Ways I relate to Finn

[ljwrites]

An incomplete list of the ways I relate to Finn, movies and Before the Awakening canon:

1. Is recovering from emotional abuse with all the messiness the process implies
2. Was a promising and high-achieving student, yet never felt like he belonged
3. Tried to win acceptance and friendship by helping someone
4. Walked away from an abusive situation
5. Ended up throwing away a lot of stability and certainty as a result
6. Fell in love with his best friend
7. Confronted his abuser and threw her in the trash
   (This was only metaphorical in my case)
8. Traumatically bonded with someone who was being toxic to him

Comments

[redrikki]

Looking at this list it took me a minute to realize that number 8 was a reference to Rose. Honestly, watching the film, I really didn't get the sense that he felt romantically inclined towards her at all. Of course, I also never got the sense that she was into him until she was suddenly kissing him.

From a narrative structure perspective, Rose makes sense as a character for Finn to bounce off of during his little adventure, but the whole romance come so far out of left field I was left feeling like she was introduced because too many white fans were upset by the idea of him and Rey and the studio didn't have the balls to go full stormpilot.

TLJ negativity ahoy

[ljwrites]

I'm with you that there was 0 romantic buildup--I didn't get the sense that she much liked him, much less was in love. I meant trauma bonding in a non-romantic way, since Finn seemed so eager to please Rose despite how she treated him to the extent of taking on her feelings about Canto Bight in an abrupt switcheroo ("It was worth it to make this town suffer" or some such crap).

Korean fans have also voiced suspicions that Finnrose was thrown in purely as a Finnrey spoiler. Maybe that's why everything about Finnrose was so rushed and shoehorned, because RJ didn't give a crap. I mean neither character was Kylo Ren so why should he care lol. There were even reports of theater audiences bursting into uncomfortable laughter at the kiss, ugh.

Re: TLJ negativity ahoy

[shirasade]

Korean fans have also voiced suspicions that Finnrose was thrown in purely as a Finnrey spoiler.

That's exactly what I told my brother when we left the theatre. I like Rose, and I did enjoy her friendship with Finn, but I got zero romance vibes until that kiss.

Re: TLJ negativity ahoy

[ljwrites]

I love Rose a lot, but yeah, there was no romance there. Also the amount of nastiness I got on Tumblr for simply saying that she was wrong to tase Finn leads me to suspect that a lot of self-proclaimed Rose and Finnrose stans just get off at Finn being treated terribly.

[lb_lee]

Wait, Finn gets to LITERALLY throw his abuser in the trash? That sounds awesome! :D

[ljwrites]

Yeah he threw Phasma in the trash at Han's suggestion! If that isn't an eternal abuse survivor mood, lol. There's a whole post-TFA comic about her escaping the trash chute and killing some officer to cover up her treachery.

[lb_lee]

Good job, Finn! You slam-dunk that garbage right into the can!

--Rogan

[loopy777]

One of my biggest criticisms of TLJ is around Rose. I like her, but I couldn't prove which of these two scenarios are in play: she went through a development arc over the course of the movie, becoming a slightly different person than she was in the beginning; or she begins as a mysterious figure and over the course of the movie we get to see her full character.

Fortunately, Jason Fry seems just as confused as me about her, so at least I'm not at the bottom of the class.

[ljwrites]

I'm inclined to think that she was intended to be a developing and changing character, given that there's nothing particularly mysterious about the way she was introduced, but the execution was all kinds of muddled.