Disney's Star Wars sequels only really touched on Kylo Ren's time as Ben Solo very briefly, and while we learned about the moment he turned his back on being a Jedi, his relationship with his parents was never fully explored. It was certainly alluded to (mostly in The Force Awakens), and the villain clearly cared about his mother...even after murdering his father in cold blood!
Lev Grossman wrote a behind the scenes piece on The Rise of Skywalker in which he interviewed Adam Driver, and during a chat with Inverse, he shared some insight into the actor's thoughts on the sort of childhood the Supreme Leader of the First Order had.
"I think probably the thing that was missing for me, I wanted to see more about Kylo’s childhood. I thought they would go back to show us more about why he turned to the dark side. [Driver] said that both Han Solo and Leia were way too self-absorbed and into this idea of themselves as heroes to really be attentive parents in the way a young and tender Kylo Ren really needed."
"There wasn’t really that much of it in the movie so I just think we have to assume his childhood sucked," Grossman concluded, pondering what might have been.
Both Han and Leia seemed to care deeply about Ben, but it's certainly interesting to think about them not being particularly good parents to their son. A recent tie-in comic book revealed that Supreme Leader Snoke (a.k.a. Emperor Palpatine) influenced Ben as a youngster, so with him in his head, it's no great surprise that he ended up falling to the Dark Side.
What's your opinion on Driver's take on Kylo Ren's childhood?
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