So anyone who has seen the latest installment of Star Wars is in agreement that Kylo Ren is basically the human personification of a bucket of angst, and totally deserves to have New Found Glory on the Spotify playlist the Star Wars team curated for him. There have been plenty of fan theories trying to explain or justify his turn to the Dark Side. Here, I present one more: What if Han Solo isn't Kylo Ren's father? What if, like his grandfather before him, Kylo Ren was actually born of the Force?
You can't deny that teenage Ben Solo yelling "YOU'RE NOT MY REAL DAD" at Han as he gets shipped off to Jedi training camp with Uncle Luke would be so on brand. But as cliché as it sounds, it could be a very real instigator for his turn to the Dark Side, especially if he found out later in life. Hell, if we entertain the possibility of this, it may be true Han and Leia didn't know themselves. If I were getting it on with bae and got pregnant, I'd probably assume it was his sperm and not the Force screwing with my reproductive organs.
So maybe Ben figured out the truth for himself, or Luke dropped the knowledge bomb and immediately regretted it when he went flying off the handle about it and left to hang out with his NEW DAD SNOKE, GUYZ (never not patronizing Ben Solo, 2015). Of course, there a hundred other reasons Ren might have turned to the Dark Side, but here are all the ones this particular theory could be valid.
Otherwise, We Have No Justification For Kylo Ren Being The Angsty Baby He Is
I mean, we all had our ~moments~ as teenagers. I would have Force-slammed my door a ton of times too, and nobody was even trying to wipe out my way of life. But we're never given a real reason Kylo Ren is so determined to serve the Dark Side, and Han and Leia seem every bit as mystified by it as the audience. Clearly, we're going to get some juicy backstory in the next installments. And it wouldn't be too far-fetched to think that the Thing That Sent Kylo Ren Tail-Spinning Into An Existential Crisis was finding out that his "father" wasn't his real father at all, but instead some strange Midchlorian sperm that didn't give AF about space birth control. Anyone would be a little caught off-guard and maybe go buy a massive death helmet, y'know?
It Would Explain His Worship Of Darth Vader And Rejection Of Han
I mean, it can't exactly be a family secret that Anakin Skywalker also didn't have a dad, and that he channeled all his Skywalker sass into extreme Sith Lord-ing (thanks for that, Force). Now we have this punk who lives in the shadow of his mother the general, his father the infamous smuggler, and his uncle Luke Freaking Skywalker, all the while being named after the dead Jedi they all admired. It's a lot of expectations, y'all! Drawing a parallel between himself and the one relative he sees himself in might have just been an inevitable result of realizing he wasn't Han's son, and the rest of the Dark Side-ness just spiraled out of control from there.
(Although real talk, did all the Force ghosts just go on vacation? Can someone please try to talk some sense into this angst baby??)
It Might Also Explain Why He Seems To Know More About Rey Than The Others
I am loosely theorizing based on the line "WHAT girl?!" and his cryptic warning that she would become more dangerous the longer it took to find her that Ren is not exactly a stranger to our homegirl Rey. If she really is Luke's daughter, the way everyone theorizes, then she is the one human in the galaxy who shares his connection to Vader. It makes sense, then, that he is offering to teach her and not trying to kill her on the spot. This would also fit into the arc of Rey possibly being the one to redeem him, once he realizes that there is a person he can fundamentally relate to who doesn't blow up planets for sport. Fingers crossed for the sake of the galaxy, y'all.
Images: Disney; Giphy
