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lyledebeast:
I’ve written about Kylo Ren and Hux’s “do one right thing and then die” arcs as though the arcs are similar and it’s other characters’/the audience’s reactions that are different. With some reflection, though, I realize that’s not really true. Rey and Leia don’t save Kylo in reaction to his making a good choice. They do it to give him another chance to make a good choice. You know, like the chances he got in TFA and TLJ and rejected. He makes the right choice this time, but he hadn’t done anything before they saved him to indicate that he wanted to. Leia’s choice to give up her life for him and Rey’s choice to heal him are acts of pure grace.
By the time Hux and Finn have their final exchange, Hux has already done two things that could argue in favor of his redemption. He’s given the Resistance information about Palpatine’s return that enables the whole plot of TRoS and he’s saved Finn, Poe, and Chewie from execution. In return, he gets neither recognition nor gratitude; the Resistance heroes leave him to die. He doesn’t ask to go with him, but they certainly don’t offer to take him either. And yet in the two weeks since the movie I opened I haven’t seen anyone criticize the heroes for prioritizing justice over gratitude. Even the people who believe Hux should have gone with them put the onus on him to ask rather than on them to offer.
That one of the differences between these sets of heroes is gender has not escaped my attention. Star Wars is the product of a culture where more pressure is placed on women to sacrifice themselves for and forgive men, including men who abuse them, than on men to forgive anyone. But what a difference from the original trilogy, where Darth Vader is forgiven by his son and only his son. Leia, the same Leia who would later give her life to save the son who cost her both her husband and her brother, doesn’t even go to his funeral. This isn’t to say that’s feminist (or not) of her, but Leia, in the OT, is not defined by expectations placed on her because of her gender. Grace and forgiveness can be good things, but when expectations of who should give and receive them break down along gendered lines, that’s a problem, and it’s troubling to see how the sequel trilogy has regressed in this area.
lyledebeast:
I’ve written about Kylo Ren and Hux’s “do one right thing and then die” arcs as though the arcs are similar and it’s other characters’/the audience’s reactions that are different. With some reflection, though, I realize that’s not really true. Rey and Leia don’t save Kylo in reaction to his making a good choice. They do it to give him another chance to make a good choice. You know, like the chances he got in TFA and TLJ and rejected. He makes the right choice this time, but he hadn’t done anything before they saved him to indicate that he wanted to. Leia’s choice to give up her life for him and Rey’s choice to heal him are acts of pure grace.
By the time Hux and Finn have their final exchange, Hux has already done two things that could argue in favor of his redemption. He’s given the Resistance information about Palpatine’s return that enables the whole plot of TRoS and he’s saved Finn, Poe, and Chewie from execution. In return, he gets neither recognition nor gratitude; the Resistance heroes leave him to die. He doesn’t ask to go with him, but they certainly don’t offer to take him either. And yet in the two weeks since the movie I opened I haven’t seen anyone criticize the heroes for prioritizing justice over gratitude. Even the people who believe Hux should have gone with them put the onus on him to ask rather than on them to offer.
That one of the differences between these sets of heroes is gender has not escaped my attention. Star Wars is the product of a culture where more pressure is placed on women to sacrifice themselves for and forgive men, including men who abuse them, than on men to forgive anyone. But what a difference from the original trilogy, where Darth Vader is forgiven by his son and only his son. Leia, the same Leia who would later give her life to save the son who cost her both her husband and her brother, doesn’t even go to his funeral. This isn’t to say that’s feminist (or not) of her, but Leia, in the OT, is not defined by expectations placed on her because of her gender. Grace and forgiveness can be good things, but when expectations of who should give and receive them break down along gendered lines, that’s a problem, and it’s troubling to see how the sequel trilogy has regressed in this area.