Yeah, if I was going with plot holes I'd say: (Off-Topic)

by Quirel, Tuesday, January 12, 2016, 07:13 (3241 days ago) @ Grizzlei

- FN states he doesn't want to kill anyone and then immediately kills a whole bunch of other stormtroopers while in the tie fighter without even a second thought. (character inconsistencies may or may not fit Cody's definition of plot holes).

I think it's a whole different ballpark from shooting down defenseless civilians like on Jakku. The junior novel establishing Finn's background shows that he was long disgruntled with the First Order High Command as well as individual Stormtroopers and other officers. They were all absolutely merciless to even one another. Captain Phasma and Finn's old teammates were quick to screw each other over to prove their loyalty to Supreme Leader Snoke and Imperial ideology. No loyalty or care to your comrades in arms was a general order Stormtroopers were required to memorize.

When Finn escaped from Finalizer in the TIE fighter I think he realized that the First Order was an enemy worth applying his honed, elite skills towards. If not, then they were simply a foe that was in the way of his mental and physical wellbeing.

Did you notice how giddy Finn was to have Phasma at gunpoint? That stuck with me when I walked out of the theater, and I didn't get it until the second time I watched it.

For the whole movie, Finn was terrified. His conscience wouldn't let him kill those innocent civilians, but he feared the First Order too much to do anything too defiant. It was only when he was told to submit his blaster for inspection, when he knew that he'd be found out and likely killed for disobedience, that he broke Poe out and made a run for it. He was a dead man anyway, and that reckless escape was his best chance at living.

From that point on, he wanted nothing to do with the First Order. That's why he stripped off his Stormtrooper armor in the desert, even though thermally reflective white plates have got to be cooler to wear than the heavy black fabric beneath them. He didn't want to fight back, either. From youth, he's been indoctrinated to know that the First Order is all powerful and all too willing to spend vast resources to punish betrayal. That fear was only confirmed when Stormtroopers called down an air strike on a village just to kill him and Rey.

He didn't want to fight the First Order. Playing along with the Rebellion story was just a means of getting as far away from the First Order as possible. For a while, it worked. But then people started asking too many questions and slowing him down, so he signed up with the first ship out of the system.

And then Starkiller Base destroyed the seat of the New Republic.

You look at his eyes when he sees the quasisuperluminal laser in the sky, and you can see two ideas warring in his head. The first is that something has to be done to stop the First Order. That same seed of doubt that stayed his hand in the village now told him that he couldn't walk away from this. It won't help to stand by and do nothing, because more innocents will die.

But there's also that old fear in his eyes. That belief that the First Order will hunt him to the ends of the galaxy. They have legions of troops. They have fleets of Star Destroyers. And now they have a superweapon that can reach across the universe. You can't run from something like that. You can only fight, and hope you accomplish something before you die.

You know what they say about cornered animals, right? It's true for humans too.

So he goes with Han to the Rebellion base. Scared out of his mind. He volunteers for the strike mission. Scared out of his mind. He returns to Starkiller base with not much in the way of a plan or heavy weaponry. Scared out of his mind and freezing to death. And when he confronts Captain Phasma, he's absolutely terrified. She's the one who trained him and the other Stormtroopers, drilling them to perfection. She's the one who warned him of the dangers of empathy and taught that loyalty to the First Order superseded all else.

But Finn was giddy when he confronted her, and it wasn't just bravado. He was overjoyed. After an hour of sneaking around the First Order's most prized installation, it's finally dawned on him that the First Order isn't all-powerful. His exuberance is the joy of someone who realizes that the monsters bleed.

Can't wait for the sequels.