WARNING: This article does infact contain spoilers to Star Wars the Force Awakens... and all of the other movies for that matter.
The first time I saw anything about the Kylo Ren and his infatuation of Darth Vader I thought one thing. Didn't Anakin turn to the light? What's going on! After much thought, though, I realized that it's not Anakin that Kylo Ren is praising. Kylo Ren is trying to follow the steps of Darth Vader not Anakin Skywalker. In "A New Hope", Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ben Kenobi) tells young Luke Skywalker how his father died. Kenobi says " A young Jedi named Darth Vader . . . helped the empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi knights. He betrayed and murdered your father" (A New Hope). He clearly refers to Anakin and Vader as two separate people calming that the Vader had murdered Anakin. Although you could say he only worded it this way to hide the truth from Luke, Kenobi states, in Return of the Jedi, that Anakin had "ceased to be Anakin Skywalker and became Darth Vader" and that " the good man who was your father was destroyed". Kenobi also claims that what he said was true "from a certain point of view" and that all truths, like it or not, depend on our own point of view (Kenobi).
Even Darth Vader refuses the recognition of his good name, Anakin Skywalker. Luke says to Vader that "I have accepted the truth that you were once Anakin Skywalker, my father." in which Vader Hastily replies "That name no longer has any meaning for me." (Return of the Jedi). Vader rejects his old name. He refuses it. He, might I say, despises it. He buries it deep, ashamed of his Jedi past as though he has considered it dead himself.
So even though the same man was both Anakin and Vader, he was, at the same time, not the same person. Anakin was good and eventually was seduced by the dark side becoming Darth. Darth Vader was never on the light side. He has always been dark. He has always been Sith. It was his son, Luke, that persuaded Darth that his father was still in him and that he was a good man. Darth did not come back to the light, rather the light of Anakin overpowered Vader and Vader ceased to be.
That is why Kylo says "I will finish what you started". Kylo is referring to the finishing of becoming the ultimate Dark Lord. Kylo, too, wants to become a master of the Force using the Dark side. However, unlike Darth Vader, Kylo would not fall to the temptations of the light. It's the whole hero wants to be good but is struggling with temptation of an inner evil/conflict. The only difference is that Kylo Ren truly thinks that the Dark Side is good and the Light Side is the bad. He wants to become like Vader not Anakin.
Another thought I had is maybe Kylo was never told that Vader turned to the light. If you think about it Luke aspired to be a Jedi, like his father before him, but if that were true, Like would have eventually became an agent of evil like Darth himself. Instead Luke became a Jedi like Anakin, before he was corrupted. At the end of The Return of the Jedi, there are only a few people who actually know Lord Vader's true identity. Luke, Leia, Obi-Wan, and Yoda. I can assume that Han knew since, in The Force Awakens, Leia and Han talk about Kylo Ren having too much Vader in him and that is why Leia wanted Kylo (Ben) to train under Luke who was the only person to bring Vader, I mean Anakin, back to the Light. I am pretty sure they used the word VADER and not ANAKIN again referring the same man as his Dark personality rather than his Light side persona. Perhaps no one was told about Vader's true identity. Perhaps Leia and Luke thought it wise not to share that their dad, a powerful Jedi that was supposed to bring balance to the force, decided to go all Dark Lord crazy and become the most evil man in the galaxy aside from the Emperor.
Maybe they thought they would hide the truth as Obi-Wan did to Luke to avoid scandal in the galaxy. After all, Kenobi was Luke's first master and basically the first thing that Obi-Wan taught him was this: Lying is alright... from a certain point of view. Think about it. Old Ben Kenobi basically told Luke that it's alright to hide the truth from people, if they are not able to handle the truth at that moment. Obi-Wan didn't tell Luke about Vader, so why should Luke tall the general population that Vader is his father, too. He knows and Leia knows, but does anyone else need to know? Not really. It wouldn't help anything for the rebellion to know that Vader is, in fact the same man as Anakin Skywalker. After all, no one really knows anything about Anakin Skywalker, or anything about the Jedi order for that matter.
Leia knows about Obi-Wan in Episode IV, but that information was most likely told to her by her father who was really the only one that knew Obi-Wan and Yoda were still alive. Since the Jedi were being hunted and killed, it is unlikely that Bail Organa, Leia's adopted father, would tell anyone of the old Jedi and their whereabouts. She was most likely told that if she ever needed anything that she should acquire the help of Obi-Won Kenobi. He is in fact, as referred to in the movie, her only hope.
Think about what the rebel alliance would say if Luke and Leia announced their family tree at the end of the battle of Endor. I don't know how the alliance would react, but it probably wouldn't be moment with dancing teddy bears. Another thing is that people still refer to Leia as an Organa. Yes she was adopted so she would probably keep her name anyway, but then that doesn't explain that Lor San Tekka, the man who gave Poe Dameron the map to Luke Skywalker, would refer to General Leia as Royalty. Yes she was the princess but she was not born into the family; she was adopted. Perhaps if anyone was told about Vader it was not many.
So when Kylo Ren is talking to Darth Vader, he is not referring to Vader as Anakin, but Vader as Darth Vader, his Dark Master and Idle. Ren does, however, know that Darth Vader and Anakin are the same person. He refers to Darth Vader as Grandfather, but when Kylo was told about the identity of Vader could have been his undoing. Let's talk about Luke for a second. Luke found out about his father at a pivotal moment in his training. He was still relatively new to the Force, and didn't know how to control his emotions or feeling very well. When Vader and him were fighting on Cloud City, first off he was there because he couldn't resist rushing to help his friends in need. The thought that Han and Leia could Die frightened him. So he was already, let's say, emotionally charged. Next, after an exhausting battle with Vader that gets Luke almost frozen in carbonate, beaten by random flying heavy objects, and thrown out a window, Luke has his hand cut clean off. To top it off he discovers that Darth Vader is no other than Anakin Skywalker himself. His trust that he might have had in Obi-Wan and Yoda would have been shattered.
Now let's take the young Ben Solo. Maybe he was told from a young age that his grandfather was essential to bringing balance to the force. "He single handedly destroyed the emperor bringing balance to the Force" he might have been told having no recollection of the fact that his grandfather was on wrong side for ages. This lead the young child into idolizing his grandfather. "One day I want to be a Jedi like my Grandfather and my Uncle" He might of thought. Ben solo starts learning about the Force and Leia can see anger and fear in him. So she decides to have him train under Luke so that he could teach him the good and the light. However, what if Luke doesn't want to young Ben to be lied too; so, Luke tells young Solo the truth about his grandfather. That Anakin Skywalker was a good man who turned evil, becoming the evil he swore to destroy (a Sith), and only just before dying he redeemed himself by doing the right thing. It would be like a child being told that Santa is not real, devastating.
So to answer my own question of why Kylo Ren infatuated with Darth Vader is because I think he has been brought up to idolize his grandfather, and why Kylo is infatuated with the dark side is because he realizes it is more powerful and that means it's better, right. I mean, Kylo Ren has Force abilities that are far beyond Luke's from what we have seen in Return of the Jedi. Maybe Kylo is a prodigy in the force and cannot learn any more from Luke. Perhaps Luke was still learning himself and when Kylo reached a point Luke couldn't explain, Kylo realized that Luke was inferior and that the Light Side was restricting. It would make sense that Kylo would turn to the Dark side for answers, as did all the other Sith before him, they wanted more and the Jedi couldn't give it to them.
One last though that doesn't really fit, but perhaps Kylo lost someone close to him. Perhaps he lost a loved one and he wanted to stop them from dying. Perhaps he thought that if Vader turned to the dark side to find the answer to healing the sick and dying then it was sure the way he could find it too. Just a thought.
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