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Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker Redux Ideas thread — Page 159

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But… lineage and heritage are synonyms.

I don’t doubt that this is something Luke could detect through the Force. He was in Palpatine’s presence before and would have PTSD over the feelings associated with him after being tortured by him. But Leia never has been anywhere near the guy. That’s the issue I have with it.

I was saying that she could definitely detect a great source of power in her heritage, which could lead to corruption, but I personally don’t see how it’s possible she could narrow it down 100% on “Palpatine”.

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I was confused because it seemed like you were disagreeing with me even though we were both saying the exact same thing.
We both agree that an important lesson for Rey to learn is that it is her spirit and heart that determine her value, not her heritage.

I was simply suggesting that Leia should instead know there is something awry with her heritage, but isn’t able to place her finger on exactly what it is. She still decides to train her despite detecting this. That way you patch up the messy plot hole while achieving the same effect.

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Yeah, Leia knowing Rey was … sighs… a Palpatine is honestly just dumb. It can be justified however way, but it’s lazy writing.

You would think that if Leia knew this, and that Palpatine was somehow still alive and Rey, his granddaughter, was going on a mission to stop him, that it would be better to find out from Leia, her master and someone she trusts, rather than Kylo or Palpatine, who would use that information to manipulate her.

Imagine Kylo being like,
Kylo: You… are a Palpatine.

Rey: I know.

Kylo: Wait, what?

Rey: Yeah. Leia sat me down and told me already. She really understood what I was going through, since her own father literally tortured her and destroyed her home planet. Despite that, your mother is one of the greatest people in the galaxy, and her heritage didn’t affect who she was and what she stood for at all. So, Palpatine being my grandfather has zero effect on me whatsoever. If her dad being Vader didn’t effect her, Palpatine being my grandfather doesn’t effect me. If anything, it solidifies my resolve to stop Palpatine, because that’s what Luke/Leia did already 30 years ago.

Kylo: Oh… well… I guess you know what you need to do then.

Rey: I do.

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Yup, that’s why I feel it should either be removed or suggested that she knew something was up with her lineage but didn’t know exactly what.

I’d stick to the latter because otherwise the line, “Rey, never be afraid of who you are” doesn’t make much sense, because as far as she is aware Rey is nobody.

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RogueLeader said:

Yeah, Leia knowing Rey was … sighs… a Palpatine is honestly just dumb. It can be justified however way, but it’s lazy writing.

You would think that if Leia knew this, and that Palpatine was somehow still alive and Rey, his granddaughter, was going on a mission to stop him, that it would be better to find out from Leia, her master and someone she trusts, rather than Kylo or Palpatine, who would use that information to manipulate her.

Imagine Kylo being like,
Kylo: You… are a Palpatine.

Rey: I know.

Kylo: Wait, what?

Rey: Yeah. Leia sat me down and told me already. She really understood what I was going through, since her own father literally tortured her and destroyed her home planet. Despite that, your mother is one of the greatest people in the galaxy, and her heritage didn’t affect who she was and what she stood for at all. So, Palpatine being my grandfather has zero effect on me whatsoever. If her dad being Vader didn’t effect her, Palpatine being my grandfather doesn’t effect me. If anything, it solidifies my resolve to stop Palpatine, because that’s what Luke/Leia did already 30 years ago.

Kylo: Oh… well… I guess you know what you need to do then.

Rey: I do.

What? Leia still didn’t trust Vader, she and Han agreed that “there was too much Vader in [Ben]” and that was why she sent him to Luke.

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What? I’m not say Leia trusted Vader. Haha.

What I’m saying is Leia didn’t have an existential crisis about her inner darkness because her father was Vader. Or if she did, she was able to learn to live with it, which could have been advice Rey could have used herself if Leia apparently knew she was a Palpatine.

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Jar Jar Bricks said:

Yup, that’s why I feel it should either be removed or suggested that she knew something was up with her lineage but didn’t know exactly what.

I’d stick to the latter because otherwise the line, “Rey, never be afraid of who you are” doesn’t make much sense, because as far as she is aware Rey is nobody.

Or, you could throw the lineage junk out the window, and just have Leia know she is dealing with that inner darkness. Everybody’s got it. You don’t have to be the descendant of a bad guy to have the potential for evil.
Heck, maybe Leia could have also saw that vision of her on the throne. It doesn’t have to be because she’s a Palpatine.

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Something like the following is what I’d put somewhere in the novelization:

“She’d sensed that raw strength only once before, in her son Ben. It scared her enough then to have him sent to Luke to be trained. It didn’t scare her now. She would see Rey’s training through; she wouldn’t abandon her.”

I like the parallels to Luke’s dialogue in TLJ.

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RogueLeader said:

Jar Jar Bricks said:

Yup, that’s why I feel it should either be removed or suggested that she knew something was up with her lineage but didn’t know exactly what.

I’d stick to the latter because otherwise the line, “Rey, never be afraid of who you are” doesn’t make much sense, because as far as she is aware Rey is nobody.

Or, you could throw the lineage junk out the window, and just have Leia know she is dealing with that inner darkness. Everybody’s got it. You don’t have to be the descendant of a bad guy to have the potential for evil.
Heck, maybe Leia could have also saw that vision of her on the throne. It doesn’t have to be because she’s a Palpatine.

Difference is that Rey suffers from an irrational, toxic core belief of self-worthlessness. She believes this lie that only others determine as to whether she is valuable or not, and due to her lack of self-value she relies on others’ validation to feel happy and push away her feelings of self-worthlessness. Her relation to Palps is there to reinforce this, the moment she stabs Kylo is when she becomes convinced that she is meant to be consumed by the dark side in the way her grandfather was, that her heritage is the reason she is falling to the dark side and once she does turn then the Resistance is no longer going to give her any validation.

Rey being Palps’ granddaughter and her exiling herself because of this is sort of like other movies in which the end of Act II is the low point for our protagonist(s).

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I get that, but I just feel it was totally unnecessary and redundant for her story.

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TestingOutTheTest said:

Burbin said:

TLJ freed this new story and allowed it to become it’s own (much like Kylo in the film), it revealed that there was no set place for these characters to fit in (much like Rey in the film), no set story ‘destined’ to play out. It opened the door for the final chapter to be something new, different and original. TRoS closed that door shut, shoving everything back into the original mold: Rey goes on to be trained as a Jedi, there is some big revelation about her backstory, Kylo turns to the light, and together they defeat Snoke Palpatine, which marks the end of the First and Final Order, and the return of the Jedi and the New New Republic. The Empire is defeated by taking down the ‘big bad’ on the throne again.

I feel like you’re implying Kylo Ren was set up to be irredeemable, except we literally end with him broken, kneeling on the floor in the base.

My point was TLJ left things open ended, you only see that as set up for Ben being redeemed because that’s what happened in the end, but it could’ve gone any other way. Just think of this interaction between Luke and Leia:

“I came to face him, Leia. And I can’t save him.”
“I held out hope for so long, but I know my son is gone.”
“No one’s ever really gone.”

On one hand, this clearly reads as Kylo being past the point of redemption, as even Leia has given up on him, on the other, Luke only says he can’t save him, and comforts Leia by telling her no one’s ever really gone, though that leads into Han, so it could be read in a multitude of ways, that’s what made TLJ great.

I wouldn’t be opposed to Kylo chosing to turn after losing everything and finally seeing the error of his choices, as Sherlock suggested, but the point of TLJ was that Kylo chose not to turn good even after the ‘big bad’ in the throne was dead, instead he chose to become the Ruler of the First Order, he chose to become the ‘big bad’ and sit on the throne himself. Things could go in any direction after this.

Then in TRoS they literally just bring out a new ‘big bad’ AND a new throne in order to completely undo Kylo’s growth. Now he is shoved back into the mold, the conflicted villain is turned good and helps take down the true ‘big bad’ in the throne, as we’ve all seen before. Just think about how we never see Kylo sitting on his Supreme Leader throne, because he is not allowed to be that character, the way we see him command officers around has no more gravity than the way he did it in TFA, and he goes back to just doing the bidding of an old disfigured monster again.

I also feel like you’ve missed the point of Rey’s arc in TLJ, it isn’t about finding her place in all this or being important in general, it’s about letting go of her parents altogether, coming to terms that, to them, she is completely worthless — reinforcing her arc of how she eventually overcomes her irrational, toxic core belief that she is worthless and refuses her lie that she is only worth something if others think she is. She only wanted to find out as to what her importance (in a good way) is so she would use it to justify as to why her parents left her on Jakku, feeding her lie that her parents truly did love her, feeling loved, to push away her feelings of self-worthlessness that hold her back and leech off her happiness.

I do feel TRoS undermined Rey’s arc by having her parents be noble people who loved her, but the idea of her being Palpatine’s granddaughter does not; when she stabs Kylo Ren, she becomes convinced that, because of a combination of her heritage and her Force-sensitivity, she is meant to be consumed by the dark side in the way her grandfather was, so she exiles herself, believing that the Resistance is no longer going to give her any validation once she turns to the dark side — Luke proves this wrong by reminding her of Leia training her, regardless of her heritage, showing that the value of others is determined by their heart, not their heritage, and convincing her to face Palpatine and determine the fate of the galaxy, showing that it is not her heritage that determines her future, but it is she, herself, who determines it.

Again, you only see it like this because that’s how it played out in the end, letting go of her parents and dealing with feelings worthlessness were key parts of her character arc, but so was finding her place in this story and wanting to be someone important.

Most importantly, she’s the protagonist, she works as a surrogate for the audience. And as such, in a metanarrative sense, she needed to let go of her parents because we needed to let go of her parents, she wanted to find her place in this story because we wanted to find her place in this story, we wanted her to be someone important, we wanted some big revelation, and so did she. Her parents being no one wasn’t just the hardest answer for Rey, it was the hardest answer for the audience. An audience who spent years specutaling where she came from, who she would be related to, where she would fit in. Like Kylo says, the fact that her parents were no one meant she had no [set] place in this story. She had no connection to anyone, she was free to choose whomever she wanted to be. Making her the grandaughter of Palpatine undoes this, now she is shoved back into the mold, the hero is the offspring of the villain, that was the easy and obvious answer, and what we’ve all seen before.

So, in conclusion, bringing back Palpatine was lazy, dumb, and bad for Kylo’s character, and making Rey a Palpatine was lazy, dumb, and bad for Rey’s character. You can try to rationalize how they “made it work”, but the fact of the matter is it’s a regression for both characters.

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Palpatine needed to be brought back. By bringing him back this ties the entire Skywalker saga together and gives IX a sense of true finality; he also needed to be related to Rey, to reinforce her toxic core belief that she is worthless. It also pays off RotS, in which he was set up to have a power to keep himself alive in a way Plagueis couldn’t.

I agree that Palpatine needed to be brought back for basically the reasons Abrams said in the quote you linked to. Star Wars isn’t the story of Anakin, it’s the story of Palpatine and those who fought against him. Not having him would make the Sequels feel like some unnecessary epilogue rather than a natural continuation.

That said, Rey being his granddaughter is dumb.

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Anakin Starkiller said:

Palpatine needed to be brought back. By bringing him back this ties the entire Skywalker saga together and gives IX a sense of true finality; he also needed to be related to Rey, to reinforce her toxic core belief that she is worthless. It also pays off RotS, in which he was set up to have a power to keep himself alive in a way Plagueis couldn’t.

I agree that Palpatine needed to be brought back for basically the reasons Abrams said in the quote you linked to. Star Wars isn’t the story of Anakin, it’s the story of Palpatine and those who fought against him. Not having him would make the Sequels feel like some unnecessary epilogue rather than a natural continuation.

That said, Rey being his granddaughter is dumb.

It’s called the Skywalker Saga, not the Palpatine Saga. But as stated previously, I do appreciate his appearance in the film. I’d take George Lucas’ word over what the Star Wars saga is supposed to be about over JJ any day of the week.

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TestingOutTheTest said:

I also feel like you’ve missed the point of Rey’s arc in TLJ, it isn’t about finding her place in all this or being important in general

Literal quote from Rey in TLJ: "The galaxy may need a legend. I need someone to show me my place in all of this." I really don’t see anything in the first two movies that implies she hates herself. She just seems overly dependent on people. She stays on Jakku because she wants her family to return, not because she thinks she’s unworthy of their love. She runs from Luke’s lightsaber because she doesn’t want that responsibility. She thinks Luke is the only hope for the galaxy; then, when he refuses, she says “[Ben] is our last hope.” She goes to Kylo because she thinks he’ll help them. (“This could be how we win.”) And honestly, what’s she done so far for herself? Known how to fly a ship? Anyone can do that. She was captured by the First Order. Fought off Kylo out of desperation, not by choice. Messed up big time by turning herself in to Snoke. And then she moved some rocks. Mary Sue, baby.

By that logical progression, TROS should have been about her overcoming that dependency, and learning to embrace being a hero in her own right. She’s kind of the opposite of Kylo, who spends his whole time trying to break out from underneath people. Luke, Han, Snoke…of course then he just happily joins forces with Palpy and that ruins his whole character journey but whatever. It’s two movies at least of solid character work.

The other big thing is, for all of this talk of “Rey’s arc is about heritage not defining you”… like, that’s Kylo’s whole deal, isn’t it? “Grandfather killed a bunch of people and cast the galaxy into darkness. Do you embrace that legacy or do you strike out on your own path?” Kylo’s already got that angle covered; what does it add to duplicate the whole arc with Rey?

On the other hand, if Rey comes from nothing, that’s a new twist. When you don’t have any legacy to which you are beholden, what do you do? It’s the opposite arc of Kylo’s, and you can do a lot of interesting stuff with that narratively and thematically.

It’s honestly kind of beautiful when you look at the Episodes VII and VIII without IX:

  • Rey: The scavenger who has no family, no legacy. She has to overcome her dependence on others and become her own hero.
  • Kylo: The child prodigy, born into the most famous family of all time. Does he follow his grandfather’s path, or his uncle’s, or his mother’s? Instead, he tries to break out and take control of his destiny, only to learn that he actually needed to embrace those around him (such as with him not killing Leia in TLJ).

The Rise of Skywalker: Untold - A “Rey Nobody” edit of Ep. IX | Looking for voices and VFX - Please reach out if interested!

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Burbin said:

TestingOutTheTest said:

Burbin said:

TLJ freed this new story and allowed it to become it’s own (much like Kylo in the film), it revealed that there was no set place for these characters to fit in (much like Rey in the film), no set story ‘destined’ to play out. It opened the door for the final chapter to be something new, different and original. TRoS closed that door shut, shoving everything back into the original mold: Rey goes on to be trained as a Jedi, there is some big revelation about her backstory, Kylo turns to the light, and together they defeat Snoke Palpatine, which marks the end of the First and Final Order, and the return of the Jedi and the New New Republic. The Empire is defeated by taking down the ‘big bad’ on the throne again.

I feel like you’re implying Kylo Ren was set up to be irredeemable, except we literally end with him broken, kneeling on the floor in the base.

My point was TLJ left things open ended, you only see that as set up for Ben being redeemed because that’s what happened in the end, but it could’ve gone any other way. Just think of this interaction between Luke and Leia:

“I came to face him, Leia. And I can’t save him.”
“I held out hope for so long, but I know my son is gone.”
“No one’s ever really gone.”

On one hand, this clearly reads as Kylo being past the point of redemption, as even Leia has given up on him, on the other, Luke only says he can’t save him, and comforts Leia by telling her no one’s ever really gone, though that leads into Han, so it could be read in a multitude of ways, that’s what made TLJ great.

If Kylo was past the point of redemption, then Luke wouldn’t have told Leia, “No one’s ever really gone.”

I wouldn’t be opposed to Kylo chosing to turn after losing everything and finally seeing the error of his choices, as Sherlock suggested, but the point of TLJ was that Kylo chose not to turn good even after the ‘big bad’ in the throne was dead, instead he chose to become the Ruler of the First Order, he chose to become the ‘big bad’ and sit on the throne himself. Things could go in any direction after this.

No. That reinforced Kylo’s desire to be evil, but even then he’s left broken. This is just like in TFA, he kills Han to clear away these goody-goody feelings but it doesn’t work, it makes him even more regretful. Just because he decided to rule the First Order doesn’t mean his goody-goody feelings are gone - in fact, TLJ showed him being conflicted at the end.

Leaving him unredeemed undermines the point of his arc.

Again, you only see it like this because that’s how it played out in the end, letting go of her parents and dealing with feelings worthlessness were key parts of her character arc, but so was finding her place in this story and wanting to be someone important.

Most importantly, she’s the protagonist, she works as a surrogate for the audience. And as such, in a metanarrative sense, she needed to let go of her parents because we needed to let go of her parents, she wanted to find her place in this story because we wanted to find her place in this story, we wanted her to be someone important, we wanted some big revelation, and so did she. Her parents being no one wasn’t just the hardest answer for Rey, it was the hardest answer for the audience. An audience who spent years specutaling where she came from, who she would be related to, where she would fit in. Like Kylo says, the fact that her parents were no one meant she had no [set] place in this story. She had no connection to anyone, she was free to choose whomever she wanted to be. Making her the grandaughter of Palpatine undoes this, now she is shoved back into the mold, the hero is the offspring of the villain, that was the easy and obvious answer, and what we’ve all seen before.

No.

People only speculated as to who she’s related to because they hoped it would explain her “powers” and wanted a payoff for what they thought was a set-up for “her parents being important”. TFA and the entire saga already explained her abilities, and TFA never set up her parents being important - in fact, Maz literally says they aren’t important.

sherlockpotter said:

Literal quote from Rey in TLJ: "The galaxy may need a legend. I need someone to show me my place in all of this." I really don’t see anything in the first two movies that implies she hates herself. She just seems overly dependent on people. She stays on Jakku because she wants her family to return, not because she thinks she’s unworthy of their love. She runs from Luke’s lightsaber because she doesn’t want that responsibility. She thinks Luke is the only hope for the galaxy; then, when he refuses, she says “[Ben] is our last hope.” She goes to Kylo because she thinks he’ll help them. (“This could be how we win.”) And honestly, what’s she done so far for herself? Known how to fly a ship? Anyone can do that. She was captured by the First Order. Fought off Kylo out of desperation, not by choice. Messed up big time by turning herself in to Snoke. And then she moved some rocks. Mary Sue, baby.

Amazing. Every word of what you’ve just said was wrong.

This is one of the biggest misconceptions I’ve seen regarding this core belief of self-worthlessness.

Self-confidence is not the same as self-worth. Rey has a lot of self-confidence; she not only believes she is a great fighter and pilot but is also confident in her abilities. She acknowledges that she can achieve things if she were to try hard enough, and believes she is capable of achieving things such as becoming a Jedi — this is because Rey has self-confidence.

But since Rey suffers from a core belief of self-worthlessness, she doesn’t feel worthy or deserving of doing this or that herself. The difference between low self-confidence and low self-worth is the difference between believing that you are able to be or do something and believing you are deserving or worthy of being or doing something yourself.

I never said Rey thinks she’s unworthy of others’ love, I said that she hates herself.

Rey wants to learn “her place” as a way of justifying as to why her parents left her. The point of TLJ is that she refuses to accept that her parents threw her away like garbage - she literally lashes out at Kylo, denying his taunt that “[her] parents threw [her] away like garbage.” She waited all those years on Jakku, having been lying to herself that there had to be some good reason as to why her parents left her, that she is of some importance, at least to them, showing that they truly loved her and cared for her, that she is worth something. It is for this reason she convinces BB-8 in TFA that her family would be back for her… someday.

However… Rey wants to find out what her “place” exactly is. For the past decade and a half of her life, she had been lying to herself that she would realize what her importance was upon finding out who her parents were, and that if she does find out what her importance was then she would feel loved, since in this hypothetical scenario her parents did abandon her for an important reason, showing how much they care for her.

The “place in all this,” itself, never really mattered to Rey. She was only going to use it as a way to justify her parents abandoning her… so she would belong to them, feeling loved. The reason she says to Luke, “I need someone to show me my place in all this,” is, well… you see, she wants to find her importance merely to use it as a way of justifying her parents abandoning her, feeding the lie that they truly cared about her and believed that she was worth something so that lie would never die off, so, for the rest of her life, she would feel loved — henceforth pushing away her feelings of self-worthlessness.

Below is evidence in TFA, TLJ & TRoS that Rey suffers from a core belief of self-worthlessness. These are common symptoms for those who suffer from this core belief. Not all of the following have to be checked off like a box; for example, some people diagnosed with a certain pandemic-causing virus only suffer from specific symptoms whereas some have no symptoms whatsoever.

Chronic psychological and emotional pain

During their initial encounter on Pasaana in TRoS, Kylo Ren describes Rey as having “such pain in [her].”

Feeling unworthy to be one’s ideal self

In TFA, Rey clearly shows that her ideal self is not a scavenger living amongst the sands of Jakku… but to be a Hero™; we see her wear a Rebel X-Wing helmet, we see her Rebel doll she had played with as a child, acting out the legendary stories she has heard about, and, most importantly, she looks up to the legendary heroes of the Jedi — namely, Luke Skywalker. However, Rey holds a definite feeling of unworthiness to be her ideal self. It is made clear, within her introduction alone, she dislikes being a scavenger, we are shown how she looks at the old woman cleaning her scraps, just as Rey is, with sadness and a hint of worry and fear.

We know Rey wants to be more than what she is, yet she does not… she wants to be something, her ideal self is a Jedi, a Hero™… but despite this, Rey runs away from the call to action, when the Skywalker lightsaber calls out to her; then, she tries to displace this role to other people and, once she has finally been forced to take the mantle of being a Jedi during the events of TLJ, she states her feelings of unworthiness of it (“I will earn your brother’s saber…”).

It isn’t until Rey stands against Palpatine and is motivated by the Jedi of the past when she destroys her core belief that she is worthless and, with it, no longer feels unworthy of becoming and being her ideal self, the thing that she wants to (and the galaxy needs her to) be, all the Jedi — hence Rey declaring, "I… am all the Jedi,” pulling the Skywalker saber (the symbol of not only a Jedi, but also her ideal self) to her and destroying Sidious. Rey declaring herself “all the Jedi” is demonstrating her defeat over her core belief that she is worthless — as she finally feels worthy and deserving of being her ideal self, “all the Jedi.”

Misplaced and inappropriate outbursts of anger

Rey consistently shows excessive and inappropriate aggression and anger throughout all three movies; one example is when she struck a defenceless and unarmed Luke Skywalker on the back of his head, another is when she stabbed an unarmed and defenseless Kylo Ren.

Psychological denial and self-repression

Rey willingly spends nearly a decade and a half as a scavenger, despite acknowledging (“I see your eyes. You already know the truth…” — Maz), deep down, that her family is never coming back. She also has been denying the truth that her parents threw her away like garbage, all the way until her confrontation with Kylo in TLJ.

Emotional immaturity, emotional displacement and misplaced, internalized anger

Is extremely emotionally fragile, breaking down into tears when confronted with any criticism or comments of her worth (“You’re nothing…” — Kylo Ren); such emotional fragility shows clear low self-esteem… a sign of this core belief that she is worthless.

Validation/approval seeking

Searches for approval, validation and affection from others, including BB-8, Han, Luke and Leia, possibly to make up for her own lack of self-value.

Attachment disorder

Forms attachments incredibly quickly, as an act of desperation and necessity.

Perceived inadequacy and feelings of being alone

Consistently mentions feeling alone, lost, confused or scared (Luke asks, “What are you most afraid of?”, she responds, “Myself…”; she also describes having never felt so alone to Kylo Ren).

General feelings of worthlessness, showing signs of feeling like she is not worthy of being or doing something great

She believes she isn’t worthy of wielding the Skywalker saber, then in TLJ, tries to get Luke and then Ben to be the Hero™ to help the Resistance gain the upper hand, never believing she is worthy of being said Hero™ — it is only at the last minute when she has no other option but to take the mantle.

She also has general feelings of emptiness and inferiority (shown in the films through Rey’s emotional responses and general emotional state). And the very fact that Rey relies on others for validation alone implies she has no self-love nor -value.

All of these are examples of Rey suffering from an irrational, toxic core belief of self-worthlessness. Having one or two of these “symptoms” would not be enough, but the fact that she shows pretty much most of the signs someone with the same background and core belief would have… supports this analysis, 100%.

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One option is to have both Rey and Ben live. I can see how this would be an issue for some, because it might not feel right if Ben could literally resurrect Rey without sacrificing his own life. If things were to play out the same way up to this point, I kinda of agree with the sentiment.

They’re a dyad and only dyads can do that. Problem solved. Then again, that info would be a nightmare to incorporate into the film.

Leia never has been anywhere near the guy.

Tbf, she was a member of the Imperial Senate. It’s possible she’s been around him in the years leading up to ANH.

Then in TRoS they literally just bring out a new ‘big bad’ AND a new throne in order to completely undo Kylo’s growth. Now he is shoved back into the mold, the conflicted villain is turned good and helps take down the true ‘big bad’ in the throne, as we’ve all seen before. Just think about how we never see Kylo sitting on his Supreme Leader throne, because he is not allowed to be that character, the way we see him command officers around has no more gravity than the way he did it in TFA, and he goes back to just doing the bidding of an old disfigured monster again.

The sad thing is they came so close. With a little tweaking, you can easily rework the story to eliminate any idea that Kylo is working with Palpatine, presenting them instead as enemies.

It’s called the Skywalker Saga, not the Palpatine Saga.

I’d take George Lucas’ word over what the Star Wars saga is supposed to be about over JJ any day of the week.

Well Lucas never called it the Skywalker Saga I can tell you that. Or at least not AFAIK. He said it was the story of Anakin specifically. Then after the acquisition Lucasfilm started tossing the term “Skywalker Saga” around as if just “Saga” wasn’t enough. What, are they planning other sagas or something?

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TestingOutTheTest said:

Burbin said:

My point was TLJ left things open ended, you only see that as set up for Ben being redeemed because that’s what happened in the end, but it could’ve gone any other way. Just think of this interaction between Luke and Leia:

“I came to face him, Leia. And I can’t save him.”
“I held out hope for so long, but I know my son is gone.”
“No one’s ever really gone.”

On one hand, this clearly reads as Kylo being past the point of redemption, as even Leia has given up on him, on the other, Luke only says he can’t save him, and comforts Leia by telling her no one’s ever really gone, though that leads into Han, so it could be read in a multitude of ways, that’s what made TLJ great.

If Kylo was past the point of redemption, then Luke wouldn’t have told Leia, “No one’s ever really gone.”

He then gives her Han’s dice, you know, Han, who is dead. So what did he really mean by that? That her son is gone but not forgotten? Like I said it could be read in a multitude of ways, they could’ve had Kylo NOT be redeemed in ep IX and this conversation would still make sense. You would be here telling us how dumb we are for thinking he might be redeemed.

I wouldn’t be opposed to Kylo chosing to turn after losing everything and finally seeing the error of his choices, as Sherlock suggested, but the point of TLJ was that Kylo chose not to turn good even after the ‘big bad’ in the throne was dead, instead he chose to become the Ruler of the First Order, he chose to become the ‘big bad’ and sit on the throne himself. Things could go in any direction after this.

No. That reinforced Kylo’s desire to be evil, but even then he’s left broken. This is just like in TFA, he kills Han to clear away these goody-goody feelings but it doesn’t work, it makes him even more regretful. Just because he decided to rule the First Order doesn’t mean his goody-goody feelings are gone - in fact, TLJ showed him being conflicted at the end.

Leaving him unredeemed undermines the point of his arc.

Yes Kylo is broken, divided, conflicted… the point in TLJ is that just because somebody is broken, divided and conflicted it doesn’t mean they HAVE to turn. Kylo is given the choice, and he chooses to remain evil. He could’ve kept holding to that choice all the way to the end. Leaving him unredeemed would undermine nothing.

Again, you only see it like this because that’s how it played out in the end, letting go of her parents and dealing with feelings worthlessness were key parts of her character arc, but so was finding her place in this story and wanting to be someone important.

Most importantly, she’s the protagonist, she works as a surrogate for the audience. And as such, in a metanarrative sense, she needed to let go of her parents because we needed to let go of her parents, she wanted to find her place in this story because we wanted to find her place in this story, we wanted her to be someone important, we wanted some big revelation, and so did she. Her parents being no one wasn’t just the hardest answer for Rey, it was the hardest answer for the audience. An audience who spent years specutaling where she came from, who she would be related to, where she would fit in. Like Kylo says, the fact that her parents were no one meant she had no [set] place in this story. She had no connection to anyone, she was free to choose whomever she wanted to be. Making her the grandaughter of Palpatine undoes this, now she is shoved back into the mold, the hero is the offspring of the villain, that was the easy and obvious answer, and what we’ve all seen before.

No.

People only speculated as to who she’s related to because they hoped it would explain her “powers” and wanted a payoff for what they thought was a set-up for “her parents being important”. TFA and the entire saga already explained her abilities, and TFA never set up her parents being important - in fact, Maz literally says they aren’t important.

Yes.

You just explained why her being a nobody was the right choice, so you can’t say under the same breath that TRoS making her a Palpatine was a stroke of genius. And you’ve also just laid out to Sherlock that Rey DOES care about her importance, and her place in the story:

Rey wants to learn “her place” as a way of justifying as to why her parents left her. The point of TLJ is that she refuses to accept that her parents threw her away like garbage - she literally lashes out at Kylo, denying his taunt that “[her] parents threw [her] away like garbage.” She waited all those years on Jakku, having been lying to herself that there had to be some good reason as to why her parents left her, that she is of some importance, at least to them, showing that they truly loved her and cared for her, that she is worth something. It is for this reason she convinces BB-8 in TFA that her family would be back for her… someday.

However… Rey wants to find out what her “place” exactly is. For the past decade and a half of her life, she had been lying to herself that she would realize what her importance was upon finding out who her parents were, and that if she does find out what her importance was then she would feel loved, since in this hypothetical scenario her parents did abandon her for an important reason, showing how much they care for her.

The “place in all this,” itself, never really mattered to Rey. She was only going to use it as a way to justify her parents abandoning her… so she would belong to them, feeling loved. The reason she says to Luke, “I need someone to show me my place in all this,” is, well… you see, she wants to find her importance merely to use it as a way of justifying her parents abandoning her, feeding the lie that they truly cared about her and believed that she was worth something so that lie would never die off, so, for the rest of her life, she would feel loved — henceforth pushing away her feelings of self-worthlessness.

So you can’t go contradicting yourself by saying that wasn’t a part of her arc. Of course Rey doesn’t want to be related to Obi-wan or Palpatine, that’s purely the fan speculation side of it, but she did want some big revelation about her parents that would justify being left to rot on Jakku.

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All of this relentless back and forth doesn’t get us anywhere. It is fine and encouraged to state your opinions, but we’ll rarely, if ever, argue someone to our side. Nothing anyone is saying is wrong, it’s just that different story elements speak to each of us differently based on our own experiences. We have to accept that the story elements that we value most may not be as important to someone else. There is no “true” interpretation of the story or characters, just what they speak to us and our lives. Probably the best we can say is that a better developed and written trilogy might have had fewer offending elements to the fandom in general. Getting off my horse now.

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Having said all of that, I’ll share my opinion.

If Palpatine was going to be brought back, there should have been some context setup in episodes 7 & 8. They didn’t have to foreshadow that he was still alive, but at least name drop him. Have a Resistance officer say something like, “at least the First Order isn’t as bad as when Palpatine kept the galaxy in darkness for 25 years.”

People have used the argument that these movies are meant for kids. Think of this trilogy from the viewpoint of a kid watching as his first Star Wars experience. He doesn’t know Palps was emperor of the galaxy, that he masterminded the destruction of the Jedi and the downfall of the Republic. He’s just some random guy never once mentioned or referenced in the previous two films who is magically pulled out of nowhere to be a bigger bad than Snoke. Luke does mention Darth Sidious once, but there is no context for a kid watching this trilogy first that Sidious and Palpatine are the same, master and apprentice, or completely unrelated characters. The characters all know what a threat he is, but the audience is never meaningfully informed. I consider that bad storytelling.

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Seriously though, since the conversation here has become so polarised and we’re often talking at crossed purposes, perhaps it’d be genuinely more constructive if we split the thread into two, for the two main audiences: People who broadly thought TROS was OK, and people who broadly thought TROS was not OK. That way you’d be able to focus on the two camps’ ideas for improvements without conflicting over the core stuff.

The Clone Wars: Refocused | Andor: Movie Omnibus