- “Forgive me. I feel it again... the call from the light. The Supreme Leader senses it. Show me again, the power of the darkness, and I'll let nothing stand in our way. Show me, Grandfather, and I will finish what you started.”
- ―Kylo Ren to Darth Vader's melted helmet[src]
Ben Solo, formerly known as Kylo Ren, is the central antagonist of the Star Wars sequel trilogy. Ben is the son of Han Solo and Leia Organa, the nephew of Luke Skywalker, and the grandson of Anakin Skywalker and Padmé Amidala. After turning to the dark side, he becomes the apprentice of Supreme Leader Snoke, and later renames himself Kylo Ren upon becoming the Master of the Knights of Ren. Kylo Ren wields a unique crossguard lightsaber that he constructed himself, being the rival of Armitage Hux and a leading member of the First Order under his master's guidance.
Throughout the sequel installments, he develops an intimate and intricate relationship with the protagonist Rey, as they progressively fall in love with each other despite being enemies. She is later revealed to form a dyad in the Force with him. In Star Wars: The Last Jedi, he kills his own master to save her life, and takes the title of Supreme Leader of the First Order for himself. In The Rise of Skywalker, his parents' and Rey's love and forgiveness bring him back to the light, and he fights beside Rey in the final battle against the revived Emperor Palpatine.
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Background
Born as Ben Solo to Han Solo and Leia Organa, his first name was chosen by his father as a homage to Obi-Wan Kenobi. He grew up in the middle of his parents' clustered lives. Leia was unable to spend as much time with her son as possible, as she was assigned to the position as a senator of the New Republic, while Han was unable to stay in one place for very long. As result, Ben was left in the care of droids most of the time. One night, when he was still two years old, a droid corrupted by a virus almost slit Ben's throat while he was having a temper tantrum, and despite that he was too young to remember this incident, it might have left him with an emotional scar.[4]
When Ben was ten years old, Leia sent him to study alongside other Jedi students, being instructed, and led by his maternal uncle, Jedi Master Luke Skywalker.[4] Around this time, he started to struggle with his inner darkness as an enigmatic individual named Snoke, the Supreme Leader of the First Order, preyed on Ben's internal conflict by whispering in his mind to gain his trust while corrupting him. Unknown to him, Snoke was actually created by the resurrected Emperor Palpatine to cause his fall to the dark side. Simultaneously, the Dark Lord himself also started to speak inside Ben's mind, as the Sith Lord attempted to corrupt him further.
Luke trained his nephew in the Force and Ben also accompanied him during his recon missions. Still at the age of ten, Ben managed to become Luke's most prized student. When Ben was 14 years old, during one of his travels with his uncle and Lor San Tekka, he met for the first time the Knights of Ren. The leader of the knights, called "Ren", showed interest in Ben upon sensing the darkness inside him. Ren invited Ben to join the group if he wanted one day.
Ben grew up hearing stories about the Jedi before him as Yoda, Anakin Skywalker, his namesake Ben/Obi-Wan, and his uncle Luke. Ben felt the pressure to carry on the legacy of these Jedi and believed that he was destined for greatness, which caused him to always compare himself to others in his family. As he approached the age of 23, he realized that by this age his uncle had already had amazing deeds as helping to destroy both Death Stars and saving his father, while he was still only Luke's student at the Jedi academy, so Ben felt as if he had not accomplished anything at all.[4]
At the age of 23, Ben was still unaware that Anakin, his maternal grandfather, was once the ruthless Sith Lord, Darth Vader, because Leia decided to hide this information from him. Around this same period, Ben finally learned the truth about his maternal grandfather through a holonet news when Senator Carise Sindian publicly revealed that Anakin and Vader were the same person. The revelation made Ben feel surprised and betrayed by his family, as he realized that his mother, father, and uncle knew the truth the whole time but never told him. This made Ben think that all his doubts and paranoia that he felt towards his family since a very young age were justified. Snoke, who at this point had been already manipulating Ben for more than 10 years, used Ben's anger and frustration as a way to further push him towards the dark side, promising Ben that he could guide him to become greater than Vader instead of continuing to live in the shadow of the heroic Jedi from the past.[4]
Shorty after, Ben ultimately fell to the dark side when he discovered that his uncle Luke was tempted to kill him, because his master was afraid of his stronger connection to the dark side of the Force. Unbeknownst to Ben, Luke reconsidered his contemplation at that moment, and was plagued with guilt and shame of nearly going through with it. Upon seeing his uncle with the activated saber looming over him while he was sleeping, Ben felt betrayed and attempted to defend himself by calling his own lightsaber and collapsing the hut they were in. After leaving Luke buried beneath the wreckage, Ben witnessed a storm forming above Luke Skywalker's Jedi Temple and a lightning coming from the clouds that ignited the Temple on fire, causing the death of most of Luke's apprentices.
Ben fled the Temple's destruction and sought Snoke as he was not able to trust anyone else after his family abandoned and betrayed him. He decided to serve Snoke and turn to the dark side to figure out his own identity. Ben recalled the offer of the leader of the Knights of Ren from years before, and searched for the knights intending to join them. Along the way, he was confronted by the three of Luke's students (Voe, Hennix and Tai) that survived the Temple destruction because they were away on a mission. He battled his former fellow Jedi that wanted to avenge their master, and Ben unintentionally killed one of them when he used the Force to deflect the lightsaber that Hennix threw at his direction. After Hennix's death, Ben escaped from the other apprentices and reunited with the Knights of Ren.
Ren explained to Ben that the condition to join the knights is to execute a "good death", so unintentional kills do not count. When Voe and Tai find Ben with the knights, Ren sensed Ben's hesitation to kill Tai, the student that was closest to him at the Jedi academy. While Tai attempted to convince Ben that he would eventually find his true self if he stayed in the light side, Ren murdered him in front of Ben. Tai's death infuriated Ben and he ended up killing Ren as retribution. With their leader dead, the other knights kneel to Ben, accepting him as their new master. Not wanting to deviate anymore from the dark path that he chose, Ben killed Voe, the last of Luke's students.
Ben then took on the name Kylo Ren as his new identity and went on to terrorize the galaxy as a warlord of the First Order. Meanwhile, his uncle managed to survive and escape the destruction of his Jedi Temple. The loss of his students greatly delayed Luke's plan to restore the Jedi Order to its former glory, and left Ben's uncle despondent for failing with his apprentices and his nephew, so Luke decides to exile himself to die. After Luke disappeared, Ben led the First Order against the Resistance while searching across the galaxy to find his uncle.
Personality
In his youth, Ben Solo suffered from issues of abandonment due to the struggles his parents had with their lives and, as consequence, he developed a strong sentiment of loneliness. He was also very uncomfortable upon overhearing his parents commenting about his lack of control of his own untrained Force powers, and came to believe they feared and thought him as disturbed. Despite this, Ben never really hated his parents and was very attached to them.
During the time at the Jedi academy, Ben measured himself with all the heroic Jedi of the past as he felt pressured to continue their legacy. He immediately became Luke's best student, but comparing his accomplishments with the ones of other members of the Jedi and his own family, he felt that it was not enough.[4] At the same time, he started to struggle with his inner darkness due to having his mind slowly corrupted by Palpatine and Snoke. Snoke communicated with Ben through the Force, presenting himself as a friend and confident to Ben, whom had grown to be a reserved person and had come to feel isolated from the other students. Simultaneously, Ben also started to hear Palpatine's voice in his mind, but before meeting the Sith Lord on Exegol, he assumed that this voice also belonged to Snoke,[5] whom had been merely one voice. Ben was terrified but also comforted by Palpatine's voice, and would hear its advice that guided him. With this, Snoke and Palpatine managed to cultivate doubts in Ben's mind about his uncle and the Jedi. Eventually, after learning that his family had been hiding the truth about his maternal grandfather and following Luke's betrayal, this would lead him to believe that Snoke was the only one he could really trust.
Shortly after deciding to follow his path in the dark side, Ben's inner conflict would still make him hesitant to harm and kill others, especially those who were close to him. This was seen when the last three survivors of the Jedi academy pursued and attacked him, but Ben would just try to push them away and escape. Upon pushing Voe down a cliff, he immediately regrets it and attempts to hold her with the Force, but this unfortunately results in Hennix's death when Ben tries to deflect a saber throw with the other hand. He later uses mind probe on a group of miners to obtain information without killing them, and becomes visibly uncomfortable when "Ren" mercilessly orders his knights to murder all of them anyway.
Following these events, Ben confronts Tai (his closest friend) and is very hesitant to kill him. This is noticed by Ren, who decides that Ben is too conflicted to be a Knight of Ren. When Tai is murdered by Ren in front of him, Ben becomes vengeful and kills Ren to avenge his friend. In addition this, the strong feelings he still has for his parents would also shake his resolve. When Snoke brought him to the Cave of Evil, Ben had a vision of his uncle and did not hesitate to destroy it, but upon seeing a vision of his parents saying that he still is loved and asking him to come home, Ben couldn't bring himself to harm them, so he chose to destroy the whole cave instead.
Kylo Ren throwing a tantrum.
As Kylo Ren, he is ruthless, merciless, brutal and confident. He admires and is inspired by the power of his maternal grandfather Anakin Skywalker, particularly his Darth Vader incarnation. His attachment to Vader, makes him to stop at nothing to uphold the Sith Lord's legacy by destroying the remaining traces of the Jedi tradition. He is also quite cruel, as he is willing to attack and threaten his officers if angered, leading to them and any nearby troops avoiding him when they see him enraged, and keeping a table of ashes made from the remains of his enemies, upon which he would often place the burned helmet of his grandfather. Even if he doesn't need a helmet as an apparatus to survive as Vader did, he still uses one not only to hide his insecurities and to intimidate his enemies, but also to emulate his grandfather.
But Kylo also carries guilt and remorse for his actions, and as such, he is short-tempered, hot-headed, and is torn by internal conflict much like his maternal grandfather Anakin Skywalker. However, unlike his maternal grandfather, Kylo is far less able to control his temper and emotions, as well as the fact that he is far less level-headed and far more prone to bouts of rage. To establish his rejection of his past life, Ren serves the First Order with great passion towards its leader and his master Snoke.
Ren is not without fear, he is afraid that he will never become as powerful as Darth Vader, and fears whatever hold the light side has on him. However, unlike Vader, Kylo finds conflict with these traits, especially towards the idea of family. His family is seen as focal point between the heritage of both the light and the dark and also furthered his inner conflict, as Kylo was never able to completely detach himself of the feelings he has for his parents. Despite this, as a consequence of Snoke's corruption, Ren came to believe that Vader's sentimentality was the weakness that led to the fall of the Empire. Feeling that this care is what holds him back, Ren believes that to be greater than Vader and to embrace the dark side, he needs to abandon the light side by cutting ties with his loved ones.
However, later Kylo's internal conflict is severely aggravated after the death of his father, Han Solo, by his own hands. The humiliation from Snoke, that he has to endure because of his failure to defeat Rey and for the remorse he feels about his father's death, causes him to try to prove his worth to his master again. However, he fails again upon realizing that he still has feelings of attachment towards his mother, which makes him unable to fire on her ship and end her life.
Ren being consumed by depression and loneliness is what allows Rey to approach him through their bond, showing her compassion. In return, Kylo also starts to feel empathy and genuine fondness towards her, showing her a vulnerable and endearing side of him unknown to most. Despite of being unstable and known for having lack of control of his own temper, whenever interacting with Rey, Kylo is shown to be more composed, tolerant, even speaking with a quiet voice, indicating that her presence calms him. From the beginning, he attempts not to cause her harm if it can be avoided, and is honest and patient with Rey despite of her initial strong disdain for him. Upon hearing Rey talking about her frustration after going into the mirror cave, he becomes emotional, even close to tears. He recognizes in her the same feelings of abandonment that himself feels, so he tries to assure her that she is not alone anymore. They eventually fall in love with each other, and he starts to pursue her, wishing to turn her to the dark side to have her beside him, to end with the sentiment of loneliness that they both feel.
His feelings for Rey are key to make him decide to betray his own master. By killing Snoke, he wished to saved Rey and have her to rule the galaxy with him. Besides this, he also becomes infuriated because of Snoke's mistreatment and manipulation towards him, and later towards her. Knowing that the bond they share and he have come to value has been manipulated by his master, makes him stare Snoke in fury. He is also unable to watch as Rey is painfully tortured by the Supreme Leader, only lowering his head down and restraining his thoughts, as he patiently waited for the right chance to strike his master. Following Snoke's demise, Rey's rejection stings and confuses him, as he sensed that she wanted to take his hand but didn't. After the Battle of Crait, her rejection makes him unable to enjoy the victory of the First Order over the Resistance and his rise to the Supreme Leader position.
The discovery about their dyad connection in addition to Rey's Palpatine lineage, only prompts even more his desire to turn her and to believe that they are destined to be together on the dark side. At the same time, his feelings of attachment for her have grown to the point that the darkness within him starts to tempt him to get rid of Rey, as she has now become the one who is attracting him to the light. However, after their duel on the Death Star II, Rey heals him, not only saving his life, but completely fixing all his wounds and clearing his mind for the first time in years. Rey's selfless act of love and trust for him, along with Leia's last action before dying, plunges his mind into confusion.[4] He starts to question everything, realizing that all Snoke and Palpatine told him were lies, because both Rey and his family truly care about him. Rey's love along with that of his parents is what encourages him to leave his Kylo Ren persona behind, and depite being aware that he would never be able to make up for all his past mistakes, he wishes to move foward to do better, to honor his loved ones and also eventually to be able to forgive himself.[5]
Ben Solo shrugs after Rey giving him the lightsaber through their bond.
Upon becoming Ben Solo again, his personality drastically changes. As noted by Rey, Ben seems to be more relaxed and showing his emotions more openly. She also describes him with a posture similar to Han's, and the warm eyes of Leia. He now exhibits more clearly some of the traits of his father, as when he gives the Knights of Ren a shrug in reaction to their confusion after he received the lightsaber from Rey. He feels surprised upon realizing that the Knights of Ren were never really loyal to him as he thought of them as faithful brothers, but they were actually serving the revived Palpatine. However, in contrast to when he was Kylo Ren, he does not take any pleasure in killing, so he defeats his former knights as quickly as possible and without holding any resentment towards them. Ben's return to the light also makes him and Rey feel that their connection in the Force is now different because it feels right, good, like coming home, as it was always supposed to be as a true dyad.[5]
Ultimately, Ben acts moved only by genuine love and selflessness when he decides to give his whole self to Rey, sacrificing everything in order to bring the woman he loves back to life. He recognizes Rey as the strongest person he ever known because she was able to fight her own darkness while he could not, besides being able to bring him back to the light. He is in complete disbelief and consumed by emotional pain upon seeing her dead, mourning having lost everyone who could have guided him and blaming himself for having wasted his whole life with mistakes, which cost even the chance to be with Rey. He knows the good that she is to the galaxy and admires her for sacrificing herself in her heroic act to save everyone, so he does not hesitate to pour all the energy he has left into her. He expects nothing in return from her part, and is surprised when she shows she is glad to be with Ben and kisses him, celebrating their dyad and that they are finally together. Even after vanishing, Ben does not let Rey fall in to despair and grief crying for him, and he assures her through the Force that he will be always with her.[5]
Physical appearance
At the age of 30 during the first two films and 31 in the third film, Ben Solo is a very tall, slender, and muscular young man with pale skin and a curly long black hair. Upon seeing him unmasked for the first time, Rey describes that he has a narrow, sensitive, and unremarkable face, as someone she could have met at the Niima Outpost on Jakku, but she notices that the difference is in his intense gaze that has something simmering behind it.[3] After he returned to the light side, she realizes that he also has the warm brown eyes of his mother combined with the long face and posture of his father.
As a child while training at his uncle's Temple, he wears a completely white Jedi outfit, including a white belt and Luke's white boots. Still at the Jedi academy as a young adult at the age of 23, he wears his outfit along with a brown cloak and gloves. He also included a brown belt that keeps his pants high wasted, which he uses to clip his unmodified blue-bladed lightsaber.
When he turned to the dark side, he changed his outfit and all its accessories to black colored ones. Upon joining the Knights of Ren, he wears clothes that resemble his father's but are all black colored, including pants, boots, a shirt, and a jacket. He is then seen with a holster for his DL-44 heavy blaster pistol on the side of his leg while his blue-bladed lightsaber is attached to his back (instead of his waist), so he can draw it over his shoulder.
After he became the leader of the knights and renamed himself Kylo Ren, he started to wear a dark outfit, including black pants, a shirt, gloves and boots. He is initially seen wearing a black robe with a short hooded cape and he still wears a black belt that keeps his pants high wasted. He now clips on his belt a red-bladed crossguard lightsaber, which is his old weapon that he corrupted with the dark side. He constructed a black helmet based on the one his grandfather wore, and he wears it both to intimidate his enemies and avoid showing his vulnerability.
After the events on Starkiller Base, he replaces his robe with a tunic and his cape with a long unhooded one. During the duel with Rey on Starkiller Base, Kylo Ren got a long scar on his face that continues down on his neck and across his collarbone. He now also bears a scar on the side of his waste where Chewbacca shot him with the bowcaster after Han's death. When his master mocks him by calling him a "child in a mask" that is just trying to emulate Vader, he destroys his helmet and spends sometime without it.
After the Battle of Crait, his dark outfit remains mostly the same, but he changes his cape to a hooded one again. One year later, he also reconstructs his helmet upon summoning the Knights of Ren, but the fragments where it was fused back together are still visible as bright red cracks.
After coming back to the light side, Ben abandoned his cape, tunic, belt, gloves, helmet, and the crossguard lightsaber. But he still wears the rest of his black clothes, which now only consists of his shirt, pants and boots. The scar from his first duel with Rey is also gone as result of her using Force healing to save his life on the ruins of the second Death Star, healing all his wounds, including the ones that Rey herself inflicted on him.
Powers and Abilities
Powers
- The Force: Ben has an amazingly strong connection to the Force. He is gifted with raw strength in the Force and was a described as a prodigy while training under his uncle, Luke Skywalker, quickly becoming the best student at the Jedi academy when he was still a ten-year-old boy. Besides being a member of the Skywalker bloodline, a powerful family lineage, he and Rey are also part of the prophesied Force dyad. The dyad in the Force, two that are one in the Force with the power of life itself, have the potential to acquire and share a great variety of Force powers. After thirteen years training in the ways of the light side of the Force with his uncle, he trained six years in the ways of the dark side with Snoke. According to Snoke, in time, Ben would grow stronger with the dark side of the Force and this would cause the rise of his counterpart in the light side, Rey, to match his strength. Ben's Force powers are rivaled by Rey, his other half and equivalent in the Force, at her peak.
- Telekinesis: Ben can telekinetically move objects or other individuals without physically touching them, and he utilizes it for offensive or defensive purposes. The raw power of Ben's connection to the Force also made him strong enough to collapse an entire hut down on his then-mentor, Luke Skywalker, knocking him unconscious, while both locking lightsaber blades with him and protecting himself from being harmed. By the time his rule over the First Order began, he was capable of affecting targets from several planets away as long as he knew where they were and could see them through a video screen or a hologram. He demonstrated this on Agent Tierny and Commander Pyre simultaneously, controlling their motor functions like puppets and forcing them to aim their weapons at each other. Additionally, he could use his telekinetic power on himself to resist outside forces, as he did when the Millennium Falcon's engines were used to blast an entire hangar of First Order troopers away, anchoring himself to the floor with sheer conscious effort. Despite Ben's great power in the Force, he found himself being matched in power to Rey. She was able to overpower him once, during an event in which Anakin's lightsaber was calling to her, allowing her to pry the lightsaber out of his own telekinetic grip when he tried to summon it to his hand, causing it to fly past Kylo into Rey's hand instead. However, as the two grew to their peak potential in the Force, their powers were proven to be evenly matched, exemplified by their attempts to pull the Skywalker lightsaber away from the other causing the lightsaber to tear in half and release a blast of energy that knocked them both out. Similarly, both of them were strong enough to telekinetically grip a medium sized starship, a prison transport, with each of them tugging the ship towards themselves.
- Force Push: Ben can telekinetically send his opponents flying through the air, causing serious injury or temporarily incapacitating/knocking them unconscious, depending on how much power is unleashed. He notably was able to knock Rey out by flinging her off the ground and into a tree as she was drawing a weapon on him, presumably since he may have been too injured to focus his power to restrain her instead.
- Force Pull: Ben can telekinetically pull his opponents or objects towards him, enough that he can hold individuals up with one hand while still pulling them with the Force. He notably dragged Dopheld Mitaka by the neck to his hand, as well as to hold him up with one hand while still pulling him with the Force.
- Force Throw: Ben can telekinetically cause objects and other individuals to be hurled toward a target at an astounding velocity. While being confronted by Jedi apprentices in the ruins of his uncle's temple, he used his power to levitate multiple pieces of debris and hurling them at the three students, injuring one of them in the process.
- Force Choke: Like Ben's grandfather, Anakin, Ben can telekinetically choke his opponents to either weaken, kill or intimidate them. He also has the power to use the Force to constrict the organs of living organisms in order to suffocate and kill them. By the time of his ascension to Supreme Leader, he was able to throttle his target through a hologram from several planets away, a feat similar to the capabilities of Darth Vader. He demonstrated this with Agent Tierny due to her failures, fatally throttling her.
- Force Grip: Ben can telekinetically lift his opponents off the ground and into the air, sometimes by the neck, to immobilize them. His telekinetic grip also allowed him to pull individuals by the neck towards him without otherwise harming them. His abilities also allowed him to influence the movements of people, as he demonstrated on the like of Agent Tierny and Commander Pyre, but also on Rey, forcing her to aim her weapon at the ground while also freezing her in place. Additionally, after making an alliance with the Sith Eternal, Kylo telekinetically grabbed General Domaric Quinn by the throat and violently pinned him to the ceiling.
- Force Levitation: Ben can telekinetically levitate himself or slow down his fall to the ground. In Age of Resistance: Supreme Leader Snoke comic, it is revealed that Snoke taught him how to use this power to stop the motion of his own body and survive a fall in a pit, and he manages to hover above the jagged rocks at the bottom of the abyss instead of falling to his death. Thus, although it is not seen, this is probably the power that Ben used to save himself when Palpatine threw him in a pit at Exegol, however, he still ended up heavily injured, including broken bones, as his fall was caught on a jagged outcropping.
- Force Stasis: Ben can telekinetically slow down or completely halt the motion of a target, holding them in place with a paralyzing grip. This notably allowed him to suspend a blaster bolt that was fired at him in mid-air for over a minute and then release it after aiming it at a wall, while also being able to simultaneously immobilize Poe Dameron. He later used this ability to paralyze Rey when she was trying to shoot him at the first time they met on Takodana. He also used Force Stasis combined with Force barrier when Chewbacca shot him at Starkiller Base, so that the bowcaster's bolt would not fatally wound him. Both Kylo and Rey managed to use this technique to block and momentarily freeze each other's lightsaber blades in place as the two of them dueled atop the ruins of the second Death Star.
- Force Barrier: Ben can create a barrier or wall of Force energy in front of or surrounding himself or his allies. He managed to protect himself, and unintentionally General Hux, with a telekinetic barrier as the shuttle they were crashed on a planet due to sabotage. When Chewbacca shot him at Starkiller Base, he used a variation of Force barrier along with Force Stasis in order to prevent the bowcaster's bolt from mortally wound him.
- Force Deflection: Ben can telekinetically redirect incoming attacks such as blaster bolts, with or without his lightsaber, although it is difficult to do so. After catching Poe Dameron's blaster fire, he subtly turned the bolt at a wall before releasing it.
- Telepathy: Ben can telepathically communicate with other individuals over small or vast distances, especially with Rey, due to their Force-bond.
- Induced Sleep: Ben can use his mental powers to induce someone to sleep with as little as a wave of his hand. He used this power to sedate Rey on Takodana, abducting the unconscious girl and carrying her in his arms to his shuttle, and she only woke up sometime later inside the Finalizer's interrogation room.
- Mind Probe: Ben can telepathically sense and sift through the thoughts and memories of other sentient beings, for the purpose of interrogation or torture. Ben learned to use the mind probe during a mission right after he joined the Knights of Ren, when he successfully extracts information from the mind of a miner in his first attempt. Despite never being taught how to use it, he at some point heard from Snoke that it is a variation of the mind trick and, based only in this statement, he manages to use the technique. As Kylo Ren, he uses the mind probe to obtain information from his enemies, and is also able to use it in a way to cause pain to the individual as a form of torture, which is seen when Poe Dameron is interrogated by him. However, during Rey's interrogation, she is able to turn it back on him to scan his mind to discover his fear of inadequacy in comparison to Vader. Despite this, it should be noted that Kylo intentionally restrains himself while searching Rey's mind, and even states he does not wish to harm her, only to obtain the information.
- Mind Trick: Ben can control the minds of other sentient beings, except for individuals with indomitable wills. He attempted to force Rey to bring Luke to him the first time they experienced a Force-bond connection, but he was unable to affect her due to the strength of her mind.
- Force Lightning: Ben can create and project bright blue electricity from both his hands or fingers to weaken, kill or intimidate his opponents. In The Rise of Kylo Ren #4 comic book, Ben used Force Lightning to kill "Ren", the leader of the Knights of Ren. Ben also managed to implement Force Lightning into his lightsaber to unleash attack on his opponents. However, Ben's use suggests that the ability may be more about emotion than control, as well as the fact that Snoke and Sheev Palpatine were influencing his rage during the battle, meaning he did not conjure the ability on his own.
- Force Sense: Ben can sense other sentient beings' emotions, the future, ripples in the Force caused by momentous or traumatic events, impending danger, and the presence of other light or dark side Force-users. Due to his Force-bond with Rey, he was able to sense how lonely she was and that her attachment to her parents was her weakness. He also sensed that she was tempted to take his hand on the Supremacy, despite her rejecting it at the time.
- Force Vision: Ben can see visions of the past, present, and future. However, like all Force-users, his visions are not always clear or sometimes they happen without warning. Due to his Force-bond with Rey, he possibly had visions with her prior to their encounter, which would explain why he recognized her when she used the Force to pull the Skywalker lightsaber before their first battle on Starkiller Base. When they touched hands through their connection, he foresaw Rey fighting alongside him, as well as discovered that Rey's parents were mere junkers on Jakku who abandoned her.
- Focused Rage: Ben can channel his anger to amplify his strength, durability, endurance, speed, ferocity, aggression, and the potency of his combat prowess/attacks. This allowed him to fight on as despite being heavily weakened by the wounds he sustained from Chewbacca's bowcaster, though he struggled to maintain it effectively due to his weakened connection to his own power caused by his regret over killing his father, Han. Despite this, he still managed to toy with, and incapacitate a trained former stormtrooper Finn, at the cost of further slight injury to his shoulder. He also nearly defeated the newly emerged Force-user Rey, before her growing power allowed her to overcome him in his weakened state.
- Force Dash: Ben can move at amazing speeds.
- Force Jump: Ben can jump or leap at great distances. He performed this ability while fighting Rey on the ruins of the second Death Star.
- Force Dyad: Ben and Rey have a special kind of Force-bond, a Force dyad. Their dyad is a bond not seen in generations and its return was prophesied in ancient times by the Sith Eternal. It is an unbreakable bond that links Ben and Rey, spanning across space and time, and inextricably joins their lifelines, making them one in the Force. Furthermore, this connection allows them to use a great number of Force powers related with it, gaining access to skills that are even beyond the grasp of the most powerful Force-users. The dyad deeply connects them as one, transcending their physical beings. Together, the two halves of the dyad are believed to be capable of unlocking a power that knows no limits.[6]
- Force-Bond Connection: Ben and Rey's Force-bond is a unique one that connects them at random moments, despite them being separated. During the connections, they are able to see, talk and touch each other through spaces. This bond also links their minds, allowing them to understand each others feelings, facilitating telepathy, and enabling them to assimilate each other's powers and abilities besides allowing them to have shared visions. In the case of Ben and Rey, they are also able to physically interact during a connection because of their dyad, which is something that never occurred with other kinds of Force-bonds. As a consequence, Ben can instantly transport or receive an object through time and space during a Force-bond connection. He used this ability to grab Rey's necklace from her with the intent to figure out where she was, and later to receive his grandfather's lightsaber from Rey to confront the Knights of Ren. Ben was able to use this power because of his unique kind of bond with Rey.
- Force Healing: Ben can heal himself or other sentient beings from physical injuries. He was able to heal Rey from her physical injuries, bringing her back to life after she was killed fighting Palpatine. This results being lethal to him, as he has to transfer to her a large amount of his own force energy and ends up completely drained of it in order to heal her, but he still willing does it in order to save her life. However, it should be noted that at the time, Ben was in an extremely weakened state, as he didn't have enough time to completely recover after Palpatine drained most of his life-force energy. Ben was able to use this power because of the nature of his connection with Rey, as this is a power that individuals in a dyad possess.[7]
- Telekinesis: Ben can telekinetically move objects or other individuals without physically touching them, and he utilizes it for offensive or defensive purposes. The raw power of Ben's connection to the Force also made him strong enough to collapse an entire hut down on his then-mentor, Luke Skywalker, knocking him unconscious, while both locking lightsaber blades with him and protecting himself from being harmed. By the time his rule over the First Order began, he was capable of affecting targets from several planets away as long as he knew where they were and could see them through a video screen or a hologram. He demonstrated this on Agent Tierny and Commander Pyre simultaneously, controlling their motor functions like puppets and forcing them to aim their weapons at each other. Additionally, he could use his telekinetic power on himself to resist outside forces, as he did when the Millennium Falcon's engines were used to blast an entire hangar of First Order troopers away, anchoring himself to the floor with sheer conscious effort. Despite Ben's great power in the Force, he found himself being matched in power to Rey. She was able to overpower him once, during an event in which Anakin's lightsaber was calling to her, allowing her to pry the lightsaber out of his own telekinetic grip when he tried to summon it to his hand, causing it to fly past Kylo into Rey's hand instead. However, as the two grew to their peak potential in the Force, their powers were proven to be evenly matched, exemplified by their attempts to pull the Skywalker lightsaber away from the other causing the lightsaber to tear in half and release a blast of energy that knocked them both out. Similarly, both of them were strong enough to telekinetically grip a medium sized starship, a prison transport, with each of them tugging the ship towards themselves.
- Advanced Strength: Ben's Force powers amplify his physical strength, making him physically stronger than most other sentient beings. He was notably strong enough to crush a Sith wayfinder in his hand whilst confronting Rey in the remnants of the second Death Star.
- Advanced Reflexes: Ben's reflexes are much faster than normal Force-users and most other sentient beings, as his reflexes were superior to most members of the New Jedi Order. During Ben and Rey's last duel on the ruins of the second Death Star, he was able to easily dodge several of her lightsaber strikes.
Abilities
- Expert Lightsaber Duelist: Ben is a highly skilled lightsaber duelist. However, he was defeated by Rey in their first duel, despite being a far more experienced lightsaber duelist than her. Although, it should be noted that at the time, he had already been wounded by Chewbacca, was emotionally unstable because of Han Solo's death by his own hands, thus, he was not at the peak of his strength. Besides, he was more willing to capture and bring Rey to his side than killing her. All this in addition to Rey's newfound abilities allowed her to meditate on the Force to gain enough strength to physically overpower him. In Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Kylo Ren at the peak of his strength, was able to fight Snoke's Praetorian Guards on even terms alongside Rey and eventually with her aid, overpower and kill the eight deadly warriors, despite the two lightsaber duelists being outnumbered. As of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, his lightsaber combat skills have greatly improved to the point that he could fight on par against Rey and ultimately overpowered her, which was demonstrated during their last confrontation on the ruins of the second Death Star. During the Battle of Exegol, Ben was able to overpower and kill all the members of the Knights of Ren with relative ease despite being outnumbered, this time being empowered by the dyad that was stronger than ever, to the point that he was able to fight in sync with Rey and she was able to warn him about one of the knights trying to attack him from behind.
- Form I: Ben is very skilled in Shii-Cho.
- Form II: Ben is very skilled in Makashi.
- Form III: Ben is very skilled in Soresu.
- Form IV: Ben is very skilled in Ataru.
- Form V: Ben is highly skilled in Shien/Djem So.
- Form VI: Ben is highly skilled in Niman.
- Form VII: Ben is highly skilled in Juyo/Vaapad.
- Jar'Kai: Ben is highly skilled in Jar'Kai. In The Rise of Kylo Ren #4 comic book, Ben used Tai's lightsaber in conjunction with his own and used it to fatally stab the dark-side user "Ren".
- Skilled Hand-To-Hand Combatant: Ben is a skilled hand-to-hand combatant, which can be seen combined with his lightsaber skills during the fight against Snoke's guards.
- Master Pilot: Like his father, grandfather and uncle, Ben is highly skilled in piloting all types of flying crafts. This is shown when he is leading the attack on the Raddus and also when he is piloting to escape from his fellow apprentices (Tai, Hennix and Voe) after the destruction of Luke Skywalker's Jedi Temple. While being pursued by Luke's students, Ben pilots his starship, the Grimtaash, and makes an attack run. Remembering that Ben comes from a family of famous and highly skilled pilots, Tai points out that they will not be able to evade his attack. While piloting, Ben is able to take out the main engines of their starship in one single shot, showing a great precision to disable their ship without destroying it, with Tai stating that if Ben was even the tiniest bit off, they would have been killed. As Kylo Ren, he also shows his master piloting skills while exploiting the full capacity of speed and ferocity of his TIE silencer, a model of craft that would be hard to control at the hands of lesser pilots. Piloting his TIE silencer, Kylo leads a squadron of TIE fighters against the Resistance's flagship and easily outmaneuvers the other ships, before destroying the main hangar of the Raddus. Still not satisfied with the performance of his own ship, Kylo later requests to the First Order engineers to craft an even faster model of ship, the TIE whisper, which he uses to confront Rey while flying it at full speed towards her. After turning back to the light side, Ben pilots an old TIE scout that has broken navicomputers which cause the ship to grind through unknown rough space, but thanks to his skills and concentration he is able to correct the course of the ship to keep following Rey's transmitted tracking markers to Exegol.
- Expert Marksman: Although rarely seen, Ben is highly skilled in the use of blaster pistols. He managed to shoot several Sovereign Protectors while running to find Rey on Exegol. He showed an incredible accuracy shooting in the dark, even hitting a target behind him without looking at it.
- Skilled Mechanic: Ben has knowledge about mechanics. After Rey steals his TIE whisper and leaves him on the ruins of the second Death Star, he finds an old TIE scout in the wreckage and manages to make it work, so he can follow Rey who is transmitting tracking signals leading to Exegol.
- Genius-Level Intellect/Master Tactician/Leader: Ben is amazingly intelligent and wise. Since he was young, he showed to be curious and sought to learn about both the light and dark sides aspects of the Force. He quickly became Luke's prized student still at the age of ten, not only for being naturally talented but also for having a good understanding of any knowledge he has access on, making him the best of among the apprentices at the Jedi academy. During a mission with the Knights of Ren, Ben is able to successfully use the mind probe in his first attempt, despite never being instructed how to use it and only hearing from Snoke that it is a technique variated from the mind trick. Afterwards, as a warlord and later the Supreme Leader of the First Order, Kylo Ren is also a highly skilled tactician and a very capable leader. On the Supremacy, Kylo even manages to oversmart his own master in order to kill him to save Rey. By taking advantage of Snoke's overconfidence, Kylo is able to hide his thoughts and feelings from Snoke, and then wait for the right opportunity to strike him. On Exegol, Kylo is also quick to realize that the Emperor is lying about handing him over so much power. Despite being tempted by the Sith throne and fleet, he is not fooled by Palpatine's offer and soon thinks in using the information he obtained in his favor, to make Rey to join him and overthrow the Emperor together.
- Intimidation: As an immensely powerful Force-user, Ben Solo as Kylo Ren commends an intimidating presence to the point where many of his allies and enemies alike across the galaxy fear him, even exceptionally powerful Force-users.
- Indomitable Will/High Tolerance For Pain/Expert Survivalist: Ben has an indomitable will and a high tolerance for pain, as he was able to continue fighting despite being shot in the side by Chewbacca, and slashed on the shoulder by Finn. In his battle with Finn, he was also seen withstanding the wound inflicted by Chewbacca, using his pain and anguish to fuel his connection to the dark side of the Force. Furthermore, while armored Stormtroopers were violently blasted through the air and killed instantly by the bowcaster's explosive blast, as Kylo does not wear complete armor, but only doubled over in pain when shot.
- Calligraphy: Ben is skilled in the art of calligraphy. Despite being an art that became obsolete as almost no one wrote by hand anymore during the New Republic era, Ben often practiced the art of fancy handwriting when he was studying at Luke's Jedi academy. He had a calligraphy set that contained an inkwell besides various parchment scrolls and pens, and used it to record his understanding and observations about the Jedi during his studies. This calligraphy set along with some scrolls can be seen beside his lightsaber during the flashback scene that Luke goes to confront him inside his hut in The Last Jedi.
Weapons and Equipment
Lightsabers
Ben's valued weapons and possessions are his blue and red-bladed lightsabers. So far, he has had two lightsabers.
- First Lightsaber/Crossguard lightsaber: Ben's unique lightsaber was originally a blue-bladed lightsaber with a single blade. It had finned grips similar to Darth Vader's saber, and geometric lines and squared-off corners resembling his mother's lightsaber. He built the weapon sometime after he became his uncle's Jedi apprentice and wielded it until falling to the dark side as consequence of Snoke's influence. Shortly after killing "Ren", the leader of the Knights of Ren, Ben had rebuilt his weapon into a red-bladed crossguard lightsaber, shortly before he became a warlord of the First Order. The crossguard lightsaber was crudely built off an ancient design dating back to an event known as the Great Scourge of Malachor. The kyber crystal of what was once his blue-bladed lightsaber, turned red and cracked when Ben used the dark side of the Force to bleed it. Thus, it had an unstable blade, necessitating the use of exhaust ports and focusing crystal activators to channel, and vent the weapon's excess energy so that it would not overload and operate with the cracked crystal. The excess energy served as the lightsaber's quillons (crossguards) the weapon's blades also crackled and arced like electricity and funneled like fire, giving the weapon a ragged, menacing appearance and a deep, growling hum. Later, Ben abandoned this lightsaber, throwing it into the ocean, when he decided to come back to the light side and redeem himself.
- Skywalker Lightsaber: This lightsaber had previously belonged to Ben's grandfather, Anakin Skywalker. As Kylo Ren, he was interested in the weapon from the beginning, claiming that the lightsaber belonged to him during his fight with Finn at Starkiller Base. Later, Ben utilized this saber to kill his own master in the throne room of the Supremacy, and Rey lent it so he could defeat the last Praetorian Guard. The weapon was broken in half when Rey and Ben both tried to Force pull it. Rey took both pieces with her and later was able to repair it, using the healing techniques described in the sacred Jedi texts to heal the kyber crystal of the weapon. During the Battle of Exegol, Rey gave the lightsaber to Ben through their bond, and he wielded the weapon against the Knights of Ren.
Blaster
- DL-44 heavy blaster pistol: In The Rise of Kylo Ren #3 comic book, Ben wears a holster with a blaster similar to his father's on the side of his leg, but he is not seen using this weapon at any point.
- Blaster: Ben utilized an unspecified type of blaster as a weapon of choice after he turned back to the light side and decided to help Rey on Exegol. He later was disarmed of this weapon when he was surrounded and overwhelmed in combat by the Knights of Ren, before Rey giving him the lightsaber through their bond.
Armor
- Knights of Ren Armor: Ben utilizes combat armor to protect himself from his enemies in battle. It is based on the battle gear worn by the other Knights of Ren. It is also based on his grandfather's armor, particularly the helmet, which he wore to conceal his identity and voice as he delved further and further into the dark side. As The Last Jedi, Ben destroyed the helmet after being berated by his master and realizing that he is only copying Darth Vader, as he will never be able to reach his full potential that way. He later rebuilt his helmet to show himself off as being the rightful leader of the First Order. After coming back to the light side, Ben completely abandoned his armor and helmet.
History
Pre-Natal Events
In the Word Between Worlds
Although he was not yet born in this period, his voice can be heard when Ezra Bridger is wondering in the Word Between Worlds. At the same time that Rey's voice is heard while she is promising to reunite again with an unconscious Finn, it is possible to hear when Kylo Ren is speaking to Darth Vader's destroyed helmet and saying "Show me, Grandfather and I will finish what you started", a scene that happens during the events of The Force Awakens.[8]
The Conflicted Dark Warrior
Searching for the Map
Kylo Ren using the Force to freeze the blaster bolt along with Poe.
Kylo Ren goes to Jakku searching for a map leading to the missing legendary Jedi Luke Skywalker. After failing to recover anything from the planet, Kylo and his forces slaughter Lor San Tekka and capture the Resistance pilot Poe Dameron, where Kylo interrogates Poe by mentally torturing him with the Force. He discovers that Poe hid the map with Luke's location inside a droid, BB-8. Poe escapes with the aid of AWOL stormtrooper FN-2187, nicknamed Finn, and Kylo is outraged.
Snoke later informs Kylo that the First Order discovered that Poe's droid is aboard the Millennium Falcon, the ship of Han Solo, Kylo's father. Snoke tells Kylo that confronting his father will be his greatest test. Kylo assures his master that his father no longer means anything to him. However, after being dismissed, Kylo returns to his quarters and talks to the melted mask of his maternal grandfather, Darth Vader. He implores on his grandfather to help him because he felt the call from the light side and he thinks Snoke can also sense this internal conflict too.[9]
Capturing Rey
After the First Order figured out that BB-8 is on Takodana, and with it the map to Luke, Kylo travels to the planet and leads the ransack for the droid. But upon encountering the Force-sensitive Rey in the woods, he gives up on the search for the droid and instead takes her to Starkiller Base to be interrogated for the map.
During the interrogation, Kylo reads Rey's thoughts and is intrigued by her mind. He discovers that she has seen a island in her dreams, that she knows his father, and also senses how lonely she is. Before he can find the map inside her mind, Rey manages to use the mind probe against him and reveals that he fears not to be strong as his grandfather. After failing on gaining information from Rey, Kylo is ordered by Snoke to bring her to him for interrogation. However, Rey manages to tap into the Force and escape her bindings by using Jedi mind-control on a guard, leaving Ren to chase her with stormtroopers.[9]
Reuniting with Han Solo
Han Solo touching Kylo's face as he dies after being impaled by him.
In the reactor shaft of the base, Ren is discovered by his father, while Chewbacca, Finn, and Rey watch this reunion from afar. When Han confronts his son and offers to help him with his emotional pain, Kylo is conflicted and thinking of his father's words. Despite this, Kylo then gives in fully to the dark side and stabs him through the torso with his lightsaber. Watching Han fall into the shaft below them, Kylo quickly regrets his own decision. An enraged Chewbacca shoots Ren in his side, leaving him severely weakened. Finn and Rey flee. Before he can react, the wounded Ren is briefly caught in the explosion caused by the detonations that his father and Chewbacca had planted around the area prior.[9]
The Duel on Starkiller Base
Kylo chases Finn and Rey and finds them in the woods of the base. He engages in battle with Finn, who is using Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber against him, much to Ren's anger. Due to Finn's lack of training, Ren defeats and grievously injures him, but not without receiving a minor wound to the shoulder.
Afterwards, he tries to claim his grandfather's lightsaber from the snow, but Rey uses the Force to pull it to her. She fights him and Ren initially has the upper hand. However, in the middle of their battle when he corners her the edge of a rift, Ren offers to train Rey. Rey refuses, using his moment of hesitation to her advantage, she gives herself over to the full power of the Force. She overpowers Ren, knocking away his lightsaber and slashing him in the face. With the planet collapsing with the destruction of the weapon, Rey abandons Ren and escapes with Finn. Before the planet implodes, Snoke instructs General Hux to retrieve Ren before departing to complete his apprentice's training.[9]
A Child in a Mask
Following the destruction of Starkiller Base and the Resistance's evacuation of their base on D'Qar, Kylo Ren was summoned to by Supreme Leader Snoke to his throne room aboard the Mega-class Star Dreadnought Supremacy. Kneeling before his master, Ren listened as Snoke loudly recalled the raw, untamed power that Ren possessed, abilities which had originally brought him to the dark sider's attention. Knowing the potential of the powerful Skywalker bloodline, Snoke revealed his belief that Ren could fulfill his grandfather's dark side legacy. However, he was disappointed with Ren's emotional instability and conflict caused by the trauma of Han Solo's death. This in addition to his apprentice's defeat at the hands of a scavenger girl who had never wielded a lightsaber before, made Snoke revoke his faith in Ren's power and proceed to berate him, calling him weak, sentimental, and childish.
After being humiliated by his master, Kylo smashes his helmet in the elevator of the Supremacy.
Enraged by his master's derogatory words, Kylo rose to meet his master and attack, but Snoke quickly suppressed the attempt on him with a surge of Force lightning, watched by the ever-ready Praetorian Guards. Leaving the throne room and embittered over Snoke's words, Kylo Ren smashed his helmet against the surrounding metal of the elevator lift he was in, having been ridiculed and regarded as nothing more than a child hiding in a mask, pretending to be Darth Vader. Upon emerging from the damaged lift, he ordered his ship to be readied, resuming his quest to eradicate the Resistance.
As Hux had anticipated through new tracking technology, the First Order armada emerged out of hyperspace to find the Resistance fleet unprepared and defenseless. The Supremacy led the charge, its powerful turbolasers showering the Resistance fleet with unyielding blasts. To complement the barrage, the Supremacy scrambled its short-distance fighters, with Kylo Ren spearheading the assault on his personal TIE silencer. Covered by two wingmen, the Jedi killer intercepted the Resistance's MC85 Star Cruiser Raddus, capital ship of the fleet. Before the Resistance pilots could launch a counterattack, however, Ren destroyed the Raddus' hangar leaving them unable to resist Ren's fighter wing.
Kylo hesitates to fire on the Raddus and kill his mother.
With the Resistance's flagship crippled, Ren turned his fighter to face the bridge of the craft, readying his rockets. At this moment he sensed his mother's presence aboard the Raddus, and Ren, hesitating, held his thumb over the trigger in a moment of intense self-doubt. After a moment, he surrendered to his second thoughts and abandoned the trigger control, knowing he could not bring himself to kill his mother. His two wingmen had no such qualms, and launched their rockets in Ren's place, destroying the bridge. The detonation killed Admiral Ackbar and other acclaimed figures of the Resistance hierarchy, but Kylo's mother survived, barely, by using the Force to propel herself through space to the airlock. Following this last offensive, Hux ordered the fighters back to the Supremacy, as the Resistance fleet had managed to pull itself out of the Supremacy's firing range in the intervening time.[10]
The Connection in the Force
Discovering the Force-Bond
As the First Order continued to pursue the Resistance fleet, Ren discovered he had a Force-bond with Rey, and once more prodded her for Luke Skywalker's location, as he was only able to see her and not her surroundings. During their first interaction, Rey fired her blaster at where she perceived Ren to be, only to damage one of the structures in the Jedi village where Skywalker resided. This also resulted in Kylo feeling the attack through their connection. During another conversation, Kylo Ren told Rey his version of the events leading up to the destruction of Skywalker's Jedi Temple; that he woke up to see Luke standing over him with his lightsaber drawn, ready to kill him. Although she at first did not believe in his version of the events, him telling Rey that her parents are her weakness because she isn't able to forget them even knowing they abandoned her, made Rey search for answers about her parents inside the mirror cave.
Rey and Kylo touch hands and try to comfort each other through their connection, but they are interrupted by Luke.
Though she refused to reveal Luke's location to him, Rey offered him her hand the evening she came back from the cave without answers about herself and her family. Rey told Kylo about what she saw inside the cave and shared her feelings of loneliness with him. Identifying with her sentiment of abandonment, he assured her that she was not alone, and Rey replied that neither was he. Rey held out her hand to him, and they reached for each other through their connection, seeking for comfort. This caused Rey to sense the conflict within him. Simultaneously, Kylo sensed that Rey's parents were mere simple junk traders that sold her off for money and that she had no connection to the galactic story that was playing out. The connection was interrupted when Luke walks in the hut, and upon seeing his apprentice and his nephew holding hands and staring into each other's eyes, the Jedi Master becomes furious destroys the hut.
However, upon sensing Kylo's conflict, Rey confronted Luke about the truth of Ben Solo's turn to the dark side, and left to find Kylo Ren at the Supremacy, in an attempt to redeem him.[10]
Showdown at the Supremacy
Once Rey arrived at the Supremacy, Kylo promptly took her into his custody. On the way to Snoke's throne room, Rey and Kylo talk about the visions they saw while touching hands. She tells that she saw him turning to the light side in the future and that she will help him change sides. However, Kylo explains that the opposite will happen because he saw the identity of her parents during his vision, and is convinced that she will join him in the dark side.
Kylo and Rey fight the Praetorians guards together.
At the throne room, Rey met Snoke who stated the young girl was Kylo Ren's opposite in the Force, the light to oppose his darkness. Ren watched the Supreme Leader and Rey interacting kneeling with his head down, supposedly showing submission to his master. Though after Snoke falsely claims to have created the Force-bond, and manipulated them both to lure Rey into a trap using Ren's vulnerability, Kylo glared his master in surprise and anger. As Snoke tortured Rey for Skywalker's whereabouts, Ren looked down unable to stare the girl screaming in pain. The Supreme Leader then ordered Kylo to kill the Jedi apprentice, however, aware through his father's words that Snoke would use him for his power and then dispose of him and moved by the feelings he developed for Rey, Ren killed his own master by moving the Skywalker lightsaber with the Force to bisect him, tricking the Supreme Leader into believing he would strike Rey down. After murdering Snoke, Kylo used the Force to return the lightsaber to Rey, who stared at him, surprised that he saved her life. As Snoke's Praetorian Guards immediately moved forward to attack Rey and Ren, they entered a temporary truce and quickly fought them off in a terrifying duel.[10]
The Proposal
- Kylo: "I want you to join me. We can rule together and bring a new order to the galaxy."
- Rey: "Don't do this, Ben... Please don't go this way."
- Kylo: "[...] You come from nothing. You're nothing, but not to me. Join me. Please..."
- ―Kylo begs Rey to join him[src]
Kylo asks Rey to join him to rule the galaxy by his side.
With the guards dead, Rey asked him to help her save the Resistance fleet. However, Ren once again asked Rey to join him, and in the process, he revealed what he saw in her mind and thought to be the truth about her parents: they were nobody, they sold her for money and were dead. Ren stated that the only way to be free was to destroy everything that connected them to the past, be it Sith, Jedi or anything else. He then confessed that even if she is nothing to everybody else in the galaxy or in history, he did care about her. He offered his hand, asking her to rule the galaxy by his side, pleading and patiently waiting for her to accept it. However, as on Starkiller Base, Rey refused him again, but this time with a broken heart as she have come to genuinely care about him and is disappointed upon realizing that he wouldn't come back with her. She then attempted to pull her lightsaber from him using the Force, causing Kylo to try to pull the lightsaber back towards himself. As the weapon floated between them in a stalemate, the power they exuded put too much strain on the weapon and the lightsaber split in half, the resulting Force shockwave knocking both of them unconscious as the Raddus split the Supremacy in half with a suicide hyperspace jump.[10]
The New Supreme Leader
The Battle of Crait
When General Hux arrived in the throne room, Rey had escaped the Supremacy and Kylo was still unconscious. Hux prepared to kill his longtime rival, but Kylo awoke as Hux was readying his blaster, who put it away before he noticed. Upon realizing that Rey is gone, Ren became frustrated and falsely told Hux that she had murdered Snoke and his guards before claiming his master's mantle. Hux firmly refused to let Ren command his troops, prompting the dark warrior to Force choke him into acknowledging Ren as Supreme Leader. With his newfound supremacy assured, Ren ordered all forces to Crait to annihilate the remaining remnants of the Resistance.
Looming overhead in his command shuttle, Ren oversaw the deployment of AT-ATs and AT-M6s to the salty surface of Crait, gathered from what remained of the Supremacy. Ordering a forward march, Kylo Ren positioned his troops opposite an abandoned rebel base which the Resistance had appropriated for its defense. When the First Order discovered a massive shield door impeding their advance into the enclosure, Ren further deployed a superlaser siege cannon (a battering ram created using miniaturized Death Star technology) to his advantage. In response, the Resistance launched a number of old ski speeders in an ultimately futile attempt to stop the cannon. While the Resistance attempted to halt the First Order's progress, Chewbacca and Rey joined the battle in the Millennium Falcon, and in a fit of rage, Kylo furiously sent every TIE fighter present to destroy his father's old ship. Despite the setbacks, Kylo Ren's offensive was ultimately successful in breaching the base's blast doors.
Kylo confronts Luke on Crait.
Shortly after the First Order breached the base, Luke Skywalker appeared and Kylo Ren, in a futile attempt to eliminate his uncle, ordered all of his forces to fire at him. After Skywalker shrugged off the attack virtually unharmed, Ren ordered his command shuttle to be set down, whereupon he confronted Skywalker personally. As they faced off, Luke said that if Kylo struck his uncle down, he'd never be rid of him, just like he'd never be rid of his father's memory. Though Kylo Ren swore he'd destroy Luke and end the Jedi, Luke replied that he would not be the last Jedi, as Rey would succeed where he had failed and warned him that the rebellion has already reborn and the war has started. In his fury, Ren then swore that he'd destroy her and the Resistance as well, but Luke was not fazed by his nephew's threats.
Kylo becomes depressed when Rey closes the Falcon's door during a Force connection after the battle, feeling that his victories are empty.
Kylo engaged his uncle in single combat, unable to land a blow until he slashed through Luke with no visible effect. Confused, Ren poked Luke with his lightsaber, revealing that Skywalker was not actually present for the battle and that he had been projecting an illusion of himself through the Force from Ahch-To, buying time for the remaining members of the Resistance to escape. Infuriated by the clever deception, Ren and his forces scoured the now-empty base, but finding only Han's golden hanging dice. Simultaneously, as the Resistance evacuates, Ren sees Rey again through their Force-bond as she boarded the Millennium Falcon. Kylo looks at her expectantly and Rey seems to briefly hesitate, but no words are said between them as she closes the door on him, making Ren look depressed and bow his head in defeat as he watched his father's dice vanish from his hand.[10]
Palpatine's Return
Despite his failure to kill Luke, Ren was able to obtain more power in the galaxy for a year as more worlds submitted to his rule in the First Order. However, a year after becoming Supreme Leader, Kylo learns of the return of Emperor Palpatine, the founder of the former Galactic Empire who was thought to be killed by Vader. Kylo then searches throughout the galaxy for a Sith wayfinder, which leads him to the Sith planet of Exegol, with the hopes of killing the Emperor as a show of his power. When Ren finds the wayfinder and arrives on Exegol, Palpatine reveals that he revived himself through untold means of the dark side of the Force, and that he has been manipulating Ren all along, having created Snoke and the First Order as a means of turning Kylo to the dark side and training him in the ways of the Force. Palpatine promises him a new Sith Empire upon which Ren will rule as Emperor, stating that they will accomplish this through the Final Order, a massive fleet of Xyston-class Star Destroyers designed by the Sith Eternal, though he first gives Kylo the condition that he must kill Rey.[11]
Chasing Rey
Although he has no intent to follow Palpatine's instructions, Kylo searches the galaxy for Rey and continues corresponding with her through the Force, having his own plans in mind for both of them. He uses the correspondences through their Force-bond to discern her location. Around the same time, he learns that a spy within the First Order is selling out information to the Resistance, so he orders his troops to be on the lookout for the spy. Kylo tries to stop Rey from finding the other wayfinder, though in one of his conversations with her, he warns her about Palpatine wating her dead, tells her that she has a larger part in the story than he had initially thought, and promises to tell her the whole story in person.
When they finally meet face-to-face once more, Ren tells Rey that she is actually the granddaughter of Palpatine, and that her parents lived as 'nobodies' and abandoned her on Jakku in order to protect her from Palpatine, who subsequently ordered their deaths afterwards. Kylo also states that he and Rey are a dyad in the Force with an extremely powerful potential together, two that are actually one in the Force. He urges her once more to take his hand and to join him to defeat the Emperor and take his throne together, but Rey refuses.[11]
Returning to the Light
Ben Solo is Reborn
Regretting her act of rage, Rey heals Kylo and confesses her feelings for him.
Later, Kylo follows Rey to Kef Bir and meets her on the wreckage of the second Death Star. He urges her to join him again and destroys the wayfinder to stop her from going to face Palpatine without him. Rey becomes furious and they engage in a lightsaber duel. The duel ends with Rey impaling Ren, just as a dying Leia reaches out through the Force to both of them. Leia's death allows Rey to let go of her rage and realize what she just had done. Regretting having injured him, Rey uses the Force to heal Ren, which saves his life and heals all his wounds, including the scar she gave him on Starkiller Base. She then confesses to him that she did want to take Ben Solo's hand but not Kylo Ren's, which confirms to him about her romantic feelings but that she would never join him in the dark side.
Rey takes off the Death Star ruins aboard his TIE whisper, leaving Ren alone and confused on the wreckage. Ren reflects alone and then he sees a vision of his father, Han Solo, and in an echo of their final encounter on Starkiller Base. Han encourages him to abandon the dark side. Ren emotionally shaken in see his father again, and tells him that "I know what I have to do but I don't have the strength to do it." Kylo also tries to tell Han that he loves him, but before he can do it, his father smiles and says he already knows. He then decides to throw his crossguard lightsaber away, severing his ties to the First Order and the dark side, reclaiming his former identity as Ben Solo.[11]
Sacrifice for Love
Rey and Ben stand to confront Emperor Palpatine together.
Ben follows Rey back to Exegol, now moved only by his desire to save her from her grandfather. There he learns that Palpatine is planning to sacrifice himself to Rey's wrath so that his spirit will be transferred to her and she will claim her new role as Empress of the new Sith Empire. It is also revealed that the Emperor has tricked Rey into leading the entire Resistance forces to Exegol so that the Sith Eternal forces can wipe them out, to ensure that Rey will consumed by her hatred so that his sacrifice will be imminent. Rey refuses to give in to any hatred but agrees to obey the Sith Lord in order to save her friends. However, Ben arrives to the rescue, which inspires Rey to refuse Palpatine's wishes and instead gives the Skywalker lightsaber to Ben. Ben uses his grandfather's lightsaber to defeat the Knights of Ren and Rey defeats the Sovereign Protectors while the Resistance brings in a large armada to counter against the Sith Eternal.
Unfortunately, Palpatine anticipated this move as he senses Rey and Ben's connection as a dyad in the Force, and absorbs the power of their dyad to restore a full body for himself. With his body rejuvenated and his powers in full strength, Palpatine throws Ben into a bottomless pit out of complete spite against the Skywalker family for causing his previous death. Believing that Ben is seemingly disposed of, the Emperor cackles evilly as he uses his full power of Force lightning to attack the Resistance armada, putting them in complete peril. However, Rey uses the powers of the past Jedi to finally destroy her grandfather at the cost of her own life, thus saving the Resistance armada and allowing them to destroy the remaining forces of the Sith Eternal for good.
- Ben: "I will always be with you."
- Rey: "No one's ever really gone."
- ―Ben and Rey after he vanished[src]
Rey and Ben kiss passionately after she is revived.
Following the destruction of the Sith fleet, it is revealed that Ben survived being thrown into the chasm. A heavily injured Ben climbs out of the pit and crawls towards Rey. Seeing that Rey has sacrificed herself to destroy Palpatine, Ben gathers her in his arms and mourns the death of the woman he loves. However, he then decides to give her a second chance by transferring his life force into Rey, successfully resurrecting her. As Rey wakes up, she and Ben kiss passionately and smile at each other in love before he, while still in her arms, peacefully vanishes into the Force, having used all of his life force to revive Rey in a selfless act of love and sacrifice.
Thus, the galaxy is finally at peace over the destruction of the Emperor and the Sith Eternal. Later, Rey decides to adopt the Skywalker surname, happily repudiating the Palpatine lineage and honoring the memory of the Skywalkers, including Ben's sacrifice and love for her. She recognizes the Skywalkers as her true family and by keeping their name, she will continue their legacy.[11]
Disney Parks
Kylo Ren currently does meet-and-greets in the Star Wars Launch Bay at Disney's Hollywood Studios in Walt Disney World and Shanghai Disneyland. He formerly met in the Star Wars Launch Bay at Disneyland from February 2016 until October 14, 2016, where he was replaced by Darth Vader.
Star Tours: The Adventures Continue
During refurbishments brought upon by the sequel trilogy, Kylo Ren was among the characters integrated into Star Tours: The Adventures Continue as part of the 2017 The Last Jedi update. In this new version, he replaces Darth Vader as he attempts to arrest the spy aboard the speeder in the beginning of the ride.
Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge
Kylo appears in attractions and live performances in Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge, during events set on the planet Batuu sometime after the Battle of Crait. During this period, the Resistance is temporaly rebuilding on the planet and Kylo travels there to look for Rey, taking the First Order with him.
Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance
Kylo Ren is the main antagonist of this attraction. Kylo looks for a group of Resistance supporters who have infiltrated the First Order Star Destroyer. He first appears during the queue, interrogating the guests inside a prison cell. During the ride, Kylo uses the Force and his lightsaber to chase down guests as they try to flee the Star Destroyer aboard transports.
Live Stunt Show
During a live stunt show at the parks, after Vi Moradi infiltrated a shuttle of the First Order to steal a datacard, Kylo confronts her. Kylo uses the Force to freeze her and asks where is the location of the new Resistance base. He threats Vi, saying that he will force her to confess the information if she chooses not to comply. Before Kylo can get any answers, Rey appears and frees Vi from his hold. Rey tells him that the Resistance is everywhere, not just on a single place. While Vi escapes, Kylo duels Rey. He says those who fight against him will fall and asks her why she is risking so much for the Resistance, which is a hopeless cause. Rey replies that they fight for what they will win. The duel ends when a stormtrooper tells Kylo about an incident on the destroyer, causing him to leave.
Relationships
Gallery
Trivia
- Prior to the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, many fans questioned if Kylo Ren and Darth Vader were related due to their similarities, which turned out to be true.
- As explained in the book Skywalker: A Family at War, because he is the son of Princess Leia, Ben Solo would be the prince of Alderaan, though this never happened because the planet was destroyed before his birth. Despite this, the novel Bloodline explains that he was still considered a member of the Elder Houses (the royal houses of the galaxy) upon birth and both he and Leia were entitled to ceremonial titles by hereditary succession.
- In Star Wars: The Force Awakens novelization, Kylo Ren is revealed to believe that the reason the Galactic Empire lost to the Rebellion was not because of poor strategy or arrogance, but because of sentiment, and that Darth Vader and Luke's compassion for each other were what caused the Empire to collapse.
- Also in the novelization, Snoke is revealed to have chosen Kylo Ren as his apprentice because he believed him to be a focal point in the Force, a perfect blending of light and dark due to his heritage as Darth Vader's grandson.
- Director Rian Johnson states that the Force connections between Kylo Ren and Rey in Star Wars: The Last Jedi were used to make the two characters talk and develop their relationship, because if he put them face to face they would either fight, or make out, or one of them would have to be tied up.[12]
- During one of these Force-bond connections in The Last Jedi, a scene that caused some controversy is when Rey sees him shirtless. This scene, despite being somewhat gratuitous in nature, was established by Rian Johnson as Rey being able to see Kylo Ren entirely wherever he was and during whatever he was doing when they are bonded through the Force, not just seeing his eyes or hearing his voice. The director also explains that his intent was to show the progressive increase of intimacy between the two characters.[13][12]
- In The Last Jedi, after fighting Luke on Ahch-To, Rey states that Ben Solo is the "last hope" to win the war. Ironically, Ben Solo was named after Ben Kenobi (Obi-Wan), who Leia considered her last hope to win to the war, as seen in A New Hope when she records a message pleading for his help.
- The director Rian Johnson explains that Kylo Ren's proposal to Rey in The Last Jedi wasn't just a manipulation, and from Ren's point of view, was a very naked, open, emotional appeal. He states that is Kylo Ren's version of '"I'm just a girl standing in front of a guy'... " which is a reference to the love confession in the movie Nothing Hill.[14]
- In addition to this, during another interview, when asked if Kylo ever had held hands with a girl before Rey, Rian answered that Adam Driver once asked if Kylo had ever kissed a girl before and he replied that Ben might have during a game of "spin the lightsaber" at the Jedi camp, hinting that the character has little to no experience in interacting and/or expressing himself to a girl.[12]
- Kylo Ren is the only Star Wars sequel trilogy villain whom Kazuda Xiono does not meet in person, but he is curious about the dark sider.
- Kylo Ren notably won the poll "Who do you most want to see in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker?" (released by the Star Wars official site) with an overwhelming number of votes, remaining in the first place with his percentage of votes ranging between 81 and 91% (currently is at 81%), even with the poll being reset a few times after its release. This is a huge difference from the character in the second place, Rey, who has the percentage of votes ranging between 3 and 5% (currently is at 5%).[15][16][17]
- In another poll released by the Star Wars official site to promote The Rise of Skywalker called "What is your favorite moment in the Final Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Trailer?", the most voted option is the only one that Kylo appears, which is "Everything Rey and Kylo Ren". This option remains in the first place with more than half of the total of votes, the percentage ranged between 56 and 80% (currently is at 56%), while all the other options individually have less than 10% of the votes.[18][19][17]
- In The Rise of Skywalker, the conversation between Ben and Han's memory atop of the ruins of the second Death Star refer to their last encounter on Starkiller Base, but with the opposite result as Ben decides to listen to his father and embrace the light instead of the darkness. According to Adam Driver, the scene is ambiguous about if the conversation is really happening in reality or is just inside Ben's head.[20] But according to one of the screenwriters, Chris Terrio, it is only happening in Ben's head as he is trying to forgive himself for what he did to his father, since he can not erase the past but can move on to make amends in the future.[1]
- This scene also has a reference to Leia and Han's love declaration in The Empire Strikes Back when Ben is struggling to say "I love you" to his father, but before he speaks the words, Han smiles and replies "I know".
- Ben has no spoken dialogue after his reformation, with the only exception being a brief "ow" after jumping onto a ledge on Exegol.
- According to Chris Terrio, the gestures Ben Solo does that resembles Han Solo throughout The Rise of Skywalker (as the moment he points in the face of General Hux, when he fires a blaster over his shoulder without looking, and the shrug he gives the Knights of Ren) were Adam Driver's idea. Adam Driver was inspired on Harrison Ford's performance as Han Solo to show how Ben Solo looked before falling to the dark side and what he inherited from his father.[1]
- Ben Solo's shrug during his fight against the Knights of Ren inspired the creation of a movement called the "Ben Solo challenge" that got viral on social media after the The Rise of Skywalker release. According to the fan that created the challenge, the intention was to alleviate some of the negative fan response to The Rise of Skywalker film with a moment that seemed to be universally loved by the fans.[21][22]
- By sacrificing himself to revive Rey, Ben Solo was able in a different way from what he initially expected to finish what Darth Vader started. During the prequel trilogy, Anakin Skywalker states his desire to be able to revive the dead and it is his fear of losing his wife Padmé Amidala that causes him to fall to the dark side. Thus, Ben managing to bring back from the dead the woman he loves, ends the cycle that his grandfather started.
- Another way that these characters can be compared to each other is that, while attempting to prevent Padmé from dying, Anakin wishes more power and lets himself be corrupted by the dark side, which leads him to lose the woman he loves instead of saving her. Meanwhile, Ben starts the sequel trilogy in the dark side because he was corrupted while trying to find his own identity, but ultimately he gives up all the power and runs to save the woman he loves, which results being successful.
- With this, Ben also proved that Anakin was mistaken when he tells Padmé in Revenge of the Sith that love could not save her and only his powers could, since Rey is only alive in the end because Ben Solo's love for her motivated him to choose both to run to her aid and later to revive her at the cost of his own life.
- In the documentary The Skywalker Legacy, Ben and Rey's Force dyad is explained by Chris Terrio as the Force acting as fate to bring them together, making them soulmates in the Force. Thus, even if they are on opposite sides of the war, their bond unites them, allowing them understand each other.[23]
- In Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker: A Junior Novel, their connection is also described as them being twins, though not by blood but because they are two halves of one in the Force.[24] "Twins of the Force", as they are called in this novel, is also a reference to "twin souls" which is synonyms of "soulmates".
- In this same novel, Ben and Rey are also referred as "two stars sharing the same orbit", in other words, a binary star.[24]
- Despite dying and his physical form disappearing after giving all his life-force to Rey in the end of The Rise of Skywalker, a Force spirit of Ben Solo was never shown neither in the film nor in novelization versions. This made many people think that he might never have become one with the Force, and thus has no Force spirit, either due to the lack of training and/or because the dyad with Rey somehow prevents him to do so while she is still alive.
- When asked why a Force spirit of Ben or Anakin was not included in the final scene, Chris Terrio explained that they chose to include only Luke and Leia because they wanted to focus in the twins' reunion on Tatooine and Leia's first appearance as a spirit.[25]
- According to the Visual effects team of the film, a Force spirit of Ben Solo was never created.[26]
- The Star Wars Book confirms this by listing the status of all the Jedi who died and became Force spirits as "one with the Force", but Ben Solo is the only one listed as "converted to the light side and deceased", indicating that he never became one with the Force and thus has no Force spirit.[7]
- Both The Star Wars Book and Skywalker: A Family at War state that Leia ferried Ben into the Cosmic Force or "the realm beyond the living", although in the first book she is listed as "one with the Force" while he isn't.[7][4] In any case, this rules out the possibility that his soul might have fused with Rey after he died.
- Since the three-part episode "Ben Solo and the Bug Hunters" in the Star Wars Kids Youtube channel, the character has been frequently associated with blue butterflies by the fans, especially the ones who expect the character to return in the future of the Star Wars franchise.[27][28]
- Kylo Ren has similarities with one of the fan-favorite Sith, Darth Revan both wear a mask and have a similar iconic design while they are in the dark side of the Force. Additionally, in Star Wars Legends, both also have a Force-bond with a light side user that they eventually fall in love with, and turn back to the light after being saved by this person (furthermore, the Jedi bonded with Revan, Bastila Shan, also wields yellow and double-bladed lightsabers as Rey does).
- Kylo Ren also bares similarities to Jacen Solo from Star Wars Legends. Like Ben Solo, Jacen is the son of Han and Leia, becomes a Jedi before falling to the dark side and takes the name Darth Caedus. Jacen has a "twin in the Force", the "Sword of the Jedi" Jaina Solo who fights in the light side of the Force, but the difference is that Jacen and Jaina are blood related as the twin children of Han and Leia. During their final duel, Jacen is killed by his sister, which also differs from Rey quickly regretting stabbing Kylo Ren in a blind rage and healing him, saving his life and bringing Ben Solo back to the light.
- Kylo Ren was originally going to be one of the many characters in Ralph Breaks the Internet, but was cut when Lucasfilm took offense at how the movie depicted him as a "spoiled child".[29]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 "Why Harrison Ford Returned to Star Wars One Last Time" (December 30, 2019).
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Exclusive: Read an excerpt from Star Wars: Aftermath – Empire’s End". Star Wars.com (February 14, 2017).
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Alan Dean Foster (December 18, 2015). Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Del Rey Books.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 Kristin Baver (April 6, 2021). Skywalker: A Family at War. DK Publishing.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 Rae Carson (March 18, 2020). The Rise of Skywalker Expanded Edition. Del Rey Books.
- ↑ Marc Sumerak (October 12, 2021). Star Wars: The Secrets of the Sith. Insight Kids.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Pablo Hidalgo, Cole Horton, and Dan Zehr (October 1, 2020). The Star Wars Book. Dorling Kindersley.
- ↑ Star Wars Rebels: "A World Between Worlds"
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 Star Wars: The Force Awakens
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 Star Wars: The Last Jedi
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 "Q&A: Rian Johnson on the evolution of the Force in ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ and more spoilers". Los Angeles Times (December 18, 2017).
- ↑ "'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' director explains why he decided to do that shirtless Kylo Ren scene". Insider (December 26, 2017).
- ↑ "Star Wars: The Last Jedi – 10 Revelations From Director Rian Johnson". Empire Online (January 15, 2018).
- ↑ "Poll: Who do you most want to see in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker". star wars.com (December 13, 2019).
- ↑ "kylo was winning and now he is winning again.". Twitter (December 20, 2019).
- ↑ 17.0 17.1 "Numbers don't lie". Twitter (December 29, 2019).
- ↑ "Poll: What is Your Favorite Moment in the Final in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Trailer?". star wars.com (October 25, 2019).
- ↑ "“Everything Rey and Kylo Ren” is currently at 80%". Twitter (December 20, 2019).
- ↑ "The Skywalker Legacy" (March 31, 2020).
- ↑ "Baguettes, Umbrellas, and Lightsabers.' Here's the Whole Story Behind the Ben Solo Challenge Inspired by Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker". Time (January 7, 2020).
- ↑ "The Undeniable Force of the Ben Solo Challenge Is Here". Time (January 7, 2020).
- ↑ "The Skywalker Legacy" (March 31, 2020).
- ↑ 24.0 24.1 Michael Kogge (April 21, 2020). Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker: A Junior Novel. Disney–Lucasfilm Press.
- ↑ "Co-Writer Chris Terrio Explains the Force Ghosts in ‘The Rise of Skywalker’". Collider (December 30, 2019).
- ↑ "Billie Lourd played Leia Organa and other visual effects secrets from 'Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker'". Collider (January 7, 2020).
- ↑ "Could Blue Butterflies Hint at Ben Solo’s Future?". Nerdist (April 6, 2020).
- ↑ "The Mandalorian's Butterflies Have Unique Connections To Darth Vader & Ben Solo". The Direct (December 20, 2020).
- ↑ "'Ralph Breaks the Internet' Cut Joke About 'Star Wars' Villain Kylo Ren". The Hollywood Reporter (October 22, 2018).
External links
Kylo Ren on StarWars.com (backup link on Archive.org)- Kylo Ren on Wikipedia
Kylo Ren on Villains Wiki
- Kylo Ren on Wookieepedia: The Star Wars Wiki
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