Honestly, I think people seriously misinterpret Kylo Ren’s role as a villain, and not in a “he’s so misunderstood” Draco in leather pants kind of way.
He’s fascinating because he’s one of the few fictional villains that has some stuff in common with some of the real men who do dangerous and deadly things– he’s posturing, he feels persecuted, he’s explosive and uncontrolled, when he tries to look like a cool villain and give off that glib/‘badass’ vibe, it feels forced and awkward, it’s easy to laugh at him, but then he does something incredibly evil and reminds you that pathetic wannabes can be really scary dudes, too. He reminds me of school shooters, domestic abusers, extremely vitriolic alt-right internet trolls.
He doesn’t represent some grand vision or evil master plan like Voldemort. It’s all about outwardly channeling his inner turmoil and rage into self-aggrandizement, getting control over other people because he can’t control himself. He has thoughts, feelings, weaknesses, and at least a little bit of good in him. That doesn’t make him a misunderstood hero. The fact that he’s human and three dimensional and has people who care about him is part of what makes him more like the real evil that walks among us every day in the world.
People are always saying, “Kylo Ren is such a pathetic villain, he’s a whiny emo trying to dress up like a cool bad guy,” but that is lampshaded IN-universe, that people think that’s lame, too, even Snoke. People keep thinking that Kylo was supposed to be a cool villain like Darth Vader and that the movies failed miserably in portraying him as one, but I don’t see how.
True!
If Vader kinda represents the old school vision of what a classically dark evil man is, then I guess Kylo Ren would represent the newer type of evil men that exist out here now.After watching TFA for the first time, the word that kept coming up in my thoughts about him was “relevant.” And at first I couldn’t quite connect why I felt he was an appropriate villain while also strongly disliking him on a level I don’t usually feel toward villain characters at all. When I saw Nina Simone’s tweet, connecting the dots that spelled out “school shooter”, the level relief I felt was really surprising, I hadn’t realized how it had been weighing on my thoughts.
I value his existence in the movies for this reason and for these conversations on this topic. I watched both TFA and TLJ in my local theater, the Century 16 in Aurora, where people were murdered by a person like him in 2012. Going into TLJ I was hesitant because there became certain lines in the sand where I might not be able to bring myself to watch the next one. The biggest one, and fortunately avoided this round, is that I don’t want this character redeemed. I don’t want to sit there, in that seat, and be told he’s a troubled young man who deserves a second chance.