Okay, it’s time to lay it all on the line.
Kylo Ren is a better, and more compelling character than Darth Vader. We just aren’t ready to admit it.
Blame it on nostalgia, or our parents shoving Darth Vader down our throats with all the “greatest villain ever” talk, but as the sequel trilogy came to a close, it just proved one thing: Kylo Ren, not Darth Vader is the better bad guy.
Don’t get me wrong, Darth Vader is a great character. Vader began the world millions now love, and Vader will always be known as the one who started it all.
Who can ever forget the iconic, “No, I am your father” line? But once you take a step back, you will probably realize Vader is not as great as we once thought.
Kylo Ren is complex, he has layers and he lays them out for us to see it early in Force Awakens, unlike Vader who took until the end of Return of the Jedi to truly show his conflict between his son and Emperor Palpatine.
Vader was a simple character, whose redemption story was simply a plot device, not his characterization.
Unlike his grandfather, Kylo Ren had flaws, had misgivings, showed emotion and growth throughout the sequel trilogy.
From the start, we see the struggle within Kylo Ren. We see he wants to do good but chooses the dark side. You see him hesitate to kill his father in Force Awakens, and also fails to pull the trigger in The Last Jedi that would have killed his mother.
After killing his father, that death destroyed him so much that he lost a lightsaber duel with a scavenger from Jakku that had never yielded a lightsaber before, and nearly killed him.
Vader was a polished character, he didn’t have the messiness of Kylo Ren. The viewers were unable to see the conflict within Vader, and it took a whole prequel trilogy to finally understand his struggles and to sympathize with him as a character.
What took six films to see with Anakin Skywalker, it took half a film to see in Ben Solo.
In some ways, Kylo Ren is even stronger than Vader. For starters, Kylo Ren was able to break Luke Skywalker’s spirit, something that Vader was unable to do in the original trilogy.
Not mention, Kylo Ren was able to do something Vader never did.
In the third act of The Last Jedi and throughout Rise of Skywalker Kylo Ren ruled the Galaxy as Supreme Leader.
Not only did Kylo Ren lead the First Order, but he was also the Master of the Knights of Ren. In the films, and much more in the comics, we see Kylo Ren be a ruthless leader that wouldn’t let anything stand in his way of power, not even his master.
Was Kylo Ren a perfect character? By no means! However, when we saw Ben Solo finally returns to the light side, it was a much more believable conversation than when Darth Vader grabbed the Emperor and threw him to his “death”.
Kylo Ren has flaws, like any character. Nevertheless, if we don’t pull back the bias and see both characters at face value, we will forever be stuck with the past, and like Kylo Ren says, “You’re still holding on, let go!”.
