Type: Romantic
Films: Star Wars Episodes VII-IX
Featured Characters: Rey and Kylo Ren/Ben Solo
The first time Rey and Kylo Ren spoke face to face in the interrogation room in The Force Awakens, I distinctly remember my first thought being, “These two have such chemistry. It’ll never happen, but they’ve got chemistry.” What then followed was 2.5 more movies proving that they did indeed have that delicious enemies-to-lovers chemistry, but it’s how that fire and the budding romance that stemmed from it allowed Star Wars to tap into a side of the Force that thus far had gone tragically unexplored on screen.
Rey and Kylo Ren Start As Opposites of One Another, Which Draws Them Together
At their basest level, what Reylo initially represent for one another — whether or not either of them sees it — is the possibility of what could have been. Kylo Ren, born Ben Solo, is the son of two of the heroes of the Rebellion, Han Solo and Leia Organa. He descends from a powerful family of Force users, a family of heroes, and with every advantage given to him to succeed, he should have been able to continue that powerful Jedi legacy. But like his grandfather before him, the influence of the dark side twisted his mind and caused him to fall, eventually adopting the name Kylo Ren.
On the flip side, there’s Rey. I’m not here to (fully) rehash my feelings on narrative choices — all I will say is making her Palpatine’s granddaughter is a slap in the face to any person, particularly a young woman, who has had to claw her way up to succeed on her own merits — as those choices don’t have a huge bearing on why her arc is so compelling anyway.
Rey is a person who has had to fend for herself from a very young age. Unlike Ben, she didn’t have a support system around her to foster her abilities with the Force. She didn’t even know the feeling inside her was sensitivity to the Force. Rey is someone who has been in a constant state of survival mode, living in a harsh, unforgiving environment, in a galaxy where remote planets often fall by the wayside, no matter who is in power. She’s constantly on the verge of starving, never knowing who she can trust, and the closest thing she has to a guardian is someone who exploits her scavenging skills for his own profit. With all this stacked against her, no one would be surprised if she had fallen to the dark years earlier, and it’s only her kind nature and optimism that keep her in the light.
In Rey, Kylo sees what could have been. He sees someone with his “level” of power, but who isn’t sure how to use it. For him, she represents a chance to rectify perceived wrongs, and to bring someone else over to his side whose experience of life and of the Force more closely matches his own. In Kylo, Rey sees potential gone wrong. Eventually, she then sees that the man he should have been — the Ben Solo beneath the Kylo Ren — is still in there, fighting to get out. It’s with that side of him that she feels a pull and a connection, and it’s that side of him, too, that feels a connection to Rey that is strong enough to cause Ben to claw his way back to the surface.
Rey and Kylo Ren Are Equals in Every Way That Matters
The key to a good enemies-to-lovers relationship, for me, is that both parties are equals, even if they don’t necessarily see it that way from the outset. During their first lightsaber duel, Rey spectacularly manages to hold her own, putting years of skill with a staff to use to hold Kylo Ren off. By the time the fight has reached the halfway mark, right as Rey is finally tapping into a natural affinity for the Force, he has his mind made up.
This isn’t some easy-to-defeat scavenger with a talent for swinging a stick; this is someone with a vast amount of untapped potential in need of some guidance. He offers — okay, demands — to take her on as a student, but given that all she knows about him is he just hurt her friend and killed his own father, that’s an offer that’s only too easy for Rey to refuse.
The real romantic crux of their arc comes in the second film, The Last Jedi. Now separated by vast distances, the pair find the Force…well, forces, a connection between the two of them anyway, and they start being able to see each other and have conversations as though they inhabit the same physical space. While those first conversations are a mix of Rey’s fury and Kylo’s attempts at detachment, they gradually turn into actual conversations, with traces of Ben Solo starting to appear more and more frequently, enough that Rey can see him for who he is when he wants to be.
Their conversations are never overtly romantic in nature, but that’s not really what either of them has on the brain — them getting flustered at the Force connecting them for a call while Kylo is half-dressed notwithstanding. What these conversations do show, however, is that they might be one of the last hopes of the Resistance and the apprentice to the Supreme Leader of the First Order, respectively, but what they really are is in over their heads and lonely, and now recognize that in each other. Reylo see what could have been in the other, but they also see that they have more in common than they realized. And in finally recognizing that they can make physical contact through their Force bond, with a simple hand touch, they both sense the future. A future in which the other turns to their side, and they work together.
Their working together comes sooner than they anticipated, as after witnessing Snoke torture Rey, Kylo kills him and the two team up to take out his guards. But the damage done by the dark side is too much, and all the progress Kylo made in finding the light again is walked back when he asks Rey to join him in ruling the galaxy, and she refuses, having believed he would be the one to join her on the side of the Resistance instead. His rejection of what she wanted for them does spur her to realize that though she may not be of a powerful lineage, she can still be the hero of this particular story, without placing her faith in others she sees as having more right to that heroism. And all was not lost for the two of them anyway, as in the final moments of the film, the Force connects them once more, debunking Snoke’s claims that he had been the one to forge that connection in the first place.
Rey and Ben Solo’s Final Act Is a Lesson in What Could Have Been
Their final film together — for now, because hope and delusion spring eternal — makes the progression of their relationship a little messy, as it walks back a lot of what made their respective arcs and their romantic arc work, which is a shame because the novel Resistance Reborn, published right before the release of the movie, hints at Rey still hoping for Kylo to do better, though realizing he has to take that initiative himself.
The traces of Ben Solo that Rey seemed to best bring out in Kylo Ren are gone until the halfway mark. She is no longer the hero of the story despite her lack of lineage, as she’s given lineage to “explain” her power. The two use their connection in the Force to argue about things they have already argued about and have moved past. The saving grace is the few moments we do get reminiscent of their earlier connection. Rey heals him after another lightsaber duel between them nearly turns fatal, and tells him she would have taken his hand and taken him up on his offer had it been Ben making the offer rather than Kylo. This is the final push he needs to lean fully into his doubts and shed the mantle of Kylo Ren once and for all, fully becoming Ben Solo again.
They finally exploit that connection for good, with Rey passing Ben one of the two lightsabers she carries. After Rey gives everything she has to defeat Palpatine, dying in the process, Ben taps into the same power she used to heal him and revives her. They share their one and only kiss — one that Rey initiates, I always like to point out — before Ben’s efforts get the better of him and he dies.
There’s plenty I could say about the wasted potential of separating Rey and Kylo Ren/Ben Solo before they ever really had a chance to be together. All the pieces were in place to break the cycle of generational trauma and failure, but instead, the cycle perpetuates. But as they say, it ain’t over till it’s over. With a new movie — or possibly a trilogy? I just know I’ll believe it when I’m seated in the theater — starring Daisy Ridley on the horizon, there’s no telling where this could go. At this point, I will settle for a Pirates of the Caribbean 5-style ending, with Adam Driver showing up for a wordless cameo at the end, with Ben back from the dead and reunited with Rey. Preferably still wearing his sweater with the little lightsaber hole in it.
First Featured Image Credit: ©Disney | Lucasfilm