Good Soldiers Follow Orders Part II: The Brainwashing of Anakin Skywalker and Ben Solo and Allusions to Robert Lifton’s Eight Criteria of Thought Reform
TW: This series of essays contains several written depictions of documented human rights violation
“When finally you surrender to us, it must be of your own free will. We do not destroy the heretic because he resists us: so long as he resists us we never destroy him. We convert him, we capture his inner mind, we reshape him. We burn all evil and all illusion out of him; we bring him over to our side, not in appearance, but genuinely, heart and soul. We make him one of ourselves before we kill him.” -George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four
Kylo Ren: “Your son is gone. He was weak and foolish like his father, so I destroyed him.
Han Solo: “That’s what Snoke wants you to believe, but it’s not true. My son is alive.”
Kylo Ren: “No, the Supreme Leader is wise.”
Han Solo: “Snoke is using you for your power. When he gets what he wants, he’ll crush you. You know it’s true.”-The Force Awakens (2015)
In Part I, I explored the similarities between the First Order stormtroopers and the clone troopers and the ways in which both groups have been systematically brainwashed by the First Order and the Empire, respectively. However, Finn of the First Order stormtroopers and Fives and Tups of the clone troopers are not the only Star Wars characters to share seemingly linked narratives with one another.
Many podcasts and meta writers have been exploring the similarities between Ben Solo and Anakin Skywalker since 2016. These contributions to fandom have specifically claimed that Ben Solo’s journey is a deliberate reversal of Anakin’s end. I recommend checking out this meta from @Ohtze_o on Twitter written shortly after the release of The Last Jedi, along with @Wtforceshow and @northgalis on Twitter ( you can also check out a podcast they did together around the subject on YouTube). These accounts have wonderful insight into the topic of “reverse Anakin” from a mythic and literary perspective.
In this last part of my meta series on allusions to brainwashing in Star Wars, I will also be analyzing Ben Solo’s path as a reversal of Anakin Skywalker’s journey, however, I will be doing so through a political and psychological lens. Specifically, I will be walking through the allusions each have to psychologist Robert Lifton’s Eight Totalist Principles and Criteria of Thought Reform written about in his book Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism. While both Palpatine and Snoke execute these eight totalist principles, the tactics that Palpatine and Snoke employ on Anakin and Ben, respectively, are deliberately reversed in the narrative in order to symbolize the completion of Anakin’s story and his inevitable return to the mother (or to the light). This reversal is also essential to the balance of the force and the redemption of the Skywalker legacy that is likely to take place in The Rise of Skywalker.
The Chosen One: Ben Solo as Anakin in Reverse
When we meet Anakin Skywalker in The Phantom Menace, he is the child of an enslaved mother and no father, capable of more than a life in slavery on a desert planet. His gifts save him from a life of hardship and isolation. Willingly but tragically separated from his mother — the only person in his destitute life he ever had — he is thrust into a world of emotional abandonment perpetuated by Jedi doctrine and high expectations bestowed upon him by a cryptic prophecy deeming him the “chosen one.” When he is left unsupported, he is unable to cope with the loss of his mother as she perishes in his arms. His loss becomes fear, which twists into restless, recurring nightmares of what he perceives to be the death of Padme, the woman he shouldn’t love.
Terrified and with no one to turn to, including Obi-Wan Kenobi, his friend and master who continues to uphold the restrictive code of the Jedi Order, Anakin falls prey to Chancellor Palpatine. The Chancellor, a powerful Sith lord in hiding, promises Anakin that he can save his wife from dying and proceeds to exploit and twist Anakin’s loneliness, fear, and rage left vulnerable by the Jedi’s teachings. Anakin’s fall and his rise to become Darth Vader is ultimately due to his obsessive desire to save the woman he loves from an uncertain death, thereby also metaphorically resurrecting the mother he lost. Anakin only returns to the light through the unconditional love of his son, Luke Skywalker, where he realizes in his last moments the true tragedy of Darth Vader.
Ben Solo, on the other hand, is a prince, the child of a princess and the grandson to a queen and dark lord, capable of too much. His gifts isolate him and leave him vulnerable to the influence of a dark power targeting him since birth and lead him further away from his aspiration of becoming a pilot like his father. He is unwillingly separated from his mother, who is presumably one of the only people who understands his force sensitivity and could understand the burden of his lineage. Ben is forced to train as a Jedi, taking him further down a path he does not want for himself. Here he grapples with the light and dark inside of him, finally succumbing to the dark through his perceived attempted murder by his uncle, Luke Skywalker, where he realizes he will never be more than a monster, than another Vader.
Driven by the belief that his mother and father sent him off to his own death bed, he falls prey to Snoke, the predator that has been following him since his childhood. Snoke, the powerful leader of an Empire reborn, promises Ben that he can be free of his pain and commit himself to the dark side if he suppresses his love for those he has formed strong attachments to. Ben is first ordered to kill his father. This is a task that once completed only serves to take Ben further away from the darkness. As a final test to bind Ben to the dark side, Ben is then ordered to kill Rey, a woman he shouldn’t be developing deep feelings for. However, Ben is unable to kill her and instead slays his master.
In The Rise of Skywalker, Ben will presumably move towards the light and fully separate himself from the legacy of Darth Vader. He will repent for the death of his father and — bringing Anakin’s story full circle — will bring balance to the force, find the family Anakin could never have likely with Rey, and return to the mother.
While Anakin begins The Phantom Menace as a wide eyed child who succumbs to the dark and Ben begins The Force Awakens as a monster behind a mask fighting a restless pull to the light, their descents to the dark side are both dependent on the dedication of their masters to the indoctrination and manipulation of their apprentices. Snoke and Palpatine each target, groom, and manipulate Ben and Anakin, respectively, through either the exploitation (in Anakin’s case) or suppression (in Ben’s case) of their strongest, most conflicted emotional ties. Their goal is the same: to seed distrust, hopelessness, and fear in the light to draw their apprentices to the dark.
This idea is common in real life brainwashing. For example, in Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control neuroscientist Kathleen Taylor writes that brainwashing “is forced upon the victim by an attacker whose intention is to destroy the victim’s faith in former beliefs [and] to wipe the slate clean so that new beliefs may be adopted.” This includes bringing that individual over to his or her side completely (as Snoke and Palpatine do with Ben and Anakin) until they believe that their decision is one of free will.
Taylor continues that “the most disconcerting thing about some victims of alleged brainwashing is the vehemence with which they claim to have free will, to have chosen their destiny rather than to have been coerced into it.” This behavior is apparent in both Anakin and Ben. In Revenge of the Sith, Anakin insists to Obi-Wan that the Jedi are evil, while in The Last Jedi, Ben insists to Rey that she must let the past die (including her friends) in order to move forward. Each of these examples are the products of their manipulation. Anakin believes the Jedi are evil because Palpatine has convinced him through careful and constant emotional manipulation that the Jedi will destroy the Republic. Ben believes he should let the past die because Snoke has convinced him through physical pain, grueling tests, and lies about his family that only by letting go of his family can Ben achieve peace and triumph over his inner demons.
Background Part I: Anakin and Palpatine
In Matthew Stover’s Revenge of the Sith novelization, Anakin is haunted by the “dead-star dragon,” a symbol of Anakin’s dueling and conflicting emotions between who he is and what the Jedi want him to be. Stover writes:
“At night, the walls [Anakin] has built sometimes start to frost over. Sometimes they start to crack. At night, dead-star dragon sometimes sneaks through the cracks and crawls up into his brain and chews at the inside of his skull. The dragon whispers of what Anakin has lost. And what he will lose.”
Anakin’s constant fear of what he has lost and what he will lose is shown to the audience most explicitly in the Mortis arc of The Clone Wars. In the arc’s first episode “Overlords” Anakin is drawn to a realm of the force inhabited by the Son (darkness), the Daughter (light), and the Father. He awakes on his first night in the realm to a vision of his mother conjured by the Son. “Shmi” (the darkness) pleads with Anakin to let the dark take his pain from him. The Son’s decision to manifest into his mother symbolizes the lingering agony and guilt that Anakin keeps within.
Attack of the Clones also shows Anakin’s fear of loss building within him and his distrust and disillusionment with the Jedi. For example, after the death of his mother, Anakin lashes out in front of Padme, exclaiming his intense hatred for the Tusken Raiders that killed his mother. He also proclaims his wariness of the Jedi who he thinks are holding him back. Additionally, when Anakin and Padme are discussing Padme’s role as a senator while on Naboo, Anakin offers that people should be made to do what is best for the Republic. This is an opinion that Padme rightfully points out as a “dictatorship.”
These emotions slowly escalating inside of Anakin create a perfect situation for Chancellor Palpatine. Palpatine’s power lies within his ability to plan and wait until the opportune time to lure Anakin to his side. Palpatine keeps Anakin’s trust, acknowledging his feelings where the Jedi will not, and makes Anakin feel as if he is worthy. Palpatine also orchestrates the time that Anakin and Padme spend with each other on Naboo when he requests that Padme be guarded by extra security after a failed attack on her life. The events work to set in motion the love Anakin develops for Padme, which ultimately becomes the final breaking point that leads him to becoming Darth Vader.
Background Part II: Ben and Snoke
In contrast to Palpatine who merely has to wait for his carefully placed chess pieces to align in order to manipulate Anakin’s storming emotions, Snoke must resort to more sinister tactics to bring Ben to the dark.
Andy Serkis has described Snoke as a predator “who identifies weakness…drawing the young and promising to his side with promises of power, then using and discarding his protégés when they are no longer of use.” And from supplementary material and interviews with the cast and crew of the sequel trilogy, it is apparent that Snoke targeted Ben as a child in order to identify — and in many ways create— Ben’s greatest weaknesses.
J.J. Abrams was one of the first to hint at Snoke’s influence over Ben on The Force Awakens’ home release where he explained:
“It’s more than just having a ‘bad seed’ as a kid. Snoke had targeted this kid and knew that this kid was going to be incredibly powerful in the Force and wanted him as an ally…So this mother and father had a target as a son, someone who’s watching their boy, and these parents aren’t there enough to guide him.”
In addition to JJ’s words, we know from Aftermath: Empire’s End by Chuck Wendig that Leia felt a disturbance with her son even before he was born. This has been assumed by the fandom to be Snoke seeking out Ben while he was still in the womb. Leia mentions that she has a dream in which she feels like there are “hands [reaching] for her, hands of shadow, lifting her up, reaching for her throat, her wrists, her stomach…” The novel continues that after Leia felt the uneasy presence within her that she “feels her baby turning inside…struggling to find his bearings, trying so hard to find his way free of her. It’s not time, she thinks. Just a little longer.” Ben’s discomfort within the womb is brought up again later in the novel, which reads that“[Ben] turns inside her again, troubled by something she cannot feel and cannot yet understand.”
The Force Awakens also offers a hint at Ben’s turn to the dark side being the result of Snoke’s targeting and grooming of Ben as a child. In The Force Awakens novelization by Alan Dean Foster, Leia blames Snoke for Ben’s fall. She explains to Han:
“No it was Snoke…he seduced our son to the dark side. He knew our child would be strong with the force. I was hoping that I was wrong…that I could change it. That I could shield him from Snoke’s influence.”
This sentiment returns in The Last Jedi novelization by Jason Fry when Leia explains that Ben was “stolen” from her. She resolves, “…Ben her son. Who’d been stolen from her and Han, stolen by Snoke’s wiles and Luke’s mistakes and his own furies.”
Furthermore, Han alludes to Ben’s fall as the result of Snoke’s trickery in The Force Awakens when he confronts Ben on the bridge within Starkiller Base. He specifically points out that Snoke is manipulating Ben and that Kylo Ren destroying his son’s identity is only what Snoke wants Ben to believe.
Han and Leia’s insistence on blaming an outside entity for their son’s fall should be contrasted with how Obi-Wan Kenobi explains the death of Anakin by Lord Vader, implying that Anakin was responsible for his own destruction.
And finally, in The Last Jedi novelization Snoke muses on the targeting of Ben Solo when he was “still a child — the latent power of the Skywalker bloodline was impossible to miss.”
Besides the constant confirmation that Snoke targeted Ben as a kid, another hint that Ben Solo never sought to be a powerful dark side leader is that the audience is told that Ben grew up wanting only to be like his father. In The Last Jedi novelization, Leia reminisces on moments of Ben’s childhood. She remembers Ben as a toddler “forever following Han…and promising anyone who’d listen that one day he would be a pilot too, like his daddy.” However, his dad was rarely in his life. Ben grew up alone “a churning storm in the Force,” according to Leia in The Last Jedi novelization.
Isolated, Ben was left as an easy target to Snoke who likely seeded distrust and doubt of his family’s love for him over the course of his childhood. This distrust came to a head when his family sent him to learn the ways of the Jedi where he was confronted by his uncle ready to slaughter him in his sleep. Feeling as if he was sent to die by his family and — according to “The Rise of Kylo Ren #2” (to be released in January 2020) — fleeing from the students who blamed him for killing Luke Skywalker, he feels like he has no choice but to run right into Snoke’s awaiting grasp and, with it, the dark side.
All of the details of how Ben was targeted and to what extent Snoke was in Ben’s life before he joined the ranks of the First Order is still unclear. It is becoming apparent, however, that the motivations of Ben’s fall are less about his desire to diminish his own fears as his grandfather had done and more so driven by feelings of hopelessness and abandonment.
Snoke, Palpatine and The Eight Criteria of Thought Reform
The process in which Snoke and Palpatine indoctrinate their apprentices follows the process of psychologist Robert Lifton’s Eight Criteria of Thought Reform. Lifton’s criteria was first discussed in his 1961 work Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism. The novel, which was the result of his research into American captives and indoctrinated Chinese natives during the Korean War, details brainwashing techniques employed by the Chinese communists to shape loyalists of totalist regimes.
In the Star Wars saga, the dark side has consistently drawn allusions to fascist and totalitarian regimes. In the original trilogy, the Empire establishes allusions to Nazi Germany primarily through use of color and costume decisions. The Force Awakens continues with these parallels with the First Order most explicitly during the scene where General Hux gives a speech in front of a sea of stormtroopers before launching the devastating attack on the Republic.
The similar imagery between the Empire and First Order is used to demonstrate that the First Order isn’t a copy of the Empire, but instead an inevitable continuation born from the political fallout of a tyrannical regime. In these situations, new structures of power cannot organize themselves quick enough to ease unrest and fear. This is alluded to in The Last Jedi novelization. The novel notes that, like militant guerrilla regimes waiting in the wings to seize political power after a fallout, “Snoke had shepherded the First Order through its years in the galactic wilds, transforming a band of Imperial refugees into a weapon forged to reclaim the galaxy.”
The Last Jedi novelization also focuses on the similarities between the First Order and the Empire. General Hux states:
“Peavy and his generation saw the First Order’s impending triumph as a restoration of the Empire, not realizing how that only proved their obsolescence…The First Order was the fulfillment of what the Empire had struggled to become. It had distilled and perfected its strengths while eliminating its weaknesses.”
Within these two “totalist” regimes, there are also the nexuses of power — Snoke and Palpatine. Both utilize Lifton’s totalist principles on their apprentices. These themes include: Milieu control, mystical manipulation, the demand for purity, the cult of confession, sacred science, loading the language, the primacy of doctrine over person, and the dispensing of existence.
Milieu Control
Lifton’s Definition: Control of an individual’s communication with the external world, hence of his or her perceptions of reality.
Control Through Isolation
Control of communication is typically best achieved through isolation. For example, Brain-Washing — A Synthesis of the Russian Textbook on Psychopolitics states that “the earliest Russian psychiatrists…understood thoroughly that hypnosis is induced by…extreme privation…”
This is demonstrated as a common method in thought reform tactics utilized by the CIA brainwashing programs explored in Part I and are essential components of hypnosis, psychic driving, drugging, signaling and other tactics that create dissociative personalities. For example, isolation is revealed as a key factor several times in MKULTRA documentation including in MKULTRA Subproject 43. The subproject reads that “there is reason to believe that environmental manipulations can affect the tendencies for dissociative phenomena to occur. Isolation, in particular, can markedly change the individual’s response to suggestion in the form of verbal communication…”
For Anakin, we see the control of communication via isolation in Revenge of the Sith when Anakin is alone with Palpatine. All pivotal scenes between Anakin and Palpatine happen only between the two of them in a private space such as the box at the Galaxies Opera House or within the Chancellor’s office. These private meetings keep Anakin constantly in communication with Palpatine. They also separate him from the Jedi council that is already making Anakin question the trust they place in him.
Additionally, as pointed out by Skytalkers Podcast in their The Rise of Skywalker trailer reaction, Palpatine plots to separate Anakin and Obi-Wan in order to isolate Anakin without his closest friend. He encourages Anakin to leave Obi-Wan after he has lost the battle with Count Dooku and orchestrates Obi-Wan’s mission on Utapau so that Anakin could be left alone with the Chancellor.
Similarly, Ben Solo is also consistently seen in isolation. In The Force Awakens, we only see Ben have brief meetings with Snoke and General Hux before stalking away to private rooms, such as the space where he converses with his grandfather’s burnt helmet (The Force Awakens novelization notes that the room with Vader’s helmet is a “very private place”). His meetings with Snoke are also typically held alone.
Snoke also verbally isolates Ben. When Snoke discusses Han Solo with Ben in The Force Awakens, Snoke tells Ben that “you alone are caught in the winds of the storm.” Ben’s loneliness is also brought up in The Last Jedi novelization when Leia mentions that Ben was alone in his youth, likely signifying Snoke’s control over Ben’s surroundings. This will possibly be corroborated by the upcoming comic “Rise of Kylo Ren #2,” which claims that Snoke is Ben’s “only friend.”
Ben Solo and Allusions to Brain-Changing
Isolation and control over the external world is important to the manipulation of Ben Solo in particular due to the fact that Ben Solo exhibits symptoms of somebody who has been “brain changed.”
Brain changing is a sinister brain control technique that according to CIA officer Edward Hunter in his book Brain-washing in Red China: The Calculated Destruction of Men’s Minds involves “emptying your mind of old ideas and recollections, past periods of your life are wiped away and in these gaps are different memories.” This is different from brainwashing, which uses systematic methods to put subjects into dissociated states that temporarily alter brain functionality and personality. According to Dr. Colin Ross, author of The C.I.A. Doctors: Human Rights Violations by American Psychiatrists, brain-changing uses amnesia or post-hypnotic suggestion to introduce false memories into a subject’s mind “without [their] conscious control of the process.”
The process is elaborated upon in an experiment that occurred during CIA operation code named ARTICHOKE in which, according to Ross, the successful experience introduced a false memory “into the Subject’s mind without his conscious control of the process” multiple times. Ross writes that “the ARTICHOKE Team concluded that the procedure was successful…the subject, although not having specific amnesia for the ARTICHOKE treatment, nevertheless was completely confused and memory was vague and faulty.”
In some cases, these false memories can manifest as completely different personalities that remain permanent instead of activated within specific moments. For example, Ross gives the case study of Linda MacDonald. MacDonald received, along with brain changing tactics deployed in ARTICHOKE, 102 electroconvulsive therapy treatments, as well as psychic driving, drugging, prolonged sleep treatment, and prolonged psychological isolation. Ross writes:
“To this day, Linda MacDonald is unable to remember anything from her birth to the time she entered the Allan Memorial Institute in 1963. Dr. Cameron created a type of dissociative disorder in Linda MacDonald. He demonstrated what was considered to be in doubt in the BLUEBIRD and ARTICHOKE documents; he proved that doctors skilled in the right procedures can erase a subject’s memory.
The Linda MacDonald who was born in Vancouver in 1937 is not the Linda MacDonald I interviewed. The Linda I talked to is a new and separate identity that was created by Linda herself, after discharge from the Allen Memorial Institute…After destroying Linda MacDonald’s identity and memory, Dr. Cameron allowed a new identity to evolve spontaneously outside the walls of his institution.”
In the sequel trilogy, Ben Solo has several moments where he has allusions to these types of brain-changing experiments, including experiments that would induce memory loss. There are moments where it appears Ben’s memory have been “wiped” and replaced with new, false memories with the goal of creating new identities. I have provided the following examples:
A. A Child in a Mask
The first and most obvious example of allusions to brain changing is Ben’s creation of Kylo Ren — an identity created by Ben Solo to hide his perceived weaknesses and the attachments to his former life. The mask represents this dissociative personality, similar to the separate identity formed by Linda MacDonald after she was brain-changed. Furthermore, Kylo Ren represents memories Ben now must carry, bestowed upon him via allusions to brain-changing by Snoke (e.g. that his uncle was really ready to slaughter him in his sleep).
This is different from Anakin who is locked behind the mask of Darth Vader due to failings of his own doing when he is left to burn alive on Mustafar. Darth Vader is also an identity that Anakin accepts willingly where Ben Solo creates Kylo Ren after he believes he has no where to run to but into the clutches of his abuser. As already discussed in this essay, Ben’s motivations for turning to the dark are likely of Snoke’s doing.
B. Rejection of “Sentiment”
Dr. Alden Sears, an MKULTRA contractor, asked in MKULTRA Subproject 49, “can auto-hypnosis be taught so as to be as effective as hetero-hypnosis in the canceling out of pain or other stress conditions; i.e., if this can be done a person could create his own world and be happy in it even though he were actually confined in a very small place which was extremely filthy…”
In other words, one of the goals of hypnosis for the purposes of brainwashing/brain-changing was to suppress the present state of a person for an artificial one, even if that person were trapped in a horrific situation.
This concept is similar to a key component of Ben Solo’s training. It is established in The Force Awakens and the Marvel comic “Star Wars: Age Of Resistance — Supreme Leader Snoke” in particular that Ben believes that his family does not love him and left him to die at the hands of his uncle. It is essential for Snoke that Ben reject sentiment since this is how Snoke keeps Ben on the dark side.
For example, in The Force Awakens novelization, Snoke tells Ben that the Empire fell because Vader betrayed his master and saved his son. “Sentiment,” is the answer Ben gives when asked what corroded the Empire and allowed the Republic to rise. The narrative makes it clear that Snoke has equated sentiment with death in Ben’s mind. Sentiment is also used as a major tool to shame Ben Solo, specifically when Snoke shames Ben’s feelings of anguish about murdering his father at the beginning of the The Last Jedi (I will not be getting into the political allusions to how shame is utilized in the sequel trilogy here but I have elaborated on Ben Solo, Snoke, and The Shame Model in this meta written before The Last Jedi).
One specific example where Ben displays clear signs of a thought reformed individual is in The Last Jedi novelization where Ben realizes that Rey had left him alive on The Supremacy following Holdo’s sacrifice. He notes that Rey left him alive “almost as if she cared for him…well, it was another foolish, sentimental decision. And this one would be her destruction.”
In this passage, Ben equates sentiment with death as Snoke had taught him. This signals that his beliefs had been altered so extensively that even after Snoke’s death, Ben is not free to discover his own mind. In fact, Snoke’s lingering control on Ben’s mind is most tragically exemplified in The Last Jedi novelization. After stepping over Snoke’s corpse, Ben pleads with Rey, “you’re holding on…let go — ” a representation of the state of Ben’s mind holding onto the identity that has been crafted for him over the course of his entire life.
C. “I Didn’t Hate him”
The replacement of the true father for an abusive relationship with a father figure acts as another example of allusions to brain-changing tactics. The Force Awakens establishes that Snoke has become more of a father figure to Ben than Han ever was despite the emotional, mental, and physical abuse explored in this essay. For example, in The Force Awakens, Ben is consistently coming to Snoke for “guidance.” On the bridge while confronting Han Solo, Ben refers to the Supreme Leader as “wise.”
Furthermore, The Force Awakens novelization describes a relationship between Ben and Snoke where Snoke knows Ben better than any other person. The novel reads:
“That’s all she is, yes. A scavenger from that inconsequential Jakku. Completely untrained, but strong with the Force. Stronger than she knows.” His mask off, Ren replied with what seemed to be his usual assurance. No one else would have sensed a difference. Snoke did.
The idea that only Snoke could sense certain emotions from Ben occurs again in The Last Jedi when Snoke explains “ I cannot be betrayed, I cannot be beaten. I see his mind, I see his every intent.”
Presumably, since Snoke has so much control over Ben’s mind, he is able to understand Ben because he has in many ways “created” him. This extends to being able to twist Ben’s feelings about his own father. On the bridge, Ben tells Han that “[Snoke] knows you for what you really are…Not a general, not a hero. Just a small time thief and smuggler.”
It becomes apparent, however, from Ben’s agony following the murder of his father, that the hatred towards Han is hallow. Given this, it’s clear that— unlike Anakin who had real hate for the Jedi — all perceived hatred towards his father are lies implanted by Snoke.
There are a few examples to suggest why this is true. For starters, Ben tells Rey in The Last Jedi that he did not hate his father. Instead he is resentful that his father threw him away like garbage. However, the idea of Han “throwing him away” has already been called out by Han in The Force Awakens as something that “Snoke wants [Ben] to believe.”
Additionally, it’s established that Ben has a deep love for his father. The Last Jedi novelization sets up in another one of Leia’s flashbacks to Ben’s childhood that Ben only ever wanted to be a pilot like Han. Additionally, in The Force Awakens novelization, Leia emphasizes that Han is the only one who could get through to their son because “he was his father,” alluding to the bond Ben must have once had with Han. A behind the scenes clip of The Force Awakens also offers further insight into what Han and Ben’s relationship was like when Leia says “you could always see him better than I could.” This further suggests that Han and Ben were close.
The close relationship and love Ben has for his parents is further reinforced in “Age of Resistance — Supreme Leader Snoke” when Ben is challenged to murder an illusion of his parents within the cave on Dagobah. When he is unable to kill his parents, he destroys the cave instead.
D. Lost Memory on the Falcon
In a The Force Awakens deleted scene, Ben enters the Falcon after it crash lands onto Starkiller Base. While it didn’t make the final cut of the film, the scene remains in the novelization. The novel describes that as Ben approaches the cockpit of the Falcon, he is “looking for — he wasn’t sure. Something that might speak to him. Something recognizable. Something…”
The text trails off as if Ben cannot grasp why he is on the Falcon or what memories it holds for him. This could possibly be another example of a memory manipulated by Snoke in an attempt to make him forget any good memories he likely had with Han as a child.
E. Luke Skywalker’s Rage
In The Last Jedi, we get Ben’s memory of the night the Jedi temple burned after Luke attempted to murder Ben in his sleep. The novelization description of the scene in the film states that ,“the Jedi Master’s face is twisted in a snarl…Ben can see his uncle has gone too far to turn back. He will not falter or hesitate; rather, he will bring his lightsaber down and cleave his nephew in two while he sleeps.” In the film, we see a wild, brutal Luke Skywalker, ready to kill. However, in“Age of Resistance-Supreme Leader Snoke,” an illusion of Luke in the cave on Dagobah assures Ben that he has no intention of killing him.
The cave is a representation of the subconscious. It shows the character what they know, what they fear, and what they may become. The twisted memory later on in Ben’s mind when he knows that Luke did not want to kill him deep down in his subconscious is another example of where Ben has heavy allusions to somebody whose memories have been systematically altered.
Cult of Confession
Lifton’s Definition: The use of and insistence on confession to minimize individual privacy.
The “cult of confession” is seen in Star Wars multiple times. In Revenge of the Sith, Palpatine isolates Anakin at the Galaxies Opera House and coaxes Anakin to confess his nightmares about Padme. In this private discussion, the Chancellor also sews seeds of distrust about the Jedi and pushes Anakin to confess that the Jedi have ordered him to spy on Palpatine.
There is a better example, however, found in The Force Awakens where the Supreme Leader compels his victim to confess his deepest most personal feelings and sins to a figure of the past.
Vader’s Helmet and the Minimization of Ben Solo’s Privacy
In 1958, Dr. Paul Reiter published a case study entitled “Antisocial or criminal acts and hypnosis: a case study.” The study detailed the case of Danish man Palle Hardrup who in 1954 committed a murder and robbed a bank, claiming that he did not know he had committed the crimes. Reiter concluded in his case study that Hardrup was under the influence of hypnotic conditioning.
Reiter explained that Hardrup had been conditioned via hypnotic suggestion by a criminal named Bjorn Nielsen while the two were imprisoned in Hortens State Prison starting in the late 1940s. Nielsen and Hardrup had developed a friendship and eventually Nielsen lulled Hardrup into a period of isolation that lasted 18 months. During this time, Hardrup was either working exclusively with Nielsen or, more frequently, the two sat alone in their cell.
The hypnotic conditioning administered by Nielsen started off as hours and hours of meditation of transcendence and relaxation disguised under the front of religious meditation and yoga. These sessions eventually brought Hardrup into trance-like states and — as these sessions usually occurred at night — Hardrup would often go to sleep without falling out of the trance.
Eventually, after months of conditioning, Nielsen introduced a guardian spirit (a Deity) that Nielsen called “X.”
Nielsen through X would tell Hardrup via post-hypnotic suggestion (or suggestion after hypnotic states had been induced) that Hardrup’s current misfortunes were all tests to strengthen him for future tasks.
These tasks would ultimately prepare Hardrup for his destiny by creating the Danish National Communist Party; a Party that would allow Hardrup to unite Scandinavia under one government.
Eventually, Neilsen (still through the spirit X) began assigning Hardrup violent tasks that he needed to do in order to reach his full potential. Only through the fulfillment of these tasks could Hardrup fulfill his destiny.
The brainwashing of Hardrup is not unlike the implied brain-changing of Ben Solo. In The Force Awakens, Ben discusses his most personal and deepest fear: his constant pull to the light where he sees no belonging. He exposes this fear to a ghost of a man who he knows died in order to save his son. In fact, the very good in Anakin that is used to save his son is used to shame Ben for the sentiment he feels towards his family.
So then why is Ben pleading to the spirit of a redeemed man to show him the darkness?
Like the spirit X who acts as a conduit for Neilson’s methods of brainwashing on Hardrup, Vader’s helmet acts as a conduit for Snoke’s methods of thought reform on Ben. It also reinforces not only isolation as seen in milieu control, but is an example of Snoke’s use of the cult of confession. Feeling isolated and alone, Ben is compelled to confess his greatest fear to this object in an attempt by Snoke to minimize Ben’s privacy and confess his weaknesses.
The biggest hint that Vader’s helmet is a ploy by Snoke to exploit Ben is that the dialogue Ben uses is very close to dialogue used by Snoke. For example, Ben pleads to the helmet to“show [him] again the power of the darkness.” There are several times in The Force Awakens novelization where Snoke explains that he must “show” Ben the power of the darkness. For example, Snoke asks Hux to bring Ben to him in order to “show” Ben the dark side because he “needs a reminder.”
Additionally, Ben makes it clear that he is only confessing his fears to the helmet because “the Supreme Leader senses [his weakness].” This implies that the need to confess to the helmet takes place when Snoke is disappointed in Ben — a tactic commonly used under the cult of confession to keep the victim from keeping secrets from the totalitarian leader.
Snoke, Ben and Confession Through Shame
Snoke also employs the cult of confession in his private meetings with Ben. Once he has isolated Ben in The Force Awakens, he pushes him to admit his feelings for his father. Snoke taunts Ben, telling him that “even you have never faced such a test.” His words are a challenge that pressure Ben until he denies that he has no attachment to Han Solo.
Snoke utilizes a similar tactic in The Last Jedi when he shames Ben for having too much of his “father’s heart.” The shame urges Ben to declare to Snoke that he killed his father without hesitation. To further Ben’s humiliation, Snoke calls upon Vader, the dissociative identity that Snoke wants Ben to become. Snoke asserts:
“When I found you, I saw what all masters live to see: raw, untamed power. And beyond that, something truly special — the potential of your bloodline. A new Vader. Now I fear I was mistaken. You’re no Vader, you’re just a child in a mask.”
Here Snoke is exploiting one of Ben’s deepest fears — that he will never be as strong as Darth Vader. The use of Han Solo and Vader within this moment are ultimately used to minimize Ben’s privacy by exposing his terror and anguish.
Finally, we also see these tactics utilized in “Age of Resistance — Supreme Leader Snoke” when Snoke brings Ben to the cave on Dagobah. The cave is a symbol of Ben’s deepest and most private fears. In order to commit to the dark side, part of Ben’s training is to kill all who lie within the cave, which include Luke Skywalker and his parents. While Ben does not end up killing his parents, the act works to expose Ben’s mind to Snoke for him to suppress and manipulate while he remains his apprentice.
Snoke, Ben, and Confession Through Physical Violence
In Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control, Taylor sites the account of Father Francis Luca, a priest who was arrested and underwent thought reform while living in China. She writes:
“When he was not being interrogated, Luca was placed in a small bare cell with other prisoners, chosen for their compliance and told that assisting in Luca’s thought reform would further their own release. Their duty, which they carried out enthusiastically for hours at a time, was to ‘struggle’ him with a torrent of questions and accusations about his activities and beliefs, demanding that he confess and severely criticizing anything he said. He was forced to stay standing until his legs swelled with fluid and became infected, and was kept awake almost continuously (on one occasion he was allowed to sleep after he fainted). He endured this treatment for a month, during which he made several completely false confessions and became so confused that he had great difficulty in remembering what he had confessed. By that stage, as he later reported to Robert Lifton, ‘I would say almost anything they wanted me to say.’”
In Star Wars, we see allusions to or explicit examples of physical violence against Ben Solo by Snoke. For example, in “Age of Resistance — Supreme Leader Snoke”, Snoke physically attacks Ben, punching him across his face with a large ring when Ben does not immediately follow his orders.
Furthermore, in The Last Jedi, Snoke strikes Ben with force lightning when Ben lurches towards him. This is likely a consistent tactic used to control Ben’s actions.
Also in The Last Jedi, there is a small moment in the throne room confrontation between Rey and Snoke when Ben leans his head slightly to avoid the lightsaber about to fly into Rey’s head even when the lightsaber is nowhere near him. This action suggests a reflex developed through long-term abuse, like a wounded animal awaiting pain.
This physical violence has the purpose of controlling Ben and keeping him compliant, much like the physical violence used against Father Luca while he was being indoctrinated.
Mystical Manipulation
Lifton’s Definition: Evoking certain patterns of behavior and emotion in such a way that they seem to be spontaneous. Mystical manipulation often refers to higher purposes or supernatural authorities such as fate, the hand of history, or God, or to being chosen, or to the divine or semi-divine status of the controlling organization as representative of a supernatural authority.
Mystical manipulation appears in Star Wars most obviously as the idea of “the chosen one.” Snoke uses the power of Ben’s bloodline to bestow a “divine” purpose onto Ben Solo. Ben Solo is meant to finish what his grandfather started because Snoke has groomed Ben to believe that Vader is his legacy. Failing to achieve this legacy has become Ben’s greatest fear. For example, in The Last Jedi, Snoke calls upon the power of Ben’s “bloodline” and Ben’s ultimate destiny to become “a new Vader” with Snoke’s guidance. We also see this at the end of The Last Jedi when Snoke demands Ben “fulfill [his] destiny” by snuffing out his sentiment for Rey by ending her life.
Palpatine also convinces Anakin that the dark side is his destiny. “What have I done?” Anakin begs after just killing Mace Windu to save The Chancellor. Palpatine responds: “You’re fulfilling your destiny, Anakin.”
Additionally, Palpatine, in his constant effort to reinforce Anakin’s purpose that he feels he lacks from the Jedi Council, refers to Anakin as the “eyes, ears and voice of the Republic.” He tells Anakin that the Republic “needs” him “more than [he knows].” Palpatine affirms,“the counsel doesn’t appreciate your talents. They don’t trust you, Anakin.They see your future. They know your power will be too strong to control…Let me help you to know the subtleties of the Force.”
The courage and power Palpatine bestows upon Anakin establishes trust between Anakin and Palpatine while exploiting the rage that Anakin has felt by not being included in the Council.
In the Revenge of the Sith novelization, Palpatine also emboldens Anakin to think of himself as greater than the Jedi and as a savior of the galaxy:
“Think of it, Anakin,…You have destroyed their political head. Take their military commander, and you will have practically won the war. Single-handed. Who else could do that, Anakin? Yoda? Mace Windu? They couldn’t even capture Dooku. Who would have a chance against Grevious, if not Anakin Skywalker? The Jedi have never faced a crisis like the Clone Wars — but also they have never had a hero like you. You can save them. You can save everyone.”
Palpatine’s words again encourage Anakin to believe that the dark side will help him accomplish his personal goals, as well as save democracy from the hands of the Jedi.
The Demand for Purity
Lifton’s Definition: The belief that elements outside the chosen group should be eliminated to prevent them contaminating the minds of group members.
Order 66 — or Palpatine’s order to execute the remaining Jedi — is an example of the demand for purity. Leading up to Order 66, Palpatine convinces Anakin that the Jedi are to blame for unrest and that if they are not destroyed “the civil war will not end.” He refers to the Jedi’s views as “dogmatic” and “narrow”, emphasizing that Anakin should be careful of their influence and their plot to control the Republic. He depicts them as power hungry and a threat to democracy, imploring Anakin to remember his early teachings.
Snoke uses similar methods, specifically when he approves Hux’s decimation of the Republic. In regards to Ben — and as established many times in this essay — Snoke encourages Ben to murder those he loves in order to keep his love for them from pulling him back to the light. To control him, Ben is ordered to kill his father. In order to complete this training, he must then murder Rey, who threatens to restore hope in Ben.
The Dispensing of Existence
Lifton’s Definition: The right to control the quality of life and eventual fate of existence of both group members and non-members. It is the Party’s belief that there is only one path to truth — ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father, but by me’ (John, 14:6) — that it alone knows that path, and that false paths must be eliminated.
Palpatine and Snoke both take control of the quality of life and existence of their apprentices most obviously by giving them new identities. In Revenge of the Sith when Anakin gives himself over to the dark side following the death of Mace Windu, Palpatine declares that he will be known as Darth Vader. Anakin becomes this identity, eventually encasing himself inside of a machine after his body is burned in his failed fight with Obi-Wan (his former life as a Jedi). This signifies Palpatine’s triumph over Vader and his isolation from the rest of the world within his cocoon. It also signifies the complete release of free will and the former self.
Vader’s identity is not questioned until he is met by his son who, in an attempt to turn him to the light, pleads with him to remember Anakin Skywalker, his true name that he had only forgotten. In Vader’s final moments, his mask is removed by his son. This act metaphorically leads him back into the world that Palpatine eliminated where he can look at his son with his own eyes and, more importantly, with his own mind.
Like Vader, Ben Solo is also a dissociative identity that is controlled by Snoke, both via Kylo Ren and by the identity of a “new Vader” that Snoke wants him to become. In The Force Awakens, Ben is removed from his true identity both by name and by appearance. Snoke forbids Ben Solo’s name to be said inside the First Order and the majority of the film shows Ben behind a mask, where the novel describes his voice through the mask as “the sick flavor of the disembodied.” Han also describes Ben as “alien.” On the bridge, he explains that he “stared back at the face of the creature that had been his son. There was nothing to see there. Only darkness in the shape of a face: alien, unthinking, unfeeling.”
Sacred Science
Lifton’s Definition: Viewing the ideology’s basic dogmas as both morally unchallengeable and scientifically exact, thus increasing their apparent authority.
Palpatine uses sacred science when he convinces Anakin that only by allowing Palpatine to become his teacher could he “achieve a power greater than any Jedi.” He emphasizes that the dark side could help Anakin save his wife from death and offer Anakin a life of significance that the light never could.
Snoke uses sacred science when he reiterates to Ben that the dark side is a savior from death through the abolishment of those he loves in the light. He is so confident that Ben sees him as the ultimate authority over the force and over him that Snoke declares to Rey in the throne room that he “cannot be betrayed.”
Loading the Language
Lifton’s Definition: The group interprets or uses words and phrases in new ways so that often the outside world does not understand. This jargon consists of thought-terminating clichés, which serve to alter members’ thought processes to conform to the group’s way of thinking.
While there is no direct allusion in Star Wars to this principle, there is an example where language is used to control thought processes and enable behaviors even after the death of the thought leader.
In the sequel trilogy, there are phrases that are repeated as to show the authority and power that Snoke has over Ben’s mind and beliefs. For example, Ben relies several times in The Last Jedi on the idea that to move on and grow, one must forget and kill the past. This comes up twice: 1) to Rey in the third force bond scene when he tells her to “let the past die” to become what she is meant to be and 2) to Rey at the end of the throne room fight when he tells her that it is “time to let old things die.” This idea does not originate from Ben, but from Snoke. Through-out both films, Snoke encourages Ben to kill his past, specifically his father and his emotional attachments.
“Age of Resistance — Supreme Leader Snoke” also reveals that Ben’s initial training involved Snoke leading him to literally kill his past in the tree on Dagobah. Snoke explains in the comic that Ben must go to Dagobah to “face what is holding [Ben] back…[he] will either fail…or [he] will kill it.” Snoke yells at Ben later when he is in the cave to “kill” his past and to snuff out any attachments he still has.
The Primacy of Doctrine Over Person
Lifton’s Definition: The idea that dogma is more true and more real than over person and anything experienced by an individual human being.”
This principle is continuously part of Palpatine’s rhetoric about the power of the dark side and it’s ability to save life, take it away, and push forward the absolute purpose and destiny of anybody who masters it.
In the sequels, it is clear at this point that Snoke emphasizes that the dark side is above Ben’s feelings for his family and will ultimately show Ben who he is truly meant to be. It is instilled dogma that continues even after Snoke’s death and something that Ben will have to work hard to decondition if he ever hopes to return to the self.
The Rise of Skywalker: Redeeming Vader’s True Name
These methods of brainwashing and their impact on Ben Solo and Anakin Skywalker’s identities are integral to the balance of the force and the legacy of the Skywalkers. While these protagonists remain bound to dissociative identities, they are unable to balance the light and the dark within themselves. In order to complete the prophecy and balance the force, there must be a recognition of free will and acceptance of the true self.
As already experienced, this is seen briefly with Anakin at the end of Return of the Jedi. Anakin’s mask is removed and metaphorically Anakin becomes uncaged from the identity of Vader. However, his death makes it so that he is unable to rediscover the self. Therefore, the shadow of Darth Vader and the power Palpatine held over Anakin begins to loom over the Skywalker legacy. The shadow of Anakin’s dissociative identity defines him and eventually his grandson. Ensnared in that shadow and the power it gives Snoke to manipulate Ben, Ben falls to the dark, the force is unbalanced, and the galaxy remains in chaos.
In order for Ben to fulfill the prophecy and restore the Skywalker legacy, Ben needs to vanquish the shadow of Vader (or the identity Snoke wanted him to become). This will be done by freeing himself from both masks — Kylo’s and Vader’s — and confronting the conditioning within him. This also includes confronting his own fears and resentment towards his father, Rey, and his mother.
Destroying the shadow of Vader also means destroying Palpatine. Palpatine’s role is essential in this climax as he is defined by his ability to manipulate and control the mind. Palpatine’s greatest victory — seducing Anakin Skywalker to the dark — has yet to be diminished as Vader is all the galaxy remembers. As the shadow of Vader survived, so did Palpatine’s power.
How Palpatine will be defeated isn’t all that important. Whether Ben helps destroy Palpatine or Rey is more instrumental in his demise is inconsequential compared to the meaning of Ben’s redemption. If the Skywalkers are freed of Vader’s legacy and all remnants of his control are destroyed, Palpatine’s power will also be depleted. This is why Ben Solo’s redemption (and by extension the return of his identity) and survival are essential to the narrative. If Ben Solo dies and cannot live to wash the sins of his own past, as well as his grandfather’s, Ben and Anakin’s identities will not be their own.
If Ben Solo is able to release himself from Snoke’s conditioning and lives, however, he will bring the narrative full circle, showing not only Ben Solo’s return to the self but, by extension, Anakin’s return to the little boy on Tatooine. The galaxy, no longer burdened by the Empire’s shadow, will find peace and the Skywalker legacy, now emboldened by free will and the power over its own destiny, will rise.
Further Reading
The CIA Doctors: Human Rights Violations by American Psychologists (2006), Colin A. Ross, M.D.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015), Alan Dean Foster
Brain-washing in Red China: The Calculated Destruction of Men’s Minds (1951), Edward Hunter
Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005), Matthew Stover
Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2018), Jason Fry
Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control (2004), Kathleen Taylor
Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of Brainwashing in China (1961), Robert Lifton
