SPECULATION Is Luke Rey's Father? - The Evidence For and Against

Well, it's just reinforcing that the saga films ARE about the Skywalker family.

I think you lot are over-emphasizing the "in some way" portion....she's saying the same thing as Iger and Kennedy. Saga = Skywalker films. Stories = standalone films that do not.

But...

I will say - there was a quote by Kennedy in the end of the documentary, about the future of standalone films that is also telling...

"It's good to have the nostalgia for awhile but then we also want to have new stories for a new generation in the huge universe that is StarWars."

To be perfectly candid, that comment...that single comment...goes much farther than anything else to make me think it could be Random.

It's entirely possible that they are using Han/Luke/Leia as legacy pieces and just side characters, to introduce the "marvel-style" machine of films and that they are done with the Skywalkers after 7-9.

I still hope she is the last of them, rather than kylo/Ben, but that's a personal preference.

 

I agree that Yoda wanted him to teach others the ways of the force but never explicitly tells him to rebuild the order nor does Luke ever explicitly promise to or take on that burden. Yoda also tells him there is another Skywalker which Ben later reveals is his twin sister. Luke could have thought that his twin sister was who Yoda was referring to or hers or his children and not necessarily refer to building a new order. Yoda may have meant that but Luke never promised Yoda he would.

Yes, but there was nowhere to find that truth as not even Kenobi knew everything that led to Anakin's fall. Ben and Yoda knew he broke the rule regarding marriage and that he fell to the dark side but couldn't possibly know how or even if one had anything to do with other for certain. We, the audience, know the whole story but there is no one in-universe that does beyond Anakin himself and he never never told his son so there is no way for Luke to ever learn about it.

Again, as I stated above, Luke can't discover it as it isn't going to be in a data bank somewhere and no one alive can shed any light on it nor did either Yoda or Ben ever specifically talk to Luke about attachments. I agree he would give serious thought to any decisions he made about how he lived his life and building the order but his father's fall wouldn't play a part in whether or not he chooses to find love because he simply can't have ever known that unless they specifically bring Anakin's force ghost back to tell him everything and that hasn't happened yet nor can it be stated, for a fact, that Yoda and Ben instructed him to avoid attachments. Sure, it could have happened off screen but, until they retroactively write that into canon, it didn't happen. BTW: if his wife/lover and child(ren) is/are force sensitive, he can both 'pass on what he has learned' and give his family the attention they need.

We don't exactly know how long he searched for Jedi lore since we know almost nothing about his post ROTJ life. I'm not saying he actively pursued or even chose to pursue finding a wife and have a family. I'm saying it's possible he meant someone along the way and developed feelings for her and chose to be with her rather than live a solitary life and a child came from that relationship.

Again, the assumption here is that Luke was schooled by Yoda and Ben about attachments. That didn't happen in the OT and we are learning that Yoda and Ben didn't feel the same way about what it meant to be a Jedi as they did in the PT. We don't know to what extent they saw things differently but we know they did. Luke was groomed to start a new order not rebuild the old one. It stands to reason that there would be some things from the old order that would be left out of the new order, some by necessity and some by Luke's choice.

Actually, I believe it was GL himself and not a spokesman but it was in answer to a young child's question.

No I don't think they had something going on off screen. I'm saying that we don't know for a fact that Yoda was celibate his whole life. Yoda was old and at the end of his life in the OT and Ben was a Force ghost. Obviously they weren't getting it on at that point in their lives. We know Ben did have at least one love interest indicating he wasn't celibate and we can't say for certain that he never 'hooked up' in those twenty years on Tatooine. Also, they weren't living in exile to serve the force but because they were hiding from the Empire. They were fugitives not monks in self imposed exile in service of the force. Ben was also watching over Luke. Luke knew this so he wouldn't have assumed their solitary existence was the 'way of the Jedi'.

No they are not. Why the Force created him is open to interpretation but not the fact that the Force did, in fact, create him. The Plagueis idea has been thrown out of canon so it's clearly not the reason.

It didn't create him before it went out of balance. Plagueis, Palpatine and Maul all existed before Anakin was born so it was already out of balance and the Jedi were already far down the wrong path given Qui-Gon's long history of disputes with the Jedi Council. I'm sure the Force could and probably has created other chosen ones and there would be no reason to create Anakin if the Force could kill the Sith itself.

On the contrary, Anakin was created to be the fulfillment of the prophecy or at least the Jedi thought he was especially Qui-Gon.

Anakin didn't imagine his mother being taken by sandpeople and tortured to death. It actually happened and he was sent visions of it by the Force. Also, he wasn't thinking about or worried about his mother until he started having those visions. He didn't imagine Padme's future death but was shown the future by the Force. Anakin even says they are Force visions.

It would not have been in balance because there was still an inept Jedi order that had completely lost it's way and was no longer serving the will of the Force. If the Force has a will, it has a certain level of sentience and having a will, not to mention, creating a 'chosen one' indicates that the Force does, in fact, have a master plan at least when there aren't Jedi that can follow its guidance to take care of things for it.

They were wrong before the Sith drew them into a war as evidenced by Qui-Gon's disputes with them. Clearly they had gone wrong long before TPM. Therefore, the Sith aren't entirely responsible for the order going down the wrong path or the Force being imbalanced. The Jedi were disconnect from the will of the Force so were no longer serving their purpose as a source of creating and maintaining the balance of the Force thus, they to, created an imbalance in the Force.

Of course not everything of the old order is wrong. I've never said that it is but parts of it are wrong or at least not applicable any more and it was up to Luke to decide what is and isn't still applicable including the attachment rule. He sought knowledge so he could make the best decisions and avoid making the same mistakes previous orders may have made. Also, looking for information on Jedi of old doesn't necessarily mean only the PT order but likely means the entire history of the order. It doesn't matter what the 'no marriage' rule meant to the PT Jedi. It only matters what Luke thought about it. You talk about Luke's character as a barometer of what he would likely do going forward well we know from the OT that Luke had a bit of a crush on a local girl before a certain droid comes into his life and then competes with Han for Leia's affections until he learns that she is his sister. In one of the new canon stories set between ANH and ESB he gets romantically involved with a girl. It's clearly part of his character to want to find love and to see family as a source of strength rather than a potential weakness to be avoided.

Again, they were old and at the end of their lives. It was too late for them to start a family. They also never specifically discouraged Luke from doing so. I think Luke would carefully consider all major life choices but would never simply close himself off to the possibility of love simply because the PT Jedi did or because he had a responsibility to the Jedi. There is plenty of room in his life for both. Being married to Padme didn't affect Anakin's ability to do his Jedi duties. It was his emotional instability that made it a problem as it opened him up to manipulation when he started having visions of her death and became possessive of her.

Since when do the Jedi have a jurisdiction? Are they not the guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy? Is Tatooine not part of the galaxy? Yes they should have intervened. They failed to act to save her from the sandpeople or free her from slavery. They failed their duty as Jedi. They failed Anakin and through him they failed the galaxy. They failed the will of the Force that was sending them warnings so that they would act. Going to war was only one of their many failures.

 

I THINK I FIGURED OUT WHERE REY CAME FROM:



ugh... can Celebration happen already?

 

I'm not saying there wasn't an implication that he would. I'm saying that he never promised Yoda he would and was under no explicit obligation to do so.

And yet, He always chose to hold on and, in the end, the galaxy was saved because of it.

Yes but those moments fall far short of actually teaching him that romantic and familial relationships are wrong and should be avoided.

That's the only thing we're told, but going by what they say and do in the OT and the fact that they don't bring up the code at all, the implication is a major paradigm shift in their thinking by the time of the OT. That means that Luke may have been taught to create a radically different order than the PT one. Being a Jedi means being the guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy, serving the will of the force and keeping the force in balance. Attachments, relationships, familial connections or whatever you want to call them or however you want to define them have nothing to do with it nor do they, in any way, affect or get in the way of someone's ability to do their duty as a Jedi or in any other profession.

I could be wrong but, from what I remember reading/seeing on this, it was GL himself that gave that answer although it could have been passed on through a spokesman. Still, if it's an official Lucasfilm statement, it still makes it canon right?

Ben hid on Tatooine and watched over Luke but Yoda just hid out. They were fugitives from the Empire otherwise they wouldn't have been in exile. Luke knew they were fugitives and that living in exile wasn't how they had lived most of their lives. I don't think he would taken their exile as an example of anything much less whether or not he should have a family.

All that tells us is that GL didn't want to give a reason so threw in a few possibilities and let the audience choose for themselves which one they liked better. That's a pretty common practice in storytelling. Plus, it's Palpatine telling the story as part of his manipulation of Anakin. Clearly it's not a reliable statement. It's more likely that Palpatine was lying to seduce Anakin to the dark side.

I never said they were the root of the evil, just part of the imbalance of the Force. The Jedi stopped serving the will of the Force, stopped being true guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy and were therefore no longer keeping the Force in balance. In short, they stopped being true Jedi and became an imbalance in and of themselves.

The prophecy was a prediction that an event would happen sometime in the future but that time was unknown. Anakin was created as the fulfillment of that prophecy. It's why he was created not how. The Force is how.

I think Anakin was created to both destroy the Sith and restore the Jedi to what they were supposed to be but the Jedi rejected the leadings and warnings of the Force so in the end had to be destroyed to ultimately restore balance. The Force sending warnings about Schmi was a pivotal moment in Anakin's journey and the fate of the Jedi and the galaxy as a whole. That was when Anakin's path was set. If the Jedi had let him go save her or sent someone else, Anakin wouldn't have ever started down the dark path by slaughtering a village of sandpeople and would have handled his dreams of Padme much better. But the Jedi instead chose to stick to their dogmatic rules and did nothing. After that it was only a matter of when he fell not if.

I think the living Force cut itself off from the Jedi at that point as they were unable to sense a Sith in the same room with them or counter the Sith in any meaningful way after that. The visions of Padme were clearly what sent Anakin over the edge and the Jedi, at that point, were a lost cause because they were too short sided and self restricted to be of any true service to bringing balance back as they refused to see the error of their ways which went far beyond going to war. The only option the Force had was to use the 'chosen one' to destroy both sides to achieve balance.

Only after all that they had built had been destroyed and all their fellow Jedi killed did Ben and Yoda finally realize how wrong they were. It never would have happened otherwise. Nowhere in ROTS do they even consider that they might have been wrong.

We don't actually know what Qui-Gon wanted changed because we aren't told in the story what codes he thought should be changed or what he thought those changes should be. Qui-Gon, had he lived to train Anakin, would have ignored the Jedi council and gone to rescue Anakin's mother from the sandpeople because he would have realized that the Force was calling them to do so.

Jedi aren't meant to just serve the Republic. They are supposed to serve the entire galaxy. I'll concede that the slave issue is a little tricky but there was nothing stopping them from saving Schmi from the sandpeople.

 

these essay responses, jeez! i give you all "optimistic" because you must be just that if you think anyone wants to reread all this crap after it's already been covered!

hear hear!

on Anakin's visions in RotS, i always thought it was Sidious using the dark side to freak him out. i guess it's open to interpretation!

 

If that's what you want I will respect that.

--- Double Post Merged, Apr 6, 2017, Original Post Date: Apr 6, 2017 ---

I don't know, some aspects may have been covered before but I think we were taking the topic in a bit of a new direction. Responses take as long as they take and can't always be summed up in a single line.

That's an interesting idea. I don't know if Palpatine had the ability to affect someones dreams though.

 

Oh the irony! Great Odin's Raven!

@master_shaitan, I guess you forget that Ron Burgandy was actually wrong when he said, "I don't believe you." I love me some quotes and memes from Mr. Burgandy, but you do realize he was the bumbling fool, right?

 

To be clear - I'm still definitely hoping for Skywalker/Solo...

If they decide to wrap up the Skywalkers in this trilogy (and that quote from Kennedy thinks they very well may), I'd love to have them go out on top and restore goodness, truly restore it, not just "anakin killed the emperor at the last second but committed decades of evil and killed/betrayed the Jedi, followed by Luke tried and failed and the grandson went cuckoo too...." type of restored that we have now.

But for Rey to really bring peace, balance, and establish a new jedi order - or a whole new Jedi faith even, if they want to go broad and big picture so that others can join in over time.

And for her to be part of the family.

I still believe everything I've typed - that the story elements, map/LST/Falcon "coincidence", Rey's character traits, the quotes of the desingers, the quotes of the composer, the quotes of the filmmakers and actors themselves, as well as the overall "vibe" of TFA and the fact that they've made her family/parents such a big deal at all....still all feels like it's setting up ReySky. I don't feel any different - unless the filmmakers are deliberately setting all that up as an elaborate bait and switch - and they could be - then she still ends up as family.

Here's a cool video, that SWNN retweeted themselves today -

The voiceovers, the music...man this captures it.

(anybody who thinks "ReySky" would be boring and unoriginal, even if your mind is not changed - watch this video - it at least shows how great it could be)

 

FWIW I enjoy the discussion despite some past arguments resurfacing to be explored...

I'm curious if there is any evidence for this claim that Kenobi and Yoda abstained from intercourse?

So being a super-powerful martial arts instructor or a police officer automatically ensures your family's neglect? Not buying this claim either - too much real-world evidence to the contrary.

I hope so. Although wiser people in such matters other than us might believe otherwise...

I smell a strawman...or maybe I missed someone suggesting Luke throw away all accumulated Jedi knowledge?

I don't see anything that would contravene a knowledge seeker revising their received tradition and offering their own best articulation of what is wise, good and real. In fact it's exactly what the authors of most sacred texts and orders attempted to do.

I think there's room for nuance here. A deathbed bound Yoda Yoga instructor suggesting a student “pass on what you have learned” is not necessarily an order to licence and franchise their specific operation.

I agree, though it is kinda ironic that the obvious and deliberate attempts of a Lucasfilm syndic to appear somewhat ambiguous are being used to advocate some certainty!

 

Sorry guys but I've been busy in the last days....
However, I've decided to share with you the craziest theory ever.

I'll say it again: I know it is crazy. But it's only one I've nerver read. So let's add it to list.

We've passed her page 400, meaning that the question "who are Rey's parents" is the question most of people is focusing on.
We are waiting impatiently for this mystery to be solved.
And that's becouse
1- the Writers want us to wait for it impatiently (why to be that mystery, if not)
2- we are wainting for something comparable to "I'm your father" twist.

The thing is
I guess nothing can be comparable to that twist, and they knew it.

So much so, the mystery of Rey's true origins can be a red herring.

Nothing new till now. I'm sure someone else said that too.

But let's say: they want us to ask ourselves the wrong question, becouse the right question is another one.

"The belonging you seek is not behind you, it is ahead" Right?

What if the right question is not who Rey's parents are, but who's her child the child she must give birth to?

That's where things start to go crazy. And just in case is too crazy but true:

Spoiler

1- I've said before, I have a bad feeling about some kind of time travel plot, mainly becouse that's what the previous works of the 3 directors Dinesy has choose for this ST have in common and becouse of the first line of TFA "This will start to make things right" (LST to Poe).

I've watched Fringe (produced by JJ Abrams) and Looper (directed by R. Jhonson). In both cases a child is the center of the story, so it is time travel.

2- Now, let's say that Rey is random Rey but she's also the Rey of Light. The embodiment of the Light Side of the Force itself (that's why she's so strong with the Force).

3- I've talked somewhere else of the strange connections between Poe (the one LST told "this will start to make things right") on one side, and Luke and Anakin on the other side
(I've just found out that in Legends Darth Vader is called the Black Leader to add another one).

4- Now, let's put these two togheter and let's make them have a child. How could he be?

- A great pilot (like mom and dad). Probably the best pilot the galaxy has ever seen.
- A gifted mechanic (like mom).
- Someone that speaks binary (like mom and dad).
- The child of the embodiment of the Light Side of the Force itself...

That's the Chosen One.
That's Anankin Skywalker.

That's totally crazy.

 

It is an extremely fun theory. Completely improbable, but really fun. A great read, too!

Although new filmmakers aren't afraid to use new elements in SW films, like flashbacks, I have absolute certainty there won't be any time travel. It just doesn't blend in well with the rest of SW stories.

 

Aagree. It's unlikely but fun.

EDIT:
But let me add just one thing I've forgot before...

Spoiler

Do you remember the things we see inside the AT-AT Rey used like her house? How much the camera focus on them...

However, that's how the script describes them:
"A DRIED DESERT FLOWER in a rusty ENGINE PIECE. A rough, stuffed HANDMADE DOLL, made from what looks like orange Rebellion flight suit material and twine (....)
Picks up an old, broken REBELLION HELMET"

I know Rey's Survival Guide explains how she collected these objects. But she's a Force sensitive person. Are her choices random, or is the Force guiding her?
Becouse... those 3 objects can be a family portrait. And of that family (the deseert flower = R, the girl grew up as a flower in a desert planet; the doll = Poe; the helmet (a BROKEN HELMET) = Anakin

More fun...

 

You should make a thread with videos and images to explain this to us.

 

In A New Hope, when Obi-Wan tells Luke that his father was a Jedi Knight, he doesn't act as though there's anything unusual or wrong about that. In fact, at no point in the entire OT is the fact that a Jedi had offspring treated as anything other than completely normal. There wasn't any impression that they were celibate.

 

Just done here https://thecantina.starwarsnewsnet....ve-to-talk-about-poe.11723/page-2#post-359475

And I swear I will never bother you all like that again

 

I'll take that as a "no" for the evidence then! Not meant as a personal slight - you know a lot of SW lore and it's possible I've missed some SW evidence that inferred celibacy for Jedi. Sometimes it's hard to tell which claims are assertions of canon or personal opinion!

And "yes" to your question "if this is the kind of thing we need facts about" - at least it's somewhere facts would help. (Forgive the detail and nerdy rambling here, it's Sunday morning and I have a little too much time on my hands!)

You made a claim...

...and the famous law maxim says "whoever makes the claim bears the burden of the proof". I like Robert Jensen's method of assessing claims so let's give it a go with yours:

• What are the unstated assumptions behind the claim, and how do these assumptions affect our understanding?

In this case I sense assumptions
- that Luke's only Jedi knowledge consists of his old masters advice,
- that being a warrior space monk who eschews possessions infers some kind of celibacy and the sacrifice of everything bar a single-minded pursuit,
- and that old-man-Luke has the same opinions and inclinations as young-man-Luke.

• How are the terms being defined, and might those definitions favour one position or another?

I think you may also be confusing the term "celibacy" with "parenthood".

• What is the quality of the evidence being offered and is the full range of evidence being acknowledged?

The quality of evidence is a little contentious as we have only negative evidence (weak and generally counting against a theory) with regard to celibacy and some positive evidence of Jedi/Skywalker parenthood (which, it is probably fair to say, could be the exception that proves your rule).

• Does the evidence lead in a logical fashion to the claim being made?

I think this is where your claim's strength really lies. We don't see many Jedi with families, Yoda and Obi-wan appear as "single" spiritual hermits who deny any romantic love, Luke took their instruction seriously etc.

It's also where the counter-claims also have some strength. Luke was a child of a Jedi, was callow, rebellious, unique, disagreed with Obi-Wan and Yoda on tactics, a late-age student, family conscious, used familial love for selflessness etc.

Yoda asked him to pass on what he has learned (presumably Jedi wisdom and techniques to other Force sensitives) but never tasked him with rebuilding the exact same Jedi order that had fallen prey to the same trap as it's enemies - becoming a clique of powerful and arrogant war-mongering individuals who saw fit to implement the ruling regime and their inculcated ideology on the galaxy through use of Force.

(edit: grammar/spelling)