SPECULATION Do Rey's Parents Matter?

Well, there wasn't a reveal to who they were exactly but that was sort of the point. Though as I suggest above, there is a chance that her parents' story isn't over and that something else can come of it.

As for what Ren says - I don't think he is lying here. I think he is being honest. That's what he saw and it is the truth. It's what Rey knows to be the truth that she just couldn't accept. But that doesn't mean they were both completely right or know the full story. Rey's parent's can still be somebody with a story. What I think we can be sure about though is that they aren't going to suddenly be made part of the Skywalker or other SW hero/villain dynasty. That would completely remove the entire point of Rey's journey in TLJ.

 

it is 100% possible that what Ren said was true. difficult to judge - that scene, we've got the 2 of them trotting around in each other's minds, and we've not long learnt that Snoke has been in both their heads doing lord knows what.

what bugs me is that if Rey already knew deep down that her parents were simply filthy junk traders that sold her.. what was she hoping to see in the cave? she may have learnt about herself in there and learnt to move forward, but when she was in there.. she thought she was about to discover something else. she wants to see them.

whether it's important to Rey, the galaxy or just us viewers.. there is more to be told there.

 

I think it leaves it possible for her parents to be something more significant in some way. But I don't think that is the intent. It's not that Rey has a clear image of who her parents were or what happened to them. It's more about her closing her mind to the truth in order to survive. So come TLJ it's not like she knows everything but that she knows very little and is also unwilling to look into herself (and the Force) to find the real truth - whether that be facing the obvious or literally seeing the truth. Instead, she holds onto this idea that her parents loved her and left her by accident and then seeks only the easy answers she wants to hear from the Dark Side. But what the Dark Side does is tempt her in with false promises (as is always the case, see: Anakin) and then elevates her fear. On this occasion is makes Rey feel more alone than ever. Lost. Without anyone willing to help her. So she turns to Ren who says he has the answer. It's the classic Dark Side trick. But in her darkest moment, with Ren tempting her to join him, she is able to see and to admit to the truth as she knows it. Her parents are dead. And they were nobodies. They didn't even love her. Thankfully, this doesn't tip her over the edge but rather she is able to hold onto the light and do the right thing.

So for me, it was all about Rey at first believing something, making a story in her mind about her folks, in order to survive Jakku. Then when she's off the planet she realises she is powerful - but she is afraid. She wants an easy answer to who her parents really were (more so than ever because of the journey she is on) but is unwilling to seek the actual truth. So she embraces the Dark Side to find an easy answer and finds herself more isolated than ever - tempted by the Dark Side. But she resists it, confronting the truth and does the right thing. She defines herself as a person at this point.

But like I say - this can indeed change. The truth as Ren and Rey knew it might've been a ruse by the Dark Side. Or indeed, there might be more to why her parents "turned to drink" and "abandoned her". That's fine - just as long as they don't p*ss all over the journey she went on through TLJ where she is finally able to define herself as a person rather than be defined by her blood or another character.

 

I appreciate sharing your point of view and you offer some interesting ideas but I don't interpret Rey's reaction to the revelation of her parents the way you do. Rey had already forgotten about her parents by the end of TFA. She never considered searching for them after talking to Maz Canata which means as far as JJ goes she has already learnt this lesson when Maz told her that "The belonging you seek is not behind you..." The revelation of her parents is irrelevant considering how the story of TLJ plays out. When Luke learnt that Vader was his father he changed his focus from killing Vader to turning him. This is a clear case of an action followed by a reaction. We don't see anything like this in TLJ which makes the revelation in TLJ pale in comparison to the revelation in ESB.

Rian didn't really have a choice when deciding that Rey's parents were nobodies. In a recent interview Hamill said that Rian wouldn't do anything fans on the internet had already come up with when he wrote the screenplay. Limited by his own desire to do something nobody had done before Rian made Rey's parents irrelevant. As a result the reveal of Rey's parents felt pretty "meh" as it was just another case of "the secret is there is no secret" which didn't affect the plot in any meaninful way.

 

They made it seem like such a big deal in TFA and idk if they were just trying to make it all about Luke speculation or what but barely talked about it in TLJ I felt like compared to when we met her

 

Anakin's parents didn't, Luke had his aunt and uncle, so I really don't they do. Unless Snoke had a wild weekend in college. Broom boy doesn't seem like home life is that great. The correlation between parents and strong force user I just don't see.

 

TPM implies that I think Anakin was the first Skywalker to be Force sensitive. So, yeah bloodline really doesn't matter as a whole. We just happened to be following this one special family.

 

I do think it would be waste if we don't get at least a name and a face. I mean, we don't a name and a face till Return.

 

yes, Rey's parents would have been so important. What a waste to make her a boring random.

 

Were Han Solo's parents important? Were Obi-Wan's parents important? Were Padme's parents important? etc. No! We already have a very parent focused character in this trilogy. => Kylo Ren.
People are demanding stuff which is already there.

 

this will be a ‘thing’ until we see the film next December.

this is because it was a thing in TFA and it was a bigger thing in TLJ.

only seeing her parents will stop the thing

It’s all about the ‘thing’ lol

 

Of course not, because their parents were never the focus of their story. However, when you do make them are part of their story and you don't even show 'em? I'm not saying they have to be from some important family. That's not what I'm saying, it's just seems like a waste.

 

Rey's parents were never important for the story, but for Rey. It's more of a character arc. Now she overcame this arc. Time to move on.

 

Why does it have to be compared? The decision was made based upon what Rey's character needed to experience. For her, finding out she was a no one would cause the most conflict. For Luke, it was finding out his father wasn't a dead hero but a very much alive and kicking villain. As for the Maz thing - that was all about Rey accepting the obvious truth that her parents were dead. It wasn't about who they actually were. She hadn't "realised" or accepted at this point that they didn't leave her by accident or didn't even love her.

Look, I love MH as much as the next nerd, but people really shouldn't take him so seriously and he should probably rein himself in a bit now and then.

This is clearly false. RJ has explain his methods and reasoning. He wrote the script as TFA was being filmed. He couldn't second guess what the fans would or wouldn't come up with at that point. It's no coincidence that many of us who had no vested interest in her being a Skywalker, predicted that her parents would be nobodies. The fact that they treated her badly and didn't love her wasn't just dumped in to surprise us, it was there to challenge the ever hopeful Rey who had survived by waiting for her parents to return. It made perfect sense. The only thing that restricted Rian was TFA. He had to go by the film and what JJ had created. That film ruled out Rey Solo/Skywalker etc. JJ was the one who wanted her to be a nobody who finds the Force - in a way that made him love the concept as a kid. He might've had other ideas about her background but she was never from a great dynasty. What Rian did was provide her with a shocking background that would make us doubt the path she would take/puts her on a level with Kylo Ren (in terms of their experience with both their parents).

 

I would like her strength explained in some way, and the SW universe relies time after time on heritage to explain the access to the force characters have. pseudo-"royal" lineages make sense in the universe. So why is she the way she is?

 

No one cares if Rey was related to anybody, most people are mad at the way it was executed. There were better and more dramatically satisfying ways to resolve that question instead of trying to re-create a Vader twist moment that shouldn’t have been a twist at all.

 

Maybe this has been suggested before, and if it has, apologies for repeating it, but what if Rey’s parents are indeed important to the story, even if they are nobodies? What if their relevance is not who they are but how and why they abandoned Rey? Or perhaps why they became drunks and heartless? Maybe Rey’s parentage could be used to test her once again about her commitment to the republic and the resistance. What if the republic or the resistance was directly responsible for the demise of her parents and her abandonment in yakku?