ST Rey's Lineage / Parentage / Name

The Sith code precluded more than one padawan. I thought Jedi could train more, but only one at a time

 

When QGJ said he would take Anakin as his padawan, the council objected, saying he could not do that.
http://www.moviequotedb.com/movies/star-wars-episode-i-the-phantom-menace/quote_22376.html

no more Jedi code!!! please!!!

 

There’s no evidence that Jedi Killer was non-legacy even in the concept phase; I read the whole Art of Force Awakens book and yes they talk about a Jedi Killer without talking about Ben Solo but to me that just says more about how he is seen in-universe, which is just like Vader. I didn’t see anything in the book saying he was explicitly not a Skywalker or Solo though.
Now to get more big picture...

Are MeBeJedi and RobbyV more film expert than Star Wars fan? Not an insult I'm just being cheeky but let’s be real here. A lot of the stuff you guys are saying sounds like a film expert that doesn’t understand the Star Wars Episode Saga. And RobbyV here has bragged about being pretty ignorant to SW outside of the films which I think actually makes one less expert on the films. In understanding stuff outside of the films, you understand the Episode Saga’s place in the over-all Star Wars story more I think. To phrase it another way, you understand the Star Wars movies better than I do within the larger pantheon of films and stories but I think some of us pro-Rey Legacy folks seem to have a grasp I find more convincing and accurate on the Episode Saga's place in the larger world of Star Wars content.

Let me expand on that and try to come at it from the exact opposite angle: maybe MeBeJedi and RobbyV ‘s expertise in monomyth, symbols in storytelling, Hero’s Journey, film storytelling etc. is sufficient. So Uther Pendragon to Arthur Pendragon and instead of Arthur to his kids the continued tales of the Knights of the Round Table rove focus to other Knights like Tristram, Lancelot and Gawain. Let’s rejoice that we’re getting the Star Wars equivalent of Gawain then? Yay? The idea makes sense but is it worthy? Is it enough? And why in the episode saga?

Nah Drewton, we ain’t exhausted NOTHIN’! I got angles for days, yo.

Of course there’s Luke imagery to Finn. Finn and Luke were both the audience’s entry/perspective character. That’s part of what I found cool about the film, it was smart enough to both have Luke’s in-universe and meta-universe successor.

One of the reasons this debate is so unknowable is we don’t know what JJ means by “new story”. I might just be waking up but I feel like a lot of the staff/creator quotes since the movie came out our phrased in a way that supports the “movie already told you” theories some folks have but even that could just be a sly misdirect. How deep down the rabbit hole are the creators and to what extent do they want to play with us in it? The “reveal” could end up being an utterance of “Dad, help me with Artoo…” 20 minutes into Episode VIII…it could be a Big Deal in Episode 9….

Something I think about is how the Clone Wars shows focus on Anakin and they didn’t have to. They could have made them about anyone but at the end of the day they wanted any Star Wars fan from any era to turn on any movie or show and see someone named Skywalker with a lightsaber. Skywalkers and electrolytes – it’s what franchises crave. That said, it’s perfectly possible that the Dave Filoni post-ROTJ show will be The Adventures of a 15 year old Ben Solo or something…

@Raz Zaphron seems to have a similar angle to MeBeJedi and RobbyV in which film expertise is more important than Star Wars expertise. Yes post hoc ergo propter hoc because these are the main Episodes. The main episodes are about Skywalkers. To me the Skywalker saga, within the Episodes is an elastic enough thing that she could be a Solo, Kenobi or maybe even a Palpatine and it would still fit as part of the Skywalker saga. Why not make her mixed race or black if she’s not a legacy character? It’s all the rage (and for good reason) in genre updates. Did they pass up the chance to have Janelle Monae in a Star War just so the Rey character could possibly be a legacy character only for her not to be? Call the NAACP, y’all. This ain’t Star Wars: Jedi Academy or Star Wars: Knights of the Jedi Order. These are the main episode saga installments. That doesn’t make us overly reading into things or wishfully thinking or ignoring of logic, it makes us people who know what Star Wars: Episode ___ means. That doesn’t mean there’s no room for surprises but I think we’re being talked about like Straw Graspers when the burden of proof should be on those arguing that the Star Wars Episode Saga is now not what we’ve always known it to be. We’re saying the ocean’s always been blue- if y’all wanna say it’s turning orange that’s cool but you have more to prove than we do.

For the record, I just insist she’s a legacy of some kind not necessarily a Skywalker, even if that Legacy is another chosen one/prophecy deal. I am against and doubtful of her being just some FS whose only significance is as the person who made Luke believe in teaching again. Unless Star Wars: Stand and Deliver with Edward James Olmos makes a lot of sense to y’all.

I’ve been thinking about RobbyV ’s constant asking of the details of the Jakku drop off in different people’s thinking and all I know is the filmmakers will use character incompetence to make it make sense. I’ve noticed the biggest disconnect between fan theories and the stories that happen is the assumed competency of the heroes. The writers just make the heroes less competent than usual whenever they need them to get them or their loved ones into a jam. Also because filmmakers hate dealing with confident protagonists because they think they're better than us in not needing candy like we the great unwashed do. The incompetence is usually unpredictable to the fans like us who love the characters so that’s how they “surprise” us. There’s no hole in the plot RobbyV is getting at that can’t be solved by the heroes being really incompetent somewhere along the line. "Luke/Han/Kenobi son whoever is caught unaware by the Guy-Who-was-ACTUALLY-the-Last-Dark-Jedi-that-you're-stupid-to-not-have-known-was-out-there-even-though-the-films-are-predicated-on-the scarcity-of-Force-users (maybe Snoke); now his family is seemingly dead" or some permutation of it seems to me like it will be explanation enough.

@Raz Zaphron

The most obvious plot payoff to Rey being a legacy is the dynamic with Kylo Ren. I could buy RobbyV’s Salieri/ meritocracy idea: Ren the entitled brat being shown up by someone who should be a nobody. That’s a cool dynamic but is it end of episode 9 worthy? I don’t think so. Ren and Rey as an update on the Leia/Luke brother dynamic, now battling for the fate of the galaxy? That would be wall-punchingly cool.

I suspect you are wrong about the general audiences. Women over 35 talk about their boyfriend Han Solo dying. Hardcore Star Wars fans are talking about Rey Kenobi. Everyone else is talking about Rey as Luke or Leia’s kid. People are talking about this to the point where Black Girl Nerds and other Blerd sites write articles venting about how no one talks about Finn since he was revealed not to be the Jedi of the new trilogy. So yeah backlash is a real thing.

I am a really social out there doing things IRL kind of person. I have a rap band and we do shows every week in different cities (westcoastavengers.com y'all). I work in an office with 50 regular working folks 40 hours a week. I see my family and friends and girlfriend and her family often. I read tons of Star Wars websites, forums, articles, blogs and tumblrs and I listen to at least 8 Star Wars podcasts. I’ve easily heard over a hundred people's takes on TFA and we can extrapolate this because most people I talk to's perspective is corroborated in some well populated niche of the internet, except Rey Random. I don't say this snarkily but Rey Random supporters (in Raz Zaphron's case replace "Rey Random supporter" with "Rey Legacy skeptic") just seem to be this small subset of people who would be both Star Wars fans and film/story experts on a venn diagram in Star Wars forums implying that pro-Legacy folks want to ignore the rules of Good Storytelling for the sake of our sentimentality. And that's legit. Star Wars forums need film experts that are not emotionally attached to every droid that every graced a comic book page but I would just ask you guys: what is the Episode Saga to you? Not just Star Wars, but what is the Episode Saga specifically?

The general audience stuff is what makes me think it will be Rey Kenobi: surprises the GA while still satisfying them, fits with this movie’s recipe of remixing all the elements of the OT and especially ANH. Justifies not hiring a black or mixed-race actress. Believe these things are factors; the studio does itself a favor when it leaks that it considered black women for a Rey like role. It's considerations like that that make materials like visual dictionary cram Korr Sela down our throat "See we have a Rosario Dawson looking person in the film, we're modern!"

For the sake of having time in the films for anything besides amateur Jedi and reluctant heroes, I hope she’s Rey Solo because contrary to popular belief it would require the least in-film explanation by my reckoning.

And my enjoyment isn’t contingent on any one thing but I need a certain amount of awesome:

1. Luke’s equivalent to raising an X-Wing out of the water needs to be so epic that we’ll forget that these confident-hero-phobic filmmakers are probably not going to let him have a fight scene
2. If Kylo rebuilds a tri-saber and Rey ultimately gets a double blade we will have a two person 5 blade duel….I need dat!
3. I need Yoda’s “There is another” to be paid off by Episode 9. Specifically with Leia mattering in a big bad way preferably with the Force involved.

 

One thing I will say for sure is that Rey is always going to be Rey at this point. People are now attached to her and, as much as I never really liked that name for her and liked Kira better, they won't go and change it since that will be too confusing.

Even if she were to have been born with another name, she will still always be Rey.

 

jedijax that's an interesting idea. She may have this real but seldom used name, like Superman's "Kal-El".

 

In the early stages of the movie, Rey tells BB-8 that where she is from is "classified."

Do you think she was she just being sarcastic, mocking BB-8, or was she being serious?

 

Airwullf sent me via PM the scene of Rey's visions dubbed in Portuguese and it sure as hell does sound like she's yealling "Daddy!" ("Papai" or at the very least "Papa") at the departing ship.

BUT...

Why would they spill the beans to the Brazilian distributor? On the other hand, why didn't said distributor keep the line "come back"?

 

littlepadawan91 This goes back to how far down the rabbit hole are the creators? Was that intentional and thus revealing or are they not overseeing small details like that? How far down the chain of command does such a decision/change/translation get made? Does that person have a podcast?

 

What person?

 

littlepadawan91 Oh I meant to be humorous. Saying like, "Who knows how far down the Lucasfilm chain of command the person who authorized that translation is. And does this person have a podcast?" Man, I'm bad at this lol

 

She's not. I'm from Brazil and I've seen the dubbed version. Young Rey is yealling come back at the departing ship.

 

wanted to clarify a couple things I said: Korr Sela struck me as forced down our throats in the other material because she only got 8 seconds of time in the movie tops.

Also wanted to clarify about why I talked about how I am social IRL and talk to a lot of people- it's not just that but it's also this phenomena the guys on ForceCast (are any of the hosts of that podcast in this thread? What are their screen names here?) described about how since TFA people who are not big Star Wars fans seek out those of us that are to bounce their theories off of. That is happening to me all the time.

I am open to several situations RobbyV has talked about for Rey Random, they are just not my preference. That said, the only Rey Random scenario I can see satisfying general audiences would be if Benicio Del Toro is a bad-ass Knight of Ren and Rey is his kid.

To tie these last two ideas together: lots of non-hardcores asked me about Lor San Tekka, assuming he's someone hardcore SW fans like us know from before Episode VII. So even when you try to introduce "new" characters, GENERAL AUDIENCES assume that they are obscure OLD characters because of their perception of sci-fi, genre culture, geek culture and Star Wars. It stands to reason to me that the only way to avoid that kind of anti-climax and confusion is to reveal her to be related to someone that everyone knows.

 

I'm from Brazil too. We must have watched different videos, because there's no way she's yelling anything that remotely sounds like "Volta". I'll PM you later tonight.

 

Honestly Rey random is the worst thing they could do imo. One of my main reasons for thinking this is the "let her be her own character argument" if this were the case why give her ridiculous amounts of skywalker imagery? Why have a light saber that has already been used by great Jedi call to her? If they really wanted to make her an original character they should've done that. If Rey does turn out to be random they blew it! Not because she's random because the way they presented her with skywalker written on her forehead. Then again Jakku isn't tatooine and SKB ain't a Death Star so idk…

 

Please, send me the video. I'm not sure she's saying "volta", but I recall it was at least a synonym. Also, I'd remember if she was yelling "papi/daddy", and everyone here would already know it by now, as it's not the kind of thing that goes unnoticed for so long.

 

I agree with everything here, and it's also one of many reasons I think Rey Kenobi is a stretch.

 

The Jedi code isn't the problem. And Yoda was training several young Jedi with lightsabers in the PT..... But when a Jedi goes "Out On The Job", he just takes one padawan with him for on-the-job training, like an Apprentice. It's also nice to have back-up.

 

While I agree the Kenobi theory at first was ridiculous to me I now see how it would fit and would be more satisfying then random. I still don't see it happening…

 

I'm not sure I understand. Does Episode Saga mean Star Wars 1-7?

If so then it's a lot of things and I'm not sure what aspect of it you want me to describe. There's what the movie means to me as a kid and adult, and there's how do you describe it in one sentence. If it's the latter then in broadest terms it's a story about the cycle of a galaxy-wide conflict powered by forces of the dark vs the light, with the dark forces representing tyranny and the light representing freedom.

I'm really not so much a film expert as a film enthusiast and I never studied these in any formal manner. I loved TFA, but thought Guardians of the Galaxy (which I saw as an original yet beautiful ode to Star Wars) and Mad Max: Fury Road were better movies.

 

Boo! Mad max FR was a good film no doubt but I think it's a tad overrated same with GOTG. Good movies but TFA is the one that gets better on multiple viewings and leaves me wondering about the fates of the new characters the most imo. Also when I say a tad overrated I really mean a tad, Jurassic World was extremely overrated.

 

Great post all around but I just wanted to add my experience to this section. I'm definitely the SW person in my crowd. Friends, family and colleagues send me the funny Star Wars links, and ask me for Star Wars news. What I have experienced from them on the Rey legacy issue has more or less been people asking me if she's his kid. I have gotten the occasional, "who else could she be?" and a lot of assumptions that of course I would know (and of course I don't). That definitely tells me that it's a question the GA is asking, and Rey Skywalker seems like the most obvious answer. It also tells me that people are open to it not being the answer. The only person that I recall even acknowledging the specific possibility that she's random, though, was my 7 year old daughter. She went into the movie with the assumption and desire that Rey would be Leia's daughter. After, when I asked her who she thought Rey's parents were, she said she thought Rey was an orphan.

None of that is to say she is Rey Skywalker, of course. It might mean that we were meant to pick up on those vibes, or it might be a misdirection. If it is a misdirection, I do think LF is feeling the pressure to answer that question in a very satisfying way, and I think there are few Rey Random scenarios that would be very satisfying to the GA. Why should they have bothered wondering about the question from Episode VII until VIII just to be told, "psyche, she's not a legacy character, you don't know her parents."

Edit ~ RobbyV I love GotG too. That was one of my favorite movies in years. In the end after I have the TFA DVD I will still probably have rewatched GotG more than TFA. In a vacuum, definitely better than TFA for me. However, the saga element of TFA fitting into the (better) larger universe with a guaranteed trilogy makes me enjoy TFA more on the whole.

 

Oh we can be sure there will be 3 GOTG movies haha, at least! I too think it was at least as good as TFA on its own.

Word, RobbyV that works. For me that answer explains why the debate will rage on until probably Episode 9 ...I, and I suspect many others, see the Episode Saga as a Skywalker specific thing whereas the OT characters and their ancestry are less necessary to outside the Episode Saga content though usually a welcome addition. Combine that with how in the episode saga, the person whose training we're waiting on has always been a Skywalker (though not the protagonist, I will admit that's Obi-Wan 1 through 3) and that explains both why we feel the way we do about it and why we think it's logical to feel that way.

I have some Star Wars fan friends that are pretty hardcore but just not forum lurkers the way I am and they can't even conceive of the idea of "Rey Random", like whenever I bring up these debates they assume the debates are between is she Han's or Luke's. They don't know what's at stake LOL

 

It does appear it is the Jedi code which precludes having more than 1 padawan. I posted a link to the Jinn/Jedi council part of TPM where they reject him taking Anakin as his padawan due to the code.

and my sarcasm meter is still broken so...

 

Questioning my credentials, eh?

That's fine. It's just text on my screen...and won't make a difference one way or another. I could be wrong, I could be right for the reasons I've given, or I could even be right for reasons completely different from what I've given.

That you have a different take on the films is obvious....that your take is somehow superior to mine is debateable, given that you really don't know me at all.

But if it boosts your confidence in the Rey Skywalker theory, then by all means, go for it.

 

Tanjint Dawg you gotta rap band? Yooooooo lemme listen to your mixtape son.