She’s waiting for her parents… but who are they?
While we certainly know more and more about Rey with each passing week, it seems like every answer we get only breeds more questions. First, we knew she’s a scavenger who grew up on Jakku and is proficient with a staff. However, thanks to some rumors and lines of dialogue from the Japanese trailer, we know that she’s been on Jakku since she was about five years old and has been waiting for her family to return ever since. While we have our own theories regarding her back story, we’re going to break down all the possibilities here.
So… the question at hand is… who left her on Jakku and why? As far as we can tell there are three major options for her parentage:
Luke is her father.
After all, Star Wars has been called the “Skywalker family saga,” and Luke is technically the only character who has the family name. While we wouldn’t be surprised if Luke was Rey’s father, we also think it raises more questions that shouldn’t necessarily be asked… namely “Who is Rey’s mother?” We’ll admit that a similar question appeared in the original trilogy and was brushed over in Return of the Jedi, but we believe that question would hang over the new films even more strongly given our investment in Luke as a character.
While it isn’t a concrete connection, there is a definite piece of Luke in Rey that’s obvious in her wistful expression watching a ship take off on Jakku in the trailer:
However, that doesn’t mean she’s actually directly related to Luke. It could just be the filmmakers drawing a parallel to A New Hope.
We’ll give the likelihood of this one 30%. Certainly not impossible, but there is another…
Han and Leia are her parents.
Leia is, despite her last name being Organa thanks to her adopted family, a Skywalker. Therefore, the Skywalker family rule is still observed. This also has the benefit of tying Rey to a romantic relationship that directly invested viewers emotionally in the original trilogy. In essence, Rey is kind of a payoff of that plotline. This route also has the benefit of us knowing both parents and playing with their relationship in the context of a new element… namely a daughter.
We think this one is a little more likely than Luke. We’d say the odds are 60%.
Her parents are new characters.
It’s also a possibility that there is another Skywalker that isn’t a member of the of the gang of new protagonists. That would mean Rey’s parents are people we’ve never met before, but still hold a special significance to the story being told. Perhaps they were Jedi in hiding or important members of the New Republic. They could even be affiliated with the Empire or the First Order.
It’s much trickier to pull this one of, though we wouldn’t put it past the filmmakers. Even so, we estimate the odds of this happening are about 10%.
Why did they leave her on Jakku?
That’s the big question. There’s only one reason why loving (at least, we assume they’re loving) parents would stick their kid on a nowhere planet… to protect them from harm. We think Rey’s parents were hiding her from something terrible and the best way to do it would be stashing her in the last place people expected to look. After all… it worked for Luke right?
Perhaps Kylo Ren is her brother and was kidnapped by the First Order, prompting Rey’s parents to hide her to avoid the same fate. Perhaps the First Order was just too strong in general and Rey’s parents were under such constant threat it was unsafe for her to be around. Either way, parents don’t part with their children unless there’s no other alternative… so it must have been a big deal.
