At last, we know why Kylo Ren turned to the dark side! May the 4th be with you all today, because we’ve got huge news, padawans, on today’s Nerdist News. Today, Jessica Chobot talks about the just-released, in-canon book, Star Wars: Bloodline by Claudia Gray, and it’s having a huge impact on the saga. This totally makes sense since the director of Episode 8, Rian Johnson was a contributor on the story, meaning the things we learned in Bloodline will have major tie-ins to the rest of the trilogy.

The Leia-centric book fills in a ton of gaps—including Han’s surprising life as a pro-starship racer, the splintering of the Republic leading to the creation of both the First Order and The Resistance, and Leia’s rise to becoming Resistance Leader. The book also answers a huge question on everyone’s minds: what the heck was Ben Solo up to before he joined the Dark Side, and what caused him to make the turn from good to evil?

Thanks to Bloodline, we now know that Ben Solo hadn’t seen his mom in a while, as he was traveling the galaxy with Luke seeking out Ancient Jedi knowledge. And in this universe, now canon, no one but his parents and Luke know just who his grandfather is—including Ben. That’s right, he had no idea that he was the grand-spawn of the baddest dude in the galaxy! Until, that is, a rival senator outs Leia’s parentage, ruining her political career and casting doubt and fear on Luke as well. So presumably, Ben learns about his lineage through the grapevine while traveling with his uncle, which we’d imagine was pretty shocking, and probably sent Kylo into a pretty severe identity crisis.

But what do you guys think? Do you dig that Ben Solo began to turn to the dark side when he had his own “I am your grand-father” moment? Do you think he formed the Knights of Ren before meeting Snoke and aligning with the First Order? Let’s discuss!