Walk The Line

**WARNING SPOILERS AHEAD**

There’s obviously been a LOT of conversations happening about who Rey actually is in The Force Awakens. What line is she from? Is she a Skywalker? Is she Luke’s daughter? Han & Leia’s daughter…and still from the Skywalker bloodline? Ben Kenobi’s granddaughter?

Well, after seeing it for the fourth time last night, and reading a LOT of threads about it online, I wanted to share a couple of things I noticed, and dots I’ve tried to connect, that I believe support the fact that Rey is, in fact, Luke’s daughter. Now these aren’t really meant as a complete picture…and there are MANY more bits that support this theory that I won’t get into here, simply because they’ve been talked about, and theorized about, at length already (Hello, little X-Wing fighter doll made of yarn. Hello, Luke sending/taking her to Jakku to protect her from Kylo Ren/Knights of Ren/Snoke)

I also won’t get into the expositional and storytelling merits of maintaining the Star Wars saga within the Skywalker family line…we all have plenty of time to talk about that.

And I know that there are probably a hundred arguments against what I’m about to spell out, but that’s the fun of all of this, isn’t it. The theories and the conversations and the digging and the over analyzing :) The truth is, none of us will really know for at least another year and a half until Episode VIII comes out, but unto then we have this stuff…

So…on with the show. Here are 3 things I’ve been thinking a lot about:

1) The Island In The Sea

During the scene where Kylo Ren is using the Force to interrogate Rey and find out more about the map to Luke, there’s a moment where he’s poking around in her memories and says, and this is paraphrased cuz I’m horrible with this stuff—“I see the ocean. I see the island,” which in the moment doesn’t make any sense, but as we all now know, Luke’s home(?) is on an island in the middle of an ocean. And given the fact that she has Luke’s island in her memories, we can somewhat easily deduce that Rey has been there before.

Now I know that there *could* be another explanation for her knowing about the island. “She’s Ben Kenobi’s granddaughter and was training to be a Jedi, so maybe all of the Padawan’s had visited the island while under Luke’s training and that’s how she remembers it” but that honestly feels a bit far-fetched, and honestly just not as interesting from a storytelling standpoint.

2) Han Knows

So I haven’t read this anywhere, but based on a handful of sub-points I’m about to spell out, I think Han actually knew who Rey was…

a) During the scene at Maz Katana’s tavern, after Finn tells Rey that he’s leaving and walks away from the table, where Maz turns to Han and asks “So who’s the girl?” and the camera cuts away to Finn and Rey. Now, directly after the conversation where Finn says goodbye is when Rey hears the voices in the basement in the tavern and goes to investigate…and finds Luke/Anakin’s lightsaber, has the vision, etc.

But what I find *really* interesting about that scene, is when Rey wakes from the vision, Maz is running towards her and, now this is key—without even skipping a beat, starts talking about Luke and the Jedi and the Force and tells her to “take the saber.” Which leads me to believe that while all of that was going on with Rey/Finn/the vision, Han told Maz about Rey and she went running to find her to give her the lightsaber.

Now I *suppose* that Maz could just have known about Rey’s origins and history prior—she does run a tavern that’s been around for a thousand years, and people like to talk. Oh, AND she somehow is in possession of Luke’s lightsaber—and when Han told her that he’d picked up a scavenger girl from Jakku, she put two-and-two together and went to look for her, but I’m trying to make a point that Han knows who she is, so perhaps that’s a story for another time ;)

b) We know that Han tells Leia about Rey off camera. After they see one another again outside of the rubble of Maz’s and Han tells Leia about seeing “their son,” the camera cuts to the rebellion’s base, where Poe and Finn meet up again and Poe takes Finn to meet Leia.

When she meets Finn, Leia says to Finn “Han told me about the girl”(or is it “I know about the girl”?) Regardless, given the fact that the only people that know about Rey are Han, Chewie and Finn, and Leia is just meeting Finn for the first time, it could only leave Chewie or Han that told her about Rey. I suppose it could have been Chewie, but I’m gonna go with my gut on this one.

Now, this all could sound like conjecture, and I’m just reading too much into it, until you realize that…

c) When everyone returns to the rebellion base after the battle on Starkiller base, there’s that scene that everyone seems to be dissecting—where Leia sees Rey for the first time when she steps off the ship and hugs her. If Han told Leia who she was, that’s why she ignores everyone coming off the ships and is locked on Rey, and why she hugs Rey like she does. She’s family.

Sidenote: Everyone seems to think that this scene, and the way in which Leia embraces her, points to the fact that she’s Rey’s mother…but I’m not sold on her being a Solo just yet. Yes, that would technically still put her in the Skywalker bloodline, and the idea of the new trilogy being the story of brother vs sister is compelling, I’m still not entirely convinced.

3) Chewie’s “Look”

Look, let’s cut to the chase. Very little that happens in a movie is unintentional. Every scene has been choreographed, every shot planned, every passing glance or extra beat…there for a reason. Filmmakers, especially ones of the caliber of JJ Abrams, put things on the screen for a reason—which is why I found the following “glance” so interesting.

There’s a moment in the last scenes of the film where, as Rey, Chewie and R2 are approaching Luke’s island in the Millennium Falcon just before Rey climbs up to find Luke, that Chewie looks at Rey, head slightly tilted. It is there, and it is explicit. It isn’t just one person looking at another. It’s the look that a parent gives a child when the child is about to open a present on Christmas morning. An affectionate glance that says “I know what’s about to happen.”

Now, sure…it could have simply been a passing character shot of Chewie, BUT

If you buy into both the idea that every shot in TFA is blocked and choreographed and every shot is intentional AND go with the idea that Han actually knew who Rey was, then it gives this scene incredible depth and meaning—because if Han knew and told Leia, I mean, the he obviously would have told Chewie as well right? I mean, Chewie…Han’s closest companion for what, 30+ years.

If Chewie knows that Rey is Luke’s daughter, than the look of compassion and love that he gives Rey is, to me, one of the best, most poignant moments of the entire film. It carries such weight. Chewie has seen this all play out before. He’s just lost his best friend. But he knows what Rey represents, she is not only the future, but also the person that will bring Luke back.

ANNNNND…A LITTLE SIDE NOTE—FOR FUN

Think about this. My friend Traci mentioned this last night.

What if Rey isn’t “Rey” at all?? What if that isn’t her actual name. What if it was either given to her to protect her identity, or a name she given by Unkar Plutt while she was young, on Jakku.

What if we find out Rey’s REAL name, from Luke, in the same way we did Kylo Ren’s, in the next film??

Just something fun to think about :)