People characterizes Kylo Ren as whiny mostly because Adam Driver (the actor who plays Ren) is young (32 years old), has a baby face, and because he shouts a lot. Shouting is a declaration of either anger or fear, Kylo Ren didn't appear to be afraid of anything really so I'm gonna go with anger. Also towards the end of the film, people claim that Rey (an untrained soon to be Jedi) managed to best Kylo Ren. Any honest re-watching of that fight would show that Rey spend the majority of the fight running from Kylo Ren and trying to block his attacks. By the end of the film, Rey finally decided to mount an offensive and even then it really wasn't much of an offensive, she used Kylo Ren's anger against him by finding his openings and throwing him off balance. Anyways, ramblings asides, this article is made to prove with 5 simple points how Kylo Ren is better than Darth Vader. These aren't opinionated points, these are objective reasons based on the movies and the various implications of certain characters actions.
#5 KYLO REN DOESN'T WASTE TIME
"Commander, tear this ship apart until you find those plans!" I believe is what Darth Vader said when looking for the stolen plans of The Death Star. However, Kylo Ren didn't rely on soldiers to scurrying about a star ship looking for stolen plan. Kylo Ren decided it'd be easier to rip the information he wanted from that person's mind. Before you go and claim that the ability to extract information from a person is a new addition that George Lucas didn't include in the original "Star Wars", I offer you this counter argument: Didn't Obi Wan tell a Storm Trooper "These aren't the droids you're looking for."? How are these two connected? What if the phrase was "These are the droids you're looking for.". If Obi Wan is capable of convincing a Storm Trooper to allow he and Luke to pass, why wasn't Darth Vader capable of grabbing homeboy by the throat and saying "You will tell me where those plans are."?
Back then, The Force was largely vague but from what we've seen established in the original trilogy, we all have a working knowledge of how The Force works and we've seen how Vader & Obi Wan used it and we can gauge what it can and can't do and what Jedis at certain levels should be capable of. So if Obi Wan is capable of not exactly reading minds but getting a Storm Trooper to do as he wanted, what was Vader's excuse? That's nameless lacky on the ship wasn't capable of using The Force, Vader could've asked him anything. Why didn't he extract the information from Leia? Surely, he'd have figured out that she was his daughter after he felt The Force inside her, but that'd have to be after the fact that he'd tried to use The Force on her.
Say what you will about Kylo Ren but he didn't waste time with torture or anything of the sort, he took Poe Dameron and took exactly what he wanted from him, and correctly kept him alive incase he needed more information. Ultimately, Kylo Ren only failed at acquiring the map because Rey was able to fight him off, but Kylo Ren wasn't aware of her ability to use The Force. If had taken Fin instead, Luke and The Rebels would be screwed. It's interesting how close Kylo Ren came to victory simply by using The Force to get what he wanted instead of relying on soldiers to do it for him. In this respect, Kylo Ren is better than Vader.
#4 DID NOT NEEDLESSLY INVOLVE HIMSELF IN CONFLICTS
In the original "Star Wars" trilogy, Vader got into a TIE Fighter and got down and dirty to prevent The Rebels from blowing up The Death Star, which is really respectable, but little did he know, The Millennium Falcon would come out of nowhere and start blasting him. Vader almost died. Vader's role in The Empire was vague, he was in charge sort of and the men in uniform answered to him, but at the same time they mocked his religion (until he choked them to death) and he didn't really seem to have a title besides "Lord". However, The Emperor considered him his proxy, therefore Vader was a considerable (if not General, than) commander of Imperial forces...so why would he be on the front line having such an important role?
Vader has soldiers for a reason, to do the things he can't or shouldn't do. Vader's job is ground work, a guy who can act as the Emperor's proxy and make sure things are being ran as effectively as possible and everyone is keeping their minds on their tasks. He's Hermann Goering to The Emperor's Adolf Hitler, the #2 guy. Vader nearly died in the first film. Kylo Ren didn't risk his life to complete his objective, he was methodical and planned the perfect times to enter to the battle to assure a complete objective. He gone off the reservation to go after Fin & Rey but that was personal, and besides, he had just killed Han Solo and he wanted to eradicate any budding resistance to his force abilities, so even then it makes sense why he'd go after them.
#3 KYLO IS MORE POWERFUL THAN DARTH VADER
Ignoring the insane super reflexes displayed in the prequels, Kylo Ren by all accounts is more powerful than Darth Vader. Heresy? Let me explain. We've seen the damage caused by Chew's Bow Catcher, even Han was impressed by it. Kylo Ren took a direct hit from Chew's Bow Catcher and merely suffered a flesh wound which he exacerbated in order to increase his aggression, while Darth Vader was shown to be able to deflect point blank range laser fire, Kylo Ren was able to FREEZE laser fire from sniper range. Kylo Ren wasn't even aware Poe was there until the blast was fired. Assuming lasers are faster than bullets, that means that Kylo Ren's reaction speed is INSANELY fast. Furthermore, Kylo Ren was not only able to freeze that blast but to freeze the shooter as well in order to prevent him from taking another shot.
Darth Vader, despite being portrayed as Space Jesus (in the prequels) has not displayed this ability. Once again, before you claim that these abilities were not present in the original "Star Wars", we saw Yoda lift an X-Wing out of a swamp, if one can use the force to lift an X-Wing out of a swamp, the same force can be used to bind people from taking action. Furthermore, Darth Vader has shown the ability to choke individuals, you mean to tell me this ability can't be directed toward limbs? One could argue that maybe Vader couldn't use this ability on Luke as he was a Jedi, then why didn't he use it on Luke before he was a Jedi? Kylo Ren had NO idea Rey would acquire the force until she was required to use it against him, which explains why Kylo Ren didn't attempt to just freeze Rey in place and chose to fight her instead. Yes, I know THAT wasn't objective but it stands to reason.
#2 DARTH VADER WAS BAD FOR MORALE
People constantly claim that Kylo Ren was whiny, although there isn't a single scene that contains him whining, he shouts a lot but whining is a combination of complaining about a problem and doing nothing about it, and as we've seen Kylo Ren is incredibly pro-active. However, many people will point out the scene in which Kylo Ren bashed the living daylights out of a console and his torture room as signs of being whiny...this is far from whiny. Kylo Ren expressed frustrations on inanimate objects, Darth Vader killed 3 Commanders in the span of one movie for failing their objectives.
Now in the end Kylo Ren did grab that one guy by the throat, but his fate was very revealed, and I'm going by Hollywood standards (until we see a body, he ain't dead), so I'm assuming the guy is alive. Had it been Vader, dude would have been dead and the Storm Trooper who freed Rey would've been dead as well. Kylo Ren was wise not to express his anger at his troops but rather express his anger on objects, it performs the same task as showing your troops you mean business and you're clearly pissed off without making them re-think why they work for you in the first place if failure equals death, which is what Vader portrayed. Vader was just bad for morale. And while Kylo Ren and Hux both come off as children trying to get attention from their father (Supreme Leader Snoke), Kylo Ren is anything but whiny and knows how to channel his rage in a way that doesn't reduce the number of his employees.
#1 KYLO REN DID WHAT VADER COULD NOT
Vader eventually turned to The Light in his failure to not only kill Luke but to allow The Emperor to do it. Kylo Ren beat Vader in this by skipping the step of besting his teacher (Luke) and going straight towards offing family members as Vader was supposed to. Face it, Kylo Ren did what Vader couldn't do, Vader failed the test of killing Luke and Kylo Ren passed the test in killing Han Solo. Only time will tell if Kylo Ren's conversion to The Dark Side will be permanent BUT, at the very least he has a leg up on his Grandfather and can at least say he went the extra mile.
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