ST Daisy Ridley (Rey) in the ST

Exactly. And it’s not even necessarily about here. There are Rey haters that exist within the fandom. They hate her character. They think she ruined Star Wars and is a threat to the legacy of the male heroes by overshadowing their accomplishments with less physical training on screen. They think she’s too perfect. And they then attack all aspects of Rey so frequently that it seems like they truly hate her.

It’s more on Reddit or Youtube than here but collectively she seems to have some haters out there.

 

Unkar made no pretense of his exploitation. He was unashamed because he had a captive market. She was his slave, effectively. And Rey knew it.

Not the same as Kylo Ren.

I don't think you have explained why being someone's son is a satisfactory reason to show them compassion in spite of their crimes while someone not having that relationship but nevertheless following the aforementioned son's example by showing the same compassion should be considered intolerable.

 

Gotta give me more to go on..my brain is running a million miles a minute right now

 

Yeah, after about the 15th time of seeing Rey called an "idiot" it started to dawn on me that she wasn't too well liked in some quarters.

 

It's not even a case of her overshadowing the male heroes as she is fundamentally less interesting than the previous protagonists and ON TOP OF THAT, she is also less interesting than supporting characters like Finn who:

1. Has a far more compelling premise
2. Doesn't require endless speculation fodder and hype-mongering in order to be an interesting character
3. Generally seems to be in more genuine danger than Rey ever is most of the time

I'm referring to the stupidity of her supposedly getting a better understanding of Ben with their Force connection but never getting reviled by the nature of his current state when contrasted with his upbringing.

 

Yeah but this is also coming from someone who didn't perceive Kylo as lying in the movie before reading the book. Kylo IS trying to manipulate Rey IMO--primarily to his worldview. He wasn't trying to get Rey to try to save Ben Solo. That was ALL Rey. And that's from the movie. Nothing Kylo does in the movie indicates he is trying to do that.

Oh and also this wasn't a "checkmate losers" sort of thing. It's that the book matches my perception from the movie and puts it in print.

 

Except it wasn't made. All additional sources (novels, storybook) confirm what was in the movie. Even with Snoke influence he didn't turn before this.

Spoiler

 

With no particularly good reason if it's based on this:

I would say to them actually look at how weakly she is written as a character.

She's no threat at all to Anakin, Luke, Padme, Leia or any really well written and realized character.

 

That is the other disconnect for me too. Nothing about his upbringing with Han and Leia has been shown on film that gives more background or contradicts than what has been included in the novels. I just don't see this supposed "abused, abandoned" Ben Solo.

 

I used to think similarly but I’m not so sure on a planet like that she’s ever come accross a young guy like Ben Solo, whose mom she knows and respects, who’s used love bombing and gaslighting on her, and who offered to explain the thing that’s been inside of and has awakened that she doesn’t know what do do with. Someone that resourceful and manipulative and ambitious wouldn’t be on Jakku long. They’d find a way out.

I imagine Jakku manipulation being a bit more like piker and homeless tent city conflicts. Less head games and more brute force and theft and outright lies with the intention to steal and less about making someone feel special and appreciated.

I see no reason to believe Rey has encountered anyone like Ben Solo in the slightest on Jakku before. There’s no indication she has and until there is its fair to believe that she struggled with this because she has never interacted with someone like Ben, with all of his unique characteristics, verbally or through the Force before in these ways.

 

You're not. You either believe that or you don't. It's irrelevant because it is not what motivates her.

Anakin was motivated by the safety of his wife and unborn child, and grandchild, to murder children. And Ben is motivated by upholding his grandfather. So how can they be treated so drastically differently when it comes to someone offering them compassion in order for them to redeem their equally unjustifiable crimes?

She wasn't awakened to the force prior to TFA and hadn't listened to the force for guidance. Now she has that awareness and an intimate mental connection with Ben was one of her first experiences. The force is telling her, she feels, that it's her destiny to help Ben redeem himself.

It wasn't just because he was his father's son that Luke chose compassion. And it's not just because of the similar emotional background that Rey shares with Ben that causes her to do the same. It's because those that have that in them are shown their destiny by the force, good or bad, and it's left up to them if and how they choose to follow it.

 

But this isn't Ben Solo she never knew Ben Solo. Kylo Ren, someone she knows as a murderer is the one utilizing the tactics of a narcissist (love bombing and gaslighting). Why should she not have an ounce of suspicion that there's less than honorable intentions in his words and actions based on her dealings with Unkar and others?

 

I'm also not one of those who said she was "too perfect" or that she needed to lose a limb just because it happened in both the PT and the ST. Those have never been my issues with her. TLJ just completely lost me on her actions. I can't comprehend why she did what she did in several situations regarding Kylo. She heard his version of the story and Luke's version of the story but she sided with Kylo and then got into an altercation with Luke over it?

 

I think it’s easier for not only us but also probably Rey to look back on it all differently once she realized that the mind bridge was a trap and that the vision of Snoke dead and them working together wasn’t the start of his turn to the Light side but those two elements initially are game changers.

Throw in the fact that I don’t think she’s ever really been around someone like Ben Solo at all before on top of that. Jakku is slim pickings and seemed to feature more aliens than humans and everybody seemed to live in isolation.

In all of the EU material we’ve seen it sounds like Rey lived closer to the life of a combat hermit. So, while she can fight and survive and scavenge... I’m not convinced she’s gone through the kinds of relationship stepping stones the average 19 year old has. We take a lot of that social development for granted that we learn in school. She didn’t experience any of that.

 

I don't expect her to have relationship stepping stones at the age of 19 from a planet like Jakku but she has likely been exposed to less than scrupulous individuals that would give her signals when someone is not on the up and up.

Again, she's never been around BEN SOLO so I am not sure what influence Ben is supposed to have provided her so far in the ST.

 

Luke was never around Anakin. Yet he "knew" the once good man by sensing him in Vader. Ditto Rey with Kylo/Ben.

What lie is Kylo supposed to have sold Rey, incidentally?

 

Right, her hearing even anecdote or something about what a good person Ben Solo was would make things at least a bit more understandable. Or make it clear how messed up Snokes force connection was making her perspective and thats why she sided with him.

 

I don't think it makes sense to characterize Rey as not knowing Kylo is bad or might lie. She wants to believe he is lying in his account of Luke drawing his saber. Hence she says, "Liar!" Her distrust is clear.

But the next part of this is something unique to the Star Wars universe--which is that there is a significant contrast between Anakin and Vader; and between Ben and Kylo. Rey thinks about things in these terms because it's part of how the fictional universe she lives in, operates. But she leaped to thinking she understands everything prematurely. She didn't in fact understand everything as she later discovers.

Given that Rey is trying to figure out her place in this and how this all works, it's not surprising that her mistake is due to not understanding how this all works.

Rey has a very simple understanding. The movie makes that clear. She thinks the Force is a power the Jedi have to control people and make things float. She thinks turning back from the dark side is more simple than it is. She doesn't even question a Force vision.

This isn't idiocy. It's that Rey is a n00b. And as much as Rey is humble to a fault in some ways, she is perhaps a bit arrogant in terms of thinking she has things all figured out. This is because Rey is confident in her ability to figure things out, and so it's easy to cross into over-confidence in that area.

 

More understandable than than the knowledge of his parents, his sworn enemies, still wishing him to return and the example of Ben's father showing him compassion even at the moment of dying at his son's hands?

 

Yes, most parents have a thing called unconditional love and so their perspective on their kids tend to be biased.

 

Rey can perceive Ben through the mind bridge. Neither Leia nor Luke told her there is still good in Kylo. We know Leia didn't because when Rey first arrives on the island she tells Luke there is no light left in Kylo Ren. That was before the mind bridge. The movie perhaps fails to make the depth of the mind bridge clear. It doesn't hit you in the face with just how much of her adversary Rey can now perceive. She knows there is good in Kylo because she can perceive it.