This is something that we really learn about in the Prequels with the Chosen One prophecy, but it also informs Luke and Anakin’s arcs in the Original Trilogy. It’s now been revisited by the Disney movies, with The Last Jedi exploring more of what the Force is and the notion of ‘balance’. Also in that movie is another new development for the Force: the connection between Rey and Kylo Ren, which allows them to essentially have Force Skype calls with each other.

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This bridge between their minds was ostensibly built by Supreme Leader Snoke, as a means of getting them together to serve his own nefarious ends. But what if he didn’t create it, but simply exploited it? What if the Force itself brought the two young Force-s together, and that connection is going to be crucial to bringing balance in Episode IX?

• This Page: Snoke Claims He Connected Rey & Kylo - But Did He?
• Page 2: Can Rey & Kylo Bring Balance To The Force Together?

Snoke Claims He Connected Rey & Kylo - But Did He?

Rey and Kylo Ren came together in The Last Jedi in in quite a literal sense for Kylo, to the delight of the internet).

Because of this, Rey believed that there was still good in Ben Solo, and that she could reach through the darkness and bring him back into the light. This she departed Ahch-To, boarded the Supremacy, and then found herself taken before Supreme Leader Snoke. It was there the villain revealed his master plan. The connection between the pair hasn’t suddenly sprung up by way of the Force; he’d opened it. He’d sensed that there was something between them, and knew he could exploit that to his own ends, so established a connection through the Force that would make both of them more vulnerable.

He wanted to turn Kylo Ren into something more, and to use Rey to get to Luke. Snoke’s plan didn’t exactly work, to put it lightly. His supposed genius that led to him creating this connection to serve himself instead ended up with his death. As we saw in that stunning Throne Room sequence, Snoke wasn’t in control of Kylo Ren, and hadn’t been for some time. He’d pushed his pupil too far and paid the price, but that’s not something he realized until the lightsaber was cutting him in half. Up until that point, he believed everything was of his own doing, but he was blinded.

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One of the big ideas explored by Rian Johnson in The Last Jedi was the Jedi’s hubris. As explained by Luke Skywalker, it was this that had allowed Darth Sidious to rise to power while the Jedi Council simply sat around and let it happen. But as Kylo’s turn against him proves, Snoke was also blinded by his own hubris. And if he didn’t control Kylo then, there’s a chance that he was never control of the connection either. At the end of The Last Jedi, Rey and Kylo’s connection still exists, and the former is able to shut it off. If it exists after Snoke’s death, then it stands to reason that it existed before he started manipulating it as well.

Was Kylo and Rey's Connection The Will Of The Force?

So, if Snoke didn’t create the Force connection, then who - or what - did? The most logical answer is that it was the Force itself that brought them together. This would fit with The Last Jedi’s exploration of the Force: that it is not something any one person or group - be it Jedi or Sith - should be able to control. It isn’t theirs. It shifts and shapes things as it sees fit, and that could have extended to Rey and Kylo.

As Luke explains, where there’s powerful light, there’s powerful dark. Or as Snoke says, "darkness rises, and light to meet it." Wherever there is one, there’s the other. So where there’s Rey, who is extremely powerful in the Light Side but still sees and is called by the Dark, and Kylo who wants to be Dark Side but can’t shut out the Light, the Force senses an opportunity to bring them together. It does so through this connection, which is something that Snoke, as a powerful Force-, is able to exploit and then pretend was his own work.

We see in The Last Jedi just how powerful the Force is, and how Rey, in particular, is called to both sides of it. In Rogue One, Chirrut’s belief is that “all is as the Force wills it.” The Force does have its own sense of will, which it can and does use to push things in the galaxy one way or another. It surrounds everything and binds it together, so it’s extremely possible that it bound Rey and Kylo together too.

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Page 2 of 2: Can Rey & Kylo Bring Balance To The Force Together?

Can Rey & Kylo Bring Balance To The Force Together?

The concept of bringing balance to the Force has long been running through Star Wars, albeit with various interpretations of what that actually means. For years, the Jedi Order believed that balance meant wiping out the Sith. With darkness eradicated, only then would true balance be restored. They pinned their hopes for this on the Chosen One,  whom they believed to be Anakin Skywalker. When he fell to the Dark Side, Obi-Wan later came to think of Luke as the Chosen One instead. Eventually, and through the Jedi interpretation at least, the two Skywalkers did together achieve a sense of balance. Luke saw the good in his father and turned him back to the Light Side. With this, Anakin was able to kill his master. While the Jedi survived through Luke, the Sith were no more.

Still, however, there was not true balance, or at least come to think of as a new Chosen One). And with the Jedi Academy destroyed and Luke in exile, the scales tipped back towards the Dark Side - until Rey had her own awakening too. For generations there has never been balance because each side has believed in their own idea of what that means, fighting wars that sway the tide on way and then the other.

Heading into Star Wars Episode IX, though, there are only two powerful Force-s left. Both represent one side of the divide, but also know the lure of the other. And perhaps it’s that which can finally bring real balance to the Force, with two possibilities. One is that it could mean the pair of them teaming up for good, and finding a means of meeting in the middle: not Light, not Dark, but Balance. The door was seemingly closed on that, quite literally, in The Last Jedi, but it’s something Abrams could revisit. The Force brought them together for a reason, and they might be destined to work together on a new path. Snoke says he warned Kylo that his "equal" in light would rise as he grew stronger. If that means the Force will always be seeking both, then the only way to achieve it would be to have them teaming up in the center ground.

Going further, that could mean balance can only be achieved if there are no sides attempting to bend it to their own will. Rey, to a degree, understands how the Force works in that regard; Kylo less so. Rey knows the Force isn't hers, whereas Kylo still wants to use his power to rule. And that places a greater onus on the former to bring about balance, which makes sense since Rey is the hero of the Journal of the Whills' key poem, which speaks about both sides of the Force, ends by saying that the difference between them is made right “through refined Jedi sight.” In that context, Rey needs to refine what it is to be a Jedi, and how they use the Force, to bring about true balance. And if that’s going to happen, then Kylo Ren - a person who has mostly given in to evil, and might be beyond redemption - most likely needs to die.

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