Star Wars: Thinking the unthinkable an inquiry into the mysterious parentage of Rey.
Warning spoilers, speculation and the breaking of universal social taboos follow
Leaving the new Star Wars movie you are probably thinking several things: “good job Mr. Abrams”, “did it have to be quite so long?”, “how many times am I going to watch them blow up the death star?”, “was Adam Driver an inspired casting choice or a mistake?”, “why did he wear the homemade Darth Vader mask if he didn’t have any damage to his face?” and, most importantly, “who are Rey’s parents?”.
The movie offers two solutions to the last issue. The first and most obvious is that she’s Han and Leia’s daughter. After all she has that strange, stilted man-like walk of Leia and the flying ability of Han (is this really an inherited trait?) and she and Han finish one another’s sentances in a jinx you owe me a Coke like manner. It makes sense on some level but begs the obvious question of how come neither of them knew they had another child? I mean I know they say you forget the pain of childbirth but I’ve never heard about actually forgetting the child. In keeping with repeating the tropes of the other movies one would assume she and Adam Driver are twins and she was somehow separated at birth and hidden from her parents to preserve the Jedi or something. But that seems kinda thin. Especially as she was abandoned on that crappy desert planet at the age of 7 or 8 . What happened till then?
The other solution suggested is that she’s Luke’s daughter with another woman. This is less well supported but she does seem attracted to Luke’s lightsaber and has dreams of the water planet where they eventually find Luke. But maybe she just had to pee that night. There’s not a lot here but it’s Star Wars, logical consistency isn’t always their strong point.
I offer another, almost unthinkable, solution . She is actually the daughter of Luke and Leia. I know, gross. But cast your mind back to 1977 when Star Wars first came out. Before the second and third movies, the love story did appear to be between Luke and Leia. Don’t tell me when you found out they were brother and sister you didn’t think back to the earlier movies and think “eew, but it seemed like they were going to hook up”. I mean even Han expressed jealousy at points about Luke and Leah’s relationship. It wasn’t just me.
My theory is that some time after they blew up the death star the first time, perhaps even THAT night after a couple of drinks and the baller party at the rebel base, Luke and Leah hooked up and Leah got pregnant with Rey. It was unexpected and for whatever reason, perhaps right wingers in the rebel alliance had shut down the abortion clinics or something, she had to have the baby. When she finds out that Luke is actually her brother, it becomes shameful and the pregnancy is hidden from everyone, including Luke, and when the baby is born it’s taken away and ends up on the shit hole desert planet. Hell maybe when Luke senses this disturbance in the force he goes away to the water planet.
Yes, the timing is a bit off but when has that stopped Star Wars? Also if both her parents are the children of Jedi then it explains how she basically discovers she has the force, performs the Jedi mind trick and proceeds to kick her half brothers ass all within about a half hour. The force is strong in her but she probably should be tested for cystic fibrosis and sickle cell anemia.
