Guest Post: The Star Wars Sequel Trilogy Part VIII: This Has All Happened Before..

This Has All Happened Before, And It Will All Happen Again Part VIII:  The Star Wars Sequel Trilogy 

 

by Michael Giammarino

 

 

We Need To Talk About Rey. And Finn. And The Plan.

 

When Stormtrooper Designant FN-2187 returns to the Star Destroyer Finalizer, disheveled and anxiety ridden, his superior, Captain Phasma, chastises him about removing his helmet.  When he re-dons his helmet, The Force Awakens match cuts on his helmet to a scavenger in her own facial coverings, and goggles with lenses similar to the lenses in Finn's helmet (in fact, they're lenses she scavenged off an Imperial Stormtrooper's helmet); and can be read as an early indication to their forthcoming bond. 

 

This is how we're introduced to Rey.

 

Rey Nobody. From Nowhere. 

 

Rey Palpatine. 

 

Rey Skywalker. 

 

The bond Rey and Finn share is in no way like the bond Rey shares with Kylo. The Force has tethered Finn's path to Rey and Rey's path to Finn in a different way. 

 

Rey has been having consistent dreams, drawing her towards an island on an unknown, faraway world. 

 

Rey's dreams are the Force's way of communicating to Rey that she needs to travel to Ahch-To. Rey ignores these dreams, because to her, they're only dreams. The Force needed a new catalyst to get Rey off Jakku, and Finn is that catalyst. When Finn, Rey, and BB-8 are targeted by Hux's troops, Rey blanches at the realization she was being fired upon too. “You're marked,” Finn tells Rey. She is marked; by the troops, and by the Force. But that's not all. Rey and Finn's destinies have become inextricably linked, not just due to the Force, or their proximity to each other when the troops locate Finn. 

 

Rey and Finn's arcs are inextricably linked, cooperating with each other. This is represented visually in the match cut that shifts our focus from Finn’s story to Rey's, when Finn hastily dons his helmet when Phasma orders him to, and we cut immediately to Rey, scavenging a Star Destroyer, wearing facial coverings with Stormtrooper goggles. Rey becomes entangled in Finn’s arc, leading her off world and thrust into the mission to return BB-8 to the Resistance. Finn’s arc is intertwined with Rey's; it's also a function of his archetype. What's the difference? An arc is the journey a character goes on, which will ultimately change their outlook on things once the journey is complete; an archetype is a specific character type representing a particular set of traits and functions. Once Finn encounters Rey, Finn makes it his mission to protect Rey and keep her safe. His need to keep Rey safe convinces him to choose to protect and defend the universe at large. 

 

But, you might say, that's not true… THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE! 

 

Rey and Finn don't even have arcs! Especially not cooperating arcs! The internet says so! 

 

You can say that, but I don't agree, and the films don't agree with you either. 

 

As for the internet… does it come as much of a shock to you that the social media space is split on this topic? 

 

Rey and Finn are two of the most polarizing figures in the modern Star Wars fanbase. From the moment the teaser trailer for The Force Awakens dropped, and Finn’s face popped into frame, certain viewers began to criticize “the  Black Stormtrooper.” Since we've never seen a Stormtrooper remove their helmet in a Star Wars movie (not counting Clonetroopers) until The Force Awakens, I'm not sure why viewers didn't think a Stormtrooper couldn't be… well, anybody. Clonetroopers in the prequel trilogy are all facsimiles of Jango Fett. Maori actor Temuera Morrison, who was superb in Once Were Warriors, played Jango Fett. Later, he went on to play Boba Fett, replacing the character's voice in The Empire Strikes Back Special Edition. He then appeared in The Mandalorian, and afterwards starred in his own Star Wars show, The Book of Boba Fett. I recall there being some trepidation when Jason Wingreen's voice was replaced with Morrison's in Empire, but I don't recall anyone criticizing Morrison's casting otherwise. Nobody was up in arms when Samuel L. Jackson was cast as Mace Windu, as I recall. (Or was that just because he's Samuel L. Jackson?) Now, Billy Dee Williams admitted to experiencing a certain amount of racist backlash. He attributed it to Lando Calrissian's betrayal of Han and Leia. And the way some Star Wars fans and the public at large treated Ahmed Best for playing Jar Jar Binks in the prequels was unspeakable; as was the treatment of Kelly Marie Tran, who plays Rose Tico in The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker. There have also been allegations of racism in the casting of James Earl Jones for supplying the voice of the villainous Darth Vader, when the “good” Anakin Skywalker, in Return of the Jedi, is revealed as British (and caucasian) actor Sebastian Shaw. 

 

So what's the problem with John Boyega's casting? The answer is a simple one. There was never a problem in John Boyega's casting. Certain people decided to make it their problem, as certain people did in those prior cases I mentioned above. However, this wasn't a one-sided issue. Disney was also called out for being shortsighted. Another complaint levied at Lucasfilm was their lack of fully developing Finn’s character over the course of three films. John Boyega sees this as part and parcel of the same issue, and he's not wrong. He told GQ in 2020:

 

“What I would say to Disney is do not bring out a Black character, market them to be much more important in the franchise than they are and then have them pushed to the side. It’s not good. I’ll say it straight up.

 

“Like, you guys knew what to do with Daisy Ridley, you knew what to do with Adam Driver. You knew what to do with these other people, but when it came to Kelly Marie Tran, when it came to John Boyega, you know fuck all. So what do you want me to say? What they want you to say is, ‘I enjoyed being a part of it. It was a great experience...’ Nah, nah, nah. I’ll take that deal when it’s a great experience. They gave all the nuance to Adam Driver, all the nuance to Daisy Ridley. Let’s be honest. Daisy knows this. Adam knows this. Everybody knows. I’m not exposing anything.”

 

Following this GQ interview, Boyega was contacted by a Disney executive, and they had, as Boyega described later to The Hollywood Reporter, “a very honest, a very transparent conversation.” 

 

Boyega continued:

 

“There was a lot of explaining on their end in terms of the way they saw things. They gave me a chance also to explain what my experience was like. I’d hope that me being so open with my career, at this stage, would help the next man, the guy that wants to be the assistant DOP, the guy that wants to be a producer. I hope that the conversation is not such a taboo or elephant in the room now, because someone just came and said it.”

 

Boyega, while still grateful for the opportunities he's been given, remains vigilant and open in his displeasure. In a 2025 Apple+ documentary, Number One on the Call Sheet: Black Leading Men in Hollywood, Boyega commented:

 

“Lemme tell ya, ‘Star Wars’ always had the vibe of being in the most whitest, elite space. It’s a franchise that’s so white that a Black person existing in [it] was something. You can always tell it’s something when some ‘Star Wars’ fans try to say, ‘Well, we had Lando Calrissian and had Samuel L. Jackson!’ It’s like telling me how many cookie chips are in the cookie dough. It’s like, they just scattered that in there, bro!

 

“They’re okay with us playing the best friend, but once we touch their heroes, once we lead, once we trailblaze, it’s like, ‘Oh my God, it’s just a bit too much! They’re pandering.”

 

Much of the problem, as Boyega rightfully points out, was The Force Awakens’ misleading marketing. Meant to maintain the surprise that the Force chose Rey to defend the light and the Skywalker legacy, prior to The Force Awakens’ release, moments in the marketing, like Finn brandishing Anakin's lightsaber, can be seen as a bait and switch. Now, while I'll agree Finn's character got the short shrift, not only in the lack of focus on his character, but in the way his character failed to have any closure in The Rise of Skywalker… ultimately, the sequel trilogy isn't Finn’s story. It's Rey’s story. Finn absolutely contributes to the story, but the sequel trilogy's overarching story concentrates solely on Rey, and how the characters in her direct orbit contribute to her story. And there's nothing unique about it. The overall sequel trilogy story concentrates on Rey, just like the overall original trilogy story concentrates on Luke, just like the overall prequel trilogy concentrates on Anakin. Over the course of three trilogies, we know next to nothing or absolutely nothing about any of the other characters, compared to what we know about Luke, Anakin or Rey. This is by design. What do we really know about Han Solo if we only focus on the original trilogy? Not much, that's what. Is Han Solo's ending in Return of the Jedi satisfying? He ends up with Princess Leia, but that's nothing we didn't already know in the first act of the film. If The Force Awakens never existed, Han Solo would have barely had any closure whatsoever, beyond the obvious and Han and Leia lived happily ever after. And Chewie has no development or closure in the original trilogy at all. He remains the same throughout the trilogy; the loyal ally he's always been. As do the droids. If we want to know anything about Obi-Wan Kenobi or Qui-Gon Jinn, the prequels certainly don't tell us, and A New Hope certainly doesn't tell us anything new about Obi-Wan we didn't know before. The only closure either of them get is death, and Obi-Wan has to wait until Episode IV to get his, while Han has to wait until The Force Awakens. Beyond that, we'd need to consult ancillary material to learn anything substantial about these characters. Which, again, is by design. 

 

In Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, for instance, the only fully developed character is our lead, Jyn Erso. We only get to know the other characters in her immediate orbit based on how they relate to Jyn. Cassian Andor, like Jyn, joined the fight against the Empire when he was young. Chirrut Imwe and Baze Malbus belonged to the Guardians of the Whills, another religious order deifying the Jedi; they bond with Jyn based on the kyber crystal necklace Jyn's mother gave her. Bodhi Rook formed a connection with Jyn through his connection to her father, Galen Erso. (Character names also bear thematic or archetypal meanings in Star Wars. Case in point: the word Bodhi comes from Sanskrit and Pali, and means “awakened” or “to awaken.” In Buddhism, it refers to “the final enlightenment.”) To be fair, we don't know how much of this has to do with the tumultuous reshoots this production went through, when writer/director Tony Gilroy was brought on to make changes to the film. All we have to go on is the final result; what we see on screen. Be that as it may, thematic character interrelatibility in Star Wars is common. 

 

I've touched on, in a previous chapter, how Finn was supposed to lead a Stormtrooper uprising in Colin Trevorrow’s take on EpisodeIX, entitled Duel of the Fates. I've also touched on how I found that idea totally farfetched: How do you convince a soldier confronting you on a battlefield that they're fighting on the wrong side? Quick answer: You can't. It's only an easier way to get yourself killed. You'd have a better chance organizing an uprising if you're still within the ranks, not outside. But while we don't get absolute closure for Finn or Poe or Chewie or Lando or the droids, I don't think leaving their stories open-ended necessarily harms them. We still have a good indication where their dangling story threads will lead: Lando will help Jannah find her home and family. The droids follow the same path they've always led; not much ever really changes with them. Chewie receives Han’s medal from Maz, reiterating Luke's lesson to Leia that “no one's ever really gone.” Poe has taken on the leadership mantle, learning everything there was to learn from Leia's example. And we can infer that Finn, finally recognizing he is Force-sensitive, will eventually help Rey reorganize the Jedi, and most likely become Rey's first pupil. These paths may not all be directly spelled out, but, to my mind, they're all successfully implied. 

 

That's not to say these characters don't deserve stories where they're the highlight. They absolutely do. In an era where Cassian Andor, Boba Fett, and Obi-Wan Kenobi were given their own Disney+ series, a Finn show or a film (or films) where Finn takes the lead is long overdue and necessary. So when John Boyega hopes speaking truth to his experience working on Star Wars will be a benefit for other POC actors and crew seeking prominent roles in the movie business and in Star Wars, specifically, I think he deserves more himself. This shouldn't be the end of the road for him in Star Wars. Hopefully, it isn't. Finn does deserve more. (As I write this, a new young adult novel, Star Wars: The Last Order, has been announced, continuing Finn and Jannah's story, as they rescue kidnapped children intended to be indoctrinated as First Order Stormtroopers.)

 

The way Rey has been treated, as a character, by certain residents of the social media space, has been altogether different, and yet in other ways, similar. 

 

Like Finn, criticism towards Rey focuses on character. Unlike Finn, criticism of Rey, and on Daisy Ridley, who plays Rey, also reflects on her gender. She's accused of being underdeveloped and overpowered; and she's accused of being a Mary Sue. 

 

Sit tight. I'll be getting to all that shortly. 

 

Rey begins the sequel trilogy without a family, without a family name, and with no real direction or purpose in her life. She is quite literally Rey Nobody from Nowhere. On her journey, she discovers abilities she never knew she had and doesn't completely understand, psychological tests that affect who she is, learns the truth about who she is and where she comes from, confronts painful truths, and ends the sequel trilogy with a family, a family name, an adopted family, direction and purpose in her life, and a mastery over the abilities she has only recently discovered (just as Luke did by the end of Return of the Jedi).

 

That's an arc, folks.

 

I find that the people who say Rey has no arc and isn't a developed character either don't notice her arc, believe other people's claims that she lacks any arc without looking into it themselves, or they simply deny she has an arc in order to push a narrative that George Lucas’s rules and philosophies are no longer being recognized at Disney or Lucasfilm. 

 

That's simply not the case. 

 

Joseph Campbell’s monomyth, the Hero’s Journey, has been and still is a vital narrative system in Star Wars stories. 

 

In the article, “Rey’s Heroic Journey in The Force Awakens,” on FANgirl Blog, Benjamin Priester writes:

 

The Hero’s Journey, also called the monomyth, has been a subject of study and discussion for many years. For purposes of discussing Star Wars, two prominent formulations of the Hero’s Journey illustrate its influence on storytelling. One is the Hero’s Journey model set out in Joseph Campbell’s famous 1949 academic book, The Hero With a Thousand Faces. The other is the mythic structure model described by screenwriting and story consultant Christopher Vogler, initially in a 1985 memo written for Disney studio executives and later expanded and elaborated into his book The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers (third edition, 2007). 

 

George Lucas drew substantially on Campbell’s ideas, especially in crafting the story and screenplay for the first Star Wars film. Like Lucas, Vogler graduated from USC’s film school and began studying and analyzing stories in the late 1970s, and he praises A New Hope as a perfect encapsulation of Campbell’s model.

 

Both frameworks continue to heavily influence many contemporary storytellers. Campbell focused on synthesizing commonalities across the myths of numerous centuries and cultures, and his model has particular appeal to storytellers, like Lucas, who overtly wish to create stories with mythic themes and resonance with legends of the past. Vogler, on the other hand, sought to identify the underlying story structure which propels successful modern stories, particularly movies, and he illustrates the applicability of his model not only with mythical tales like The Wizard of Oz or The Lion King but also films as wide-ranging as Titanic, Pulp Fiction,The Full Monty, Beverly Hills Cop, and An Officer and a Gentleman. Campbell’s model divides the hero’s path into three phases of myth based upon the patterns synthesized from historical myths; Vogler’s model is based on the three-act structure which dominates modern movie-making. While the two Hero’s Journey models have many similarities, they also have some significant differences. Because The Force Awakens draws so heavily on the previous Star Wars films, especially the Original Trilogy and A New Hope in particular, it naturally shows a heavy influence of Campbell’s model just like Lucas’ initial work. At the same time, though, The Force Awakens is also a very contemporary movie, and it fits neatly into Vogler’s framework, as well.

 

Rey’s character arc in The Force Awakens follows the stages of Campbell’s description of the monomyth very closely. Like many tales, the stages may not appear in the exact order they are laid out by Campbell, but each of the stages unfolds during Rey’s progress through the story.

 

The story begins in Rey’s mundane world on Jakku, where her daily routine consists of scavenging parts from starship wreckage and trading them for food with Unkar Plutt at Niima Outpost. After her meager dinner, though, Rey is propelled into her Call to Adventure. She hears BB-8’s objections to his capture by Teedo, and frees the droid. Initially she does not realize her life is transitioning away from her ordinary life; BB-8 keeps his mission classified and Rey’s decision not to sell him to Plutt is motivated by empathy for the droid’s insistence on waiting for his master. When BB-8 sees Finn in Poe’s jacket, the adventure truly begins: Rey learns BB-8 carries the crucial map to Luke Skywalker that must be taken to the Resistance before the First Order can seize it; she meets Finn and believes him to be a Resistance fighter who will assist in BB-8’s mission; the trio are attacked by the First Order, flee through the market, and ultimately escape in the Millennium Falcon after a harrowing firefight through the starship graveyard.

 

But Rey has not committed to the heroic path just yet. Her Refusal of the Call occurs first when she tells Finn that she will return to Jakku after the mission to deliver BB-8 to the Resistance base is completed. Later, she turns down a job offer from Han Solo for the same reason. Only later in her story arc does Rey accept that she has no reason to return to her home on Jakku.

 

Almost immediately after their successful escape from the First Order, Rey meets the mentor figure, Han Solo, who renders Supernatural Aid on her journey. Unlike the classic mentor figure of a wizard with magical powers, Rey’s guide does not personally hold supernatural abilities. But Han’s conversation with the youngsters aboard the Falcon validates the key supernatural elements of Rey’s journey: the Force is real, the light side and the dark side exist, and the stories about the Jedi and the heroes of Rebellion are true. Han also gifts Rey with a talisman that will aid her quest: the silver pistol she fires on Takodana, and ultimately carries with her to meet Luke Skywalker in his seclusion.

 

The moment when Rey’s story leaves the mundane world behind and enters the field of adventure, The Crossing of the First Threshold, occurs when the Falcon arrives at Takodana and the group enters Maz Kanata’s castle. Rey’s discovery of the immense green visuals and entirely new smells marks a stark break from her prior life.

 

Part of the separation from the mundane world involves a process of metamorphosis into a hero, which Campbell calls The Belly of the Whale. In The Force Awakens, the imagery is quite literal. First, Han’s gargantuan freighter swallows up the Falcon much like familiar imagery of Jonah and the whale. Soon after, Rey and Finn crawl around in the tunnels within the freighter. Rey’s metamorphosis into a hero also progresses here: she devises a plan to help Han repel the two gangs, figures out how to use the blast door to save Finn from the rathtar, and assists Han in executing the Falcon’s hyperspace jump from the freighter’s hangar to escape.

 

At this point the first phase of Campbell’s model, the Departure, has come to an end. The next phase, the Initiation, has begun.

 

Developing into a hero does not come easy. The Road of Trials repeatedly tests the hero, and the hero may fail one or more of them. After learning of the importance of the fight against the dark side, Rey hears cries for help that lead her to the hidden lightsaber in the catacombs. The vision in the Force provides Rey with information, but also tests her resolve. She fails this test, telling Maz that she wants no part of the Force and rejecting the offer to take the lightsaber. Rey flees into the woods, where she tells BB-8 that she will not be participating further in the mission to return him to the Resistance. Her plans quickly change, though, when the First Order begins to attack. Rey returns to the castle, engaging with stormtroopers and then Kylo Ren. Despite her best efforts, the dark knight reads her mind, realizes she has seen the map he seeks, and uses the Force to knock her unconscious to abduct her.

 

Based on the male-protagonist focus of the historical myths he studied and the commonalities they frequently involved, Campbell’s model uses gendered labels to identify several common stages within the hero’s trials. One is The Meeting With the Goddess. For Rey, this takes place during her conversation with Maz in the catacombs after her Force vision. Although Rey does not accept the unconditional love from the Force that Maz opens to her, the moment pays dividends for Rey later in the story. Similarly, the hero often is offered the opportunity to abandon the quest, which Campbell calls Woman as Temptress. In Rey’s story, of course, the roles are flipped: it is the male character, Finn, who asks Rey to give up the mission to return BB-8 to the Resistance and instead run away with him to the safety of the Outer Rim. The importance of both of these moments to Rey’s story is underlined by the accompanying music in the film’s score: “Maz’s Counsel” and “Finn’s Confession,” respectively. In addition, The Atonement With the Father denotes the confrontation with a figure of ultimate power whom the hero must overcome. Kylo Ren is not a god or a paternal figure to Rey, but he is her supernatural adversary in the story. At Starkiller Base, he holds her prisoner and once again tries to read her mind to obtain the map. This time, though, Rey turns the tables in their confrontation, realizing she can use the Force not only to repel Kylo Ren from her mind, but also to enter his mind and discover his greatest fear.

 

The culmination of Campbell’s second phase occurs when the hero accomplishes the goal of the quest. The hero’s Apotheosis reflects a literal or metaphorical death or attainment of a state of divine knowledge or bliss. After Kylo Ren has fled his failure, Rey realizes she can turn her newfound power to her advantage. Calmly she mind-tricks a stormtrooper into releasing her, allowing her to escape into the depths of Starkiller Base.

 

The hero’s triumph is The Ultimate Boon, when the purpose of the adventure is fulfilled. In the forest, Rey again faces Kylo Ren and achieves a two-fold boon. First, the Force delivers the lightsaber to her hand, endowing her with the weapon she had vowed never to touch again. Then, at the edge of a literal precipice in their duel, her enemy’s words remind Rey of Maz’s counsel; she closes her eyes, allows the light of the Force to grow within her, and seizes her destiny. With the Force flowing through her and guiding her actions, Rey quickly turns the duel in her favor.

 

The successful accomplishment of the quest is not the end of the story in Campbell’s model, however. In the third phase, the Return, the hero must internalize the lessons learned on the adventure and reintegrate back into the mundane world.

 

Unlike some heroes, Rey does not have a stark Refusal of the Return as overt as her Refusal of the Call at the story’s start. After defeating Kylo Ren and being separated from him by the chasm ripped into forest between them, though, Rey does not make every effort to escape the planet’s death-throes. Rather, she runs to Finn’s side and cries over his unconscious form, apparently willing to accept her own death along with his.

 

The hero frequently is assisted in making the return. Rey experiences The Magic Flight when Chewbacca arrives in the Millennium Falcon, beams shining down into the darkened forest like the light of a guardian angel. The Wookiee’s arrival also represents a Rescue From Without that enables her return.

 

Reaching the mundane world again often is not easy for the hero. Rey marks The Crossing of the Return Threshold when she arrives at the Resistance base and shares an emotional embrace with Leia. The hero becomes the Master of Two Worlds by synthesizing both the heroic and the mundane in her existence. For Rey, her change of clothes into her Resistance outfit signifies her new role in the mundane world; her farewell with Leia and acknowledgement of the blessing “may the Force be with you” represents her acceptance of her new spiritual role as the first new Jedi apprentice in the galaxy in years. Finally, the hero achieves the Freedom to Live by rejecting the fear of death or regrets about the past. In the catacombs, Maz Kanata had advised Rey to let go of the past and choose the belonging of the future. When Rey arrives at the first Jedi temple and reaches Luke Skywalker, she offers him the lightsaber to signify her decision to embark upon the path ahead of her.

 

Although Vogler’s model, like Campbell’s, has three major segments, the two frameworks break out those divisions within the story quite differently. Accordingly, while the initial stages appear very similar, the later elements vary significantly.

 

Act One of Rey’s story unfolds in Vogler’s model essentially as described above for Campbell’s. Rey’s story begins in The Ordinary World of her scavenger life on Jakku. Her Call to Adventure (Inciting Incident) occurs when she rescues BB-8 and is drawn, along with Finn, into the droid’s mission to deliver the map to Luke Skywalker to the Resistance. Her Refusal of the Call (The Reluctant Hero) arises from her emotional commitment to remaining on Jakku to wait for her family to return for her. Her Mentor, Han Solo, guides her quest by affirming that the Force and the Jedi are real. Rey is Crossing the First Threshold, like Dorothy setting off on the Yellow Brick Road, when she commits to taking the Millennium Falcon across space to bring BB-8 back to the Resistance.

 

Act Two in Vogler’s model begins in a similar place as Campbell’s model. The hero’s Tests, Enemies, and Allies involve a set of experiences through which the hero learns the rules of the Special World and faces challenges that must be overcome. First, Han’s freighter is attacked by enemies, the two gangs. Rey initially makes things worse by freeing the rathtars while trying to help, then successfully rescues Finn from one of the monster’s clutches. The group escapes the danger by jumping to lightspeed from within the hangar after Rey reminds Han about the compressor. Second, Rey meets a new ally, Maz Kanata, at the diminutive pirate’s castle. Like Luke’s experiences in the Mos Eisley Cantina in A New Hope, Maz’s castle is a bustling, alien-filled location where Rey begins to learn the new rules of the Special World. Rey passes one test when she rejects Finn’s suggestion to abandon BB-8’s mission and flee to the Outer Rim; she fails another test when, after her vision in the Force, she rejects Maz’s urging to take the lightsaber. Third, Rey fights new enemies in the Takodana woods when she engages the First Order stormtroopers and then Kylo Ren. Bested by Kylo Ren, she falls unconscious and is taken prisoner.

 

The remaining stages of Vogler’s Act Two mark the start of his major divergence from Campbell. The Approach to the Inmost Cave brings the hero to the second threshold in the story, often the enemy headquarters or the most dangerous place in the Special World. In A New Hope, the Falcon is drawn into the Death Star. In The Force Awakens, Rey is held prisoner at Starkiller Base.

 

Soon the hero must endure an Ordeal, a point where the hero’s fortunes are at their worst and the audience fears the hero may die, or even believes he does die, only to experience exhilaration when the hero somehow survives. In A New Hope, this is marked by the famous trash compactor sequence, when Luke is nearly drowned by the dianoga before being suddenly freed as the walls begin to close. In The Force Awakens, Rey is brutally interrogated by Kylo Ren. Poe Dameron was only spared by Finn’s unexpected rescue, and no one is available to save Rey. It appears the villain will triumph, obtaining the map to Luke Skywalker and defeating Rey’s goal of ensuring the Resistance gets it first. The harder Kylo Ren pushes to dig the map from her mind, however, the harder Rey pushes back, and he is unable to compel her mind to open up to him.

 

After surviving the Ordeal, the hero can claim the Reward (Seizing the Sword) of the quest. This can mean obtaining a physical treasure, or a more metaphorical prize such as knowledge or experience the hero needs. In A New Hope, Luke rescues Leia from the Empire’s prison and the Rebels escape the Death Star with the plans that are key to its destruction. In The Force Awakens, Rey ultimately turns her own strength in the Force against Kylo Ren, expelling him from her mind, discovering his fear that his powers are not strong enough, and shaking his confidence so greatly that he leaves the room and pleads to Supreme Leader Snoke for guidance in breaking her. In his absence, Rey wields her powers against a stormtrooper and escapes the cell.

 

Act Three of Vogler’s model is not about winding down the adventure, as in Campbell’s framework, but rather about driving the story onward to its climactic conclusion. By surviving the Ordeal and obtaining the Reward, the hero has only made the adversaries more insistent upon defeating her. 

 

The hero is often pursued ruthlessly on The Road Back, and Vogler notes that some of the best chase sequences in movies occur at this point the story as the villain’s forces try to stop the hero from getting away with the Reward or otherwise escaping their clutches. While the destruction of the TIE fighters to escape the Death Star and reach the Rebel base at Yavin is a fairly short sequence in A New Hope, Rey’s road back is more extensive in The Force Awakens. First, she must sneak through Starkiller Base, avoiding the many stormtroopers Kylo Ren has dispatched to find her. After reuniting with Finn, Han, and Chewie, the group initially plans to leave Starkiller Base on the Falcon with their mission to rescue Rey and take down the base’s shields accomplished – but the mentor realizes the attack on the oscillator is failing, and suggests they use their explosives to help. Using her familiarity with their technology from her years scavenging Imperial wrecks, Rey disables the locks to enable Han and Chewie to enter the oscillator building. She and Finn arrive at the building to reunite the group and depart, but Rey watches as her road back is imperiled by Kylo Ren’s murder of Han. In the forest, Kylo Ren makes his objective in blocking their road back explicit, declaring “We’re not finished yet.”

 

The journey reaches its apex in the Resurrection (Climax) of the story. Vogler describes this as the villain’s last shot before being defeated, often a second life-or-death moment in addition to the Ordeal. It is the third threshold on the journey, the hero’s final test in which the lessons learned must be brought to bear to succeed. In A New Hope, the trench run is going very poorly for the Rebels, and it appears Luke is about to be killed by Darth Vader when Han’s unexpected return saves him at the last moment; Luke then listens to the ghostly wisdom of his mentor, closes his eyes, and fires the torpedoes that destroy the Death Star. In The Force Awakens, Rey duels Kylo Ren in the forest. At first she is overpowered, constantly retreating from his onslaught and unskilled with swordfighting techniques to use against him. Sabers clashing at the end of the cliff, it seems she is on the brink of defeat until Kylo Ren’s offer to teach her the ways of the Force reminds her of Maz’s counsel. She closes her eyes, draws on the Force, and uses its guidance to defeat her adversary.

 

The final stage of Vogler’s model is the Return With the Elixir (Denouement), in which the hero’s triumph is shown. In A New Hope, Luke has destroyed the Death Star, Darth Vader is defeated, and Luke receives a medal of heroism from the Rebellion. In The Force Awakens, Rey escapes from imploding Starkiller Base with unconscious Finn and the lightsaber, arrives at the Resistance base, and learns that BB-8 and R2-D2 can assemble the entire map. Rey has achieved the adventure she originally embarked upon – and more, she has learned that she has a destiny she had never imagined for herself.

 

Interestingly, The Force Awakens also includes an Epilogue which provides resolution to the other part of Rey’s journey. Vogler notes that such epilogues often can be effective to look ahead from the main ending of the story, showing how events turned out for the characters in the future, as in American Graffiti, Terms of Endearment, or A League of Their Own. In The Force Awakens, the core adventure ends with the successful assembly of the map – the accomplishment of the goal of the quest. But Rey also knows that she is destined to be a Jedi, and that it is her responsibility to find Luke and seek his training. The epilogue jumps ahead in time: Rey now wears her Resistance outfit, and Leia more regal attire than her general’s uniform; Finn is recuperating in the medical ward; at the farewell, Poe wears an officer’s uniform and C-3PO’s red arm has been replaced with the proper gold one. Most importantly, the epilogue shows Rey, Chewbacca, and R2-D2 following the map to the ocean world where Luke is in seclusion, and Rey climbing up the steps of the first Jedi temple to find the long-lost Jedi Master. This delivers denouement on Rey’s spiritual journey in the movie, and lets the audience know that her adventures are only beginning. 

 

And, also at FANgirl Blog, to complement Priester's analysis on Rey’s hero's journey, in the article, “Finn and the Hero's Journey in The Force Awakens,” Priester and Tricia Barr write:

 

From the beginning, Star Wars has drawn heavily on the Hero’s Journey framework of storytelling, particularly the monomyth articulated by Joseph Campbell. More contemporary iterations of the framework, such as the cinematic version put forth by Christopher Vogler, frequently use Luke Skywalker in A New Hope as a classic example. It was little surprise, then, that the new era of cinematic Star Wars kicked off in The Force Awakens with a clear Hero’s Journey path for its central protagonist, Rey.

 

… For all of its familiar elements and story beats, though, The Force Awakens also broke new ground in Star Wars in many ways. Early on in its development, while the core natures of the characters were still in flux, longtime Star Wars participant Lawrence Kasdan made a radical suggestion: that one character should be a stormtrooper who defects to the good side. As the story’s creation progressed, and Kasdan joined J.J. Abrams as co-screenwriters on the film’s script, this character grew into a major player in the movie. By comparison to A New Hope, he is a combination of the droids, who are the audience’s eyes into the story when the main hero is not present, and Han and Leia, who are the crucial figures motivating and propelling Luke’s quest. Given this importance, Finn could not simply be a sidekick or key ally in the story; he needed a story arc of his own. For the first time, The Force Awakensoffered a Star Wars film in which two characters, not only one, are undertaking the Hero’s Journey. 

 

The early stages of Campbell and Vogler are quite similar, and Finn’s journey marks those beats as clearly as Rey’s does. Like A New Hope, the action does not begin in the main protagonist’s Ordinary World. In Episode IV we meet bored moisture farmer Luke after a fast-paced opening sequence introducing us to Princess Leia and Darth Vader and the clash between the Rebellion and the Empire. Similarly, Rey’s wistful and repetitive life as a junk scavenger is revealed after we begin the film with Finn, Poe Dameron, Kylo Ren, and the new conflict between the Resistance and the First Order.

 

Finn’s Ordinary World is the life of a First Order stormtrooper. Without even a name, only the designation FN-2187, he has been trained since childhood to do one thing. Fans who’ve read Greg Rucka’s book Before the Awakening, released in 2015 as part of the “Journey to The Force Awakens” publishing line, have an even deeper appreciation of what his life was like before the fateful arrival on Jakku.

 

From that Ordinary World, Finn’s adventure is the story of his defection from the First Order and rebirth into a hero of the Resistance. Every stage of the Hero’s Journey for Finn is viewed in that light, bringing him closer to the hero he will end up becoming. Like anyone on the Hero’s Journey he has successes and failures, threats and pitfalls, friends and foes along the way. And of course, for much of the movie Finn himself does not understand the quest he is on. Events are pulling him along, and it is his actions and choices that drive him toward his destiny – with the occasional nudge from other characters, too.

 

It only takes moments after his arrival on Jakku aboard the First Order lander for FN-2187’s path to change. His Call to Adventure comes in the form of Kylo Ren’s order to massacre innocent villagers, which his conscience refuses. Back aboard the Star Destroyer, Captain Phasma commands him to put his helmet back on and report for inspection of his blaster. In that moment, his Ordinary World is gone forever – and the audience switches perspective to meet Rey before her life is changed forever, too.

 

Desperate to escape the evil around him, FN-2187 frees Poe Dameron and pleads for help in getting away. Recognizing the opportunity, Poe instantly becomes his new Mentor in resistance: assuring him they can do this; remaining calm as they stride across the hangar; instructing him how to fire the blaster cannons on their stolen TIE fighter; instilling the importance of retrieving the map to Luke Skywalker. And, most importantly, rejecting the nameless designation imposed by the First Order and bestowing on the young man his new moniker, Finn.

 

As the TIE flies out of the hangar bay, Finn is Crossing the First Threshold toward joining the other side, reinforced by his act of blasting away at troopers and TIEs that were his erstwhile compatriots only minutes earlier. Poe is not only a mentor, but Campbell’s Supernatural Aid: an ace pilot who can fly anything. When Poe insists on heading for Jakku to retrieve BB-8, though, Finn faces his Refusal of the Call: he is not doing this to help the Resistance, but merely to flee the First Order as quickly and safely as possible. Neither man wins the argument; their TIE is shot down and Finn wakes up alone in the blistering desert. Before the TIE’s wreckages disappears in the Sinking Fields, Finn is able to retrieve a talisman, the jacket belonging to his vanished mentor. Finn’s metamorphosis into heroism manifests visually in his Belly of the Whale as he staggers through the sand, tossing off pieces of his stormtrooper armor one by one before finally donning the jacket instead.

 

The second act of Vogler’s framework begins with Tests, Enemies, and Allies. For Finn’s journey, this covers events from Niima Outpost through the Resistance base. He befriends Rey and BB-8 for the escape from Jakku, allies with Han and Chewie for the fight with the gangs, and undergoes inspection by Maz Kanata at her castle. Each time, his destiny with the Resistance is placed before him, and like other heroes he fails some of these tests. Initially he lies to Rey that he is a Resistance fighter, then admits the truth to BB-8 aboard the Falcon. He claims to be a “big deal in the Resistance,” not realizing that Han would have little trouble seeing right through that lie. Maz speaks of the importance of the fight against the dark side, then recognizes the desire to run away in Finn’s eyes. He proves her right, for the moment, offering an apology to Rey before heading to the exit with a pair of pirates to revert back to his original plan to get as far away from the First Order as possible.

 

The destruction of the Hosnian System by Starkiller Base and the arrival of the First Order at Takodana, however, change Finn’s perspective. At the urging of Maz, he takes up Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber and fights the invaders. Declared a “traitor!” by FN-2199, he fights the trooper in single combat, with a helpful bowcaster blast from Han to save him from a perilous blow. Unable to stop Kylo Ren from abducting Rey, Finn boards the Falcon and travels to the secret Resistance base. Although he readily offers up the information he knows about Starkiller Base, he is not doing it because he already is fully committed to the Resistance cause. Instead, he still retains some of his earlier pattern: deceiving his new allies about his true selfish motivation, in this case his desire to ensure he is sent on the mission so that he can rescue Rey.

 

Interestingly, Finn experiences something previously unseen in Star Wars films: the return of his mentor. Luke and Rey watch their mentors die; Finn sees Poe’s glorious flying at Takodana, then reunites in person at D’Qar. Poe completes the transfer of the talisman, reassuring Finn that he can keep the jacket, then hustles Finn straight to the leader of the Resistance, General Organa.

 

The remaining components of Vogler’s second act take place at the First Order base. Finn marks Approaching the Inmost Cave in his return to Starkiller Base, the enemy fortress and site of some of his previous service to the First Order. His Ordeal is the tension of the search for Rey, and his Reward comes in their reunion.

 

The second act of Campbell’s model is the hero’s transformation. For Finn, the Road of Trials begins at his arrival in Niima Outpost and continues through his participation the briefing at the Resistance base on D’Qar. He experiences a Meeting With the Goddess at Maz Kanata’s castle, when Rey offers him unconditional friendship in their apparently mutual quest to return BB-8 to the Resistance, but Finn’s fear drives him to admit the truth about himself to her – marked in the soundtrack with the track titled “Finn’s Confession”– in the course of declining her offer in pursuit of his goal to flee into the Outer Rim. At D’Qar we also see Finn face the Woman as Temptress, as he exaggerates his knowledge of Starkiller Base’s shields in order to serve his true motivation, rescuing Rey. By the time he admits the deception, he and Han and Chewie already are deep behind enemy lines on the frozen world.

 

The mission to Starkiller Base concludes Finn’s second act of Campbell’s model. His Atonement With the Father comes in his confrontation with Captain Phasma, the domineering authority figure of the opening mission to Jakku, when he forces her at gunpoint to lower the shields to enable the Resistance’s assault on the base. Finn achieves Apotheosis when he accomplishes his personal goal, embracing Rey upon their reunion. But his transformation into a hero of the Resistance requires the Ultimate Boon. Together with Rey, he aids Han and Chewie in infiltrating the oscillator facility so that Poe and the Resistance pilots can destroy it. Then in the forest, Finn wields the lightsaber for a second time to defend unconscious Rey from the murderous Kylo Ren.

 

It is here where Campbell’s framework would transition the hero to the third act, reintegrating the Extraordinary World of heroism with the Ordinary World where the story began. For Finn in The Force Awakens, this stage is never reached: he remains incapacitated, still recovering from his grave wounds when Rey departs D’Qar for Ahch-To at the movie’s end. Early information revealed at Celebration Orlando about the film suggests that Finn may undergo this stage in The Last Jedi, integrating himself fully as a soldier of the Resistance.

 

Vogler’s cinematic model, on the other, lines up rather nicely with the culmination of Finn’s storyline in The Force Awakens. Vogler’s third act is not reintegration but rather the roller-coaster push toward the movie’s final showdown. The Road Back is the heroes getting sidetracked from their plan to flee Starkiller Base once the shields are down, when they decide that they first must complete a new mission to destroy the oscillator facility. Finn and Rey play their part by unlocking the doors so that Han and Chewie can infiltrate and plant their bagful of thermal detonators. Unfortunately, the young duo returns too late to prevent Kylo Ren from slaying his father. The detonator explosions successfully accomplish their plan, and the Poe’s ace flying finishes off the oscillator. Even the planet imploding around them is not enough danger for the heroes to face, however, and they find their path back to the Falconblocked by Kylo Ren.

 

The next step, Climax, is also called Resurrection – and it comes when Finn is metaphorically reborn as a Resistance fighter by Kylo Ren’s taunt of “traitor!” and facing him in single combat. Kylo Ren also warns him that, unlike Takodana, “Han Solo can’t save you” in this duel. Without the power of the Force to aid him, Finn is quickly overmatched and defeated, though his cries of pain reawaken Rey to fulfill her own destiny in this fight. Though Finn is unconscious for his Denouement, the audience sees him in Resistance garb at the D’Qar base, treated as one of their own as Rey bids him farewell before departing to find Luke Skywalker.

 

In addition to the common stages through which the central protagonist progresses, the Hero’s Journey often features other characters who fit into familiar archetypes in the roles they play in the protagonist’s quest. Vogler’s book The Writer’s Journeyhighlights eight archetypes that recur frequently in contemporary tales. Each of these archetypes appears in the Hero’s Journeys of Rey and Finn – but not always in the same way or with the same character in the respective storylines. This makes The Force Awakens an interesting study in the use of archetypes.

 

The Hero, of course, is the central protagonist of the journey. In Rey’s adventure, she is the Hero; in Finn’s adventure, he bears that mantle and Rey fills a different archetype.

 

The Herald signals the beginning of the adventure, often marking the Call to Adventure by appearing. Here, both Rey and Finn have BB-8 as a Herald. The droid’s cries for help cause Rey to leave her AT-AT dwelling and aid another, by which she gains at first a new companion and then later a mission to deliver the droid and his concealed map to Luke Skywalker back to the Resistance. Similarly, Finn is drawn into the same mission when BB-8 recognizes Poe’s jacket on him in the Niima Outpost market, leading to Finn joining them for the escape from Jakku and subsequent encounter with Han Solo.

 

The Threshold Guardian is a character who tries to keep the Hero in the Ordinary World, literally or metaphorically barring the threshold to adventure. For Rey this is Unkar Plutt, whose sparse doling out of portions keeps her trapped in her meager life as a Jakku scavenger. For Finn, his path to heroism is blocked by Captain Phasma, who commands him to report for inspection after his crisis of conscience in the village. Both characters overcome their Threshold Guardians: Rey by refusing the trade for BB-8, then stealing the Millennium Falcon to escape the First Order’s attack, and Finn by freeing Poe Dameron from custody and escaping the Finalizer in a stolen TIE fighter.

 

The Mentor plays an important role in guiding the Hero on the journey. Rey has two mentors in her Hero’s Journey from scavenger to Jedi novice. Han Solo affirms that the Force and the legends are real, approves of Rey’s skills as a mechanic and pilot enough to offer her a job on his crew, and ultimately gives her the talismans of her adventure: a pistol for protection and later the Falcon. Maz Kanata counsels Rey on the need to let go of her past and embrace her future, as well as providing insight on the Force that allows Rey to find her inner strength to defeat Kylo Ren. In Finn’s journey from stormtrooper to Resistance fighter his mentor is Poe Dameron, who shapes the course of Finn’s adventure and gifts him the iconic jacket.

 

The Shapeshifter is a character whose nature is confounding to the Hero, often because the Hero is unsure who the Shapeshifter really is or whether they can be trusted. In Rey’s path as a Hero in The Force Awakens, Finn is a Shapeshifter. First she believes he is a Resistance fighter, then learns he is not who she thought he was – in identity or in courage. Ultimately, though, she finds their friendship validated upon learning it was his idea to undertake great risk to come to rescue her at Starkiller Base. In Finn’s progression through the Hero’s Journey, though, the Shapeshifter is someone else: Han Solo. Over the course of their interactions Finn sees Solo change from scowling intruder to hero of the Rebellion who believes in the Force, from washed up smuggler in trouble with multiple violent gangs to prominent figure in the Resistance entrusted with the crucial mission to take down Starkiller Base’s shields, from curmudgeonly mission leader to heartbroken father.

 

The Trickster is another archetype who often is not what they seem to the Hero. This is Rey’s role to Finn’s Hero, because she always has another trick up her sleeve as her adventure parallels his. First she appears to be a marketplace damsel in distress, before proving eminently capable of defending herself. This meager junk scavenger turns out to be the second pilot Finn escapes with, much to his surprise. Despite her stated desire to return to Jakku, she commits herself to the mission to return BB-8 to the Resistance. Though he risks his life to rescue her at Starkiller Base, he realizes Rey already has freed herself, and in a manner she says he wouldn’t believe if she told him.

 

The Ally is any other character who aid the Hero on the adventure. For both Rey and Finn, BB-8 starts as the Herald and then becomes their Ally as events proceed. Chewbacca is a secondary character in The Force Awakens, but his involvement is necessary to help both Heroes achieve their goals – including with Finn, a reciprocal rendering of medical assistance. And while Rey and Finn initially appear as different archetypes to each other, by the end of the film they are mutual Allies in their respective journeys.

 

Finally, the last archetype is oppositional: the Shadow who threatens to undermine the Hero’s accomplishment of the journey. Though not always an evil villain in the classic sense, in The Force Awakens the Shadow for both Rey and Finn is the same: Kylo Ren. While Rey does not encounter him until Takodana, he is interested in her from the moment he hears about a girl helping the droid escape Jakku. Their first confrontation ends with Rey unconscious and abducted, followed by her captivity on Starkiller Base. Yet sometimes the Hero and the Shadow may be as much foils for one another as antagonists, as when Kylo Ren’s invasion of her mind inadvertently expands the scope of Rey’s understanding of her own power, and his reference to teaching her the ways of the Force sparks a recollection of the wisdom from Maz Kanata. Their second confrontation ends differently, with the Hero overpowering the Shadow. For Finn, he first earns the ire of Kylo Ren in the Jakku village by refusing the massacre order, then escaping the Star Destroyer with Poe Dameron. The Shadow turns the tables on Takodana, though, with Kylo Ren absconding with Rey before Finn can intervene. At Starkiller Base they finally face off in combat, the Hero wielding the weapon the Shadow covets.

 

Archetypically, Finn is Rey's guardian, tasked by the Force to point her towards her destiny. But Finn can be overprotective in his intention to protect Rey. At times, Finn is Rey's Threshold Guardian, acting as an obstacle towards her achieving her goals. At other times, Finn is Rey's Guardian Protector, shielding her from danger. The Threshold Guardian is selfish, the Guardian Protector is selfless. Finn is not malicious in his actions as Guardian Protector or Threshold Guardian, but sometimes holding someone back canbe a hindrance; sometimes holding someone back can prevent that person from growing up, developing, or achieving their goals, or meeting their destiny; and holding someone back can serve as protection against probable harm. 

 

Above all else, Star Wars deals in parallels and in archetypes in order to navigate plot and story. This all started with George Lucas’s interest in the works of Joseph Campbell, and Campbell’s application of the works of Carl Jung.

 

Joseph Campbell was a devoted acolyte of analytical psychologist Carl Jung. Campbell’s 1949 book, The Hero With a Thousand Faces, describes the monomyth, the path a hero takes, encompassing moments of rejection, acceptance, challenges, defeat and triumph, in seventeen stages that culminate the hero’s journey. Campbell came to his conclusions by combining what he'd learned about Greek and Roman classical mythologies with Jung's studies on the collective unconscious. 

 

According to Bibisco.com, “Jung defined the collective unconscious as a reservoir of shared experiences, symbols, and archetypes inherited and universally present in all individuals. The collective unconscious is characterized by its symbolic nature. It communicates through archetypes, universal patterns, or symbols representing fundamental human experiences and emotions. These archetypes are deeply ingrained in our psyche and influence our thoughts, behaviors, and perceptions. Jung believed that the collective unconscious played a significant role in both personal and cultural development. Individually, accessing the collective unconscious can lead to self-discovery, personal growth, and the integration of various aspects of the self.” 

 

According to ScienceDirect.com, “Jung defined the collective unconscious as a species-typical repository of ancestral history and memory accumulated over evolutionary time. Comprising the collective unconscious are an array of archetypes— categories of objects, people, and situations that have existed across evolutionary time.” 

 

On the Spike Fraser blog, Alexander Martin wrote a concise, compact “Jungian Analysis on Star Wars.” 

 

Martin writes:

 

In 1977 George Lucas’ Star Wars was released in cinemas and is now recognised as one of the most successful and influential franchises in motion picture history. One of the reasons for Lucas’ success was his ability to tell a story that is both familiar and at the same time completely new. He did this by using common themes that occur throughout history and across cultures in a story that was set “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.”

 

At this point, you might be confused about how the subjects of the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung and Star Wars overlap… well; Carl Jung was a huge influence on Joseph Campbell, who went on to influence George Lucas.

 

Knowing this we can examine the common themes through the eyes of Carl Jung, who would refer to them as archetypes. Jung believed that these archetypes existed in our unconscious and by learning to integrate our conscious mind and unconscious mind we gain clarity of who we are. He would also relate the issues of his patients to mythologies in order to get a better understanding, meaning in reverse we can use analytical psychology to get a better understanding of modern mythologies, such as Star Wars.

 

If we focus on the original trilogy, the most obvious archetype is ‘The Hero’, found in our protagonist Luke Skywalker. I’m sure we’ve all heard stories of the brave hero that slays the dragon and rescues the princess. Luke’s quest could be transferred onto pretty much any hero you’ve ever heard of.

 

The second archetype, ‘The Shadow’ appears in both Luke’s companion Han Solo, and his estranged father Darth Vader. The shadow is the part of our unconscious that embodies all of our most undesirable traits, and until we learn to integrate them into our day to day life we will never be complete. Han is shown as Luke’s shadow through his arrogance, his ability as a fighter and worldliness; whereas the protagonist starts his journey as an unassuming, naive young man who can’t fight. Although in the case of Darth Vader, the antagonist, we can see a much harsher, angrier and animalistic figure with a lot of similarities to Luke.

 

Darth Vader is also a great example of what happens when you try to run from ‘The Shadow’, as he was once a good man who wanted to do nothing but protect the love of his life in a way that he couldn’t protect his mother. This eventually drove him to darkness, resulting in him murdering the woman he only wanted to protect (as well as loads of little kids in a temple).

 

Side note: the connection between Darth Vader's mother and his lover could be explained by Sigmund Freud’s Oedipus complex. The collaborator of Carl Jung believed that all men wanted to have sex with their mothers and kill their fathers… which in a way he kind of did if you blame his immaculate conception on ‘The Force’.

 

Back to business; the second archetype is ‘The Anima/Animus’, which can be seen in Star Wars through Princess Leia. This archetype differs depending on your gender; if you are a man you have an Anima that represents your feminine side, and if you are a woman you have an Animus that represents your masculine side. This archetype is often seen at first as an object of sexual desire; but you accept the Anima as a guide, and in the case of Luke his twin sister (disgusting I know), you become a step closer to your goal.

 

Leia works as a guide to Luke to assist him on his journey to find another archetype which is ‘The Senex’, characters that often take the form of an old man and play the role of a teacher. With the help of Leia, Luke finds his teacher in Obi-Wan and eventually Yoda.

 

By learning to embrace all of these archetypes Luke becomes a ‘Jedi Master’ and puts an end to ‘The Empire’. This is a metaphor for unification between the conscious and unconscious mind.

 

It’s important to keep in mind that Jung believed that there are as many archetypes as there are situations in life, so it would be impossible for a series of films to cover all of them.

 

A blogger on Tumblr (ms-qualia-deactivated20160903), placing The Force Awakens under the Jungian microscope, observed: 

 

I think Rey is the main protagonist, Finn the Deuteragonist, and Kylo Ren the Antagonist.

 

Rey, Finn, and Kylo Ren are each being given full character arcs.  That is, no one character’s development is going to be made secondary to anyone else’s.

 

Joseph Campbell’s work (including monomyth) was taking Jung and applying it to literary analysis instead of psychology.  Its application fits a whole lot better in literary analysis anyway.

 

The influence of Joseph Cambell’s monomyth on the original Star Wars trilogy cannot be overstated.

 

Campbell took Jung’s model of the human psyche and the role of fiction in it as given.  He talks about ego consciousness, anima/ animus, archetypes— all of that is from Jung.

 

Carl Jung is maybe the second great historical figure in psychology after Freud.  His hypotheses have mostly been discredited as actual explanations for why people behave how they behave.  His key observations and assumptions, however, have not been discredited.  They are, based on my own reading of him:

 

1. People are not particularly aware of what they are doing and why

1a. This includes healthy people

1b.  Truly miserable people tend to be exceptionally unaware

1c. Babies and small children don’t really differentiate between themselves, other people, and their surroundings; that develops over time

 

2.  Fiction and myth play a vital role in helping people contextualize their experiences

2a.  Fiction and myth across cultures seem to follow very broad patterns

2b. Fiction and myth are a valid means of transmitting experience and knowledge, and may even be the best medium for transmitting knowledge like culture or empathy

 

3. People are on a personal journey toward becoming whole over their lifetimes; they are at least seeking wholeness even if they don’t all achieve it.

3a. There seem to be very broad commonalities in human development. 

 

All of these observations have withstood studies and time.  Even his beliefs about fiction and myth ended up being subsumed into other fields as psychology went a more empirical direction.  That’s not a bad record.  That’s why we still talk about him at all as a psychologist, that’s why he’s relevant to comparative literature.

 

Jung believed that we start out as mostly unconscious, existing but not self-aware.  We don’t differentiate between ourselves and others.   He explained our ability to function at all (having skills like the ability to suckle, smile all that) as having access to a pool of knowledge called the collective unconscious.  He believed that we become whole by the process of individuation.  Individuation is the process of becoming more aware and whole and pulling away from the collective unconscious by differentiating what is and is not our self.  

 

He thinks as part of our inherited ancestral knowledge, there are tools, called archetypes, which help us pull away from and reconcile with our unconscious minds.  

 

According to Jung, we tend to personify archetypes.  We tend to see them in dreams as people, or project those qualities onto people in our lives.

 

Also, it’s not super clear whether he believes the collective unconscious actually exists, whether Archetypes exist (like with minor gods) or whether this is all just a metaphor.  It’s not clear whether that even matters to Jung.

 

I don’t recommend treating Jung as a guy who accurately represents the human psyche.  But I do recommend it as fiction about fiction.  It’s a story about how stories work, which can help you understand stories, which can help you understand yourself.

 

Pretty trippy.

 

From here out, I’m not going to disclaim that this is all bullshit, but useful bullshit.

 

Archetype 0: The Self

 

First, think of this as a kind of hero’s journey.  What starts out making that journey?  The ego.  But the end goal is a whole, integrated Self, one that has agency, one that is on good terms with their unconscious mind.

 

The Self is what is making the journey.  In the Original Trilogy, this’d be Luke.  In The Force Awakens, it’s Rey.

 

Important to remember for the trilogy: names are symbols of the Self.

 

The First Archetype:  The Persona

 

Persona means mask.  One of the first things we do when we individuate is we develop a strategy for dealing with the outside world: a persona.  We figure out we are not the same as our parents, and so we have to develop a way of getting things from them and from other people as our social sphere expands outwards.

 

The Second Archetype: The Shadow

 

The Shadow is part of the unconscious self.  It is not part of the collective unconscious, it is a part of our personal unconsciousness.  It is the rejected aspects of our own personality.  What we are ashamed of, what is repressed.

 

So sexuality is often tired up in the shadow.  The woods, caves, wilderness, all that is sort of archetypically shadow.  We may also project traits we don’t acknowledge in ourselves onto others.

 

The end goal is to recognize that the Shadow is part of you without identifying with it.

 

In the OT, Luke’s vision in the Dark Side cave on Tatooine is classic Jungian imagery.  It’s in a cave.  It’s the struggle [against the] other.  It’s a warning that violence to Vader is violence to himself.   Also, broken mask, as an indication [that] Vader is a Persona and not what he appears to be.

 

The Third Archetype: Anima / Animus

 

Once the Shadow, the representative of the individual unconsciousness, has been dealt with, it’s time to deal with the representative of the collective unconsciousness.  This is called the transcendent function.  It is usually the opposite sex of the Self (for a man the Anima, for a woman the Animus).  The Anima is usually represented as a single woman, but for women it is usually different men.

 

It is the most autonomous; that is, it is the most represented in dreams and the most projected onto other things and people.  Instead of unhealthily demonized as with the Shadow, The Anima / Animus often (but not always) unhealthily idealized.  It is also often acted out as an intense opposite sex relationship, like a romance or mentorship.There are four stages of the relationship to the transcendent function:

 

1. Eve or the Man of Mere Physical Power

 

Woman or man as object of desire without much personal development.  Powerfully attractive but perceived very shallowly and in a very sexualized and gendered way.

 

2. Helen or The Man of Action or Romance

 

Perceived as capable of autonomous action, capable of being successful and competent, but lacking any substantial virtue.  Worthy of conquest, but not respect.

 

3. The Virgin Mary or Man of Legitimate Authority (Priest, Teacher, Politician)

 

Capable of agency, substance and virtue, but over-idealized and not recognized as part of the self.  Rey arguably rejects Kylo Ren offering himself as this aspect of the Animus in her understanding of the Force.  This should probably be understood as saying much more about him and how he perceives her than it does about Rey.

 

4. Sophia or Man as Helpful Guide to Self-Understanding

 

Capable of imparting wisdom.  Possesses both positive and negative qualities, which the Self accepts.  Accepted and understood as part of the self, and used as a correspondent between the Self and the collective unconscious.

 

This final stage of the Anima/ Animus development is the final stage of healthy individuation.  It is often symbolized in fiction as a marriage or a reconciliation.

 

I think The Force Awakens is about the first steps of individuation, particularly on the theme of Persona.

 

Finn’s unmasking is classic healthy individuation from the Persona.  He goes from unconscious to having a crisis: living as a social role is failing him.  So Finn individuates, he rebels, he unmasks, and in recognition of that he gains a name.

 

Kylo Ren has a classic unhealthy struggle with his Persona.  I believe he even projects his Persona onto his grandfather’s mask.  I think he arguably individuates when he drops his mask and chooses to kill Han as himself.

 

Rey is more subtle.  She drops her tough survivor persona in favor of being vulnerable and forming healthy attachments to people around her.  There are some indications Rey is a name she herself chose as well.

 

I think the struggle with the Shadow is set up but not resolved for any one of them in the Starkiller lightsaber fight.  Rey calls Kylo Ren a “monster,” which is super classic to what you’d call your own Shadow.  Kylo Ren calls Finn a traitor.  They have their fight in the woods, which couldn’t scream Shadow louder unless they had it in a freaking cave.  And they already used a cave in the prequels, so the woods it is.

 

I think Kylo Ren is acting as Rey’s and Finn’s Shadow in that final duel.  I think Ren sees Finn (and not Rey) as his Shadow.  However, a physical defeat is not necessarily the work they need to be doing psychologically.  If the defeat represented a rejection of their Shadows, then nothing’s been resolved.  There must be a recognition that the Shadow is the self without identifying with it.

 

I think Ren is not treating Rey as his Shadow. I think he sees her as Anima.  He sees her as capable.  He doesn’t demonize her the way he does Finn.  He offers himself to her as a teacher.  The freaking bridal carry.  He is projecting Anima onto her so hard.  And he may come to see her as important to his understanding of the Force.

 

I don’t think Kylo Ren’s evolution and actualization as a person will necessarily mean his redemption.  There’s a lot they can do with it.  They can have Kylo Ren and Rey evolve in parallel, equally valid.  They can have his evolution and self-actualization be a dark mockery of hers.  They can portray his self-actualization as frustrated and incomplete.  Just because it’s monomyth doesn’t mean there’s only one way to go about it.

 

In conclusion, ms-qualia speculated on the trajectory of the as yet unreleased second and third entries in the sequel trilogy:

 

The Trilogy will focus on individuation, with VII focusing on Persona, VIII on Shadow, and IX on Anima/ Animus.

 

The end of VIII will be a revelation that Kylo Ren is somehow similar in nature to Rey, and she will be presented with the choice to identify with him as Shadow, reject him, or individuate (accept the similarity, but refuse to identify with him).  A story involves a journey from one place to another.  Since [Rey] already rejects him, identification (turning to the dark side) or individuation is more likely.

 

If Rey individuates in VIII, then I predict Finn will reject.  Rey will be standing in the gap of a big “good” versus “evil” war in IX and making reconciliation between the two by kicking their asses.  She will save both Ren and Finn (and the galaxy) in this scenario.

 

If Rey falls, then Finn will recognize Rey as like himself, but reject what she has chosen, thereby individuating.  IX will then be him saving either Kylo Ren or Rey, but maybe not both.

 

In the same way VII set up the Shadow conflict with the Starkiller duel, VIII will end with a kiss or (something like it) to set up the Anima / Animus conflict of IX.  The kiss won’t be between people on the same side.

 

IX will end in a marriage (figurative or literal) between people who were on opposite sides if the ending is happy or a funeral if it is not.  I’m gonna guess marriage. 

 

Certain predictions ms-qualia makes are more or less right on the money. 

 

In The Last Jedi, Kylo and Rey discover they share a bond, and Rey is “presented with the choice to identify with him as Shadow, reject him, or individuate,” when Kylo kills Snoke, extends his hand to Rey, and offers to share universal rule with her by his side. 

 

In The Rise of Skywalker, Rey does “stand in the gap of a war between good and evil,” and does wind up saving Ren in that scenario, contributing to Ren's return to the light. Ben Solo reciprocates by passing his lifeforce to Rey to do what his grandfather Anakin only wished he could do: save someone from death. 

 

The kiss ms-qualia predicts will happen in The Last Jedi occurs in The Rise of Skywalker, and it is given in joyful celebration of Ben’s return to the light. 

 

The marriage ms-qualia predicts will happen is figurative, and is represented by the Force dyad. 

 

In the documentary The Skywalker Legacy, covering the production of The Rise of Skywalker, co-writer Chris Terrio sets the record straight:

 

“Right from Episode VII, from the scene in which Rey is interrogated by Kylo Ren, it was clear that they have a connection, that they can understand each other, that they can literally read each other’s minds. They’re made uncomfortable by it and yet they’re both drawn to each other. What we wanted to do was complicate that and say actually their connection is deeper than that. We began talking about them as a mythic concept, which is in Joseph Campbell, which is the mythic dyad–that they’re two parts of the same whole.”

 

At Star Wars Personalities, blogger and published author Marissa Martin writes about Myers-Briggs type personalities in the Star Wars universe. Mother and daughter researchers Katherine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers, guided by Carl Jung's 1921 book Psychological Types, conceived the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator in the early 1940s to classify a person into sixteen specific personality or psychological behavioral types. 

 

The TrueYou Journal on Truity.com further explains:

 

(Katherine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers) landed on four key dimensions that people could express as preferences in the way they manage their energy, process information, make decisions, and structure their day-to-day lives. Each of these preferences is represented by a letter, and together these preferences, denoted by four letters, make up your Myers Briggs personality type. 

 

The Myers-Briggs personality types include:

 

INFP (The Healer): INFPs are imaginative idealists, guided by their own core values and beliefs. To a Healer, possibilities are paramount; the reality of the moment is only of passing concern. They see potential for a better future, and pursue truth and meaning with their own flair.

 

INTJ (The Mastermind): INTJs are analytical problem-solvers, eager to improve systems and processes with their innovative ideas. They have a talent for seeing possibilities for improvement, whether at work, at home, or in themselves.

 

INFJ (The Counselor): INFJs are creative nurturers with a strong sense of personal integrity and a drive to help others realize their potential. Creative and dedicated, they have a talent for helping others with original solutions to their personal challenges. INTP (The Architect): INTPs are philosophical innovators, fascinated by logical analysis, systems, and design. They are preoccupied with theory, and search for the universal law behind everything they see. They want to understand the unifying themes of life, in all their complexity.

 

ENFP (The Champion): ENFPs are people-centered creators with a focus on possibilities and a contagious enthusiasm for new ideas, people and activities. Energetic, warm, and passionate, ENFPs love to help other people explore their creative potential.

 

ENTJ (The Commander): ENTJs are strategic leaders, motivated to organize change. They are quick to see inefficiency and conceptualize new solutions, and enjoy developing long-range plans to accomplish their vision. They excel at logical reasoning and are usually articulate and quick-witted.

 

ENTP (The Visionary): ENTPs are inspired innovators, motivated to find new solutions to intellectually challenging problems. They are curious and clever, and seek to comprehend the people, systems, and principles that surround them.

 

ENFJ (The Innovator): ENFJs are idealist organizers, driven to implement their vision of what is best for humanity. They often act as catalysts for human growth because of their ability to see potential in other people and their charisma in persuading others to their ideas.

 

ISFJ (The Protector): ISFJs are industrious caretakers, loyal to traditions and organizations. They are practical, compassionate, and caring, and are motivated to provide for others and protect them from the perils of life.

 

ISFP (The Composer): ISFPs are gentle caretakers who live in the present moment and enjoy their surroundings with cheerful, low-key enthusiasm. They are flexible and spontaneous, and like to go with the flow to enjoy what life has to offer.

 

ISTJ (The Inspector): ISTJs are responsible organizers, driven to create and enforce order within systems and institutions. They are neat and orderly, inside and out, and tend to have a procedure for everything they do.

 

ISTP (The Craftsperson): ISTPs are observant artisans with an understanding of mechanics and an interest in troubleshooting. They approach their environments with a flexible logic, looking for practical solutions to the problems at hand.

 

ESFJ (The Provider): ESFJs are conscientious helpers, sensitive to the needs of others and energetically dedicated to their responsibilities. They are highly attuned to their emotional environment and attentive to both the feelings of others and the perception others have of them.

 

ESFP (The Performer): ESFPs are vivacious entertainers who charm and engage those around them. They are spontaneous, energetic, and fun-loving, and take pleasure in the things around them: food, clothes, nature, animals, and especially people.

 

ESTJ (The Supervisor): ESTJs are hardworking traditionalists, eager to take charge in organizing projects and people. Orderly, rule-abiding, and conscientious, ESTJs like to get things done, and tend to go about projects in a systematic, methodical way.

 

ESTP (The Dynamo): ESTPs are energetic thrillseekers who are at their best when putting out fires, whether literal or metaphorical. They bring a sense of dynamic energy to their interactions with others and the world around them.

 

Of Finn, Marissa Martin writes:

 

I’ve liked Finn since my first viewing of The Force Awakens. After a quick Google search of how other people are typing him, it looks like most think he’s an FP (Feeling/Perceiving) type. From my perspective, though, he seems very much like an ISFJ. I get where they’re coming from typing him as an FP (since these types are driven by the desire to remain true to their core, authentic self). However, I think he’s more motivated by his past and by his desire to help other people. We’ll see what you think after reading my analysis of him as an ISFJ.

 

Let’s start with the co-pilot function that Finn uses when interacting with the outer world. This is called Extroverted Feeling (abbreviated Fe). One of the criticisms I heard after TFA first came out is that Finn breaks his Stormtrooper conditioning too easily with no explanation. I think his personality type is that explanation.

 

The ISFJs who are soldiers, like Captain America, need something to fight for and want to know they’re protecting people. Finn doesn’t have that as a Stormtrooper. We know from his short story in the book Before The Awakening that Finn has been questioning his place in the First Order for quite some time before the moment where we first see him on-screen. It all starts because of his loyalty to the other troopers in his team, which prompts this comment in a conversation between Phasma and Hux.

 

“FN-2187,” Phasma said, “has the potential to be one of the finest stormtroopers I have ever seen … But his decision to split the fire-team and return for FN-2003 is problematic. It speaks to a potentially . . . dangerous level of empathy.”

 

Fe is a highly empathetic function that’s tuned-in to the needs of other people. Finn starts to question his programming after Phasma tells him not to help FN-2003 again. A short while later Finn’s fire-team goes on their first real mission and he hesitates when asked to fire on a real person. After that, while thinking back on this incident in a training simulation, he realizes this was never a game. Real people — innocent people — are going to die if he does what he’s told. And he knows he can’t live with that.

 

ISFJs are well known for filling protector/guardian roles, especially in fiction. They’re the Samwise Gamgee, John Watson, and Steve Rogers characters who are always there to help a friend and make sure everyone is okay. Finn is not as well-developed in his personality type as these examples (for obvious reasons — poor guy has been brainwashed his whole life), but we can still see him embracing this role.

 

In Before The Awakening, he considers losing a sparing match to an injured friend until he realizes the next person that FN-2003 fights might not be careful of his injury. Only when he realizes he can actually help his friend by winning does FN-2187 defeat him. It’s this friend who dies on Jakku, smearing his bloody hand down Finn’s helmet.

 

As soon as he escapes the First Order, Finn goes right back to trying to keep the people around him safe. He tries to rescue Poe (an ESTP) from the crashed ship, only to discover the pilot was nowhere to be found. Once Finn finds Nima Outpost, he immediately rushes over to help Rey when locals attack her (though she defeats them before he can help). Even after she beats him up thinking he killed BB-8’s master, the first thing he does when he realizes the First Order has arrived is grab her hand and try to get her to safety. Rey doesn’t much appreciate that, but she does seem somewhat impressed/surprised when his first thought after he got knocked out in an explosion is to ask, “Are you okay?”

 

Now let’s talk about the dominant/driver process of an ISFJ personality type. They use Introverted Sensing (Si), which is learning/perceiving process. This is the mental function they’re using to come up with ideas about how the world works. Si types take in direct, real-world sensory experiences, then filter those impressions through the lens of their past experiences.

 

SJs (Sensing/Judging people) are usually most comfortable sticking with what they know and following the established tradition. It’s no surprise that the book Before The Awakening says in the opening chapter that everyone except FN-2187 thought he as a model Stormtrooper at first. Outwardly he appeared “loyal, dutiful, brave, smart, and strong.” Those are all ISFJ traits. But these types also have a well-developed sense of right and wrong. As much as Finn wants to trust the authority, he just can’t accept what they’re doing.

 

I’m sure the scene in TFA where Finn confronts Phasma, his former commander, had many ISTJS and ISFJs cheering inwardly. Hell hath no furry like an ISFJ has toward a trusted system that failed to work. 

 

As is normal for ISFJ types, Finn bases his perceptions of the future on what’s he’s known in the past. This is one of the best clues that he is not an INFJ type — Si pulls from memory when making decisions while Intuition would look more at the future possibilities.

 

ISFJs and ISTJs have Extroverted Intuition (Ne) as their inferior function. According to Naomi Quenk in her book Was That Really Me? the inferior function, which causes stress, “seems to color the everyday personality” of these two types. They are typically seen as worriers. Finn shows this side of the ISFJ personality more than other ISFJs in Star Wars (like Obi-Wan Kenobi and Rose Tico).

 

Finn reacts to stress for much of the first film by running away. Everything he knows about the First Order tells him that’s the only way to respond if he’s going to be free of them. But once he starts to experience other people standing up to the First Order successfully, he incorporates the possibility of resistance into his world view. And he discovers there are people he can fight for with a clear conscience — a new family to take care of. 

 

Finn’s character arc in The Last Jedi starts with him (apparently) running away again. This time, he’s doing it to save Rey. And he proves that Rose’s initial characterization of him as a resistance hero is becoming true by agreeing to a new plan, which they hope will save more lives,, and handing Rey’s beacon to Poe. Finn is becoming the type of character who will sacrifice for the greater good.

 

We also get to see his tertiary Introverted Thinking (Ti) at work for the first time as he and Rose (another ISFJ) problem-solve together. Their plan doesn’t work-out very well, but it makes sense to them and that’s what matters to Ti (this is a personal, subjective version of the Thinking function, which relies on impersonal criteria for decision making).

 

They soon switch back to their preferred mode of making decisions through the Fe lens of “how will this affect other people?” Finn orders DJ to give back Rose’s necklace because he knows how much losing it will affect her. He doesn’t react very strongly to DJ’s betrayal until the First Order starts firing on the transports (therefore hurting other people). He’s the one who makes an inspiring speech in the cave on Crait. And he tries his best to sacrifice himself for the greater good. He’s learning to be a hero, which is a nice complement to Poe’s arc as he grows from hero into a leader.

 

While Finn has been criticized for just being around to scream Reyyy!!! at the top of his lungs, what he's really doing is asserting his protective impulse – his Force-influenced protective impulse – on his charge. Throughout the sequels, there is a constant push and pull going on, as he shifts between Threshold Guardian and Guardian Protector, as Finn’s need to protect Rey can be seen as a help or a hindrance; both symptoms of Finn’s emotional bond with Rey. 

 

On Takodana, Finn refuses his call to adventure. He pleads with Rey to run away with him. Feeling obligated to BB-8 to help complete the droid's mission, she turns Finn down. Leaving Rey in Han Solo's care, Finn books passage on a mercenary transport to avoid capture by the First Order. When the First Order invades Takodana and Kylo Ren abducts Rey, those protective impulses kick back in, he accepts his call to adventure, and he volunteers to help the Resistance in order to rescue Rey. 

 

He lies to Han about his clearance on Starkiller Base only so he can tag along to save Rey.

 

His role in the mission to Canto Bight is also meant to protect Rey – he's running away this time to prevent Rey from being ambushed by the First Order once she returns to the fleet. 

 

When Finn rushes over to Rey during her oceanic lightsaber duel against Kylo Ren on Kef Bir, Rey Force pushes Finn away. This demonstrates Rey's graduation, fully capable with her Force-sensitive skills, no longer requiring a guardian. Not only is she refusing Finn’s help, Rey is now protecting Finn. Finn has a continuous drive in him to want to protect Rey, but Rey is finally in control of her own destiny; and Finn realizes later, the wider galaxy needs help more. Like Yoda tried to teach Anakin before everything turned to chaos, “You must learn to let go of everything you fear to lose.” Samwise had to let go of Frodo at the end of Return of the King. And Finn had to let go of Rey in The Rise of Skywalker.

 

Of Rey, Marissa Martin writes:

 

When we first saw trailers for The Force Awakens, I was hoping the new character Rey would be an NT (Intuitive/Thinking) type. There are so few women of those types in fiction, especially as “light side” characters. It turns out, though, that she’s an amazing example of the ISTJ personality type, which is also one you don’t see very often in fictional women.

 

Rey is often typed as an ISFP or, less often, as an ISTP. These typing come from the assumption that because she’s so comfortable in the physical world and with physical activity she must be an Extroverted Sensing (Se) type. I’ll address that claim when I talk about her Sensing preference. But the main reason ISFP is such a common typing is because people see Introverted Feeling (Fi) in her function stack. This is also a function that ISTJs use.

 

While SP (Self-Preservation) types are the ones usually cast as action heroes. SJs can certainly learn physical skills if need be. They may be inward-focused, but they’re still in tune with the physical world. They also have a good sense of self, which definitely helps Rey with her physically demanding life on Jakku. And her Force sensitivity gives her an advantage in learning combat skills. Obi-Wan Kenobi (an ISFJ) and Mace Windu (an ESTJ) are two other examples of SJ-type Force users.

 

Introverted Sensing (Si) relies on memories of past events, experiences, and learned facts to process what’s going on. These types filter their lives through what has already happened to them. They learn and process new information through the lens of their pasts. And they also prefer to take in new information from the physical world. That’s why Rey tries to interact with the Force in The Last Jedi by literally reaching her hand out and expects to feel it as a physical sensation.

 

The fact that Rey stayed so long on Jakku also says SJ type to me, as does her hesitancy to move forward into the unknown. When confronted with opportunities an Intuitive would likely find fascinating or an SP type would have found exhilarating, she simply wants to go home. Being swept up into the Resistance upsets the established order of her world and forces her to confront the fact that the story she’s built around herself (that her parents will come back) isn’t true.

 

“Of all the types, ISTJ is the most driven to fulfill its role in society.” — Personality Hacker

 

“I need someone to show me my place in all this.” — Rey, The Last Jedi

 

In The Force Awakens, Maz Kanata tells Rey that the belonging she seeks is ahead of her, not behind. For Rey, this search for belonging isn’t just about finding her family. It’s about finding what she’s meant to do. Even more than needing to belong to someone, Rey needs to feel that she belongs to something and somewhere. She wants to have a place in the galaxy.

 

I think this is one of the reasons why Ben Solo’s pitch for her to join him in ruling the galaxy fell short. He read her as someone seeking connection, like he is as an ENFJ type. But being told that she means something to him even though she has “no place in this story” wasn’t enough for her. She knows who she is now and how she fits. She is a Jedi.

 

Yoda (an INFJ), Luke, and even Snoke see that Rey has “the spirit of a true Jedi.” She’s what the Force brought up to balance out the darkness in Ben Solo. That’s her place in all this and, like any ISTJ, once she knows what she’s meant to do and where she belongs she’s driven to fill that role.

 

So we’ve talked about an ISTJ’s driver process, which is Introverted Sensing. Now let’s talk about her co-pilot process, Extroverted Thinking (Te). It’s a judging processes, which means she uses it when making decisions. Te is also the one she uses most when interacting with the outer world.

 

Te is a mental process that Personality Hacker nicknames “Effectiveness.” This is the part of her mind Rey’s using when she’s repairing the Falcon and starts to lose patience with Finn’s incompetence (“No, the one I’m pointing to”). She also doesn’t need credit for saving Finn from the rathtars. Explaining would be inefficient, so she just says, “That was lucky” and they move on to the immediate need to escape.

 

Her focus on Effectiveness scares Luke when she arrives on his island in The Last Jedi. She’s willing to give both the Dark and Light a chance to show her the answers she’s looking for. Rey wants to measure and test things for herself, as any TJ type would. She’s a problem-solver, and she’s going to find the most effective way to make something work.

 

Rey balances out her Introverted Sensing and Extroverted Thinking with a well-developed tertiary Introverted Feeling (Fi) process. Fi users place a high value on authenticity. They’re always checking their decisions against the question, “What feels right to me?”

 

This is why Rey doesn’t sell BB-8 to Unkar Plutt, even though trading the droid for food would have been logical. It’s how she’s able to get past judging Ben Solo’s actions and demanding explanations for his conduct, and start connecting with his authentic self. It’s the part of her that holds on to hope and, immediately after defeating Snoke’s praetorian guard, demands that Ben do the right thing by stopping the attack on the fleet.

 

Rey balances her Te emphasis on doing what’s logical with her Fi perspective that she must always do what’s right. And she doesn’t understand why Luke Skywalker (who leads with Fi as an INFP) can’t do the same thing. She’s constantly trying to wake up his hope and lead him back to who she thinks he should be. But he’s trapped in an Fi-Si loop and blinded by being “in the grip” of his stress-function, Extroverted Thinking (more on that when I write a post for him).

 

ISTJ types have Extroverted Intuition (Ne) as their inferior function. For most types, the inferior function shows up when they’re under stress, but ISTJ types tend to come across as being constantly worried. This is because Ne deals with exploring future possibilities. Since it’s a blind-spot for ISTJ types, they’re uncomfortable with the idea of an uncertain future.

 

We don’t see this tendency to worry show up very much in Rey’s character. Her life on Jakku made living with hardship and danger a normal thing and she had to learn to rely on herself. But when that life is turned up-side-down, that’s when she struggles. She wants to get back to Jakku even though she already knows no one’s ever coming back for her. She won’t imagine a different future until she’s forced to. And even then she runs from Maz into the woods, trying to flee the unknown.

 

Once Rey connects with the Force, though, the unknown doesn’t scare her as much. She has something reliable to ground herself in. Some people who type Star Wars characters think the Force is something that only Intuitive characters can have. But for Rey and other Sensing-type Jedi, the Force is as observable and sensory as anything else in the universe. She describes her vision of Ben’s future as real and solid, as solid as seeing Luke standing there before her.

 

I’m excited to see how Rey’s journey plays-out in the next Episode. She’s such a well-balanced character with a strong, healthy sense of self. I love her as a role-model for young people and I feel like she’s carrying on the Skywalker legacy ideologically even though there’s no blood relation.

 

Now let's go back to that match cut. 

 

Amy Richau makes deeper observations on our introduction to Rey in her piece, "How Rey's Introduction in The Force AwakensTells Its Own Story," at StarWars.Com:

 

Directors only have one chance to introduce characters in a film and make a first impression. Darth Vader was introduced to audiences boldly walking through a cloud of smoke surrounded by stormtroopers at attention with dramatic music as his accompaniment. Queen Amidala was introduced as an image on a screen sitting imposingly in a dramatic royal gown and makeup. Whether it’s a well-known protagonist like the third appearance of Han Solo in Return of the Jedi, or an entirely new hero to the Star Wars universe like Rey in The Force Awakens, character introductions can be be anything from a hint of what’s to come, to intentionally misleading, to completely inconsequential.

 

Here’s a look at the introduction of Rey in The Force Awakens from the very first shot to her entire introductory sequence.

 

The first shot of Rey in The Force Awakens comes shortly before the 11-minute mark. This brief shot is the beginning of a sequence a bit over four minutes long that focuses almost exclusively on Rey -- an unusual choice for a Star Wars film.

 

In this first shot Rey is covered up, including goggles that cover her eyes. It’s impossible to know at this point if this character is male/female, human/alien, old/young, good/bad.

 

This shot is the second part of a classic match cut The Force Awakens director J.J. Abrams chose to use here. The scene right before Rey’s introduction shows a very upset Finn gasping for breath after witnessing (but not participating in) the massacre at Jakku. At the end of the scene he puts back on his blood stained First Order helmet and the closeup of this helmet cuts to the first shot of Rey in her goggles (with a very quick shot of the starry sky in between).

 

The juxtaposition of a close-up of a character in a helmet with large black eye-shields with another character with goggles of a similar shape covering their eyes is an interesting editorial choice. It’s visually appealing to match the composition of shots in this way, but Abrams is also linking the characters with this transition.

 

Previous Star Wars characters who have covered their faces have almost always been bad guys, from Darth Vader to Boba Fett to Tusken Raiders. These masks are regularly used a sign of strength and intimidation of other characters as well as, in Darth Vader’s case, a mechanism for survival. The opening 10 minutes of The Force Awakens is filled with notable characters that are shown in masks, including Finn, Captain Phasma, and Kylo Ren.

 

Finn and Rey both use their “masks” only as temporary means of survival in The Force Awakens. Here Finn’s helmet serves as a mask that hides Finn’s horror of what his life has become. It can also be seen even as a form of restraint Finn will need to escape from if he wants to avoid more killings. But why does Rey have her face covered?

 

Perhaps the filmmakers were simply looking for a visual way to link Finn and Rey and to foreshadow the duo teaming up later on in the film. Abrams also may have chosen this form of introduction to simply increase the mystery of who Rey is with audiences. If we can’t even get a good look at the character, it’s harder to make any snap judgments about her. Will Rey have an immediate conflict to overcome like Finn’s character has on his hands? Is Rey’s “mask” hiding something about her? Rey’s introduction is orchestrated in a way that doesn’t offer simple or easy answers to these questions which makes it all the more intriguing to take a closer look at this sequence. (Plus, Rey's goggles come from an old stormtrooper helmet, which is just rad.)

 

To further the mystery of Rey’s identity, there isn’t any music in the first few shots to give us a hint about her character. The audience only hears what Rey is hearing -- a cabinet opening, the sounds of her sliding down a rope, Rey’s feet landing on the ground, etc.

 

What’s clear in these first few shots is that Rey isn’t lost, in need of rescue, or just stumbled upon her surroundings.  Rey knows what she’s doing as her actions (quickly finding and removing a part of the ship) show a sense of purpose and know-how. Rey is dressed appropriately for this sandy environment as well, and is well outfitted with goggles, flashlight, and what appears to be a weapon on her back. From the very beginning Rey is shown to be a skilled survivor and completely independent of others.

 

Once Rey is outside the wreckage of the Star Destroyer she has been exploring and removes her goggles, “Rey’s Theme” begins to play. This is the same moment that Rey is revealed to be a human female to audiences. J.J. Abrams described Rey’s unmasking in The Force Awakens commentary as “a fun way to introduce Rey, not knowing if she were human or not -- male or female -- and then, sort of Lawrence of Arabia-style, the headdress comes down and you reveal this beautiful young woman."

 

Star Wars films are known for dramatic musical scores bursting with energy and drama (think the Star Wars "Main Theme" or the "Imperial March") so it’s notable that Rey’s Theme, especially at the beginning, starts out and remains mostly soft and understated. The dominant instrument audiences hear is a lilting flute. The music slowly builds as we follow Rey, now on her speeder, from the Star Destroyer wreckage to the Jakku village, and then to her home.

 

John Williams described "Rey’s Theme" as having “a musical grammar that is not heroic in the sense of a hero’s theme. It’s kind of an adventure theme that maybe promises more than resolving itself in the most major triumphant resolutions.”

 

The melodic and even mellow tones in "Rey’s Theme" hint to the audience that Rey is not a threat, she is someone the audience should trust and empathize with. The piece never builds to a dramatic conclusion as Williams mentioned, but instead leads the audience along a path to discover who the character of Rey is -- where is she going? Who is with her in this desert world? Why is she here?

 

As the sequence continues we see that Rey doesn’t have a family, friends, or a sense of community on Jakku. She also isn’t defined by her connections to the Resistance or the First Order (yet).

 

Rey doesn’t even really have an occupation that would give her a connection to previously identified Star Wars groups. Other Star Wars characters have been moisture farmers, smugglers, bounty hunters, or senators. Rey is a scavenger. Her job is to survive. Even though Rey is a new and unique character in the Star Wars universe, Abrams and the production designers surrounded her with familiar Star Wars vehicles and locations such as Star Destroyers, X-Wings, and a desert village filled with a menagerie of aliens and creatures.

 

While Rey’s surroundings are somewhat familiar to Star Wars fans, Rey’s isolation is in sharp contrast to two other Star Wars characters that were also introduced in remote desert worlds -- Luke Skywalker and Anakin Skywalker.

 

Luke had Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru in A New Hope. Anakin had his mother Shmi in The Phantom Menace. And both Luke and Anakin had a community of friends and supporters in their remote worlds.

 

Compare the friendly chat Anakin has with the old woman, Jira, in The Phantom Menace to the scene in The Force Awakens where Rey glances over to an older woman while they are both washing off spare parts. There are no kind words or even friendly glances from this woman to Rey. Abrams describes this as “a moment where Rey was looking at what her future was going to be” and it’s a depressing (and lonely) future to look at. Dialogue, one of the most basic ways characters connect with each other, is in fact not a part of Rey’s introductory sequence at all, besides an alien yelling at her and a few terse words from Unkar Plutt.

 

Rey’s home, which she goes to after her brief exchange with Unkar, is just as dark as the Star Destroyer she was exploring at the beginning of her sequence. In both locations light only comes in from holes in the walls. It’s so dark in Rey’s dwelling that only a few of her belongings can be seen clearly including a worn out doll and a simple bowl for her food. Audiences can tell from these personal touches -- and the wall filled with hundreds of marks on it -- that this is Rey’s home, but it looks and feels much more like a temporary shelter than a true home.

 

Many visual clues after Rey leaves her home to sit and have some food point to a future for Rey far beyond her current circumstances, off this planet and in the midst of a battle between the Resistance and the First Order. The shot of Rey sitting and eating outside her home is followed by a wide shot of the sky with a barely visible ship flying off planet. The next shot of Rey shows her putting on a scavenged X-wing helmet and then a wider shot of Rey reveals that her home is in fact the carcass of an old AT-AT.

 

While Rey putting on the X-wing helmet can be seen as foreshadowing that Rey is a very talented pilot, it's easier to at first see this scene as a sad shot of a young woman dreaming of a way to escape her dire circumstances. Rey is a character the audience can easily latch onto and root for (especially after she rescues BB-8) and this shot of Rey "dressing up" as a pilot is a good example of a director potentially misleading their audience a bit. Is Rey and innocent girl that's waiting for someone to rescue her? You might think that is what Abrams is setting up here, but as Finn and audience members quickly learn, Rey is not a person to be underestimated.

 

So I guess it's about time I confront a big – if not the biggest – issue from sequel detractors, concerning Rey.

 

Do I think Rey is a Mary Sue?

 

My answer, unsurprisingly, I'm sure, is NO.

 

Emphatically no.

 

Absolutely not!

 

Before I get to why not, let's define what a Mary Sue is. 

 

This is how Grammarist.com defines a Mary Sue: 

 

A Mary Sue is a fictional character who is so perfect as to be unrealistic. A Mary Sue is a character who has no weaknesses, who performs heroically and perfectly in every situation. This sort of character is usually considered to be a form of wish-fulfillment on the part of the author, and is a sign of an amateur writer. The term Mary Sue is derived from fan fiction of the 1970s, most specifically, a story called A Trekkie’s Tale. Paula Smith published this story featuring Lieutenant Mary Sue in a fanzine. The term Mary Sue may be used as a noun or an adjective. Note that both Mary and Sue are capitalized, as they are proper nouns. The plural form is Mary Sues, the male form is usually rendered as Gary Stu.

 

And Dictionary.com gets a little more in-depth:

 

Mary Sue is a term used to describe a fictional character, usually female, who is seen as too perfect and almost boring for lack of flaws, originally written as an idealized version of an author in fanfiction.

 

Both the Mary Sue character type and sub-genre originated with “A Trekkie’s Tale,” a short piece of satirical Star Trek fanfiction which famously began, “‘Gee, golly gosh, gloriosky,’ thought Mary Sue as she stepped on the bridge of the Enterprise. ‘Here I am, the youngest lieutenant in the Fleet — only 15 1/2 years old.’”

 

The very short story was written by Paula Smith in 1973 for Menagerie, a Star Trek fanzine for which she was an editor. In a 2011 interview, Smith explained that, as an editor who read a significant amount of Star Trek fanfiction (written by women, in particular), she noticed a pattern of recurring adolescent female characters who were the youngest ever in their Starfleet position, irresistibly yet uniquely attractive, and uncannily talented and capable in every adventure she and the crew dared endeavor.

 

“A Trekkie’s Tale” was written to parody what Smith viewed as a common practice with young writers to perhaps subconsciously write an idealized version of themselves into the story and fail to write the original Star Trek characters accurately as a result of interacting with the author’s unrealistic wish-fulfillment figure. Because the character and story type continued to crop up in fanfiction submissions, Smith and other editors began referring to them as “Lieutenant Mary Sue” stories, and the term Mary Sue quickly caught on with the public.

 

The concept of a Mary Sue has received fair and significantly complex criticism in the decades since the term was coined, with confusion over whether it has become inherently misogynistic to accuse characters of being a Mary Sue or whether it is a legitimate type of literary character. Salon wrote in 2015, “The term Mary Sue is rooted in a long history of dismissing female characters and holding them to absurd double standards,” alluding to the point that identical forms of author-insert or wish-fulfillment with male characters/writers are rarely noticed or called out, while female characters tend to be held to a much higher degree of scrutiny when it comes to believable traits and abilities.

 

As the joke goes: “What do you call a male Mary Sue? … A protagonist.”

 

While writing a Mary Sue is often viewed as an amateur move (and, indeed, Mary Sue is frequently used to simply suggest an overall poorly-written character, regardless of gender), Smith acknowledges that it is possible for author-insertion in works of fiction to be done well. Smith has also agreed with others who claim that writing an autobiographical Mary Sue character/story is an inevitable part of the process for new writers attempting fiction.

 

Although criticism and accusations of writers creating Mary Sue characters/stories have become far more frequent, more defenses have arisen as well. In a lengthy exploration of the term, Elizabeth Minkel writes, “Even detractors admit Mary Sues are about young girls finding their power and agency in a world of fictional landscapes that rarely afford such journeys to women.” In an example of how reclaiming the Mary Sue as author-insertion can be empowering, writer Ash Davis explains how she wrote herself, as a woman of color, into her Lord of the Rings fanfiction: “If there were no black people, I made them. If they were tokens, I made them stars. Mary-Sued the shit out of everything. It didn’t matter, you were gonna see me!” Stories like these and many others illustrate the complexity of the Mary Sue in contemporary fanfiction culture.

 

People tend to associate Mary Sue’s with several character traits. Some have described a Mary Sue almost as a “girl next door”—a character who is near perfect with only slight flaws which make them more endearing. Others focus specifically on characters’ abilities which, if they range too far and are exceptionally strong across the board, tend to define a Mary Sue.

 

Mary Sue has also expanded outside fanfiction to label canonical fictional characters. The main heroine of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Rey, was derided by many as a Mary Sue. Here, Mary Sue is used as a derogatory synonym for any protagonist who is hated or dismissed for their talents and virtues. Harry Potter, Luke Skywalker, and Katniss Everdeen are among other famous characters who’ve been called Mary Sues.

 

Mary Sue is most frequently used as a noun (a Mary Sue) or modifier (a Mary Sue story), although it may also sometimes appear as a verb, to Mary-Sue, meaning “to insert oneself into a fictional story/character.”

 

Male Mary Sues are sometimes called Marty Stu or Gary Stu, often associated with James Bond and Superman.

 

TV Tropes, who I've quoted elsewhere in this series, has this to say concerning Mary Sues:

 

Mary Sue is a derogatory term primarily used in Fan Fic circles to describe a particular type of character. This much everyone can agree on. What that character type is, exactly, differs wildly from circle to circle, and often from person to person.

 

TV Tropes doesn't get to set what the term means; the best we can do is capture the way it is used. Since there's no consensus on a precise definition, the best way to describe the phenomenon is by example of the kind of character pretty much everyone could agree to be a Mary Sue. These traits usually reference the character's perceived importance in the story, their physical design and an irrelevantly over-skilled or over-idealized nature. 

 

The name "Mary Sue" comes from the 1974 Star Trek fanfic A Trekkie's Tale. Originally written as a parody of the standard Self-Insert Fic of the time (as opposed to any particular traits), the name was quickly adopted by the Star Trek fanfiction community. Its original meaning mostly held that it was an Always Female Author Avatar, regardless of character role or perceived quality. Often, the characters would get in a relationship with either Kirk or Spock, turn out to have a familial bond with a crew member, be a Half-Human Hybrid masquerading as a human, and die in a graceful, beautiful way to reinforce that the character was Too Good for This Sinful Earth. (Or space, as the case may be.)

 

Even back then, there wasn't a total consensus on what was or wasn't Mary Sue, since it's not always immediately obvious which character is an Author Avatar. As this essay reveals, suspiciously Mary Sue-like characters were noted in subscriber-submitted articles for 19th-century childrens' magazines, making this trope Older Than You Think.

 

The prototypical Mary Sue is an original female character in a fanfic who obviously serves as an idealized version of the author mainly for the purpose of Wish-Fulfillment. She's exotically beautiful, often having an unusual hair or eye color, and has a similarly cool and exotic name. She's exceptionally talented in an implausibly wide variety of areas, and may possess skills that are rare or nonexistent in the canon setting. She also lacks any realistic, or at least story-relevant, character flaws — either that or her "flaws" are obviously meant to be endearing.

 

She has an unusual and dramatic Back Story. The canon protagonists are all overwhelmed with admiration for her beauty, wit, courage and other virtues, and are quick to adopt her as one of their True Companions, even characters who are usually antisocial and untrusting; if any character doesn't love her, that character gets an extremely unsympathetic portrayal. She has some sort of especially close relationship to the author's favorite canon character — their love interest, illegitimate child, never-before-mentioned sister, etc. Other than that, the canon characters are quickly reduced to awestruck cheerleaders, watching from the sidelines as Mary Sue outstrips them in their areas of expertise and solves problems that have stymied them for the entire series. (See Common Mary Sue Traits for more detail on any of these cliches.)

 

In other words, the term "Mary Sue" is generally slapped on a character who is important in the story, possesses unusual physical traits, and has an irrelevantly over-skilled or over-idealized nature.

 

Over time, a male variant started to see use. Marty Stu (also known as Gary Stu, for those who prefer rhyme to alliteration) wasn't really that much different from Mary. Also an Author Avatar, it usually had implications of being a male crew member that tended to completely outshine established canon members in their roles and often become the best starship captain, ever. See The Ace. Since the female characters of Star Trek were all in secondary roles at best, the relationship angle was generally disregarded as being any sort of qualifier. Because of the not-entirely-unjustified perception that Most Fanfic Writers Are Girls, Marty Stu didn't really catch on for a long time.

 

Originally, the term used to apply exclusively to fanfiction, but by the time of Star Trek: The Next Generation, the term "Canon Sue" started seeing use, applying Author Avatar standards to canon works (most likely inspired by the backlash against Wesley Crusher; even Wil Wheaton has decried the character's obnoxiousness). It was around this time that the term started to lose a concrete meaning, since the label started getting applied even to characters who weren't explicit self-inserts (such as the title character of the episode "The Empath"), but just happened to use similar tropes. It was also (most likely) around this time that the term started to gain its pejorative tone.

 

Finally, the advent of the Internet allowed the term to migrate out of the Star Trek community to most fandoms, losing pretty much any real meaning in the process. There are dozens upon dozens of essays that offer interpretations of what the term means, generally basing it off of some usages of it, but none of them are truly comprehensive or accepted. Using the term in most contexts isn't too far off from Flame Bait, generally provoking the defendant into rants. Much Internet Backdraft has resulted, especially if the term is applied to a canon character on a popular show.

 

These last two paragraphs are why it's so hard to really nail down a definition of "Mary Sue": the term has started to be used in a much wider context, and to mean much wider things, than it once did, and there's no way to figure out which of those characteristics are necessary and sufficient to define a Mary Sue.

 

TV Tropes classifies common Mary Sue traits this way:

 

While Mary Sue is too nebulous to be judged by any hard and fast standard, certain traits have become surprisingly popular in defining what "makes" a Sue. In an effort to make their characters more attractive without having to do the leg work of natural character development, the authors just add some of these superficial traits to their character. Below are the ones that the collective unconscious (so to speak) find especially attractive and end up incorporating into their characters with regularity.

 

With the way the term "Mary Sue" has mutated over time, a great many people just end up labeling any character overdosed with these traits as a Mary Sue regardless of her importance within the story (or because they just don't like the character). That's not necessarily true. Even if a character has quite a number of the traits described below, Mary-Sueness can still be averted by a good enough explanation for why they're there. Some female characters may seem overpowered and a bit "too good to be true" on paper, but when placed in context they can be well-developed, three-dimensional characters. It's when a trait exists more to make somebody stand out than to develop them as a character that it starts going into Mary Sue territory (unless it's for comedic effect). Alternatively, you may feel as if the writer is frantically trying to justify a trait to themselves and the reader.

 

Max Landis was the first person I can remember who referred to Rey as a Mary Sue. He outlined it in a thread on Twitter; preached about it in the movie pundit space and his YouTube channel. It all snowballed after that. The social media space began to parrot it, and this critical opinion took on a life of its own. 

 

While it has become common to accuse anyone deriding Rey as a Mary Sue as a misogynist, I'm willing to accept that not all Rey critics are misogynists. However, I would argue that some, in fact, are. And the irony has not escaped me that the apparent source of this Mary Sue criticism, the one who seems to have gotten the ball rolling, as it were – and a self-described feminist, to boot – was himself accused of multiple allegations of abuse and sexual misconduct. I'm not judging or advocating, that's just what happened. 

 

And, to be fair, let's not forget: film is a subjective medium. Whatever we think about a movie is dependent upon what we bring to it and take away from it: not only our biases, personal feelings, perspectives, emotions, and taste; but also perceptions, opinions, personal experiences, and education. Everything we know, everything we've learned, up to the moment we watch any movie (or read any book, or listen to music, or expose ourselves to any art form, really), plays a role in how we absorb and react to it. That's why we can watch one particular movie, and maybe not connect with it at all, and then watch the same movie several years later, and notice new things in it we never noticed before. Because the movie doesn't change. We change. In the time in between viewings, we've had new experiences, learned new things, maybe even changed perspectives, all contributing to the new way we experience that one movie. 

 

So, when we get any one person's reaction or review of a movie, we wind up learning way more about the person doing the critiquing than we ever do about the movie. 

 

Every movie has fans. Every movie has critics. Every movie has defenders. Every movie has detractors. It doesn't matter what movie it is. No movie is universally lauded, or universally loved. No movie is universally despised, or universally hated. And any stance we might have for a movie can be defended and challenged. 

 

If Max Landis is the source of all this “Rey is a Mary Sue” malarkey, then, as I've done with anyone else on the internet I've engaged with on this topic, I feel I at least have to examine his hypothesis, because it's become the standard argument of the entire toxic corner of the  fanbase. 

 

Here are some bullet points he made: 

 

... (Rey's) never in danger… once Kylo goes like that and she gets frozen and he kidnaps her and then she just easily overpowers him with the Force…  just keep in mind this is a character who was raised on this planet apparently alone… she's a great mechanic who can fix the Millennium Falcon in ways Han Solo can't… Han Solo immediately loves her… she can fly the Millennium Falcon despite apparently never having flown a ship like it before… she's an expert combatant… keep in mind, Finn rushes to save her and she just beats up those two guys easily, which is fine, which is like a cool moment, except that's the whole movie… she beats up everyone who tries to fuck with her and like you can say, like, “oh it's a strong female character,” but that's not what a strong female character is… a strong female character is not a character who's physically strong… Princess Leia is a strong female character… you can say all you want about her being put in a bikini but the reason that works is because she's so fucking tough and like in the first movie…  I watched New Hope recently… I couldn't believe it… she just kicks ass with the threat of everyone on a planet dying, she still doesn't give up the Rebel Alliance, she's awesome… strong means well drawn, and you can say that Rey has, like, some repressed memories in the past, but they don't matter, it's not real… I don't know what they are… so you can say, “oh it's part of a trilogy,” but that's not the way movies work that's the way TV shows work… this isn't like Lord of the Rings where there are three books… we have to take it on faith that these movies will explain everything and that's not good enough… Rey is able to defeat an expert or at least not an expert but a well trained by Luke Skywalker and Snoke force user within seconds of getting a lightsaber… she's able to pull a lightsaber to her that Luke took two movies to do…  and you can say Luke is a Mary Sue or Gary Stu but he's not… Luke sucks, that's why he's a great character… in the first movie he can't do shit… he gets saved by obi-wan Kenobi from the Tusken Raiders, then he gets saved in the bar by obi-wan Kenobi again from those creepy guys then on the on the fucking Death Star he gets saved by Han Solo and then Princess Leia and then Artoo Detoo you know… what would have happened if it was Rey… she would have beaten the guys up in the bar she would have beaten up the Tusken Raiders and by the way this keeps going… he gets saved by Han from the wampa, then he goes and he gets saved by Leia from falling to his death after fighting Darth Vader, then in the final movie he fucks up Han's rescue and he gets saved again by Artoo Detoo…   and every time… by the end of the movie he fails… he wins by losing, to be saved by his father… spoilers for the film Return of the Jedi…  Rey didn't have this because she didn't have stakes… everything she did worked…  that's not a cool character that's John fucking Cena…  and if you can't see that,  because it's a woman or it's a new character so it's different, if you can't see that she didn't have stakes, and never got hurt, I don't know what to tell you… you feel differentlv about it than me… it was just frustrating, a janitor was able to almost defeat a Force user in a lightsaber fight… why did he even turn good…  there's so much to say but if you love the movie you love the movie, this was just one thing that bothered me… Lando Calrissian in his tiny role in Empire has more depth and character and confusion than Finn in his entire lead role in Force Awakens… Finn starts out wanting to defect and stays there… Rey wants to stay on the planet then she decides to leave and she stays there… if you like The Force Awakens,  good, I don't hate you for it, and I'm not trying to change your mind, but it's something to think about. 

 

Yes, it certainly is something to think about. And I have thought about it. Let me tackle each of his points, one by one. 

 

Landis Bullet Point #1: Rey's never in danger! 

 

That's not true. We'll get back to that. 

 

Landis Bullet Point #2: Once Kylo goes like that and she gets frozen and he kidnaps her and then she just easily overpowers him with the Force… 

 

I would call her “just easily overpowering him with the Force” an oversimplification of events. I give this reaction the benefit of the doubt because he said this before The Rise of Skywalker was released and we learned Rey and Kylo were part of a Force dyad. Wait, though … you mentioned how “Kylo goes like that and she gets frozen and he kidnaps her.” Didn’t you say earlier she was never in danger?

 

Landis Bullet Point #3: Just keep in mind this is a character who was raised on this planet apparently alone… she's a great mechanic who can fix the Millennium Falcon in ways Han Solo can't…

 

In flashback, we see her taken into Unkar Plutt's custody when she was at least five. So it's reasonable to presume she stayed with Plutt until she reached her teen years. 

 

It's not that she can “fix the Millennium Falcon in ways Han Solo can't,” it's because the Falcon had modifications Han wasn't aware of, but Rey was. And that being said, tell me of one time, ever, where Han ever properly fixed the Falcon. You can't. It doesn't mean it can't be done, just because he's never been able to. The mechanics on Bespin fixed the hyperdrive before Vader had it deactivated, only so Artoo could reactivate it, in The Empire Strikes Back. Either Han is a pretty bad mechanic or the Falcon has a reputation for continuously breaking down. 

 

Landis Bullet Point #4: Han Solo immediately loves her.

 

Han was literally aiming a blaster at Rey (and Finn) the moment he met them. It took time, while Rey (and Finn) explained themselves, before he noticed how experienced Rey was, before he agreed to help them, and before he offered Rey a job on the Falcon. There was nothing immediate about it.

 

Landis Bullet Point #5: She can fly the Millennium Falcon despite apparently never having flown a ship like it before.

 

That's called instinct. It comes with having an extreme connection to the Force. Anakin and Luke had the same instinct for flying anything. When I watch Rey take to the Falcon so well, it occurs to me that this is probably how Anakin acclimated himself to flying pod racers, how he managed to pilot a Naboo starfighter onto a Neimoidian Droid Control Ship fairly easily, and how Luke took to his T-16 skyhopper, and his landspeeder, and maneuvered an X-wing perfectly the moment he leaped into the cockpit… and then made that impossible, “one in a million” shot that blew up the Death Star. It's supposed to make us see her in the same light as Luke and Anakin. Especially Anakin. Watching her slowly acclimating herself to the Falcon, I was thinking about Anakin the most. 

 

But I'm also thinking of Paul Atreides in Dune. Specifically, I'm thinking about the scene where Paul, Duke Leto, and Gurney Halleck meet Liet Kynes prior to their spice mining inspection. Kynes marvels at how Paul has figured out how to configure his stillsuit without anyone ever having shown him, without ever having worn one before.

 

“It seemed the proper way,” Paul says. 

 

“He will know your ways as if born to them,” Fremen scripture prophesied and Max von Sydow’s Liet Kynes (in David Lynch's Dune) quoted. The Fremen may as well have been speaking of Luke, Anakin, or Rey. 

 

In other words, it's a function of Force-sensitivity… not a flaw in the storytelling. 

 

And gender has nothing to do with it. If you notice, Finn was also instinctively motivating himself to work the turret gun. 

 

Landis Bullet Point #6: She's an expert combatant… keep in mind, Finn rushes to save her and she just beats up those two guys easily, which is fine, which is, like, a cool moment… 

 

Clearly, she's been raised by the dregs of Jakku society, at what we'd call the school of hard knocks, during those intervening years since her parents went away. In such a world, you learn how to take care of yourself; you learn how to defend yourself. Whichever way she learned to do it is irrelevant; we should be able to infer it on our own. And you can only defeat someone who clearly isn't as experienced as you, or, at the very least, underestimates you as an opponent. If those two schmoes were in any way a threat to her in the slightest, they would have taken her easily. But they weren't, because they underestimated her, and frankly, they just weren't any good. But that wasn't the only reason she was able to handle them. Another reason why she was able to best them, and Finn didn't need to intervene, was to show us she could take care of herself. If she lasted this long in the desert sands of Jakku, shouldn't she have been able to do this? If she couldn't, it wouldn't make sense, and you'd have something else to quibble about. 

 

Landis Bullet Point #7: … except that's the whole movie.

 

It's not the whole movie. You're forgetting the part where Kylo overpowered and kidnapped her. Again. She was also on the defensive during half their lightsaber fight, utilizing all she's learned with her staff to deflect Kylo's attacks with the lightsaber, until she taps into the Force… and stole Kylo's prowess with a lightsaber from his own mind to use against him, a technique she learned by accident (or because the Force willed it) when Kylo tried using it on her earlier. 

 

Landis Bullet Point #8: You can say, like, “oh it's a strong female character,” but that's not what a strong female character is… a strong female character is not a character who's physically strong… Princess Leia is a strong female character… you can say all you want about her being put in a bikini but the reason that works is because she's so fucking tough and like in the first movie…  I watched New Hope recently… I couldn't believe it… she just kicks ass with the threat of everyone on a planet dying, she still doesn't give up the Rebel Alliance, she's awesome… strong means well drawn…

 

You're criticizing Rey because you think she's… physically strong? Or because you imagine J.J. Abrams equates a strong female character with physical strength? She's really not that physically strong. And that's not a slight against Rey. You also admit Leia isn't physically strong either, and still a badass. Rey's quick and she's tenacious and she knows her way around a staff, that's what gets her out of scraps. We wouldn't expect any less from Leia. Leia’s just as quick, just as tenacious, and just as well experienced with a blaster as Rey is with a staff, and if you had watched A New Hope for the first time instead of the umpteenth time, you'd probably be making the same pronouncements about Leia that you've been making about Rey. You're able to rally for Leia so freely, but that's all in hindsight, since you know her entire story, from Star Wars to Jedi, and you also have the privilege of having lived with her character in your mind since childhood, watching her character again and again, watching her on screen and replaying those moments in your mind, literally for decades. It's easy to say everything you said about Leia. You're only responding to Rey after seeing her in her first film, without the luxury of hindsight or context, since at the time you made all these criticisms, episodes eight and nine were still years away.

 

Landis Bullet Point #9: And you can say that Rey has, like, some repressed memories in the past, but they don't matter, it's not real… I don't know what they are.

 

They don't matter? It's not real? Of course they matter. Of course it's real. You just don't care, and you're not interested. That's true, you don't know… and you admitted it. It's not against the grain to withhold information from the audience in the first part of a three part story. But you've maintained the same criticisms in hindsight since. Your refusal to put everything her character goes through in context, I'd argue, is because you're unwilling or unable to see the forest for the trees, because you've already made up your mind about her. 

 

Landis Bullet Point #10: So you can say, “oh it's part of a trilogy,” but that's not the way movies work…

 

That's exactly how movies work. Sequels and franchises, especially. 

 

Landis Bullet Point #11: That's the way TV shows work… 

 

And Star Wars is based primarily on adventure serials. Which are TV shows, basically. And Star Wars works the way serials work, the way TV shows work. The way serialized storytelling works. And the Star Wars sequels debuted at the height of Kevin Feige's Marvel Studios run, when serialized storytelling became even more of a thing, causing franchise films to be made like a television series, with writers’ rooms and guest directors; with executive producers acting as showrunners.

 

Landis Bullet Point #12: This isn't like Lord of the Rings where there are three books… 

 

Movie trilogies don't need books to be movie trilogies. They're movie trilogies because they're a series of films telling one cohesive story, primarily, whether they're based on books or not. 

 

Landis Bullet Point #13: We have to take it on faith that these movies will explain everything and that's not good enough…

 

We had to take it on faith that Return of the Jedi would answer the questions presented in The Empire Strikes Back, and tie the whole original trilogy up in a bow. We had to take it on faith that Attack of the Clones would answer the questions set up by The Phantom Menace, and that Revenge of the Sith would answer the questions set up by Attack of the Clones, and that Revenge of the Sith would answer questions left unanswered since The Phantom Menace, which Attack of the Clones didn't answer. We had to take it on faith that the prequel trilogy would connect seamlessly to the original trilogy. And since you brought them up, yes, we still had to take it on faith Peter Jackson's The Two Towers would answer questions set up by his Fellowship of the Ring, and that his Return of the King would pay off whatever The Two Towers set up or what Fellowship of the Ring had set up and had been ignored by The Two Towers.It didn't matter that books existed prior to the films. There's no assurance that the movies would follow the books to the letter, and no written law that says the movies needed to. 

 

What's good enough for the original trilogy and the prequel trilogy (and the Lord of the Rings trilogy) and all trilogies should be good enough for the Star Wars sequel trilogy. But the truth is, everyone wonders if a trilogy will stick the landing when it hasn't concluded yet. It isn't until after the trilogy is finished and all the tumblers click in place and we live with it for years and years and decades and decades that we can act so certain of ourselves, pompous and prideful, and compare what those trilogies did to what some other unfinished trilogy or recently completed trilogy did or didn't do, and compare them as if we never had doubts the previous trilogies would work out before they were completed in their time. This happened with the original and prequel trilogies, and fans still debated whether every plot element clicked into place cohesively, whether as trilogies unto themselves or as a fully formed six episode saga. 

 

Landis Bullet Point #14: Rey is able to defeat an expert, or at least, not an expert, but a well trained (by Luke Skywalker and Snoke) Force user within seconds of getting a lightsaber… 

 

Rey defeated Kylo by using his own prowess against him. If she was unable to use his own prowess against him, she'd never have been able to compete with him. More on that later.

 

Landis Bullet Point #15: She's able to pull a lightsaber to her that Luke took two movies to do…  

 

It didn't take Luke two movies to perform a Force pull. We never saw Luke practicing to perform any Force pull in A New Hope. Force pulls weren't even established in A New Hope. We didn't even know Force pulls were a thing until The Empire Strikes Back, when Luke attempted one while hanging upside down in the Wampa's ice cave, and only achieved it after a few tries, in one sitting (okay… upside down hanging). The film doesn't even specify how he knew it would work. He just knows to try. This could very well be what motivated the writers to have Rey attempt, and eventually, after a few tries, successfully perform a Jedi Mind Trick in The Force Awakens. 

 

Landis Bullet Point #16: And you can say Luke is a Mary Sue or Gary Stu but he's not… Luke sucks, that's why he's a great character…in the first movie he can't do shit… he gets saved by Obi-Wan Kenobi from the Tusken Raiders, then he gets saved in the bar by Obi-Wan Kenobi again from those creepy guys, then on the fucking Death Star he gets saved by Han Solo and then Princess Leia and then Artoo Detoo you know… 

 

We hear characters throughout A New Hope praising Luke's piloting skills. And then we get to the Yavin raid against the Death Star, and see Luke's piloting skills in an X-wing, firsthand. So when you say Luke sucks, that he can't do shit, it doesn't really hold up to scrutiny. I'm not saying he doesn't fumble once in a while, but he's not a total screw-up. 

 

Landis Bullet Point #17: What would have happened if it was Rey… she would have beaten the guys up in the bar, she would have beaten up the Tusken Raiders, and by the way, this keeps going… he gets saved by Han from the Wampa, then he goes and he gets saved by Leia from falling to his death after fighting Darth Vader, then in the final movie he fucks up Han's rescue and he gets saved again by Artoo Detoo…  and every time… by the end of the movie he fails… he wins by losing, to be saved by his father… spoilers for the film Return of the Jedi…  

 

Luke and Rey led very different lives. Rey was seemingly abandoned by her parents and raised in a dangerous environment where she had to learn to fight to defend herself. Luke lived on his aunt and uncle's moisture farm, in a practically insulated existence. He didn't have any extreme knowledge in defensive training because he had no reason to. He never looked for trouble. He avoided the Jundland Wastes and the Tusken Raiders under ordinary circumstances. He knew he never stood a chance against them, which is why he was trying to avoid them. 

 

This is demonstrated further when Han, Luke, and Chewie rescue Leia on the Death Star. Han, Chewie, and Leia – who is already a leader in a rebellion – have more experience with blasters. Again, Luke grew up on a moisture farm. For what reason would Luke require blaster training on a goddamn moisture farm? 

 

Han saves Luke at the last possible moment during the trench run, and once he does, Luke accomplishes a feat – firing the proton torpedo that ultimately destroys the Death Star – he only could have managed with the aid of the Force. 

 

If Leia hadn't come around with the Millenium Falcon when Luke was hanging for dear life at Cloud City, he would've surely fallen to his doom… and if Chewie hadn't come around with the Millennium Falcon when he did, the planet Illum – Starkiller Base – would have completely deteriorated, taking Rey and Finn with it. 

 

And to be fair, Han didn't save Luke from the Wampa. Han saved Luke from the cold after Luke saved himself from the Wampa. 

 

Artoo saving Luke before he became sarlacc food was a contingency plan put in place by Luke, otherwise Artoo wouldn't have been able to toss him the green lightsaber. 

 

Yes, you could say Luke wins by losing in Return of the Jedi. But you could also say Rey wins by losing as well. When Rey vanquishes Darth Sidious in The Rise of Skywalker, the effort kills her, and she winds up being saved by Ben Solo, who trades his life for hers. 

 

There's no dishonor in being saved. 

 

Landis Bullet Point #18: They didn't have this because she didn't have stakes… 

 

Not true. 

 

Landis Bullet Point #19: Everything she did worked…  

 

That's not true, either. It took her multiple tries to appropriately pilot the Falcon, she accidentally released the Rathtar, it took her multiple tries to successfully shoot a Stormtrooper with the blaster Han gifted her (and that's after she forgot the safety catch and flipped it), it took her multiple tries to perfect the Jedi Mind Trick, she fumbled her first lesson with Luke and had to try it again, and she struggled against the guards in Snoke’s throne room. 

 

Landis Bullet Point #20: … that's not a cool character that's John fucking Cena…  

 

I think you're letting your interest in wrestling get in the way of correctly understanding Rey's character. 

 

Landis Bullet Point #21: … and if you can't see that, because it's a woman or it's a new character so it's different, if you can't see that she didn't have stakes, and never got hurt, I don't know what to tell you… 

 

I've heard an argument that has never seemed to go away, pointing out how Rey never lost a limb, like Anakin or Luke, therefore she never had any stakes. 

 

First of all, she does have stakes and does get hurt. Psychological distress isn't any less harmful than physical harm. And she literally dies, after killing her grandfather. 

 

As for Rey never losing a limb…

 

The loss of Anakin's arm in Attack of the Clones and the loss of Luke's hand in The Empire Strikes Back are meant to set up a parallel that is paid off when Luke attacks his father in blind rage, severing his robotic hand, in Return of the Jedi. This cautions Luke on where the path of rage will lead him if he lets his anger consume him. It shows Luke how similar he and his father truly are. This becomes a callback to Anakin turning on Mace Windu before Mace can kill Palpatine in Revenge of the Sith. Luke goes to the dark because Vader threatened Leia, and Anakin severs Mace's hand to prevent Palpatine's death, because Anakin is convinced the Chancellor can save Padmé's life, whose life Anakin believes is threatened by a vision he has, in which Padmé dies in childbirth. This is a thematic connection, a thematic parallel, Anakin shares with Luke; a thematic connection, a thematic parallel, between father and son. The pay off for this connection – this parallel – is in Return of the Jedi.  

 

For Rey to lose a limb in the sequel trilogy, it would mean a thematic thread that was meant to be tied up in Return of the Jedi would become tied to Rey, and that's not Rey’s story. That's part of Anakin and Luke's father and son story. If she lost a limb, it would alter the meaning of that parallel. Her destiny is tied to Anakin and Luke, but not in that way. And that's why she didn't lose a limb in the sequel trilogy. She's defending a legacy, but it's a legacy she's defending from the outside; and that's important. By successfully defending that legacy, her reward is to become part of that legacy, to be welcomed in. It's something she can attain only after slaying the dragon, who is Palpatine. 

 

In her blog post,  “Why I Don't Believe Rey Is A ‘Mary Sue’”, published nearly a month after The Rise of Skywalker was released in theaters, YA author Joy V. Spicer perfectly illustrates this very point:

 

Before I dive into this, I just want to say, I’m not the sort of person who painstakingly dissects book or screen characters. I don’t care if they’re male, female, whatever age, colour or gender… the only thing that matters to me is whether the character has been portrayed well, in a believable way that suits the story. 

 

The reason I wrote this post is basically I got weary of coming across countless articles – written and on YouTube – rubbishing the character of Rey in ‘Star Wars’, calling her a ‘Mary Sue’.

 

According to The Grammarist, a ‘Mary Sue’ is ‘a fictional character who is so perfect as to be unrealistic… who has no weaknesses, who performs heroically and perfectly in every situation.’

 

Let’s break that definition down in relation to Rey:

 

“so perfect as to be unrealistic…”

 

Merriam-Webster defines ‘perfect’ as ‘being entirely without fault or defect’. So, a perfect character would have no flaws.

 

But Rey does have, at least, one flaw – a big one. It stems from being abandoned as a child.

 

She’s made no friends or built any relationships during her years on Jakku. Her reason could be that she’s convinced herself her parents will return, so what’s the point in getting close to people she’ll be leaving, or because she doesn’t want to get close to anyone who might leave her.

 

That leads to her willingness to do anything to find out who her parents are. In ‘The Last Jedi’, to Luke’s horror, Rey willingly goes to the dark side in an attempt to find out about her parents. Her desperation makes her reckless and it also points to a lack of self-control – the end justifies the means regardless of the price.

 

“no weaknesses…”

 

Her main weakness surrounds her need for a parent-figure. Her life revolves around waiting for her parents to come back for her. When she leaves Jakku in ‘The Force Awakens’, she’s planning on going back, so she’ll be there when her parents return.

 

She agrees to help Finn return BB8 to the Resistance not only because she has a heart of gold but also because she defines her value in the contributions she makes. She doesn’t see herself as valuable because valuable people aren’t left behind, they aren’t abandoned.

 

When she meets Han, she unconsciously fixates on him as a possible father-figure. She allows herself to get close to Leia for the same reason, and this is made apparent in their interaction in ‘The Rise of Skywalker’.

 

When he realises what her weakness is, that is what Kylo Ren repeatedly uses against her, usually successfully.

 

“performs heroically and perfectly in every situation…”

 

In ‘The Force Awakens’, when Luke’s lightsabre calls to Rey in Maz Kanata’s tavern, Maz tells her to take it. Instead of coming over starry-eyed, a visibly shaken Rey rejects it and runs. 

 

When she sees Kylo Ren for the first time, she’s scared and keeps shooting at him with her blaster even though he easily deflects each shot with his lightsabre. She’s in tears as she’s backing away from him.

 

In ‘The Last Jedi’, if it hadn’t been for Kylo’s actions, there is no way Rey would have escaped Snoke.

 

There wasn’t a hint of performing ‘heroically and perfectly’ in those situations.

 

When we first meet Rey on Jakku, the extent of her skills isn’t verbally explained to us; they’re shown in her knowledge of mechanical stuff and what to scavenge off wrecks; her climbing skills; her experience in hand-to-hand combat. It’s obvious she’s been looking out for herself on Jakku for years. Without teaching herself/being taught and polishing up these skills, she never would have survived.

 

What I like about Rey is her curiosity in wanting to know more. And she herself is delightfully surprised when she seems to suddenly work things out or when answers present themselves to her, which, I believe, hints at her Force sensitivity.

 

As for her ‘sudden’ knowledge/awareness of the Force and Jedi-like skills, one thing I’ve realised over the years of watching Star Wars – not that I’m an expert! – the way the Force is used in any situation usually seems ‘convenient’; there doesn’t seem to be any hard and fast rules in how it actually works. Having said that, I am more than happy to be corrected, so please do so if I’ve interpreted it incorrectly.

 

I personally believe Rey’s increased ability with the Force after Kylo Ren’s attempt to interrogate her is because, in using the Force against her, he inadvertently sparked something in her. 

 

And now that the concept of a dyad has been shown and explained after ‘The Rise of Skywalker’, that seems to make sense.

 

As to how she knew to use a ‘mind trick’ against the stormtrooper… As the story progresses, it becomes clear that, even though the Jedi haven’t been around for years, stories about them and their powers have passed into legend. Legends which Rey, even Finn, are familiar with. Considering the not-so-delightful Watto knew about Jedi mind-tricks in ‘The Phantom Menace’, why is it such a stretch to accept Rey knowing about it and giving it a go?

 

There have been rants about how easily she beat Kylo in their last duel in ‘The Force Awakens’. But did she really?

 

When he faces her, Kylo is hampered by a bad injury, having been shot. Rey’s fighting skills with a lightsabre are practically non-existent – she’s clumsier with a sabre than she is with her staff. She spends more time running than actually engaging him in combat. 

 

It’s only when Kylo mentions the Force does she stop, gather herself and tap into it. That surprises Kylo enough that he falters, giving her the chance to gain the upper hand. When she manages to land a couple of blows, that physically weakens him further.

 

I didn’t see that as an easy win for Rey.

 

I can’t help but wonder if the main – only – reason people go on about Rey being a ‘Mary Sue’ is because she’s a female character.

 

She’s not that different from the way Luke was in ‘A New Hope’, yet not one person called him out – then or now – when he totally embraced the Force without question having known nothing about it until Obi-Wan explained it to him, and when he piloted the fighter in the final battle.

 

Yes, he’d flown a T-16 while on Tatooine; apparently the controls are similar to those of an X-wing. But surely flying a speeder around your home territory is very different from flying a high-performance fighter in space while being shot at when you’ve had no combat training.

 

Also, no questions were asked when 9-year-old Anakin, in ‘The Phantom Menace’, piloted a starfighter and, somehow, accidentally destroyed the Federation’s Droid Control Ship.

 

At the end of the day, Luke was a moisture farmer; Rey is a scavenger who spent her formative years surviving… just saying.

 

Having laid out my argument, I’ll wrap this up by saying I believe there is an element of ‘Mary Sue’ in Rey’s character. 

 

Why? Because, the more I think about it, I’m sure most, if not all, characters - male and female - especially in the sci-fi/fantasy/action genres, have a touch of ‘Mary Sue’ about them. Sometimes, it’s what’s required for the story to progress.

 

All they have to do is not be perfect, have flaws and weaknesses, and make sure they don’t perform heroically and perfectly in every situation.

 

Landis Bullet Point #22: … you feel differently about it than me… 

 

Clearly. 

 

Landis Bullet Point #23: … it was just frustrating, a janitor was able to almost defeat a Force user in a lightsaber fight… 

 

Even real world soldiers work some kind of KP cycle. When Finn was on Starkiller Base, that was  his assignment, not his position. At the end of the day, a Stormtrooper is still a Stormtrooper. And he never, in any moment, “almost” defeats a Force user in a lightsaber fight. Kylo took him out quickly enough, while struggling with a bowcaster wound to his abdomen.  

 

Landis Bullet Point #24: … why did he even turn good…  

 

Because the Force “awakened” him to the reality of his situation. 

 

Landis Bullet Point #25: … there's so much to say but if you love the movie, you love the movie; this was just one thing that bothered me… 

 

That's ONE thing that bothered you? If you consider that only ONE thing, methinks there's something wrong with your math.

 

Yes, clearly, I enjoy all three of these movies, and apparently noticed more in them than you did. 

 

Landis Bullet Point #26: Lando Calrissian in his tiny role in Empire has more depth and character and confusion than Finn in his entire lead role in Force Awakens…

 

Lando's trials and tribulations in The Empire Strikes Back aren't even minutely similar to Finn’s trials in The Force Awakens. It isn't fair comparing the two.

 

Landis Bullet Point #27: Finn starts out wanting to defect and stays there.

 

Yeah, until he makes his decision to join the Resistance, pronouncing himself Rebel scum to Phasma before she's sent, presumably, to her death, in The Last Jedi. (I'm not so sure, though. Enough characters who appear to fall to their deaths in Star Wars don't always tend to stay dead.)

 

Landis Bullet Point #28: Rey wants to stay on the planet, then she decides to leave and she stays there.

 

Yes, because she realizes there's nothing on Jakku to go back to. Maz expresses this to her in The Force Awakens, and she learns what really happened to her parents in The Rise of Skywalker. 

 

Landis Bullet Point #29: If you like The Force Awakens,  good, I don't hate you for it, and I'm not trying to change your mind, but it's something to think about. 

 

Well, good. I'm glad you're not trying to change my mind. (Although it totally feels like you're trying to change my mind.) Yes, you've given me plenty of food for thought, and I have thought about it.

 

And I don't agree with you. 

 

But that's okay. You know what they say; opinions are like assholes: everybody has them. Fans, critics, detractors, and grifters alike. For every person who thinks Rey is a Mary Sue, underdeveloped and overpowered, there's somebody who thinks she's a well-developed character with her own internal struggles and a compelling arc, grappling with who she is, where she comes from, and a power she doesn't fully understand until she goes on a journey of self-discovery that takes her through three films. 

 

But the criticism doesn't stop at this Mary Sue nonsense. 

 

Since the sale to Disney, critics in the fandom have accused Lucasfilm, and current Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy directly, of perpetrating a feminist takeover on Star Wars, with Rey as its figurehead. Why else would Lucasfilm focus so much on Rey, while gradually pushing Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Leia Organa to the wayside? One common bone of contention amongst Star Wars sequel detractors is the assumption Rey’s purpose is to steal the onus away from Anakin and Luke by having her follow similar paths, meet similar obstacles, and then ultimately challenging, and slaying, the same dragon – namely, Emperor Palpatine, aka Darth Sidious – in what appears to the detractors as a feminist retcon, or reworking, of the original trilogy, in which a female hero subverts the accomplishments of the original and prequel trilogy's male heroes. 

 

This theory was exacerbated by a photo, taken in 2017 during the Archer Film Festival at the Writers Guild Theater in Beverly Hills, where Kathleen Kennedy, Billie Wakeham, Alex Sherman, and Elizabeth English are posing in tee shirts proclaiming, “The Force is Female.” 

 

The shirts were part of a Nike marketing campaign to sell Air Force One shoes to women as well as men. The Archer Film Festival is organized by the Archer School for Girls.  Elizabeth English is the head of the ASG. She has been using the hashtag #TheForceisFemale, reportedly, since August 2016. Kathleen Kennedy sits on the ASG Board of Trustees with her husband, producer Frank Marshall. Marshall was also involved in a Nike Back to the Future sneaker campaign in 2011. 

 

At the festival, Kennedy did refer to “The Force is Female” in the context of Star Wars. And why not? The marketing campaign may have been meant for shoes, but it ties in perfectly with Star Wars. And she's with the Board of Trustees at the ASG, who has been supporting Nike in their campaign. Why wouldn't Kennedy support ASG and Nike in any way she could?

 

But the internet loves a conspiracy theory, and this one's a doozy. Apparently the Nike campaign is just a smokescreen, and “The Force is Female” is the new Disney/Lucasfilm credo and mission statement. 

 

Except this conspiracy theory doesn't really hold up. 

 

If Lucasfilm has been perpetuating a feminist agenda on Star Wars, Pedro Pascal wouldn't have been cast as Din Djarin, The Mandalorian; Boba Fett wouldn't have his own show (The Book of Boba Fett); Rogue One's Cassian Andor, Diego Luna, wouldn't have his own show; Jude Law wouldn't be the marquee name in Skeleton Crew; and Solo: A Star Wars Story never would've been produced. If The Force was just female, everything Lucasfilm has produced since the 2012 sale to Disney would reflect this motto – it would have to – and it doesn't. 

 

I don't call that an agenda, or even a takeover. I call it balance… something The Force has always sought. Balance in all things, including diversity, on screen and in the audience. Lucasfilm is trying to give everyone in the audience someone to look up to. This way, young boys have someone to look up to, young girls have someone to look up to, LGBTQ+ audiences have someone to look up to, and all cultures and nationalities have someone to look up to. Lucasfilm isn't making Star Wars with only one particular demographic in mind. They just make Star Wars, and everyone's invited. Star Wars is for everyone. Even George Lucas would tell you that. 

 

So when the talking heads on Chris Gore's Film Threat podcast insist Star Wars is a boys’ brand, I don't know what the hell they're talking about. Princess Leia and Padmé Amidala fans weren't only pre-adolescent, adolescent and post-adolescent boys. 

 

The arguments I've heard the past few years have more or less been the same. I'll give you some examples. 

 

Leia was in a metal bikini, and was Jabba's slave, in Return of the Jedi. And a Nexu creature in the Geonosian arena scratches Padmé across the abdomen, exposing her midriff, in Attack of the Clones. Isn't it meant to be titillating? Doesn't that prove Star Wars is a boys’ brand? 

 

While it is true Leia is captured and becomes Jabba's new dancing slave girl in a nod to the trope in adventure serials like Flash Gordon, wherein Dale Arden is captured by Ming and subjugated, only so Flash can come swooping in to rescue her, like Errol Flynn rescuing Maid Marion in The Adventures of Robin Hood, what these detractors always ignore is the fact that Leia saves herself. 

 

Leia wraps the chains keeping her prisoner – the very instrument of her enslavement – around Jabba's neck, and tugs; and Jabba goes out like Luca Brazzi in The Godfather. 

 

They also ignore, or weren't aware of, the direction George gave Carrie Fisher while they were working on the original Star Wars:

 

“You're here to tell the stupid men how stupid they are.” 

 

And while it is true the Nexu scratches Padmé across her abdomen, exposing her midriff, this doesn't lower Padmé or limit her empowerment as a character. She picks up a blaster and continues fighting. 

 

And as some might argue, in Revenge of the Sith, Padmé's pregnancy weakens her status as an empowered female, reducing her to a love interest character concerned solely for her man and her offspring. I suppose this might depend on whether or not you see love or motherhood as a weakness or a strength. Throughout the prequels, Padmé has always had to keep on her guard, defend the Republic and her people, and defend democracy, at any cost. With Anakin, and with her pregnancy, she gets to drop her defenses and relax, and just be in the moment for a change. And even then, she becomes a primary member of the delegation opposing the Chancellor. She's still fighting something, still fighting someone, is still standing up for a cause, amidst her pregnancy and love for her husband. The only crime is that those scenes were cut for time. However, the scenes are readily available either on physical media or YouTube. 

 

So, although we find female characters depicted in pulp scenarios, those pulp scenarios are subverted when we see these female characters continue to fight beyond those supposed limitations or reductive obstacles. 

 

Which brings us back to Rey.

 

If Rey is the figurehead in a feminist takeover of Star Wars, would she be following in Luke Skywalker's footsteps? Would she be tasked with defending Anakin Skywalker's legacy? No, she'd be forging her own path. 

 

And she does find her own path. But to find her path, she has to make it past ground that has already been trodden… by Anakin, and by Luke. 

 

Even Luke had to find his path by following his father's path first. 

 

And yet, there are other critics of the Rey character who subscribe to the theory that Rey “following in Luke’s footsteps,” as it were, is an attempt to undermine Luke's contribution to the saga by giving a new character, a female character, Luke's accomplishments, without earning them, thereby minimizing Luke's importance to Star Wars. They certainly believe Rey’s confrontation with Darth Sidious in The Rise of Skywalker undermines Anakin’s redemption in Return of the Jedi. 

 

The truth is, Star Wars is a saga devoted to parallels. Each trilogy's protagonist – Luke, Anakin, and Rey – walk similar paths, and they do this by design. 

 

Many fans have never come to terms with something about the protagonists in the Skywalker saga. 

 

None of them earned their abilities. Not one. They were all chosen. All preordained. 

 

Anakin was the chosen one.

 

Luke was the son of Skywalker, therefore he inherited his father's abilities. He merely needed the guidance to learn how to tap into it. The only choice he had, the only choice any of these three had, was whether they'd side with the light or the dark. 

 

Rey was chosen by the Force to protect and defend Anakin's legacy. 

 

The Force chose all three protagonists for what they WOULD do or CHOOSE to do, not for what they DID do. 

 

Rey is strong with the Force because she was born with it. Luke is strong with the Force because he was born with it. And Anakin was strong with the Force because – I'm sure you've guessed it by now – he was born with it. 

 

So, if a Mary Sue is "wish-fulfillment on the part of the author," whose wish-fulfillment are we talking about? 

 

Is it Michael Arndt? He was involved in the earliest development of Episode VII's script, collaborating with George Lucas. 

 

Simon Kinberg, although ultimately uncredited, admitted to being part of a writers' room working on the sequels. Is it his?

 

Or was it Lawrence Kasdan…

 

… or J.J. Abrams? 

 

Typically, an author injects all their characters with  aspects of their own personality, how they imagine they might react under certain circumstances, or how they fear they could possibly react under certain circumstances. A character may also be an amalgamation of several other characters, a combination of qualities comparable to characters (or actual people) throughout real life, literature, films, and Mythology, as well. 

 

Luke Skywalker, since his very inception, was a George Lucas stand-in. As is Anakin Skywalker, as depicted in the prequel trilogy.

 

In A Brief Guide to Star Wars, author Brian Robb says:

 

As he had poured much of his teenage self into several characters in American Graffiti, so the young hero of Star Wars — Luke Skywalker — was very much another George Lucas alter-ego.

 

Robb cites Lucas' desert upbringing (referring to Tatooine as "the Modesto of this galaxy far, far away"), his desire for adventure, and his refusal to follow in his father's footsteps as a stationary store clerk, as qualities he gave to Luke.

 

Robb also quotes Lucas:

 

"You can't write a main character and not have him be part of you."

 

George has also described himself as a kid who liked to hang out in his garage, fixing things. That's very much who Anakin was. 

 

And in the 2004 documentary Empire of Dreams: The Story of the Star Wars Trilogy, George makes this observation about himself:

 

"What I was trying to do was stay independent so I could make the movies I wanted to make, but at the same time I was sort of fighting the corporate system, which I didn't like, and I'm not happy with the fact the corporations have taken over the film industry, but now I found myself being the head of a corporation, so there's a certain irony there, that I've become the very thing that I was trying to avoid, which is basically what part of Star Wars is about. That is Darth Vader. He becomes the very thing he was trying to protect himself against. At the same time, I feel good that I'm able to make my movies the way I want them to be."

 

So, if Rey were a Mary Sue, she's certainly in the right place.

 

But if Luke is George, and Anakin is George, who is Rey? 

 

Rey is us. 

 

And when I say Rey is us, I mean Rey is a Star Wars fan. 

 

As is Finn, and Poe, and Kylo, and Hux. 

 

And that's because Star Wars fans are making Star Wars movies now. J.J. Abrams, Jonathan Kasdan, Rian Johnson, Gareth Edwards, Ron Howard, Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni… all of them, Star Wars fans.

 

The sequels represent how the fans, for good or ill, are the new stewards of Star Wars; whether they be professional or secular, toxic or loyal, Jedi or Sith.

 

Rey grew up listening to the stories. The adventures of Luke Skywalker. The tragedy of Anakin Skywalker. 

 

When Finn tells Rey BB-8 has a map leading to Luke Skywalker, she admits, “I thought he was a myth.”

 

When, finally on Ahch-To, Luke laments his mistakes to Rey, Rey challenges him, reminding him who it was who helped redeem Darth Vader. 

 

Because she's heard all these stories already, in the context of myths and legends. 

 

Just because Rey is a Star Wars fan, it doesn't make her a Mary Sue. Otherwise, Kylo would be, Finn would be, Poe would be, and Hux would be. 

 

But let's not get carried away here. 

 

Rey's a Star Wars fan, but that's not all she is. 

 

Rey is an amalgamation of several qualities, several characteristics, several composite  characters, that coalesce and create the person she is. We see these echoes as we follow her on her hero's journey. 

 

When Rey turns in the scraps she's scavenged, she's rewarded with only a pittance by Unkar Plutt. If Rey were a Mary Sue, she wouldn't live under such hardships. 

 

Rey lives a lonely life in a trashed AT-AT, preparing her own tasteless food (muffins, just add water), fantasizing about being an X-wing pilot. If she were a Mary Sue, she wouldn't be living such a lonely life, and she'd have no need for fantasies. She'd have oodles of friends, and she'd be living her dreams instantaneously. It is a common arc for a protagonist to have dreams; to wish for something extraordinary; and see those dreams fulfilled by simple twists of fate. That doesn't make the character a Mary Sue.

 

Rey is motivated to continue living her pitiful existence based on the presumption her parents will return to rescue her. She's dressed the same way she was dressed when her parents left her. This way, if (or when) her parents return, they'll recognize her. In this way, she reminds me of Jim in Steven Spielberg's Empire of the Sun. Jim wears his school uniform throughout his stay in the Japanese internment camp. When Jim's parents find him at the end of the film, that's half the reason why. Would a Mary Sue ever put herself in such a pitiful position? Or willingly choose to endure the existential crisis she lives with? Hardly!

 

When Rey takes the controls of the Millennium Falcon, she fumbles at first, dragging the side of the Corellian freighter across the sand before getting the hang of it. A Mary Sue would not have such difficulties. She'd succeed on her first try if she were a Mary Sue. What I believe we're seeing in this instance, is how the Force works, instinctually, through a Force sensitive host. When I watch Rey working through the problem of successfully piloting the Falcon, I imagine this is how Anakin Skywalker figured out how to race pods. Or how Anakin “accidentally” managed to pilot a Naboo starfighter into a Neimoidian Droid Control Ship and disable it, ultimately destroying it, from the inside. Many of the things we watch Rey do has its precedent in prior Star Wars films. This is why Rey is on a desert planet. We're MEANT to make the connection that she, Anakin and Luke share some of the same experiences. What better way than planting her on an obscure desert planet under the most pathetic of circumstances? 

 

When Kylo Ren and First Order troops invade Takodana, Rey fends off a stormtrooper in the forest with the blaster Han gifted her, but forgets the safety and then outright misses the trooper before hitting him successfully. A Mary Sue wouldn't stumble so blatantly. 

 

In the Takodana forest, Kylo Ren immobilizes Rey, then incapacitates and captures her. Rey would never let this happen if she were a Mary Sue. (This moment does, however, cast her in the symbolic role of Persephone, with Kylo representing her counterpart, Hades.)

 

Ren incapacitates Rey again in the Ilium forest on Starkiller Base, sending her several feet in the air until she collides with a tree and is knocked unconscious. This causes Finn to step in and protect Rey, challenging Ren with the Skywalker lightsaber. Not only could this never happen if Rey were a Mary Sue, she'd never need Finn to step in for her. It also shows, while Rey may not have needed Finn’s help against Unkar Plutt's desert rat hoodlums earlier in The Force Awakens, neither Rey nor Finn are able to successfully challenge Kylo Ren when they confront him in the snowy Illum forest.

 

Until Rey taps into the Force for help. 

 

When Rey is ultimately brought before Snoke, any attempt she makes against him is thwarted. She reaches for the Skywalker saber with the Force, Snoke overpowers her, Force pulls the lightsaber away from her, strikes her head with it, and takes it back. Next, Snoke lifts her into the air and probes her mind, with enough intensity to make Rey scream in agony. This couldn't happen to her if she were a Mary Sue. She would never allow it. She'd be too powerful to allow it.

 

Once Kylo kills Snoke and the Praetorian guards attack, Rey holds her own and only succeeds against her combatants by keeping her wits. If she were a Mary Sue, it would be no contest; she'd cut through those guards like a hot knife through butter, quick and simple. But she doesn't. 

 

In their lightsaber fight atop the Death Star debris on Kef Bir, a fully capable Kylo Ren outmatches Rey. She is beaten, and could very well have been killed, if Leia hadn't distracted Kylo when she called out to him. This would never have happened if Rey were a Mary Sue. A Mary Sue would never have been so easily defeated, even by a fully or even reasonably fit combatant. Rey takes advantage of this moment, stabbing Kylo in the side. But by doing this, Rey is succumbing to her anger… succumbing to the dark side. A Mary Sue would never have lost her composure this easily. 

 

When Ben Solo joins Rey on Exegol to confront Darth Sidious, the Sith Lord learns of their Force bond and siphons this power from them to replenish himself. If Rey were a Mary Sue, he wouldn't be able to do that to her. 

 

So no, I don't think she's a Mary Sue. 

 

The argument has always been: Rey hasn't earned her abilities; she just immediately has them. 

 

People ignore several details. Rey's abilities aren't conscious. Her abilities are working through her. Because the Force works through everyone.

 

There are those fans who either overlook or choose to resist seeing The Force – the ultimate deus ex machina – as a character in the grand Star Wars story. 

 

An explanation I always like to fall back on, an explanation I love, is what Freddie Prinze, Jr. said on Jeff Dye's Friendship Podcast in 2019: 

 

“I did a Star Wars cartoon, so even I get hate from Star Wars fans, when i'm like, Look, dawg, you're just mad the franchise isn't aging with you, right? But that ain't how it works.  

 

“The first one was for fucking kids. The second three were for different fucking kids, and this one is for kids. You're just pissed off that Han Solo gave the fucking Millennium Falcon to a girl.  Yeah, that's it.

 

“Because Luke Skywalker is Cinderella, or Sleeping Beauty.  Okay?  He can talk to things that don't speak English, and understands what they're fucking saying.  He gets a fairy godfather, instead of a fairy godmother, who teaches him how to be the best Jedi in the world in no time fucking flat. 

 

“And everybody, like…

 

“I know more about the Force than most people, because Dave Filoni taught me, and George Lucas taught him. And all these video games have fucked people up on what the Force is. 

 

“Like, Luke's skill doesn't dictate whether he wins or loses.  The Emperor doesn't dictate whether he wins or loses.

 

“The Force dictates who wins or loses, based on balance, and here's the quick version on

how to explain it to all these people who fucking think they get to decide:

 

“In the first fucking three, if you want to do this, like, timewise, Palpatine, you would say, and Yoda, are the smartest two. Palpatine, clearly smarter, because Yoda was blind to the power of the dark side, and the seduction of Anakin. 

 

“So, let's talk about the seduction of Anakin fucking Skywalker for a second.  If the Emperor is the smartest dude in the universe, and knows that the Force dictates this, if he kills who he sees as a rival – Anakin – then he knows the Force is just going to fucking correct that. Because the Emperor knows this.  These are George Lucas’s words, not mine, so fuck you if you disagree with me.  Straight up, this is information, not affirmation time, straight up, man. So, the Emperor knows that, so instead of killing Anakin, what does he do?  He seduces Anakin…  to double the strength of the dark side. So then, what does the Force do? It balances. How? It gives us twins: Luke and Leia. Two and fucking two. Balance. And if you look at the movies through just that simple perspective, you will not only know why every single bad guy loses and every single good guy loses, you'll know who's gonna win and lose in the next fucking movies. I can tell you, I just don't want to wreck it.

 

“People bitch about the dumbest shit.

 

“It's archetype characters. This is George Lucas’s  words.

 

“There is no Jack Bauer in Star Wars. That character doesn't exist. It's not Han Solo. Han Solo is a reluctant hero, okay. He's a reluctant hero; that's the archetype. 

 

“Darth Maul, who everybody wants to win, and he's everyone's favorite, because he looks sick, and he's great in the video games? Fuck you guys!  He's SISYPHUS! He is born to fail. Learn your Greek mythology, like, I don't know,  GEORGE FUCKING LUCAS did!  He's cursed to roll a boulder up the hill, only to have it roll to the bottom again, every single time, for eternity. Yes, that is Darth Maul's quest. He's in on the joke, you guys. He knows it. He's just cursed to live that life again. Not my opinion, George Lucas’s… so go fuck yourself if you disagree. 

 

“You don't get to level up in the Star Wars world. That's a fucking video game. There's no such thing as a gray Jedi. Qui-Gon even says, ‘I turn towards the light because it's there.’ There's no gray… there's no… that's pretend fanfiction shit, which is cool, but don't try to canonize it, because it doesn't work, and i'm never going to buy it… EVER. Star Wars  is for fucking kids… sorry.”

 

Unsurprisingly, Prinze received immense pushback when he said this. I think it's because the people who took umbrage with him were focusing on his tone, and not the scope of his words. 

 

Everything Freddie says here is direct and to the point. If I were to re-word anything he said, I'd say it was more like Darth Maul's fate, or his destiny, to constantly roll that boulder up the hill, only for it to roll back down to be rolled back up and roll back down again, and rinse, and repeat, for eternity. I wouldn't say it was his “quest.” But we all get the gist, don't we?

 

And where Freddie says to look at the movies through “the simple perspective” of balance and the Force to predict or determine “why every single bad guy loses and every single good guy loses, you'll know who's gonna win and lose in the next fucking movies,” a simpler way is to use the chiastic structure that binds every movie in the Skywalker saga together. And you could always apply that cyclical, parallel template structure to the deus ex machina that is the Force. 

 

So, let's apply what Freddie said to Rey. 

 

The Force absolutely controls and guides Rey’s actions in various moments throughout the sequel trilogy, through instinct. In The Force Awakens, it coaxes her to journey to Ahch-To, through her dreams. It helps her learn to operate the Millenium Falcon. It motivated her to draw from Kylo's abilities during Kylo's mind probe, and later, when Rey taps into the Force during their lightsaber duel in the snowy forest of Starkiller Base. It even compelled her to use a Jedi Mind Trick on a Stormtrooper. If you recall, after Rey escapes and comes across Finn, Han, and Chewie, who have come to rescue her, Finn asks Rey how she managed to break free. “I can't explain it, and you wouldn't believe it.” And that's because she wasn't responsible for the Jedi Mind Trick. Because that was the Force working through her. It guided her when she was drawn to the Skywalker lightsaber; it compelled her to extend her hand and will that lightsaber into it when it was stuck in the snow. That was the Force. To find the reason, we can reach all the way back to an exchange between Luke and Obi-Wan in A New Hope:

 

Obi-Wan: A Jedi can feel the Force flowing through him. 

 

Luke: You mean it controls your actions?

 

Obi-Wan: Partially. It also obeys your commands.

 

We're so accustomed to seeing Force sensitives using the Force, that it seems strange when we finally get to see the Force using, or working through, a Force sensitive. You can use the Force, but the Force is also capable of using you. 

 

But there's more to Rey than her connection to the Force. Rey is also made up of several composite characters who also totally inform and inspire her character. 

 

When we meet Rey, scavenging the downed Star Destroyer for parts to sell to Unkar Plutt, everything we see in this sequence appears to mirror the opening sequence in Studio Ghibli's 1984 anime, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. 

 

There's a thread to this reference we can follow all the way back to Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. The Trade Federation landing craft invading Naboo were likened, by George, to old biplanes, and the four-winged Tolmekian armored corvettes in Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind are also patterned after biplanes. The Tolmekian military Dreadnoughts have been likened to jet-engine versions of the Messerschmitt Me 323 Gigant military transport aircraft used by the Luftwaffe of Nazi Germany from 1942 to 1944. The Tolmekian military also use tanks to decimate forests; similarly, the droid army on Naboo decimate forests to create paths for themselves. John Kenneth Muir, in his analysis of Star Wars Episode I, points out the parallels between the Trade Federation's Invasion of Naboo and the Nazi Occupation of France: 

 

… The Phantom Menace’s story is a perfect metaphor for the lead-up to World War II and the global fight against fascism in Europe. Accordingly, the rich imagery in the film explicitly recalls this battle of civilizations. Consider just for a moment the scenes set on the planet Naboo, a kind of quasi-European state in another solar system.

 

At least twice in the film, we spy a building in the capital city of Naboo that resembles the Arc De Triomphe (or Arc of Triumph) in France. 

 

In 1940, Nazi troops invaded Paris, and marched the pavement of the Champs-Elysees as a sign of strength and domination. In 1944, the Allies liberated the nation from Hitler’s troops, and on this occasion there was a parade of victory and freedom at the Arc de Triomphe.

 

The Phantom Menace features two similar moments at an Arc-like structure, once at the commencement of the Droid Army/Trade Federation occupation and then again after their expulsion, during a celebration or parade. If you gaze closely at the imagery, it’s impossible to deny the significance of these visual allusions or comparisons.

 

Analyzing Rey's introduction in The Force Awakens, a blogger named noelle, in an entry on her blog, Present Tense, titled, the visual and thematic similarities between the “meet our heroine” scenes for nausicaa and rey, wrote:

 

When I first watched The Force Awakens in the theater, I was distracted for the first part of the movie by how strongly the scene in which we meet Rey, our heroine, so closely recalled a scene from a childhood favorite film of mine, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. Movie homages, callbacks, and inspiration are hardly a new thing. But something about this particular inspiration tickled me – probably due to the fact that Nausicaa is one of my all-time favorite films, and has been since I was a little girl. So for The Force Awakens to emulate this scene when we first meet Rey, it immediately warmed me to her. Nausicaa is one of my favorite characters of all time, so if Rey was supposed to be like her, then I’d probably love Rey. It turned out that I did love Rey anyway, regardless of this homage, but it certainly didn’t hurt. And in my opinion, I do think Rey is somewhat Nausicaa-like. A bit naive, sees the good in everyone, willing to fight for what’s right. Rey is her own character, but she’s in the vein of Nausicaa.

 

After this scene, the two movies diverge pretty steadfastly, and as we know, TFA ends up more of a retelling of A New Hope than any other movie. There are very little other threads of Nausicaa in TFA, or at least, none that jumped out at me personally. But this scene showcases a few similarities between Nausicaa and Rey, as well as just some similar shots, frames, styling and subject choices.

 

Could this have been an entirely huge coincidence? Sure. Do I think it was? Nah. Someone had to have been a fan of Nausicaa, and while my googling couldn’t lead me to any real answers, I’m content to think that yes, this is an homage. Keep in mind I don’t think this devalues TFA at all. Homages are standard in film and it’s best when done in a sense that’s a nod to previous work which inspired the current one.

 

So without further ado, some visual comparisons:

 

A close-up on our heroine, done up in desert gear. Eye protection, mouth protection. Thick leather strap to keep her staff-like weapon close. (Of course, Nausicaa’s is actually a gun but, the imagery is there.)

 

Wide shots inside a large, empty, cavern-like interior. Shafts of light from openings in the ceiling. Our heroine, small and off-center in the shot, dwarfed by her surroundings, passing through a sunbeam.

 

Hopping around, making her pilgrimage through the interior of the caverns. We do not yet know her mission or destination, though it’s obvious from her sure-footed steps that this is a journey she has made before.

 

She finds something that attracts her interest. Tinkers with and collects it. Stashes away her goodies for later examination.

 

Concern, deep in thought, staring into the distance. Watch out, the plot is coming!

 

Wide shot as our heroine leaves behind a skeleton of past monsters (soon to make an appearance in her life again).

 

Our heroine mounts her trusty mechanical steed, weapon stashed and eye protection down… and flies off, leaving the viewer in the dust.

 

Noelle isn't the only one to notice this. On RogerEbert.com, in an article entitled, "Nausicaä Awakens: The Influence of Hayao Miyazaki on the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy," Brendan Hodges writes:

 

A small, masked scavenger glides through the ruined wasteland, dwarfed by the towering wreckage of old wars. Beneath the mask is the hidden, protected face of a beautiful young woman, flying through a labyrinth of ruin above the sand below. She’s searching for salvage to survive, and rescues someone, or rather something from mortal peril. Who am I describing: Hayao Miyazaki’s heroine Nausicaä or Rey in the opening of “Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens”? The answer, of course, is both. The openings of "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind" and "The Force Awakens" aren’t identical, but their similarity is unmistakable and opens a dialogue between not just "Nausicaä" and “The Force Awakens,” but Miyazaki and Disney’s "Star Wars" sequel trilogy in general.

 

The legacy of Japanese cinema influencing the most prolific franchise in the history of film is a strong one. George Lucas famously transposed key elements from Kurosawa’s jidaigeki (get it, “Jedi”) samurai movies for the original "Star Wars," especially borrowing from “The Hidden Fortress” and “Yojimbo.” Yet, if there’s a filmmaker whose work is felt with similar presence in Disney’s own "Star Wars" trilogy, it isn’t the works of Kurosawa, but the internationally beloved Japanese animation writer and director Hayao Miyazaki, who is sometimes called the Steven Spielberg of Japan. J.J. Abrams and Rian Johnson haven’t connected Miyazaki’s filmography as closely to "Star Wars" as Lucas had Kurosawa, but the similarities between Miyazaki and the sequel trilogy run deep, whether you’re talking about how the films look, feel or what they’re really about. 

 

Look at the closest thing “The Force Awakens” has to a fresh aesthetic identity. While fairly maligned for indulging in a victory lap of the X-Wings, Tie Fighters and Star Destroyers of a Galaxy not that long ago, it’s wrong to think the sequel trilogy is a completely derivative visual copy. In the new era of "Star Wars," J.J. Abrams and production designer Rick Carter endeavored to make literal what the series always has been in spirit: a fairy tale. 

 

"The Force Awakens” took the classic stormtrooper design and made a knight in shining armor in Captain Phasma. Kylo Ren’s costume evokes the 'long skirt’ and chainmail scarf worn by templar knights in The Crusades. His lightsaber, co-created by Apple design genius Jony Ive, is a cross-guarded (laser) sword. In the commentary track for "The Force Awakens," Abrams calls Kylo Ren a prince and Rey a princess. This leads, inevitably, to the need for a fairy tale castle, represented in Maz’s castle, perched in a classically European landscape. There’s even a “Sword in the Stone” moment, when Rey and Kylo Ren fight for custody of Luke Skywalker’s former lightsaber. Rey, the princess, wins. 

 

What does this combination of the medieval with the modern sound like, if not the fantastical worlds of “Nausicaä,” “Castle in the Sky” or “Howl’s Moving Castle”? Miyazaki’s love of mixing old and new has defined his sense of cinematic style from his earliest works; “Lupin the III: The Castle of Cagliostro,” Miyazaki’s first feature film, introduces a princess locked inside a classic fairytale castle fit for Cinderella. Only, a castle with lasers and security cameras. The constant blending of the mythical with the technological is key to understanding what gives his worlds their sense of possibility and wonder, limited only by the imagination of its author, a sensibility I call anachronistic foiling.

 

Planes and castles to Miyazaki are like lens flares to J.J. Abrams, and nearly every Miyazaki movie with castles (a lot of them) feature great aerial battles in the periphery above, below or to the sides of them. Recall “Castle in the Sky" and “Howl’s Moving Castle," where Edwardian semi-steampunk airships, never explained with science or logic, loom over castles and classic European cities alike, sometimes obliterating the structures below. Think of the world of “Nausicaä," a post-apocalyptic society who live in castles, wear leotards and plated armor, use swords, yet wage wars with techno-magic planes and and city-sized airships. These images are iconic and definitive in the brand of Miyazaki, too specific not to recall during the attack on Maz Kanata’s Castle on Takadona, as Tie Fighters blast it into the ground, a Miyazaki-like image brought to life with live-action. 

 

Rian Johnson and production designer Richard Heinrichs continue this anachronistic foiling in “The Last Jedi,” albeit in a much different direction than invoking the medieval era. In the same way Miyazaki recreated his favorite plane designs from WWI and WWII into magical (but often deadly) machines (he also dedicated an entire film, "The Wind Rises,” just to celebrating the art and beauty of World War II aircraft) Johnson extends that sensibility to his new slate of "Star Wars"-like fighter craft. There are his Resistance bombers (reminiscent of B-17 or B-29 bombers), the ski-speeders (rickety old fighter craft) and The Supremecy (a “flying wing” like the Northrop YB-35, similar to the faked plane in “Raiders of the Lost Ark”), a collection of WWII inspired starships fit for the armies in “Howl’s Moving Castle” and might remind you Lucas based his dogfights in “A New Hope” off WWII documentary footage.

 

Another key anachronistic foil in “The Last Jedi” isn’t in “The Last Jedi” at all: it’s a deleted scene. Johnson depicts Captain Phasma armed with the blaster equivalent of a handgun, held close to her chest. This instantly recalls Princess Kushana from “Nausicaä,” a warrior adorned in golden armor who carries an ornamented handgun in the same position. They are the two greatest movies to ever depict handgun wielding knights. 

 

In the same way Ozu is famous for his use of “pillow shots,” non-narrative shots of nature or an empty room bridging one moment to the next (something Lucas tapped into in his trilogies), Miyazaki is famous for transitional shots of his own for a different effect. He frequently employs brief, humanist interludes where he gives his characters permission to simply be. Few filmmakers have the courage to pause the plot just to watch a character engage in the beauty of the everyday or the charm of the mundane. In “Kiki’s Delivery Service,” Kiki stops on a busy street to gaze through a storefront window at dazzling red shoes. She’s amazed by them. "Howl’s Moving Castle" has a sequence where we watch Sophie, the protagonist, slowly cook and eat bacon. These moments reveal the humanist inside Miyazaki, gestures of the familiar to ground the otherworldly and fantastic through simple acts of human behavior. 

 

Miyazaki explained why these quiet beats are so vital to Roger Ebert in 2002: “We have a word for that in Japanese," he said. "It's called ma. Emptiness. It's there intentionally ... If you just have non-stop action with no breathing space at all, it's just busyness, But if you take a moment, then the tension building in the film can grow into a wider dimension.” 

 

Directors J.J. Abrams and Rian Johnson recognize the softening power of these intimate intervals, and for the first time in "Star Wars," we take breaks to enjoy them. These three films don't pause for as long or as often as Miyazaki, but the impact is so acutely felt they are beloved by the fanbase. Upon seeing the endless green forests of Takadona, Rey exclaims: “I didn’t know there was so much green in the whole galaxy.” She rushes out of the Falcon to take it all in, a moment mirrored in "The Last Jedi," when Rey is excited by seeing rain for the first time. In “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker," Rey is dazzled by the festival on Pasaana, taking in delight at the laugh of younglings, moments rare or entirely absent in Lucas’ vision of "Star Wars." 

 

These humanist interludes endear us to our heroes, but they serve an even more important purpose: they amplify the reality of the world as we see ourselves inside it through the characters. This is crucial in Miyazaki, whose films are so deeply concerned with the natural world. From "My Neighbor Totoro” to the environmental fable “Princess Mononoke,” Miyazaki treats nature with a pious, quasi-religious devotion. The Shinto religion of Japan has a literal, enormous presence in Miyazaki’s films, a belief system that posits a system of co-existence with gods and spirits called “Kami,” of which we are not the center. This same sentiment is expressed almost verbatim in Luke’s first training lesson to Rey in “The Last Jedi”: "That Force does not belong to the Jedi. To say that if the Jedi die, the light dies, is vanity. Can you feel that?” 

 

According to the Shinto tradition, our relationship with the Kami is symbiotic with nature; they are invisible to the human eye, yet often manifest as an object, like the sacred tree in “My Neighbor Totoro.” Lucas or Johnson might call such locations “strong with the force,” hubs with the greatest connection to the energy of all living things, such as Ahch-To’s mist-enshrouded Jedi Tree or the mirror cave that gives Rey her second force vision. 

 

To Miyazaki but also in Rian Johnson’s “The Last Jedi,” we are the failed stewards of the natural world. This is why Miyazaki’s villains are often hawkish abusers of the Earth. “Princess Mononoke’s” Lady Eboshi goes full Saruman on the nearby forest to build weapons, only to use those weapons against wolf and boar gods outside Iron Town. While she is benevolent to her own disenfranchised residents, her violence and hubris towards the forest and the life inside it triggers a chain reaction that “curses” the main character, Ashitaka, that ignites rage and violence inside him he can barely control, a Miyazaki equivalent of the dark side. 

 

The casino planet of Canto Bight is an equal depiction of anti-capitalist fervor to Lady Eboshi’s Iron Town, demonstrating the galaxy’s inhumane status quo of war economy thugs, enabling cycles of violence for power and profit. Their abuse extends to the torture and enslavement of children and horse-deer with anime eyes called "Fathiers.” Miyazaki, a lifelong feminist whose work often celebrates the power of female heroes and villains alike, seems to hope the maternal power of his heroines will restore the forests, hillsides and lakes, which may be why his saviors are so often women. It’s also possibly why Johnson chose Rose, and not Finn, to free the Fathiers and literally smash the toxic status quo to the ground in a glorious stampede.

 

"The Last Jedi" takes devotion to the natural world more seriously than any "Star Wars" movie before it, with Johnson acknowledging to the Los Angeles Times, “I think you can see some of [Miyazaki's] influence in this movie ... how you engage with the natural world.” Johnson brings that philosophy into every planetary ecosystem, but especially on the planet Ach-To. In an epic sequence surveying a day in Luke’s monk-like existence, we observe Luke’s harmony with the island: fishing in the seas, traversing the rain swept hills, and drinking green milk straight from sea-cows called “thala-sirens,” all the while surrounded by the Totoroinfluenced porgs. 

 

"The Last Jedi” even has a “circle of life” prayer-like visual mantra on the essence of the force. The camera dives from a wide-shot of the island into close-ups of flowers scored with birdsong, to the bones of death and decay below the surface, that “feeds new life” as we see plants rapidly grows. Of this circle, Luke says “It’s the energy between all things, a tension, a balance, that binds the universe together.” Kinship between all forms of life is reaffirmed in the climax; it is the jingle of the fox-like Crystal Critters on Crait that lead a trapped Resistance to Rey, not the heroics of Finn or Poe. Crait itself is a great visual metaphor for the natural world: when struck with a laser blast, it bleeds in plumes of red dust, only to slowly restore itself to its pearly white surface once the fighting has ceased, like the forest healing itself in “Princess Mononoke.” 

 

Heroism is a dominant theme in “The Last Jedi,” and no previous "Star Wars" movie has placed as much emphasis on the redemptive power on the natural world, redefining that heroism can often mean protection and stewardship. Listen to Master Yoda’s choice quotes: “Use the force for knowledge and defense, never for attack.” Or, “Your weapons, you will not need them." Or heed Master Obi-Wan: “There are alternatives to fighting.” These are thematic ideas scarcely brought to the fore in "Star Wars," and “The Last Jedi” is the first to take that subtext and make it text in a serious way. Imagine this: “The Last Jedi” is the first truly anti-war "Star Wars" movie. 

 

But it’s Luke Skywalker’s astounding act of bravery on Crait that shatters normative conceptions of what a hero looks like, both within "Star Wars" and narrative art in general. Luke, standing before The First Order army order in a force projection, sacrifices himself in an act of pure pacifism that defeats the entire First Order and reignites hope throughout the Galaxy, while letting The Resistance flee to safety. He is the ultimate aspirational hero in "Star Wars," the first Jedi to embody every positive tenant of Jedi Philosophy in practice. It is one of the greatest feats of cinematic heroism in all of movies.

 

Reconsidering the rigid, masculine boundaries of heroism is the core ethic of Miyazaki’s life’s work. Like Rian Johnson, he is an unapologetic pacifist, and he has been unafraid to dedicate nearly each of his movies to that end, depicting his villains as those who misunderstand power and how to use it, the greatest of sins to Miyazaki. “Nausicaä"'s Princess Kushana and “Castle in the Sky"'s Colonel Muska want to use ancient technology as personal Death Stars, the war in "Howl’s Moving Castle" is banal and unending, and Lady Eboshi’s on a mission to murder the Great Forest Spirit for a trifling profit. In inspiring contrast, Miyazaki’s protagonists often refuse to use lethal force, frequently sacrificing their own well being for others. Ashitaka defuses a stand-off between Princess Mononoke (the character) and the people of Iron Town, allowing himself to be stabbed in the process. "Nausicaä"'s Master Yupa permits a sword through his hand if it means saving his princess, prioritizing the betterment of the collective over desire for vengeance.

 

One of the great acts of compassion in all of Miyazaki comes back to Nausicaä, who like Luke in “The Last Jedi” willingly sacrifices herself to prevent a slaughter. A horde of enormous insectoids known as Ohms are charging towards the last bastion of human society, and rather than join the battlements to open fire, she tries to rescue a baby Ohm and calm the swarm. She does, but she dies. Miraculously, the Ohms bring her back to life and are pacified, an intervention of goodwill for a pure spirit that puts into action her love of the natural and spiritual world. 

 

Just as the journeys of Rey and Nausicaä begin in parallel, so do their ends. On Pasaana in “The Rise of Skywalker,” Rey encounters a massive serpent, a symbol in mythology for fertility, as well as cycles of life, death, and rebirth, a continuation of a motif in “The Last Jedi.” The serpent, like an Ohm, appears deadly until pacified, and rather than fight, she heals its wounds and sets the creature free. Pasaana’s serpent is a living metaphor for Ben Solo; he appears deadly, but beneath his violent nature is a wounded soul whose spirit is “split to the bone,” in need of healing. She does for him what she did for the serpent, and in an act of transcendence that tethers the spiritual and natural worlds in one, Rey, like Nausicaä, dies saving civilization (through an act of defense, no less) only to be resurrected in an act of love, sacrifice, and redemption from Ben back to her, saviors of the Kami and of the force. To Miyazaki and "Star Wars," nature itself is restorative, healing, and beautiful. As its custodians, we must aspire to be like our heroes: Rey, Ashitaka, Luke, and Nausicaä.

 

So, metaphorically, Rey is Nausicaä.

 

But Rey isn't only Nausicaä. 

 

Rey is also Persephone, goddess of the Underworld in Greek mythology. Daughter of Zeus and Demeter. Goddess of vegetation. Goddess of the dead. Wife to Hades. 

 

The inspiration of Greek mythology on Star Wars, via Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey and The Hero With A Thousand Faces, is common knowledge. A prevalent criticism about the sequel trilogy is that it ignores any aspect of Greek mythology or the Monomyth.

 

As we've seen with Rey’s and Finn's hero's journeys, that doesn't appear to be the case. 

 

Take, for instance, Rey and Kylo's similarities with Persephone and Hades, as outlined in the article, "Reylo and the Myth of Persephone and Hades," from Bright Rock Media:

 

The shipping of Rey and Kylo (Reylo) may have its roots in Greek mythology.

 

As many people know, Star Wars was initially inspired by Joseph Campbell’s work “The Hero’s Journey” and to a lesser extent, “The Hero with a Thousand Faces”; there is a great deal of mythological allusion present in the Star Wars Universe.  This allusion isn’t as strong in the sequels due to the writers coming at the material from their own angles — mainly, genre construction from J.J. Abrams and genre deconstruction from Rian Johnson.  Still, the core structure was based loosely on Lucas’s existing outline, wherein a teen Jedi apprentice named Kira restored Luke’s faith after one of his students fell to the dark side.  These two characters became Rey and Kylo.

 

I believe J.J. Abrams adhered to the spirit of the outline more closely than did Rian Johnson, who went out of his way to secure creative control and ensure he wasn’t beholden to any previously decided plot points.  Lucas’s main concern with Abrams’ Force Awakens was that it was filmed to be a retro movie, suggesting the plot changes were to create more alignment with the plot structure of the original Star Wars.  Also, J.J. Abrams seems like a team player and Rian Johnson seems more like a guy who wants to add his creative spin into the whole thing.

 

Given Lucas’s history as a student of mythology, I believe he would have been fully aware of this story and, if the parallels are no coincidence, would have originated from his outline.  Even with Abrams and Johnson adding their own spin to the films, Rey and Kylo (Reylo) still follow the essential archetypal beats of the story of Persephone and Hades.  In fact, had Rey joined up with Kylo at the end of The Last Jedi, the plots would have lined up almost perfectly, and with the profound romantic tension between these two characters, I think it could still happen.  Even with the events of The Last Jedi, the union lays relatively cleanly over the myth until the very end.

 

So what is the myth? It comes from the old Greek myths: Hades, the misunderstood god of the underworld, falls in love with Persephone, the daughter of Demeter, goddess of nature, at first sight. Hades consults with Zeus, the ruler of the gods and Persephone’s father, and asks his permission to marry her.  Zeus agrees, but Demeter forbids the union — and so, Hades plots to kidnap her.

 

Persephone was kept in isolation by her mother, making her naive to the ways of the world.  One day, while Persephone is left alone by her mother as she supervises the harvest, Persephone wanders off and becomes enthralled by the flower narcissus.  As she goes to pluck it, Hades appears and takes her.  Following her kidnapping, Persephone saw Hades, reputation preceding him, as a monster, but as she got to know him better, she began to understand him and his turmoil, his loneliness and the genuineness of his affection for her — attracted to her purity and tenderness. From the moment she arrived, he showed his vulnerability, showering her with gifts, and offering her a throne and to rule the underworld alongside him.

 

Persephone softened to Hades, appreciating him as the only person who treated her like an individual and an adult — her mother treated her like a child and her father like an object.  Eventually the two tempered one another.  Hades polished away Persephone’s narcissism and naivete, and Persephone softened Hades’s hard disposition and black and white thinking.  At Persephone’s behest, Hades created Elysium, the Greek version of heaven, a paradise for the most noble souls to reside in.  Still, Persephone was full of sorrow, because she was isolated from her family — because she had eaten the pomegranate, the fruit of the Underworld, she was unable to leave.

 

Seeing the sadness in her, Hades struck a bargain with Demeter, who had cursed the Earth’s harvest land with perpetual winter.  He would allow Persephone to return to Earth for six months out of the year.  In Greek mythology, this is how the seasons were created — when Persephone joined her mother in summer and spring, the Earth warmed and vegetation flourished.  In fall and winter, when she left, Demeter mourned and vegetation died.

 

The story of Persephone and Hades became an archetypal story device common in romance, for example 50 Shades of Grey and more recently, Reylo.

 

So how does the story of Rey and Kylo (Reylo) line up?

 

Rey, optimistic and naive, lives in isolation, like Persephone.  Kylo, a tormented, misunderstood, lonely prince, becomes obsessed with her upon spotting her.  With the blessing of Snoke, his king, he decides to kidnap her.  When Rey arrives on the planet Takodana, she wanders off from Finn, her de facto guardian, and finds Luke’s lightsaber.  Much like the flower narcissus called to Persephone, it calls to her,  and the revelations of the lightsaber pull her into the wilderness where Kylo can snatch her away.  Taken to Kylo’s lair, she forms a bond with him, which later evolves into the bond in The Last Jedi where Rey forms a more sympathetic view of him.

 

Kylo is kind to her and treats her as an adult, an individual who matters beyond her lineage or the desires of those around her, saying, “You come from nothing.  You’re nothing.  But not to me.”  At the end of The Last Jedi, as he becomes ‘king’ of the First Order (the Underworld), he offers her a throne.  Now, knowing this myth, I thought she would accept and build Elysium, as that’s how the myth goes, eventually becoming sad and becoming the catalyst for a compromise that allows Kylo (Hades) to return her to the rebellion (Earth) to bring back the harvest, on the promise that she would return — that would have been interesting.  Instead, however, she returns to the rebellion, bringing new hope — similar to Persephone’s return bringing back the harvest.

 

As you can see, Rey and Kylo’s (Reylo’s) journey has an enormous amount of parallels to the myth of Persephone and Hades.  It’s possible in Episode 9, when Kylo and Rey’s arc concludes, we’ll see them joining forces and building Elysium.  If not, well, it’s still a pretty interesting thought exercise, isn’t it? It’s fun to see how the archetypal ancient myths still inform our popular culture today.

 

And a Tumblr user, raven-m3, takes this mythological link even further, with Reylo and the Hades and Persephone Myth in TFA:

 

Thanks to @ohtze’s seminal meta back in January 2016, pretty much every Reylo is aware of the Death and the Maiden trope in TFA. 

 

However, a recent post by @corseque made me realize that some of the evidence for Death and the Maiden in TFA- particularly in the form of the Hades and Persephone myth- has been hiding in plain sight (at least for me personally).  

 

@corseque’s fascinating post describes how   the vegetation (or lack thereof) in Ben’s scenes thus far in the ST are consistent with the Hades and Persephone myth. Specifically, we’ve only seen Ben on the “living world” when he comes to Takodona to capture Rey. After he obtains his “bride,” Ben directly absconds to “the Underworld” with her. This is also true for Hades with Persephone. 

 

This meta is simply a quick compilation of evidence for Hades and Persephone symbolism and themes in TFA. It was inspired by @corseque​’s excellent insights and some brilliant commentary by @theporgsnest​. I’m including examples reported by other Reylos, and am also adding a few insights of my own. 

 

The Fruit of the Underworld

 

In the myth of Hades and Persephone, the fruit of the Underworld (in the form of a pomegranate) plays a critical role. The act of eating the fruit seals Persephone’s place at Hades’ side, making her belong irrevocably to the Underworld.

 

Guys… Rey eats a strange fruit in Maz’s castle that looks suspiciously like a pomegranate (or at least a space version of one).

 

I’ve rewatched this scene many times now, and Rey is the only one shown eating in this scene. She is shown biting into or holding the fruit four separate times, whereas not one bite of food passes Han’s, Finn’s, or even Maz’s lips.  

 

I mean.. could this shot be any more heavy-handed? Right by the fruit basket? 

 

@theporgsnest first brought this to my attention (bless her!), and I was able to find a reference to this by @ashesforfoxes all the way back in 2016. 

 

A Chariot Drawn by Four Black Horrses

 

Full credit to the brilliant @theporgsnest for pointing this out. According to the legend, Hades kidnaps Persephone in his personal chariot, which is drawn by four black horses. Kylo’s shuttle trails behind four tie fighters while he is fleeing Takodona with Rey onboard. (Other tie fighters follow at a clear distance). 

 

Persephone’s Despondent Companions 

 

In most versions of the myth, Persephone is alone playing in a meadow of flowers when Hades captures her. In other versions, she is accompanied by several terrified friends, including the nymph Cyane, who desperately tries to prevent the abduction. The artwork below depicts Cyane at the far left. 

 

Hmm…devoted companions who try but fail to save Persephone, and watch Hades carry her away?  Sounds familiar… 

 

The Seasons

 

The myth of Hades and Persephone was developed to explain the seasons. 

 

Demeter (Persephone’s mother; goddess of the harvest) was distraught when Persephone was abducted. She demanded that Zeus use his influence to return her from the Underworld. Zeus refused, arguing that Hades was a suitable husband for Persephone. 

 

A heartbroken Demeter stopped nurturing the earth, allowing crops and plants to wither and die. After some time, humans were on the brink of starvation, and Zeus had to intervene.

 

Demeter was adamant that the crops would never grow again unless her daughter was returned to her. However, since Persephone had eaten the fruit of the underworld, Hades insisted that she could not return to the world of the living. Zeus came up with a compromise to appease them both. 

 

Since Persephone had eaten 6 pomegranate seeds, she had to remain in the underworld with Hades for 6 months out of the year. When Persephone was in the underworld, Demeter refused to let any plants grow, and crops and vegetation shriveled up and died. Hence the season of fall and winter.

 

Hmm.. when Persephone Rey is in the Underworld on Starkiller Base, she is surrounded by snow and dead vegetation. 

 

For the remaining 6 months, Persephone was allowed to live with her mother on Earth. Every time she was returned, a joyful Demeter allowed crops and plants to burst into bloom. Hence the seasons of spring and summer.   

 

Remember the Leia-Rey scene in TFA that puzzled many fans because no one could figure out why they shared such an intimate hug? I always interpreted it as presaging “family mourning”- the surrogate mother (in-law) comforting her surrogate daughter (in-law) over their mutual loss. I think that explanation still has merit, but there are clear Demeter-Persephone undertones here as well. Persephone has returned to her mother in the world of the living.  

 

That’s all I’ve got, but if there’s something I missed, please tell me!!! We see you, JJ. 😏

 

[Disclaimer to be safe: although the Reylo dynamic and its visual storytelling in TFA contains inspiration from this myth, of course it does NOT perfectly emulate it. There are many tropes and themes in Reylo, and countless examples of how this trope is subverted or altered in TFA.]

 

Maz delights in how Han is "right back in the mess," and Han disagrees, insisting that Leia doesn't want to see him.

 

Rey eats the strange fruit she finds at their table, an act that subtly evokes a connection with Persephone. And soon, Kylo Ren (Hades) will arrive and abduct Rey, taking her with him (to "the Underworld.")

 

Raven-maiden: "In the myth of Hades and Persephone, the fruit of the Underworld (in the form of a pomegranate) plays a critical role. The act of eating the fruit seals Persephone’s place at Hades’ side, making her belong irrevocably to the Underworld."

 

And VioletGargoyle1990 on Tumblr wrote:

 

When people hear the name Hades, everybody jumps to the Devil or a being of pure evil. From what I know from my ancient western civilization class and lots of research online and from mythology books, Hades is described more as a lonely god who was cheated out of his inheritance and was forced to rule the one place nobody wanted. He never did anything truly evil and the people he purposefully inflicted harm on deserved it. He has daddy issues, wants to be as respected as the other gods but never gets it due to his position. He had no equal with anybody for the longest time; he’s either too low for the other gods or too high for mortals. He’s resentful, has rage issues and wants more from life. This all changes the day he set eyes on Persephone. 

 

The same can be said of Kylo Ren. Kylo Ren is the son of Han Solo and Leia. Even from a young age, he was Force sensitive and had many family members to live up to; which might have been too much for a young boy to handle. Not much is known of his life, but from the interactions with Solo, it’s safe to say he has daddy issues as well as rage problems caused by it. He wants respect and love from his family, but feels he’ll never receive it. He feels cheated, alone and without an equal; that is, until he met Rey. 

 

Both men are complicated but not pure evil. They understand love and wish to receive it; especially from the women they encounter.

 

Persephone is the goddess of spring and the daughter of Demeter, the goddess of the harvest. She has a deep connection to the positive ways of life and has a somewhat simple way of seeing the world as bright and cheerful. She wouldn't have any interest or understanding of Hades' world, but she’s lonely herself and is often sheltered by her mother from the rest of the gods. She wants more but never goes outside of her barriers due to her mother’s overprotectiveness which filled Persephone with fear of the outside world. When she is outside of her well known area is when a dark lord is on her trails and whisks her away to his world of darkness. Sound familiar?

 

Rey is a scavenger from a desert planet. Even though she has no family on the planet, they did alienate her to the rest of the galaxy and fill her with fear of leaving her environment because she hopes to have her family back and because it’s safe. Even though she’s lonely and skittish at times, she’s full of hope and light and has a positive outlook on life. We can see she’s a strong woman but she’s still naïve about the darkness and Kylo Ren’s world until she’s forced to go outside and face it. When both Rey and Persephone meet their dark pursuers, they are overtaken and were spirited away to the dark side of their captors and were even bonded to them, with Persephone eating Hades' underworld food and Rey being Force bonded to Kylo Ren. They can be shortly separated but never fully apart from either their men or the world of their men. The women are forever part of the dark but never give into it. They keep their positive ways as well as grow with more wisdom and power. In the end of Hades and Persephone’s tale, Persephone comes to love her husband and chooses to be by his side as his queen and equal. Her love for Hades changed his heart and [he] feels love and equality with another person. It started off in a very unconventional way, but some of the greatest love stories in myths and legends have started that way, like Beauty and the Beast or The Worm King. Who's to say Rey and Kylo Ren/ Ben Solo don't belong in this category? We can already see the effects they leave on each other with Ben feeling the light and finding an equal in Rey and Rey seeing the light in Ben and wanting  to help him. Both want to stand by the other and balance the bond. Hades found balance through Persephone, so in my view, Ben will find balance with Rey. Only time and the next Star Wars movies will tell if this is an intergalactic Hades and Persephone.

 

And then, once again, comes Dune.

 

Rey's lineage is another way the Star Wars sequels intersect with Dune. 

 

In Dune, Paul Atreides learns he is the maternal grandson of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen. He is related to the Baron, and the Baron is related to the Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV.

 

Paul's mother, Lady Jessica, is the daughter of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen.

 

In Frank Herbert's Heretics of Dune, we are introduced to a new ghola (clone) of Duncan Idaho. While the original Duncan Idaho may have been an influence on Han Solo, this new ghola, a young boy, has exceptional skills, some appropriated genetically through his various lives, his various generations of clones, from the original Duncan onward, that the Bene Tleilaxu and Bene Gesserit would like to exploit for their own benefit.

 

Ben Solo was also a boy with exceptional skills, with raw power he inherited through his extraordinary bloodline, that Supreme Leader Snoke and Darth Sidious seek to exploit for their own benefit.

 

Then there's Sheeana, a young Fremen girl, raised by her parents in a shanty town on the outskirts of Keen on Rakis, the present day Arrakis. She watched from a distance as a sandworm destroyed her home, killing her parents and the villagers.

 

The worm that orphaned her not only spared her, but Sheeana discovered she had power over it. The worm leads her to the Rakian priesthood of Keen, who adopt her and recognize how powerful and important she is.

 

Later she discovers she is a descendant of a Duncan Idaho ghola and an Atreides. 

 

Rey Palpatine was raised in a shanty town on Jakku. When she was very young, her parents left her in the custody of Unkar Plutt. She watches from a distance as their transport leaves her behind. It's years later when she learns they died shortly thereafter, and that she is the descendent of a Sheev Palpatine strand cast; her father, Dathan. 

 

It isn't until she comes across a BB unit and a defecting stormtrooper that she discovers she has a power that she has barely ever realized she had, and had, up until then, only used through instinct.

 

The path she goes on leads her to General Leia Organa and Luke Skywalker, who recognize her talents and prepare her for her destiny. She later adopts the Skywalker name as her own and continues their legacy after their deaths.

 

Along the way she discovers Ben Solo (Kylo Ren), who she has a strange connection with through the Force. It isn't the same connection as the one between the young Duncan Idaho ghola and Siona Atreides, but a connection, nonetheless. Their connection is called a dyad, a bond created by the Force itself. 

 

The Sith also take an interest in her, just as the Bene Gesserit take an interest in Sheeana. (This parallel is repeated in recent Star Wars projects. It has always been the Bene Gesserits’ goal in the Dune books to try to create their own Kwisatz Haderach. Lady Jessica went against the Bene Gesserits and bore the Kwisatz Haderach herself, and taught Paul how to defend against Bene Gesserit manipulation. Similarly, the Coven of Brendok were intent on creating their own chosen one, in the Disney+ Star Wars series, The Acolyte.)

 

Take, for instance, this passage from Heretics of Dune, pg. 281: "The code itself, as he recognized its shape in him, attracted Teg's fascinated attention. It began with recognition that humans were not created equal, that they inherited abilities and experienced different events in their lives. This produced people of different accomplishments and different worth.” 

 

This passage may as well be describing the Force's effect on all Force-sensitive characters in the nine-episode Skywalker saga. And an even clearer cut explanation for midi-chlorians. 

 

Through the nine Star Wars Skywalker saga films, we see Anakin, Luke, Leia, Kylo and Rey exhibit raw, inherited abilities before they were ever taken under the wing of a master to train.

 

While this is something that has remained consistent throughout the nine films and resulted in maintaining the films as a piece, this passage from Heretics of Dune implies that it can also be seen as another similarity or even influence or reference to Frank Herbert.

 

When Rey (and the audience) flashes back to a family memory, they are all together in a tent on Jakku, and when Paul Atreides comes to the realization that Baron Harkonnen is his grandfather, he and his mother are in a tent, on Arrakis. 

 

And for all those who think giving Rey legacy lineage abolishes the democratization of the Force we're given in The Last Jedi, I give you… Finn and Broom boy. 

 

And why stop there? Aren't Jannah and her fellow stormtroopers Force-sensitive?

 

In Heretics of Dune, pages 404-426, a  sandworm takes Reverend Mother Odrade and the girl with extraordinary abilities, Sheanna, to a rock wall that was once the seitch where Fremen Stilgar and Paul Muad'Dib held court with other fremen. 

 

The sand under Odrade's feet gives way, and she falls through a fissure in the rock wall. Down below, Odrade finds the remains of bodies and a word written in stone under the sand: Arafel.

 

Arafel, the cloud darkness at the end of the universe, prophesied by the son of Paul Muad'Dib, God Emperor of Dune, who, after his death, was looked upon by many as a tyrant. Priests saw that word, Arafel, as the tyrant's holy judgment.

 

Reading this chapter, I can't help but be reminded of the sequence in The Rise of Skywalker, when our heroes fall through the sinking field on Pasaana, landing in an underground cave, with Poe's torch and Rey's lightsaber (Excalibur) to light their way.

 

In Heretics of Dune, Odrade is also in need of a torch to light her path.

 

Rey finds a dagger left behind by Ochi of Bestoon, with ancient Sith words etched into the blade. The group then encounters the serpent that fed on Ochi of Bestoon, a serpent Rey tames by healing a wound on its side.

 

In this chapter of Heretics of Dune, Sheanna encounters and seemingly tames a sandworm that takes her, Odrade, and one other to the sietch where Odrade encounters her own ancient word.

 

Odrade finds other words etched in stone in that cavern, written in a different language. They are the words of Leto II, heir of Paul Muad'Dib, called God Emperor, and considered a tyrant.

 

In The Rise of Skywalker, the words etched onto Ochi's dagger are in the runic language of the Sith, the sect of the Emperor of the galaxy.

 

In the chapter between pages 455-475 of Heretics of Dune, there's talk of decoys, an element in the prequels.

 

There's also a character in the last third of Heretics of Dune named Muzzafar. Phonetically, it's closely reminiscent to the name of the fateful planet Mustafar in Star Wars Episode III – Revenge of the Sith. 

 

The similarities don't seem to quit! On pages 491-509 of Heretics of Dune, the Mentat Miles Teg is captured and interrogated via mind probe.

 

When he fights against it and confronts his captors, he discovers abilities he never knew he had before, such as anticipating attacks before they happen. Something similar happens to Rey in The Force Awakens.

 

So, that's who Rey is. An amalgamation of many composite characters, many of which we can find in the Dune books. 

 

Let us now focus on who she is not. 

 

Namely, a Kenobi. 

 

More than a year following the release of The Rise of Skywalker in theaters, in an interview on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Daisy Ridley admitted: 

 

“At the beginning there was toying with like an Obi-Wan connection. There were like different versions, and then it really went to that she was no one. Then it came to Episode IX and J.J. pitched me the film and was like, ‘Oh yeah, Palpatine’s grandaughter.’ I was like, ‘Awesome!’ Then two weeks later he was like, ‘Oh, we’re not sure.’ So it kept changing. Even as we were filming I wasn’t sure what the answer was going to be.”

 

What good would it do to make Rey a Kenobi? What purpose would it serve? How would it enrich the narrative? 

 

It really wouldn't. 

 

I've heard an argument that making Rey a Kenobi would honor Obi-Wan's legacy. Sure; and that's great. But beyond that… what purpose would it serve to the story? When we learn Darth Vader is Luke's father, that serves the narrative. It serves the story. When we learn Leia is Luke's sister, that serves the story. It gives Vader the bargaining chip he needs to sway Luke to the dark side. When we learn Anakin Skywalker is the Chosen One who will bring balance to the Force, it adds something to the narrative, and to the story. 

 

Making Rey a Kenobi brings nothing to the narrative or to the story. All it does is makes the audience go, Huh. That's pretty wild.Then they'd start trying to connect those dots. 

 

Okay, now what about Rey being a nobody?

 

A lot of fans liked the idea of Rey being a nobody. It was new. It was fresh. It brought democratization to the Force. It showed that Force sensitivity wasn't just a hereditary condition passed on from generation to generation. It proved that anyone could potentially tap into the Force, no matter who you are. 

 

But here's the thing: we already knew this. Democratization of the Force was always apparent. Democratization of the Force was always a thing. 

 

When we get to The Rise of Skywalker, the fans who loved the idea that Rey was a nobody were crushed when she was revealed to be a Palpatine. That it was a hereditary condition once again. And they accused J.J. of retconning Rian Johnson’s story, as the assumption was that The Rise of Skywalker's single purpose was to course correct every decision Rian Johnson made. 

 

And yet it wasn't a course correct. J.J. didn't take democratization of the Force out of Star Wars just because Rey is a Palpatine. Anyone who thinks Rey being a Palpatine negates the potentiality of anyone being able to use the Force ignores three specific points. 

 

Finn is Force sensitive. 

 

Jannah and her squad of fellow Stormtrooper defectors are all Force sensitive. 

 

The slave boy on Canto Bight, the boy who is enraptured by the legend of Luke Skywalker, who looks up at the stars in the night sky dreaming of adventures yet to come, who ancillary material has named Temiri Blagg and the fans have affectionately dubbed Broom Boy… is Force sensitive. 

 

They all prove that anyone can be Force sensitive.

 

They all prove Democratization of the Force still exists. 

 

But it also proves that the Force can also be a hereditary condition that passes from generation to generation… and that isn't anything new. The original trilogy established this, when Luke told Leia, “The Force is strong in my family. I have it. My father has it. And my sister has it.” 

 

And the establishment of midi-chlorians in the prequel trilogy shows that anyone can use the Force. Because everyone in the Star Wars universe has midi-chlorians in their body. Midi-chlorians are like mitochondria. Everyone in real life has mitochondria in their body, everyone in the Star Wars universe has midi-chlorians in their body, and the midi-chlorians are an indicator as to how much Force potential someone has, therefore everyone in the Star Wars universe has the potential to use the Force in a minute way or an extreme way. Meaning there has always been democratization of the Force. 

 

But here's the thing: Rey being a nobody, a detail it was assumed was worked into The Last Jedi by Rian Johnson, was actually a concept introduced by J.J. Abrams.

 

When Daisy Ridley confirmed that Rey was almost going to be a Kenobi, the complaints began to surface about how the sequel trilogy never had a plan to begin with. Yeah, well, that's no big surprise.

 

It's no big surprise because neither did the original trilogy, even with all of those copious notes George Lucas kept.

 

Take Luke Skywalker, for instance. 

 

He did not start out as the son of Darth Vader.

 

And Leia never started out as Luke's sister.

 

In fact, before there was an Episode V or an Episode VI, Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader were not even the same person. 

 

But, while Rey wasn't always planned to be a Palpatine… she was always meant to be a Skywalker. 

 

Making Rey and Kylo Ren the grandchildren of Emperor Palpatine and Anakin Skywalker brings the Saga full circle. All of the evil machinations of the Galactic Empire are put into motion by a Palpatine and a Skywalker. It's up to another Palpatine and another Skywalker to set things straight.

 

In 2023, Daisy told Rolling Stone:

 

“Well, J.J. [Abrams] was the one who was like, she is of no one, so it wasn’t just The Last Jedi where that was the message. What was interesting about the last one, for me, was that you can be a hero and not come from anywhere or you can be a hero and come from literally the worst person in the universe. You’re not your parents, you’re not your grandparents, you’re not your bloodline and you’re not the generations before you.”

 

I don't think Rey's a perfect character and I don't think she's unlikable and I don't think everything comes easy to her. I think she's lost a lot in her life, and she's looking for people to fill that void. I think she feels singled out in a world she doesn't quite understand until the end of the trilogy. I think the Force has hurried her along that path and she would much rather slow down and assess her surroundings. Like Luke, she thought she was a nobody before she became a somebody. She has all this power that she's not sure where it came from, and then she finds out it's because her lineage leads all the way back to the most feared and powerful entity in the galaxy, and because she has a bond with another family, a family manipulated and victimized by this entity for decades. I think she's a very tragic character, who only by the end of the trilogy is finding any semblance of relief. That's what I think of Rey. 

 

If you disagree, that's fine. That's your prerogative. It's all subjective.

 

There's one last thing we need to take into account, and that is THE PLAN. 

 

Or, depending on who you listen to… the lack of one. 

 

It's a common belief in the social media space that the sequel trilogy, all three films, were never planned out ahead of time, and that lack of pre-planning ruined the entire trilogy, which accounts for all the apparent inconsistencies detractors claim to see from The Force Awakens to The Last Jedi, and from The Last Jedi to The Rise of Skywalker. 

 

I can name plenty of trilogies off the top of my head that were never pre-planned trilogies, and still worked out fairly well:

 

The Godfather Trilogy was never planned ahead of time.

 

The Dark Knight Trilogy was never planned ahead of time.

 

The Back to the Future Trilogy was never planned ahead of time. 

 

Oh yeah… and lest we forget…

 

The Star Wars original and prequel trilogies were never planned ahead of time, despite all those notes George kept in the beginning. The overall Star Wars story evolved as it developed, beginning with the original Star Wars, released in 1977. And the back story changed completely when George combined Darth Vader with Anakin Skywalker, which didn't happen until pre-production on The Empire Strikes Back. 

 

It would've been nice if someone at Disney or Lucasfilm addressed this issue early, but mum was the word, and as I write this, mum still is the word. 

 

It didn't help, when J.J. Abrams was eventually pressed on whether he thought the sequel trilogy “would have benefitted from having a plan from the very beginning,” he said this to Adam Chitwood at Collider:

 

“I’ve been involved in a number of projects that have been – in most cases, series – that have ideas that begin the thing where you feel like you know where it’s gonna go, and sometimes it’s an actor who comes in, other times it’s a relationship that as-written doesn’t quite work, and things that you think are gonna just be so well-received just crash and burn and other things that you think like, ‘Oh that’s a small moment’ or ‘That’s a one-episode character’ suddenly become a hugely important part of the story. I feel like what I’ve learned as a lesson a few times now, and it’s something that especially in this pandemic year working with writers [has become clear], the lesson is that you have to plan things as best you can, and you always need to be able to respond to the unexpected. And the unexpected can come in all sorts of forms, and I do think that there’s nothing more important than knowing where you’re going.

 

“There are projects that I’ve worked on where we had some ideas but we hadn’t worked through them enough, sometimes we had some ideas but then we weren’t allowed to do them the way we wanted to. I’ve had all sorts of situations where you plan things in a certain way and you suddenly find yourself doing something that’s 180 degrees different, and then sometimes it works really well and you feel like, ‘Wow that really came together,’ and other times you think, ‘Oh my God I can’t believe this is where we are,’ and sometimes when it’s not working out it’s because it’s what you planned, and other times when it’s not working out it’s because you didn’t [have a plan].

 

“You just never really know, but having a plan I have learned – in some cases the hard way – is the most critical thing, because otherwise you don’t know what you’re setting up. You don’t know what to emphasize. Because if you don’t know the inevitable of the story, you’re just as good as your last sequence or effect or joke or whatever, but you want to be leading to something inevitable.”

 

Here's the thing, though: He never really answered the question. He never admitted the sequel trilogy didn't have a plan. All he admitted to was that plans are fluid; they can change depending on variables one will always come across during the production of a TV series or a movie. 

 

The sequel trilogy DID have a plan. And I'm not talking about only George Lucas’s sequel trilogy outline. I'm talking about the sequel trilogy we got. 

 

The sequel trilogy HAD a plan, and the plan, as plans tend to do…

 

CHANGED. 

 

When asked about his stint as Kylo Ren, Adam Driver told Rich Eisen on The Rich Eisen Show in 2023:

 

“I had an overall arc in mind that [JJ Abrams] wanted to do. His idea was that [Kylo's] journey was the opposite journey of Vader, where Vader starts the most confident and the most committed to the dark side. And then by the last movie, he's the most vulnerable and weak. He wanted to start with the opposite. This character was the most confused and vulnerable, and by the end of the three movies, he would be the most committed to the dark side. I tried to keep that arc in mind, regardless if that wound up not being the journey anyway, because it changed while shooting. But I was still focused on that.

 

“With Rian, he took it in a different direction, but it still tracked with the character. And then the last one, it changed into being, you know, about them and the dyad, and things like that. And evolving into Ben Solo. That was never a part of it. He was Ben Solo from the beginning but there was never a version where we'd see Ben Solo when I first signed up for it.”

 

Well, that's that, right? He admitted it… right there. There was, in fact, a plan, and the plan changed. After this interview dropped, I was certain everybody in the social media space would change their tune, and accept that there was a plan in place, after all. 

 

They never did, though.

 

This admission seemed to go right over everyone's head. The only takeaway the social media talking heads gleaned was how Disney and Lucasfilm screwed up again, scrubbing an interesting idea, ignoring how Driver admitted there was a plan in place from the start. 

 

But I guess I shouldn't be surprised. 

 

Because Daisy Ridley admitted the same thing years earlier, and it didn't make any difference towards the accepted, uninformed opinions of the  talking heads on social media. 

 

In 2018, about a year prior to the release of The Rise of Skywalker, Daisy Ridley told French outlet Le Magazine GEEK:

 

“Here’s what I think I know. J. J. wrote Episode VII, as well as drafts for VIII & IX. Then Rian Johnson arrived and wrote The Last Jedi entirely. I believe there was some sort of general consensus on the main lines of the trilogy, but apart from that, every director writes and realizes his film in his own way. Rian Johnson and J. J. Abrams met to discuss all of this, although Episode VIII is still his very own work. I believe Rian didn’t keep anything from the first draft of Episode VIII.” 

 

I don't know how you can get any more succinct, or direct. 

 

There was a plan, folks. And the plan changed, as plans often do. 

 

And yet, it didn't make as much as a difference to the fanbase. They never noticed, no matter how much the entertainment media outlets reported it.

 

But why not?

 

Why would a realization like this go over so many fans' heads? 

 

I think once a fanbase has made up their minds about something, it infects the culture, and then the culture accepts it as truth. 

 

Take, for example, what George Lucas said in an interview at Cannes in May of 2024, the year he received an honorary Palme D'or. When questioned about suspected sexism in the Star Wars films, George responded:

 

“Who do you think the heroes are in these stories? What do you think Princess Leia was? She’s the head of the rebellion. She’s the one that’s taking this young kid who doesn’t know anything and this boisterous, I-know-everything guy who can’t do anything and trying to save the rebellion with these clowns … And it’s the same thing with Queen Amidala.

 

“You can’t just put a woman in pants and expect her to be a hero. They can wear dresses, they can wear whatever they want. It’s their brains and their ability to think and plan and be logistical. That’s what the hero is.

 

 “They would say, ‘It’s all white men.’ Most of the people are aliens! The idea is you’re supposed to accept people for what they are, whether they’re big and furry or whether they’re green or whatever. The idea is all people are equal.”

 

The social media space had a field day interpreting what George said as a venomous takedown against Disney’s “treatment” of Star Wars, when it was nothing of the sort. If anything, it represents exactly what the Star Wars films made under Disney’s banner are about. Female characters in these movies and streaming shows are smart, resilient, and can take care of themselves, just like Princess Leia, just like Queen Amidala. And that point never seemed to hit home with detractors in the social media space. The reports mostly attempted to spin it as a rebuke of what Disney did to George's baby. This came after the social media space took Lucas to task when he defended Bob Iger only two months prior, during a proxy war between Iger and Disney investor Nelson Peltz: 

 

“Creating magic is not for amateurs. When I sold Lucasfilm just over a decade ago. I was delighted to become a Disney shareholder because of my long-time admiration for its iconic brand and Bob Iger’s leadership.

 

“When Bob recently returned to the company during a difficult time, I was relieved. No one knows Disney better. I remain a significant shareholder because I have full faith and confidence in the power of Disney and Bob’s track record of driving long-term value. I have voted all of my shares for Disney’s 12 directors and urge other shareholders to do the same.”

 

The fanbase didn't take what George said lightly. They didn't decide, Oh, maybe we misunderstood. Not at all. Instead, the “toxic” members of the fanbase attacked George for kowtowing to Disney… 

 

… until his words at Cannes, which they interpreted as George sticking it to Disney again. And that's when, to them, everything was right with the world. Because if it doesn't appear to them that George is on their side, their argument dissolves. And now they can point to what George said about Iger as Better the Devil I know, than the Devil I don't. 

 

Detractors will always surmise the worst. When JJ made his vague comment about planning, detractors surmised he was confirming there was no overarching plan set in stone when he directed The Force Awakens, or when Rian Johnson directed The Last Jedi, or when JJ came back to direct The Rise of Skywalker, but what it sounded like to me was that he was comparing the planning on the sequel trilogy to the planning on one of his many TV shows.... putting it plainly, plans change as you move forward. Which is true. You could have planned something out three ways from Sunday, but for whatever reason, anything can change. Nobody should know that better than George Lucas, who never planned for but took advantage of a change that brought us the duality of Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader, and the siblings, Luke & Leia. 

 

But when it comes down to “a plan,” Star Wars has always been pretty fluid, and the story has always changed to fit its circumstances. 

 

Take, for instance, Obi-Wan telling Luke, “Darth Vader betrayed and murdered your father,” in Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope.

 

In 1977, when there was just Star Wars (before it was called Episode IV, before it was called A New Hope, just Star Wars), and noEmpire Strikes Back, no Return of the Jedi, no prequels, and no sequels, what Obi-Wan tells Luke about his father was the ABSOLUTE, UNFILTERED, UNMIRED TRUTH. There was no certain point of view. This was the TRUTH. Anakin Skywalker was literally betrayed and murdered by Darth Vader. Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader were two totally different people, and Luke Skywalker was, essentially, a NOBODY. That is, he never came from some mythical, legendary family tree. He wasn't special. He was just another kid in the galaxy who was Force sensitive. The Force may have been with Luke, and his father may have been a Jedi before him, but there was nothing special about that. His father wasn't the chosen one. At this point, the Skywalker surname held about as much weight throughout the galaxy as Smith or Jones. But then we get to the writing of The Empire Strikes Back. When Leigh Brackett was involved in the writing of The Empire Strikes Back, Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader were still two separate people. Her surviving drafts back this up. This is why it's always seemed so odd that Luke should be living on Tatooine under his father's own surname. If he was left with Owen and Beru Lars to keep him hidden from Darth Vader and the Emperor, and Darth Vader is Anakin Skywalker, why is he living without an assumed name, in plain sight, and on Anakin Skywalker's home planet, no less? It's because, originally, Luke wasn't in hiding. He was simply a Force sensitive teen living on Tatooine, in a time when it was dangerous to be Force sensitive in the galaxy, because a Force sensitive would be considered a threat to Darth Vader and the Emperor, and Obi-Wan was looking out for Luke, for that reason and that reason only. So then George combined Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader into one character, and it irrevocably changed the Star Wars saga forever. From this point forward, George's Star Wars story went down a totally different, UNPLANNED path. 

 

But what about Princess Leia Organa? Was she always Luke's sister? Was she always the daughter of Anakin Skywalker? Nope. When The Empire Strikes Back was released in 1980, there was no plan for Luke and Leia to be siblings. That's why, now, Leia kissing Luke is considered to look, well, rather odd; especially when, after Luke tells Leia the truth, in Return of the Jedi, that she's his sister, Leia's response is, "I know… somehow, I've always known." 

 

But Luke WAS meant to have a sister. She just wasn't originally meant to be Leia. The original intention was for Luke's sister to be introduced in George's initial version of a sequel trilogy; a version of the sequel trilogy Lucas had been constructing before he started working on Return of the Jedi... but back then, this sister was STILL not meant to be Leia. In that original version of Episode VIII,Luke would have found his sister on the other end of the galaxy and trained her to be a Jedi, realizing she was much more powerful... even more powerful than Luke. 

 

Sound like anyone we know?

 

And this sister was being trained in order to stop Emperor Palpatine, who would have survived up till the sequel trilogy. 

 

Again... does this sound familiar?

 

By the time George had gotten around to making ROTJ, he was exhausted. His marriage had broken up. He just wanted to put a cap on Star Wars and move on to other things. That's why Leia was chosen to be Luke's sister in Return of the Jedi, and that's why Palpatine died. And then there's the sequel trilogy, which went through numerous permutations over the past forty-some years. First it was one thing, then it was scrapped, then it was another thing, and then it became what we know today. 

 

And that, my friends, is what can happen with a story, even with a PLAN in place; or the semblance of a plan. Even with a working outline, a story can and is almost certain to change during the writing process, or even later, during the production process. So, if we're going to accuse Disney/Lucasfilm of lying, we might as well call George Lucas a liar too; because what is discussed between Luke and Obi-Wan in Obi-Wan's homestead in A New Hope ended up being a total lie as well. Obi-Wan lied to Luke, and he lied to us. A certain point of view, indeed. "Ben, why didn't you tell me," indeed. But never mind all that. This whole thing, in both cases, is less than a lie and more so just an example of stories evolving. That isn't a lie; it's just something that happens during the writing and production process. And not for nothing, if you read the Return of the Jedi novelization, Obi-Wan's Force ghost tells Luke that Owen is Obi-Wan's brother. That story element didn't last either. 

 

Then we get to the prequel trilogy. Since George had combined Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader during his Empire Strikes Backrewrites, the back story was more or less set in stone. But George added a "chosen one" narrative, as well as a virgin birth for Anakin, as he was fleshing out the prequel trilogy. Then, as George was working on the script for Revenge of the Sith, he added a detail in one draft that he subsequently dropped from following drafts: he had a scene where Palpatine, in no uncertain terms, told Anakin he was Anakin's "father," that Palpatine himself “manipulated the midi-chlorians to cause the cell divisions resulting in Anakin's birth.” George ultimately decided this was way too on the nose, wanted to keep Anakin's origins more ambiguous, and dropped the exchange. So what began as Anakin being "created" by Palpatine became Anakin simply being created by the Force. However, the narrative still ended up becoming complicated, because based on Palpatine's monologue in the opera house scene about "The Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise," fans were left to infer that Palpatine was suggesting he had something to do with Anakin's birth, when this was something George never intended to suggest at all. This theory was later compounded when, in a Darth Vader comic, a dream Anakin has where he sees a vision of Emperor Palpatine watching over Shmi Skywalker while she was pregnant with Anakin suddenly seemed to confirm Palpatine's involvement in Anakin's conception. But soon after fan rumblings began making their way around the internet, Matt Martin, a Lucasfilm Story Group Creative Executive, made this statement: “Palpatine didn’t create Anakin Skywalker with the Force. This is all in Anakin’s head … I can tell you definitively, as someone who worked on the comic, that is 100% not the intended implication. It’s part of my job to ensure the stories are aligned with the overall vision of Star Wars. If the intention was to make a direct connection between Palps and Anakin’s birth, I would have had it removed.” 

 

So now let's look back at Daisy's revelation about how the lineage of the Rey character evolved as the sequel trilogy went along… Just as Luke's lineage changed as production of the OT went along, and the cause of Anakin's conception changed as production of the prequel trilogy went along, so did Rey's lineage. First, Daisy said Rey was going to be a Kenobi. Would that have worked? Eh. We hear Obi-Wan's voice during Rey's Force vision, and Obi-Wan did have a love affair with Satine Kryze in a back story set up in The Clone Wars. But it wouldn't account for how powerful Rey is. 

 

Then, in The Last Jedi, she's a nobody. The suggestion is an interesting one, but let's be realistic. This is Star Wars. And to keep consistent with the rest of the saga, our Jedi lead has to come from SOMEWHERE, not NOWHERE. That being said, we were led to believe that even Luke was a nobody from nowhere at one point before things changed. Nothing new here. And to be fair, even Rian Johnson has commented that when Rey says her parents were "nobodies," it was never meant to be absolute fact, just "the worst possible thing for Rey to hear in that moment, and, in fact, Kylo is gonna use this to try and undercut her confidence so she’ll feel she has to lean on him for her identity," and Rian felt it still left the truth about her origins totally open for some more revelations in the next film. 

 

Which leads us to The Rise of Skywalker. Daisy admits J.J. was going back and forth about making Rey a Palpatine, but Palpatine was already planned to be the returning villain, since at least the latter half of 2017, before The Last Jedi was even released. There is concept art to back this up. Kevin Jenkins drew the first conceptual pencil sketches depicting Palpatine's  return in November 2017, soon after Abrams was hired back. These early drawings already depicted Palpatine attached to a mechanical apparatus, as we see in the film. 

 

And The Rise of Skywalker co-writer Chris Terrio explained to AwardsDaily: 

 

"Kathy Kennedy and [TROS producer, and as of 2019, Senior Vice President of Live Action Development and Production of Lucasfilm] Michelle Rejwan had a clear plan about how everything should end. They had clear plans about certain storylines that we had to use. We were given a lot of freedom within that. We knew that Rey and Ren were the key to this trilogy, but we also knew that we had to make a path in which Kylo Ren could regain his honor since he is the son of Han and Leia.

 

"That's where we started playing with the idea of ​​an ancient evil that refused to die. The source of evil in the universe is the dark spirit that awaits vengeance, biding its time. The entity known as Palpatine in this version—his original body died in Return of the Jedi—is very patient and biding its time. He's dug his hole and has been waiting to return and take over the world again."

 

When pressed on whether Palpatine was always planned to return, Terrio said this:

 

"Well, I can't speak to Kathy's overall intentions, but it was certainly discussed and an idea before I joined the team. Kathy had this vision that we should tell the same grand story for all nine films. Although, because of Episodes VII and VIII, you might not think we were telling the same story. She thought it would be a really strong ending for the ninth film. It also fits JJ really well because he likes to use magic.

 

"If you rewatch the old films, things will make more sense. Ren and his passion for the Dark Side and his grandfather. The voice he always hears in his head. The similarities between Snoke and Palpatine. The intention was that, by the time you get to Episode IX, there are real reasons why this happens. It shows how the story is coming together in the franchise.”

 

Does making Palpatine her granddaddy work? Well, he is Mr. Unlimmmmited Power. We know strong sensitivity to the Force is hereditary. However, we could also ascribe her exceptional Force ability to the bond Kylo and Rey share -- the dyad. It also brings the entire Skywalker saga full circle: The prequel trilogy establishes how all the woe in the galaxy begins when a Skywalker and a Palpatine join forces (no pun intended, but it works)... and in the sequel trilogy, a Palpatine and a Skywalker join forces to bring an end to all that woe. See that? Symmetry. Also, Palpatine's inclusion in the sequel trilogy as we know it now harkens back to George's original intention for him in his previous sequel trilogy concept BEFORE the original trilogy went down the path it went, with Luke training a girl to go up against Palpatine. And even if Palpatine wasn't originally in the cards during the production of The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, well, the redemption of Anakin Skywalker and his son's quest to save him wasn't George's initial intention when Star Wars came out in 1977 either… and that worked out pretty well, didn't it? 

 

So while there IS a big difference between not being entirely sure where the next film is going to take you and the script changing on a day to day basis, let's not pretend that some productions don't have to deal with BOTH AT THE SAME TIME, which is also something that can happen quite often during the production of films in a franchise.

 

To add: one major criticism associated with Rey being Palpatine's granddaughter, thereby

maintaining the family saga status quo, is that the story isn't taken in any new directions,

and the implied new direction proposed by TLJ is ignored by more of the same,

 

Taking a sharp left turn in the middle of a story whose purpose has already been defined would be betraying the focus of the story we've already been watching. lf this was a separate story, a new approach would be welcome. But these are Chapters 7-9 of a story where the focus has already been dictated by Chapters 1-6. Which is also why I don't have a problem with how Snoke was treated. Nominating Snoke to be the main antagonist in the Emperor's wake wouldn't make for a satisfying conclusion. Not to me, anyway. And not dramatically, either. Palpatine is the principal antagonist of this story. You don't jettison your principal antagonist halfway through and conclude the story with a different villain. Which then poses the question: does bringing Palpatine back diminish Anakin's sacrifice, and his destiny as the chosen one? I would say no, I don't think it diminishes anything. Anakin still killed the Emperor of the galaxy. He still helped defeat the Empire. And he still gave his life to protect his son. It isn't his fault the Emperor cheated by transferring his spirit to a clone body of himself. And it doesn't change the fact that the Emperor WAS killed. Darth Vader DID kill the Emperor. And his act brought peace and prosperity to the galaxy. But it doesn't mean there'd be peace and prosperity forever and forever, amen. Ending one war doesn't end all wars. Darth Vader DID kill the Emperor. If the Emperor is going to find a loophole for his survival, all that means is Anakin's legacy needs to be defended. And that's the goal of the next generation: to defend the Skywalker legacy. And that's why I think Snoke works better as a proxy of the Emperor while the Emperor hides in the shadows, prepping his army and biding his time, just like he did in the prequels. Sidious can't hide behind the Chancellor this time, though. That's why we have Snoke. Snoke is Sidious's new mask. He is Oz, while the true conman – Palpatine – is hiding behind a curtain on Exegol. That's much more satisfying than ending the saga with a villain of the week. Besides, call it a lucky break if you want, but there are enough clues in The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi that point to Snoke being a proxy of the Emperor, from similar musical motifs, to poetic framing, to repeated actions and parallels. lan McDiarmid, in 2005, describes Chancellor Palpatine as Darth Sidious's literal mask, which as far as l'm concerned, ends up prophetically foreshadowing Snoke as Sidious's new mask: 

 

“[George] said this casually, 'You should think of Palpatine's eyes as contact lenses. So there's Palpatine's eyes and my eyes and that was very interesting. So, in fact, his face, which is the same as mine, was the unreal aspect. My own face was the mask. And then when I get into the mask, that is the evil person - that's the real face.”

 

Furthermore, the scene in which we're introduced to Snoke in The Force Awakens is shot and blocked to reflect the scene in which Vader communicates with Palpatine in The Empire Strikes Back, while Rey's confrontation with Snoke in Snoke’s throne room is meant to illicit parallels to Luke’s confrontation with Palpatine in Palpatine's throne room in Return of the Jedi.

 

There's nothing subtle about this, folks. It's all very direct and blatant. 

 

But…let's get back to Rey.

 

When Rey’s finally outside the Star Destroyer she has scavenged, lifts up her goggles, and pulls down her mask, I immediately recall old conceptual art I'd seen, virtually all my life, leafing through Ralph McQuarrie's art books and J.W. Rinzler's The Making of Star Wars. Rey resembles old Ralph McQuarrie concept art, conceived when George was toying with the idea to make Luke Skywalker a girl. The concept art I'd grown up seeing on a page is now up there on the screen. 

 

Rey is the girl Luke almost was… in a sense. 

 

So, in some ways, Rey is also Luke. 

 

Metaphorically.

 

And in certain ways, Rey is also Anakin. 

 

Metaphorically. 

 

As the trilogy progresses, we're going to find more parallels between Rey's journey and Luke's journey. 

 

Rey packs up and jets away on her speeder. Evoking memories of T.E. Lawrence riding a camel past a mountain in the desert in David Lean's picture, Lawrence of Arabia, we watch Rey depart in a wide shot showcasing that mountainous Star Destroyer, looming over her. In The Force Awakens, it's really not pertinent to the story that we know the background behind this image. If anyone still wants some background on what led up to this, that's when ancillary material does come in handy. In the film, all we really need to know is what this image suggests: that the enormity of the past looms over everything happening in the present. However, we will find symbolic bookends in this image and the Star Destroyer breaking through the ice, and rising into the sky, in The Rise of Skywalker. A crashed Star Destroyer symbolizes the death of the Empire in The Force Awakens, while a rising Star Destroyer in The Rise of Skywalker symbolizes the Empire's resurrection, as the Final Order. 

 

Rey's destination is Niima Outpost, where she will clean the scrap metal she scavenged before trading it to Unkar Plutt in exchange for rations. 

 

Parking outside the outpost limits, we're treated to another tribute to Ralph McQuarrie's conceptual work. What was originally designed by Ralph McQuarrie as part of the exterior to Jabba's palace has become the archway entrance to Niima Outpost, where Rey unloads all her scavenged parts.

 

While Rey is cleaning off the parts before turning them in to be evaluated by Unkar Plutt, she watches a ship leave Jakku and stares at an old woman also scraping away at items to pawn. 

 

Well, she ain't daydreaming about leaving Jakku, that's for sure. The departing ship reminds her of her own parents leaving her. And the old woman represents who Rey could very well be in years to come, repeating the same tasks, waiting on her parents to come back, until she's old and grey. 

 

All the while, she lives within the shadow of the great generation, and the last war. She has a Rebel doll, lives in an AT-AT, and daydreams about being a Rebel pilot, unaware of how all of this will soon become her reality.

 

Whenever she watches a ship leave Jakku, it's a constant reminder of her parents leaving her. She doesn't plan on leaving (what if they come back and she isn't here to meet them?), but she has her daydreams of starring in the adventures of Luke and Leia and Han, sitting up against an AT-AT's hull, to pass the time. 

 

Every day she makes another mark on the inside walls of her makeshift hovel, marking another day her parents haven't returned, while deep down she knows they never will. 

 

Rey hears BB-8's squeals for aid and saves him from Teedo's net. She points him in a safe direction, warning him from sinking fields they won't be lucky enough to avoid on another desert planet far from there, in The Rise of Skywalker. But BB-8 becomes attached to Rey, like a little puppy dog. 

 

Essentially, BB-8 becomes Toto to Rey's Dorothy. 

 

This pairing is no mere coincidence; like Dune, Star Wars and The Wizard of Oz have been intertwined since the beginning. 

 

Gwynne Watkins, in an article for Yahoo! Entertainment, writes:

 

How would you describe Star Wars to someone who’s never seen it? It’s not unusual for actors on a press tour to compare their movie to other beloved films, in hopes of getting audiences into the theater. But when Star Wars — Episode IV: A New Hope was first released in 1977, there really hadn’t been another film like it. So when the actors were asked to describe the film in interviews, they found a comparison that might not occur to modern audiences: the 1939 musical fantasy The Wizard of Oz.

 

“It’s sort of a combination comic book, fairy tale, Wizard of Oz — there are so many different elements in the movie,” star Mark Hamill told an Australian journalist at the time when asked to describe A New Hope.

 

“Every scene is in some way reminiscent of a scene in a film that we all loved before,” Carrie Fisher told the BBC in response to the same question. “Like in High Noon, there’s a bar sequence, only this time it’s with monsters instead of Gary Cooper. And you’ve got The Wizard of Oz — we have a robot that looks sort of like the Tin Man.”

 

It wasn’t just the cast who made the association. Along with more obvious genre comparisons like the space serial Flash Gordon and 2001: A Space Odyssey, references to The Wizard of Oz come up over and over again in the earliest Star Wars reviews, including those printed by the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Time, the Guardian, and the Chicago Sun-Times. “Star Wars is a fairy tale, a fantasy, a legend, finding its roots in some of our most popular fictions,” wrote critic Roger Ebert. “The golden robot, lion-faced space pilot, and insecure little computer on wheels must have been suggested by the Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion, and the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz.”

 

There’s no doubt that The Wizard of Oz was one of many films that influenced George Lucas’s space opus, a far-reaching list that also includes the work of Akira Kurosawa, World War II dogfight movies, Metropolis, The Adventures of Robin Hood, and several classic westerns. The MGM musical was also a touchstone for Lucas’s collaborators; concept designer Ralph McQuarrie, for example, told Making of Star Wars author J.W. Rinzler that the Emerald City helped inspire the look of Cloud City in The Empire Strikes Back. As for the thematic similarities between The Wizard of Oz and Star Wars, the list is substantial: Both are stories about a teenage dreamer raised on a farm by an aunt and uncle, who journeys to a strange land full of wondrous creatures and whose companions include a furry creature and a metal man — and who must use his or her inner resources to defeat a black-robed dictator, and so forth. As the official Star Wars website has noted, Wizard of Oz parallels continue into the prequels, the series The Clone Wars, and The Force Awakens.

 

But the connection between Star Wars and The Wizard of Oz goes deeper than similar plot points and villains with unusual taste in headgear. The reason Lucas’s fantasy evoked The Wizard of Oz for so many people is that both films created immersive, dazzling fantasy worlds that expanded audiences’ understanding of what was possible in a movie. Both films boasted special effects that were so unprecedented, viewers had no idea how they were made. Both played with genre conventions in unexpected and delightful ways: Star Wars was a western in space with an orchestral soundtrack, while The Wizard of Oz was a children’s fairy tale elevated by Broadway-style character songs and a unique story-within-a-story structure.

 

Fans who fell in love with Star Wars during its first theatrical run wouldn’t necessarily have seen The Wizard of Oz on the big screen (though Oz did return to theaters several times prior to the VHS era). However, they almost certainly grew up watching the classic movie, which was broadcast annually on network television from 1959 until 1991. And for many, Star Wars brought back that childlike wonder they experienced watching The Wizard of Oz as actual children, along with the giddy sense that the world onscreen was as real as the one they lived in.

 

Now Star Wars stands beside The Wizard of Oz in the pantheon of films loved by moviegoers of all ages. And the world of Star Warshas become immersive in a way that The Wizard of Oz, for all its onscreen dazzle, never could: George Lucas’s vision of an ever-expanding story continues to be realized in sequels, prequels, merchandise, and other media, not to mention the future Star Warstheme parks that will enable fans to literally enter Luke Skywalker’s world.

 

In some ways, it’s surprising that The Wizard of Oz never expanded into a Star Wars-style mega-franchise, since the novel it’s adapted from had dozens of sequels. But despite many attempts over the decades to extend and reinvent the story — including 1985’s Return to Oz and 2013’s Oz: The Great and Powerful — no movie has managed to fully recapture the magic of Judy Garland and her co-stars dancing along the yellow brick road. The 1939 film, with its famously disaster-filled production, was lightning in a bottle. The Force ultimately surpassed “there’s no place like home” in the popular imagination because George Lucas figured out how to bottle lightning.

 

Back in 1977, the cast and crew of Star Wars could only dream that their “little space movie,” as Carrie Fisher often called it, would resonate as powerfully for audiences as the place somewhere over the rainbow. It has done that and more — and when George Lucas opens his Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles, Wizard of Oz and Star Wars memorabilia will be displayed side by side.

 

Julia Dzurillay, in a Showbiz CheatSheet article, documents the parallels between Star Wars and The Wizard of Oz:

 

Who knew a girl from Kansas and a girl from Jakku had so much in common? The original Star Wars movies, and even Star Wars: The Force Awakens, share similarities with the iconic 1939 film. Here are a few of the parallels between Star Wars and The Wizard of Oz.

 

Luke Skywalker was raised in a desert by his Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. Dorothy was raised on a farm by her Uncle Henry and Aunt Em. It was only a matter of time before fans made the connection. According to starwars.com, critic Roger Ebert noticed the differences and similarities between the two fantasy tales when Star Wars premiered in 1977.

 

“Star Wars is a fairy tale,” he wrote, “a fantasy, a legend, finding its roots in some of our most popular fictions. The golden robot, lion-faced space pilot, and insecure little computer on wheels must have been suggested by the Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion, and the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz.”

 

The journey of a girl who dreams of traveling somewhere over the rainbow? Sounds strangely familiar. The story of Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz actually shares many similarities with Rey’s story in Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

 

Dorothy’s main companion in this film is Toto, a dog that she befriends in Kansas. The protagonist then tries to save Toto from the hands of Miss Gulch. Rey’s main companion in her film is BB-8, a droid who finds her on her home in Jakku. She saves BB-8 from men who try to capture him and sell him.

 

Another large comparison is the color scheme of both the protagonists’ homes. Following an incident with a tornado, the story of Dorothy takes viewers to the magical land of Oz. This is a colorful world outside of her home in Kansas. When Rey first travels outside of Jakku, she immediately notices the change in scenery, saying, “I didn’t know there was this much green in the whole galaxy.”

 

Along the way, Dorothy befriends three characters — the Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion, and the Scarecrow. In Star Wars, two male characters join the fight against the resistance, although Rey only meets Finn in this movie.

 

Similarities have also been drawn between three resistance characters and Dorothy’s companions. Some compare C-3PO to the Tin Man. Others compare Chewbacca to the Cowardly Lion. Han Solo, the closest friend of Luke Skywalker and later the love interest of Princess Leia, has been compared to the Scarecrow.

 

Some fans made connections between the dark side and The Wizard. In one scene during The Wizard of Oz, the Wizard appears to Dorothy and her friends as a hologram. During the Star Wars movies, including Star Wars: A New Hope, the Emperor appears to Darth Vader as a hologram.

 

In an article posted on Star Wars’ official website, one author noticed the differences between Luke Skywalker and Dorothy, stating, “unlike Dorothy, though, Luke can find his way to defeat the evil, but is left without a home to go to. He can only move forward with his life, finding a new acceptance with new friends.”

 

Andy Serkis has even compared Snoke to the Wizard. In a press conference at the Corinthia Hotel in London during the ramp up to The Last Jedi's release, Serkis teased:

 

"It was a real challenge. I had such a brilliant time working with Rian and the way he decided to take the character in this. But trying to, with all characters that are representing evil or so called evil, it's very important to try and humanize them in some way. And there's a vulnerability that we try to approach with Snoke which is brought out of fear, actually, and I think fear that there is, of course, the First Order is in a pretty bad state, ruled by General Hux and a conflicted Kylo Ren. But the thing is, about Snoke, is there's this public hologram sort of at 5am in the morning. A hologram appearance that he does to scare people. He's like the Wizard of Oz. Behind the curtains he's this frail creature who is fearful of a very powerful feminine energy coming to take him down. We always try and find a spark of humanity in that."

 

Serkis may not have realized it at the time, in a sense, when be described "this frail creature who is fearful of a very powerful feminine energy coming to take him down," waiting from behind the curtain, he was ultimately (and, possibly, unknowingly) talking about Emperor Palpatine as the man behind the curtain, whilst the Wizard was always Supreme Leader Snoke. 

 

Rey and BB-8 both head off in the direction of Rey's AT-AT home, a shot the Force Awakens IMAX poster uses. This image not only served to market the large screen exhibition of the film, but winds up foreshadowing the final shot of the trilogy, by adding a sun in the distance. It really did manage to come full circle in the end. 

 

Meanwhile, on the Star Destroyer Finalizer, Kylo performs his mind probe on Poe, finds out the map piece he seeks is in a droid, a BB unit, and assigns General Hux to locate it. He notifies his troops and puts out the word that the First Order is looking for a BB unit. Unkar Plutt is also privy to this information, so when Rey comes by, with the BB unit in tow, looking to trade for rations again, Plutt is anxious to get his hands on the droid. So anxious, in fact, he's willing to go overboard on the trade: 60 portions. 

 

Rey looks at the rations, looks over at BB-8, looks back at the rations. And then turns down Plutt's offer. 

 

Why did she turn down Plutt's offer? I've heard various theories. I have yet to read the novelization of TFA, but I've heard the exchange goes differently. 

 

Here's what makes the most sense to me: in The Last Jedi, when Kylo tells Rey he knows who her parents are, he mentions that she knows just as well as he does. 

 

Why wouldn't she? He got this information from her own mind, after all.

 

After she says they were nobodies, Kylo adds that they were "filthy junk traders who sold her for drinking money."

 

Why would he say this?

 

All Rey's life she must have heard or thought the worst about her parents, while simultaneously holding out hope that they were alive and they'd come back for her.

 

But she also can't shake the idea that they might have sold her, for drinking money or anything else. And who knows, maybe Unkar Plutt perpetuated this idea. If that's the case, would she really want to do that to anyone else? 

 

So when Unkar Plutt offers to buy the BB unit off her (60 portions! Okay, 100 portions!), Rey considers it. She looks down at all those rations… turns, regards her new droid companion, looks back at those rations… and she can't do it. It's almost like she was thinking, Doing this would be like selling me off for drinking money… the way my parents did. The way I was told my parents did. She can't do to BB-8 what she's been told – or believes – her parents did to her. She doesn't want to believe her parents did that to her. That's why she's staying, just in case. Because maybe, just maybe, they didn't really sell me for drinking money. Maybe they did what they had to do, in the moment. And maybe they'll be back. Someday. 

 

You've gotta figure, all this time, she's also been having those dreams about the island on Ahch-To and the Force tree, and since she has no basis to recognize them as anything otherwise, she disregards them as dreams, not what they really are. 

 

Visions. 

 

Not that she'd leave Jakku to go there anyway if she had realized she was Force sensitive or that  the Force was guiding her.

 

But then the question must be asked: is the Force bringing all these elements together (San Tekka, Poe, Finn, BB-8, the map) in order to get Rey off Jakku and on Ahch-To to protect the ancient Jedi texts before Luke burns the tree down?

 

If the Jedi Order is to survive, and the Force wants the Jedi Order to survive, this would have to happen. 

 

Rey would have to go to Ahch-To.