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The idea that Ben ~became Ben again~ because Rey wanted "Ben" and not "Kylo"...I mean could we not strip away the idea of Ben& #39;s agency or Rey& #39;s for that matter by making Rey Ben& #39;s morality pet
The reason that line kickstarts bendemption proper is bc all his life Ben believed that "Ben Solo" wasn& #39;t good enough. Not good enough for his parents; ship him off to Luke. Not good enough for Luke; he tries to kill him. Not good enough for Snoke; Snoke beats & abuses him
The Kylo Ren persona is a response to Ben feeling like he as himself cannot measure up to the weight of his legacy. Ben& #39;s experience with love (in his mind) is transactional; when he fails to meet some standard, his object of loyalty discards him or harms him.
The whole conflict Ben feels constantly, is that Ben *can& #39;t* be someone he isn& #39;t. None of us can. Since he feels like his identity as Ben Solo is conditional, he tries to be the antithesis of Ben Solo in Kylo Ren- but this identity is also conditional, to the DS this time.
Ben is torn apart bc the persona of KR is against Ben& #39;s true nature. Snoke electrocutes him for mourning the death of his own father even though Ben did everything Snoke asked & killed him. Ben "gave everything" to the Dark Side and to Snoke as KR, and it still wasn& #39;t enough.
But it doesn& #39;t matter how miserable he is as KR, he& #39;s been told he can& #39;t go home, can& #39;t make it right, doesn& #39;t deserve his own real identity as Ben because "Ben Solo" is predicated on some type of behavior. And Ben knows he& #39;s gone "too far" to deserve that identity now.
That& #39;s the power of Rey saying she wanted Ben& #39;s hand. Rey, unlike Ben& #39;s family, didn& #39;t know Ben before Kylo Ren, and yet she saw Ben shining through anyway. She saw Ben when Ben absolutely did not "deserve" it; when he had done nothing but hunt her and break her heart.
This totally destroys Ben& #39;s self destructive conceptions of his own identity. What Rey is giving Ben is the gift of realizing that "Ben Solo" is not a standard he needs to meet or something that can be given and taken away from him at will but simply...who he is.
Rey frees him to realize that Just Rey loves Just Ben.
Ben doesn& #39;t need to be told by Rey or anyone else how to be a good person? Ben& #39;s conscience is fully functional and frankly more acute than average. It& #39;s why he& #39;s such a tortured villain. If he had no sense of right or wrong he wouldn& #39;t be the "emo" fanbros hate so much.
This idea that Ben "turns" *for* Rey& #39;s sake and not because Rey& #39;s compassion gives Ben the courage to realize he has the strength to embrace his true, compassionate self and stop pretending to be something he& #39;s not is missing the point and frankly kind of infantalizing.
We talk all the time about the importance of Rey& #39;s agency. Let Ben have agency too.
