I've started to buy into the theory that TLJ was trying to turn Kylo from the antagonist to a sympathetic protagonist.

Something I've noticed on watching TLJ is that it goes out of its way to erase Kylo's actions in TFA and keep him from doing anything really antagonistic or that would make the audience side against him in TLJ. This along with what was done to Finn (which deserves its own post) seems to be for the purpose of turning Kylo from a villian into a character the audience will feel sorry for and want redeemed as well as pushing him and Rey closer togetherSo the first scene we will talk about is Finn's suit and injury. At the end of TFA Finn receives what some people would refer to as a slash up the spine from the nastiest lightsaber we have ever seen. It is a debilitating strike that sends him to the ground in critical condition and TFA ends with him being rushed in for surgery. Finn's scene in TLJ opens as if it is a joke.Finn bangs his head on the glass then gets up and walks around half naked in a leaky suit. What was played as serious and life threatening in the last movie is now seen as a joke (and this is the start of Finn being pushed to the side as a comedic side character and forcing his plot to revolve around being a janitor instead of a trooper, as well as being pushed out of the romance in favor of the brooding white guy. But that's another post).Finn's injury is never mentioned again in the movie after he is out of his suit. IT causes him no physical or mental scarring or problems, it doesn't act up at a bad time, and Rey makes no mention of her friend Finn when questioning Kylo. As far as the movie is concerned we are just to forget that Finn was hurt and that Kylo was the one to do it.The next is the attack on the Raddus and his mother. Kylo is able to blow up the hanger bay of the Raddus with no problems but when it comes to the bridge he is not able to do it. Now of course it is reasonable he would hesitate. He hesitated with his father. But he still killed his father and unless his relationship with Han was a lot worse than with Leia it is odd that he can't do it. In fact the movie takes the choice away from him and has his wingman do it so that Kylo does not have to be the one to fire the killing blow.Speaking of Han we are also made to quickly skip past that part. We don't get to see Luke grieve his brother-in-laws death and when Rey questions Kylo on why the subject is quickly changed to something else and Rey never mentions it or wonders about it again in the movie or novelization.Also the next time we see him will be without a shirt on for rey's and the audiences oggleing pleasure. Also by this time the mask has been destroyed so that we have been staring at his handsome face and making that human connection. A face that is missing what should be a horrible disfiguring scar and instead has a thin almost attractively roguish scar instead. A scar RJ said he moved on purpose.We then get treated to three different retellings of the Hut scene. Luke's, Kylo's, and the "truth". All of them basically show Kylo as the victim. Though even the truth wants to hurridly gloss over why he went on a killing spree after the incident if he was just a scared kid. Wait I'm sorry he wasn't a kid he was 23. Anyways Kylo is the victim and we have Rey who has just only met kylo the week before defending him now against Luke Skywalker.Then finally we have the battle with Kylo. This is the ultimate way it takes Kylo's agency and relieves him of the burden of actually harming any of the heroes. Because Luke isn't even on crait. Its a force projection from Ach-To and Kylo is just fighting a illusion. So when Kylo sticks his saber though Luke's chest it isn't Kylo that kills Luke it is the exaustion of having used the technique.In TLJ the story takes every chance to make us forget about the previous damage Kylo has done (LST, Han, Finn), keep him for harming any of the heroes (Leia, Rey, Battle of Crait, luke), Paints him as sad and the victim (moving his scar, shirtless kylo, all three hut scenes plus Rey's defense of him).I'm sure their is someone else that could add more or say it much more eloquently than I did. But it seems like someones goal in TLJ was to make us forget all the bad things kylo had done and turn him into a sympathetic character for Rey to form a romance with. via /r/StarWars https://ift.tt/2pxiCun