With Star Wars launching into the new Legacy of Vader comic series exploring Kylo Ren’s character arc in-between The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker, we are taking a look at some other notable moments from his life that the films didn’t explore. Today, we’re looking at a time where Snoke tried to teach him a lesson at a familiar location on Dagobah.
As Luke Skywalker trained with Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back, he was forced to confront his fears in a dark cave on Dagobah, in which he faced off with a vision of Darth Vader – only to find that it was Luke lurking inside the suit. But Luke was not the only Skywalker to travel there and have to face his family.
The Age of Resistance comic line from 2019, in the issue about Supreme Leader Snoke written by Tom Taylor, told the story of a time where Snoke took his apprentice, Kylo Ren, to this cave on Dagobah to train him.
Dagobah was a world strong in the Force, like Ahch-To and Mortis, which is why it served as a perfect place for Yoda to go into exile. Years before Yoda was there, Qui-Gon Jinn traveled to the planet to learn more about the Force, and during the Clone Wars Qui-Gon’s ghost guided Yoda there for training. After Order 66 and the fall of the Jedi, Yoda went into hiding on the planet, where his training continued. This dark side cave, in particular, was a vergance in the Force – a nexus point where the Force was especially concentrated. Yoda ventured into the cave during the Clone Wars, in which he had a vision of the Jedi destroyed and Darth Sidious victorious. Once he settled on the planet, Yoda returned to the Cave several times, determined to face his fears and overcome them. Though the cave represented an incredibly strong dark side presence on this planet, the Grand Master’s presence balanced it out and prevented the cave from controlling the rest of this Force world.
All of which is to say that this cave represented a place where the dark side of the Force tested those who entered by forcing them to confront their fears. For Yoda, this was the destruction of the Jedi Order and his own failure in stopping it. For Luke, this was the fact that the same evil that lied within Vader could lie within him too (not to mention the same bloodline!).
So, as Kylo Ren ventured into the cave, what did it show him? His past. His family. He first saw Luke Skywalker, his uncle and former master, who in this vision told Kylo that he wouldn’t fight him. Kylo, driven by rage, struck Luke down with his lightsaber. At this he thought he had passed the test, but Snoke told him there was more – at which point Kylo saw a vision of his parents, Han Solo and Leia Organa. They told Ben that they love him and pleaded with him to stop this dark path. Snoke encouraged him to strike them down and bury his past, but Kylo refused to do so. Snoke sensed him striking out with his lightsaber, only to discover that Kylo had actually been attacking the tree and not his parents. With Snoke coming to inspect his apprentice’s work, Kylo destroyed the dark side cave.
Snoke was dismayed at this development, telling Kylo that this cave had stood for thousands of years, adding that he hoped to bring other apprentices to it down the road, but Kylo told his master that he would need no other apprentice.
So there you have it: the dark side cave on Dagobah first seen in The Empire Strikes Back was destroyed three decades later by a descendant of Skywalker, whose own inner conflict was seen in his complicated interactions with this Force vision. It also provided a fitting hint at his future: though he would be driven by rage for Luke Skywalker, it was the unceasing love of his parents that brought him back to the light. That love was a power that even “the mighty Kylo Ren” couldn’t resist.
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