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I have re-watched The Force Awakens after going to see The Last Jedi. In TFA, Rey has a vision of Luke's Jedi school in ruins with the Knights of Ren standing in the ashes.

Kylo Ren with the Knights of Ren

But in TLJ Luke gives more information on the attack (all a flash back):

Luke goes to kill Ben in his sleep sensing his growing darkness, but can't bring him self to do it. But Ben wakes up and defends himself (not with a red lightsaber), takes some students with him (the Knights of Ren), kills the rest and destroys the school thinking Luke is dead.

In the image it shows Ben in his Kylo gear and with his red lightsaber, how did he have this at Luke's school?

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    How do you know this is luke's school?
    – Edlothiad
    Commented Dec 20, 2017 at 11:28
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    @Edlothiad To be fair nowhere does it truely say that image is at the school, but I believe it is heavyily implied as it is shown at the same time as the force visions of Luke at the burning school. As Valorum quite rightly points out visions are to be interpreted not to be clear recordings of what happened. I think a good out of universe explaination is JJ Abramas was able to convay what happen at the school but leave it vauge enough to be fleshed out in later films
    – Phil3992
    Commented Dec 20, 2017 at 11:43
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    It's clear that the burning of the school happened at the time of Ben's departure, he would still have to join the Knights of Ren and become their leader, I highly doubt these two things occurred at the same time. This is likely just a misunderstanding based on the fact the visions follow each other. Visions can jump around in timelines, they are not necessarily linear. (Remember she sees Darth Vader, ye spoiler. He's long dead)
    – Edlothiad
    Commented Dec 20, 2017 at 11:51
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    “the force visions of Luke at the burning school” — is there a Force vision of Luke at the burning school? I remember a vision of Luke (presumably Luke — all we see is a hooded character with a metal hand) sitting by a fire touching R2-D2. I think we see that same scene in The Last Jedi.
    – Paul D. Waite
    Commented Dec 20, 2017 at 13:39
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    @PaulD.Waite That was the scene with the school burning. After Luke comes to it shows the wide shot of the school burning and then goes back to where we see Luke and R2 before the flames.
    – Odin1806
    Commented Dec 21, 2017 at 1:20

3 Answers 3

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Visions are hard to interpret, especially when clouded with the dark side of the Force.

It's not clear whether Rey is seeing the past, the future or some kind of jumbled mish-mash of conflicting images.

As you've pointed out, Kylo didn't get his snazzy hat and red lightsaber until after he'd fled the training grounds. He was still using a standard lightsaber when he and his like-minded acolytes razed the Jedi Temple and left. The Temple was destroyed by the "Knights of Ren" but again we learn that these knights were almost certainly other Jedi trainees, not a force of highly colour-coordinated warriors.

So what's going on here?

Rey's vision appears to be conflating two or three different timelines; The razing of the temple and an older Kylo Ren standing with his Knights of Ren.

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    One extra bit of evidence for this: in Rey's flashback, it's raining. In the scene where Luke wakes up and the temple is burning, it's not raining, and doesn't even look wet (no steam rising from the fires).
    – LevenTrek
    Commented Dec 20, 2017 at 22:21
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He didn't.

In The Last Jedi, we see a memory of what really happened that day:

Luke tried to attack already-turning-dark Ben, with a lightsaber (while asleep), and Ben parried that attack.

Also,

The memory was confirmed by Luke to Rey later, in a memory that had the same exact images.

... so it's not a fake/error.

The lightsaber Ben used in that scene was NOT his Christmas Tree red one - it was an ordinary Jedi one (color is hard to tell but I think blue):

Please note that the original Forceback (Rey's vision) had image of Kylo Ren in his "not-Sith" uniform already; whereas the day of the destruction of Luke's Temple academy, he was still dressed as one of the students; therefore it was clearly a vision of a different, later event.

SPOILER IMAGES BELOW!!!!

enter image description here

^ First frame is Ben's lightsaber hilt he is reaching for

enter image description here

^ Second one is him igniting it

enter image description here

^ Third one is him parrying Luke

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    I saw the third image as luke parrying Ben. Luke couldn't go through with killing Ben to which he woke up seeing luke with an ignited sabre and try to attack in defence
    – Phil3992
    Commented Dec 20, 2017 at 18:10
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    @Phil3992 From Luke's perspective, yes, Luke was parrying Ben. But Luke and Ben recount the event differently, and I don't think we're meant to be sure which, if any, is an entirely correct recollection of what happened.
    – user2752467
    Commented Dec 20, 2017 at 19:08
  • @Phil3992 - it's hard to say in fast moving scene but it looked to me like Ben parrying. Unfortunately the unprintables at Disney decided it's a good idea to not publish novelization till April or something, so no way to tell for sure
    – DVK-on-Ahch-To
    Commented Dec 20, 2017 at 23:42
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    While it is a he said / he said situation - Luke admits in the end what likely is the real story: Luke went to Kylo with the intent of attacking, changed his mind, Kylo awoke to see him with the saber and (possibly because of the dark side influence) ignites his blade to strike before Luke can change his mind again, and then Luke is defending himself from Kylo. This is also why Luke is so distraught by the events because if he had either not attempted the murder in the beginning or actually gone through with it Kylo may have never turned and the galaxy might have been saved a lot of pain.
    – Odin1806
    Commented Dec 21, 2017 at 1:27
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    I believe Luke's second telling, but it still looked to me like this: Luke goes to kill Ben in his sleep, ignites the blade, has a change of heart and is about to withdraw, Ben wakes up, sees what's happening, grabs his blade (probably still in confusion and as a defensive reaction), then Luke sees he now has no choice but to strike. It definitely looked to me like Luke was the first of the two to lunge - of course, the camera is angled in such a way that Ben is mostly off-screen, so maybe his blade was already coming up to hit Luke when Luke retaliated.
    – delinear
    Commented Dec 22, 2017 at 13:10
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The vision was provided by the Force, but it is unlikely for a vision to provide images pixel-by-pixel. A vision probably supplies thoughts, ideas, descriptions of events, and the mind of the person receiving the vision fills out the blanks.

so, if the vision states Kylo doing something, Rey will probably see Kylo with the gear she last seen him wearing.

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