i'd love to make a commentary thread on why leftist moral police twitter is just right wing moral police twitter a la "CONSUMING BAD MEDIA AND LIKING X MAKES YOU A DIRTY SINNER" but im so hungry and i just want. a pizza

let's see if i can get my shit together uhh okay so when i was but a small neon and stuck in an evangelical hellhole, we were not supposed to consume media apart from bible shit. going to theaters was bad. going to theme parks was bad. disney was bad. cartoons were bad.

reason being was "well they show bad things, and you can't see bad things or the devil will be able to control you." my mom bought a "profanity blocker" that would mute and cut out films when it detected bad language or sex scenes or violence. because SEEING or HEARING "bad"...

would make YOU bad, and then you'd have to be fighting the devil's fiery darts in a spiritual battle because even though you were "saved" you'd still have to work at actually being a good christian.

Then that became "enjoying ANYTHING more than the Bible is bad".

When I was 12, I was obsessed with Lord of the Rings. I tried to hide it because I felt guilty over enjoying it more than 3 hour long sermons, but I had a 3-in-1 volume of all 3 books that was my prized possession, I made notes in it, I was trying to learn to write Tengwar etc.

It was really where my love of languages and studying how words work got started, but my mom just saw "my daughter likes this more than Jesus" and I got a lecture about how I needed to prioritize church more and my book was thrown into the garbage.

Star Wars was another favorite target of my church. It was too "eastern" in its morals (there's definitely something to be said abt diet racism in the evangelical movement) , and didn't have a direct correlation to a conscious and good God. So my mom also got rid of all that.

So when I see leftist weirdos out here freaking out about how enjoying or watching a "problematic" thing makes you bad, I just go "yup about par for the fucking course huh" because I've been through this shit already, but on the other side.

Cause here's the thing, like... reality isn't black and white in its morals, or its problems, or anything. It's always shades of gray. People are complicated. You look at a kid throwing a tantrum and go "that's a bad kid" but you don't know if they just had a shit day. You look..

at an adult in prison who did a crime and think "they're a bad person" but are they really? You look at someone who seems like they're wonderful but you don't know that they're horrible to waitstaff or a huge secret racist. It's not always clear cut.

so when people watch media where a guy does a bad thing or makes bad choices, they just go "he's bad and he deserves to die" without any nuance at all. all redeemed villains must be children's villains. bland and easily swallowed. because a 2020 audience won't accept redemption.

which is so, so antithetical to the central message of star wars, which is hope being enough to beat back the dark, and vader coming back to the light in the end because his love for his son destroyed his loyalty to the emperor after his love for his wife facilitated his fall.

for fucks sake, like, we had that SPELLED OUT for us in Return of the Jedi. Vader dies unmasked, stripped of his visible villainy, and appears as a benevolent force-ghost standing with his old masters as he smiles at his son. He's undeniably welcomed back into the light.

disney, however, is not gonna fucking do that with Ben Solo, even though we have reams of canon material detailing the fact that he was beaten down, manipulated, abused, lied to, and tricked by Snoke/Palpatine, who took advantage of his fears the same as he did to his grandfather

because an audience whose worldview has become this polarized cannot accept an antagonist who did bad things deciding to change his ways and being welcomed into the light of whatever universe-good-power there is. it doesn't matter to these people that patricide is a classic

trope in greek mythos, it doesn't matter that Kylo Ren didn't have anything to do with Hosnian Prime's destruction, it doesn't matter that Rey physically harmed him about 100 more times than he ever hurt her. he killed han solo, he's bad, he's abusive, he deserves to die.

(side note I GOT MY PIZZA) so these people manage to engage in an amazing feat of cognitive dissonance (exactly like evangelicals): Kylo Ren is simultaneously nothing but a whiny pathetic weaksauce villain who's lame as shit and also a genocidal fascist terrifying awful leader.

so just remember when you see a mealy ass take on kylo ren: the author is tragically falling prey to a... Calvinism by cultural osmosis: this idea that nobody can ever be redeemed if it's not set in stone from the absolute start of time itself.

Never thought I'd be citing Christianity in defense of Star Wars, but, hey: grace is supposed to be a gift given without anyone deserving it. The whole point of the idea of salvation is that you do not DO anything to earn your forgiveness: God gives it when you ask.

I mean, that whole table everyone's looking at was a bunch of stupid memes and bad faith takes. I can and will rewrite it to actually reflect Ben's character, but seriously? Incel? Obsessed with reddit? Girl idk if you confused ben solo with your ex or something but that aint him

Zuko is a great character. Kylo Ren is a great character. Luke Skywalker isn't even a villain so idk why he's on that chart but he's a great character too. Whoever made that chart doesn't know much about any of them.

and that's all, folks