So with Palpatine+ being the version I’m primarily focusing on now, I thought I’d take a second look at the beginning of the Ahch-To sequence. My previous line about legends feels off to me because it doesn’t relate as much to Rey:
REY: I keep on losing control. Everyone will be safer if I’m gone. I’m never leaving this place. I’m doing what you did.
LUKE: I was wrong. Failure shows us where we still need to grow. What are you most afraid of?
REY: Myself.
LUKE: Because you’re a Palpatine. Leia kept seeing you on his throne.
REY: She never told me. She still trained me!
LUKE: Because she saw your spirit. Your heart. Rey, some things are stronger than blood. Confronting fear is the destiny of a Jedi. Your destiny. If you don’t face Palpatine, it will mean the end of the Jedi. And the war will be lost…
I’d argue this version is stronger because Rey’s retreat to Ahch-To now mirrors Luke’s for the same fundamental reason: both sincerely believe their presence is doing more harm than good, so withdrawal feels like responsibility rather than cowardice. That lets Luke say “I was wrong” without retroactively reducing his TLJ exile to fear. His lesson is instead inspired by Yoda - failure is not a final verdict, it just reveals where more growth is needed. That makes “What are you most afraid of?” a natural next question in the endeavor of self-growth. And since Rey now doesn’t mention the throne vision at the beginning of the scene, we can instead use that as a big reveal rather than as merely a reminder for the plot. Leia’s recurring vision of Rey on the Sith throne becomes the crucial counterexample in the Skywalker saga. Like Anakin, she is repeatedly confronted with a terrifying possible future, but she responds in the opposite way: Anakin tries to control fate, while Leia treats each vision as another reason to keep teaching Rey, trusting her, and helping her grow. She refuses to treat a possible future as a finished outcome like Luke does with Ben, too.
Yes, we lose some of the relevant hatred that Leia surely harbors for Palpatine himself, but to be honest that always felt like a weird reveal to me. We’ve never had anybody be able to sense somebody’s ancestry through the Force before just based on proximity. In the case of Luke and Leia, they needed significant hints and setup in order to realize they’re related. Plus, if Leia knows Rey is related to Palpatine, it should have started ringing alarm bells in the Resistance HQ much sooner that Palpatine may have returned in some way.
Any thoughts?