StarDestroyer.Net BBS

People's brains react differently.

Kojiro wrote:

Mad wrote:Not quite sure how that applies to what you quoted.

It was from earlier and other discussions where the mental state of Ren is given as a reason why his powers aren't functioning at full efficiency. Basically if Ren is weaker for his duel against Rey because his head isn't on straight the same should apply to the escape attempt/probing.

They gave adequate set up for Rey for this. Her character may be a reluctant hero, but a hero non the less. She saved BB-8 when she did not have to from the scavenger, didn't want to let it hold up with her for the night but did anyway because it was right. Didn't have to not sell it for, for her, a huge sum of food but felt it wasn't right and stood up for the droid. She chased after Finn when she felt he was a thief.

Rey will do what she feels is right and her moral compass seems to drift into the right side of things. It's not too far fledged to say she decided to stand up to a bully when it came to Kylo Ren, stormtroopers, and the First Order.

Knife wrote:They gave adequate set up for Rey for this. Her character may be a reluctant hero, but a hero non the less. She saved BB-8 when she did not have to from the scavenger, didn't want to let it hold up with her for the night but did anyway because it was right. Didn't have to not sell it for, for her, a huge sum of food but felt it wasn't right and stood up for the droid. She chased after Finn when she felt he was a thief.

Rey will do what she feels is right and her moral compass seems to drift into the right side of things. It's not too far fledged to say she decided to stand up to a bully when it came to Kylo Ren, stormtroopers, and the First Order.

There is also her background, which, while I am of the camp that it makes her piloting skills strain SoD, does fit when discussing resisting mind probes. It's well-established that Force sensitivity is not required to resist attempts to mess with your mind via the Force. All it takes is a strong enough will or an alien enough mind. And Rey had been living a subsistence scavenger's life alone on a desert planet for as long as she can remember, which means she had to be tough physically, mentally, and emotionally. So she could plausibly resist Kylo Ren's mind probe, at which point turning it on him merely requires her to be smart enough to figure out what he's doing, how he's doing it, imitate what he's doing, and have enough raw Force power to pull it off (it helps that Ren was nervous, rushed, and wasn't expecting her to back hack him, so he wouldn't necessarily have all his guard up).

Her then mind-tricking the Stormtrooper strains SoD a bit more, but there is at least a thread of logic leading to it ("I was able to read Kylo Ren's mind - I wonder if I can use that same process to control a Stormtrooper's?").

Plus there's also the giant flashing neon "I AM SECRETLY LUKE SKYWALKER'S DAUGHTER" sign above her head, which neatly explains both her natural aptitude towards technology and her hilariously OP Force powers (she was obviously able to read Kylo Ren's mind because she's the daughter of the more powerful Skywalker twin, which therefore makes her more Skywalker than Kylo Ren, which means she's more powerful).

FWIW, Vader said that Leia resisted his mind probe in ANH too.

Galvatron wrote:FWIW, Vader said that Leia resisted his mind probe in ANH too.

He didn't say his, he said: "Her resistance to the mind probe is considerable." I take it "the mind probe" was the interrogation droid.

That's what I thought too until I saw Kylo Ren's mind probe in TFA.

I was under the impression that it was a team effort, in effect. The droid used pain and drugs to make Leia confused or disoriented, mess with her perception, force her to answer questions, etc., while Vader watched her thoughts so he'd be able to tell if she was telling the truth, or to pull the information directly if the torture weakened her mental defenses enough.

It only goes to further show that Kylo Ren's just a cut rate discount imitation of Vader. Vader employed all tools at his disposal, using the Force to augment and complement technology. He uses the droid to try to weaken Leia's resistance, while Kylo Ren tries to just brute force his way into Rey's brain. It is rather fitting in this light that while Vader's interrogation failed, producing no results, Kylo Ren's interrogation backfired, resulting in Rey turning the tables on him, because he did nothing to try to undermine her mental defenses beforehand.

Knife wrote:Rey will do what she feels is right and her moral compass seems to drift into the right side of things. It's not too far fledged to say she decided to stand up to a bully when it came to Kylo Ren, stormtroopers, and the First Order.

There's a difference between choosing to stand up to something and having the ability to do so. Simply choosing to be brave doesn't mean you'll win, or even have a fair shot. Again, I don't doubt Rey would try, I doubt she'd succeed, and I do so because people have claimed earlier that mental state matters when trying to use the Force.

Civil War Man wrote:Kylo Ren's interrogation backfired, resulting in Rey turning the tables on him, because he did nothing to try to undermine her mental defenses beforehand.

I would think that for someone like her who supposedly knows the legends of Luke Skywalker and his exploits, being stalked by what in her mind must appear to be a Sith must be pretty terrifying. He just keeps deflecting her shots, moves without haste and is utterly unthreatened by her and her little pistol. Just to emphasise how powerless she is, he renders her literally immobile with a gesture. She then gets very up close and personal with a lightsaber. Then he demonstrates he can read her mind and once he finds what he wants, knocks her out with a wave of his hand. She wakes up alone, restrained, no idea where she is under armed guard. And there is the same Sith that so casually took her down awaiting to interrogate her.

If that's not enough to weaken her mental defenses, to make her feel vulnerable or scared... well ok then I guess.

Kojiro wrote:I would think that for someone like her who supposedly knows the legends of Luke Skywalker and his exploits, being stalked by what in her mind must appear to be a Sith must be pretty terrifying. He just keeps deflecting her shots, moves without haste and is utterly unthreatened by her and her little pistol. Just to emphasise how powerless she is, he renders her literally immobile with a gesture. She then gets very up close and personal with a lightsaber. Then he demonstrates he can read her mind and once he finds what he wants, knocks her out with a wave of his hand. She wakes up alone, restrained, no idea where she is under armed guard. And there is the same Sith that so casually took her down awaiting to interrogate her.

If that's not enough to weaken her mental defenses, to make her feel vulnerable or scared... well ok then I guess.

There is a big difference between being scared and being defenseless. While certain types of fear can erode your will, other types will harden it. As you mention, he is able to read her mind at one point. That time is when she is terrified that he will just kill her outright. At that point, her mind would be racing, it'd be hard to concentrate, and in that moment he's able to see that she saw the map.

Meanwhile, in the interrogation room, the situation is different. She's in a bad position, but she knows that he's looking for information, which means she's not in danger of imminent death. Instead of the fear being paralyzing, the fear makes her drop into a defensive mental stance. She gets her guard up, and he takes the time to let her get her guard up, then comes at her with his guard down, because he's in a hurry and can't imagine that she'd be able to turn the tables on him.

I do think her ability to use the Force comes way too effortlessly for her compared to how much work everyone else has to put into it, but I consider her being able to back hack Kylo Ren's attempt at mind reading to be one of the less unbelievable feats she displays. He was sloppy, and he's barely a fraction of the presence that Darth Vader had. He tries to act like he's Vader reborn, but he's really Anakin in Vader cosplay.

Because Vader had perspective. He considered the Force to be a greater power than the Death Star, but he still uses technology when it suits him, and complements it with his Force abilities, while Kylo Ren thinks he can just brute force everything with just the Force.

Kojiro wrote:

Knife wrote:Rey will do what she feels is right and her moral compass seems to drift into the right side of things. It's not too far fledged to say she decided to stand up to a bully when it came to Kylo Ren, stormtroopers, and the First Order.

There's a difference between choosing to stand up to something and having the ability to do so. Simply choosing to be brave doesn't mean you'll win, or even have a fair shot. Again, I don't doubt Rey would try, I doubt she'd succeed, and I do so because people have claimed earlier that mental state matters when trying to use the Force.

There is a difference between knowing how to basically knowing how to use a gun and a SEAL and a gun. Kylo Ren is the former with the Force. It is obvious with the movie that the boy is basically trained and is enough to excel above a normal person but he is both taken aback and outclassed when someone else uses the Force around or against him.

On the other hand, his first foray in the film shows him stopping a blaster bolt midair with his power in the Force and that is not "basically trained," that is ridiculous and something even the Masters of all the previous films have never done. Even in the wankiness of the EU, comics and games nobody's done that, I bet.

Civil War Man wrote:Meanwhile, in the interrogation room, the situation is different. She's in a bad position, but she knows that he's looking for information, which means she's not in danger of imminent death.

She has no way of knowing that whatsoever. She has every reason to believe this guy will simply read her mind again. She has every reason to believe she's going to be interrogated as a Rebel agent, probably painfully given these guys destroy planets. Fear of death may well be secondary to a fear of being kept alive to be tortured for information she knows doesn't have.

Instead of the fear being paralyzing, the fear makes her drop into a defensive mental stance. She gets her guard up, and he takes the time to let her get her guard up, then comes at her with his guard down, because he's in a hurry and can't imagine that she'd be able to turn the tables on him.

That's a post hoc explanation at best. If the novelisation is anything to go by her ability to resist him comes out of nowhere. It simply happens. Her attempts to keep him out are even described as awkward and his previous attempts as brushing aside her mental defenses with 'contemptuous ease'. Rey didn't do anything, she just wins... because. As the book literally says, it makes no sense.

He was sloppy, and he's barely a fraction of the presence that Darth Vader had.

While I agree he's no Vader, that's an external perspective. To Rey he's an unstoppable Sith who just took her out trivially easily. To her he's a like some ancient evil legend come to life and thus far, he's proven every bit as terrifying as she could imagine. Remember, she believes in all that stuff now.

Knife wrote: It is obvious with the movie that the boy is basically trained and is enough to excel above a normal person but he is both taken aback and outclassed when someone else uses the Force around or against him.

The 'boy' is almost 30 years old. He's no child and he's been trained for at least the better part of a decade by Luke and Snoke, and he's a Skywalker. Snoke even summons him, to complete his training. Not continue, complete.

Shroom Man 777 wrote:What Rey said might've been hard to catch because of the JJ Abrams scatterbrained hyperkinetic scenes.

Reminds me of Oliver Stone in his cocaine days, if Stone was a derivative hack.