I love this comment so much. Thank you. For me, it is a mix of a lot of things. Some of which you mention and some of which I haven't entirely figured out yet.
I apologize (and warn) for the following overly self-indulgent soapbox comment.
I was around eleven or twelve when I watched The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) for the first time. Afterwards I cried for Tom Ripley and for myself. Ripley was one of the first characters I identified with on a personal level: Not because he was a murderer, a liar, a manipulator, but because he possessed a certain darkness. A darkness, an Otherness, that he hid and locked away so perfectly that he lost himself over time. A feeling that I could relate to. There is quite literally a key scene in the movie that stayed with me for a long time: Don't you just take the past and put it in a room in a basement and lock the door and never go in there? That's what I do. In case you want to look for this moment, it's in its entirety on YouTube.
When I discovered Severus Snape, I was thirteen years old. I don't recall what primarily drew me to him, but the Alan Rickman factor certainly played a part in it. Anyway, what I distinctly remember is my puzzlement about so many people mooning over a terrible person like him. Back then, I did not fully grasp the apparent appeal of a troubled man in black clothes. I just thought: If people can love him, they could love me. Several months followed in which I actively tried to make myself even more miserable, just so that, "logically", someone would finally feel the need to help and "heal" and love me. That never happened, of course, but even years after I'd still wait for that special person to come into my life and magically fix me with their love and kindness. At a certain age, I started resenting myself for this need, for my stupidity and for my weakness. I never really stopped wanting to be saved, however.
On an intellectual level, I recognize that Finn might also be a character that fits me well, but he's so universally loved and seen as a hero (an opinion which I share: he's wonderful) that he just seems to conflict with every concept I have of myself. I also hated how Snape was later "redeemed" in the HP books because I've never seen him as a hero or "the bravest man [Harry] ever knew". People who prevail against evil forces do speak to my sense of morality and justice and can inspire me. Yet, they don't speak to my - admittedly very limited - life experiences. I need to see people struggle and fail, people not able to break the cycle, not able to make good decisions for themselves, people just keeping on to keep on, doing the best with the shitty hand they've been dealt. Characters like me. Or villains. Because I just don't see myself as a good or even "normal" person. When you get told enough times that you're none of these things, it gets ingrained and can easily become your one and only truth.
I'm not a model survivor, I know. I feel for and identify with fictional characters who are morally suspect or just plain vile. Maybe I'm so out of touch with my emotions that it doesn't even register anymore, who knows? Maybe I'll hate myself for it in a few years and will look back to this comment with embarrassment. What my life has taught me, however, is that everything that somehow helps me to get by counts in the long run. Would I have preferred to be better, wiser, more heroic, a cinnamon roll, as a child, a teenager, an adult? Or to be able to identify with that sort of character? Yes, of course. But there's already so much sorrow in my life and I won't regret poorly adjusting to circumstances I mostly had no control over. In a sense, I find, you cannot really grieve about something you never stood a chance to obtain in the first place. Living a better, worthwhile life, after all these years, has become one of those things to me. An illusion, a distant chime in the dark, something only others know how to do and to dream of.
Much love to all of you, irregardless of where you stand on this subject.
Again, sorry for the TL;DR, especially to the anon I replied to.
Re: The Atlantic article on Reylo
I apologize (and warn) for the following overly self-indulgent soapbox comment.
I was around eleven or twelve when I watched The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) for the first time. Afterwards I cried for Tom Ripley and for myself. Ripley was one of the first characters I identified with on a personal level: Not because he was a murderer, a liar, a manipulator, but because he possessed a certain darkness. A darkness, an Otherness, that he hid and locked away so perfectly that he lost himself over time. A feeling that I could relate to. There is quite literally a key scene in the movie that stayed with me for a long time: Don't you just take the past and put it in a room in a basement and lock the door and never go in there? That's what I do. In case you want to look for this moment, it's in its entirety on YouTube.
When I discovered Severus Snape, I was thirteen years old. I don't recall what primarily drew me to him, but the Alan Rickman factor certainly played a part in it. Anyway, what I distinctly remember is my puzzlement about so many people mooning over a terrible person like him. Back then, I did not fully grasp the apparent appeal of a troubled man in black clothes. I just thought: If people can love him, they could love me. Several months followed in which I actively tried to make myself even more miserable, just so that, "logically", someone would finally feel the need to help and "heal" and love me. That never happened, of course, but even years after I'd still wait for that special person to come into my life and magically fix me with their love and kindness. At a certain age, I started resenting myself for this need, for my stupidity and for my weakness. I never really stopped wanting to be saved, however.
What, to me, is interesting about Kylo Ren is the following: I can see quite a lot of myself in both the canon (mainly his relation to Snoke, the conflict between Light and Dark) and the fanon version. The fanon version, needy and emotionally stunted sub!Kylo (it's not the only version, of course, but it seems fairly popular), is basically a simplified model of the distorted picture my brain presents me of myself every day. Very needy, easily "too much" with everything I say or do. Someone who people barely tolerate and never like. Someone who should apologize for being "difficult" at every turn. Every social interaction, even this comment, is tinged and soured with that self-image and feeling of deficiency. It is not only that distorted image, however, I am socially awkward and probably a cliché woobie and I've needed a good hug for the past two or three or ten years. So, yeah, fic!Kylo, in his different forms, sometimes acts as a proxy as he fills two very conflicting needs: The need to feel deserving of kindness (woobie-self) and the need to be treated poorly (a projection of self-hate).
On an intellectual level, I recognize that Finn might also be a character that fits me well, but he's so universally loved and seen as a hero (an opinion which I share: he's wonderful) that he just seems to conflict with every concept I have of myself. I also hated how Snape was later "redeemed" in the HP books because I've never seen him as a hero or "the bravest man [Harry] ever knew". People who prevail against evil forces do speak to my sense of morality and justice and can inspire me. Yet, they don't speak to my - admittedly very limited - life experiences. I need to see people struggle and fail, people not able to break the cycle, not able to make good decisions for themselves, people just keeping on to keep on, doing the best with the shitty hand they've been dealt. Characters like me. Or villains. Because I just don't see myself as a good or even "normal" person. When you get told enough times that you're none of these things, it gets ingrained and can easily become your one and only truth.
I'm not a model survivor, I know. I feel for and identify with fictional characters who are morally suspect or just plain vile. Maybe I'm so out of touch with my emotions that it doesn't even register anymore, who knows? Maybe I'll hate myself for it in a few years and will look back to this comment with embarrassment. What my life has taught me, however, is that everything that somehow helps me to get by counts in the long run. Would I have preferred to be better, wiser, more heroic, a cinnamon roll, as a child, a teenager, an adult? Or to be able to identify with that sort of character? Yes, of course. But there's already so much sorrow in my life and I won't regret poorly adjusting to circumstances I mostly had no control over. In a sense, I find, you cannot really grieve about something you never stood a chance to obtain in the first place. Living a better, worthwhile life, after all these years, has become one of those things to me. An illusion, a distant chime in the dark, something only others know how to do and to dream of.
Much love to all of you, irregardless of where you stand on this subject.
Again, sorry for the TL;DR, especially to the anon I replied to.