L.J. Writes

Kylo Ren/Ben Solo is often held up in fandom as an example of a mentally ill abuse survivor whose prospect redemption is said to be an inspiration and hope for fans who are mentally ill and/or have survived abuse. (I have talked before about fandoms' tendency to project marginalized identities on white guy characters.) His bouts of rage seem to be a major basis for this assertion, with the reasoning being that no one would be that irrationally angry if they were sane/neurotypical. His uncontrolled temper, these fans say, must be a sign of trauma, or borderline personality disorder, or some other neurodivergence.

Or maybe it's a sign of a deeply entitled and abusive person?

( Abuse, trauma, Nazis, misogyny, suicide mention... )

stitchmediamix and diversehighfantasy, two of the most insightful commentators on fandom racism, were having a Twitter conversation on the racial empathy gap until, in a development so meta it feels like surrealist parody,(1) someone felt the need to add one of those "actually I'm not racist because..." replies.(2) In this case they evidently lost empathy for Finn when he "started firing on his own side."

Stitch has the post-game of this exchange, including responses that are on other threads and/or deleted later on, so refer to that thread for an analysis on why this bit of idiotic derailment is so indicative of fandom's problem with racism.

( I'm just going to rant in the margins & footnotes )