Return of the Jedi, when Darth Vader betrayed Emperor Palpatine on the Second Death Star, turning back to the light side and Anakin Skywalker. Given that's the case, most viewers assumed Kylo Ren was going to be redeemed in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
They weren't disappointed. Kylo Ren and Rey were locked in furious, murderous combat at the moment Leia ed away; and something about her death shook Kylo Ren to the core. Unfortunately, though, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker wasn't entirely clear just why Leia's death had such a profound impact. Was it just grief, a sudden realization he would never be reconciled to his mother, or was it something more?
Rae Carson's Luke Skywalker's Force Ghost had been quietly cautioning her she had only one last task. Finally, the moment came, and Leia lay back on her bed, resolving to use the last of her strength to reach her son.
"She flashed back to holding her tiny son in her arms, his black hair still wet from birth, the way he'd cried all the time in those early months but settled whenever he sensed that she or Han or Chewie was near. His first steps. His first word. The first time he'd sent a toy flying across the room with the power of the Force, calling on his tiny, toddler rage.
I never gave up hope for him, she said.
Tell him, said Luke.
With his words came a rush of knowledge, and a vision-memory of Luke sitting cross-legged atop a cliff of Ahch-To, shaking with effort as he projected himself onto the battlefield at Crait.
The effort to reach Ben would take everything she had."
Kylo Ren had always felt rejected by his mother. Indeed, he'd come to believe Leia never really loved him at all; hadn't she taken every opportunity to send him away? According to Claudia Gray's novel Bloodline, when Ben was a child he roamed the galaxy with his father Han Solo and Uncle Chewie, seldom seeing his mother, who was devoted to her political career. No sooner had that come to an end than Leia began working on a new project, the nascent Resistance, sensing a dark force growing in the shadows. Ben had been sent to train with his Uncle Luke, which he perceived as another act of rejection.
Words would not be enough to reach Kylo Ren. But Kylo Ren was strong enough in the Force to realize Leia was dying, and she was expending the last of her strength on reaching him. Suddenly he knew everything he had believed about his parents, and about their lack of love for him, was a lie. After all, Leia had actually chosen to spend her precious life-energy on telling her son she loved him, when she could instead have channeled it into leading the Resistance for just a little longer. That selfless act of devotion, a mother's declaration of love, shattered the power of the dark side - and redeemed Kylo Ren in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
