byronikylo:

I recently rewatched my all time favourite movie as a child, Ronja Rövardotter (for the english speakers: Ronia, the Robber’s Daughter), and noticed some parallels that can be drawn to Reylo.

For those who haven’t watched the film or read the book by (awesome!) Astrid Lindgren:

Ronja is the daughter of Mattis, chief of a robbers clan, and his wife Lovis. She grows up in her parents’ castle in the woods with the robbers as her only company, until a rival robber group (led by their chief Borka) moves into the other half of the castle, exacerbating the longstanding rivalry between the two bands.
When she meets Birk Borkason, the only son of Borka, the two start out as enemies, but once they get to know each other they become very close friends – but know that they cannot tell their families.
When Birk is captured by Ronja’s father, she gives herself to the Borkas so she must be exchanged, but as a result her father disowns her and refuses to acknowledge her as his daughter. Birk and Ronja run away to the woods, where they live in a cave and experience several adventures. Ultimately their families repent of their feuding, and everyone is reunited, but the story concludes with both Ronia and Birk deciding that the robber’s life is not for them.

Character parallels

Both Ronja and Birk grow up quite lonely, as the only children among adults and find themselves on opposing sides of rivalling forces, namely their opposing clans of robbers.  

After being abandoned by her parents, Rey grows up alone on Jakku amongst other scavengers. While Ben is surrounded by other children, he is singled out and different from a very young age, due to both his bloodline as well as his unique powers, and also ultimately alone. They also find themselves on opposing sides of a war, in their case the Resistance and the First Order respectively.

Ronja & Rey

There are obvious parallels between scavenger Rey and Ronja: She, as well as Rey, is self-reliant, spirited, kind, but a fighter who stands her ground and is not afraid to speak her mind and question authority. She cusses and insults Birk a lot. She also is very impulsive and often lashes out before thinking, she even bites him in the cheek at one point by mistake (but refuses to apologise). 

Birk & Kylo Ren

Birk is born into (robbers’) royalty and very aware of that. When he is first introduced he comes off as a little arrogant and smug. He insults Ronja and mocks both her origin and her abilities. (To be fair, she does as well)

The First meeting

The first time Ronja and Birk meet is at the rift that separates both halves of the castle (fittingly called “the gorge of hell”). They immediately start to throw insults at each other. Birk jumps over the rift after Ronja tells him to “come over if you dare, I will punch you in the face so hard your nose falls off!”. To keep face she starts jumping as well. Birk is quite impressed. They then both start competitively leaping back and forth across the abyss. Finally, Birk slips and almost falls to his death, but is ultimately saved by Ronja, who pulls him back over the edge. When Birk tries to thank her and suggest that maybe now they belong together, she slaps him and tells him to go to hell. 

Now, where might we have seen two antagonists insulting each other, then fighting on the edge of a cliff before… followed by an impressed boy offering a union and the girl rejecting him…

(I realise this post might be interesting only to a niche readership – assuming that most of your aren’t Swedish or German, where I know this book/movie is most popular – and this is pretty long already, so I’m putting the rest under a cut.)

Weiterlesen

I loved this movie as a kid (still do). It’s dark, creepy and magical. It’s definitely not the typical cutesy stuff Hollywood pumps out.

You are not the only one who saw parallels with reylo. Some time ago I also made a (very short) post about that movie. Of course this meta is something else. Thank you for taking the time to do this awasome in-depth analysis.