The Missed Opportunities To Explore Ben Solo's Lineage
As with any story that spans 60 years, multiple generations play key roles in the Skywalker Saga. From Anakin and Padme in the Clone Wars, to Luke, Leia, and Han during the Galactic Civil War, to Rey, Finn, and Poe opposing Kylo Ren and the First Order, a large cast of characters struggle over the balance of light and dark. The vast majority of these main players also happen to be part of the Skywalker family, leading to inherited backstory and depth for future generations. The addition of the prequel trilogy expertly added weight to the characters of Luke, Leia, Darth Vader, and Emperor Palpatine to name but a few.
This in turn makes characters in the sequel trilogy more important and critical, not only in the in the galaxy, but also in the entirety of canon, based solely upon their lineage. This affects namely Rey and Kylo's roles in the galaxy as they fight to find their places as a Palpatine and as the son of a Skywalker and a Solo respectively. The heritage of Ben Solo, and specifically that of his maternal side, is precisely what we will be focusing on in this article. Particularly how it was mishandled by the sequel trilogy, thus leading to multiple missed opportunities for the character of Kylo Ren. While Ben is clearly Han Solo's son, as demonstrated in The Force Awakens and Rise of Skywalker, his ties to Naboo, Alderaan, and Padme are, unfortunately, left out altogether.
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One of the biggest failings of the sequel trilogy is its lack of connections to the prequel trilogy. A severe lack of aliens such as Togruta, Cerean, or Nautolan fails to tie these films in with their predecessors. There is also a lack of prequel planets or references to the events of the Clone Wars. This is seen clearly via the character of Ben Solo who, while descended from two of the Republic's greatest defenders, only acknowledges his grandfather side, and even that has none of the depth given to it by the prequels. There is seemingly no acknowledgment of Anakin Skywalker, only Darth Vader. While the character of Anakin is understandably eclipsed by Kylo Ren's adoration of Darth Vader, no mention of his grandmother is ever made throughout the sequel trilogy.
A visit to Naboo to see how it has fared in the past 50 years would have been welcomed and could have been a poignant moment with a reflective Ben paying respects at his grandmother's grave. The people of Naboo could have played a key part in Ben's redemption or at least setting his feet on the right path post-Rise. Here lies another missed opportunity to see a redeemed Ben Solo making his way through the galaxy. Perhaps as Rey takes the Skywalker name on Tatooine, a refugee Ben Solo could have been examining his roots on the beautiful world of Naboo and setting himself up for a life beyond the sequels. Or at the very least, have Padme's existence and influence acknowledged at all in post-prequel Star Wars.
Even the most casual of Star Wars fans are familiar with Princess Leia and her struggle to avenge her homeworld of Alderaan after it is destroyed by the Empire. As a descendant of Queen Amidala of the Naboo, Leia is a princess to more than one world and passes these royal responsibilities on to her son, Ben. Just by watching the sequel trilogy, an audience would hardly realize, however, as Leia's son repeats the sins of his grandfather by condoning and assisting the destruction of the Hosnian system via superweapon. Just as his mother's world was lost to the Empire, so does he condemn an entire star system with icy cold indifference. While this all makes sense at the time, as Kylo is deep within Snoke's dark grip, seeing some kind of remorse or reflection from Ben, once he turns back to the light, would have been a welcome reprieve for the character.
The biggest problem with Ben Solo/Kylo Ren's character arc is that it kills him. While a consistent message of Star Wars has always been that redemption is possible, for a price, we can't help but wonder if audiences and the character of Ben Solo would have been better served by his survival after the fall (finally) of Palpatine. A repentant, emotionally damaged Ben would have been an excellent Ronin-like character to follow around the galaxy. Perhaps he could take a page out of Bucky Barnes' notebook and seek to make amends for his crimes against the galaxy. This would also have allowed Rey and Ben to part ways with the sabers of Leia and Luke in hand, truly and literally passing the torch on to the next generation instead of burying them in the sands of Tatooine and causing Anakin to roll in his grave.
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Source(s): Wookieepedia