While his Kylo Ren did not choose the design of his iconic weapon because he wanted to stand out in a crowd. The design was required, instead, as an outlet for the red Force energy overflowing from the broken kyber crystal within. While some believe Ren's breaking of the crystal was the result of his inner conflict about turning to the dark side, a closer look at what happened during the "bleeding" process suggests another reason.
Charles Soule and Will Sliney's Star Wars: The Rise of Kylo Ren limited series chronicles the development of Ben Solo's transformation into Kylo Ren, from shortly after his confrontation with his master Luke Skywalker at the Jedi Temple to his assumption of the leadership of the Knight of Ren. As a child, Solo encountered the Knights of Ren while on a scavenger mission with Skywalker. At the time, its leader sensed the Force in Ben and invited the boy to look him up if he ever decided the "Jedi thing" wasn't for him. Now, not sure what to do without his master, Solo seeks out the Knight of Ren, hoping they will help him figure out who he wants to be. He isn't wrong to think the Knight of Ren will help in his development. They show him a path very different from what he was learning under Skywalker, and ultimately that is the path he chooses to pursue.
In the run-up to his assumption of the Kylo Ren persona, Solo does express a significant amount of ambivalence and mental turmoil. As Soule and Sliney show, on the one hand, he is Ben Solo, "named after a legend," son of one of the galaxy's best pilots and one of its greatest political leaders, and the nephew of the last Jedi. He is expected to not only be good but also to carry on the legacy of the Jedi Order. On the other hand, there is the Ben Solo who secretly bristles at all the demands, rightly or wrongly being made on him. That Ben Solo has been teetering on the edge of the dark side since his childhood. The only question is if he will reject it completely or let it free.
Will the Real Ben Solo Please Stand Up
While this makes it easy to believe that his prior ambivalence and inner battle between the light and dark will be a feature of the Solo-Ren persona, it is clear by the time he kills the leader of the Knights of Ren that he is fully committed to "being who he is." Indeed, if Skywalker's attempt to kill him unlocked the door for Solo to begin embracing the darkness within him, the Knights of Ren leader's attempt on his life lets him embrace it with both hands. Indeed, as he says in The Rise of Kylo Ren #4, "I am the shadow."
His whole life he's been bottling up and hiding his true feelings and become so adept at it that no one realized it for the longest time. His classmate Tai, with whom he shared a bond, could not sense it, and neither could Skywalker until the very last minute. Now, finally free, the emotions he experiences in the moment are edgy, unrefined, and cataclysmic. Naturally, feeling these emotions as Ren does during the process of bleeding a kyber crystal will cause the crystal to reflect that characteristics. The result is a cracked crystal spewing malevolent power in every direction. That is, the crystal is not broken as a reflection of Ren's inner turmoil. That turmoil is fully resolved in favor of the dark side. Rather the crystal's broken shape is a reflection of Kylo Ren's intense embrace of the darkness, that would late shake the Star Wars universe with the same intensity.
