It’s weird to say Rey’s story is about her being a slave of destiny when it’s almost explicitly the opposite.
How? Why does she join the Resistance’s fight? Why does she want to become a Jedi? What does becoming a Jedi mean to her? Why does she reject Ben Solo, when he’s the only Force user who seems to care about her future? The answers to all these questions imo seem to be, because the plot dictates her choices. The writers need her to become the next new hope, and so she’s bestowed with these magic powers, that become her McGuffin for tagging along, and finding out more about herself. Her Force powers are a self-fullfilling prophesy. They are the reason she goes on this quest, the reason she survives her ordeals, and ultimately the reason she becomes a hero, and a Jedi. She is literally an empty vessel waiting for the story to give her reasons to exist.
I don’t know why I should explain when I’ve already done so many, many, many, many, many times. It’s all there in the movies anyway, but you’re too busy looking for her to fulfill the same exact story as Luke to notice.
No, this “we critics just want the same over, and over” is just as tiresome, and old as you claim my criticisms to be, and has been refuted many, many, many, many times. I’m looking for the story to give her compelling personal reasons to exist, and to make her work for her status as a Jedi, and a hero. There’s just no denying Rey progress in the ways of the Force are not justified by the story, other than they are just there, because of “darkness rises, and light to meet it”. Luke doesn’t help her, yet she still succeeds in everything she puts her mind to when it comes to using the Force.
You’re focusing on the wrong things. Over and over. You ask why she wants to be a Jedi because you’re waiting for her to do what Luke does - explain why he wants to be a Jedi. But in waiting for this moment that will never come you completely miss what’s actually happening - that Rey doesn’t necessarily even want to be a Jedi. That’s not what it’s about for her.
How fast she learns to use the force is irrelevant to her characterization. The irony is you crave adherence to the PT’s established Jedi must be trained from birth “rule” so much that you fail to realize that by bypassing that Rey’s character is actually sidestepping a plot device that has little to do with her actual story as told. They’re focusing on more relevant factors in her specific coming of age.
Luke’s story was one of aspiration. The training was important to him insofar as aspirations are nothing without hard work. Rey’s story is not about aspiration, it is about belonging. Training has nothing to do with that (we see she understands hard work when we meet her). For Rey, her struggle is to learn that belonging is nothing without first a sense of self-actualization.
The force shouldn’t be a super power. These aren’t video games, so gaining proper experience points before leveling up shouldn’t be a factor. The force is a mystical energy field, but beyond that in world explanation the force has always been a metatextual manifestation of the character’s journies. It was this way with Luke. It’s that way with Rey. It was even this way with Anakin (or it was trying to be). This is someone who is born with more strength in the force than anyone else, with his ultimate downfall being his inability to properly direct whether he used these immense powers for good or evil. His story is not about learning to use the force (Qui-Gon makes clear he already does), it’s about learning to control it. Even when he whines about being held back, it’s not about not getting trained enough, it’s about others not appreciating his potential. In a way he’s the anti-Rey, he knows he has the strength, his struggle is trying to prove he’s capable to everyone else. And it’s a decidedly different story than Luke’s. Get rid of the ten year gap where he’s being trained and you don’t miss a thing of importance in his story.