“Who are Rey’s Parents” Fan Theories

Ok so if you’re reading this and you haven’t seen the movie yet…what are you doing? What are you thinking going around clicking on anything Star Wars related? You do know it’s the biggest theatrical success of all time right? Why haven’t you gone to see it? At this point, if you’re still reading, anything that gets spoiled for you is your own fault.

So something that’s I’ve been getting really into the last year or two is fan theories. Before the movie came out, I watched a video that theorized that Luke turned to the Dark Side. This video got me really excited for the movie, and kept making me look for more reasons why Luke might have become a Sith. After watching the movie, that seems pretty unlikely, and I’m pretty disappointed. But luckily the movie raised many more questions, and left a lot of mysteries unsolved, and gave way to a plethora of more fan theories.

So what I’ll be doing in my next few posts is highlight some of the more interesting theories I’ve read out there (and a couple of my own), and defend them with some reasons why they might be true, as well as poke at the holes in the theory.

Lets start with the one everyone seems to be talking about the most:

Who are Rey’s parents?

 

 

Rey Skywalker Theory

The first of the 3 main theories regarding Rey’s parents is the most obvious one: she’s a Skywalker. More specifically, Luke’s daughter. It’s the obvious choice since Kylo Ren ended up not being Luke’s kid. Here’s why:

1. She’s obviously the main focus of this trilogy, and Star Wars has always been about the Skywalker family.
2. She lives on a dessert planet, doesn’t know her parents, and gets by with her knack for machines and piloting skills, both of which comes to her naturally. Doing machines is the Skywalker calling card.
3. Anakin/Luke’s old lightsaber calls to her, and gives her a vision of mostly their experiences.
4. A lot of people think she was being trained at Luke’s new Jedi temple, mostly based on her outfit looking like Jedi robes, and was dropped off at Jakku after Kylo Ren went on a temper tantrum., in order to hide her. The hole here is her not having any memories of being a Jedi, or them and Luke and Han even being more than legends. The argument is that she had her memories suppressed using the force. This would explain why she’s suddenly able to use force powers and fight with a lightsaber. It’s more muscle memory than a conscious effort.
5. Han and Leia take an immediate liking to her, and don’t appear too worried when she gets abducted, as if they trust her to handle herself. In the end Leia sends Rey to find Luke, rather than go searching for her brother herself.
6. This would make her Kylo Ren’s cousin. And Star Wars at its core is really about how the Skywalker family drama messes up the galaxy. Making the new trilogy about two cousins fighting would keep this theme. Anakin’s two grandchildren could then represent his good side and his evil side, and continue the conflict that was central to him as a character.
7. The way Luke looks at Rey in the ending scene. As if he recognized her, and expected her to come find him at some point.
8. The actress that plays Rey, Daisy Ridley, looks very similar to Natalie Portman, the actress who plays Luke and Leia’s mother.
9. R2D2 says he’ll only wake up when Luke comes back, but makes a compromise and wakes up for Rey, and gives her the map to find Luke. Many people have complained about how convenient this was, and that it was a lazy plot device, but what if it’s so convenient and lazy because it was Luke’s plan all along?
10. Rey’s hair and outfit look similar to Anakin’s mother Shmi, the beginning of the Skywalker line (that we’ve met), and who was knocked up by the force itself, and started everything this family has gone through.
11. Season 3, episodes 15-17 of the Clone Wars TV show. Slight spoilers here, but seriously just go watch the show. These 3 episodes at the very least. Anakin lands on planet metaphor, where he meets a being simply known as “The Father”. Well who is he the father of? Well “The Daughter” and “The Son” of course. This episode has a lot in it to digest, and is host to its own fan theories of what it means, but it supports this theory more than anything. “The Son” is the embodiment of the dark side of the force, while “The Daughter” is the embodiment of the light side of the force. “The Father” is there to maintain balance between the two. But he’s getting old, and is going to die soon, and needs somebody to replace him, and asks Anakin to do so. Anakin is shown a vision of what he will become if he leaves, still refuses and chooses to face his destiny, a bunch of stuff goes down, and basically he screwed the galaxy over by creating an unbalance in the force. If Anakin is supposed to be  “The Father”, then that would make Luke and Leia “The Son”, and “The Daughter”. But they both seem to turn out to be pretty good guys, so we go to the next generation. Kylo Ren has clearly turned to the dark side, making him “The Grandson”, and he struggles with his identity, and seek guidance from Vader, whom he seems to see as a “father” figure more than he does Han Solo. That means that there needs to be a “Granddaughter” that represents the light side of the force. This would be Rey.

Here’s the counter arguments to those arguments.

1. It seems way too obvious. Vader being Luke’s father was the greatest plot twist in all of cinematic history. And Kylo Ren being Han and Leia’s kid was both a nod to fans of the EU, as well as a great foreshadow to the film’s most shocking moment. All the evidence could be to throw us off for a year and a half, so the big reveal means even more.
2. Maz says that those who left her are not coming back, but somebody else still may. This is her argument to push her into seeking out Luke. Luke can’t both be the parent that’s not coming back for her and the somebody else who still may come back for her.
3. Maz calls Luke by his name rather than “your father” when speaking to Rey about him. She seems to be a bit of a know it all. If she has Luke’s lightsaber, and knows it’s his, hen she probably knows who his kids are.
4. Luke hated his time on Tatooine more than anything. And he gets pretty upset with Ben and Yoda for not telling him Vader was his father. And he always complained about his training taking too long, and how he needed to defeat Vader now. It seems pretty unlikely that he would abandon his daughter on Jakku in the early stages of her training, erase her memories of her family, and hope she finds him when she’s older with enough time to train her to take down Kylo Ren and the First Order. Luke certainly has his flaws, but hypocrisy is not one them.
5. Presumably this is the lightsaber Luke lost on Cloud City. When Rey touches it, she sees memories of a lot of things that Luke either wasn’t there for, or Luke experienced after losing this lightsaber. If a Jedi can upload memories to a lightsaber in order for another Jedi to download those memories as a vision when they touch it, the first Jedi presumably had to witness those events first hand. Some of those events could be Luke’s memories sure, but others can’t be. So personally, I think that there had to have been at least one owner between Luke and Rey. Rey’s father could be one of those transition owners.
6. Everything about her clothing looking like Jedi robes, or Shmi’s has an even simpler explanation. That just Star Wars dessert clothing. Shmi, Anakin, and Luke all wore similar looking clothing, yes. But they all did so before they had ever heard of the force. If you’re going to argue that Rey is a Skywalker because of her outfit, then you also have to argue that every Tuskan Raider is a Skywalker too.
7. Han and Leia could simply like her because she’s powerful and not trying to kill them. The last time there was a galactic conflict, they joined forces with that last Jedi in the world, and took down the Empire. The First Order is already going around blowing up planets, and has their powerful son fighting for them. They’re just smart enough to know that they need a Jedi on their side again if they plan on winning. Or maybe they just like her because they like her personality. That does happen sometimes. Occasionally you become friends with somebody because you like them as a person, not because you have ulterior motives or a hidden secret about their lineage.
8. So Luke gives Rey “a look” on that Island. It could mean many things. Yes it could mean “my daughter has finally arrived”. Or it could mean “OH MY GOD A GIRL. I’VE BEEN SO LONELY WITH NOTHING BUT MY ROBOTIC HAND ALL THESE YEARS”. Lets assume Luke isn’t having a seclusion based freak out, and it was some sort of “I’ve been expecting you” look. There’s many reasons Luke could be expecting someone. Such as “I’m chilling at an old Jedi temple”. Luke is there because he need to meditate on some bad things that have happened to him. In real life, people go to the place of worship for their religion when they need guidance all the time. For all we know, Luke has been listening to confessions and giving advice all these years. That look could simple be “ah another young Jedi sees my guidance today”, and he could have no idea who she is. Also, we see Leia sense when Han dies with presumably little to no training in the force. In Return of the Jedi, she can even sense that Luke is alive like 5 minutes after finding out she’s a Jedi. Luke has much more training, and is way more powerful than she is, so his force sensing abilities probably shame hers. He was able to sense Vader’s presence at some pretty remarkably long distances. He probably sensed Rey, Chewie, and Artoo parsecs before they landed. He may have no idea who Rey is, but knows that she’s a Jedi seeking guidance, and since she’s with Chewie and Artoo on the Falcon, she’s probably a cool dude. He could just be excited to start training again. Or that look could simply be him thinking “Jesus Christ I know I put the map in TWO different places, but I still didn’t think it would take THIS long for somebody to find me. I ran out of Twinkies months ago”
9. Star Wars has always had British actors. And most of them keep their British accents in tact. Rey and Fin are obviously the two leading characters, and both of them are British actors. But while John Boyega is forced to act with an American accent, Daisy Ridley is allowed to keep her British accent intact. On the surface, this may seem like an inconsequential director’s choice. Until you realize that no Skywalker has ever had a British accent. They’ve all been American actors, or at least done an American accent. If Rey was a Skywalker, they would have made her do an American accent.
10. This one is a personal argument. For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been complaining about how much I hate Jakku. Every trilogy has their own set of planets. The origional had places like Hoth and Endor, while the prequels had places like Geonosis and Mustafar. The one planet of consistency was Tatooine. The planet where both main characters, Luke and Anakin, are found, and hate, and are taken away from in order to be trained as a Jedi. Obviously J.J.Abrams was trying to balance nostalgia points, while not outright copying the originals with his film. Jakku seemed like a way to get Tatooine nostalgia points, while being lazy. There was hardly anything in terms of background. No Jawas, or Huts, or blue milk. If you want to make your own desert planet, fine. But if you aren’t going to develop it, why not just use Tatooine? You’re obviously trying to mirror A New Hope, so just put Rey on Tatooine. And then it hit me…Rey isn’t on Tatooine because Tatooine is the home of Skywalkers, and Rey is not a Skywalker. They put her on another surprisingly populated desert planet so that she mirrors Luke, and you think she’s Luke’s kid, but she’s not. Everything is set up for them to have Luke fail the paternity test, and they can go “haha we tricked you”

 

 

Rey Solo Theory

The next most obvious choice is that she is a Solo. While Luke being the father seems pretty obvious, it raises the question of “who’s the mommy?” Halfway through the movie, it was established that Han and Leia had at least one child together. Meaning, it’s totally plausible for them to have another. And although she never uses the surname, Leia is just as much a Skywalker as Luke is, so most of the supporting arguments for Luke work here as well. I won’t repeat those, but I will present some arguments as to why she’s more likely to have the surname Solo than Skywalker.

1. I’ll get this one out of the way. And if you haven’t read any of the Disney non-approved novels, this point is going to spoil a good chunk of them, so skip to point number 2 if you plan on reading those still. A big part of the EU is Han and Leia’s twins children Jaina and Jacen. They’re trained in the ways of the force, the boy Jacen turns to the dark side, and the girl Jaina has to fight him. A lot of people were pretty outraged when Disney made the EU non-canon, and this story line is one of the more popular, and a big reason for the outcry. But my theory has always been that Disney only called the EU non-canon so that they can do whatever they wanted to do with their movies, even stealing ideas from the EU, and not have people go “well that’s not how it happened in the books”. And the Force Awakens proves that. The idea of a military group picking up where the Empire left off, is the centerpiece of the Thrawn trilogy of books by Timothy Zahn. A book trilogy that many fans wanted adapted into the next trilogy of movies. And although Disney refused to do a faithful frame by frame recreation, they definitely understood the popularity of the main themes, and created the First Order because of that. They’ve already adapted half of the Jaina/Jacen story by creating Ben Solo and having him turn to the dark side. Having Rey be his Jedi twin who faces him is definitely something that’s in the realm of possibility.
2.  When they get back from Starkiller Base, the first thing Leia does is hug Rey. Her husband (ex husband?) was just murdered by her evil son. And rather than giving Chewie a big ‘ole hug, somebody she’s been friends with for years, and who has been friends with Han for years longer than that, she hugs Rey; somebody who caught a ride with Han, got some advice and a job offer, and who knew him for like…what a week? A lot of people have taken this to be Leia kind of saying “I may have lost my husband, and essentially lost my son, but at least I have my daughter”.

Counter arguments

1. Han and Leia never once mention having a daughter. They’re pretty open about having an emotionally crippled son flying around murdering people. They never once mention having a daughter they dropped off on Jakku or anything. And it seems like they split up pretty much right after Ben went crazy. There wasn’t a whole lot of time to procreate and raise another child to the age of 5ish that Rey was when she was dropped off on Jakku. And that would be that Kylo Ren was going around doing Sith stuff for like the 10-15 years Rey as growing up. Meaning he either killed a bunch of Jedi and bested Luke when he was 5, or he’s a lot older than Rey. And they look to be around the same age. Also, if one child turned evil, you would probably want to keep a close eye on the other child. And lets just say that maybe Rey is a daughter that Han and Leia don’t know about, or that they thought she died. It seems like all Leia can do with the force is occasionally sense stuff. So you’d think that as soon as Leia met Rey, her Jedi senses would start tingling, and she would say something to Rey and Han, and try to rebuild their family.
2. Maz said that those she’s waiting for aren’t coming back. If Han and Leia are the parents she’s waiting for, then one parent has already come back for her, and is bringing her back to see the other.
3. Leia clearly prioritizes the mission of blowing up Starkiller base over the side quest of rescuing Rey. Seeing how much trying to turn Ben back to the light side means to her, saving her daughter as well would also probably be important to her.

 

 

Rey Kenobi Theory

The theory that wasn’t initially all that popular, but has been gaining traction lately is that she is a descendant of old Ben Kenobi, most likely his granddaughter. This is the theory I’m personally rooting for, and here’s the reasons why:

1. Yes the the Skywalker family is the center of the Star Wars universe. But is it really their story? Think back to some of the origional themes of the very first movie. Yes its about Luke becoming a Jedi, but its also about Obi-Wan’s redemption. He trained Anakin Skywalker, and he turned to the dark side. As Darth Vader, his apprentice has caused the galaxy more pain and suffering than it has ever known. He tries to stop Vader, and fails. His only hope is to train a new apprentice, Vader’s son Luke, in hopes that he will fix his mistakes. Now Darth Vader’s grandson Kylo Ren is terrorizing the galaxy. It would only be fitting for Obi-Wan’s granddaughter to be the one to stop him.
2. Arguably the most iconic part of Star Wars is the lightsaber weapon. And every movie has one iconic lightsaber fight towards the end of the movie that really sums up that movie’s plot line. Honestly, if you just watch every lightsaber fight, you can understand most of the story. And the lightsaber fight that started it all, the very first one ever, was between Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi. This fight is second only to the one between Luke and Vader on Cloud City…and maybe the one between Obi-Wan and Anakin to wrap up the prequels. The Force Awakens was very clearly trying to mirror A New Hope in a lot of ways, and having the end battle be between the grandchildren of the combatants in the very first lightsaber fight would be the icing on the nostalgia pie.
3. She is living alone on a desert planet, and saves an astromech droid from scavengers by speaking a foreign tongue.
4. In the Clone Wars TV series (slight spoilers ahead), it is established that Obi-Wan fell in love with Duchess Satine of the Mandalorians. While it appears (bigger spoiler ahead) as if he never pursued anything with her before her death (based on a conversation he had with Anakin warning him against pursuing his feelings for Padme), this character development does show that Obi-Wan is capable of falling in love, and was once willing to break his Jedi vows for a woman. At some point between Revenge of the Sith, and A New Hope, he may have found somebody else, and had a child with her.
5. Obi-Wan was the one that was in possession of the lightsaber that gave Rey those visions the longest, theoretically meaning that he should have the most influence on her visions. Also, running with my above theory that there was an owner between Luke and Rey, that owner could very well be Obi-Wan’s son/Rey’s father, which would make it more of a Kenobi blade than a Skywalker blade, and would explain why it calls to her. This could also maybe explain who those other memories came from.
6. When Yoda says “there is another”, we assume he’s talking about Leia. But he could very well be talking about little Ben.
7. Although we see Luke bat .500 with the Jedi mind trick, and we see Qui-Gon attempt it once, its kind of thought to be an Obi-Wan specific ability. Or at least one he’s better with than most other Jedi. When Rey is in trouble, the mind trick is what she resorts to. That’s what came most naturally to her when she had no training, and she used it successfully (after a couple of tries at least).
8. In her vision she hears the voice of Obi-Wan, both Alec Guinness, and Ewen McGreggor. Although she hears a lot of voices, it’s easy to bring in Frank Oz and Ewen McGreggor to do Yoda and Obi-Wan voice overs. But they went through a lot of trouble to make old audio of Alec Guinness sound like he was saying “Rey”. There had to be a reason they went through that trouble.
9. While Star Wars has a lot of British actors, the only one who plays a good Jedi and is allowed to keep his accent are the ones who play Obi-Wan. This makes the decision to keep a British accent on Rey not just an argument against why she’s a Skywalker, but also an argument for why she’s a Kenobi.
10. The scenes of Rey crawling around Starkiller base closely mirror the scenes of Ben crawling around the Death Star.
11. Presumably Luke is going to train Rey to be a Jedi in episode VIII. This would mean that a Kenobi trained two Skywalkers, then a Skywalker trained a Kenobi. Master/student cycle would be good from a narrative standpoint.

And why she’s not a Kenobi

1. Honestly, a lot of the supporting evidence is a bit more of a stretch than the arguments for her to be a Skywalker or a Solo.
2. This theory would mean that there would be a generational gap between Ben and Rey left unexplored. While not impossible to explain, that is a bit of a hurdle to overcome story wise.
3. This definitely involves Obi-Wan breaking the Jedi code in some degree, which seems very unlikely.

 

 

So those are the main 3 theories about who might have given Rey her Jedi abilities. I call them the main three because they’re the most plausible, and would make the most sense narratively. But they’re not the only ones people have come up with. So I’ll quickly cover a few of the more interesting of the crazy ones as well.

Rey is a descendant of the Emperor

This theory is mainly backed by a few things.

1. Some fans think that they can hear the emperors voice in her lightsaber vision, although this could just be Luke or someone else hearing the emperor talking.
2. Similar fighting styles to what Palpatine used in Revenge of the Sith
3. They both kept their British accents.
4. The fact that “rey” means “king” in Spanish
5. It would mean that Rey can get her own “evil father” revelation moment.
6. We saw Palpatine turn Anakin to the dark side, now we can watch Palpatine’s descendant turn Anakin’s descendant to the light side.

As interesting as this revelation might turn out to be, it’s hard to believe.

1. When would Palpy have had time for relationships and children? Running an empire is pretty time consuming.
2. He’s never shown any interest in having romance. And after the way he used Padme and Luke to manipulate Anakin, he probably knows better than to have children.
3. As Robot Chicken pointed out, it would be pretty hard for Palpatine to get a girl after he burned his face with lightning.

 

Rey is Anakin’s Sister/Reincarnation/Replacement…Rey is the Next Force Jesus

So this is one of those theories that most people are going to hate, but I actually really really like this one. But that’s because I like the prequels more than most people, and this theory is heavily prequel based. And it has a lot of different variations as it’s one of the more subjective and complicated theories out there, but they all have the same core idea.

So one of the biggest complaints about about the prequel trilogies is the whole “virgin birth” thing with Anakin. While kind of silly, and an obvious Jesus metaphor, it’s a critical part of the series. It’s what leads the Qui-Gon to think Anakin is “the chosen one” that will bring balance to the force.

Many will argue that when he was done, Anakin left himself and the emperor on the dark side, and Obi-Wan and Yoda on the light side, leaving the force pretty balanced between light and dark. But even if this is true, the Jedi council is surely disappointed in how things turned out. Yoda even admits that they may have misread the prophecy.

And although the Council let him in, they were definitely skeptical. And it was Palpatine who pushed for Anakin to be granted the rank of Jedi Master. This of course led to the council to ask Anakin to spy on Palpatine, and allow Palpatine to corrupt poor Annie. Oh and Anakin himself didn’t kill too many Jedi. The only confirmed Jedi kills he has that are still canon are a bunch of younglings, and later Obi-Wan when he sacrifices himself for Luke’s benefit. The rest of the Jedi order either died during the Clone Wars, orchestrated by Palpatine, and by the execution of Order 66, another one of Palpy’s plans. Oh and the 4 guys that Palpatine kills himself when they come to arrest him.

Basically, Anakin didn’t do much prophecy wise. But when you think about it, this makes sense. He wasn’t really the chosen one. He was thought to be the chosen one because he was thought to be conceived by the force. But it is later revealed that he was really conceived by Darth Plagueis, perhaps the most powerful of the Sith lords. So Anakin was created by the Sith, and used as a tool by the Sith, until his son was able to show him the light and he could redeem himself in the end.

So this leaves a question open, if Anakin isn’t the chosen one, then who is? Obviously I’m going to argue that Rey is.

1. She actually shows more similarities to Anakin than she does to Luke. Yes Luke was a good pilot, and was able to hop into an X-wing and blow up the Death Star. But it was clearly stated that he had practice bulls-eyeing womprats with his T-16. When Anakin blew up the trade federation ship, he had no fighter piloting experience. The closest thing he had was pod racing, which it also says he was naturally gifted at, and the only human to be able to finish a race, solely due to his power with the force. After escaping in the Falcon, Fin asks Rey how she was able to do that, Rey says something along the lines of “I don’t know, that was the first time I’ve done it”. This indicates that she just has a natural affinity for piloting, something more akin to Anakin than Luke. Also, she immediately sets about fixing up the Falcon, doing things that Han himself never thought to do. In a matter of minutes, she identified problems and solutions to those problems that Han couldn’t in the decades he had the ship. Anakin is the one most well known for his natural affinity with machines, which is what Watto says is the sole reason he keeps him around. Luke on the other hand, was turned off by the challenge of a droid with a bad motivator, and had trouble getting an astromech to play a video recording. Also both Anakin and Rey are seen to know a lot of languages. Speaking to droids and the natives on their planet is understandable. But Rey was also able to understand Chewie, even though she presumably had no prior interaction with a Wookie, or a reason to learn their language. Also, Anakin was able to speak Huttese was Luke needed Threepio to translate. While you can argue that Luke is the most powerful Jedi of his time, it is mostly by default. Obi-Wan needs to hold his hand through blowing up the Death Star while Anakin handled the trade federation ship on his own. Yoda was frustrated with Luke’s inability to use the force to lift his ship out of the swamp. Vader clearly bested him in Cloud City, and had Vader not stepped in on the second Death Star, Luke would have died at the hands of the emperor. Besides cutting off Vader’s mechanical hand (which Vader was clearly fine afterwards), he never bests any other Jedi. Anakin on the other hand, has a much better fight record. He natural power is felt by the Jedi council, and is so large they fear it, and Palpatine feels the need to control it. Rey is able to best a powerful Sith in Kylo Ren on her first go in a lightsaber fight, and on Jakku shows her ability to fight even without a lightsaber. Basically there seems to be a lot of natural talents Rey has that Anakin had, but Luke either didn’t have, or had to work towards achieving here it came naturally to the other two.
2. Anakin wasn’t actually the chosen one. He wasn’t created by the will of the force, he was created by the will of the Sith. Rey is the real chosen one, who is actually created by the force, as an effort to balance it, not bring the dark side to greater power.

 

And the final theory, the least obvious one that nobody is talking about…

 

Rey Is Nobody’s Daughter

Obviously not literally. Somebody had to birth her and leave her on Jakku. We keep asking ourselves “who is Rey’s parents?” “who gave her these force powers?” But the force isn’t a genetic predisposition that only lucky families can possess. The force surrounds all of us. Anyone who chooses to can wield it. Yeah ok maybe some are born with more midoclorians or whatever than others, and their kids are more powerful. That’s why Anakin and his descendants are the way they are. But the Skywalker line is the only one that has children. Raising a family goes against the Jedi code. The Jedi and Sith existed and battled for Millennial without siring royal families that fight each other. As cool as it would be to give Star Wars some Game of Thrones level family drama, that’s not how the Jedi work. Rey doesn’t have to be a Skywalker, or a Kenobi, or the chosen one to be powerful. She could just be a lucky naturally gifted girl, who met the right people at the right time. This new trilogy could be taking us away form the old characters we love, and introducing new ones to bring along for the journey forward, and leave the Skywalkers and Kenobis in the past. Who knows.

So that’s all I currently have to say on the matter…all 5000+ words I have to say on the matter. If you’ve read this far, thank you so much for giving me what was probably up to an hour of your time. If you liked any of these theories, or the idea that they’re all in one place, then please share it and show it to all your friends. And if you have a theory you like that I didn’t include, let me know. Or if you want to discuss any of these theories further, please feel free to.