The Heroine's Journey/Rey's Journey

I don't know where else to put this, but I guess this will do..
I just want to celebrate Rey's story and pay it a little attention..

How fantastic Rey was in the throne room scene..
Daisy's portrayal of Rey's heartbreak and agony was wonderfully done. take a boy DR! Her tears were so sad.. and her acting was subtle and wonderful..

I loved her roars! More please!!! so fierce and fabulous!
I loved her bravery! I loved how she kept fighting even though it was evident that Snoke was very powerful. How she tried again and again to pull any light saber she could.. and kept fighting!

Rey is not a perfect person.. she may have been overly optimistic and simplistic, she may have rushed Ben into a confrontation he was not ready for.. maybe.. maybe not.
But either way - she showed tremendous courage to put herself in that coffin pod and plonk herself down on a FO ship for the sake of Ben and the resistance.. and in faith of what she saw in her force vision.

When I look back on her character's journey so far - soooo many massive changes have taken place in her life over such a short period of time. I just wanted to take a step back from it all and celebrate her courage, her fighting spirit, her grit, and her really big heart.
Kudos to Rey for being a fighter and a survivor. growing up on Jakku could break many people - and if she had to deny her parents were junk traders who abandoned her - I can't say I blame her... she did what she needed to do to survive.. Yet she somehow managed to maintain some optimism, hope, respect and generosity regardless. Her tough life didn't break her.

I'm glad her folks were nobody. I hope she can make peace with that and move forward with her life..

Lastly.. fighting the PGs she demonstrated defeating Kylo at the end of TFA was no fluke

Go Rey!!

DeeBee wrote:I don't know where else to put this, but I guess this will do..
I just want to celebrate Rey's story and pay it a little attention..

How fantastic Rey was in the throne room scene..
Daisy's portrayal of Rey's heartbreak and agony was wonderfully done. take a boy DR! Her tears were so sad.. and her acting was subtle and wonderful..

I loved her roars! More please!!! so fierce and fabulous!
I loved her bravery! I loved how she kept fighting even though it was evident that Snoke was very powerful. How she tried again and again to pull any light saber she could.. and kept fighting!

Rey is not a perfect person.. she may have been overly optimistic and simplistic, she may have rushed Ben into a confrontation he was not ready for.. maybe.. maybe not.
But either way - she showed tremendous courage to put herself in that coffin pod and plonk herself down on a FO ship for the sake of Ben and the resistance.. and in faith of what she saw in her force vision.

When I look back on her character's journey so far - soooo many massive changes have taken place in her life over such a short period of time. I just wanted to take a step back from it all and celebrate her courage, her fighting spirit, her grit, and her really big heart.
Kudos to Rey for being a fighter and a survivor. growing up on Jakku could break many people - and if she had to deny her parents were junk traders who abandoned her - I can't say I blame her... she did what she needed to do to survive.. Yet she somehow managed to maintain some optimism, hope, respect and generosity regardless. Her tough life didn't break her.

I'm glad her folks were nobody. I hope she can make peace with that and move forward with her life..

Lastly.. fighting the PGs she demonstrated defeating Kylo at the end of TFA was no fluke

Go Rey!!

@DeeBee

It's pretty amazing to think that given the expedited timelines of TFA and TLJ, that probably not more than a week or two ago, Rey probably thought she'd live our her life as a scavenger on Jakku...and since then, she's gotten off of Jakku, gotten entangled with the Resistance, discovered that she has powerful Force skills, fallen in love, broken up with the man she fell in love with, and saved what was left of the Resistance.

I have to say, despite my issues with the end bit of Rey's arc, I think that as a character she benefited enormously from her interactions with Luke and Kylo in TLJ. I always found Daisy's performance in TFA appealing, but outside of her amazing introduction that instantly put me in her corner and her interactions with Kylo, Rey kinda came off to me as a checklist of positive qualities rather than a real person. But in TLJ she felt like a real person all the way, until the movie had her disappear in the end, probably to serve the needs of the next movie. In retrospect, Rey in TFA is also a much sadder character now that we know how deeply her denial of the truth about her parents really went.

I also wonder if the decision not to have Rey pilot the Falcon in the end was a deliberate move to diffuse the criticisms of Rey in TFA. "See, here's your Chewie flying the Falcon, happy now?"

https://starwars.hasbro.com/en-us/characters

"Rey of Jakku" is pretty established at this point reaffirming her "no one / random" origins. I really liked the idea of her being a Kenobi or descendent of Dark Side users but, if it changes next episode could alter the message in TLJ about "everyone can be a hero / someone random can be a force user" (?).

About her character progress, I liked how she discovered things about herself in TLJ, her own courage, power, forgiveness and hope. But, even if she is supposed to have found her place, all of the insecurities will disappear? Is she really complete now surrounded by good people and new friends?

I hope she really deals with her abandonment issues next movie. She didn't have a chance to process it in TLJ. I think we should actually see her parents no? Would they do all this build up to not even physically show who they were? That's lame to me. I get they are nobodies and I like that but they gotta give them faces lol. I want her to finally face them.

I hope she gets a surname, haha.

SkyStar wrote:I hope she gets a surname, haha.

@SkyStar

Lol I have a headcannon that she visits or dreams of the graveyard and sees their name on a gravestone or something, that is if jakku graves even care to label people lol.

SkyStar wrote:I hope she gets a surname, haha.

@SkyStar

I think what we mean by Reylo is Rey Solo now.

Saracene wrote:Rey's character arc in TLJ is once again frustrating, because once again her emotions and motivations are left completely opaque near the end of the film just like in TFA.

TLJ did a pretty great job bringing Rey to her lowest point in the throne room, serving her with a double whammy: she finally confronts the painful truth about her family, and her attempt to bring Ben back fails spectacularly. All good stuff ripe for drama. But then she's dropped from the story and we're left to guess how she decided to cope with all of that, there's no connective tissue between the throne room and her cheerful re-appearance at Crait, and she doesn't talk to anyone about what just happened.

It would be like, in ESB, Luke disappeared from the movie after his encounter with Vader, and then somehow got reunited with Han and Leia going, woohoo what's up you guys?

@Saracene
True, but Rian needed to give Luke his "moment" and that meant pushing Rey to the side. It's the same problem the writers had with Episode VII--what to do with Luke during Rey's hero's journey.

Kathleen Kennedy said that her two favorite parts of TLJ were the Rey/Kylo dynamic and Rey's transformation. The look of determination on Rey's face as she closes the Falcon door in Kylo's face was one of my favorite parts of the movie. (and actually a very romantic scene). Rey has learned from her failures. She will be stronger and more determined in Episode IX.

Gemlake wrote:

Saracene wrote:Rey's character arc in TLJ is once again frustrating, because once again her emotions and motivations are left completely opaque near the end of the film just like in TFA.

TLJ did a pretty great job bringing Rey to her lowest point in the throne room, serving her with a double whammy: she finally confronts the painful truth about her family, and her attempt to bring Ben back fails spectacularly. All good stuff ripe for drama. But then she's dropped from the story and we're left to guess how she decided to cope with all of that, there's no connective tissue between the throne room and her cheerful re-appearance at Crait, and she doesn't talk to anyone about what just happened.

It would be like, in ESB, Luke disappeared from the movie after his encounter with Vader, and then somehow got reunited with Han and Leia going, woohoo what's up you guys?

@Saracene
True, but Rian needed to give Luke his "moment" and that meant pushing Rey to the side. It's the same problem the writers had with Episode VII--what to do with Luke during Rey's hero's journey.

Kathleen Kennedy said that her two favorite parts of TLJ were the Rey/Kylo dynamic and Rey's transformation. The look of determination on Rey's face as she closes the Falcon door in Kylo's face was one of my favorite parts of the movie. (and actually a very romantic scene). Rey has learned from her failures. She will be stronger and more determined in Episode IX.

@Saracene, love how you described the throne room as a double whammy. it was a massive blow for Rey. but I do love that we see she recovers and keeps going.. she saves her sorrow for after the fight!

I know what you mean about missing Rey.. but... it is what it is.
I am hopeful that we will have a flashback in IX of what happened when Rey regained consciousness in the throne room first.
Or during a conversation they can at least discuss it and we'll revisit the moment that way. It feels like they are holding back on that at this point.. I just keep telling myself the story is not yet complete.. hang in there!

@Gemlake

Whoooo I'm with KK and you Gemlake! I hadn't heard KK thought that. Love it!

Rey's character has transformed when it comes to the force and her place in the galaxy!
In such a short period of time too! Well spotted @ISeeAnIsland ! I guess the skills and character that she developed by surviving alone on Jakku will have helped her to transform quickly
In TFA, in Takodana, Rey was never wanting to touch the light saber again and running away from her destiny and her force powers that were awakening.
In TLJ, the force gives her a vision and she takes a massive leap of faith and she acts on it (whether it was wise is another topic.). And boy, does she act on it - she goes from running away to running straight into the lion's den. She embraces the force, and her connection to the force. Massive! No wonder she roars! So she should
It does take her a little time to realise that she herself can be the spark of hope - and it doesn't have to be Luke or a turned Ben Solo, but I think she gets there by the end of TLJ.
I can't wait to see her in IX. She is certainly going to be wiser

As for Rey's lineage - I really hope they don't revisit this in IX. Please no.
My mother is convinced Rey must be related to someone or why did she have such strong powers?
My answer is that the powerful Skywalker lineage is the exception - it's not the rule!!!!
For millenia you didn't need to be descended from anyone to be force sensitive.. and I'm quite glad the SW universe is moving away from that focus!
Related Rey?- no thanks.. but I can see possibly a benevolent presence of (unrelated) Ben Kenobi in her life through dreams or something - guiding her in how to survive Jakku.. teaching her values of generosity and respect... It certainly seems her parents didn't teach her.. I do wonder where she learned these values. I could imagine the force acting to prepare Rey for her destiny and her role in bringing balance..

@SkyStar - Rey Solo would be the ideal teee hee..

@rey09 - I'd like to see her return to Jakku too.. there is often a part of the story that sees the hero return to their origins to make peace with their past.. I hope we see this for Rey. though I kinda hope it is not a large chunk of the story. I prefer the more lush SW settings!

DeeBee wrote:

@rey09 - I'd like to see her return to Jakku too.. there is often a part of the story that sees the hero return to their origins to make peace with their past.. I hope we see this for Rey. though I kinda hope it is not a large chunk of the story. I prefer the more lush SW settings!

@DeeBee

Totally agree. It was her home, no matter the baggage.

rey09 wrote:

DeeBee wrote:

@rey09 - I'd like to see her return to Jakku too.. there is often a part of the story that sees the hero return to their origins to make peace with their past.. I hope we see this for Rey. though I kinda hope it is not a large chunk of the story. I prefer the more lush SW settings!

@DeeBee

Totally agree. It was her home, no matter the baggage.

@rey09

I think there were rumors that they're going back to Abu Dabi but I have no links to back that up.
I'd love to have a Return to Jakku scene in Ep 9 for narrative and headcanon reasons. Luke also had his return to the 'mortal world' Tattooine in ROTJ. It's possible Rey gets hers.

Rey has also fulfilled a part of her Hero's Journey which is to share her boon with the people which happened when she lifted rocks to save the Resistance. It happens after her return from the Underworld (Supremacy) It looks like she's nearing the end of her Hero's Journey. But her Heroine's Journey is yet incomplete. She has not yet accomplished Healing the Wounded Masculine and the Integration.

What I've noticed most about Rey is how similar and alike we both are. She's come into my life at the perfect time. As during the time of The Force Awakens I really was super optimistic and beyond hopeful for many things in my personal life. Even really waiting on something that would never come but, I still hoped it might. As the past couple of years have went by I found a shift more towards being more like Rey within The Last Jedi. Our optimism while still there has been challenged. I think I learned through The Last Jedi what I had already known and that's not to channel too much of your energies on one sensation or you end up doing more damage to yourself than good. Like Rey I am moving forward and making strives towards a brighter future with still being optimistic but also being able to see things more practically. So, when people want to say Rey's character has no depth or meaning I get very upset as she's so relatable in every single way. I don't know what I'd do without her.

I use to complain much about Rey and her decisions, but it's mostly when I look at events from Kylo's perspective.
I truly like her character- I like that she is so good natured, positive, trusting and forgiving but at the same time impulsive, feisty and sometimes even aggressive.
She IS strong in my opinion and I don't mean in the "Mary-Sue" kind of way.

Her relationship with Kylo/Ben forced her to realize nothing is simple and it's not her past that defines her.
She may come from nothing but that doesn't mean she IS nothing... I hope Ben will learn that as well. He isn't his past or his lineage...just a wounded boy that desperately needs to be loved.

I hope they won't change her parentage in IX.
I mean- she wasn't really raised by them, she hardly even remember them at all- they are dead...so why does it matter anyway??? It doesn't change who she is or her character arc.
And I truly like the message- you don't need to come from a famous strong family to achieve something meaningful and great!

I like that TLJ related her optimism to her brokenness without diminishing her. Her self-delusion about her parents is breathtaking. Without the events of TFA and the intervening of the people she's met to break that cycle, she might have wasted the rest of her life in delusion. And yet her capacity to idealize and be "dreamy" about things made it possible for her to see good within Ben which nobody else would see. Was she wholly right about imagining him a poor, cursed prince held captive by an evil wizard who just needed rescue to be "good"? No, there's more to him than that. But in her very blind optimism she brought out things in him nearly extinguished and he's a different person at the end. As another consequence of that, the danger of Snoke is over. The victory of that cannot be underestimated, since Snoke was the greatest force user around and had Ben under his control.

Even IF nothing else came of that, that's an amazing outcome which nobody else could have achieved. Nobody with "better sense."

Her capacity for dreaming and optimism are both a great strength and a weakness born of deep trauma.

twilekempire wrote:I like that TLJ related her optimism to her brokenness without diminishing her. Her self-delusion about her parents is breathtaking. Without the events of TFA and the intervening of the people she's met to break that cycle, she might have wasted the rest of her life in delusion. And yet her capacity to idealize and be "dreamy" about things made it possible for her to see good within Ben which nobody else would see. Was she wholly right about imagining him a poor, cursed prince held captive by an evil wizard who just needed rescue to be "good"? No, there's more to him than that. But in her very blind optimism she brought out things in him nearly extinguished and he's a different person at the end. As another consequence of that, the danger of Snoke is over. The victory of that cannot be underestimated, since Snoke was the greatest force user around and had Ben under his control.

Even IF nothing else came of that, that's an amazing outcome which nobody else could have achieved. Nobody with "better sense."

Her capacity for dreaming and optimism are both a great strength and a weakness born of deep trauma.

@twilekempire

I love this twilekempire! All of it.. So beautiful.. I agree sometimes a little folly and overconfidence can be just what is needed
Rey did a foolish, yet wonderful thing!

twilekempire wrote:I like that TLJ related her optimism to her brokenness without diminishing her. Her self-delusion about her parents is breathtaking. Without the events of TFA and the intervening of the people she's met to break that cycle, she might have wasted the rest of her life in delusion. And yet her capacity to idealize and be "dreamy" about things made it possible for her to see good within Ben which nobody else would see. Was she wholly right about imagining him a poor, cursed prince held captive by an evil wizard who just needed rescue to be "good"? No, there's more to him than that. But in her very blind optimism she brought out things in him nearly extinguished and he's a different person at the end. As another consequence of that, the danger of Snoke is over. The victory of that cannot be underestimated, since Snoke was the greatest force user around and had Ben under his control.

Even IF nothing else came of that, that's an amazing outcome which nobody else could have achieved. Nobody with "better sense."

Her capacity for dreaming and optimism are both a great strength and a weakness born of deep trauma.

@twilekempire

An amazing summary, constant optimism doesn't make someone a Mary Sue, and complaints over Rey have barely scratched the surface of what she has really suffered. It's almost ironic that her most painful and traumatising event has made her as positive and optimistic as she is. It reminds me of that Holdo/Leia quote that 'Hope is like the sun. if you only believe in it when you can see it, you'll never make it through the night.' It is perhaps a survival mechanism on Rey's part, living abandoned and isolated for so long. It is a very childish but pure way of accepting a harsh event.

I think the reveal of her parentage was not meant to destroy her hopefulness once and for all, otherwise that would be incredibly gloomy. I think it's making her confront herself on how she has coped with her life so far. It's an opportunity for her to reflect and grow as a character. Going forward, Rey's development will probably be testing her faith and belief in something.

thescavenger wrote:

twilekempire wrote:I like that TLJ related her optimism to her brokenness without diminishing her. Her self-delusion about her parents is breathtaking. Without the events of TFA and the intervening of the people she's met to break that cycle, she might have wasted the rest of her life in delusion. And yet her capacity to idealize and be "dreamy" about things made it possible for her to see good within Ben which nobody else would see. Was she wholly right about imagining him a poor, cursed prince held captive by an evil wizard who just needed rescue to be "good"? No, there's more to him than that. But in her very blind optimism she brought out things in him nearly extinguished and he's a different person at the end. As another consequence of that, the danger of Snoke is over. The victory of that cannot be underestimated, since Snoke was the greatest force user around and had Ben under his control.

Even IF nothing else came of that, that's an amazing outcome which nobody else could have achieved. Nobody with "better sense."

Her capacity for dreaming and optimism are both a great strength and a weakness born of deep trauma.

@twilekempire

An amazing summary, constant optimism doesn't make someone a Mary Sue, and complaints over Rey have barely scratched the surface of what she has really suffered. It's almost ironic that her most painful and traumatising event has made her as positive and optimistic as she is. It reminds me of that Holdo/Leia quote that 'Hope is like the sun. if you only believe in it when you can see it, you'll never make it through the night.' It is perhaps a survival mechanism on Rey's part, living abandoned and isolated for so long. It is a very childish but pure way of accepting a harsh event.

I think the reveal of her parentage was not meant to destroy her hopefulness once and for all, otherwise that would be incredibly gloomy. I think it's making her confront herself on how she has coped with her life so far. It's an opportunity for her to reflect and grow as a character. Going forward, Rey's development will probably be testing her faith and belief in something.

@thescavenger

Thanks! I really connected with her a lot more in TLJ because of the way Rian played Rey Nobody as a strength *and* a sign of deep brokenness. Heroic people are, by their nature, people of extremes, and I like the "balance" involved in someone's great capacity for good also being a great capacity for failure. It's great to have a heroine who has so much difficult stuff going on beneath the surface.

And, yes, TLJ really knocks the stuffing out of the Mary Sue argument! Rey's life is so dark she wishes she were a Mary Sue--the daughter of some long lost, mythical father like Luke who will love her as her own didn't--which is very different than actually being one! And yet parallels Luke's journey nicely: he finds out he comes from a powerful lineage, but his father is a monster and he has to wrestle with that the rest of his life, the way that legacy infects things (including his terrible moment of fear with Ben); Rey finds out she comes from "nobody" and has to try to create her own meaning for herself. There's always a downside, never a perfect version of finding out your the child of the wonderful good king or something. Since Ben's tragedy is linked to that larger Skywalker tragedy, it makes them perfect opposites of each other too. If you'll forgive the long quote, they make me think of this section of "The Unbearable Lightness of Being":

If every second of our lives recurs an infinite number of times, we are nailed to eternity as Jesus Christ was nailed to the cross.  It is a terrifying prospect. In the world of eternal return the weight of unbearable responsibility lies heavy on every move we make. That is why Nietzsche called the idea of eternal return the “heaviest of burdens”.

If eternal return is the heaviest of burdens, then our lives can stand out against it in all their splendid lightness.

But is heaviness truly deplorable and lightness splendid?

The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in the love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man's body. The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life's most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to earth, the more real and truthful they become.

Conversely, the absolute absence of a burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into the heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant.

What then shall we choose ? Weight or lightness?

They're both living two different visions of hell: unbearable heaviness and unbearable lightness, respectively. Ben has been "nailed to the cross" of the past. It weighs him down so much that it's nearly crushed the light out of him entirely until Rey comes along; it was the reason Snoke targeted him. He's never been free to be himself, only a pale shadow of the past, feared by his family for being too much like Vader and only allowed pride by Snoke in being like Lord Vader. All he wants to do, now that he's discovered he can be free of Snoke because of Rey, is chase after a life like hers and burn it all down. To be have the "freedom" that Rey possesses. But that has been a hell for her: she's so free she floats away from the earth, unable to touch or connect, her "movements as free as they are insignificant." She's, at most, half-real, sustaining herself with dreams and quarter portions of food.

She's been lost in the vacuum of space emotionally since she was a small child. With nothing and no one to care if she lived or died. Just silence and cold.

She's had to manufacture some tethers to the ground or she'd have gone stark raving mad a long time ago. At these far ends of the poles of experience, I think that TFA comes at a moment where they both could, if they continue on the path they're walking, be totally blotted out by their situation. Ben's "education" by Snoke is nearing completion as Snoke pushes him harder and harder. Without an intervention he would have broken entirely, the last bit of light extinguished. And Rey looks at the older woman that might be her future self and sees no way out. The emptiness that awaits her is quieter and less dramatic but no less absolute, wind blowing the sands up over her body until there's nothing left of her.

Rey thought she was seeking her own legacy, but she's actually been "lifting"/sharing burdens from Ben's excess of them: the Skywalker lightsaber, the Millennium Falcon, his parents and Chewie, the journey of having "raw power" and being feared for it, and becoming the Jedi his family wanted him to be. She explicitly says she will succeed where Kylo failed; there's a totally understandable greed in her heart for what he has. She's not just doing all of this out of the kindness of her heart, though she is a heroine and kind. She acquires some of the heaviness she desperately needs and simultaneously lifts some of the weight crushing Ben, sharing some of her light/lightness. And she takes on some of his darkness: digs deeper and finally gets angry at these failed parental figures (she attacked Luke!! lol) instead of being on such a starvation diet of connection that she has to idealize the jerk-offs who sold her for drink money.

It's really not a story of a girl having to go out of her way to do all this work to save a boy; it's far more equal than that.

On another note, all of the examples of the Rey character type I can think of, someone who is hyper-optimistic and bright as a way to deal with terrible trauma, are in anime or K-drama. I don't think it's as prevalent in Western media? Which might contribute to people misreading her.

But the stereotype of Rey as a "precious cheerful cinnamon bun," where people are only taking the surface and not seeing it as a sign of her deep damage and saying the only thing she sees in Ben is someone to pity because she's just so kind-hearted, really annoys me!! She wants her prince who's sweet to her, she wants *his family*, she wants to be special and matter and do something important rather than disappear into the sand, she wants connection, she has unexpressed depths of resentment and anger that connecting with him helps her get in touch with and integrate. When people hate on him and dismiss their connection as some kind of anti-feminist insult to her they rip out the darker, more complicated guts of her characterization because Rey and Ben mutually define and interrelate with each other and that's intentional on the part of the writers, whether people like it or not.

EDIT: All of this is why the force bond presents a unique temptation to her. If she gives into it and joins him she'll never, ever have to feel alone again. It explains how quickly the connection has a powerful effect on her. It's a shot of pure connection after a lifetime without. It also highlights the courage of her refusal to join him, though he made it easier by coming across so damn Kylo Ren in his proposal. lol.

However, I think that in a situation where there aren't any other lives at stake [no Resistance being bombed into smithereens] or other things to consider, Rey has the capacity within her to be as breathtakingly possessive of Ben as he is of her.

twilekempire wrote:I like that TLJ related her optimism to her brokenness without diminishing her. Her self-delusion about her parents is breathtaking. Without the events of TFA and the intervening of the people she's met to break that cycle, she might have wasted the rest of her life in delusion. And yet her capacity to idealize and be "dreamy" about things made it possible for her to see good within Ben which nobody else would see. Was she wholly right about imagining him a poor, cursed prince held captive by an evil wizard who just needed rescue to be "good"? No, there's more to him than that. But in her very blind optimism she brought out things in him nearly extinguished and he's a different person at the end. As another consequence of that, the danger of Snoke is over. The victory of that cannot be underestimated, since Snoke was the greatest force user around and had Ben under his control.

Even IF nothing else came of that, that's an amazing outcome which nobody else could have achieved. Nobody with "better sense."

Her capacity for dreaming and optimism are both a great strength and a weakness born of deep trauma.

@twilekempire

Beautifully put. I really understand Rey with it, I am similar in the way that I get lost in my dream world and impressions and often unreasonably cheerful because of it. I really liked her in TLJ, even more than in TFA. You can see how she changes while interacting with Kylo.

@twilekempire I love your message so much. Such a clever analysis!

I thought I'd share this interesting take on Rey's journey here. The author makes a lot of good points I didn't catch on at first viewing

http://getoffthesoapbox.tumblr.com/post/169394411772/swtlj-first-impressions-reys-trajectory

twilekempire wrote:

thescavenger wrote:

twilekempire wrote:I like that TLJ related her optimism to her brokenness without diminishing her. Her self-delusion about her parents is breathtaking. Without the events of TFA and the intervening of the people she's met to break that cycle, she might have wasted the rest of her life in delusion. And yet her capacity to idealize and be "dreamy" about things made it possible for her to see good within Ben which nobody else would see. Was she wholly right about imagining him a poor, cursed prince held captive by an evil wizard who just needed rescue to be "good"? No, there's more to him than that. But in her very blind optimism she brought out things in him nearly extinguished and he's a different person at the end. As another consequence of that, the danger of Snoke is over. The victory of that cannot be underestimated, since Snoke was the greatest force user around and had Ben under his control.

Even IF nothing else came of that, that's an amazing outcome which nobody else could have achieved. Nobody with "better sense."

Her capacity for dreaming and optimism are both a great strength and a weakness born of deep trauma.

@twilekempire

An amazing summary, constant optimism doesn't make someone a Mary Sue, and complaints over Rey have barely scratched the surface of what she has really suffered. It's almost ironic that her most painful and traumatising event has made her as positive and optimistic as she is. It reminds me of that Holdo/Leia quote that 'Hope is like the sun. if you only believe in it when you can see it, you'll never make it through the night.' It is perhaps a survival mechanism on Rey's part, living abandoned and isolated for so long. It is a very childish but pure way of accepting a harsh event.

I think the reveal of her parentage was not meant to destroy her hopefulness once and for all, otherwise that would be incredibly gloomy. I think it's making her confront herself on how she has coped with her life so far. It's an opportunity for her to reflect and grow as a character. Going forward, Rey's development will probably be testing her faith and belief in something.

@thescavenger

Thanks! I really connected with her a lot more in TLJ because of the way Rian played Rey Nobody as a strength *and* a sign of deep brokenness. Heroic people are, by their nature, people of extremes, and I like the "balance" involved in someone's great capacity for good also being a great capacity for failure. It's great to have a heroine who has so much difficult stuff going on beneath the surface.

And, yes, TLJ really knocks the stuffing out of the Mary Sue argument! Rey's life is so dark she wishes she were a Mary Sue--the daughter of some long lost, mythical father like Luke who will love her as her own didn't--which is very different than actually being one! And yet parallels Luke's journey nicely: he finds out he comes from a powerful lineage, but his father is a monster and he has to wrestle with that the rest of his life, the way that legacy infects things (including his terrible moment of fear with Ben); Rey finds out she comes from "nobody" and has to try to create her own meaning for herself. There's always a downside, never a perfect version of finding out your the child of the wonderful good king or something. Since Ben's tragedy is linked to that larger Skywalker tragedy, it makes them perfect opposites of each other too. If you'll forgive the long quote, they make me think of this section of "The Unbearable Lightness of Being":

If every second of our lives recurs an infinite number of times, we are nailed to eternity as Jesus Christ was nailed to the cross.  It is a terrifying prospect. In the world of eternal return the weight of unbearable responsibility lies heavy on every move we make. That is why Nietzsche called the idea of eternal return the “heaviest of burdens”.

If eternal return is the heaviest of burdens, then our lives can stand out against it in all their splendid lightness.

But is heaviness truly deplorable and lightness splendid?

The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in the love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man's body. The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life's most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to earth, the more real and truthful they become.

Conversely, the absolute absence of a burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into the heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant.

What then shall we choose ? Weight or lightness?

They're both living two different visions of hell: unbearable heaviness and unbearable lightness, respectively. Ben has been "nailed to the cross" of the past. It weighs him down so much that it's nearly crushed the light out of him entirely until Rey comes along; it was the reason Snoke targeted him. He's never been free to be himself, only a pale shadow of the past, feared by his family for being too much like Vader and only allowed pride by Snoke in being like Lord Vader. All he wants to do, now that he's discovered he can be free of Snoke because of Rey, is chase after a life like hers and burn it all down. To be have the "freedom" that Rey possesses. But that has been a hell for her: she's so free she floats away from the earth, unable to touch or connect, her "movements as free as they are insignificant." She's, at most, half-real, sustaining herself with dreams and quarter portions of food.

She's been lost in the vacuum of space emotionally since she was a small child. With nothing and no one to care if she lived or died. Just silence and cold.

She's had to manufacture some tethers to the ground or she'd have gone stark raving mad a long time ago. At these far ends of the poles of experience, I think that TFA comes at a moment where they both could, if they continue on the path they're walking, be totally blotted out by their situation. Ben's "education" by Snoke is nearing completion as Snoke pushes him harder and harder. Without an intervention he would have broken entirely, the last bit of light extinguished. And Rey looks at the older woman that might be her future self and sees no way out. The emptiness that awaits her is quieter and less dramatic but no less absolute, wind blowing the sands up over her body until there's nothing left of her.

Rey thought she was seeking her own legacy, but she's actually been "lifting"/sharing burdens from Ben's excess of them: the Skywalker lightsaber, the Millennium Falcon, his parents and Chewie, the journey of having "raw power" and being feared for it, and becoming the Jedi his family wanted him to be. She explicitly says she will succeed where Kylo failed; there's a totally understandable greed in her heart for what he has. She's not just doing all of this out of the kindness of her heart, though she is a heroine and kind. She acquires some of the heaviness she desperately needs and simultaneously lifts some of the weight crushing Ben, sharing some of her light/lightness. And she takes on some of his darkness: digs deeper and finally gets angry at these failed parental figures (she attacked Luke!! lol) instead of being on such a starvation diet of connection that she has to idealize the jerk-offs who sold her for drink money.

It's really not a story of a girl having to go out of her way to do all this work to save a boy; it's far more equal than that.

On another note, all of the examples of the Rey character type I can think of, someone who is hyper-optimistic and bright as a way to deal with terrible trauma, are in anime or K-drama. I don't think it's as prevalent in Western media? Which might contribute to people misreading her.

But the stereotype of Rey as a "precious cheerful cinnamon bun," where people are only taking the surface and not seeing it as a sign of her deep damage and saying the only thing she sees in Ben is someone to pity because she's just so kind-hearted, really annoys me!! She wants her prince who's sweet to her, she wants *his family*, she wants to be special and matter and do something important rather than disappear into the sand, she wants connection, she has unexpressed depths of resentment and anger that connecting with him helps her get in touch with and integrate. When people hate on him and dismiss their connection as some kind of anti-feminist insult to her they rip out the darker, more complicated guts of her characterization because Rey and Ben mutually define and interrelate with each other and that's intentional on the part of the writers, whether people like it or not.

EDIT: All of this is why the force bond presents a unique temptation to her. If she gives into it and joins him she'll never, ever have to feel alone again. It explains how quickly the connection has a powerful effect on her. It's a shot of pure connection after a lifetime without. It also highlights the courage of her refusal to join him, though he made it easier by coming across so damn Kylo Ren in his proposal. lol.

However, I think that in a situation where there aren't any other lives at stake [no Resistance being bombed into smithereens] or other things to consider, Rey has the capacity within her to be as breathtakingly possessive of Ben as he is of her.

@twilekempire

Wow. I feel like I need to take a moment and just let all this goodness fully soak in.
twilekempire  - I can see you have a special connection with this character and I am thankful that you've shared your wonderful, moving, insightful thoughts on Rey...

I agree re her FB connection with Kylo - I also thought for her to say no to not being alone was a massive, positive and powerful moment for her character - within the context of where the story currently stands. However, with your insights I feel I've gained a deeper understanding of it's significance

on a tangent here..
I think for a main character Rey is woefully undervalued and appreciated..
I try and avoid interviews with actors in general, but the vibe I get from DR is that she is frustrated and sad in RL at how her character is being viewed and the questions she gets asked about her.
The first two years was all - who are her parents?
Like the character in itself wasn't interesting enough..
Now she's been revealed to be a nobody it's now: who will be her love interest?!
Like the character in itself wasn't interesting enough - again!

twilekempire wrote:

thescavenger wrote:

twilekempire wrote:I like that TLJ related her optimism to her brokenness without diminishing her. Her self-delusion about her parents is breathtaking. Without the events of TFA and the intervening of the people she's met to break that cycle, she might have wasted the rest of her life in delusion. And yet her capacity to idealize and be "dreamy" about things made it possible for her to see good within Ben which nobody else would see. Was she wholly right about imagining him a poor, cursed prince held captive by an evil wizard who just needed rescue to be "good"? No, there's more to him than that. But in her very blind optimism she brought out things in him nearly extinguished and he's a different person at the end. As another consequence of that, the danger of Snoke is over. The victory of that cannot be underestimated, since Snoke was the greatest force user around and had Ben under his control.

Even IF nothing else came of that, that's an amazing outcome which nobody else could have achieved. Nobody with "better sense."

Her capacity for dreaming and optimism are both a great strength and a weakness born of deep trauma.

@twilekempire

An amazing summary, constant optimism doesn't make someone a Mary Sue, and complaints over Rey have barely scratched the surface of what she has really suffered. It's almost ironic that her most painful and traumatising event has made her as positive and optimistic as she is. It reminds me of that Holdo/Leia quote that 'Hope is like the sun. if you only believe in it when you can see it, you'll never make it through the night.' It is perhaps a survival mechanism on Rey's part, living abandoned and isolated for so long. It is a very childish but pure way of accepting a harsh event.

I think the reveal of her parentage was not meant to destroy her hopefulness once and for all, otherwise that would be incredibly gloomy. I think it's making her confront herself on how she has coped with her life so far. It's an opportunity for her to reflect and grow as a character. Going forward, Rey's development will probably be testing her faith and belief in something.

@thescavenger

Thanks! I really connected with her a lot more in TLJ because of the way Rian played Rey Nobody as a strength *and* a sign of deep brokenness. Heroic people are, by their nature, people of extremes, and I like the "balance" involved in someone's great capacity for good also being a great capacity for failure. It's great to have a heroine who has so much difficult stuff going on beneath the surface.

And, yes, TLJ really knocks the stuffing out of the Mary Sue argument! Rey's life is so dark she wishes she were a Mary Sue--the daughter of some long lost, mythical father like Luke who will love her as her own didn't--which is very different than actually being one! And yet parallels Luke's journey nicely: he finds out he comes from a powerful lineage, but his father is a monster and he has to wrestle with that the rest of his life, the way that legacy infects things (including his terrible moment of fear with Ben); Rey finds out she comes from "nobody" and has to try to create her own meaning for herself. There's always a downside, never a perfect version of finding out your the child of the wonderful good king or something. Since Ben's tragedy is linked to that larger Skywalker tragedy, it makes them perfect opposites of each other too. If you'll forgive the long quote, they make me think of this section of "The Unbearable Lightness of Being":

If every second of our lives recurs an infinite number of times, we are nailed to eternity as Jesus Christ was nailed to the cross.  It is a terrifying prospect. In the world of eternal return the weight of unbearable responsibility lies heavy on every move we make. That is why Nietzsche called the idea of eternal return the “heaviest of burdens”.

If eternal return is the heaviest of burdens, then our lives can stand out against it in all their splendid lightness.

But is heaviness truly deplorable and lightness splendid?

The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in the love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man's body. The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life's most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to earth, the more real and truthful they become.

Conversely, the absolute absence of a burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into the heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant.

What then shall we choose ? Weight or lightness?

They're both living two different visions of hell: unbearable heaviness and unbearable lightness, respectively. Ben has been "nailed to the cross" of the past. It weighs him down so much that it's nearly crushed the light out of him entirely until Rey comes along; it was the reason Snoke targeted him. He's never been free to be himself, only a pale shadow of the past, feared by his family for being too much like Vader and only allowed pride by Snoke in being like Lord Vader. All he wants to do, now that he's discovered he can be free of Snoke because of Rey, is chase after a life like hers and burn it all down. To be have the "freedom" that Rey possesses. But that has been a hell for her: she's so free she floats away from the earth, unable to touch or connect, her "movements as free as they are insignificant." She's, at most, half-real, sustaining herself with dreams and quarter portions of food.

She's been lost in the vacuum of space emotionally since she was a small child. With nothing and no one to care if she lived or died. Just silence and cold.

She's had to manufacture some tethers to the ground or she'd have gone stark raving mad a long time ago. At these far ends of the poles of experience, I think that TFA comes at a moment where they both could, if they continue on the path they're walking, be totally blotted out by their situation. Ben's "education" by Snoke is nearing completion as Snoke pushes him harder and harder. Without an intervention he would have broken entirely, the last bit of light extinguished. And Rey looks at the older woman that might be her future self and sees no way out. The emptiness that awaits her is quieter and less dramatic but no less absolute, wind blowing the sands up over her body until there's nothing left of her.

Rey thought she was seeking her own legacy, but she's actually been "lifting"/sharing burdens from Ben's excess of them: the Skywalker lightsaber, the Millennium Falcon, his parents and Chewie, the journey of having "raw power" and being feared for it, and becoming the Jedi his family wanted him to be. She explicitly says she will succeed where Kylo failed; there's a totally understandable greed in her heart for what he has. She's not just doing all of this out of the kindness of her heart, though she is a heroine and kind. She acquires some of the heaviness she desperately needs and simultaneously lifts some of the weight crushing Ben, sharing some of her light/lightness. And she takes on some of his darkness: digs deeper and finally gets angry at these failed parental figures (she attacked Luke!! lol) instead of being on such a starvation diet of connection that she has to idealize the jerk-offs who sold her for drink money.

It's really not a story of a girl having to go out of her way to do all this work to save a boy; it's far more equal than that.

On another note, all of the examples of the Rey character type I can think of, someone who is hyper-optimistic and bright as a way to deal with terrible trauma, are in anime or K-drama. I don't think it's as prevalent in Western media? Which might contribute to people misreading her.

But the stereotype of Rey as a "precious cheerful cinnamon bun," where people are only taking the surface and not seeing it as a sign of her deep damage and saying the only thing she sees in Ben is someone to pity because she's just so kind-hearted, really annoys me!! She wants her prince who's sweet to her, she wants *his family*, she wants to be special and matter and do something important rather than disappear into the sand, she wants connection, she has unexpressed depths of resentment and anger that connecting with him helps her get in touch with and integrate. When people hate on him and dismiss their connection as some kind of anti-feminist insult to her they rip out the darker, more complicated guts of her characterization because Rey and Ben mutually define and interrelate with each other and that's intentional on the part of the writers, whether people like it or not.

EDIT: All of this is why the force bond presents a unique temptation to her. If she gives into it and joins him she'll never, ever have to feel alone again. It explains how quickly the connection has a powerful effect on her. It's a shot of pure connection after a lifetime without. It also highlights the courage of her refusal to join him, though he made it easier by coming across so damn Kylo Ren in his proposal. lol.

However, I think that in a situation where there aren't any other lives at stake [no Resistance being bombed into smithereens] or other things to consider, Rey has the capacity within her to be as breathtakingly possessive of Ben as he is of her.

@twilekempire

That was quite simply a beautiful piece of writing, thank you @twilekempire

I've definitely thought that Rey had to reject an offer of something she desperately wanted in both films because of her moral code. In TFA it was turning down the 60 portions for BB-8 despite being always on the edge of starving because she respected his worth as an individual. Also maybe self identification b/c we now know what her parents did to her. Turning down Ben's "let's be galactic prom king and prom queen" was likely also hard because she connects with him in a way she's never had (and craves) with another human being. But it'd be at the expense of others, both her friends in the Resistance, and whomever else would be hurt by this ultimately selfish agenda. So even though she wants both things (food and companionship) more than anything, she has the fortitude to turn it down.

BB-Rey wrote:What I've noticed most about Rey is how similar and alike we both are. She's come into my life at the perfect time. As during the time of The Force Awakens I really was super optimistic and beyond hopeful for many things in my personal life. Even really waiting on something that would never come but, I still hoped it might. As the past couple of years have went by I found a shift more towards being more like Rey within The Last Jedi. Our optimism while still there has been challenged. I think I learned through The Last Jedi what I had already known and that's not to channel too much of your energies on one sensation or you end up doing more damage to yourself than good. Like Rey I am moving forward and making strives towards a brighter future with still being optimistic but also being able to see things more practically. So, when people want to say Rey's character has no depth or meaning I get very upset as she's so relatable in every single way. I don't know what I'd do without her.

@BB-Rey

- BB-Rey thanks for sharing how Rey’s character has really resonated with you! Isn’t it wonderful how fictional characters can help us to explore ourselves, our world and give us new insights!
It can be challenging when we personally connect with a character, and then others criticise said character – we can become personally invested..
Rey is optimistic, giving and a survivor.. she has many wonderful, inspiring qualities!!!

Night Huntress wrote:I use to complain much about Rey and her decisions, but it's mostly when I look at events from Kylo's perspective.
I truly like her character- I like that she is so good natured, positive, trusting and forgiving but at the same time impulsive, feisty and sometimes even aggressive.
She IS strong in my opinion and I don't mean in the "Mary-Sue" kind of way.

Her relationship with Kylo/Ben forced her to realize nothing is simple and it's not her past that defines her.
She may come from nothing but that doesn't mean she IS nothing... I hope Ben will learn that as well. He isn't his past or his lineage...just a wounded boy that desperately needs to be loved.

I hope they won't change her parentage in IX.
I mean- she wasn't really raised by them, she hardly even remember them at all- they are dead...so why does it matter anyway??? It doesn't change who she is or her character arc.
And I truly like the message- you don't need to come from a famous strong family to achieve something meaningful and great!

@Night Huntress

That’s interesting how your view of Rey shifted as you moved away from Kylo’s perspective. He is such an in your face interesting character that he can overshadow Rey who is (IMHO) more subtle but equally interesting!
Yes what’s this Mary Sue business? I’ve never understood that!
Oh yes- I second your calls to keep Rey Nobody!!