Why Finn Shouldn’t Be A Jedi

Here at BW Media Spotlight we (me and the voices in my head) don’t use “should” or “shouldn’t” litely. Could Finn make an interesting Jedi? Sure. So could C-3PO under the right writer, and as a fan of the Droids I could get behind that plan in theory. The question is whether or not Finn’s character arc would be served better by having him become a Jedi, and on that I’m not convinced.

The inspiration came from Literature Devil’s Morning Nonsense podcast, which I wake up with most weekday mornings. (Sorry, thanks to YouTube’s own nonsense the live stream replays require a membership to LD’s channel, or I’d link to the specific episode.) In today’s stream, LD made the case that Finn should have been the one to become a Jedi instead of Rey, and while I’m usually in agreement with him, in this case I have to politely disagree. I have heard a number of times that Finn should have been a Jedi alongside or in place of Rey for a while now, and I wonder if that’s just a result of how poorly Rey was developed as a character through the sequel trilogy. Someday I want to dig into that in greater detail, but today I want to focus on this one topic. Honest, I think The Last Jedi‘s biggest failing (and how does one choose when the most interesting thing about it was a visually spectacular suicide ramming?) is that Rian Johnson chose the wrong theme.

“Let the past die. Kill it if you have to.”

While this seems to be the direction today’s writers are taking with old properties because they’re too invested in their own stories and tastes (overinflated egos don’t help), and this is the theme of The Last Jedi, it’s not the one that best served the characters at the center of the movie: Finn, Rey, Rose Tico, Luke Skywalker, and even Poe Dameron. Poe ends up on the worse end because he doesn’t really have an arc centered around that theme while Finn’s character arc is undone by Johnson’s obsession with subversion for the sake of subversion. Instead, let me suggest a better theme that is just screaming to be used, and in the future I may dive more into how this movie could have been so much better. Part of that is a new story theme: am I worthy?

Imagine this scenario. Finn is a former First Order Stormtrooper, who for reasons only partially explored decided to leave the First Order and join the Resistance. This could have been better handled–what couldn’t in this trilogy?–but that’s for another time. I bring it up mostly to show that Finn got a raw deal in the first two movies. I didn’t see Rise Of Skywalker because I couldn’t get the guys together as we were each dealing with our own issues at the time, and now that all that’s past I’m not sure I want to see it. So realize that I’m going by the first two movies, and that’s fine considering we’re talking about Finn in the second film mostly anyway.

So Finn in the first movie should have been on a path to redemption, with this part having him questioning if he has earned, or even deserves, redemption. Is he worthy of his friends, of being part of this group opposing his former comrades? Instead he’s obsessed with reaching Rey until he isn’t, as he gets drawn into Rose Tico’s also incomplete character arc, unless you think getting revenge on the casino by having a heard of riding animals trashing the place was part of her arc. I’m not even sure she had one, really, but if she did it was about how she and her recently deceased sister came from the casino, saw the war profiteers playing here, and had a fit. I’m not sure where the closure was, or how it led to her also subverting Finn’s character arc in a terrible way. That wasn’t intentional, but…

…sorry, when did she fall in love with him? Not going to break out the clip, but the first time we meet her she’s fangirling over him because she thinks he’s part of the top fighters in the Resistance, only to zap him unconscious when he tries to leave to find Rey, which she misinterprets as deserting. Then they go to a casino as part of the dumber parts of the story, she gives her backstory, and they get arrested while freeing the wrong guy. Instead of “my sister gave her life, but am I worthy of following in her footsteps”, it’s wrecking Finn’s arc, not by saving him since he still intended a noble sacrifice, but by giving a dumb reason since he WAS saving what he loves: his new friends…who get their hiding spot blasted again just as she says those words. It’s just a mess.

Rey also could have had the “am I worthy” theme when she forced Luke to start training her. Again, not going to go into the deepest dive in this article, but after learning her parents left her behind and weren’t some great something or other, which unlike everyone else I actually thought was a GOOD use of subversion under a better follow-up, she could have had questions of self-worth, that Luke could have waylaid. “Your past isn’t as important as where you’re going, who you are. Your parents don’t define that. My father was one of the biggest threats to the galaxy. I may have humbled him, freed him from his anger, but I wasn’t defined by who my father was, even before he became Sith. I wanted to be like the man he thought he was, but I was my own person. My parents didn’t bring me honor, I brought them honor. So can you to yours. They don’t make you worthy. Only you can do that.” Oh, that line would come back to haunt him in a moment.

This also ties into Luke’s own unworthiness. Another change I would make that I would love to dive into further is that it wasn’t Luke about to do the opposite to his nephew to what he did to his father. Instead, I’d have him so driven to keep Ben from going to the Dark Side that he was overprotective even among the other Padawans. The Force would instead try to warn him what he was doing was actually having the reverse effect of what he intended, and that’s why Snoake was able to seduce him to the Dark Side. When Rey leaves to help her friends, Luke remembers that he did the same thing to Yoda, and that’s when…he…arrives.

The Force Ghost of…Anakin Skywalker!

What. you expected Old Man Grogu or whatever his name was? No, it’s Anakin who sits with Luke, reminds him that his own failure to understand a Force Vision warning that his actions were causing the very result he was fighting to avoid, the death of Padme, led to his own fall, and that what he hated even more than the Emperor was himself for making so many mistakes and allowing himself to be manipulated. Luke protests that he just isn’t like Yoda or Obi-Wan…”So? I was trained by Obi-Wan. He’s a good man, but he wasn’t ready for me. You weren’t ready for Ben. You tried to be like Obi-Wan and Yoda, but they wrote me off. You…you saved me, Luke. Not by being them, but by learning from them, their successes AND their mistakes, their wisdom and their ignorance…and by being yourself. Don’t be like them. You can’t define yourself by them. Only they can be them. They don’t make you worthy. Only you can do that. Tell me…what would Luke Skywalker, the man who redeemed Darth Vader, do?”

Then Luke goes out and sets up events for Kylo Ren’s redemption in the last movie. Maybe have the trilogy ending like Phil’s character arc in Disney’s Hercules where he restarts his hero/Jedi training. Only now Rey and Ben Solo, no longer Kylo Ren, are there to lead new younglings to the Light Side of the Force, using their experiences to train the next generation, worthy by their good actions and by learning from the past mistakes to be better Jedi as they were fated to be. Even have the broom kid show up as one of the new Padawans.

So how does all this come back to Finn, the character this article is supposed to be about? Like I said, his arc should have been his own worthiness to be with these people. He was their enemy, but no longer believing what the First Order stood for he left them. But does he have the right to be with these people? Is he any more a fighter now than he was then? Instead of “saving who we love”, Rose Tico should have pushed him to see that he was worthy, that his past didn’t represent who he is now. When Rose told her story, he could have come back with the story of how he was taken by force to be trained as a Trooper. Now he doesn’t think he has the right to be part of the Resistance, which Rose needs to show him he is, that while their pasts shouldn’t be forgotten, they don’t define who they are in the present or what they will be in the future. You know how he could come to that realization that she’s right? Not in this movie’s fight with Phasma, but in another fight in The Rise Of Skywalker, because here he should barely win.

Apparently nobody told Rian Johnson this was a trilogy, and the final encounter being here was narratively a mistake. Instead, he’d still get his butt kicked because she’s a better fighter (she is a general) but maybe he manages to save Rose on the ship and escape through luck, rather than shoving Phasma into a fireball on the level below. This is his boogeyman (boogeywoman?), and the final film would show that after the events of The Last Jedi, Finn learned from the events of this movie and trained to be a fighter just as Rey was training to become a better Jedi, both having the love and support of their friends behind him, and it would be their NEXT encounter where Finn would do more than barely escape. The third act should be when he finally stood up to his past, learned from it, and became worthy by his own actions. So in this movie he would decide he isn’t worthy…not yet. Rise Of Skywalker, or untold events between then that comics and novels could fill out, would make him worthy by his own view, and that’s what he would be in the final encounter with Phasma specifically and in the First Order in general.

Even Rose’s sacrifice would be her realizing she’s just as worthy as her sister, and showing Finn it was his actions that made him worthy of her friendship and sacrifice, encouraged by Finn, Rey, and BB-8, the friends who gave him that second chance to be worthy. No Force powers required. Being a Jedi was part of Rey’s character arc, but Finn really doesn’t need it. Jedis are cool and all, but not every character in Star Wars can have cool Force powers. The Droids don’t. Han Solo didn’t. Leia was retroactively the daughter of Force Jesus but she was awesome with nothing more than premintions at her disposal. Finn doesn’t need to be a Jedi because he doesn’t need to be to fulfill his character arc. At the end of the trilogy he should be teaming with Poe to help restore the Republic after the attacks of the First Order and rebuild the New New Republic’s army. He and Rey will always be friends, and they may even see each other again, but he was worthy by his hands. His friends only showed him the way and gave him the chance to reach his true potential.

At least that’s what could have happened if the Sequel Trilogy didn’t suck. But what do you all think? Is there merit in my proposal? Is there something you’d add or change? Someday I will “fix” the sequels because there was potential. It’s Star Wars after all. It deserved better, including Finn.