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« on: December 24, 2015, 10:51:55 pm »
I find myself agreeing with Putnam's interpretation of Kylo. The dude clearly has a serious case of villain-worship, reinforced with the fact that he is a direct descendant of Vader. He wants to be the next Sith Lord, but he's completely incapable of filling Anakin's shoes. He wears all black. He wears a helmet. He carries a red lightsaber. He works for the villains. At first glance they're very similar, but things quickly fall apart when when you look a bit closer.
Look at how the First Order (the higher-ups especially) treated Kylo and compare it to how most of the Empire's officers treated Darth Vader. Vader commanded respect and fear from everyone, except for the Emperor, Tarkin, and that one officer who got Force-choked in A New Hope (briefly). Even Tarkin was willing to follow along with Vader's plans when they suited him.
The First Order, on the other hand, seems somewhat contemptuous of Kylo. The Hitler expy in particular openly looks down his nose at the son of Solo, and Kylo just takes it. The stormtroopers avoid him not out of awe but more of a "look out, this dude's nuts" sort of way. This may be due to the tantrums, but I wouldn't be surprised if it contributes to the tantrums as well.
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And here's something I just thought of: I know folks like to pretend that the prequels never happened, but there's actually a pretty important similarity here. Remember that Anakin had quite a temper of his own. Slaughtering a an entire tribe of Tusken Raiders isn't the same as carving up computer consoles, but I'm suddenly struck by how both Anakin and his grandson seem to have severe anger problems. Anakin was at least trying to sometimes control his temper and be a Jedi, which is likely why we didn't see him destroying bits of the scenery more often, but Kylo (who appears to be roughly the same age) is opening himself entirely to the Dark Side. When rage overtakes him, he'll take it out on anything handy.
Darth Vader was certainly much more constrained in his anger, but he was also much older by the time of the Original Trilogy. The loss of much of his body and his wife probably also helped turn his negative emotions into a cold bitterness rather than a white-hot anger.
