ceallaigheirinn:

The saddest spoiler from The Last Jedi Novelization

Ben Solo is a person who is willing to settle for almosts and not-quites when it comes to compassion, because he has absolutely none of it in his life. A reasonable facsimile of kindness is better than nothing at all.

He feels as though his family has kicked him to the curb, and the one person he dared to take a chance and care about about had also abandoned him. All he is left with is a hollow sense of thanks that she didn’t end his miserable life.

Ben heard his family calling him a monster when he was a child. This was hammered home when he woke to his uncle’s lightsaber poised at his neck.

People don’t love or care about monsters. Monsters don’t deserve compassion or forgiveness. They deserve death.

So Ben is thankful she didn’t kill him because that’s the closest he has had to getting the benefit of the doubt since he was a child.

This is the mindset when your worldview is hardwired by rejection and trauma.

You settle for scraps and factory seconds. Because when you are seen as a monster, that’s the only compassion you feel that you deserve.

That said. I look forward to Episode IX and am hopeful that the unconditional love that Rey could offer him would be transformative for him. If she is brave enough to love a monster, perhaps that could be the catalyst he needs to find the strength to love himself.

Because let’s face, he deserves more than almosts and not-quites.