if it has a problem.

But this is just my opinion and if you like Reylo more power to you and I mean that sincerely.

[Thebestoftherest]

YES, moving on.

[McAvoy]

Yes. Really not need to think that deep into it.

Could they have done more if they were planning it out from the beginning? Sure but that goes for the rest of the trilogy too.

[Beastro]

It is one of many things about these movies that was put in without any thought.

Like Rey being able to force heal in the third one that is trying to channel her into being more than just a warrior of a Jedi, but a healer that turns the hostile into friends, as she does with that wounded beast under the sands.

The only problem is it just comes out of no where and we're expected to gobble it up as if it's part of her growth as a great figure even though she has no growth.

It's very a very childish level of writing.

[hammerofglass]

I always saw it as just another example of the pair having the emotional maturity of teenagers. The first person they've had any interest at all in (dude does look good with his shirt off) and they assume this must be that "love" thing people are always on about.

[CharlesPhipps]

Yes.

However, I maintain there was no romance.

[clearspira]

Kylo kills Rey's father figure and literally within 24 hrs she is dripping over Kylo's bare abs.
She is a sociopath.

[stryke]

Obviously, but y'know what? I actually think it was the right thing to do.

That film so seriously aggravated so many people that if that choice meant that there's some shippers out there who did get made happy by that being paid of, well, then at least there were some who were able to get something out of the experience and view the film positively because of it.

Removing it wouldn't have made the film better enough to have not aggravated so many so it's a case of why not toss in some shipping fanservice at that point. Hell I'd have gone further and paid off FinnPoe too for good measure.

[Winter]

Yes.

However, I maintain there was no romance.

Okay, let's pretend for a moment that Rise of Skywalker never happened and the only films that exist are The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi. TFA does everything in it's power to make it so Rey and Kylo will HATE each other with Rey defeating Kylo and learning his deepest fear (that he will never be the next Vader) and Kylo tortures and attempts to mind rape Rey, kills her childhood hero/surrogate father and beats her best friend up so badly that he ends up in a coma ALL while insulting her at every opportunity.

TLJ continues this for the first couple of scenes that they have together. However, the film includes a scene with Kylo being topless which is clearly meant as fan service and Rey gets flustered and asks him to put on a shirt, which he refuses to do. Then there next scene together has them as close as they've ever been since the first film and the scene with the use of a campfire and them reaching out to touch each other, regardless if it was intentional or not, invokes a romantic mindset. This is continued in the next couple of scenes with Rey fighting Luke because he Might have tried to hurt Kylo (invoking the Violently Protective Girlfriend Trope) then she goes to Snoke's ship to save him and he saves her from Snoke (Romantic Rescue Trope) and then they fight alongside each other and even in battle Kylo looks for Rey because he sees her safety as important (Battle Couple Trope).

And finally the scene where Rey learns that Kylo has no interest in turning from the Dark Side it's treated as this deep and personal betrayal from the guy she's only known for a few days. And finally, Kylo's line of "You're nothing you come from nothing. But not to ME!" (Excuse me for a moment while I vomit because that is such gaslighting BS) also lines up with the idea that this is, at least partly, meant to invoke a romantic arc. And, if I'm remembering correctly so take this next bit with a grain of salt, I think Rian Johnson even said that he was a shipper for Reylo or at least said he wanted to explore the idea of a abusive romantic relationship.

Regardless if that bit is true the way the film frames this relationship is clearly meant to invoke romantic tropes but frankly it's unearned. Again, my biggest issue with all this is Rey has NO Reason to want to rescue Kylo or to give him the benefit of the doubt and take his word over Luke's. And what's worse is that Rey at this point knows Kylo killed a whole school of Jedi for the crime of being in killing range so she's going to redeem/save someone who is a known mass murderer.

The only argument I've heard as to why she would think this is a good idea is because she knows the story of Luke saving Vader and she thinks she can do the same thing with Kylo but that DOESN'T answer my question as to WHY She wants to redeem him. There's nothing in the film to suggest that her Force Bond is allowing her a deeper look into Kylo's inner thoughts and the vision she had of him redeeming himself and joining her... goes nowhere in the film. It's a red haring for the sake of of a red haring.

And even taking that vision into account why does WANT TO REDEEM HIM!!! She doesn't actually know him, he hasn't done anything to show that he wants to change and again, that little fact that he hurt her and those close to her and is an effective school shorter is kinda a big point that TLJ just ignores. To use a none villain example of this whole thing in The Owl House, Amity had to first mend her relationship with Willow AND help Luz on a couple of adventures before a romance started to be formed. Also on TOH Hunter had to help Luz and her friends and had to be shown that he was on the wrong side while also showing that he was a victim of his uncle's abuse before anyone even considered helping him.

Kylo has none of that and this comes off, to me, as just lazy writing. There's nothing to convince Rey to give Kylo a chance and we have all this baggage that shows these two should have no reason to get together so how do we have it where Rey wants to redeem him? Ignore all those issues and just say she's basically in love with him now.

[CharlesPhipps]

I mean she wants to redeem him I presume because she thinks Luke drove Kylo Ren to it and Han Solo died trying to reach his son.

She thinks that their force bond is telling her that she can reach him and save the day.

Prove the Jedi right and Luke wrong.