Jay said:
Chewielewis said:
DrDre said:
Yes, except for the fact that Anakin went through a decade of Jedi training, and still failed to become the Jedi, he was supposed to be. The prequels put the entire concept of believing in prophesies in doubt, and reinforce the idea, that allways in motion is the future.
Sure, but like Rey he was pretty gifted when we first met him.
I think there is a question that people aren’t asking, which is “What exactly is Jedi training”. I don’t think Jedi training is about moving rocks or lightsaber technique. I think Jedi training is more about indoctrination. The Jedi are a religion, and like most religions, you have to start them young so they understand the world they way you need them to, because Jedi in the Jedi Order are basically celebate monks. Thats why the council rejected Anakin, too old to indoctrinate, and they were right. The jedi don’t spend 10 years learning how to fight and move rocks. Their lessons are basically learning about the force and how to understand it better, but understand it the way the Jedi want them to.
You could also say that things like moving rocks or deflecting laser bolts are pretty much the Jedi traning 101, in EpII we see kids deflecting blaster bolts, they probably can lift brooms as well with not much traning. Anakin didn’t need training to use his force powers to Fly Pods. Luke didn’t get much training to learn how to grab his saber and to use the force to blow up the death star.
Some good points about Jedi training and indoctrination, and I agree with you to a certain extent. However, everything we saw in the first six films indicates that guidance and meditation are required in order to maximize a Jedi’s powers and fully exploit the Force.
The extent of Anakin’s emergent powers in TPM is his ability to see into the future and anticipate things, and only to the point that it makes him appear to have superhuman reflexes. That’s it.
The extent of Luke’s powers in ANH are a few minutes against a remote where he “reaches out” and senses it, and the trench run where he’s told to “let go” and allow the Force to guide him while targeting the exhaust port. That’s all we got from Luke in his first go-round. He didn’t blow up the Death Star with the Force.
In TLJ, Rey successfully controls a trooper’s mind and holds her own in a lightsaber duel against a much more powerful, albeit injured, opponent, despite never having used a lightsaber before.
Lukes training in Degoba wasn’t about lifting rocks, he could do that without much of an issue, but to understand why he could lift rocks. What he needed to learn about the force and how it connects to the universe.
Luke failed to extract his X-Wing from the swamp and didn’t complete his training, and while he demonstrated some impressive maneuvers in his fight with his father, Vader toyed with him until he got his hand cut off and was forced to surrender. Whether that was a function of a lack of combat training or lack of proper meditation—probably both—he wasn’t adequately prepared.
After receiving a few lessons, Rey assaulted her teacher and got the drop on him with a lightsaber, then fought Snoke’s guards alongside Kylo and lifted a bunch of boulders like they weren’t even there, thus saving the day.
Is Rey faster and more powerful than Luke and Anakin? sure, but I don’t see this being without precident.
Not without precedent, but without training?
Rey gets her trainig the same way you teach a child to swim, throw them in the deep end. Kylo’s probing of her mind taught her how to fight back, which taught her how to influence that storm troopers mind. She’s as powerful as the narrative needs her to be. It would have been nice for her to stay longer on the island, sure but I think she gets everything she needs to know for the narrative.
This is the crux of the problem. She’s not a character with an arc; she’s floating along and being handed her abilities by the universe in order to suit the narrative. No work, no progression, no setbacks, no loss. It’s a boring hero’s journey.
