Ben Solo, son of Han Solo and Leia Organa, was once a promising Jedi apprentice taught by his uncle Luke Skywalker. But under the influence of the mysterious Snoke, Ben rejected Luke’s teachings and destroyed his temple, leaving with several of his uncle’s students and killing the rest.

A shaken Luke vanished into exile, while Ben assumed a new identity -- Kylo Ren – and found a new master in the First Order’s Supreme Leader Snoke. Neither Jedi nor Sith, Kylo used the pain of his emotional conflict to fuel his extraordinary powers, and dedicated himself to destroying the last traces of the Jedi tradition.

After stormtroopers assaulted the village of Tuanul on Jakku, Kylo interrogated the galactic scout Lor San Tekka in search of a clue to Luke’s location. When San Tekka told Kylo that he couldn’t deny the truth that was his family, the former Ben Solo struck him down with his exotic, red-bladed lightsaber.

A Resistance fighter named Poe Dameron fired on Kylo, who used his extraordinary powers to freeze the blaster bolt in mid-air. Kylo’s troops captured Poe, and the First Order warlord ordered the soldiers to massacre the villagers.

Kylo took Poe to the Star Destroyer Finalizer and interrogated him. Using telepathic intrusion, he discovered the map to Luke was hidden in BB-8, an astromech on Jakku. As troops descended to find the lost droid, a renegade stormtrooper – FN-2187 -- helped Poe escape.

FN-2187 escaped the stormtroopers with BB-8, causing Kylo to explode in a furious, terrifying tantrum. The droid had to be found so Skywalker could be located and eliminated as a threat to the First Order.

The Finalizer traveled to the First Order’s hidden fortress, the Starkiller Base. There, Kylo and General Hux contacted Supreme Leader Snoke. Snoke agreed to Hux’s suggestion that they draw out the Resistance by firing the Starkiller at the New Republic capital of Hosnian Prime.

He then warned the former Ben Solo that the Empire fell because Darth Vader was seduced by the light, and Ben would soon have to face his father. Kylo assured his master that his own allegiances were unwavering.

Kylo meditated with one of his trophies – the melted mask of Darth Vader. Staring at this grisly relic of the Sith, he vowed to hunt down Luke Skywalker and kill him in Vader’s name. When the First Order learned BB-8 had been taken to Takodana, Kylo readied his troops, eager to fulfill his destiny.

Landing on Takodana, Kylo confronted the young woman who’d escaped from Jakku with BB-8 – and found himself puzzled by a strange connection he felt with her. Resistance X-wings drove the First Order’s forces away before BB-8 could be found, but Kylo took the young woman, Rey, into custody.

Speaking with his captive, Kylo removed his mask, revealing his surprisingly young face, and used his powers to dig into Rey’s mind. But both captor and captive were surprised when Rey found herself able to sense Kylo’s own thoughts – including his conflicts and doubts. When Snoke requested Kylo’s presence, he donned his sinister mask and left Rey in her cell. Sneering at Kylo’s weakness, Snoke ordered his apprentice to bring Rey to him.

Rey escaped, sending Kylo into another fit of rage. But the First Order soon had larger problems: Resistance infiltrators had penetrated Starkiller Base’s planetary shield. Searching for the invaders, Kylo confronted his father and removed his mask, allowing his father to see his face for the first time in years. Seeking to free himself of his emotional attachments, Kylo ran Han through with his lightsaber, killing him.

Kylo intercepted Finn and Rey, using the Force to paralyze Rey and fighting Finn, who was wielding Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber. The First Order deserter fought well, but was no match for Kylo’s power. Kylo defeated Finn and disarmed him.

But Rey took up Skywalker’s saber. Rejecting Kylo’s invitation to show her the ways of the Force, she attacked him – and Kylo found he was no match for her power and rage. Rey defeated him, and Kylo escaped Starkiller Base before its destruction. He sensed his destiny and Rey’s were somehow intertwined, but how?

As the First Order drove the Resistance from its D’Qar base, Snoke summoned Kylo to his throne room, where he derided him as weak and sentimental, a “child in a mask” who was unworthy of Darth Vader’s legacy.

Enraged and desperate to prove himself to his master, Kylo attacked the Resistance fleet in his custom TIE fighter, determined to destroy it. He took aim at his mother with a torpedo, but found himself unable to fire.

Kylo’s emotions were churned up even further by a Force connection with Rey, who had found Luke Skywalker’s planet of exile. Kylo and Rey found they could see and hear each other across light-years. This mysterious connection grew stronger.

Disillusioned by Luke’s rejection of his legacy and disturbed by her experience in Ahch-To’s mirror cave, Rey confided in Kylo – who assured her she wasn’t alone. To his surprise, their powerful Force connection allowed them to actually touch across the light-years. The moment was interrupted by Luke, but Kylo knew climactic events were in motion.

Rey surrendered to Kylo aboard the Supremacy, and tried to turn him from the dark side. She insisted she’d seen his future, and when the time came he’d stand with her. But Kylo had seen the future too, and was certain Rey would join him. And he’d seen something else when their minds met: the identity of Rey’s parents. Kylo claimed they were nobodies -- junk traders who’d sold their daughter for drinking money, and were dead in paupers’ graves.

Snoke was pleased that Kylo had brought Rey to him, and interrogated her brutally, using the Force to tear the location of Luke’s hermitage from her mind. But the Supreme Leader shocked Kylo when he revealed that he was the one who had bridged his mind with Rey’s. Snoke sneered that he’d known Kylo wouldn’t be able to hide his conflict from Rey and that Rey would take the bait.

Kylo knew what he had to do. When Snoke ordered him to complete his training by killing Rey, Kylo instead used the Force to ignite Luke’s lightsaber and strike his master down. He then urged Rey to let the past die and join him. But Rey refused. She struggled with Kylo for control of Luke’s lightsaber, which sheared in two, leaving Kylo unconscious.

Kylo awoke to find Rey gone and Hux surveying the ruins of Snoke’s throne room. He told the general that Rey had killed Snoke, and then intimidated Hux into proclaiming Kylo the First Order’s new Supreme Leader.

Kylo led the First Order’s assault on the Resistance’s last redoubt, an old rebel base on Crait. He told the regime’s soldiers that they were to push through the Resistance defenses, giving no quarter and taking no prisoners. His mother’s movement would be utterly destroyed.

But Kylo saw the last thing he’d expected: the figure of his uncle Luke, awaiting him on the salt plains. Kylo confronted his former teacher, vowing to destroy Rey, Luke, and the Jedi. But Luke warned Kylo that if he struck him down, he’d always be with him – like Han Solo. Kylo struck Luke down, only to discover he’d been tricked into dueling a Force projection sent from distant Ahch-To.

Furious, Kylo led an assault on the old base, only to discover the surviving Resistance soldiers had slipped away with Rey’s help. He discovered his father’s dice lying in the salt, but they vanished in his hand -- another trick of the Force. And when the Force reconnected him with Rey, she shut him out. Kylo had become Supreme Leader, all but destroyed his mother’s Resistance, and struck down Luke Skywalker. But that didn’t feel much like a victory.

Kylo consolidated his power as Supreme Leader, but was surprised by a broadcast claiming to be from the resurrected Emperor Palpatine. Determined to destroy this unexpected new threat to his power, Kylo claimed Darth Vader’s Sith wayfinder on Mustafar.

The Sith wayfinder allowed Kylo to journey to Exegol, where he confronted Palpatine in the citadel of the Sith Eternal. Palpatine said he’d been every voice in Kylo’s head – and revealed that Snoke had been his puppet. He offered Kylo the vast Sith armada he had created and a new empire if Kylo killed Rey and ended the Jedi. But he warned Kylo that Rey wasn’t who Kylo thought she was.

Kylo reforged his mask and gathered the First Order Supreme Council, telling them the Sith fleet would bolster the First Order and ordering them to crush any worlds that continued to defy his regime. Meanwhile, he and his Knights of Ren would hunt down Rey, the scavenger who had bedeviled him for so long.

Kylo’s mysterious Force connection with Rey had returned, allowing them to physically interact even across space. This connection allowed Kylo to warn Rey that Palpatine wanted her dead – and to vow that he would turn her to the dark side to fight alongside him. On Pasaana, she destroyed his TIE fighter with a lightsaber slash, but Kylo survived the wreck.

Kylo and the Knights of Ren pursued Rey to Kijimi, only to discover she had boarded his own Star Destroyer, in orbit above the planet. He confronted Rey as she tried to escape, finally revealing the terrible truth he’d learned about her parentage: She was the granddaughter of Palpatine. Together with him, the grandson of Vader, they formed a rare and powerful dyad in the Force. Kylo again asked her to join him, but she fled in the Millennium Falcon.

Kylo tracked Rey to Kef Bir, where she’d found the Emperor’s Sith wayfinder in the wreckage of the second Death Star. When he destroyed the artifact she attacked him in a fury. Their battle was interrupted when Leia used the last of her strength to reach her son in the Force. While Kylo was distracted, Rey ran him through with his own lightsaber, leaving him mortally wounded.

To Kylo’s astonishment, Rey then used the Force to heal him, at the cost of some of her own life energy. Even the scar she’d given him on Starkiller Base was erased. Rey then departed in his TIE fighter, leaving Kylo alone amid the wreckage of the battle station where his grandfather had turned against his own Sith master.

Kylo then had a vision of Han Solo. He tried to dismiss his father as a mere memory, once again telling him his son was dead. But Han replied that Kylo Ren was dead; his son was alive. Gathering his strength, Kylo hurled his Sith lightsaber into the sea. Ben Solo had returned.

Ben returned to Exegol, where Rey had confronted Palpatine. She gave him the Skywalker lightsaber, which he used to strike down the Knights of Ren. The two battled Palpatine, but the Sith Lord was able to drain their essences and restore his own life force. Palpatine scornfully told Ben the last Skywalker would fall and hurled him into a chasm.

But Ben survived. Finding that Rey had destroyed Palpatine but been left near death, he healed her with the Force as she had healed him, though the effort cost him his own life. Redeemed, Ben Solo passed into the Force. The man who had sought to become a new Darth Vader instead sacrificed himself for the love of another -- as Anakin Skywalker had.