tbh knives out is a great example of a story showing an older, iconic man choosing a young heroine as their “heir” on purpose while leaving his own younger family out, while tros is a terrible take on a similar story with luke and leia bestowing the legacy on rey

like the difference is that knives out doesn’t make it about martha “earning” inheriting harlan’s estate or becoming worthy, and harlan’s younger family are all different kids of white supremacist and classist and take advantage of harlan’s legacy instead of being a victim of it

all different kinds* but kids works too

like i know the “he was a spoiled brat with a good family and all opportunities to be good but chose the dark anyway” take is popular wrt ben/kylo, but it doesn’t fit the canon of him being specifically groomed by snoke or palpatine in his head since he was young

and rey initially hates him and thinks he just wants power before she realizes there’s more to the story. compare that with ransom who’s a classist asshole at the start but looks like he might be the black sheep of the family in more ways than one by wanting to help marta

but it turns out his actions were just to maliciously protect his own wealth, status and privilege, while going mask-off about his “birthright.” it’s kind of amazing how rian and jj made two movies in totally different genres on the same theme except one works and one doesn’t

people made this joke when tros came out, but seriously if jj had done knives out, marta would’ve been revealed to be harlan’s illegitimate daughter or the kid of his chief rival novelist or something, and would’ve had to “prove” her worth somehow instead of just being good

knives out also makes harlan and marta’s friendship and closeness believable with super limited screentime and makes it clear harlan respects her, instead of the way tros framed rey’s dynamic with leia and luke where rey’s constantly deferring to them and hero-worshipping

in tlj and rots, rey and luke showed how much they’d grown in their journeys by being able to defy their mentors and do what they believed was right. luke refuses to kill vader in rots despite obi-wan and yoda telling him he had to, and luke is right; he’s grown past his mentors

rey never has that moment of defiance in tros; luke and leia are always right, and she wins by following luke’s advice. and in the climax moment itself, rey wins by relying on “all the jedi” while doing what luke said. it’s about doing what her elders say.

compare that to marta in knives out, whose victorious moment was her doing what she believed and saving someone’s life at the cost of what she thought would be her own freedom. it wasn’t what blanc or harlan told her to do. it was all her, and she had agency where tros rey didn’t

oh, also marta was right about saving harlan too: if they’d called an ambulance like she wanted, a moment when she didn’t care about the consequences for herself as long as she could save someone, he would’ve been fine. she was right, not harlan.