ST Who left Rey on Jakku?

I've seen many theories suggested about what went down with Kylo leaving the academy and Rey's abandonment on Jakku, and I think I've found a way to explain how the two events could be related. This theory takes into account that Pablo has said that Rey's abandonment and the academy attack happened at different times, which I haven't seen many other 'Kylo abandoned Rey' theories do.

How are Kylo and Rey linked?

1. Kylo and Rey were both at Luke’s academy - Rey is Luke’s daughter

In this scenario, Rey is Kylo’s cousin. She may well have been living at the academy with her father without being an active pupil on account of her extreme youth. If they were cousins, their prior contact would make sense - they will have been bound by their shared blood as well as their mutual ability with the Force.

2. Kylo and Rey were both at Luke’s academy - Rey is unrelated

In this scenario, Rey is simply a Force sensitive child who Kylo encounters at the academy and forms a bond with. He could well have been a protective older brother figure, presumably despite his darker leanings.

3. Rey was not at the academy, but Kylo still encountered her when she was a young child

Here, Rey has no prior connection to the academy but does have a prior connection to Kylo. This will have had to involve a teenage Kylo coming across a young, Force-sensitive child, kidnapping her and abandoning her on Jakku for mysterious reasons. This scenario is very difficult to make sense of, and I consider it the least likely option. Therefore, I’m discounting it as implausible (for now).

When, how and why did Rey get abandoned on Jakku?

Thanks to the helpful but rather infuriating Pablo Hildago, we know that the Jedi Academy attack happened after Rey was left on Jakku. While I’m willing to call out Pablo when I think he’s being deliberately misleading or creative with his choice of words, I don’t think there’s ambiguity to his saying that the academy attack happening more recently than 14/15 years ago. That information means that Rey being left on Jakku and the attack on the Jedi academy are separate events, which throws a serious spanner in the works of many of the ‘Kylo abandoned Rey’ theories (which are generally predicated on the idea that Kylo left Rey on Jakku after sparing her from the slaughter at the academy).

The only way I see it working would be for Kylo to leave the academy prior to returning to wipe out the learners - if he left when he was 15 for training in the Dark side to prepare him for the massacre (which would make sense, since it seems improbable that he could have carried out the slaughter when he was so young), he could well have taken Rey with him. This could be for several reasons:

1. He could have wanted to spare her from the inevitable slaughter, so hid her on an obscure planet where she wouldn’t be found by either Luke or his fellow Dark side users.

2. He might have been driven by a strange mix of mercy and spite. If Rey is Luke’s daughter or perhaps just a preternaturally gifted Force user, it’s possible that he left her on Jakku to: a.) save himself from having to kill her and b.) punish Luke by separating him from his daughter/most gifted pupil.

3. He may have wanted to keep her with him as his own padawan, only to realise that such an arrangement would not work within the power structures he was committed to (Snoke, the First Order, the Knights of Ren, etc.). He may then have abandoned her out of desperation, aware that she couldn’t stay with him but unable to kill her.

What supports this?

1. Rey was left in the ‘care’ of Unkar Plutt, who is quite possibly the most ill-advised choice of caregiver for a five-year-old child conceivable. This indicates that it is unlikely that Rey was left on Jakku by someone with a sensible plan or a straightforward desire to protect her. Her being left with Unkar would make sense as the desperate act of an adolescent boy running away and preparing himself for induction into evil.

2. Rey has had her memories tampered with, keeping her in ignorance and confused as to her true history. While this is never made explicit, it is heavily implied at various points throughout the film. We know that Kylo’s powers over the mind are particularly acute, and his skill in reading minds and extracting information may well hint at a skill that would enable him to keep Rey’s mind on lockdown.

3. Apparently, you can see a flash of Kylo’s visor as the ship that left Rey departs from Jakku. This point is contentious, but the imagery used at the conclusion of the flashback to Rey’s abandonment undoubtedly recalls the vivid red typically associated with Kylo and other Dark side users.

4. A line in the novelisation says that “She [Rey] had seen this man [Kylo] before, in a day dream. In a nightmare.” This line makes a great deal of sense in relation to the scenarios explored above, for Kylo would be both the protective older brother figure Rey once dreamed of fondly and the cruel, frightening man who took her from her home and abandoned her to utter destitution.

5. On a meta level, it would make sense since Rey would be revealed to be the person who has always pulled Kylo to the light - she inspired mercy in him as a young child, and she continues to inspire mercy and compassion in him as a young woman. She is the light following him, which makes thematic sense given Kylo’s pronounced struggle with the Light side of the Force.

6. This would explain Kylo's strange recognition of Rey, and his intense desire to take her under his wing and teach her.

What do we think? I'd love other people to put my theory to the test!

 

This is a popular theory and yes, I think there is a connection between Rey being on Jakuu and Kylo. But Kylo would have been 15 years old at the time. Not impossible for him to have taken her there if he's a talented pilot.

 

Groundbreaking theory.

 

I've been toying with this idea for a while and I'm practically convinced.

My current theory is that Rey's vision of the Knights (the rain scene) portrays an assault under Snoke's orders to wherever she was hiding (most likely with an adult or suitable person to take care of her). Afterwards, Kylo drops her off at Jakku because he doesn't have the courage to hand her in to Snoke.

These are excellent points.

 

If you cared to look at my points, you'd hopefully appreciate that some of them take a new angle/try to add a fresh perspective. There's more to my argument than the title!

 

Changed name of thread to a general who left Rey on Jakku thread rather than a specific theory to allow for further discussion.

 

Very interesting points there, which explains why Kylo took such a keen interest in Rey, as compared to how he treated Poe and Finn... As well as showing some restraint when she was attacking him (unlike how he slashed Finn during their short duel, leaving the good guy comatose).


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Pablos timeline creates havoc with the Kylo / Rey thing

IF the events were separated by the time Pablo stated then I think Kylo left the academy a long time before the KOR attacked and destroyed it

There is a line in the novel that kind of supports this its when Kylo takes off his mask "For the first time Han saw the face of his son as a grown man - and it jolted him"

So if that is true, then what prompted Kylo to leave??

Was it Snoke tempting him
Was he expelled by Luke

I have been saying for sometime that I am convinced Kylos departure is key to the backstories of other characters, it wouldnt surprise me to find out that Kylo had murdered Rey's mother before kidnapping Rey and fleeing (whether shes Lukes daughter or not). Equally it wouldnt surprise me if Luke and Snoke had confronted each other at this time

The bizarre thing is Lukes absence from the academy when it was destroyed, why was he gone and where was he??

 

Perhaps he'd already gone looking for the first Jedi Temple...

Since hearing about it last weekend, I'm also a supporter of the Kylo-abandoning-Rey-on-Jakku theory! Well articulated!

 

It might be helpful to include what Pablo specifically said about the aforementioned timeline, or else provide links to it.

 

https://twitter.com/pablohidalgo/status/679445947693182976

The only thing that's certain is that the Jedi massacre happened less than 14 years ago. So it could be anywhere between 13 years ago to some reasonable number of years that Luke's gone missing.

If Kylo is at least 29, then Kylo should be 15-16 around the time Rey was left on Jakku, if Rey was left there around 14-15 years ago.

It doesn't make it impossible in my view, although personally I don't think Kylo left Rey there. It's possible but I can't really be sure at this point. If Kylo did leave Rey there then I assume he did so not knowing she was Force-sensitive -- that she was just some random girl she took pity upon as an orphaned child of a warrior they'd just killed and maybe sold to Unkar. That is probably why Rey recognizes him but is unsure from where.

 

I don't see Kylo as being the person that left her on Jakku, for a specific reason that he pays no attention at all to that when he pops down for a cup of tea with Lor San Tekka. If he had left her there, why pay no attention but then get all interested when there is mention of a girl that helped the droid?

In a general sense, that also counts against Kylo is the sense of waiting for someone to return. There is too much in the film - the constant references to return to Jakku, scratching the days off on the wall at home, for it just to be wishful thinking and a need for family leading for Rey to construct this within her own psyche. Someone left her there and promised to return - that is clear from her behaviour, ignoring the extra exposition of the vision in the novelisation. There has to be a connection.

The fact that she is left with Plutt, not the most obvious foster parent imaginable, implicitly counts against her being left by anyone that cares about her that is also still alive. Why would a loving parent / family member / friend leave her in such a situation and not return?

The most plausible explanation for me is that she was left on Jakku in a hurry, meaning that there wasn't time to got to Niima's adoption agency. The reason why they did not return is that they are now dead. This allows connection to existing characters without having abandonment issues.

 

I definitely think it would have been Kylo running away, perhaps after a punishment from Luke that made his decision to go over to the Dark side and Snoke final. And you're right - if Kylo had run away when he was a teenager, the implications that Han hasn't seen Ben since he was a boy would make a great deal of sense.

And I agree - I think the backstory of Kylo's departure is key to all this. I wouldn't be surprised if we see a teen boy with a resemblance to Adam Driver cast for VIII and/or IX, since they have a great deal of past to explain and I think it's going to have to involve further visions/flashbacks. There's a precedent for that now with Rey's vision in VII, so I have no doubt that we'll see similar scenes in the future.

Luke could have been gone from the Academy at the time of the attack for any number of reasons. He could have been hunting for Rey, been drawn away by Snoke, etc. Hopefully we'll find out in VIII!

 

Regarding the original post, I'm getting the feeling that Pablo Hidalgo is just some glorified fan, who Lucasfilm allows to sort out the mistakes in the expanded work. Everytime someone needs a clarification about something, he just says whatever. He doesn't know ****.

 

Didn't he write the visual dictionary...?

 

Who cares...third party crap that'll be ignored in the next film.

 

The only thing I'm sure is it wasn't Kylo.

 

It was Unkar's ex-girlfriend who left Rey there. After he said "Quiet, girl" he shouted at the spaceship with raised fists, "She's not mine!!!"


But seriously, obviously not by people who love her, therefore not her parents. Most likely she is an orphan. The kid who played young Rey described her costume as "war clothes" in an interview. Rey's probably an orphaned daughter of a warrior, perhaps the guy getting stabbed by Kylo in the Force vision. Unscrupulous traders scooped up the survivors and sold them as cheap labor.

 

But if that's the case, why do the legacy characters all have such strange and loaded interactions with her? Han, for example, is heavily implied to know or at least suspect who she is - his interactions with her convey guilt as well as pity, and I'm pretty sure that cut away from Han and Maz's conversation after "who's the girl?" is significant. If her past has absolutely no crossover with the pasts of the Skywalkers/Solos, the movie is being very misleading - it wouldn't be a first, but it would be extremely annoying.

 

I'm going with Luke leaving her on Jakku after he decided to go looking for the Temple. Perhaps before he did he tampered with her memory so all she remembers is being left behind by someone who said they would come back for her. And the choice of 'Foster Parent' perhaps intentional to toughen her up for when she would be needed.

 

Actually, the Pablo quotes make it sound like the Jedi massacre occurred fairly recently. He said it "wasn't that long ago". Someone asked him about the quote about Han not seeing Ben since he was a boy and Pablo said he just interpreted that to mean that Han didn't see any of the boy he raised in him. They've also said that Han and Leia are together in Bloodlines which takes place 6 years prior to TFA, so the Jedi Massacre must occur after that since that's what broke them up. Also, Pablo's said that the Big Three had "decades of peace", confirming the Jedi massacre occurred in the past 10 years.

I think Rey is Luke's daughter but I think the mom got pregnant without telling Luke and was somehow killed by the Knights of Ren who dropped Rey off. I don't think it's related to the Jedi Massacre based on what Pablo's said.

 

The short answer: misdirection. Head over to the Rey lineage thread to read all the fun theories that's been going on for weeks!

 

Here's what I think happened...with everything leading up to it, too.

Leia and Han are wed, and in no time Ben Solo is born.

After realizing Leia would be too busy with her newborn child and helping to establish the New Republic, Luke decides to search for and eventually finds a few Force sensitive applicants to start up his Jedi academy.

At this time, Snoke comes out of hiding and claims to be a former Jedi Master that had survived the Purge.

He befriends Luke at his academy and offers to train some of the students.

Not sensing any evil in the man, Luke reluctantly agrees.

After some time, Luke falls in love with his oldest apprentice and the strongest member of the academy, and eventually they marry.

Years pass by and young Ben Solo becomes old enough to join Luke's Jedi Academy.

Although Leia feels that Luke will help their son overcome his faults, Han thinks his son is too volatile and refuses to send his kid to the academy.

Luke objects too, thinking that his nephew is too hot tempered and impatient and must learn to wait until the time was right.

Snoke offers to train the boy instead and tells Luke that he has the experience of dealing with these types of children.

Knowing the good work that Snoke put in to help train his other students, Luke agrees.

After some time passes Snoke takes Ben, along with other students of the same age, and disappears.

Han and Luke try to search for Ben but knew the chances of finding him, or any of the other students, was nearly impossible.

A year later, Luke and his wife have a kid of their own, which they name Rey.

Several years pass by and the First Order is born from the remnants of the Galactic Empire, with Snoke and his Knights of Ren in control of it.

Luke and Han find out that Ben is now named Kylo Ren, the leader of the Knights of Ren, and Luke tries to convince his nephew to return to his family, which Ben flatly refuses.

Blaming his wife for allowing their son to be sent away, Han leaves and returns to a life of smuggling.

Seeing an opportunity to strike, Kylo Ren leads the Knights of Ren in an attack on the Jedi Temple and slaughters everyone there, save one, a young girl who he doesn't know is his cousin.

Kylo orders his men to burn the bodies before Luke arrives so he wouldn't know who was still alive.

Kylo Ren takes Rey to Jakku and leaves her in the care of a scavenger.

Luke, who was away at the time searching for more information on how to build upon the future of the Jedi, returns to find the Temple in ruins and his wife and students dead.

Sensing that the victim's murderers would return soon, Luke extracts a piece from one of Artoo's map files and discretely drops his droid off on some New Republic world so that no one knows what happened to him.

Artoo is recovered by Leia, and the data that was missing couldn't be identified because it contained ancient and obscure information that hadn't been used or recorded in millenia.

She contacts her old friend Lor San Tekka and asks for his help in finding the contents of the missing map information.

 

I believe Kylo Ren left Rey on Jakku, before his fall; this act of compassion was his last act as Ben Solo; the surprise in both Kylo and Rey's eyes/voices is telling, they know each other from times much happier for the Skywalker's and Solo's. The girl always finds out....