Kylo Ren and Ancestor Worship
Apr. 4th, 2016 12:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7via http://ift.tt/1RU3QoT:
millicentthecat:
freysdottir:
This is my obligatory “I am sick to death of MFers mocking Kylo Ren talking to his grandfather in TFA” post. (this started as a reblog from @firstorderforceuser but I wanted to talk about ancestor worship and Paganism in a little more depth.
Hi, I’m Heather, and I’m a Pagan. Here’s a fun fact about many Pagans: a lot of us engage in some sort of ancestor practice. This
involves: having an altar, having artifacts from your ancestors’ lives,
including items they used or cherished, and talking to them. I have my father’s ashes on my altar; I have my grandfather’s freemason jewelry. It is an actual spiritual tradition, y’all, and it is not limited to Paganism.
When Kylo talked to Vader’s shrine in the theatre, I saw a mirror of my own spiritual practices. In fact, if you really wanna know, his ancestor shrine is what made me root for him. YES GOOD TALK TO YOUR DEADS, Kylo. He didn’t have to take the helmet off although it didn’t hurt any. :-P
YOU COULD NOT CODE THE DARK SIDE AS PAGAN HARDER IF YOU TRIED: magic, moral ambiguity (oft associated with witchcraft), meditation/trancework, the willingness to alter reality in conformity with personal will, and ancestor worship. Individually you can find these in other faiths or spiritual practices, but the presence of them all together says Dark Sider = Pagan = Villain.
But H, Kylo didn’t even know his grandfather!
Guess what guys, people who practice ancestor worship can and do work with dead they knew, dead they never knew, and some even work with dead who aren’t blood related.
It’s still a relevant spiritual practice for those engaged in it. I just want people to consider that maybe, maybe, it is for Kylo Ren, too. I’m just saying that EVERY TIME SOMEONE MOCKS KYLO TALKING TO HIS GRANDFATHER I WANT TO FLIP THEM THE DOUBLE DEUCES.
FIGHT ME
(also starting a Paganism and the Force tag because it’s becoming a Thing here)
This is really interesting. Something I hadn’t considered.
I feel like the thing that people really overlook with this scene is the use of the word “again?”
“Show me again the power of the darkness…”
As in, Kylo has DEFINITELY already been in contact with Darth Vader. And Darth Vader DEFINITELY did, on at least one occasion, show him the power of the darkness. Isn’t it like…right there in the dialogue, full on confirmation that this is a two-way conversation?
Kylo isn’t just some confused idol-worshipper (not that I think there’s anything wrong with cultism or idol worship, but I mean ‘confused’ in the sense that he might’ve misinterpreted Anakin’s legacy.) He’s actually having a conversation with another person.
This is why I think the “Kylo Ren as death” thing is a bit weird; because in the Star Wars universe, there is really no barrier between the land of the living and the land of the dead. Ghosts function pretty much the same way that Jedi do, and apparently Sith can evade death, convincingly, in some other way. Kylo Ren isn’t trapped in Underworld in the way that say, to use an obscure reference, Balem Abrasax might be, when he talks to a hologram of Jupiter Jones as if he’s really seeing his dead mother. That would be crazy. Kylo Ren just has some Hamlet shit going on. Not even Hamlet level shit. He’s just friends with a guy who happens to be post-living.
I do like reading the Dark Side as a metaphor for the after life (the “Other Side”) but as far as actual death goes it honestly seems like nbd in the SW universe?
millicentthecat:
freysdottir:
This is my obligatory “I am sick to death of MFers mocking Kylo Ren talking to his grandfather in TFA” post. (this started as a reblog from @firstorderforceuser but I wanted to talk about ancestor worship and Paganism in a little more depth.
Hi, I’m Heather, and I’m a Pagan. Here’s a fun fact about many Pagans: a lot of us engage in some sort of ancestor practice. This
involves: having an altar, having artifacts from your ancestors’ lives,
including items they used or cherished, and talking to them. I have my father’s ashes on my altar; I have my grandfather’s freemason jewelry. It is an actual spiritual tradition, y’all, and it is not limited to Paganism.
When Kylo talked to Vader’s shrine in the theatre, I saw a mirror of my own spiritual practices. In fact, if you really wanna know, his ancestor shrine is what made me root for him. YES GOOD TALK TO YOUR DEADS, Kylo. He didn’t have to take the helmet off although it didn’t hurt any. :-P
YOU COULD NOT CODE THE DARK SIDE AS PAGAN HARDER IF YOU TRIED: magic, moral ambiguity (oft associated with witchcraft), meditation/trancework, the willingness to alter reality in conformity with personal will, and ancestor worship. Individually you can find these in other faiths or spiritual practices, but the presence of them all together says Dark Sider = Pagan = Villain.
But H, Kylo didn’t even know his grandfather!
Guess what guys, people who practice ancestor worship can and do work with dead they knew, dead they never knew, and some even work with dead who aren’t blood related.
It’s still a relevant spiritual practice for those engaged in it. I just want people to consider that maybe, maybe, it is for Kylo Ren, too. I’m just saying that EVERY TIME SOMEONE MOCKS KYLO TALKING TO HIS GRANDFATHER I WANT TO FLIP THEM THE DOUBLE DEUCES.
FIGHT ME
(also starting a Paganism and the Force tag because it’s becoming a Thing here)
This is really interesting. Something I hadn’t considered.
I feel like the thing that people really overlook with this scene is the use of the word “again?”
“Show me again the power of the darkness…”
As in, Kylo has DEFINITELY already been in contact with Darth Vader. And Darth Vader DEFINITELY did, on at least one occasion, show him the power of the darkness. Isn’t it like…right there in the dialogue, full on confirmation that this is a two-way conversation?
Kylo isn’t just some confused idol-worshipper (not that I think there’s anything wrong with cultism or idol worship, but I mean ‘confused’ in the sense that he might’ve misinterpreted Anakin’s legacy.) He’s actually having a conversation with another person.
This is why I think the “Kylo Ren as death” thing is a bit weird; because in the Star Wars universe, there is really no barrier between the land of the living and the land of the dead. Ghosts function pretty much the same way that Jedi do, and apparently Sith can evade death, convincingly, in some other way. Kylo Ren isn’t trapped in Underworld in the way that say, to use an obscure reference, Balem Abrasax might be, when he talks to a hologram of Jupiter Jones as if he’s really seeing his dead mother. That would be crazy. Kylo Ren just has some Hamlet shit going on. Not even Hamlet level shit. He’s just friends with a guy who happens to be post-living.
I do like reading the Dark Side as a metaphor for the after life (the “Other Side”) but as far as actual death goes it honestly seems like nbd in the SW universe?
