I guess I’m still confused about Palpy flip-flopping between wanting Rey as a child, giving up trying to find her, deciding to kill her, and then going back to finding Rey after Ben turns.
Note: Edited this comment to reflect what I believe Hal is going for.
Palpatine’s plan in the edit we’re creating:
- Palpatine sends Ochi to track down and kill Rey because he “saw what [she] would become” (a powerful Jedi), but her parents won’t reveal her location. Ochi kills them as he feels they no longer serve any purpose.
- Palpatine puts all of his efforts into corrupting Ben Solo for an essence transfer.
- Palpatine wants Snoke to have Kylo kill Rey because he is using only Kylo. Kylo resists.
- He had already put a ton of effort into corrupting Kylo, so yet again he tells him on Exegol to kill Rey. This is the task which will prove whether or not he is a worthy vessel.
- Kylo realigns himself with the light, and Palpatine senses it. His new goal is to corrupt Rey and essence transfer into her.
- She refuses. Then he discovers he can drain their dyad to restore his full strength.
It’s really complicated, but at least it (mostly) makes sense.
Why remove the part where Palpatine wants to get Rey as a child because he knows she’ll grow up to perform the Sith ritual? When her parents refuse to reveal her location and are killed, this is when Palpatine gives up on Rey for his Sith ritual altogether and turns to Ben Solo.
Don’t worry, this idea isn’t entirely removed from this edit. That post of mine you shared originally had that part listed. I only removed it because that isn’t Hal’s goal to still have that idea.
But rest assured, Finn says that Ochi was supposed to take Rey to Exegol after he captures her. At that point, Palps could either do the ritual or kill her; we simply made it up to interpretation. We mostly removed the implication that beyond her childhood he ever wanted her alive, which helps streamline the plot.