Han and Leia Never Failed Their Son

The story of Ben Solo is interesting not because Ben turned to the dark side after being neglected and ignored, but rather, because he turned to the dark side in spite of the obvious love and compassion he was shown. It depresses me to see so many Star Wars fans taking the quick and easy assumption (that Han and Leia were bad parents), despite the obvious evidence presented. I speak not of vague references in expanded media, but of evidence presented in the films themselves. In The Force Awakens (TFA), The Last Jedi (TLJ) and The Rise of Skywalker (TROS) it is made strikingly clear that not only did Han and Leia show love and support towards Ben, but Ben felt a deep love for them in return. It is, after all, this internal contradiction the character contains that makes him so interesting! This is what drives his turmoil across the three films! I ask, how can one claim to understand Ben Solo yet misunderstand such a pivotal aspect of his character?

“Why did you hate your father?” Rey asks Kylo in a now infamous shirtless scene. Kylo stands before her without his top not just as a gag, or as a moment of cheap eye candy, but as a visual clue to his humanity. He is baring his soul to Rey. Not once in the course of the trilogy does he lie to her, except in ignorance, repeating mistakes he believed to be true (the truth about her parents). With Rey, Kylo wears his heart on his sleeve (figure of speech, of course, given he doesn’t have sleeves in this scene), never hiding his intentions.

Rey presses the question: “You had a father who loved you, he gave a damn about you.” Rey unintentionally reveals her own insecurities here, the statement “he gave a damn about you” suggests she secretly believes that no one “gave a damn” about her, and that she’s astonished he would reject love while she desired it so much. Kylo answers honestly. “I didn’t hate him.” Then, latching onto the insecurity he senses within her, “Your parents threw you away like garbage, but you can’t stop needing them.” This reveals his motivation in that pivotal moment in TFA. Kylo killed Han Solo because he needed him. All of his doubts and fears were blamed on his need to see his father. Snoke ordered him to kill his father in the hopes that this “weakness” would be expunged, and that with Han gone, Kylo would become stronger.

Kylo reveals here that Snoke was never a substitute father to him. That’s not how he saw him at all. If he did, he would never have felt the need to kill Han Solo. Kylo killed his father not because he hated him, but because his love for him was so strong that Snoke was able to convince him it was poisoning his mind. In the same way that the Jedi warn against attachments, Snoke wanted Han Solo removed because his genuine love for his son threatened Snoke’s place of power, and his hold over Kylo.

“Let the past die.” Kylo famously says. “Kill it if you have to. That’s the only way to become what you were meant to be.” Believing that Han Solo was a poor father who failed to connect with his son contradicts everything we understand about Kylo’s motives and actions. When Kylo whispers "Thank you," into Han's ear after stabbing him, it is not spoken in a tone of Vader-esque sarcasm, it is sincere. As twisted as it sounds, Kylo believed that, by letting him kill him, Han was helping him become a better version of himself. In that moment, Kylo was thanking his father for helping him in his final moment of growth. Kylo feared the past so much precisely because it had a hold on him, not because its grip on him was too weak.

This evidence is emboldened by the psychological effects killing Han has on Kylo. Believing that killing his father would transform him into a Vader-like figure, Kylo finds himself disappointed that the deed instead has the reverse affect, further splintering him. This is visually signified not only in the famous Kylo scar, which is exactly where his father last touched him, but also in Kylo’s enraged shattering of his mask after Snoke’s mockery of it. Kylo must pick up the pieces of his identity, but he realizes he cannot do it under Snoke. Instead, he continues to desire attachment. He cannot kill the mother he still loves, and who loves him still in return. And he cannot forestall attachments, desiring a new one altogether. Desiring Rey, who he sees as the next ally who might support his growth.

It is when she rejects him that he truly becomes lost, unable to lean on a partner that might encourage his toxic attributes, being left to simmer in his hatred alone. That is when he re-forges the mask, receding into a fractured version of the person he wanted to grow into. Unlike Vader, Kylo can not do this alone, and is constantly seeking support from others. This is another sign that he is a product of good parenting. With how the Jedi conditioned Anakin, once he became Vader it was easy to abandon everything when Padme was gone. She was Anakin's sole attachment, which he thought of as a possession, and when he could not possess her, he receded into himself completely. Vader became a pure tool of hatred, a scalpel for the emperor’s will. Kylo is not so easily isolated, constantly reaching out, hoping that someone who might understand him will one day stand by his side.

Even after Rey rejects him in TLJ, he persists. It is this character trait that distinguishes Kylo so much from Vader. As dark as the character is, at all times Kylo contains an inner light, a sense of hope, a desire for human contact, for touch, for connection, to assist his growth. This is the value that Han and Leia instilled in him, and it is this value that redeems him, when at last the mother he refused to kill reaches out to him through the force, and Ben Solo reaches back.

After Rey’s act of healing and her admittance: “I wanted to take your hand... Ben’s hand,” Kylo Ren dies, and Ben Solo re-emerges. But Ben Solo was never truly dead. He was always there, just beneath the surface, a glowing inner light, lit by a loving couple, that all the darkness in the galaxy ultimately failed to snuff out. And at last, it is the past that Ben Solo thinks on that saves him. “Kylo Ren is dead,” the memory of Han confirms. “My son is alive.” If Kylo had had bad parents, he would be using the negative memories of his past to fuel his anger. Instead, TROS reveals that Kylo desired to "kill the past" all this time because letting even so much as one memory through might be enough to pull him into the light. And pull him into the light it does.

The story of Ben Solo is the tragic tale of a complicated man who made his own decisions. Many of those decisions were indeed born out of the soul-crushing expectations that come with legacy, but they were still his decisions. Star Wars is a cautionary tale. If we are to rob Ben Solo of his personhood, his agency, and place all blame on his parents, we are failing to give Ben the respect he deserves, and we are not reading the story in the light that it is intended. We see ourselves in Ben not because we want to place blame on others, not because we want to point fingers and remove ourselves from our own destiny, but because we are reconciling some of our own failures, our own bad decisions, and we are accepting ourselves as imperfect beings who still, each of us, carry an inner light that we want to believe will one day re-emerge (or “Rise”). Whether you had a happy childhood, or a sad one, whether you had good parents or bad, who you are, right now, as you read this, is who you choose to be. You control your own destiny. No one else. That is the lesson we must take from Ben Solo's journey.

It's never too late to choose to be better.