SPECULATION Rey - public opinion poll

So you're saying that because Rey is not pals with anyone in the Resistance apart from Finn she's not a heroine? ...I'm lost here, sorry.

So now she's not a heroine because she made a decision you find stupid rather than because she didn't put her own safety at risk... I'm confused.

 

The same goes for Finn. Who does he know? Just saying...

TLJ was about characters making mistakes. So, it was reasonable for Rey's character to go to Snoke and learn that she's not all powerful. Snoke was much stronger than her and she couldn't bring Kylo back. This was a big lesson for. Not even Luke could have taught her a bigger lesson.

 

I don't hate Rey like I despise Kylo Ren, so I guess that's a point in her favor.

 

With Rey I get that as a viewer I'm supposed to regard her as a (or rather the) hero. I did in TFA and it worked relatively well. In TLJ I find I have a hard time understanding her motivations for her actions. They don't seem to make sense, other than to tell the story RJ wants to tell without giving adequate reason for the character. I feel I can almost connect the dots, but I have to create a few dots here and there for the picture to really turn out, otherwise it's a bit of a stretch. I think it could be salvageable in IX, but I feel RJ felt rushed writing this story and focused on the main parts he wanted to tell and missed a few steps along the way.

It's not all on RJ, because JJ never really did give Rey a whole lot of reason to want to join the resistance. Her goal in TFA was to return home in case her parents return. She was getting BB8 back because it was the right thing to do. Finn was believed to be part of the resistance. She fights off the monsters for her survival, and that of her friend(s). She gets caught then fights her captors to escape. All that makes sense, but it doesn't give her a whole lot of purpose. Her thinking process is ambiguous, but her decisions on the spot make sense. She goes to see Luke to understand her powers and to get him back to his sister to help with the fight against Kylo and the FO.

After that it starts to get murky. She is forced to converse with her former captor, the man who killed a father figure and tortured her, and with a few skypes feels for him and believes him over Luke, her master. Okay, it helps that Luke is a POS at this point, but still. I had a hard time buying that turn around, that compassion for Kylo so quickly. Not to mention she has all but forgotten to go back home by this point.

Personally, after Luke's initial rejection, it would have probably made more sense for her to ask Chewie to take her back home. I don't think she was aware of the Resistance's peril at this point, since she left before the high speed slow motion chase. I mean, the FO had just suffered a major set back with the loss of SKB. I guess it's possible she was afraid to return in case they were waiting for her, or that someone would contact them about her. Like I said, you can sort of connect the dots, kinda, but it's certainly not smooth.

In comparison, with Luke it was easy. We learn he wanted to become a pilot for the Rebellion already to fight the Empire before he knew about his powers. He then finds out Vader killed his father, which gave him more incentive. He also find the princess beautiful. When he realizes he has the power, he wants to become a Jedi like his father. Motivations all make sense. By the time ESB comes along, the time skip assumes that he's been working toward those goals. He's leadership within the Rebellion, he's improved with his Jedi powers and lightsaber skills. He's stll committed to avenge his father and stop the Empire, which are two goals that coincide with each other very well.

By RotJ, he's a Jedi Knight (or close to) and has some mastery over the Force. He's had time to digest that Vader is his father and has come to a decision on how to proceed. He saves Han because Han is his friend. He faces Vader because it removes Vader from the equation on Endor, thus increasing the chances the strike team succeeds. He puts his trust in his friends, respecting their wishes to risk their lives for this cause. This fits perfectly with giving him an opportunity to try and reach the goodness he felt in his father. The motivations all fit.

Now back to Rey. EpIX is coming up and what's her motivations moving forward? Okay, Luke rejected his father in ESB, but his offer was to turn to the dark and rule the galaxy and he had a lot to process. Rey rejects Kylo at the end of TLJ, after he had a golden opportunity to turn to good. So he's pretty firmly her enemy, because he then tries to kill everyone she knows that are not on Jakku. So I guess her motivations in IX could be her wanted to stop Kylo once and for all so she can live in peace moving forward? I don't know if she'd want to build an academy at this point, as she's just learning about the Force herself. Her motivations are just not very clear, at least not to me. Avenge Han? She didn't seem like that bothered her when she trusted Kylo. Maybe it's back now that he chose the dark? I guess....

It's certainly not as clean and I think maybe sharing screen time with Kylo had her character suffer from lack of exposure to her thinking process for the audience. To me much of the script felt rushed, the focus was on Kylo and every character including Rey suffered to different degrees.

 

Rey's trajectory as a hero is different from Luke's. Unlike Luke, Rey is a reluctant hero. In TFA we meet her and see her heart is in the right place, she knows right from wrong, she is sympathetic to the resistance, she is not scared to defend the weak or fight back, she's got skills, she's got spirit and eventually the force as it turns out, but she is still a child. She wants her family and feels incomplete without it. In TFA the force is practically pushing Rey to act against her desire to return to Yakku, wants her to find Luke, thence the saber calling to her. Rey, however, only accepts this call before the snow fight, faced with the man who killed Han, the man who treated her like the father she never had, and hurt Finn, her new yet loyal friend. That fight is the defining moment for her. After she grabs Anakin's saber, conjures the force and beats Kylo, Rey knows she has to act and follow her destiny as the force wills it.

Rey's journey in TLJ is about finding her purpose in the story. At the beginning of TLJ she thinks that her role is to convince Luke to return to the fight and defeat the FO. But, after he rebuffs her, she really doesn't know what to do. She knows she has the force, but she doesn't really know how to use it. Luke tells her she needs a teacher, as Kylo had told her before, and decides to teach her, but his scepticism and pessimism do not give Rey the easy answers she was looking for about her own purpose in the story. Rey, young and impulsive and believing that her destiny is to turn Kylo, decides to act. She is also so frustrated with Luke and decides to ignore his better judgement: that all of this is really a trap. ("this is not going to go the way you think.")

At the end of TLJ Rey knows that her purpose is not turn Kylo Ren to the light, as she thought, that there is much more to the force than she had imagined and that she has to crack this mystery a bit more before she can change anything or help the resistance. She has also grown up. Her time with Luke and her disappointment with Kylo had made her learn she has to forge her own destiny.

I know that Luke had a clearer purpose and his aunt and uncle were holding him back. After they died nothing was in his way. Rey's story is different. The road to becoming a hero is less straightforward but somehow more relatable and compelling. Changing a path that seems set for you is not easy, there are tough decisions, emotional turmoil and a lot of ups and downs, as Rey's story so far is showing us.

 

I agree with most of what you say, however I still find RJ struggled with the execution. As for her story being more relatable, I think that's subjective. We've all had different experiences in life, and for some maybe our preference for Luke or Rey is based on our own story and being able to relate to that character. I also think the focus on Kylo distracted from Rey's story (and maybe stole a few useful moments of screen time that could have been used better on Rey and help viewers follow her story easier.).