Does Rey being 'sold for drinking money' make sense...?

Something I read a long time ago was that someone on here (i think) said that she had a "coruscant" accent. The average person on the city-planet is fairly well off. It would be strange for someone with her accent to have an origin in the way that she does. So my guess is that she was raised on the planet in the beginning years of the new republic and trained in secret, maybe be friends of Luke or just people who worshipped the FS and the jedi. A similar thing that happened in the PT happened with people who had "Special abilities" so Rey was sent to Jakku as a kid under the guise of something more innocent than a galactic battle. He parents aren't exactly jedi, but they have trained under the jedi religion so that would explain her raw talents. Everything that Luke Skywalker does to her in TFA/TLJ is simply him shunning her for her own good because he maybe made a promise to her parents years ago to protect her sort of like a harry potter/snape type of relationship but he died before he could reveal the truth...but maybe in IX when he comes back or is back as a force ghost which will be the real twist to turn her bad(?).

 

Yes, she was sold into indentured status and once she worked off the debt she was upgraded to subsistence scavenger which is actually a better deal for ownership since they no longer have to be bothered with maintaining property but retain the same benefits and upper hand by paying only enough to provide the minimum energy required for the next day of labor. Odr she may have straight up been sold into slavery and Platt eventually went with this cheaper and less bothersome arrangement. It's not like she was likely to go anywhere between having noting but a few tools and maybe an extra portion or two and foolishly waiting for her family to return she would be out scavaging to earn her daily quarter portion or so.

When we find Rey she is the poor man's version of a share cropper, scrounging away for partial meals with little hope but another day of drudgery for a less than full belly.

Of course it makes sense unless one is straining hard enough to about break their own neck trying to force it not to make sense.

Children have been sold into such status just to reduce the amount of mouths to feed especially girls that weren't seen to be as hearty laborers or likely to be apprenticed. Hell, wha do you think marriage often was and still is at times but selling off a mouth to feed and the dowry was the price they brought.

Anakin and Schmi were passed to Watto to settle a gambling debt so similar things have happened and their conditions seemed far better. Rey would starve trying to put a protocol Droid to the side like Anakin was able to manage. I'd say the fastest pod racer ever built was worth more than he little speeder bike as well. How many guests do you think she could feed?

 

Too funny, I like Wild Things quite a bit.

The continuity is far stronger than from Star Wars to Empire, it picks up immediately. Phantom Menace could be deleted and it would make little difference to AOTC.

 

All Phantom Menace does is introduce Maul, Obi/Ani relationship and Ani/Padme relationship. However, that can be easily seen in Clones.

 

How can she be sold for drinking money when they had a very nice starship they could have sold? These problems keep coming up the more you examine them. It doesn't make sense because it isn't connected to TFA in any way, RJ refused to make anything of it; it's not about connecting TLJ to TFA in any way, it's about making the movie that RJ wanted to make.

 

You do realize they'd be stuck on Jakku if they sold the ship? You know the junkyard.

 

prior to arriving on Jakku; and why would they sell Rey when they could just sell there junk that is collected for drinking money? or better yet; if they don't care about Rey, enslave her to find all the junk they could ever need to sell for drinking money? The fact is that scene was supposed to mean something when JJ filmed it, but it was tossed aside so RJ can make the movie he wanted.

 

What is strange about Luke not being concerned about who her parents are? His concern is who SHE is not her family tree. No one but Rey is concerned about her lineage not Han, not Finn, not Leia, not Poe, not Maz, not even Snoke.

What is so problematic about her parents being drunks from a narrative standpoint? All kinds of great people had such folks in their background?

 

Maybe.

I'm not sure how seriously Star Wars takes regional accents.

 

I don't think its true that she was sold off for drinking money. Rey has obviously been having these doubts and has been unwilling to say them out loud, Kylo feels this and confirms it like it is true, he even acknowledges her fears of it being true.

However im not sure what direction they could go in with Rey's parentage that would leave me satisfied. Its like we've had so much build up that whatever turns out to be the truth wont be as nearly shocking or fulfilling as we expect.

 

Is it 100% airtight? Nope. But it's far more plausible than any of the theories that were around pre-TLJ, and especially now in a post-TLJ world.

I said this when the film came out and I still feel this way, I'm fine with the answer we got. I had a real fear that they were going to muck this up in a big way with some overblown cliché Hollywood story and I'm glad they didn't. There was no hoop jumping, no reaching, none of that. Just a simple answer to a simple question that we as a fanbase convoluted.

Moving forward into 9, do they change it? I really don't see the point. They could clarify the answer, add some detail, give it more context, I'd welcome that... but changing it entirely? Why? It would only be to appease and nothing should ever be retconned for that sole reason. At this point the Skywalker and Solo theories are out the window, what's left that could be satisfying? Or... maybe a better question, is it worth revisiting in the final chapter of a trilogy?

 

"We assume it's theirs"
Yes and it could be a bad assumption.
There's no reason to think or believe it's theirs other than it fit pre-TLJ narratives better.

They could have been junkers working on a ship with an entire crew and sold their daughter off.
If the entire premise for "it doesn't make sense" is the ASSUMPTION that the ship is theirs, then IDK what to say because that's an intuitive leap that isn't presented or implied in the films.

 

You don't have any reason to think it was their ship to hock for scrap. Obi-Wan and Luke chartered a lift on the Falcon but that doesn't mean they could sell parts off it.

Putting that the side, maybe you answered your own question. The ship is more valuable than a skinny 5 year old girl.

Surely, you haven't forgotten that some people are crap and don't value and love their children?

 

But chartering a ship costs money, and why would drunks on Jakku be paying money to charter a ship to get drinking money? It doesn't really add up to me.

That sadly makes horrifying sense. Suddenly the "come back!" scene in 7 is soul-crushing. The marks on the metal plating. Soul-crushing. Rey on Jakku. Soul-crushing. You just had to go there. You just had to go and make sense.

 

He never said THEY charted a ship. They could just be crew.

 

Why if the people are as down and out as implied isnt it feasible that they simply valued the ship more then their daughter. They needed cash and could sell the ship and be stranded or their daughter who is just another mouth to feed anyway. The ship could simply be more valuable to them.

 

Nope, you are breezing past the the quick and easy big score.

How long will it take to scrounge the offer for her a quarter portion worth here and a half portion there?

These aren't savvy investors but bums selling their own flesh and blood into servitude. They aren't calculating the take over 10-15 years. They are talking about probably more than they ever see it once and losing a mouth to feed who probably isn't the seasoned and knowledgeable scavenger we meet but a little tot.

--- Double Post Merged, Jun 14, 2018, Original Post Date: Jun 14, 2018 ---

The charter was just an example of being on a ship and not owning it. Most likely it was just transport either to another scavaging area or off the planet. They may have not even been on it.

Junkies selling their child could easily lie and tell them they will be on the next shuttle but they will be back before she knows it while they slink off to another outpost minus a mouth to feed and up some easy bucks.

Of course Kylo is likely spinning, guessing, or lying since as far as we know all he has to go on are Rey's impressions and memories from when she was five but it is plausible he is more or less correct.

I'm a bit confused why people think Rey has it too easy and need her to be maimed and such.
How much must the poor girl be made to suffer? Her life has been way worse than Anakin or Luke's. We know she has had no one to care for her since she was just little thing and at best she has had a life of subsistence scavaging under Platt.

I bet she'd trade an arm for an Aunt Beru or nine years with Shmi or even to have an Obi-Wan to help her come up.

Why does Rey have some many skills and talents? Look at her environment and support systems! If she didn't her odds of survival are damn low. She was just a little thing!

What in the world happened to empathy? A little can go a long way. It seems people are like "I know she had to have the most miserable upbringing but I didn't see it and I must have my pound of flesh".

It's almost perverse and I'm not sure what drives the strange callousness but it can't be coming from a pleasant corner of the soul.

 

I have posted about this before, but for me the biggest problem with Rey’s backstory in TLJ is the tally marks in TFA. Her parents sold her, and then died, and still she is seemingly counting the days?

You can contrive an explanation if you must (e.g. “the tally marks are just for tracking the harvest”), but I feel like this hints at the possibility that JJ and RJ weren’t on the same page.