The criticism that Finnrey as a ship is just cute and fluffy with no tension is so comical to me because… did these people watch Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015 dir. J.J. Abrams)? The movie where Finn’s and Rey’s respective traumas clashed head on (”Come with me.”/”Don’t go.”), tearing apart two people who deeply care about each other? The movie where Finn bared his deepest truth to Rey, and Rey had a traumatic flashback from the distress of Finn leaving? Where he overcame his greatest fear to be there for her, which in turn helped her overcome her abandonment issues to seek her destiny?
You know, that movie?
What’s more, the reveals about the starting point of The Last Jedi indicate that Finn and Rey’s conflict from TFA is far from resolved. He still wants to get away from the fighting, this time with her, and she still has a reason to stay. Their argument back at Takodana was rudely interrupted in the previous movie, not properly ended. They went into crisis mode and reaffirmed their caring for each other before they were again rudely interrupted by Finn’s coma and galactic war. Ever since Takodana their story is basically an ongoing couple argument that they haven’t been able to end because inconsiderate masked villains and intrusive superweapons keep getting in the way.
One conflict Finn and Rey do not have is over mistreating each other and other people. That’s another misunderstanding of this ship, I believe, that meaningful conflict in a romantic relationship can only come from the parties treating each other badly or hurting others. That’s not true at all, though: Good people can still disagree in loving, thoughtful ways. Imagine that, a love story that does not depend on mistreatment as a sign of love or an obstacle to overcome; a love story that’s actually about love.
The crux of Finn and Rey’s ongoing conflict is that they’re each still trying to figure themselves out. Finn was raised to have absolute certainty and conviction which he abandoned. He is now left without a reason to fight, and wants space to find himself far away. Rey grew up unmoored, with no purpose other than survival and reunion. She is now seeking certainty, and her visions and dreams tell her she will find her place with Luke Skywalker. They’re each striving to grow into themselves after their difficult upbringings, and they see their paths in opposite directions.
The above would not even be a problem if Finn and Rey did not love each other so deeply. Young people, including people who dated, grow apart all the time and go their separate ways. It’s a part of life. But Finn and Rey want to be together despite their diverging paths, so much that that all Finn wanted to do was run away with Rey, so much that all Rey wanted was for Finn to stay with her.
This is the source of the conflict and suspense between Finn and Rey, that their love draws them together while their journeys pull them apart. This push and pull, wax and wane, rise and fall are at the center of their tension and shape the emotional landscape of the sequel trilogy. (Aficionados of Korean pop culture may also be familiar with the term milttang, the back-and-forth courting ritual that lends spice to romance.)
Finn and Rey are almost unbearably cute together, yes. They could have notihng but fluffy cuddly hours until the heat death of the universe and it would still not be enough. I’m not here to tell anyone what they should like about the ship or to police anyone’s fannishness.
I do, however, have a problem with dismissing the canon relationship of Finn and Rey as cute and fluffy and nothing more, and therefore dissatisfying as a central romance. They are cute, yes, thanks for admitting that, and they also have this incredible dynamic that was set up in TFA and is central to both their characters. It would be simple bad writing to set up such a meaty conflict and then ignore it as something just “cute” and “fluffy” that can be safely discarded.
There is nothing safe about Finn and Rey’s relationship, though. They both have so much riding on their love, forged in the warmth of companionship and the fires of adversity. It doesn’t matter how you define its nature; calling it a friendship or familial love does not make it any less central or important, and calling it a cliche romance with no depth does it a serious disservice.
Done right, Finn and Rey’s reunion will be an epic moment and a major milestone in their journeys, taken separately yet together. Theirs is the story of love between two heroes who have their own journeys without either being only the love interest for the other, which is both challenging and rewarding from a story standpoint. Will they grow apart or grow together? I eagerly await the answer.
for all you nerds commenting/messaging me about my art telling me that rey would turn evil if she killed kylo: killing genocidal fascists is morally good and right
Really sad that is
I hope your view can change
Because it may end up destroying your love for others
how would hating fascist murderers affect how i love in any way LMAOOO
Because true love unconditional love human love is loving anyone and everyone.
When you start stating that you won’t love certain people than you aren’t really what you were surposed to be.
Which means you of a lot to learn
anyone who could love someone who is genocidal is also garbage those are the facts
Someone who believes the human condition is loving anyone and everyone is someone who has never suffered at the hands of other humans.
Now the problem with a lot of Rey parentage theories is they can’t present a good reason why she would be on Jakku of all places. You know, the site of a battle and really just a really bad dead-end planet, worse than Tatooine, and even then Luke was left in the care of his aunt and uncle, not a scrapper like Unkar.
Well, there is one theory that answers that, and even hinges on it. Rey Palpatine. All because of Palpatine’s contingency plan.
So for those of you who don’t know Palpatine’s contingency plan, it is in the case of his and Vader’s death:
However, one thing is off about this plan. Palpatine believed in a Sith Empire as much as he believed in a Galactic Empire and well, Rax wasn’t force sensitive.
A scorched earth policy on several planets, called operation Cinder(you might know that from Battlefront 2)
A series of tests to gather the best and most loyal remaining members of empire led by an orphan on Jakku Palpatine groomed named Gallius Rax.
After choosing who is worthy out of the empire that failed their emperor, as much of the empire as possible should make a final stand on Jakku, an out of the way planet with a building called The Observatory on it. (There were several, but this one was important for the contingency) This building contained information about paths through the unknown regions and presumably instructions for creating the first order.
However, one thing is off about this plan. Palpatine believed in a Sith Empire as much as he believed in a Galactic Empire and well, Rax wasn’t force sensitive.
But what if there was a reason? What if Rax wasn’t his only heir? What if the Jakku Observatory contained more than unknown regions maps, a replica of the emperor’s yacht, and a Sith thingie to blow up Jakku. A child, created by the force, to be the heir of the Sith Empire.
The thing is, the contingency plan didn’t fully work. Rax was killed by Rae Sloane and she was the one who led the first order. And she didn’t know the whole plan. What if part of the plan was that there was a child, grown part through cloning tech, genetic manipulation, and force/Sith magic? Galius has hidden information in his POV before, so it makes sense to hide the existence of a Sith heir from the reader.
But how did Rey come into the possession of Unkar? Well, there were most likely many or at least a few stormtroopers and other low ranking imperials who survived Jakku and stopped fighting. Not every imperial was a zealot. We already saw this in the Poe Dameron comic with Terex and Corlac. And with both Ciena and Admiral Veriso calling an evacuation of their ships before crashing it, many escape pods could have landed all over Jakku. And that’s only counting the ships we know had time for people to get to.
And that’s who Rey’s “parents” are. They could have come from the Inflictor somewhere else, been stormtroopers or officers. That part doesn’t matter. What matters is that they shed their allegiance to the empire, were desperate, and were left on Jakku after the battle. Or they could have even been people who were already stranded on Jakku. Whomever they are, all that matters, is that years after the battle they found the Observatory.
And there they found Rey in stasis. They released her and since the child had no memories but a blank developed mind, she naturally bonded to her rescuers. Eventually, they reached Niima outpost and met Unkar. Desperate to get off planet, they traded their “child” and possibly some relics from the observatory to get off planet.*
Sounds a bit far-fetched? Well, if we use the criteria from MatPat’s Rey parents theory, I can answer each of them, most importantly the left on Jakku part. Those criteria were:
1. British/Core World accent 2. Strong connection to the force 3. Luke/Anakin’s lightsaber calling to her 4. Good piloting skills 5. Left on Jakku as a child 6. Thematic meaning/“It’s like poetry, it rhymes” In addition, I will also apply my theory to a few key scenes:
Kylo’s reaction when he first hears of her Rey’s flashback Kylo’s “you still want to kill me?” line Rey’s ability to use a mind trick untrained The Leia-Rey hug Some lines from trailers The Chosen One Prophecy
So let’s begin.
First the core world accent. A lot of people have used this as evidence for Rey Kenobi, however, accents are barely genetic. And a lot of people including Phasma and probably Tarkin changed their accents to seem more respected and from a core world(rather than post-apocalyptic and outer rim)
And strong connection to the force? Palpatine would have made his clone-child extremely powerful with the force, as powerful as he could make her. So that’s pretty much covered. Also, her main displays of force powers were from the dark side. The pushing back on Kylo’s mental connection and use of a mind trick were both motivated by fear. Being able to hold her own against Kylo could be the force assisting her via the dark side. And as we saw from Ezra in season 1 of Rebels, the dark side is much easier to call on than the light.
As for Anakin’s lightsaber calling for her, that doesn’t even have to do with familiar relation. The inquisitor’s kybers called to Ashoka and they most certainly aren’t related. And a green kyber crystal called to a random Tusken Raider when she was asked to steal it from the Jawa’s that sold R2. That was a really weird story and I wonder if it was setting something up, but it doesn’t matter. It’s canon. The kyber crystal in the saber or the force in general was calling Rey. Because it chose her. Because kyber crystals are basically wands from Harry Potter.
And her piloting skills? That could easily be explained by a combination of force boosted instincts/reaction time and well, practice. She did know all of that stuff from using an old flight simulator. And the point about piloting skills could be used just as well to make her the child of Thane as it points to Han or Luke on its own. There’s a lot of really exceptional pilots in the galaxy.
As for being left on Jakku, I guess I should explain the timeline better. According to the TFA script, she is 19 in 34 ABY(when the movie takes place). And she looks to be about 4 during the flashback scene of her being left with Unkar. At first, that doesn’t seem to add up, but Palpatine would have set his child into a non-aging stasis after they reached a reasonable age for starting dark side training and feeling into the Unknown Regions. If the Empire survived much longer than it did, the contingency plan using an adult with no memories would be weird. Heck, after reaching 4, she could have been moved to carbonite (do people age in carbonite? I’m not sure if that’s been answered. It’s not important). Terex and Corlac seem to have been on Jakku for a while, so Rey’s “parents” could also have, surviving as scavengers before finding the Observatory. This would also give enough time for the scavenging economy to get properly set up, as Niima Outpost was only founded after the battle of Jakku. 11 years would have been enough time that a low-quality ship from Unkar could actually be purchased.
And for thematic meaning. Well, we got that down. We got Kylo, the child of two rebellion war heroes, trained as a Jedi having turned to the dark side. And we have a child, who grew up in a situation even worse than Anakin, who was literally created to be the next emperor who chose the light. This would fit with Star War’s strong themes of personal choice and growing beyond heritage. It would also fit with the newer themes of the force not being so black and white.
And without the Aftermath series, Rey’s parentage could easily be explained as “Palpatine had a contingency plan that ended with a final battle on Jakku. The man the emperor choose to lead the soon to be first order died on Jakku and so the plan couldn’t probably be carried out. That including retreating to the unknown regions with a clone-child created by the force who would be raised to be the next emperor.”
And for readers of Aftermath, it would strengthen already existing parallels. Those between Rey and Gallius Rax. We got Rax, who even before being groomed by Palpatine was very cruel and did what he had to for survival on Jakku. And then Rey, who is basically the child of evil, who remained kind in a cruel environment. And then both of them ended up on ships off Jakku and were found by their original owners (Han and Palpatine). Upon finding the orphans, both owners preformed mentor like roles. The ships also brought them into the organization they would become a vital member of. Rey also didn’t want to leave Jakku, while that was one of Rax’s only wishes. And for Rax, well the desert planet became his grave.
Now that we got all of those points squared away, what about those scenes I promised to explain?
Alright, let’s start with when Kylo first finds out about Rey. As MatPat pointed out, his reaction is much too violent for having never heard of Rey. Well since Palpatine was in magic sith force communication to what we can assume to be Snoke, it is possible Snoke knew of the contingency plan, including of Rey.
Later when Kylo joined the First Order, he would have been informed of the failure to properly carry out the plan. Of course as far as they knew, Rey would still be stuck in the Observatory in stasis and not worth extracting.
As for Rey’s flashback, a lot of the scenes she saw would have came from the force or from reading the history of the object, but even that is indicative of powerful force abilities. However, the scene we know is either memory brought to the surface or unlocked by the sequence is when Rey has just been sold to Unkar in exchange for a ship, the very one we see flying off. The imperials would have been the only humanoids and comfort she would have known at this point, explaining her reaction to being abandoned even if they were ambivalent to her. The reason Rey thinks they are her parents is because that was probably the lie they told Unkar to explain where they obtained a literal child, or what Unkar told her. To the scrapper, they seemed as people so desperate to leave after the battle, they would sell their child.
As for Kylo’s line “you still want to kill me” witch MatPat took to mean Kylo knew Rey from before, there’s another way to read this line that supports my theory. The “still” part refers to their encounter on Takodona, when Rey tried to shoot him. Because he knows or suspects Rey is Palpatine’s heir he expects it to be easy to turn her to the dark side. This is also why he says she needs a teacher, because he sees her as similar to him, the descendant of a Sith Lord.
As for the mind trick, my other points about Rey’s artificially created power stands, but I feel like I should specifically address this. Palpatine was extremely adept with mind tricks. In Lords of the Sith, he manages to control a Twi’lek child so well she would stand there as Palpatine and Vader argued over killing her, their lightsabers in front of her face. This pales in comparison to the suggestion Rey manages to pull of in a moment of extreme stress and fear. And since Rey was only supposed to be awakened after his death, the emperor wouldn’t mind making her more powerful than him if she was fully trained.
As for the Rey Leia hug, I don’t have that good of an explanation, but neither do Rey Solo-Organa theorists. You’re not going to be able to recognize someone you only knew as a child a minimum of 20 years ago as a child. All I could think of is that since Leia’s untrained force skill (Ashoka book tells us every untrained force sensitive has one skill their sensitivity manifests as) is sensing (sensed Luke hanging from cloud city and Han’s death) is that she could sense the dark side coming off of Rey and from knowing Chewie isn’t a fan of being comforted, she decided that Rey was the one who need comforting. And the aura of darkness coming from Rey would be part her predisposition and part the anger and rage towards Kylo for killing Han and possibly Finn.
Ok now how about some lines from the trailers? Well first we got Luke’s “I’ve see this raw strength only once before” line is most likely about Kylo, however it is referring to Rey because she’s so damn strong with the force. Don’t forget the trailer has a scene where she cracks open the ground, to Luke’s shock and horror. As for Snoke saying “Fulfil your destiny” that’s probably to Rey, and under this theory, it’s because he still sees her as meant to join the dark side, because that’s what she was created for.
Alright, now for chosen one stuff. Well we know 2 things about the prophecy: 1. The chosen one is created through the force (technically midichlorians but it’s better if we all forget those exist) and 2. Will bring balance to the force. Now with the new narrative angle about the balance of the force being much more literal, with things like Bendu, Rey reaching out for “something else” may signify she is the chosen one. Of course that’s if the prophecy is real. And if you follow the theory that it was by force magic that Anakin was created by Palpatine, it just means it’s possible for Palpatine to make another force child. And with an increase access to lore after becoming emperor it’s reasonable he could create a force child with no human parent at all.
I hope this theory actually makes internal sense and there’s no thing from the eu that could ruin this theory. Or maybe there’s something that could enhance it. All I could think that I haven’t read that could apply is Rey’s Survival Guide, the full tfa novelization, and the visual dictionary for Tfa. Thanks to @lj-writes for checking this theory before I posted it and pointing out the script says Rey is 19. I guess we’ll find out if this works or not on the 15th
*@lj-writes also states that it might not be possible for a ship to be purchased with a child and some scrap, especially since Unkar wouldn’t see the value of sith artifacts. She states that it is possible that the “parents” sold Rey as “look at this child we found in the observatory, she’s probably magic or something.” And then when Rey didn’t show an obvious signs of power, she was put to work as a scavenger. Unkar simply hasn’t told Rey because he’s too embarrassed at seemingly being conned, so Rey simply thinks they’re her biological parents and left her.
Weirdos: lol people actually think that Rey and Finn have any romantic chemistry with each other??? LAME
Rey: *gives Finn a once over while smirking* I’ve never seen a Resistance fighter before
Finn: you gotta boyfriend????
Me: I have already named their children
Weirdos: [take that shot of Rey and edit it so she’s giving Kylo the once over instead] OMG this is PERFECT! That look is so REYLO!! They’re so going to have babies, all of them played by Finn Wolfhard!!!
Me, an intellectual: Hollywood will do whatever it takes to make as much money as possible with their extremely high budget blockbuster franchise movies this includes, rehashing old story lines, rebooting franchise’s when they decline in profit, reviving fan favorites and pulling from canon that has previously been discarded because there is high fan interest in certain aspects of it. The star wars franchise through out the years is extremely guilty of this across multiple entertainment platforms and is showing no signs of slowing down just bc they once said something years ago. FURTHER MORE Lucasfilm is notorious for fucking lying and going back on their word, the most recent example of this being them claiming that Finn is the male lead of the sequel trilogy when TFA came out but now treating him like some fucking side character in TLJ. ALSO one of the biggest examples of Lucasfilm pulling from previously discarded canon is the inclusion of Thrawn in Rebels.
Also pointing out the hefty hypocrisy in this argument because reylos are the ones who are forever bringing up Revan/Bastila as “proof” of their ship.
hot take, but a goyishe man playing a neo-Nazi is a goyishe man playing a neo-Nazi and Jews are allowed to a) point that out, and b) criticize his character’s complicity in fictional genocide by comparing it to the real-world genocide it’s explicitly meant to evoke, and c) hate his character’s fascist murdering rapist guts?
I mean, why wouldn’t we? Are people attacking an actor or the character? I feel like fiction is there to help us process the real world, and that means sometimes characters in fiction are going to do shitty awful uncomfortable reprehensible things and then we’re like, supposed to talk about that shit, right?
One would think that the catharsis of being able to process intergenerational trauma and the chilling fear of the current political climate (as well as the direct trauma of sexual assault and, again, the current social climate being constantly triggering bc of the CONSTANT graphic descriptions of sexual assault on social media) through bashing a fictional fuckhead and hoping that he, at least, unlike so many real men who act and look just like him, will get his comeuppance at the hands of his victims would be an understandable perspective, but apparently not.
Apparently since kylo ren is tall and white he’s to be protected and deified at all costs, and coddling the feelings of people who identify with him, not with his victims, is the purpose of SW fandom, even at the cost of people who identify with his victims feeling safe/welcome/heard/etc.
Yeah I mean his most visible, prominent, and surviving victim is Rey and what does this shit fandom do? Spam every fandom outlet with how she loves him and is going to forgive him and have his babies. I swear to god…
just a not so friendly reminder that both Kylo’s parents are jewish so uh?? maybe consider that idk before you call him a nazi since he’s coded jewish
A not-so-friendly “hey, you’re absolutely wrong, and I’m a Jewish SW fan who calls him a Nazi ABSOLUTELY FOR A REASON AND THAT REASON IS HE’S MEANT TO BE SEEN AS ONE” –
An integral part of Kylo’s entire storyline as a villain is that he is
ethnically Alderaanian (Space Sephardi Jewish, as far as current canon
can be compared to real-life ethnic and cultural groups) and raised by a
mother who both witnessed the genocide of the Alderaanian people AND
had the responsibility of representing their culture on the Galactic
stage so that their presence wouldn’t be forgotten entirely after the (lowercase-h)
holocaust…
But then he, as an adult man, of his own free will, CHOSE
to reject his heritage and join an explicitly neo-Nazi-coded fascist
military/political junta that existed solely to finish the ethnoracial
cleansing the Empire started in the Galaxy and centralize power under
one tyrannical leader who believes that only human beings (all white, in
the films, although there are some Black FO officers in the
novels/comics) is fit to have independent autonomy. The First Order is
literally called The First Order because “the first order of business is begin [the Empire’s reign] again.”
One of the first acts of the FO/final acts of the Empire was to hunt
down and exterminate all surviving Alderaanians, illustrating that it
was NOT solely a political decision on Tarkin’s part – it wasn’t about getting Leia to reveal where the Rebellion HQ was; he was always going to destroy Alderaan because its culture and governing body were antithetical to the Empire’s ideals and goals and Tarkin himself HATED Alderaan and Alderaanians. (In fact, a lot of the antisemitic stereotypes neo-Nazis and antisemites associate with Jews IRL are traits that Tarkin ascribes to Leia, Breha, and Bail, particularly in that he thinks that they’re manipulative wealth-hoarders who have a secret agenda to take over the Galaxy for their own gain [which, of course, is fucking rich coming from a Grand Moff of the Empire, analogous, of course, to a rank of Reich Minister.])
Further, Kylo Ren chooses, as an adult man, of his own free will, to reject his Alderaanian heritage EXPLICITLY BECAUSE HE IS GIVEN A REASON TO BE ABLE TO SHED THAT IDENTITY. He joins the First Order – again, an OVERTLY neo-Nazis-coded illegal fascist junta, in the movie, which IDK if you saw, but is very overtly coded as a neo-Nazi regime – because he finds out that he isn’t actually the biological grandson of Bail Antilles and Breha Organa of Alderaan, but of Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader. He was not raised as Vader’s OR Anakin’s grandson, but as the grandson of the Organas – he joins the FO very shortly after a statue commemorating the Alderaanian Genocide is erected at the New Republic Senate building (which, btw, Kylo helps to destroy in the FO’s OWN genocide in TFA, because it’s on Hosnian Prime). He violently rejects his Space Jewish identity, and he joins the First Order to prove it.
Honestly, did you watch TFA? Have you read the extended canon materials? I honestly have no idea what the fuck Rian Johnson is doing with his Kylo/FO apologism boner, but Abrams (a Jewish director and writer) and the Kasdans (also Jewish Lucasfilm writers and producers) went out of their way to make the parallels between the First Order/Empire and the Nazis/neo-Nazi movements as nail-on-the-head obvious as they could without literally renaming them. (Someone on here once pointed out that Armitage Hux, the FO’s screamy speechifying figurehead general, even has the initials “A.H.”) Abrams doubled down on making sure that the “Kylo Ren is exulting in being able to disconnect from the Alderaanian genocide” thing by having him KEEP HUMAN ASHES AS A TROPHY, which is OBVIOUSLY rooted in Shoah imagery even if it’s a grandiose departure from reality. (It’s a movie, so of course it is.)
Beyond the fact that their jackbooted stormtroopers are LITERALLY CALLED “stormtroopers,” their film presence as universally White in the upper echelons of power – the dynamics of Rae Sloane, and why she is no longer a part of the FO’s power structure, are something I hope Lucasfilm can explain well, tbh – and Space Racist (their core belief, beyond the radically conservative “central seat of power” form of government they originally advocated for, is that only humans should have power in the Galaxy, as I said above, which is a SUPER common scifi trope for racism), and the fact that Abrams and Kasdan and Lucas have all SAID that they’re meant to be Nazi allegories, there’s the whole “Hux’s FO speech was meant to mirror the Nuremberg Rally, visually and in content” thing, and it succeeds.
Like, basically, Kylo’s parents both being played by Jewish actors – although Driver is not – and Leia and Han being Jewish-coded characters is PART OF Kylo’s characterization as a neo-Nazi. His internal struggle, the Light versus the Dark, his pain of being torn apart, is an extreme hatred of himself. A big part of his canonical anger at his parents is that they never told him that he was not actually genetically Alderaanian, but was raised that way anyway. It’s… like, it’s very much an intentional choice.
I agree with most of your posts, @jewish-mccoy, but you’re not correct on this hot take. Maybe stick to Star Trek meta?
Can you imagine how much Kylo Ren must hate Poe Dameron?
Like his whole deal with his parents was apparently ‘they were too involved in the resistance and rebuilding the shattered empire to look after me :(’
And here is Poe who is also a son of resistance fighters but who instead of making it all about himself he’s right there next to Leia, fighting for justice, being the Best Pilote of the resistance and her most trusted man.
L.J.'s Obsessions 