Via Starwars.com:

OUR FIRST MEETING WITH THE VILLAIN IN THE FORCE AWAKENS TELLS US ONLY PART OF WHO HE IS — OR WANTS TO BE.

Audiences can learn a lot about a character by the way a director chooses to introduce them. Rey’s introduction in The Force Awakens revealed many characteristics about her that became more evident and pronounced throughout the film. Rey remained who we thought she was from the beginning to the end of The Force Awakens: independent, brave, and caring. Kylo Ren’s first scene in the same film, on the other hand, shows only one aspect of his conflicted character — ruthless brutality.

The creators of The Force Awakens chose to not shy away from comparisons that this new Star Wars villain would draw to one of the most iconic bad guys of all time, Darth Vader. They decided to instead embrace comparisons between the two characters and use their similarities as a narrative device. J.J. Abrams noted in his commentary for The Force Awakens, “The character of Kylo Ren was one of the most challenging characters because he sort of embodied what this movie was. It was a new story, a new personality created from the DNA of what had come before, but because he was the villain it meant he was in the shadow of Darth Vader one of the great villains in cinema history.”

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