Ship Bashing Straight Up Sucks

I’ve been telling myself for almost a year now that I ought to delete my tumblr account. The ship bashing of Reylo from the new Star Wars movies on tumblr might be the thing that tears it.

Quick crash course for the five of you who don’t know: “shipping” is an abbreviation of “relationship” coined in the 21st century, defined by dictionary.com as “the act or practice of taking an interest in a romantic relationship between fictional characters or famous people, whether or not the romance actually exists, as by writing fan fiction”. It’s a lot of fun, at least in my opinion.

Let’s say, for example, you romantically ship Hermione Granger and Harry Potter. The canonical events of the Harry Potter series would blow holes in your ship, of course, but in the wonderful world of fanfiction, fan art, and just good old fan speculation, you can explore

Photo Credit: Erik Maell

possibilities of what their relationship would entail in various scenarios. There will be fans who do not like your ship or are merely indifferent to it. That’s fine, everyone is different and not everyone will get the same enjoyment out of the same things as you. When it stops being fine is when you get flat out hate over your ships.

“Hermione can only get together with Ron!” The anti-shippers shout, jabbing their fingers at canon source material. “Harry is secretly gay!” Others announce, which, while that’s an interesting idea, is said solely meant to derail this heterosexual ship. “This is insanely perverse!” They insist, even though, if you think about it for a good half second, it isn’t. These points of contingency might be valid or they might not, but if they are all delivered in the same loud, aggravating way, it becomes difficult to deal with all of them. And then comes the name-calling, the slurs, even the death threats, over people getting enjoyment out of making works of art for a fictional relationship. It often has to do with the ship conflicting with one of their own ships, hatred for one or both of the characters, etc.

I won’t pretend I never participated in ship-bashing. I did. When I was twelve and didn’t know any better, I would get into online fights with people over my hatred of the series Yu-Gi-Oh!’s claim to fame, Thiefshipping, though I’m relieved to say I never went to the extents of slurs or death threats. At nineteen, I recognize that people can like whatever the hell they want to like, “problematic” — one of the most overused words I have ever seen on tumblr — or not. I may not like some ships, but that gives me no right to go around policing people who do. Enter the antis, who have not yet learned this lesson. I wish I could say that they are all just twelve-year-olds like I once was, but no; there are an exasperating number of adults participating in what is essentially just spewing hate in an attempt to wear people down.

The drama I mentioned with the Star Wars fandom has been stewing for six months now. The ship getting the most flak is Reylo — Rey and Kylo Ren.

First of all, why do people ship this ship? The main basis of it I’ve listed here:

• Kylo Ren makes advances on Rey that can be interpreted as romantic, such as him bridal carrying her through a battle field, abandoning his mission that he was obsessed with to pursue her instead, unmasking himself for her, and offering to help teach her the ways of the Force. In the novelization, his leader accuses him of having “compassion” for Rey.
• Rey refers to Kylo Ren as a “creature” and a “monster” in the film and the First Order, the organization Kylo Ren is allied with, has members referred to as “beasts”, causing people to speculate on references to Beauty and the Beast, a romantic fairy tale.

Photo Credit: Elizabeth Schaefer

• Some believe that Rey will be the person to turn Kylo Ren away from the dark path he is on in the same way that Luke saved Darth Vader in the end.
• These two characters have a lot of qualities in common: determination, impulsiveness, steadfastly sticking to their moral values, and repressed emotions.
• Some perceive “sexual energy” in the interrogation scene.

This ship came under fire mostly for these reasons:

• Kylo Ren displays some characteristics of toxic masculinity with his controlling attitude, temper tantrums, and fits of violence, which causes people to hate him out and out and by extension Reylo as a whole.
• Kylo Ren’s treatment of Rey in the film has been called “abusive” by some, especially due to the interrogation scene wherein he mind probes her — oddly not the reverse, though, in spite of Rey seriously mutilating him in the end.
• Some believe there is a possibility that these two characters will be related.
• Some believe that the ten year age difference between them (Rey is nineteen and Kylo Ren is ~twenty-nine) makes this ship pedophilia.

The first main argument against Reylo is understandable — it does not give a license to yell at people online, but it’s understandable. I love Kylo Ren, just like I love his grandpa, but I understand that he can come off as a pretty reprehensible guy. The next is head-scratching at best — Kylo Ren treats Rey with cruelty and violence, yes, she does the same to him. They are, at the moment, enemies on the field of war. The reason people like to throw this “abuse” argument around where they would not with, say, Darth Vader/Obi-Wan Kenobi, unfortunately has a lot to do with Rey’s gender. The possibility of Kylo Ren and Rey being related at this point in time is all heresay. Considering that Luke and Leia being related in the original series was a huge fluke and a bad decision writing-wise, it is not make it likely it will happen again. Lastly, Rey is of consenting age in the U.S., legally an adult, and there have been two canonical relationships with age gaps in Star Wars before: Anakin Skywalker/Padme Amidala (five years) and Han Solo/Leia Organa (ten years). I’m not going to dignify the last argument that antis try to make about Kylo Ren trying to kill Rey because he quite simply does not.

While I feel like I just succinctly debunked these arguments in a matter of sentences, they are still large points of controversy in the Star Wars fandom. Entire blogs on tumblr are devoted to beating down on the enjoyment of fans of the ship. It is made especially frustrating by the points that they keep bringing up either being silly, baseless, overblown, or all three. Whether Reylo ends up being canon or not, this sort of petty hostility does not serve to help anyone.

The only people that some antis are willing to give a free pass to in terms of not receiving the brunt of the hate are people who are claiming to be abuse/rape survivors using the ship as a coping mechanism. Tumblr culture loves to hold these people up as the only people “deserving” to ship controversial ships, which is just… silly. Exploring unhealthy relationships — and, yes, at this point in time Rey and Kylo Ren definitely have a “Foe Yay” and “Villainous Crush” thing going on — is possible to do without emotional baggage on the topic. To use an extreme example, let’s say I wanted to write a fic about murder. By antis’ logic, I would have to be murdered first before I was qualified to do so.

I can tell you right now that I am not the sort of person that will say “It’s just a ship”. To quote Finding Neverland, “What a horrible candle-snuffing word. That’s like saying, He can’t climb that mountain, he’s just a man, or That’s not a diamond, it’s just a rock. Just.” Shipping is an important keystone of any given fandom. People have a lot of fun exploring relationships with one foot in canon and the other in fandom. To receive ship hate — especially mostly baseless ship hate — is annoying at best and disheartening at worst.