ST Rey's Lineage / Parentage / Name

I honestly thought that short of saying it outright, the film drove home the idea of Rey being Luke's offspring so clearly that it wasn't even a question. The musical cues, the lightsaber, the vision, Maz almost literally telling her, revelation that she dreams about the place where Luke is, Leia's embrace (significant and telling but not played up enough to be the reunion of mother and daughter) etc etc. Luke openly weeping when he sees her seemed like the final confirmation. I was surprised when the person I was with thought it was still up in the air.

I feel like the only satisfying answer is that she's Luke's daughter, but keeping it ambiguous guarantees that it won't be. It'll either be the most predictable and flagged up revelation ever, or something that requires some serious backtracking or contrivances.

 

Again my own personal view on it is that Rey Random could have worked fine, and most people would have accepted it. That is, IF they hadn't have gone about things the way that they did in TFA. Now, I feel like they may very well have written themselves into a bit of bind in that regard, at least as far was the general audience is concerned.

 

Luke_Skywalker_1 That's pretty much exactly how I feel about it. I figured Rey Organa-Solo was the most natural progression of the OT even though I was a little puzzled by how it'd work given the MSW spoilers. I also liked the potential of having a mother-daughter relationship at the center of the ST. But after actually seeing TFA, I'm leaning heavily towards Rey Skywalker due to a combination of what we saw in the movie and meta reasons (namely that KK constantly describes the main saga as a generational story about the Skywalkers, so to me having a non-Skywalker protagonist makes as much sense as centering a new Godfather movie around someone outside the Corleone family). But if Rey Skywalker is a red herring, I see Rey Random as the next most likely option. Her being the daughter of Luke's former padawan(s) is the 'random' origin that I think makes the most sense but a non-legacy background leaves things wide open so I wouldn't be surprised if it's something no one has thought of yet.

No need to be so touchy, I never said you can't talk about something. I'm just genuinely confused by how the use of a musical cue from an iconic Luke scene in the OT (composed well before Han Solo and the Princess, no less) is somehow evidence for Rey Organa-Solo. But okay, if we're dealing with facts, I'd appreciate some more evidence for your claims:

1) Regarding the link between Burning Homestead and Han Solo and the Princess, exactly which portions of each track are you referring to and exactly which chords are the same? Is the progression the same?

2) Every piece of music related to Rey has a connection with Han and Leia? What's the connection between Rey's Theme and Han and Leia? What about the Scavenger? Rey Meets BB-8? The Girl with the Staff? I'm also assuming you mean Han or Leia as characters rather than their love theme because the music that plays during Rey and Leia's goodbye is Leia's individual theme from ANH.

That's is how I've always seen it, regardless of Rey's origins. There's also an element of tragedy in both. Luke is motivated by the death of his aunt and uncle while Rey is (at least partly) motivated by seeing Kylo strike down Finn.

Yeah, a lot of people write off father-daughter drama as simply a rehash of Luke-Vader's father-son conflict, but the latter is a staple of every genre of Western media while the former (or really, anything involving female family members doing something besides dying to motivate a male character) is wayyyy less common. To say nothing of how female Skywalkers, specifically, have really gotten the shaft in the prior films. I think the master-apprentice aspect also puts a twist on the father-daughter angle (or uncle-niece, if she's Leia's) that we haven't yet seen in SW.

And as I've said before, I think Rey and Kylo could serve as a referendum on the Skywalker legacy. We've had one dark side generation and one light side generation. This would give us both in one generation, possibly embodied through a conflict between each side of Anakin's bloodline. IMO that'd be a great way to wrap up the saga (which is why I'm much more amenable to X onwards being less Skywalker-centric...though tbh I wish they'd keep the main saga as a trilogy of trilogies and go anthology-style after IX).

 

I can't see how other people see that. The father-daughter drama is not comparable to the Luke-Vader drama because the former pair is on the same side of the conflict. The comparable drama is that between Rey and Kylo. In fact the problem with the father-daughter drama from a story point of view is there seems to be no drama.

But we have seen this haven't we? Aren't the Jedi master-apprentice relationships in the PT and ANH essentially also a paternal/familial relationship ("You were my brother, Anakin! I loved you!"). When you're taken as a baby from your real family and raised and taught by your master, the master-apprentice relationship automatically becomes a family/paternal/brotherly/sisterly relationship as well. What twist does it really add to that kind of master-apprentice relationship to be really father-daughter? The way we saw the Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan, Obi-Wan/Anakin, Obi-Wan/Luke relationships, they were pretty much familial bonds at the same time.

I don't ask this as a rhetorical question. I'm genuinely curious as to what fundamental difference there is between a master-apprentice relationship between blood relatives and non-blood relatives. It's not so obvious.

 

The extreme attachment to one particular theory (mainly Rey Skywalker and Rey Random) based solely on the argument that another scenario couldn't plausibly be pulled off shows a disturbing lack of faith in the team of writers. I'm positive they could deliver whichever scenario, including Rey Palpatine and Rey Clone.

I see two issues with what's been going on in the fandom with regards to Rey's parentage:
a) "plot holes" is being used as an umbrella term for "things we don't know for sure yet". We DON'T know if their parents dropped her off. If they did, we DON'T know what the circumstances were. We DON'T know how much Rey remembers of her pre-Jakku life. We DON'T know if her parents think she's dead or alive. We DON'T know if her father even knows she exists.

b) the loose ends that need to be tied are being blown out of proportion. If I get into a time machine right now, to an AU in which technology already existed back in 1977, I'd bump into discussions such as this one, claiming that Vader couldn't possibly be Luke and Leia's father because "why would Obi Wan lie to Luke? Why would his own uncle and aunt?", "how come Luke and Leia didn't sense each other?", "so Vader tortured his daughter without realizing it?" and so on. Look how many "plot holes" I pulled out of my sleeve. And these are supposed to be the best films of the franchise.

Yes, I'm aware that Vader being L&L's father wasn't planned in advance, but that's the canon we ended up with and the OT is still widely praised.

Come December 2017, the claims of "misdirection" will be deafening if she's anything but a Skywalker. But I'm just saying... we can't blame anyone but ourselves if we don't consider all the possibilities.

 

If she is family, Luke may have some struggles that he may not have had otherwise. Separating Rey the student from Rey his fam of some sorts (perhaps seeing how Ben fell...). She may be resentful that the Skywalkers never came looking for her, on top of being grilled on Force topics by the same folks who failed her. Can she trust him? Can he trust himself to make sure she comes out right? -- note that those still apply if she is random. The family angle though, would seem to make this be a bit more dangerous for both. Hard feelings than if she has no connection to him at all.

I did not get family bond aspect in master/apprentice because that was not shown well in the PT. Posted that in the PT section, the OB1/Anakin relationship was never shown to be what they said it was (good friends, brothers, etc). I did not buy it the way they acted. OB1/Luke was surrogate dad for a short time, however the concept of master/apprentice did not come up in ep4 that we now see it to be. OB1/Jinn, did not get a family bond there either. Student/teacher sure. Part of the prob is the rotten code. You have have a bond that would seem normal to us non SW uni folks and then claim the Jedi should not have certain types of relationships. That just did not work for me.

 

The master-apprentice relationship is supposed to maintain a barrier against forming too much of an attachment. TCW delve into this much more deeply, and Anakin is always the weirdo that breaks rules with his attachments, which rubs off on Ahsoka. Ben didn't highlight this to Luke, but then again Ben and Luke never approached having a father/son relationship. Luke/Rey father/daughter dynamic would be different because the attachment is inevitable and so huge, just like Luke's was with Vader. Ben and Yoda didn't care for Luke's attachments and made that clear, but Luke refused to do things their way. He let his attachments to Han, Leia and Vader direct his path. Seeing that element in the protectiveness of a parent would be new and have a huge emotional pull on the audience. There is a "leak" video on YouTube of a guy claiming to have read portions of the script. A lot of people find it really credible. It has Rey's lineage continuing to be a mystery, and Rey Skywalker continuing to be hinted at, with Luke and Rey forming a master/apprentice relationship. For me, that would be a waste. If Rey is Rey Skywalker, the drama of the father daughter dynamic should be front and center. That would be new and different. I would want to see Luke thrilled to see his daughter, express his concern for her, and actively and affectionately protect her (while training her). I don't expect that but it would be different and nice to see.

 

1. As said before, the chords we hear when Rey chatches the lightsaber are in Burning Homestead and Han Solo and The Princess. Though I'm not saying this is evidence of Rey Organa-Solo (nor is evidence of Rey Skywalker, in my opinion). If anything, it shows, again, what a great composer John Williams is.

2. Rey's Theme has elements of Princess Leia's Theme. When Leia gives Rey the mother's embrace, Han Solo and The Princess is playing. I recalled Han Solo and The Princess playing during Rey and Leia's goodbyes, but you say it's Princess Leia's Theme. Either way, TFA has some interesting musical connections between Rey, Han and Leia, and that can't be ignored. But I recon I may exagerated when I said "every music related to Rey has a connection with Han and Leia".

 

I don't think she is Luke's daughter.

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A father who feels he let his family down and doesn't want to make the same mistakes with his daughter, who doesn't want his daughter involved with this conflict, who doesn't want to get involved but feels like he has to protect his daughter now, who feels conflicted about his daughter killing his nephew, maybe a father who feels he can get his daughter to kill his family when he cannot by withholding the truth from Rey.

 

Yeah the idea that there's NO inherent drama with Luke and Rey being potentially father/daughter, especially given how they've set it up. Yeah, don't agree with that at all.

First of all, there's the inherent tragedy of them being separated for so long, with Luke missing out on her entire childhood/adolescence. And his guilt over not knowing or finding her himself. Also her struggling to make sense of it herself, and reconcile it with what she thought that she knew. Then there's the question of if he even wants to tell her initially. There's also the stuff about them potentially butting heads over what to do about Kylo (if Luke holds true to his OT views), or just their differing views on things in general, Luke having to struggle with the fear that his daughter might go down the same path as Ben, Rey having to grapple with the fact that her father is a VERY different man that her uncle/surrogate father figure was, why he didn't intervene sooner all of the stuff that Drewton mentioned, who her mother was/what happened to her, etc?

There's plenty there. And there's certainly no less than there'd be if she was just some random girl who had no connection to him previously.

 

I understand the teachings against attachments but that seems to be the paradox of Star Wars -- padawan are forbidden to form these attachments, but by spending your life with one master, you will inevitably form such an attachment with him/her. Everything about what I've seen in PT and OT seems to me that master-apprentice relationships are familial relationships at the same time. And can you blame them? Master and apprentice are together almost all the time. What is family but the people you do practically everything together with? In fact it appeared to me the strongest familial (surrogate father) bond in the whole of the series was that between Obi-Wan and Luke, regardless of how short it was. Or maybe that was just a result of the PT's bad acting.

I can totally buy that the script goes that way. In fact for a while I was thinking this was one direction they could take (when I was already firmly believing in Rey Random) -- continue with the mystery of her origins, then show the two develop that master-apprentice/father-daughter relationship at the same time. It totally works for me because like I said, the master-apprentice relationship cannot be made separate from forming a parellel father/daughter relationship, regardless of who Rey's parents really are. It's impossible not to form that bond, unless one of them were a sociopath. It will be Rey and Luke's shared adventure that will form that relationship -- as it has always been in Star Wars. It is already hinted at with the bonds Rey had formed with both the new and legacy characters. I can't think of any story/film where master/apprentice relationships between people of the appropriate age and wisdom gap that don't also turn into an de facto parent-child relationship. It's inevitable.

Ok, I can buy this as a conflict -- it's totally believable. But how does it move the story in episode VIII? If anything it seems to slow it down. Rey has already accepted her role, and then she will hesitate because of the ill-will that the revelation will bring, while Luke's waited years for someone to show up and then also hesitates because he doesn't want to put his daughter in danger. It doesn't feel like the story that comes after that exciting and dramatic last scene of the movie as also described by the screenplay -- "MUSIC BUILDS, the promise of an adventure, just beginning..."

 

I do not suggest hesitation, perhaps she has to deal with things during whatever training they choose to show as does Luke. Luke showed his failures in training with Yoda, maybe she will show some issues because of her heritage in 8. To me, lots of these items apply regardless of parentage. She will need to deal with abandonment issues I would think.

My view (shocker) is the parent/child angle has more to it then just plain student/teacher.

 

MattOrgana I'm asking for specifics though, because saying that there are "elements" in common is vague and hard to verify. Particularly when it comes to Rey's theme invoking Leia's theme, which is something I haven't heard before. And I'm not even asking for this as evidence of parentage per se (though if the similarities are strong I'd certainly be inclined to take it that way). Those are the kinds of things that are cool to notice simply as a fan of the score.

It's okay if you personally don't have the musical expertise to point out specific chord progressions and such, but linking to a source that DOES go into that level of detail would be helpful. Here's an example of what I mean: http://www.aaronkrerowicz.com/star-...swer-in-the-force-awakens-soundtrack-response

BTW you're right about HS&TP playing over the hug, but the goodbye uses Leia's theme, you can hear it at 2:56 here:

If I were Rey I'd be more than a little resentful towards a father that either 1) left me on Jakku for over a decade or 2) decided to hide out on an island rather than look for me. And I think that applies even if Luke has a "good" reason for leaving her or not looking for her, because it'd be understandably difficult for Rey to look at the situation from a detached and purely rational perspective. That actually ties into my biggest issue with Rey Skywalker, which is that I think it's hard to pull off without making Luke look bad. But I also think having Luke peace out on his family and the galaxy after his Academy was destroyed makes him look bad, so what do I know.

Re: familial twists on a mentor-apprentice relationship, to add to all the examples other people pointed out, being Luke's daughter creates an additional layer of pressure/stress for Rey, since failure on her part could be the death knell for the legacies of the Jedi and her family.

I'm confused as to why adding an extra layer of emotional conflict or tension is a bad thing, narratively-speaking. Wasn't your original complaint that there wasn't any drama involved in a father-daughter relationship?

 

Vader was redeemed by his final act in the eyes of Luke and the movie-going audience ONLY. To the rest of the galaxy, if the GFFA really existed, there is no way you could call what Vader did in the end redemption.

If you want to flip the coin, imagine if Hitler had a fling with a woman some time in the 20s. She gets pregnant, but he breaks it off with her because he's too busy trying to become Chancellor of Germany. She goes on to have the kid and dies. Sometime later, Hitler finds out this woman was actually Jewish. Now, he knows there is a kid out there, a child of his, who is a Jew. He orders his SS to get their hands on this kid who must be eliminated because it would obviously look pretty bad for his image if it's known he has a Jewish kid. Fast forward to spring of 1945, the SS find the son and bring him to Hitler in his bunker in Berlin. The boy begs his father for mercy and tells him he knows there is still good in him and to reach for it. Hitler looks into this child's eyes and has a true change of heart and tells his SS to take the boy away to safety and then tells his generals to close down the concentration camps, free the Jews and surrender to the Allies, and then shoots himself in the head.

How does this scenario look? Well, better than the Hitler we know, but is it really much better? What about the SIX MILLION Jews who were gassed, tortured, starved, shot, or killed in whatever gruesome manner Himmler and Goethe and the rest devised in Hitler's name? Even if the above scenario happened, there is no way Hitler doesn't still land at the top of the list of most evil men of modern times. This is exactly how the galaxy would view Vader. People didn't tremble when Vader walked past because he had a bad-ass outfit. He did plenty of horrible things we know of and plenty of horrible things that were alluded to. This legacy is not one that many children would want to embrace, even if Vader's kids both turned out to be good. If Rey discovered this to be her legacy, it would be frightening to say the least. It would be disorienting. Of course, she has the potential to fall into the dark side just because she is human, no matter her ancestry, but inheriting Vader's legacy is a burden I'm pretty sure she would have never been prepared for.

 

I don't think that adding a layer of drama/tension is a bad thing for the story. I think adding that particular kind of drama/tension (resentfulness on Rey's part, hesitation on Luke's part) in the story might be. It doesn't seem to be the natural progression from the ending of TFA and it slows the story down a lot, given there's so much ground and characters to cover. In fact I don't even think they'll bother with a training montage scene in VIII.

I can see the drama moving the story if Luke hesitates but Rey wants to be trained, or Luke wants to train her, but Rey doesn't out of spite -- though in both scenarios we really slow down the momentum built up by the last scene of TFA. But both of them not wanting Rey to assume the legacy -- there's no drama there. They'll just both pack up and go home.

I'm talking hypothetically here as I don't see Rey hesitating -- that part has been covered in TFA and it'll be weird to have her backtrack on that decision out of abandonment issues (also, it didn't seem to me that Rey was resentful or had abandonment issues -- she was just generally lonely).

Killing the emperor so that the GFFA won over the Empire didn't count? You don't think Luke cleared Daddy's name with the GFFA? Whoever's eyes you think was aware of Vader's last act, he was redeemed in those eyes. In fact, that's what the title of the movie means! Hitler wasn't redeemed in anyone's eyes as far as I know. The more appropriate comparison to Hitler was Palpatine. Vader was Claus Von Stauffenberg if he had succeeded in assassinating Hitler.

Ok, let's accept this for the sake of argument. How does this burden move the story? What interesting developments can me make out of this burden that creates an interesting story (again, these are not rhetorical questions)?

 

Sorry, DP.

 

RobbyV Oh I see, you meant having both at the same time. Yeah I don't see Rey hesitating - she seems to have made up her mind by the end of TFA. The scenario where Luke is hesitant seems more likely. That hesitation doesn't have to be limited to training her but could also (or instead) be about whether he wants her involved in the inevitable confrontation with Snoke or Kylo. Yoda and Obi-Wan trained Luke specifically to take down Vader but I could see Luke really hating the idea of having his daughter address what he sees as his own failures. I think there's a lot of potential there, but of course, it depends on well it's handled since it could also bog down the narrative if dragged out for too long. For now I'll be tentatively confident that Rian will know how to handle their relationship, whatever it ends up being.

 

ChildOfWinds

Why do you keep ignoring my posts that show you evidence that the Jedi Massacre was within the last 6 years ago because it contradicts your head canon that it occurred 10 years or more ago? It's very frustrating to continuously show you evidence that shows that it happened more recently, only to have you ignore it and keep stating Luke being gone for 10 years as fact.

We know:

Bloodline takes place 6 years before TFA (Del Rey)
Bloodline will show "Han and Leia in happier times" (Jen Heddle, editor at LFL) (in response to a fan saying she was devestated to see Han and Leia separated in TFA)
Bloodline has some "cute Han/Leia scenes" (Jen Heddle, LFL)
The Han/Leia scenes are NOT flashbacks (Jen Heddle, LFL)

We know Han and Leia's marriage fell apart after Ben turned to the Dark Side (TFA)
Han and Leia are still together in Bloodline.
Ergo, the Jedi Academy massacre has NOT occurred yet.

As I already said in my post in the other thread which you ignored, we have no idea when Han and Leia SENT Ben away. Just because Ben went Dark and massacred the Academy at 23/24, that does NOT mean that he was sent around that time. Anakin was sent away to train with Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon at 9 and didn't fall to the Dark Side until he was 23/24. Why is that so hard to understand?

Ben was likely sent away either as a child or a teenager (which would match the MSW call sheets) and then turned against Luke and massacred the Academy sometime in the last 6 years before TFA.

We do not KNOW the Jedi Massacre will be covered in Bloodline. It could be left entirely out of the book. Or it could happen and the details left vague, so that the films can fill them out. It is told from Leia's POV and she isn't at the Jedi Academy, so it's possible it'll just show her feeling a disturbance in the Force or something. Or the Jedi Massacre may not occur at all in the book.

I've been keeping track of Pablo and Jen Heddle's tweets and interviews closely and read the Visual Dictionary and the official site. There is NO OFFICIAL SOURCE that has said that the Jedi Academy massacre happened 10 years ago. Show me an OFFICIAL SOURCE that has said that, and I'll change my tune. You either made that number up or you read it from a poster and interpreted it as fact.

Han and Leia still together in "happier times" in Bloodline which takes place 6 years before TFA = Jedi Massacre hasn't occurred yet.


Honestly, I'm not sure why you're so vehemently against the Jedi Academy massacre occurring less than 6 years before TFA. As a Luke fan, I thought you'd be happy to see he hasn't spent the last decade alone on an island.

 

I don't know if this has been discussed (probably?) or even if it's relevant to this thread, but I'll post it anyway. It's from late December, but I just found it on tumblr.

 

RobbyV: No one else who witnessed the events in the throne room got off the Death Star alive. Luke could say whatever he wanted, but that still doesn't absolve Vader of ALL the horror he inflicted on the galaxy during the 20+ years he served the Emperor. Within the balance of good and evil in the Force, Vader was redeemed, but the rest of the Galaxy would have no proof of this other than Lukes word. Since Vader is Lukes father, you could always argue that Luke had a personal interest/gain in Vader's rehabilitation. Were I an average galactic citizen who had suffered under Vader, what Vader did in the end wouldn't have been nearly enough to sway me to think he was redeemed.

 

atone vs redeem
The Force may have allowed him to die on the side of good, the populace surely would not have cared he was no longer on the dark side. That has to be one of the main driving points of why a redemption arc ended like that with Anakin/Vader. How was he going to walk back into Leia's life for example like nothing happened or the rebels would not put him on trial? Also an angle missing and I hope they cover in some way, the impact of Anakin/Vader on Leia. We see what it did to her son... better not be another missed father/daughter insight (even though one side of this is long dead story wise). Not interesting what that might do to Rey? I could see Rey going dark if she is Leias kid and realizing she witnessed her father getting killed and never got to ack Han in that way. Would go against my desire for dad/daughter for sure.

 

While I haven't been keeping up with the specifics of your guys' debate, I agree with anyone trying to clarify that Luke hasn't necessarily been gone that long.

I mean, Luke has been gone long enough for Han to have gotten back into smuggling for awhile but how long do we really think Ben has been Kylo if he's still this untrained? 6 years sounds about right; I really hope Bloodline sheds some light.

 

Honestly, it would really surprise me if a book already covered such major plot points like Ben turning and destroying the academy.

 

We don't know that the massacre of Luke's students was the point at which Ben turned. I would find it difficult to believe that a 23 year old wouldn't be able to build a better lightsaber than Kylo's (which is "constructed by an inexperienced hand") when he's been training with Luke for over a decade.

Then there's Han being struck by seeing Ben as a man (I don't buy Pablo's interpretation for a second) and his claim that "a boy" turned against Luke. Ben could have turned as a teenager, perhaps fifteen or sixteen) and the massacre was his big reveal/final test to become the master of the Knights of Ren. This would also line up the timeline for Rey's abandonment on Jakku with Ben's initial turn to the dark side. Han/Leia could still be in relatively "happier times" until the massacre when they find out their son is in fact Kylo Ren - and as per Jen Hedddle, Han isn't in the book that much.

For what it's worth, given the prominence of Vader on the cover and the need to retain as such secrecy as possible around Rey, I think the big event is probably the galaxy finding out that Leia is Vader's daughter, thus throwing her political career into turmoil.