It goes without saying that the Sequel Trilogy leaves a huge, mysterious time gap of 30 years between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens. What it contains, we barely know, save for a few spotty retellings of Kylo Ren’s fall in The Last Jedi. The Force Awakens only hints at what came before, and the film contains a number of moments that can be read as foreshadowing or seeds planted for payoffs later. One of the biggest mysteries planted right into The Force Awakens that i don’t think has been taken seriously enough is Darth Vader’s mask.

I want to get this out of the way first: The simplest explanation for these two things being in the film is fan service, existing to drive the nostalgia factor for fans. If that’s their sole purpose, then so be it.

But what if they’re not? What if instead of being prop cameos, they’re key plot driving mechanisms in the story, creatively staged in The Force Awakens to hint at their past and foreshadow their use in the future?

In the next two articles, I’m going to explore why these two seemingly glossed over instances may have a major impact on the story that is yet to pay off, and then I’ll offer my own narrative on how I think it’ll go down. In this article, I’m going to focus on Vader’s mask.

Darth Vader’s mask was introduced in The Force Awakens in a single scene where Kylo Ren talks to the mask as if he’s talking to Darth Vader.

“Show me, grandfather, and I will finish what you started.”

There are three possible interpretations of this scene, and I’m going to break them down here:

The first (and least interesting) is that Kylo Ren is talking to a mask the way people might talk to a photograph or a tomb stone– not actually talking to a person, but to himself to show the audience where his head is at and what his motivations may be (Interesting enough, two movies in and we still actually don’t know what Kylo Ren’s full motivations are). This statement could mean anything—and at the very least, it demonstrates that Kylo Ren is picking up where Vader left off in the most general way possible.

A possible backstory to this might be related to the novel “Bloodlines” where it’s implied that Kylo Ren would learn about his lineage through a political leak. Feeling as though he didn’t belong anywhere, Ben may have decided at this moment that following in Darth Vader’s footsteps was what he was born to do. For those who see the sequels as independent films not joined by an overarching narrative, this is a favored explanation. For those who don’t, there’s option two:

Second, is the interpretation that Darth Vader actually communicated with Kylo Ren from the dead through the mask, and asked him to do something. What that something is, is not clear. Could it have been as simple as ruling the galaxy? Joining the dark side? Destroying the New Republic? These are all quite sinister, and when you look at it in the context of the saga it might not actually make sense for Vader to ask for these things. Doing so would be antithetical to Vader’s change of heart in RotS –he died a good guy.

So if we eliminate malice on Vader’s part , the alternative is that Vader is trying to do something good through Kylo Ren. Does he know something we don’t? Maybe there’s a greater threat to the galaxy and he’s helping Kylo Ren do what he needs to do (even if it means turning to the dark side) to fix it. In this case, Kylo Ren would be running a Severus Snape-like operation, getting as close to Snoke as he could before defeating him.

That could work, but it’s also a narrative that’s essentially completed by the end of VIII. If that in fact was the goal, why would Kylo Ren still be hell-bent on destroying the resistance and Luke Skywalker? Would any secretly-good plan Vader had in mind require killing the son he spent his last breaths dying for? On top of all this: why would Vader even need to use the mask? He appeared just fine as a Force-ghost in Return of the Jedi.

So there are holes, which brings us to the third interpretation:

What if somebody else could have been talking to Kylo Ren through Vader’s mask– and by somebody else, I basically mean Snoke.

If Snoke wished to manipulate Leia’s son and Luke Skywalker’s student, he would have had to do it in a very careful and underhanded way. Even in the Prequels, Anakin needed a good reason to turn to the dark side. Using Vader’s mask as a puppet might have been the most effective way for Snoke to influence Ben.

Starting when he was young, Snoke could have mentored Ben, giving him the attention and care he never got from his family. In a way not unlike Palpatine, he could have helped Ben understand his powers while slowly stoking doubt in the New Republic and the Jedi way. Perhaps he planted seeds, painting Darth Vader as tragic and misunderstood historical figure. Sensing something wasn’t quite right, Leia would send Ben to train with Luke, but it would be too late. When the news eventually broke that Kylo Ren was Vader’s grandson, it would be over. Ben’s heart would turn as his doubts became reality. His family would have lied to him, abandoned him, punished him, and hid from him the Skywalker lineage and his real potential.

It’s Snoke that Kylo Ren would turn to—the kind mentor he could always trust. He would introduce Kylo Ren to groups like the Acolytes of the Beyond and the Knights of Ren–an entire religion based around his grandfather. They would tell him the truth now, and crown him prince. In secret, he would became the leader of the Knights of Ren– the successor of Darth Vader himself. Then, when the time was right, he would learn that they had come into the possession of the ultimate artifact: Darth Vader’s Mask. And that’s when Snoke would truly win.

That’s how Snoke could have played Kylo Ren– through truth and purpose, until he would believe anything, including the melted, smoldered remains of Darth Vader’s mask. Kylo Ren’s purpose from that moment on would be to reject the lies he had been surrounded by, and listen to the truths his wronged grandfather told him, carrying out his wishes from beyond the grave.

The Future of the Mask

That would be a perfectly adequate reason for Vader’s mask to be in the film, but what if there was more? What if the mask wasn’t just a part of the past, but a part of the future.

As we recently discussed, Star Wars canon has used masks as critical artifacts that connect to the beyond, and how at least one dark sider has used it to come back from the dead. In the comic where this happens, Darth Vader comes across a mask that is possessed by an ancient dark sider. The mask can latch onto people and use their body’s as it’s own, and eventually trick’s Vader into opening a portal on Mustafar that will bring the dark-sider back to life.

Ever since The Last Jedi there’s been a lot of discussion about whether or not Snoke is really dead, and it’s very curious that Lucasfilm would start incorporating concepts like immortality mask horcruxes this close to Episode IX.

It’s not hard to imagine how this could play out in the final film: Vader’s mask starts talking to Kylo Ren again, and gives him new instructions. Imagine Kylo Ren, Hux, and the Knights of Ren in that same shrine below Darth Vader’s castle, gathered around the mask, as Kylo Ren and the Knights of Ren perform a spiritual ritual as they open the portal that will ultimately bring Snoke back.

There are a lot of little interesting things going on in newer Star Wars media that seem to boost this idea at least circumstantially. First, it’s been heavily rumored (if not confirmed) that Vader’s castle needed special design attention in Rogue One because it was going to be in one of the saga films. We’ve also been introduced to interdimensional portals in the Star Wars universe through Rebels. Knowing now from the comics that one of these portals exists underneath Vader’s castle on Mustafar, it seems like perhaps they’ve been building the mythology to support something like this.

There’s also the issue of what to do with the plot. While the possibility still exists that Kylo Ren and Rey could be bitter enemies until the last moment, I feel that just based on the way the relationship between the two character’s has been shaped so far, they’ll want to get Rey and Ben back on the same team early in IX. How do you do that? It’s been discussed a lot, and there are very few options out there that don’t seem downright arbitrary.

This is where Snoke’s return could really be transform it into the defining character moments of the Sequel trilogy—on equal footing with “I am your father” and Mace Windu’s death.

It’s all about character motivations. Kylo Ren is a rational actor that believes he’s doing the right thing, and he threw it all away to get to this point. Imagine the horror, when he first glimpses through the void not Vader, but Snoke. He would know right then that he had been played—and ultimately destroyed all the things and ones he loved in the name of truth, that he had been lied to the entire time.

That would be the turn– the plot driven, emotional, logical, character-based turn that pushes Ben back to Rey—and home. It provides a unique opportunity to connect many different parts of the saga, and ultimately send ripples throughout the sequel trilogy and it’s backstory. I can’t wait to see how they handle these ideas on film!

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