Concerning “Rey Palpatine is bad”…

I have to disagree. While the concept of “Rey Nobody” is nice, it’s poor in practice. What else could be the conflict of the story?

TROS leaves us with two opportunities to serve as its emotional core - either will Ben be redeemed? or will Rey be turned?. The problem is the Ben question is so lazy when you consider we already answered it in ROTJ.

ROTJ was asking if Vader’s natural family will triumph over evil. TROS raises the stakes by putting Rey’s natural family on evil, and forcing her to choose a new family at the end of the movie. It’s not perfect, but with TLJ barely bothering to setup Rey it’s the best they could do.

The alternative is Rey is nobody, and after TLJ has already come to terms and is on Team Jedi. Which means no personal growth besides seeking the redemption of Kylo (which is copying Luke’s arc).