Spoilers What happened the night the Ben turned on Luke

[JD]

One of the most interesting parts of The Last Jedi for me were the reveal of what exactly happened the night that Kylo destroyed Luke's Jedi temple. For me the most interesting part is wondering what would have happened if things had played of differently, either if he hadn't gone into Ben's room planning on killing him, or if he'd gone through with it and killed him. Which was the bigger mistake?
On the one hand going in there was a huge mistake, and I have to wonder if Luke could have worked with him more and prevented him from turning, and possibly used him against Snoke if he hadn't gone in there.
At the same time if he had killed him, there's a pretty good chance he could have severely crippled The First Order, and possibly prevented a lot of what happened from RoTJ all the way through TLJ. There's telling what this would have done to his relationship with Han and Leia though, and I have to wonder what it would have done to him emotionally.

 

[Xerxes82]

Killing Ben would not have solved the problem. Once Luke goes to CONFRONT Ben (Luke's words), Luke has already failed. Yes, he makes things worse as is. But killing Ben creates it's own problems. Not the least of which is that the underlying problem of the darkness doesn't go away. If not Ben, then somebody else. Maybe somebody easier to fight, maybe not. Maybe somebody worse, maybe not.

There is a third path, though Kylo's actions in this film call into question whether it would have worked. Luke could have LOVED Ben. Helped him, guided him, never given up on him. It should have been ABOUT BEN, NOT ABOUT THE DARKNESS. As soon as it became a confrontation, the darkness had already won. Rose summed it up in her plotline with Finn, but it really does get at the heart of where Luke went wrong: he fought to destroy the darkness, rather than fighting to protect Ben. This is why he failed.

Though, again, I'm not sure there was any saving Ben Solo. His turn is much more premeditated and conscious than any we've seen. He doesn't so much brush the dark side and get tainted by it as he does dive headlong in even when it feels wrong. How much of that is a reaction to Luke's actions? We may never know.

 

[DigificWriter]

By the time Luke gave in to his fears, the First Order was already well-entrenched and building up its war machine, so the chain of events leading to Ben's fall wouldn't have had much if any effect on the escalating events that led to the return of war to the galaxy. At most, stopping Ben's fall - either by Luke not giving into his fears at all or by him not hesitating and changing his mind - would've deprived Snoke of an apprentice, forcing him to either seek out someone else to groom or else placing people like Hux and Phasma more in control of the events we saw unfold in The Force Awakens.

 

[JD]

OK, I wasn't entirely sure of the timeline of their rise relative to Ben's transition to Kylo.
The big thing saving Ben, if it was possible, could have changed is the chance that Luke probably would have stayed in play, and that there could have been an entire of New Jedi Order to help combat that First Order. I got the impression that it was the guilt over what he did that drove Luke away just as much, if not more than Ben's turn. So without either of those things he probably would have stayed at his new Temple training more students and might have even been convinced by Leia to take an active leadership role in the Reistance.
There's also the chance Han might have stuck around too, although I don't know if that would have as much impact as a Jedi Master and an order of Knights behind him.
One thing I was surprised to hear about that wasn't addressed much was that apparently there were other students who joined up with Snoke that night. I wonder if we'll ever find out what became of them?

 

[DigificWriter]

The students Ben spared became his Knights of Ren.

I was going to post this in the TLJ Grading thread, but it's also relevant here.

Luke probably didn't start his training school until a year or so after the events of the novel Bloodline (which happen six years before TFA), so his students, including Ben, would have all more than likely been young adults.

 

[JD]

Ok, now that is an interesting bit of info, I had assumed all of that started shortly after ROTJ. That does make you wonder if Ben could have been to far gone already by that point. Do Bloodline or any of the canon sources give any indication of how/when Ben first became involved with Snoke?
I really hope we get the full story of Luke's New Jedi Order, and Ben and Snoke at some point. I was hoping with Snoke and Luke dead that we might get it now, but guess there might be a chance they'll hold off in case they want to throw in some more twists and reveals in IX.

 

[DigificWriter]

Do Bloodline or any of the canon sources give any indication of how/when Ben first became involved with Snoke?

No.

At the time of Bloodline's events, Ben has not yet gone dark, and he and Luke are traveling the galaxy training as Master and Padawan, with Leia and Han's contact with them getting sparser and sparser.

 

[sttngfan1701d]

Here's how Luke should've handled it -- called up Force Ghost Anakin and said "Okay dad, please explain to your fool grandson that going down the Dark path is a mistake. Tell him how Palpatine twisted your mind and used you, and how in the end you were able to redeem yourself. Yoda! Qui-Gon! Get in on this too! This boy is being a dumbass. Talk some sense to him before I start slicing him up."

 

[Captaindemotion]

So are the Knights of Ren still kicking about?

 

[EnsignRicky]

And where does that flashback with Kylo all suited up with his red saber in the rain fit in? It can't possibly be the same night.

This is all of course academic as we all know the real answer has something to do with monkeys and typewriters.

 

[Captain of the USS Averof]

So are the Knights of Ren still kicking about?

Who knows? Who cares? Certainly not Rian Johnson’s TLJ...

And where does that flashback with Kylo all suited up with his red saber in the rain fit in? It can't possibly be the same night.

This is all of course academic as we all know the real answer has something to do with monkeys and typewriters.

Exactly so.

 

[Ithekro]

Visons are not always of the past. Some are of the future.

 

[EnsignRicky]

Exactly. The moment Crewman Number Six, er I mean Snoke the character not important enough for a backstory got written out, the Knights of Ren as well as well as any other remaining questions for that matter, quickly started to become irrelevant, unimportant and uninteresting by the time this broken and destroyed mess was finally over.

Way to steer the franchise Rian.

 

[DigificWriter]

As I understand it, not everything that Rey saw in TFA when she touched Luke's lightsaber literally happened. Some of it was meant to show a metaphysical and metaphorical link between her and Ben/Kylo, and I have a feeling that her seeing him stab someone in the rain - for her, I might add - was an example of that.

 

[plynch]

Vader didn't have a backstory in ep IV, did he? SW is better as myth than modern psychodrama, cause/effect, Western culture/logic.

Snoke is The Bad Guy. Badness. Evil. I don't care about his backstory.

 

[DigificWriter]

Exactly. The moment Crewman Number Six, er I mean Snoke the character not important enough for a backstory got written out, the Knights of Ren as well as well as any other remaining questions for that matter, quickly started to become irrelevant, unimportant and uninteresting by the time this broken and destroyed mess was finally over.

Way to steer the franchise Rian.

We'll likely get more of Snoke's story in Canon, but it's not needed for the films themselves, and if you think otherwise, I think you've either forgotten - or never actually understood - what Star Wars is.

 

[INACTIVESamusAranX]

Vader didn't have a backstory in ep IV, did he? SW is better as myth than modern psychodrama, cause/effect, Western culture/logic.

Snoke is The Bad Guy. Badness. Evil. I don't care about his backstory.

Uhhhh Vader was given a back story in Episode 4.

 

[Ithekro]

But the Emperor did not get any for a long time.

 

[INACTIVESamusAranX]

But the Emperor did not get any for a long time.

Nope. A flaw for sure in the OT.

 

[JD]

Exactly. The moment Crewman Number Six, er I mean Snoke the character not important enough for a backstory got written out, the Knights of Ren as well as well as any other remaining questions for that matter, quickly started to become irrelevant, unimportant and uninteresting by the time this broken and destroyed mess was finally over.

Way to steer the franchise Rian.

Sure it might be nice to get a backstory for Snoke, but it really doesn't matter. We know everything we need to know about Snoke, he was a Dark Sider who turned Ben Skywalker into Kylo Ren, nothing else about him really matters to the story being told.

And where does that flashback with Kylo all suited up with his red saber in the rain fit in? It can't possibly be the same night.

This is all of course academic as we all know the real answer has something to do with monkeys and typewriters.

Do we know for an absolute fact that was that night? Like @DigificWriter said, things seen in the visions aren't always literal.
Even if it was, these kinds of inconsistencies pop up in stories all the time, so I don't let them bother me anymore. If I let these kinds of thing effect my enjoyment of an ongoing story, I would never be able to enjoy anything.