I immensely enjoyed Mara( @jewishcomeradebot)’s recent Rey-centric meta (link with my addition),
and the central thing I appreciate about her take on Rey is that she
doesn’t posit Rey as this vaguely positive altruistic figure. Rather her
read of Rey is fiercely self-interested and focused on her own desire, a
rare perspective in fandom. Mara’s posts helped me bring Rey into clear
focus as a character for the first time.

I think people’s
perception of Rey is distorted in part because we tend to attribute
altruism as the primary virtue for women, both real and fictional. This
is reflected in the characterizations of the Star Wars heroines as well:
Leia and Padmé are defined by their dedication to the well-being of
others, or the greater good. They have things they want for themselves,
primarily close relationships such as romance, but their primary driving
motivations are to save others through armed struggle or politics.

I
get that female characters being driven primarily by larger galactical
matters rather than romance was and to an extent is still revolutionary.
I don’t mean to detract from anyone’s love of characters like Leia and
Padmé, and I love them myself. In fact, it is almost impossible not
to love them because there is nothing controversial about them and what
bad things did come out of their decisions (such as Padmé marrying
Anakin post-Sand People massacre) came out of the men in their lives
being trash.

That said, I am also dissatisfied by heroine
motivations that basically go, “she loves the entire UNIVERSE and wants
what’s best for it.” It’s a continuation of the old stereotypes of women
being selfless nurturers, just with more politics and guns. While the
politics and guns are arguably progressive, these arcs are in stark
contrast to those of male protagonists who get to want things for
themselves.

Luke is a good case in point. His goal was primarily
for himself, to leave Tatooine and to become “a Jedi like my father
before me.” He ended up helping the Rebellion and defeating the Empire
along the way, but it was his personal goal to claim his heritage and
realize himself as a Jedi that his story revolved around. Anakin’s
ultimate goal was to keep his loved ones safe, which can be framed
altruistically but in the end turned out to be about himself and his
trauma, not the people he said he loved. Luke’s goal could also have
turned out badly if he had chosen his desire to connect with his father
over the desire to be a true Jedi and joined Vader. Anakin’s goal could
have turned out well if he had chosen to let go of his need to control
Padmé’s fate and overcome Palpatine’s temptation.

Luke and
Anakin’s self-interested goals were thus morally neutral and could have
gone either way depending on their choices, unlike Leia’s and Padmé’s
goals which were inherently moral. Framed more precisely, Luke’s and
Anakin’s goals had conflicts built into them that led to a moral
dilemma, such as “do I kill my father or join him?” Leia and Padmé, on
the other hand, were never seriously morally conflicted. The boys choose
between good and evil, but the girls are all good.

In
Jyn from Rogue One we see a female protagonist with a conflicted goal,
but with a thumb, no scratch that, a giant boulder on the scale. Jyn
wants to stay away from the Empire that destroyed her life, but behind
her trauma and cynicism she wants to reconnect with her father and the
love she once knew as a child. Well guess what? We’re going to shut down
her desire to run away by blackmailing her and taking away her agency.
Also her dad was working for the Rebels all along. Saw, her foster dad,
also wants her to save the Rebellion. And, with her father gone, it is
only through the Rebellion that she will carry on his legacy and find
the love and connection she yearns for. Yay for choice!

So while
Jyn has the appearance of a conflicted goal that she wants for herself,
the actual story pushes her toward the altruistic choice for the
greater good. If anything Jyn has even less choice than Leia and Padmé,
who at least chose their paths and did not have to be strong-armed.
Leia’s and Padmé’s choices were in the distant background, however, and
the stories did not hinge on their moral choices like they did on Luke’s
and Anakin’s. As far as the stories are concerned Leia and Padmé doing
the right things are simple constants.

In this tradition it’s no
wonder that a lot of us have trouble seeing Rey as wanting something for
herself and striving for her own goal. The proud but chequered
tradition of SW women, to say nothing of the cultural background that
casts women as either caring angels or depraved villains, predisposes us
to see her as another altruistic, or driven-to-be-altruistic, heroine
in Leia’s, Padmé’s, or even Jyn’s mold.

Rey’s actual goals are
very different from Leia’s or Padmé’s, however. Much like a younger Luke
she dreams of heroism and admires the legends of the galaxy including
Luke and Han, but her primary goal was not to reconnect with her
heritage by becoming a hero herself. In fact she had no reason to
believe, though the fandom may have, she had any kind of heritage or
famous parents. If heroism were her primary goal she would have jumped
at the chance to leave Jakku and join the Resistance, but instead what
does she want to do after she was forced to leave? She wants to go back.
She doesn’t want to be special, nor does she believe she is. She
just wants her parents back. A special destiny was thrust upon her
against her will, not because she sought it out.

The character
whose driving motivation is most like Rey’s is Anakin Skywalker, the
“Chosen One” who was taken from his mother and spent a lifetime aching
from the loss. Anakin may have been a hero, but that was a job he did
because he was told to, not because he was driven to it by his own needs
and desires. His underlying desire was to love and be loved again, and
after being separated from his mother he found that in Padmé. When his
own fears and Palpatine’s deception led him to dread losing Padmé, he
chose to take Palpatine’s offer of ultimate power to avoid losing his
loved ones ever again.

Rey’s goal, then, like Anakin’s, is a)
something she wants for herself and b) something that could be moral or
immoral depending on her choice. It is not an altruistic and inherently
good goal but a self-interested, morally neutral one. This is the Star
Wars heroine who is the protagonist of her own story with the agency to
match, and not a helplessly good inspiration and role model.

That
is not to say her arc was necessarily handled well. The events of TFA
take away her ability to return to Jakku by having her knocked out and
kidnapped by the bad guy, much like RO did to Jyn’s ability to avoid the
Empire-Rebellion conflict by having her jailbroken, knocked out, and
kidnapped by the good guys.

Obviously both TFA and RO would
have been boring stories if Rey and Jyn were simply allowed to
return/disappear, but the stories could have been designed differently
so the heroines had opportunities to make actual choices while still
engaging with the plot. Rey, like Finn, could have returned to the fight
of her own free will. The Rebels could have dangled a potential lead to
finding Jyn’s father to lure her in. Creators make choices when they
tell stories, and they chose to advance–or fail to advance–these
female protagonists’ stories by using tired kidnap plots.

Thankfully
Rey did get the chance to make a choice at the climax of TFA, when she
chose to take up the lightsaber and fight Kylo Ren instead of using Finn
as a distraction to run away and find the Millennium Falcon on her own.
Of course the outcome was hardly in doubt; she was clearly an important
character with newly emerging Force powers, her kindness toward others
was an established trait, and her preexisting bond with Finn had grown
nearly unbreakable when he came back for her. No one thought Rey might
turn her back and run, and so there was no suspense.

From an
in-story perspective, however, it was still a choice and a difficult one
for her. Ren is a powerful Force user, one she had just managed to get
away from, one who had tortured her, whom she had watched murder his own
father and cruelly cut Finn down. Her mysterious Force abilities, which
allowed her to push him out of her mind and escape him, were a source
of uncertainty and fear. She had vowed to Maz never to touch Luke’s
lightsaber again after it gave her traumatic visions.

Most of
all, there was her prior drive to go back to Jakku where her parents
could find her. She would never have a chance of seeing them again if
she were killed or captured here, or if the duel simply took too long
and the planet exploded with them on it. Given her history and personal
goal, running for it while she could was actually a pretty logical
choice.

So why did she stay and fight? Had she given up on her goal to reunite with her parents and belong with people who loved her?

I
would say her goal was still constant, the path to reaching it had
simply shifted. To borrow from Maz, the belonging Rey sought was not
behind her on Jakku, it was ahead, and she had found it in Finn. Finn
was the first person in memory to ask her if she was all right, the one
she begged to stay with her, the one who came back for her. He was the
love and belonging she had sought. He was worth fighting and dying for.

This
is another distinction between a self-interested goal and an altruistic
one, by the way, and why Rey’s story doesn’t revolve around Finn or
Anakin’s around Padmé even if Finn and Padmé, respectively, were key to
their goals. Story-wise Rey’s goal isn’t to do whatever it takes to
defend Finn. Rather she is doing whatever she can to defend Finn because
she is pursuing her own goal through him–to be loved and cherished as
she never got to be as a child. Under the right circumstances the person
to fulfill her goal could shift, as it shifted from her parents to
Finn, and potentially could shift again. And that is a key point of TLJ,
as I will discuss below.

So how do we know Rey’s path to her goal
shifted from her parents to Finn? Two points: First, after the ground
opened up, separating her and Ren, she ran to find Finn but not to
escape with him or seek help. She lay down to, for all intents and
purposes, die with him. She did not try to find the Falcon, did not try
to carry Finn away, did not try to attract the attention of passing
vessels while the planet disintegrated around them. She felt for his
heartbeat, wept over him, then lay down on his chest sobbing in a way
that reminded me of nothing so much as Juliet collapsing on top of
Romeo.

The second point is that after she and Finn were rescued
and she was free to go back to Jakku if she wished, she instead went to
Ahch-To to bring Luke back. And why? She’s helping the Resistance, sure,
as she was before, but how does that tie into her established goal?

I
think TFA was heavily setting up a deep emotional bond between Luke and
Rey, with her literally dreaming about his island, her Force vision
when she touched Anakin’s lightsaber, her immediately thinking of Luke
when Maz said the belonging she sought lay ahead and not behind, and
their incredibly emotional meeting at the end.

However, since TLJ
borked all that, I now think Rey was helping the Resistance primarily
for Finn much as he helped them for her sake. This way Rey’s departure
still ties into her story goal and makes her a protagonist, not a
passive plot point that bounces around whereever she’s told to go. This
way Rey becomes a self-interested character with potential for moral
conflict, and not yet another entirely altruistic, inherently good
heroine who does whatever is in the greater good.

Think about it.
Finn is injured and needs intensive medical care. He has nowhere else to
go, no one else both willing and able to take care of him and protect
him. The FO if possible hates him worse than they did before for his
role in destroying their superweapon. Yet the Resistance is a target
too, and they need Luke. Finn and the Resistance are on the same
storm-tossed boat now, and if Rey is to think about any kind of future
with Finn she has to save the Resistance first.

If you view TLJ in
this frame, this is the movie where Rey has an actual self-interested
goal and takes actions that could be morally complex. If we posit that
her goal is consistent from the end of TFA and she hasn’t become a
completely different person between one movie and the next, she still
wants the same thing as she did at the end of TFA: Save the Resistance
and protect Finn. She thought Luke was key to that, but he refused.

In
her desperation she turned to Kylo Ren because, again, she has a
self-interested goal–be with Finn–that could lead to moral or immoral
outcomes depending on her choices. She’s not being an all-good and
all-altruistic figure whose sole wish is to save Ben’s soul or the
universe as we expect of our heroines. Rather she is desperate to
achieve her goal and willing to push the moral boundaries in service of
it.

I can also answer the criticisms of Rey being
out-of-character. Daisy Ridley has said in a cast interview that she
played Rey as always thinking of Han on some level, which seems at odds
with her playing nice with Han’s murderer. On the other hand, what did
Han die trying to do? Redeem his son.

Therefore I read Daisy’s
comment to mean that Rey is still grieving Han–it’s only been a few
days since she watched him murdered, after all–and wants to believe
that he did not die in vain. If she can turn his son, then she can prove
that Han was right and his life was not wasted.

But why should
that grief take the form of being so solicitous to Kylo Ren, the man who
not only killed Han but hurt her and Finn so badly, in addition to
numerous other crimes? Isn’t that out of character for Rey, who is so
strong and a fighter, who fought back in rage at the end of TFA?

Rey
is not primarily a fighter, though. Those are the parts we remember the
most vividly, but she is primarily a survivor who adapts to her
circumstances. That means employing whatever means necessary to survive,
including fighting if the need arises, but also being passive and
accommodating if that serves better.

We have in fact watched Rey
be passive in the face of numerous wrongs done to her in her
interactions with a character who shaped her life: Unkar Plutt. I mean
my Reylutt ship manifesto (link)
may have been a joke, but her interactions with Plutt do a great deal
to foreshadow her interactions with Kylo Ren. Plutt was an abusive
authority figure who kept her on starvation rations and systematically
exploited her, but she still stayed with him for over a decade in
seeming passivity. We see her visibly swallow down her rage when he cut
her portions yet again and can only imagine how many times she had to do
so over the years. The only time we see her fight back physically was
when he used violence first by sending his goons to seize BB-8.

The
thing is, much like saying someone can’t be a victim of abuse if they
fight back, it’s also inaccurate and hurtful to say the only “right” way
to react to abuse is by visibly fighting back, or, worse, that you’re
not really a victim unless you’re angry. A lot of victims are forced to
stay passive, for the sake of their own physical and psychological
safety, in the face of mistreatment because that is oftentimes how abuse
works. Rey, especially in her early years, could not have survived as
she did if she were always dwelling on how she was being treated and
lashing out. She had to take a variety of strategies including passive
waiting and patience in the face of injustices, not just fighting back
against immediate threats, to survive deprivation and exploitation.

How
is this relevant to her scenes with Kylo Ren? When she was actively
defending herself with Force and violence he was an immediate threat to
her, to the Resistance, and to Finn. In the Force(d) Bond situation, on
the other hand, she had no way to get away from him but at the same time
he did not know where she was and could not get to her. Raging at him
might be satisfying, but was hardly practical especially as he became
increasingly useful to her. She had, after all, a lot of practice
burying her resentment for the sake of survival and her own goal of
reuniting with her family. Once the threat moved from acute to a
“merely” persistent thing, a different set of reflexes took over.

Another
fact about abuse is that the victim may traumatically bond with their
aggressor. It is how people psychologically survives at times, gaining a
sense of control in a situtation where they have very little, believing
that you can be safe and not be hurt anymore by gaining your
tormentor’s approval and love. Subjectively it can feel a lot like love,
too, because this is a powerful psychological mechanism for our
survival and, in the immediate situation, our subjective mental
well-being. It’s one of those things that make the unbearable bearable.

This
was another way that Rey’s personal, selfish goal could have led to an
immoral or unhealthy outcome: She could have mistaken Kylo’s
manipulation and her own traumatic bond to him as the love and belonging
she sought, and chosen to stay with him at the end of the movie.

In
this Rey closely parallels Anakin, who accepted Palpatine’s offer of
power as a substitute for love and so became Palpatine’s servant. Her
overriding goal of knowing love and safety once again had transferred
once before already, from waiting for her family on Jakku to protecting
Finn and reuniting with him. Could it transfer once again, as
self-interested rather than selfless goals can, this time to a
fundamentally destructive relationship that only had a facade of love
and belonging?

I think this was the reason, little as I may like
it, that Rey was separated from Finn for most of the movie and why Luke
treated her so poorly. If she hadn’t been isolated from Finn, or had
been nurtured better by Luke, she would have been much more centered
and healthier and there would have been no suspense about the outcome
when she reached out to Kylo on board the Supremacy. I would dispute
how well it worked, but I think that was the intention. 

Ultimately
Rey made the right choice, as we know. The point as far as this essay
is concerned, though, is that she COULD have made the wrong choice as
Anakin did in the pursuit of her own goal. This makes Rey the first Star
Wars heroine in the theatrical releases with a genuine moral choice to
make, who is not all-good and all-nurturing and therefore morally
unassailable like Leia and Padmé, and who is not strong-armed both by
her “friends” and the story to make the right choice as Jyn was.

Like
Anakin and Luke before her, Rey is a selfish and flawed character. Her
self-interested goals and her own complex psychological profile lead her
to genuine moral choices and mistaken judgments. Flawed execution
aside, that is a very good thing indeed. To me it’s more progress than
any amount of guns and politics.

Rey ultimately failed in her mission, as Luke warned, though she at least managed to return to the Resistance with her conscience and freedom intact and to save it. Now she is faced with the reality that she has to be the Jedi and hero. Luke is gone, Kylo is the Big Bad, and she can’t look to anyone to solve her problems for her.

What’s more, Finn himself, who had asked her to leave with him in the first place, now has a new commitment to the Resistance/Rebellion and possibly a personal and emotional commitment to someone new. As John Boyega who plays Finn has said, the look she gives Finn and Rose says it all.

These developments point to interesting directions to take the character. I hope Episode IX carries Rey’s
development forward with better writing and challenges her harder,
developing her more and having the story hinge on her moral–or
immoral–choices.