Star Wars Meta INCOMING

There's an Wookieepedia article called "Destruction of Luke Skywalker's Jedi", but even the title of the article is labelled "pure conjecture". It's very carefully worded to stick to pretty much exactly what Han said in the movie, as well. Though it does add the tidbit from the Visual Dictionary that "destroying the Jedi that Luke had been training" earned Kylo the nickname of "Jedi Killer". I'll be interested to see if that nickname is ever repeated in the films.

I think it's very possible you're right about the idea of a temple tended by Jedi supporters and scholars (the "acolytes" you mentioned), rather than actual Force-sensitives. Perhaps they were gathering information and artifacts that would help Luke find and train more Jedi, and that's what Kylo (with or without the help of his fellow Knights) destroyed. Perhaps Lor San Tekka and his followers escaped that destruction and fled to hide out on Jakku, hoping to keep Kylo from finishing what he started (see what I did there?).

Also, Rey's Force vision includes a scene of Luke touching Artoo while a "temple" (as the script calls it) burns in the background. It's dark, but there's no sign of rain -- whereas in the next scene where we see the "Clan Leader" stabbed by Kylo, it's pouring. Two different incidents, perhaps? Could the second one be a glimpse into the future rather than the past, like the image Rey saw of a masked Kylo stalking her through the snow?

SO MANY UNANSWERED QUESTIONS. Is it December 2017 yet?

Yeah, you're right about the "one boy, an apprentice" line. And there's certainly been a lot of speculation about Rey possibly being one of Luke's students, but leaving her on Jakku would involve mind-wiping her or replacing her memories with false ones so she wouldn't remember anything about Luke or the Force, and that would mean introducing new Jedi force powers we've never yet seen in canon. Also, Luke would have had to have left Rey on Jakku a long time before Ben turned to the Dark Side, since in Bloodline Ben is 23, still travelling with Luke, and Leia thinks of him fondly and without any apparent concern. (Which would make Rey 13-14 at the time, far too old to be the newly abandoned child in her flashback.)

Agreed that we don't need to see the EU plotlines rehashed in the new movies, any more than we needed to see the Virgin and BBC New Adventures plots rehashed in the Doctor Who revival (even if they did sneak an adaptation of the former 7th Doctor NA Human Nature in at one point).

(There is a SUPER GREAT novel-length "Rey is rescued by Luke and Ben as a child and ends up at the Jedi Academy" AU fanfic on AO3, though, if you're even slightly interested in that. The writing is fantastic and I can't wait for the sequel: Like Young Gods, by diasterisms.)

Anyway, I totally agree with you about the unlikelihood of Luke retiring to set up an academy in the wake of ROTJ, not to mention the practical difficulty of doing so even if he'd wanted to. The more I think about it, the more I'm amazed how easily we all (and I include myself because I bought into it for a long time) jumped to that conclusion and how many otherwise well-thought-out metas took it for granted.

BLOODLINE is super great and I highly recommend it. It's a fantastic look at Leia's character, has some really engaging and fascinating new characters (one of whom was in the original draft of the TFA script, but got cut) and definitely adds a new dimension to the events of the film. I personally haven't read any of the SW novels since Courtship of Princess Leia, which was so dreadful it put me off reading any further, but the EU's no longer considered canon anyway, so that's all right. :)

I also recommend LOST STARS, which takes place during the original trilogy and gives some background for the Battle of Jakku, as well as a fascinatingly nuanced look at how a principled, caring person could end up serving the Empire and believing the Rebellion are a bunch of terrorists (yet without justifying or excusing real evil, which is an impressive balancing act). Claudia Gray has quickly become my favorite Star Wars tie-in author and I dearly hope she gets to write more books!

And I completely agree with you on ROTS. Never, ever want to see that movie again.

I think, along with what drakyndra and others have said above, there's still a good chance that Kylo killed a bunch of Luke's acolytes who were trying to help him bring back the Jedi, even if those people weren't actually Jedi themselves. So in that sense it doesn't make a redemption arc any more likely...

Although I do think it's interesting to note that unlike Anakin Skywalker, who was explicitly shown murdering (or at least about to murder) a large number of Force-sensitive younglings who were utterly incapable of defending themselves or even realizing what he was about to do, we have no reason to believe that Kylo has ever killed a child, fellow student or otherwise. (The villagers in Tuanul were all adults who had chosen to follow Lor San Tekka as part of his Church of the Force. Some were obviously better fighters than others, and none were strong enough to beat a squadron of stormtroopers, but they weren't kids.)

The biggest hurdle to a redemption arc for Kylo, arguably, is Han's murder. But we're shown Han forgiving Kylo even in his dying moments (the junior novelization even says this explicitly), and I find it really hard to believe that the script would have Leia say "there's still light in him" and urge Han to "bring him home" without some kind of eventual payoff. It's just too bleak.