Anghraine

I had a really long comment that my wireless ate it, so the short version:

- I don't think Ben's rages are deliberate in any way, though I do think there's a distinction between the tantrums and snapping to a more genuine anger. IMO his fundamental character is kind and relatively mild (more Padmé than Anakin/Luke/Leia) and what he's driving himself to not only do but be as Kylo Ren is so utterly antithetical to who he is that he's cracking under the psychological strain. He vaguely grasps this--it's why he thinks eradicating his light side will remove the pain. His tantrums aren't really about what sets him off but vents for his emotional meltdowns (and he's in emotional meltdown just about 24/7). That's what the sense of excess is; they're only vaguely related to what's actually going on. It's very different from when something actually pisses him off--he seems a lot more together then, actually. (The gulf between his "istg that guy" with Hux, the rival who actively annoys him, vs "TRAITOR!!!111!!!" at random stormtrooper Finn, is pretty stark.)

- I get an enormous cult vibe from pretty all his interactions with or about Snoke. Probably the biggest when Han tries to extract him with "Snoke is using you!" and Ben is clearly shaken and responds with a weak, rote "the Supreme Leader is wise." But his up-is-down down-is-up mentality in general. Ben thinks of the Light Side as evil and his family as its ignorant tool and it's the Resistance who are murderers and traitors and his father who could seduce him from the right path... like, this was not Anakin's deal. Anakin knew it was wrong and despaired of any other way--the things he did were the terrible price he was willing to pay for his family and for a better world. Ben doesn't have that understanding; he's trying to follow his conscience, it's just that everything is jumbled up in his head.

- I don't actually see focusing on a Skywalker villain's arc in contrast to a Skywalker hero's arc and how they intersect through a common Skywalker mentor can really be not about the Skywalkers? Anakin's problems virtually all came from people who weren't Skywalkers, and a good portion of Luke's and Leia's. But I also don't really want to think of Han, Luke, and Leia as failed parental figures: flawed, sure, but not a comprehensive failure. (I'm particularly concerned that Luke's training is going to be hammered into PT Jedi orthodoxy, which I don't think would have been his approach at all. And Leia's remark that they lost him by sending him away--not by anything Luke did--makes it even more "...") Snoke's grooming + a handful of critical mistakes works a lot better for me.