I am also a bit confused towards Rey’s motivation.
I agree with Don in that Rey wants to belong somewhere. An expected reaction for someone so isolated. Further evidence for this:
- She is in denial that her family will come in TFA
- She saves BB8, her only friend possibly ever. Her insistence on getting BB8 to the resistance may be due to he trying to help the only friend she has even known.
- She never outright helps the resistance. She only wields the lightsaber to save Finn, a friend.
- She asks Luke to “show me her place in all this”.
- It seems she only wants to know her parents after she is turned down by Luke. Luke’s grumpiness causes Rey to doubt the Jedi way and ponder about her parents once more (the cave).
- She then develops a force connection with Ben and comes to believe he may have what she seeks (a place to belong to).
All this is building to Rey taking Ben’s hand.
Why would Rey want to join the Jedi? Luke has done nothing but criticize her. We all know the Jedi way is right, but from her POV she just met this grumpy hermit who doesn’t want her. Why should she care about the Jedi?
It seems Rey’s primary motivation in turning down Kylo is because she has friends in the resistance? Like Finn and BB8? But the entire film has been building up Kylo and Rey’s relationship. As for the “she realizes she does not need a purpose, she can make one herself” well wasn’t that where she was before TFA. On her own with no one?
I think Rey would have been a great character had she taken Ben’s hand and charted us a new, bold direction for TROS.
Now she feels more like a missed opportunity bordering “perfect” which is a shame given how close we were. I hope TROS does the best job they can with Rey- if they provide some clarification on her motivation I think the whole Mary Sue argument will finally be over.
I like the sentiment here, but I can’t agree. She absolutely believes in the Resistance and helps them.
In TFA, she fights off stormtroopers and ultimately gets captured by Kylo because she was protecting BB-8 and letting him get back to the Resistance, because the droid was “too important”. The moment her and Kylo finish defeating the Praetorian Guards in TLJ, she was begging Kylo to stop the firing on the Resistance.
Her first words to Luke are “I’m from the Resistance. Your sister Leia sent me. We need your help.” A little later, she’s pitching to Luke the whole dilemma of Kylo Ren getting stronger and the First Order controlling all the major systems within weeks. She definitely wants him to help, as well as to help her find her own answers. When she escapes Kylo at the end of TLJ, she’s gunning down TIE fighters from the Falcon and rescuing the remainder of the Resistance from the cave.
If she takes Ben’s hand at the end of TLJ, then you(maybe not you specifically, but people arguing this) would be saying “What about her friends and her allegiance to the resistance? All she had in her life were her friends and a cause, and she just threw them away because Ben said “join me” one time?” Kylo betraying Snoke was a bold move, but is that enough motivation to convince her to throw away everything she has?
But what is her personal stake in this, her personal motivation? Why does she support the Resistance other than they appear to be “the good guys”. It’s perfectly fine for her to want to help BB-8. It makes her a sympathetic character, but other than being thrust into this story by circumstances, and suddenly being bestowed with magical powers her character has no history or connections beyond the ones established with BB-8, Finn, and Han Solo. She’s a sympathetic blank slate, an avatar for the light side of the Force. If she was a developed character, she would struggle with the powers that were given to her. She would make some bad decisions, and her naivity would have serious consequences, and repercusions. In stead she seems to instinctively make the right decisions, has plot armor, and ultimately ends up being just in time to rescue the remains of the Resistance.