ST Daisy Ridley (Rey) in Episode IX

You are an incredible glutton for punishment my friend. Don't do this to yourself again!

 

Well, I don't really know of many sequels that have a brand new protagonist randomly thrown into the consequences of actions of the main characters from the previous movies and being tasked with sorting it out.

 

Ha! I know! I've got a problem!

 

When I was in ReySky camp before TLJ my main theory was kidnapping of young Rey. But I abandoned it all after seeing the movie. It wouldn't work for several reasons. One - Luke had a dream in prologue

Spoiler

where he never left Tatooine and had wife showing that this way of life, family, is not the path he took, even if he might sometimes regretted it.

Two - Snoke is surprised by Rey. He didn't know of her existence, and when he found out he didn't know how powerful she was - untill she resisted his will in the Throne Room.

I mean, we all can believe and hope for whatever we want, it's just a story after all. But at this point any Rey Important would have to be really overcomplicated and probably would end up convulted. Rey backstory is really good the way it is now - with dead parents who sold her for drinking money. It really adds a lot of tragedy to her character.

 

Yeah good point about Luke’s dream and Snoke’s lack of knowledge of Rey. I guess I need to give it up.

 

Well have to agree to diagree on what counts as "really good". Even if tragic was synonymous with good, there are lots of ways she could have been given a both tragic and substantive backstory. Especially if her character in the present isn't all that interesting. She wants a place, turns out her place is to save Kylo Ren because the story told her to.

 

I love Rey's backstory. Even better than I imagined it would be. Ultimately so much richer, and more layered, than some tired, convoluted Skywalker/Solo backstory.

You mean there are other fictional characters in Star Wars acting independently, and consciously, beyond what the "story" told them to?

 

You know what I mean.
You didn't imagine her parents had just sold her to Plutt. I did and I didn't even want it to happen.
If you are happy with it great, but to me it should have just been exposition during the first movie. I get that Rian wanted Rey's story for Rey to figure out what she her "place in all of this is" but if her place just ends up being to fix some guy, then I don't care about her current journey either. Forget backstory that really is what bothers me most. That Rian took the female main character and reduced her to a plot device for two dudes. If she had an interesting story and goals in her own right, I'd forgive all any crappy backstory they could throw.
To me convoluted is "my parents sold me and I conveniently forgot, even though I saw the guy they sold me to every day and I never though to ask 'hey how'd I get here?' and he never brought it up either". I mean I know denial is a thing, but that's on another level that makes you wonder how she's even functional.
I don't know why you keep bring up her being a Skywalker or Solo. Those are jus a couple examples of how her backstory interesting, there's lots of other ways that wouldn't have required her to be related to anyone.

 

Yeah her backstory is no less "convoluted" here than it would be with Rey Skywalker. It's just lamer and makes the secrecy for years extra-irritating because this could have been told ten minutes into TFA and nothing changes.

Basically of the three protagonists, Rey has had BY FAR the least interesting so-called "arc." And the fact that they crapped all over the OT hero's legacies just to do this, makes it all the worse.

 

So basically you're mad that your speculation was wrong. It happens. Plenty of people get their theories wrong. They're not to blame for you speculating in the wrong direction, especially when others speculated correctly. What did they see and get from TFA that you missed? That's a better direction to head in.

What does the OT heroes' legacies have to do with Rey's parents being junkers who sold her off?

 

So Daisy just said she thinks Kylo is redeemable...and that hes not really "evil" lol in that FB QA

 

It has to do with the OT heroes' having failed at every possible endeavor they've undertaken (whether it be in the form of a contrived destruction or just having the characters learn nothing) in order to elevate a character that is as bland as white bread. This is not hard to discern from @Thrawn082 's statement.

 

We've literally only seen them at the end of their journeys. There are 20+ years of 'possible endeavors' that they go through. I get it, you want them now. Unfortunately, it takes time to write stories.

 

I meant the ones in the original trilogy. You know, restoring the Jedi with a renewed code? Restoring the Republic? Those endeavors that hardly ever succeeded?

 

Well I guess I got a different vibe from every possible endeavor. I also think it's very shallow and on the surface to conclude that the failures of restoring the Jedi and the Republic fall solely on the shoulders of the OT heroes. There's clearly a lot more nuance involved. But this isn't the place for that discussion.

 

I'm talking about how the ST was written into being as a story. The previous characters were made to have all of their ambitions fail to support a protagonist who is nowhere near as good. That is the issue here.

 

Ah. I don't agree, so I don't see the issue.

 

“Tragedy”? Rey apparently can’t remember her parent’s alcoholism, for her it’s all just a lore dump, it has no consequences moving forward. She is basically just an orphan (if you take Kylo seriously, which I don’t) and that's fine. That was Han’s original backstory way back when. It’s a perfectly good backstory if handled properly – properly would not be pouring a bunch of pointless mystery crap on it.

What does Snoke not knowing about Rey’s existence have to do with it? We knew that in TFA.

 

It appears you didn't discern my question properly, since you didn't bother answering it.

Again, what does Rey's background have to do with the OT heroes' so called failures? Did her junker parents have something to do with the destruction of Luke's temple? The breakdown of Han and Leia's marriage? The creation of the First Order?

 

The conversation is about what we learn in the book. And in the book we have multiple confirmations from Rey that she knows her parents abandoned her, that what Ben says is nothing new to her. You might not feel anything about it but for me it is a tragic backstory. It's not surprising that she buried such traumatic memory deep down (it's not like it's not happening in real life for some people), to be able to survive as an abandoned child. For me it works.

And as for Snoke, read again what The Regular Mustache wrote so you'll realize why I mentioned him in my reply.

 

I actually discerned it perfectly if you address what I was actually saying.

 

It's a heart rending reveal. That she spent, what, 15 or so years waiting for loving parents to return, using the hope of them to survive, only to learn that not only were her parents horrid monsters who sold her off, but she had the answer all along and just couldn't, wouldn't, face it.

It's certainly the most tragic background we've seen from any episodic SW lead protagonist. Of all the outcomes I personally hoped for, this eclipsed them all. And it's vastly superior to the absurd, convoluted Rey Related theories that were all the rage around here.

Thankfully it's over. The only question left regarding Rey I'm still curious about is why she is. I'm hoping IX delves more into this whole "darkness rises and light to it meet it" thing with Rey and Kylo.

 

This is precisely why I never had a problem with Rey quick change of mind about Ben, even before we learned she had a direct access to his emotions. When she realizes in TLJ, that she wasted her whole life waiting for horrid parents who sold her, and what's worse she knew it but unconciously choose to lie to herself the whole time and she has no one to turn to, so lonely, the lowest point in her life she has ever been... that she chooses Ben for help, because he is only person who might understand her in that moment, the only person who know the truth about her parents also.

 

The question was posed to another user. You jumped in with an unrelated post that didn't at all address my question.

So, are you planning on answering my question or not?

 

Except the ST wasn't the story of the OT characters. When TFA came out, the production team vary specifically mentioned that this story would be about the new characters and this would be a passing of the torch. Not sure how people were surprised when the story ended up being about Rey and Kylo as the force story.